Halloween 2011, Pinterest-Style

Since Monday was my Jellybean's first "real" Halloween (the first one in which I was no longer recovering from childbirth, that is), I felt compelled to make her a costume.  Now, I don't sew.  At all.  It's kind of sad.  I wish I did sew, though!  I have TONS of pins on Pinterest with sewing projects just sitting there, taunting me with their cuteness.  So I had to find something that was very light on the sewing, otherwise my "making" the costume would have consisted of me asking my mom to make it for me.

In my search I found so many incredibly cute ideas:

via Pinterest

I thought this was beyond darling, but would require all kinds of sewing machine time.  Not to mention skill.

Then there was this:

via Pinterest

Oh my gosh I almost died at the cuteness. Plus it links through to a real tutorial.  Alas, though, it not only required sewing skills but some sort of plasticized belt action that was way out of my skill set.

And this is clearly awesome, but there's no way my kid is going to be willing to sit in a bucket all night.  Too big:

via Pinterest (Seriously if you're not on Pinterest I don't even know where you get your ideas.  You are awesome.)

But this.  When I saw this I knew:

Via Pinterest via Ashley Ann Photography

It has all the qualifications: 1) It's ADORABLE 2) It's completely awesome 3) It's very, very light on the sewing. Plus it has the added bonus of being a superhero costume, which meant the hubs was TOTALLY on board.

I wasn't sure how I was going to pull off the shirt, as hers was a retro printed one from Old Navy, but I figured maybe an iron on or something would do it.  

So I set out, an intrepid explorer on my lunch break and braved the Walmarts.  There I found the perfect shade of tulle, the white felt and the red felt (for the stars on the cuffs and crown) and, randomly, the last 12 month plain red t-shirt in the store.  I didn't find any suitable gold fabric, though, so that had to wait for a trip to JoAnn's.  

(I took no pictures of the progress, sadly)

The tutu was no problem.  I watched this tutorial and that was it.  Two hours one evening and done. It took me a little longer to sew in the white stars, but I just did that little by little.  I then decided on puffy painting the logo onto her t-shirt and then added lots of gold glitter, which worked great. 

The last hurdle was the actual sewing.  I ended up running down to the last minute and had to figure out how to hand sew the thing at work on my lunchbreak.  So keep that in mind!  It came out fairly well, but not exactly like the inspiration.  And the cuffs had to be sacrificed.  Just no time at all.  Oh well, she looked cute anyway!  Behold, the finished product, with some leggings added for warmth:

Aren't I cute, flying in my invisible plane?

The pink diaper sticking out really adds the effect.

She had a great time and looked adorable... all we could ask for really!  Happy November everyone!

To see tons of other actualized Pinterest ideas, check out Young House Love today!

Fun With Paint Chips

I first saw this project over on Pinterest and followed the link through to Modern Parents, Messy Kids.  How cute is it??

I love how it turned out.

I used a larger hole punch so I could thread it with ribbon instead of string and I think mine has more eggs, but those were the only real changes I made.  Just had to share in case anyone else wanted to try!

This may very well be the most Easter decorating I've ever done, aside from making Easter baskets.  Anyone have any other fun decorating ideas?

One more shot with better color:

Sorry about the flash... it was late.

Living Room Mini Makeover

Calling this a "makeover" is definitely an overstatement, but oh well.

Today we got our new custom DVD case from a friend of ours who does woodworking (so gorgeous!) so we changed out our cabinets and moved some things around.

Here is the new cabinet (on the right) and the old bookshelf (left).

Definitely needed to go.

Unfortunately we didn't have a replacement in mind, but after wandering around my house for a while I remembered my sweet robins-egg blue/green antique table that was awkwardly hanging out in my kitchen holding cookbooks.  And what better to hold cookbooks than a stray bookcase?  I tell you.

Here is the table in its new spot:

 

I don't have a picture of it, but I assure you the bookcase is now happily fulfilling its calling holding all my cookbooks in the kitchen.

One more view:

Is it really important for you to know why Scoobi Doo is on the TV?  Let's blame my husband and leave it at that.

I like it!  I wasn't sure at first as it's much smaller than what was there before, but I love the table, so it's growing on me.  Plus, I put my ceramic bird on it in the meantime, and bird statues make everything better!

J's Room

This is a kill two birds with one stone kind of post.  A friend of mine has been asking me for ages for pictures of the baby's room, so I thought I'd show it off now, in all its before and after glory.

Here is the room when we first bought our house, about two years ago.

Ack.  Sorry.  So blurry.  Oh well, you get the idea.  Do note the wallpaper border at the top and the rust orange carpet.  Woo!

When we first moved in we were remodeling the master bedroom and bathroom, so we lived in here for a while.  I can't find any pictures of it like that, but if I do, I'll update.

Once we found out I was pregnant we started thinking about nursery ideas.  We both knew we didn't want to find out the baby's gender, so we came up with a gender neutral room.  Its theme?  The Jungle Cruise. Do pay special attention to the bead board.  My sweet hubs spent the better part of three days installing it (with the help of my dear uncle and some good friends).

Here you can see the huge, awesome vintage Disneyland map we had framed above the changing table and our cool stuffed tiger.  Hanging from the ceiling fan is J's favorite thing ever: it's a movable butterfly.  If you pull on the red ball the wings flap.  It mesmerizes her.

Obviously I didn't fix her bedskirt (that my mom made!) before taking pictures.  Please ignore.

In this one you can sort of see the photos I took of the Jungle Cruise that I mounted on 12x12 canvases.  I love how these came out!  The quilt was made for J by her abuelita.  Gorgeous.

 

The red bookcase matched the one I just moved (see this post) until my mom painted it for me.  Above her coat hanger you can see the awesome vintage-style Jungle Cruise poster from Disneyland that my bestie gave us for Christmas (are we sensing a "friends and family gift/help" theme?  That is because we are surrounded by amazing, talented people who are incredibly generous with us.  We are blessed beyond belief).

 

More of the same!  This is about as wide as I could get.

Even though we didn't finish until two months or so after she was born (ehh, potato/potahto), I love how the room came out.