Oh snap! I broke my ankle :(

Five and a half weeks ago my kids slept in until 8 something so I did too. Sometime after 8, and after lots of awesome cuddles, my oldest decided it was time to get up. Some how between my bed and the bottom of the stairs I had broken my ankle. At first I thought I feel down the last two stairs and landed wrong. But after I calmed down and thought about it (several hours and a lot of pain medicine later) I realized I simply stepped down onto the floor from the bottom step onto a Melissa and Doug puzzle piece.

Taken down by a puzzle piece. A simple stupid puzzle piece.

Immediately I knew it wasn't good. My entire foot was pointing to the side. And it hurt like hell. When my daughter was born I didn't have an epidural and this hurt so much more than having her did!!! It hurt that bad. I knew I was not moving from the bottom of the stairs any time soon. Oddly enough while waiting for the ambulance as I held my leg in the air, I was breathing very similar to how I did while in labor.

After calling my sister who lives a block away and my husband I called a friend who lived close. She answered and was on her way to get the kids! I don't know how I decided to call 911 but I did and it was the best decision ever. After I was situated in the ambulance I got my first dose of pain meds!!

I had not only broken my ankle, but broke it in 3 spots. And in some spots it was shattered. 6 hours in the ER followed by emergency surgery and two nights in the hospital (and lots and lots of pain meds) I was on my way home with a nice new boot cast and instructions not to put weight on it for six weeks.

The before picture of my very messed up left ankle!





My after surgery X-ray showing all of my new hardware!





And last but not least, when I said I wanted new boots for Christmas this is NOT what I had in mind!!

The Dr. Seuss Bathroom 3 Years Later

Getting ready to sell our house, I have learned how hard it is to depersonalize your house. Especially after you spent so much time personalizing it and making it your home. It is especially hard when you spend hour and hours painting a mural on your walls!

3 years ago I posted my newly completed Dr. Seuss Bathroom complete with a mural I painted on the wall. This was inspired by a line Pottery Barn Kids had at the time. Check it out, it is truly a cute room (even if I am biased because I painted it!!!!) Painting this wall would be an easy thing to cross off my to-do list, but I just can't do it!!! I know I have to do it, but I can't!! I mean the new owner is going to want a cute Dr. Seuss Bathroom, right???

What did you personalize in your house that you can't stand to remove? Would you buy a house with a Dr. Seuss Bathroom (it's the second bathroom on the second floor)? I mean this bathroom would totally make me want to buy a house!!!!

Basement Playroom Revamp

A few weeks ago I mentioned that we are planning on selling our house in the near future. On my very long list of projects to complete before we list is re-doing our vibrant primary colored basement. 

When we first saw our house one of the things that sold us on this house was the awesome basement. It is one very large room with a walk out to a nice fenced in back yard with mature trees! Lots of room for the kids to run around and burn off their energy and lots of room for all of their toys. 

When we moved in I tried to create a fun and bright playroom for them with lots of primary colors (even though that usually isn't my thing) 

Basement Playroom Posts:

ABC Artwork

Cheap Toy Storage

My Ten Book Dollar Ledges

Toy Storage with Chalkboard Tags

Playroom Fabulous Table and Chairs

Playroom Chalk Wall

Oddly I never really did a post about the entire finished room. This being a playroom with lots of toys it never stays clean (not that I am expecting my revamped playroom to stay clean either, but I can dream, right???) Here are a few real pictures of my playroom before my revamp. 

VERY messy, I know!

When we moved in 3 years ago a lot of my sons toys were put down here and they just stayed. I never went through and purged out the toys that we out grew. So going through and cleaning out outgrown toys will help us a lot in this space!!!

My goal is to turn this large space into an industrial Restoration Hardware inspired room. I hope that it will make someone else fall in love with this house like we did (plus its a little more my style than a primary colored room!) Check out my Basement Playroom Inspiration Board to see what I hope this room turns into!

Pinterest Fail - Birthday Cake

This is a REALLY old post! But my son is really into planets and any and everything space!!!

So for his birthday - which was months ago - he wanted a planet cake. Easy enough for a crafty mom, right????

NOPE!!!! I give you my Pinterest Fail birthday cake!

I debated for a long time about making the planets out of Styrofoam ball or cake pop balls. LEARN FROM MY MISTAKE!!!! DON'T MAKE CAKE POP BALLS!!!! Or at least in my case they were to heavy and made the cake collapse onto itself.

And technically is this a Pinterest Fail because I didn't really copy anything I saw on Pinterest. I just made it up as I went along....

The best part, my son was happy with how the cake turned out and it tasted AWESOME!!!! So that's all that matters anyways!!!

Wood Veneer Sketch Artwork using Silhouette Cameo

My mom has some simple leaf art she purchased from Pottery Barn a few years back and I have always liked it and thought I could make something very similar and probably WAY WAY cheaper! The artwork is so simple - it's sketches of leaves on green paper and since I just discovered the sketch feature on my Silhouette I figured this was a great project to copy. 

