I love you because...

I have recently jumped into the world known as Pinterest. It is the most wonderful, and addicting website ever! It is like a virtual cork board of all your favorite ideas, quotes, favorite websites, and recipes. So lately when nap time comes, that is where I'm usually at, perusing the new fad crafts and exciting things. 

I decided I wanted to try and make something that I had "pinned" recently. I thought this was a cute, easy craft that could be enjoyed by all in the family.

This "I love you because" frame is actually pretty popular right now, google it, seriously. But I still couldn't pass it up, so here is what I did.

I got a frame that I liked that would match my other decor... (8x10 is a great size for this!)

Then using some scrap booking paper and my Cricut to cut out the letters, I glued it all together! I chose to make it a little different than the original one I saw.

Then just cut your paper to the frame size, and (yay!) you have a new cute craft to hang up!

My husband might think I'm a little crazy for making and hanging this, but who wouldn't love to have little reminders of why they are loved? I love my new craft and look forward to all the fun lovey reasons my husband and I will share with each other! Happy crafting!

decorating the baby's room

I am quite proud of one room in our house, and no surprise, it is a room that I spend a great deal of time in. I decided when I was pregnant that the baby's room, boy or girl, would have to be a place that I enjoy since I would be spending most of my time there and this may be my only chance to choose what it looks like till he gets older.

I started looking up ideas on the Internet and saving my fave pics. After twenty or so pics, I zeroed on these four. (there weren't very many cute, jungle rooms). Each one has a different idea that I like and had never seen.

Polka dot walls, vertical placement, stickers, and a set of three pieces over the crib.
I focused on these ideas as I formulated the room. (which took months because I really over-think these things.)

After a hand-me down crib, ikea and world market furniture, I had to set in on color choices and decor.
Boy yes, blue no. Monkey yes... but not too monkey. Let's include some other animals. So I started to take action on some ideas. I loved some of the themed stuff in the stores, but I'm cheap and well, an artist, so I think I can do everything art related. This was much harder than I anticipated.

I did paint the monkeys, no they are not my design. Turns out, I am not an artist who can draw. SO The wonderful thing about art just for you is you can 100% copy someone else's idea and it is okay! It is just for you! SO I found some cartoon monkeys I liked and printed them off so I could enlarge them onto a canvas.

The jungle animals are made out of recycled sweaters, cut up and stapled around a square canvas. The gators, etc are simply cut out and glued on! But it is soft, and is a nice texture on the wall.

I liked these elements but I didn't have it all till I found... the stickers!! Toys R Us had the cutest jungle and monkey stickers last year! You could peel-and-stick to your heart's content, and I got them for gifts and on sale! My twist was adding the picture frames on top of the stickers to make a cute wall feature. I haven't changed the photos yet because I like them so much. (My tip for this project is either go black and white with your photos, or match the colors in the photos to the stickers. It will make it look cohesive! See my matchy matchy blues and yellows.)

Now I love this room. I used to sit and judge my monkeys because some have big heads, some have big feet, but now I love them for their imperfections. And the polka dots make them stand out from the wall. (Another tip, my polka dots don't match the green color of the other walls, but it is okay because the two greens never touch each other! You would have never known huh!)

All the spotty movement adds so much life to an otherwise boring space, even Bradley and the puppy are excited to play in his room!

I suppose it is a bad idea to have another kid just so you can decorate another room.. even if it did take me nearly a year to DECIDE what I wanted in here!

quiet book.. shhhhhh I'm sewing!

 This is the project I have most recently been working on. On of the crafty girls at my church designed it and offered to help a bunch of us make our own; so for the last month, eeeevery tuesday, we've been working on our oh so adorable, but slightly complex for non-sewers, Quiet Books.

Never heard of a quiet book? Well, they are fairly self explanatory but I will indulge those whose children are always quiet and would never require such an item.

A quiet book is designed so that each page has some fun activity or works on a motor skill. All the pages are made of felt and all the activities are supposed to be "quiet" so that when my angelic child gets rowdy sitting in sacrament meeting at church, I can hand him this book for some quiet entertainment.

So this is the monster page. He can arrange the monster eyes, mouth and ears to make silly faces. This page wasn't included in all the other books, but I made this page so we could work on eyes and ears and mouth... we are having issues knowing the difference.There is a little pocket on the left to hold all the pieces. (I couldn't figure out how to make the monster a pocket itself, see, really I am not that smart.)

These next two pages are similar. On the left is a boat with water, and there are fish that we can practice counting and colors with. They can go in and out of the boat and water.

The right page is a button flower garden. Each flower is held on with a button so he can practice doing buttons. This is a little advanced for him now, but it will be fun in the future.

 These are my fave pages! Kyli, the girl who designed the books, seriously came up with a shoe!! And you can lace it and everything!! It is so cute. She also did a pencil and notebook page, but I made mine really wide so I could put in the little magnetic sketching pad, paper, aaand crayons. (It totally makes the whole book really fat, but that is okay, it is still cute.)

Bradley's fave page is the lady bug! It has a zipper down the middle that he loves to work on, and he loves taking the spots in and out and putting them on the lady bug! Maybe I should put some numbers on them so we can count. Maybe.

This project was surprisingly hard for me, and really forced me to get friendly with my sewing machine. I am not a sewer! But I can do straight lines, and if I go reeeeeeeealy slow I can do all those little curves. If you look at the front page you can easily see my skills are sub par. But it was really fun! And of course it was so fun to craft in a group together.

I firmly believe all crafting should be done this way.

Want to see more photos of the other pages? Click Here!! (Takes you to our picassa web album. I feel bad posting a million pics, but I know the crafty types like getting closeups for ideas!)