The Little's Rooms Got Some Love

Last week I was thinking about how much creating I do for custom orders or for volunteer jobs. I spend a lot of creative energy on people outside of my family and so I suggested to David that it would nice to spend some creative energy on the littles. I had some ideas brewing and when he gave me the thumbs up, I went into full design mode. We settled on a gallery wall for each room plus curtains, hooks for their towels, shelves for each bedside and an art hanger for each little. I made a list of elements I wanted to include in each room.

1. something sewn/fabric element
2. woodcut element
3. string art
4. monograms
5. photograph
6. printable art/quote
7. scripture verse

Then I narrowed down to specifics as to what that looked like. So for the girls' room it ended up like:

1. kite
2. heart (inspired by HEart by CC)
3. crown
4. cut out of foam board
5. siblings picture
6. "Dream Big" (source)
7. I will add a verse to the heart woodcut at a later time

The boys room:

1. deer head
2. arrow
3. sword
4. cut out of foam board
5. siblings picture
6. fox
7. I will add a verse to their arrow art later

David shopped, cut and stained wood during the daytime. He was in charge of the woodcuts, string art, shelves, towel hooks and art hangers. I painted the clothes pins (for the art hangers) and the frames plus rough cut out the fabric elements during the day. The rest of the projects were done in the evenings after the littles went to bed. That meant late bleary eyed nights, but I'm really happy with the results. Last night I planned the gallery walls, but putting them on the floor. I took pictures to give to David for hanging and while I took the children out on a playdate, David re-arranged the girls' room and hung all the elements we crafted. What a thrill it was to reveal it all to the littles!

The deer head was made from a pattern found here. I found the wood plaque at the thrift store and a with a bit of paint it made a great mount.

David cut this based on a few pictures I showed him on Pinterest. I didn't want to tell him exactly what to make, but I knew I wanted an arrow. It turned out great. His favourite piece.

Again, I asked for the sword, but I left David to do the style he wanted. He found a sword image on google, added a cross in the middle and enlarged it to make the template. Screws were an easier choice and he just went with it. I like it a lot!

The monogram "M"s I printed out on the computer, taped to foam board and cut out. I painted them and that's it! Super easy and a great and cheap monogram! We enlarged a photograph from our last family pictures in 2014. The same picture for both bedrooms. 

I thrifted and painted this cute frame and got the printable from here. 

Here's Malachi's art hanger in action (sorry for the dark picture). Just clothespins painted and glued to a board. Each little has one, though we haven't hung Hannah's yet. We are saving it until she is a bit older.

Michaels had these cutlery clothespins in a bin and I simply glued them onto this little board, also from Michaels. Cheap and funny, considering the boys are always thinking about food. This wasn't planned for, but added on a whim.

I found this wood pineapple at the thrift store. It was varnished and worn, but I saw its potential and snapped it up. I painted it and glued an oversized clothespin on it and it's adorable! My favourite piece in the girls' room!

David did the crown the same way as the sword and he did a great job!

The girls' monograms were done the same as the boys. I found the birdhouse and bird at Michaels and threw it in. 

The kite I made up as I went. I drew a pattern and did a basic quilting pattern on it. Then simply tied jersey bows onto a ribbon tail.

Each little got a shelf on their bed. They all needed a place to put water bottles and treasures etc. Here's Abby's in action. David made simply with two boards, painted white and attached right to the bed frames.

David made this based on a picture I showed him. Abby thinks it looks like a minecraft heart.

I used flat sheets from two of the littles' bed sets to make quick curtains. Not too difficult as I cut them in half, finished the two cut edges and voila! Curtains! I hate sewing curtains, but this wasn't too bad. We are exhausted, but happy with the results!

Checking In

Feeling grateful today, despite my weariness and fatigue. There have been many moments of Mama stress this week, but I love my littles so much and today I'm just grateful.

• We had a scare with Micah yesterday. The door at the top of the stairs was either not quite latched or Malachi has figured out the child lock, either way, Micah found the stairs. He fell down ONE stair and the mere possibility of what could've happened set me into a puddle of tears on the floor. Guh! My heart is still in my throat at the thought. It was so stressful for me that I did a lot of yelling at my precious littles for the next hour and felt so terrible. What precious gifts my littles are and I am so grateful for each one of them. I am in tears as I type. Thank you, God... words cannot express!

• In happier news... Valentines Day was lovely. With the help of my friend, I borrowed ingredients and tools to make a fun dinner. (it was the day before payday and the cupboards were scarce). We laughed at our "fancy" grilled cheese dinner. David gave me a lovely card in the morning and bought me a song on iTunes that I played most of the day. After dinner we had glow stick scavenger hunts with the littles. That was a huge hit. We cracked ten sticks and played hide and seek several times. Glow sticks are cheap fun! David and I finished the day with him reading me more of The Hobbit. Great day!

• We had a hugely productive weekend. David and I prepped 22 meals in 2 days. I am not a fan of cooking, so having meals prepped and ready to bake or throw in the crockpot is HUGE! I've had a few people ask me about this process, so I think I'll make a separate post about how we did it. I can tell you that my David is a CHOPSTAR!

