Words to live by: Love at home diy board

I wanted to make something special to hang on our wall, that could grow with us as a family, reminded me of what was important, and was something pretty to look at too! No pressure. One of my favorite hymns came to mind "Love at Home."  I love the words and especially the line:

"Roses bloom beneath our feet, all the earth's a garden sweet, making life a bliss complete, when there's love at home."  

Aren't those words just beautiful?! So I took my favorite phrases from it and painted them on a board I had laying around.  Since my brushstrokes aren't perfect, I outlined my letters with a sharpie.  I painted some roses beneath the words, you could use a stencil for all this but I like to free hand it.  Then I made my husband step in paint, such a good sport, and stamp his foot.  I did mine next, and then stamped our then 4 month old's foot.  So that little the roses literally bloom beneath our feet =)  I left room for the other children that will come.  David's friend was laughing wondering how MUCH room I left for other little feet. =) 7 more??? just kidding!

Pretty simple project, but sentimental nonetheless and I love love it.

What do you think? What sort of things do you guys have with family meanings in your homes?

shadow box memories

In the hospital the nurses gave us prints of Harrison boy's feet, the tiny blood pressure thing for his arm, and a host of other things.  At the time I thought, what am I gonna do with the tiny blood pressure thing? Ah ha! Shadow box!---> with all his little hospital things I don't want to part with.  This project took me literally like 5 minutes total.  I just used doubled sided tape and pins to hold everything in place. Easy and I plan to make one of these for all our future kiddos so I can stare at it and try to remember how little they were when they are old and getting married.  It's on the wall right outside our bedroom and I love it.  It's just missing a picture of him in the hospital and then I'll be happy.

 the little card they put in his crib with all his info

 his sweet little beanie and shirt which is actually 6 month size

 the blood pressure cuff, so tiny!

 I love this scrapbook paper, 12x12 to fit perfect in my 12x12 frame

 his hospital bracelet, chinn baby =)

Reading

I thought I would have more time in my life when I wrote my last post.  Now that baby boy doesn't sleep all day like when he was a newborn, I find myself busy most of the day with him of course.  However I have found time while he's napping to make him a book to look at.  I've wanted some good baby books for him, but I haven't got around to getting any.  At the BYU bookstore I found they have lots of blank books! So I bought one that's perfect baby size and has hard pages so they can be chewed on etc.  It was only 2.60! So I started drawing in it with a black sharpie.  I really had no plan in mind I just drew random things in it.  I drew a picture of him, some lollipops, a whale, a lion, a shirt with buttons, a mother deer and fawn, and then a page with them all together.  It makes no sense, but he loves to look at it!

projects

I can't really stand to sit around and do nothing.  I've always walked fast, even if I'm not in a hurry.  Just feel like I gotta get somewhere and do something!  However I slowed down while being pregnant, and now with my little guy it makes me a little slower too.  Now that I find myself at home full time until the fall (when I teach again)...I'm wondering what to do with myself.  I've decided to make the most use of my time that I need a bucket list of things to complete before summer's over and a basic routine every day.  I've already finished some projects I'm excited about, but so many others I'd love to get started!  I used to have a chronic problem of starting things and not finishing.  I've mostly gotten over that habit, but there's still a few things I've delayed: in particular a painting of the Manti temple for my mom.  Started a long time ago and meant it to be a Christmas present.  Boy I suck. I'm gonna finish it mom I promise!!!!

things to do:

go camping
go to a rodeo
SWIM
go to a drive in movie
go to the hogle zoo
blow bubbles
fly a kite
read harry potter (never read them)
lay in a hammock
go to a play
go to yellowstone
be outside A LOT

PROJECTS to do:

finish my mom's painting
painting for Sam
finish harrison's room
paintings/pictures for our bedroom
work in our garden
Harrison's baby book
change our front door wreath
make cool awesome things for my art classroom:

• fabric banner
• painting for bulletin board
• felt flowers
• collaged pots for supplies

I did manage to finish one project: a mobile for Harrison's room.  It's just a ball of twisted aluminum wire that I started wrapped around a basketball.  Then I just twisted and turned wire around inside.  I cut out little bird-plane things from stiff orange felt and then hot glued them around it random places.  It hangs from fishing wire.  I've got to make it super secure so it doesn't come crashing down in his crib and poke him in the eye or something, but I love the way it turned out. WOO project complete.

rocking chair re-do

At DI a few weeks ago, it's like a local good will megastore, I found an old rocking chair. Yes the fabric was stained, gross, ripped, and the chair itself was dirty and sticky. BUT it had potential. It works great, just needed a facelift. Plus it was only 15 bucks!

I ordered fabric and got way more than I needed. I didn't use a tutorial or anything, I pretty much made it up. Because of this...I didn't measure right and ordered double the fabric I really needed. I should have only ordered about 2 1/2 yards, but I ordered 4 yards. Oh well more fabric for another project!

First I cleaned up the chair and gave it a few coats of white lacquer spray paint. To make the cushions I used a seam ripper to undo the existing upholstery and saved each piece to make a pattern for the new fabric. I saved the foam cushioning inside to resuse as well. To do the seat it really only took be about 2 hours and about 2 hours for the back cushion. Not a bad investment if you ask me! And now it's exactly how I wanted. Totally worth it so I can rock my baby boy. Love!

baby showering

I tried my hand at some "graphic design." I admit I can't remember a lot from my classes in college that taught me how to use the sophisticated programs of indesign, illustrator, and photoshop. Dang I wished I would have paid more attention!

I love those programs and need to get them, but right now I try to make do with my free dinky version of photoshop: gimp. It's a free download and does a lot of what photoshop does, not as user friendly, but once I tinkered around for a while I made sense of it. I managed to make my sister's invites, yay! I know she is into elephants from her pinterest boards...so I put some on there =)

I wish it wasn't pixelated on here and I messed up some things for privacy purposes, but you get the idea. Yay for jessi! She is beautiful and will be such a good mommy.

text!

So I was feeling sort of graphic designy a little while ago and wanted a way to display one of my favorite quotes "Come what may and love it." -Joseph B. Wirthlin. So I painted over this:

it turned out like this:

(simply done: I printed off the letters from the computer to get the text that I wanted, then I just eyed it and traced out the font and then painted in the letters, the "love it" part on the right is just pencil)

and the end of our hallway has now ended up like this!