I thought I would take this project a step farther and use some wood veneer I had left over from a dresser project and sketch my leafs directly onto the wood veneer! I used Band It Veneer Facing, 24" x 48" Birch and I just used a piece that fit onto my cutting mat and used the sketch feature like you normally would with paper and it turned out awesome! 

I love how they turned out. I have to admit I was a little nervous if it would actually print on the wood veneer but it worked out great! I love how easy these sketch projects are and I love the extra detail of the wood grain in these prints! 

 I made three of these so far and have a feeling I will be using the last bit of veneer to create some more!! 

Ok, random, but look at the below picture.... there is an EYE in the wood grain and now that I saw it I feel like I am being watched at all times!!! CREEPY!!! Halloween and everyday art all in one! 

Chalk Art With Silhouette Sketch

I have had my Silhouette for almost 3 years and I finally played around with the sketch function! I think it is safe to say I am slightly obsessed! 

Not only was it SOO easy to create some cute artwork but it was so fast and did I say EASY! 

Black paper, white Silhouette pen and a map of the US shape and I had some super fast and super cute artwork for our playroom! And I love how the white pen on black does look like a chalk board! 

30 Rocks!

On Saturday my younger sister turned the big 30! I am not sure how that is possible since I am only 25! But I digress! For part of her gift, we made her a wine cake! Because who wouldn't want 30 mini bottles of wine!!! 

Let me tell you 30 mini bottles of wine is rather heavy. The top layer of  wine bottles are hot glued onto a paper plate. The bottom layer are just tied together loosely and sitting on top of a piece of wood I used for the bottom.  I planned on using Pop Rocks, but could not find them, so instead used "Rocks" from ring pops!

Happy Birthday little sister!

Selling Our House

We are hoping to put our house on the market in late winter / early spring to try and be in a new home before our son starts Kindergarten next fall. Which made me realize that we needed to get any outdoor projects done now, or else it might be covered in snow when it does come time to sell!!! 

Outside home selling prep work is sort of boring!!! I spent a good ten hours outside this past weekend and you really can't tell I did anything at all. 

Here is my before - well my mid project picture. I did remove our old and broke storm door!!!! 

 Here is the after! Besides the kid chair, pillow and flowers you can't really tell what took me so long!! And that's because I painted the columns and the trim around the door. I also painted the trim around the garage door. Don't get me wrong, this was necessary for selling our house and it looks 10000% times better in person, but its not really that noticeable!

Next weekend I have to stain the deck and I would really like to paint the front door. After that we should be ok on our outdoor projects! About that door - I am having the hardest time picking out a color to paint it!!! I am not painting our red shutters so that sort of limits the colors. While at Home Depot I grabbed every swatch I could find in red.... but I am thinking navy, black, white, or yellow.... who knows, I can't decide!!!

This is the second home we have sold. Our first home we sold by ourselves in 2008 in 5 days. So of course I am hoping this will sell as quickly!! It won't be as easy as when it was just my husband and I and we always had a clean house.... some how these two fabulous kids have WAY WAY too many toys and always have a mess going!!!

Seriously, what color should I paint my door?

Geranium Dress

Look at me!! Two posts back to back!! And two sewing projects back to back! That's because last weeks class on the 241 Tote Bag motivated me to start something else. So as soon as I finished my tote bag I immediately started on a Geranium Dress by Made by Rae.

This is at least the third dress I have made with this pattern and it is by far my favorite little girl dress! It is so simple but so cute! 

I used a great Chambray fabric I bought at the Sewcial Lounge.  

For some reason I had such a hard time getting the buttons holes to work on this dress. I did a few test runs and all of my test runs worked perfectly, but when it came to the actual dress every time I tried my machine would jam. SOOOO I decided I wanted to finish the dress so instead I sewed in snaps (REALLY MESSILY) and then sewed the cute orange buttons I intended on using on the back instead. It works. I might go back and make actual button holes, but we will see!

 My little model! I love this dress! I can't wait to start on another one (and hopefully have better lick with my buttons!)

241 Tote Bag

I have spent months and months trying to organize my craft room that I haven't really had the chance to do any projects, but last weekend I took a class at the Sewcial Lounge taught by Anna from Noodlehead and was able to complete a tote bag!  I had such a great time and learned a lot. This is the 241 Tote from Noodlehead and its such a cute tote. I love the different pockets.

I was not 100% sure about my choice in fabric as I was cutting out my pieces, but I am so happy with how it turned out! Its a very fun and colorful tote!

The inside is equally as fun! And my first time using a magnetic snap!

And because of the fabric I used, the back side of the tote looks completely different from the front!