• My friend posted a picture on my Facebook page that got my wheels turning. Here's my version of the popular Pinterest pin, the upcycled men's dress shirt apron. I used David's old uniform shirt and "girlyfied" it up. Tutorial here. It turned out really cute. I then gave it to my friend who organized the freezer meal co-op as a "thank you".

• My David has a conference this weekend and men's retreat next weekend. I am glad for him and support him in this fully, but am a little bit weary at the thought of the long weeks. A dear friend has offered to take Abigail and Malachi for one night next weekend, which is a great gift. I miss my David just thinking about it though.
• David spent some time calculating and if we're careful and don't have some crazy emergencies, we will be debt free in two years! HUGE! We are so thankful for the wise teachings of Dave Ramsey. It's so exciting and it feels great to have concrete plans and goals.

A Sad Story With a Happy Ending

The week before we went to Alberta, we were generously offered a Little Tykes toddler car bed. We gladly accepted. We weren't able to connect in person prior to our leaving, so the bed (which is plastic) was left safely on the back deck. Our landlords moved it into their garage for us, but sadly a cat sprayed it first. If you've never smelled cat spray, it has a very strong ammonia smell and it doesn't smell pleasant at all. Well, we googled a solution  - a mixture of vinegar and baking soda and my David scrubbed the bed. He sent me down to do a smell test and it smelled like vinegar to me. A quick rinse and up we felt like we could move it upstairs. David ran to Walmart and picked up a mattress and sheet, then cut a new base board and voila! The littles went to bed, Malachi excited about his big boy bed, and we called it done. Well, at about 4:30 AM, we woke up to the sound of Abigail getting sick in the bathroom. After she was cleaned up we went to put her back to bed and realized how BAAAAAD the bedroom smelled of cat spray. EWWWW! Poor Malachi lost his bed to an outdoor time out. Abigail got sick again and it suddenly became a looooong morning. Back to Google and we decided to try a pet store product "guaranteed" to work. Bottle number one ran out before we could get rid of the smell. Half of bottle number two and we were ready to try again. UGH! It stunk up the bedroom... AGAIN! Bottle number two proved to be ineffective when we realized that the spray was inside the moulded plastic sides. We had to give up, though not sure what to do with the bed, we left it on the deck until we could come up with a solution. Our lovely landlady came up with a solution...

$15 worth of sand later and our littles LOVE IT!

In other news, we were generously offered another toddler bed by another friend and it's being delivered to us on Saturday! Hooray!

Checkin' In

Well today feels like fall for I think the first time. There's a cool breeze and it's cloudy and delicious! Don't get me wrong, I'm blessed by the amazingly hot fall (record breaking, actually) just like the next person, but we packed our air conditioners away two weeks ago and we've been frying in here. The sad thing about all this wind is that the trees are almost bare already. Glad we had family pics early in the week. Well, lets get to it!

• I whipped up Malachi's new chair panel - I think it's quite adorable. I used one of David's old shirts again and it worked great!

• Dolly has been running around in skirts, touques and rubber boots again. I love it!

• Christmas projects are well under way here and I hate not sharing, but you'll get to see them all after the holidays. I am having a lot of fun with them all. I have been listening to Christmas music for more than a month already. We have 3.2 days worth of Christmas music or 1334 songs (thanks, Itunes for that useful information)
• We've been enjoying this site. My mom bought a membership and it's been so great having access to Hallmark Hall of Fame movies. Our family favourite so far has to be A Dog Named Christmas.
• Phew! feeling tired today. Confession time: when Malachi had his nap, I turned on a movie for Abby and I napped on the couch. Apparently it's a good time to ask Mama for another one, too. I do feel a lot better, but man, I could sleep for days. Malachi is still not sleeping through the night, though I feel like we might be getting there. Side note: I have to brag on my husband for a minute. Malachi is no longer nursing. I will spare you the details here, but what a pain it is to make a bottle and heat it in the middle of the night! David said to me last week. "Now that Malachi isn't nursing, why don't I get up with him once in the night." Seriously, isn't he great?!?! He takes the first wake up, which is sometime anywhere from 1:30-3:00 am. I am so blessed! I am hoping that baby sleeps through the night before we go to Alberta at Christmas time.
• I miss reading. I think it's because it's fall, but I miss having hours to kill reading. *sigh*
• Abby asked if we could go get pumpkins next week. It's a great idea! We'll go on our weekend to the pumpkin cart on the road to Lockport and maybe drive all the way and get onion rings from the Half Moon Drive-In... yummy.

• Malachi is getting brave and taking a few steps. I took him out to the apartment hallway to practise with Abby's shopping cart. Can't believe how quickly he's grown. He's had his third haircut already, too. (after this picture was taken)

Hoo's Cute?

This little owl, that's who!

I whipped this up, kinda making it up as I went. I did find inspiration on Google images and Etsy, but I drew up a draft on craft paper and cut away. It was quite liberating to just cut and hack away without using a pattern. I love how rustic and rough he looks. I recycled some of David's clothes plus used scraps of fabric in my stash. I love how he turned out! I made it for Malachi, though I'm not sure if he'll get it for his birthday, for our trip to Alberta or for Christmas. Abby keeps calling it a chicken which makes me laugh. I think he needs a name. Any ideas?