Completing a project has motivated me to try and finally organize the mess that is my craft room so I can work on more projects. After my class I even came home and almost finished a new dress for my daughter. (I can't get the button holes to work and I just decided to give up!!)

Pink and Gold Winter Wonderland First Birthday Party

Back in February we celebrated our daughter's first birthday with a Pink and Gold Winter Wonder Land Party.

Since her birthday was early February a Winter Wonderland Party seemed appropriate, and being obsessed with gold and pink it was an obvious choice. I decided very early in January this was going to be our theme, so I was able to find a few after Christmas deals that completed the theme.

What's a long winter without a hot chocolate bar!!?? The hot chocolate bar was such a hit!

I decorated with a large gold "A" surrounded by several pictures of Ava's first year. We used our Keurig to warm up the water and displayed powdered hot chocolate mix in a glass jar with directions for those who might have needed them.

Our toppings of course included marshmallows, butterscotch chips, white chocolate chips, peppermint chips, and caramel pieces. I made marshmallow pops covered with pink and white chocolate and white chocolate covered spoons for mixing up this yummy treat. See how I made these in the past.

I had a lot of fun with the sweet table! 

I borrowed several gold and white Christmas trees from family members and made a couple pink feather trees by using a pink feather boa and wrapping it around a Styrofoam cone. I had a lot of fun making pom pom garland. I used various shapes of glass jars and modge podged gold glitter to the bottom half. I made a "Happy Birthday" sign with my Silhouette Cameo. 

Pink, gold and white sweets consisted of TONS of gold Rolos, white M&Ms, pink Hersey Kisses (a plus of a February party - Valentines Day candy!!!), pink marshmallows and white rock candy.

I also hand dipped Oreos in white chocolate and drizzled pink chocolate and gold sprinkles on top.

And then of course we have the pink smash cake!! It was not so obvious in person, but you can sort of see in the pictures I was going for an ombre effect in my frosting of the cake.

I spent so much time trying to brain storm a party favor for this party and I also procrastinated making party hats. The day before the party I had the brilliant idea of using a winter hat to cover both! Some how, I have no clue how I got so lucky, Target had the perfect winter hat on Clearance! Problem solved!

Most importantly, the Birthday Girl had a fabulous birthday!! She loved her cake! And loved all of the attention she got at her party! It also didn't hurt that she got like 5 baby dolls as gifts, her absolute favorite!!

I can't believe my baby girl is almost a year and a half!!! Where does the time go???

Thanks to the fabulous Danielle at First Moment's Photography for the fabulous photos from her first birthday party!!! Danielle does a fabulous job and it was so nice not to have to worry about taking pictures. I could just sit back and enjoy!!! If you are in Wisconsin, you should check her out! First Moment's Photography

Valentine's Day Mantel

Better late than never, but here is my pink, white and gold Valentine's Day mantel. I am obsessed with gold at the moment! I am also obsessed with making pom poms!!! So of course my mantel has lots of gold and pom pom garland!! 

The best part of this mantel was that it was so easy and free! I used letters I had previously used in other projects! It also didn't hurt that we just had my daughter's first birthday party and the colors where pink and gold!

Does anyone else love pom poms as much as I do?

Happy Valentine's Day!!

Quilts from Baby Clothes

After I finished my first quilt in the fall, the wheels were turning for my next quilt.  When my daughter was born my sister-in-law gave me a bunch of special outfits her girls wore when they were babies and instead of handing these special outfits to someone else I knew I needed to do something with them for my sister-in-law. That's when I decided to be an over-achiever and sew TWO baby clothes quilts for my nieces for Christmas.

Since I only had about ten outfits, coming up with my design took me a while. I eventually decided to use the babies outfits and create a bunch of hearts! Once my design was determined, I then procrastinated about cutting up adorable, perfectly fine baby clothes!!! Once I started I was very happy I did. I love how it turned out and more importantly my nieces and sister-in-law loved them!

How I created them:
After getting over cutting up baby clothes, I cut the clothes so I could add fusible interfacing to the back of the clothes. Then I traced various sizes of hearts onto the interfacing and cut out my hearts.

I than laid out my washed purple piece of flannel and determined my design with the hearts and pinned them in place. Next I carefully zig-zag stitched around each heart with a darker purple thread.

Then I pinned together my batting and another piece of flannel for the back and quilted with long lines with the same dark purple thread - avoiding the hearts. Lastly I binded it and I had two fabulous quilts for my nieces for Christmas!

I did a few test runs of appliqueing the hearts onto flannel first to figure out what worked best. I did a couple without the fusible interfacing and it works SO much better with it! This is my 2nd and 3rd ever quilt, so this was pretty simple!

When adding my hearts I also added an initial for each of the girls, so they could tell their quilts apart!

I can't wait to some day make these for my kids with their baby clothes, but we all know that won't happen until my kids are at least 20!