McKinley's First Birthday Party

We had McKinley's birthday party on Saturday.  I tend to go overboard on things like this as you soon will see! I used one of my mom's die cuts that she uses for her invitations to make the petal wrap for McKinley's birthday invites.

Don't judge my lame rhyming skills!:) I know a phone call works just the same as the invitation, but where's the fun in that! We had a ridiculous amount of good food! I mean ridiculous.

There were yummy chocolate cupcakes with a vanilla cream filling and strawberry cream cheese icing. We also had lemon cream cupcakes with a lemon icing (not my favorite, they were a little dry and very heavy for a cupcake, I should've stuck with the good stuff...chocolate!). I told you I tend to go overboard. I was up till the wee hours of the morning Friday night cooking, and baking and cooking some more!



I also tried making a fondant cake for the first time. I made marshmallow fondant (tastes better than the store bought stuff in my personal opinion and it's cheaper) using this recipe and tutorial from Make it and Love it and it was pretty easy! Just melt a bag of marshmallows and knead in a bag of powdered sugar and some shortening and you're good to go!



I did however make the fondant a little on the dry side so it cracked a bit but it wasn't anything a few flowers and polkadots couldn't cover up!

I also had to try making some of the infamous hanging flower pom pom decorations you can find the tutorial here. I already had all the stuff to make them so yay for free decorations! I think they're cute enough to be in a little girls' room year round. I would put them in Kinley's room if they matched.

McKinley was excited to discover she got to eat an entire cake!

I think she liked it!

I'm "shirr" crazy and other crafty stuff to make

That just might be the cheesiest title I've ever done. I just learned how to shirr and now I want to shirr everything! I made this little top for McKinley. Shirring is really easy although I must admit it took me a while to get the tension on my sewing machine right and the thread kept getting jammed over and over again until I got it just perfect and after that it was so fast! I don't swear but I wanted to curse like a sailor after the fifth time my machine jammed up...grrr! Here are a few tutorials that taught me how to shirr HERE and a cute dress made with shirring HERE. I want to make a fun summer dress next.


Here's McKinley modeling as we were planting my father-in-law's garden. We planted ours too and I'm so excited because last year we planted a garden and it all died when Kinley was born so we didn't get to enjoy it. I can't wait for homemade salsa with garden fresh tomatoes, yummy!


I've lost my camera and a lot of these pictures are from my cell phone, I'm sure you can tell which ones. I didn't realize how much I use my camera until I lost it. It's making me crazy! Here's another little creation I made, this necklace. It's a little funky and kind of different but I like it.



It only took like 20 minutes and I made it from some scrap fabric, ribbon these big chunky plastic beads that I got for $3.00 and there is enough to make 6 or 7 necklaces so it's pretty cheap too. THIS is the tutorial I saw but her's are bracelets. I love the lace one she made.

I made this little ball for McKinley a while back and it was one of her favorite toys for months because it is  just the perfect size for babies to pick up and shake. I added a jingle bell to the middle so it rattles.




And here is a picture of it in action. THIS is the tutorial I used.


Another thing I made with some scraps leftover from Kinley's crib bedding and baby blanket are baby bibs. You can piece together the tiniest scraps until you have enough for a bib. You can trace around a bib that you like for a pattern or if you need a pattern HERE is a tutorial with a pattern included.


I've already moved onto "serious" bibs as my sister would call them. You know the ones where they're plastic and cover the entire chest and have a pocket to catch all the food because one of Kinley's favorite things to do when she eats is spit the food back out!

Fun Stuff

When I had McKinley I got one of those self-binding baby blankets from my old college roomie, Maggie (thanks!) and one from my mom and sister. I love them. They are perfect little blankets to swaddle up those little babies. I searched the internet to find a tutorial to make one but the ones I found I couldn't wrap my head around just how easy they are to make until I found THIS one! You could easily make this in a nap time. Just my kind of crafting! Here is another link with instructions I found as well, HERE. I made this for my cute new niece, Izzy.


Of course Izzy, also needed a new skirt. So I made her one of these Market Skirts from Made. These are also very easy and she gives instructions for any size.


Obviously I am not very good at paying attention to instructions because to tell you the truth, I originally made both of these skirts for McKinley but the first one ended up too short and the second one was a little long! I guess I should learn to measure twice and cut once. The third times the charm and so maybe the next one I make will actually fit McKinley. This second skirt I gave to my cute 1 year old niece, Ava. Both skirts fit perfect. If only I took a picture of them in it!


The last little project I like to do is buy the plain white, waffle knit towels from Walmart for a few bucks and add strips of fabric to them to match my kitchen. It's really easy and I think it makes them much cuter. I saw the idea from HERE and HERE. The one below I made for my mom for Mother's day.


This one I made for my Grandma for Christmas. I also made one for my mother-in-law for Christmas but didn't take a picture.


I confess, I am a scrap fabric hoarder and this is the perfect project to use up all those ridiculously tiny pieces of fabric that I can't seem to throw away! I was going to share some other "fun stuff" but this is getting too long so maybe another day.

Cinnabon Pancakes...Yummy

So I've never been a fan of pancakes. I only would eat pancakes to be polite to whoever made them until I met THIS Cinnabon Pancake from the Pioneer Woman website.  I made these yesterday and promptly ate them up! They also have a recipe for an icing to go on top but I thought it was perfect with good ol' syrup. Yummy.

Go ahead, make them. You know you want to. Besides you probably won't even need to go the store to get anything. I bet you have everything sitting in your cupboard right now. Delicious, easy, and fast. Try it, all you pancake haters! You won't regret it (but your hips might, haha).



So while I ate these sugary cakes I gave McKinley a cold carrot (yeah, I know it's a choking hazard but I had my eyes on her) and she thought she was in heaven. If only I thought carrots were treats, maybe some day!

Love It!

So I saw THIS from Sew Much Ado and had to make one for McKinley but with a lot more ruffles. So I took this baseball t-shirt my mom got me for 75 cents and...


turned it into this little number.


Love it!


She makes the perfect model. She even put her little behind up in the air to show it off! Just kidding. Surprisingly, when I propped her up on the couch to take a picture she stood there for a good 15 minutes just looking out the window.


So of course I had to take more pictures!


Love this girl! Can't beat 75 cents!

McKinley's Nursery

I had to show some pictures of McKinley's cute nursery. My wonderful, amazing, creative, and talented mom and sister came and spent a week with me and pretty much did the entire thing! Thanks Mom and Shannon!

My mom and sister made all of the bedding.

They even made this quilt. I love the flowers. You can't tell by these pictures but they're 3d.

They made the curtains as well. One of my small contributions to decorating the room is I and my mom did the "M" canvas with leftover pieces of fabric from her bedding.

They are so creative! The picket fence wasn't a shelf before, they had Matt screw a piece of particle board on and it became a shelf! My 11 year old brother even contributed to decorating. He cut out the flower book ends. I made the "dream" picture that's sitting on the shelf a couple of years ago when I wanted to learn to embroider and it just happened to match. How convenient!

I had to get a close up of these metal birds my mom found, I love them. My mom also made the basket liner and the pink flower arrangement. My sister and I mod podged scrapbook paper onto the picture frames on both the dresser and the shelf.


They even helped me finish up other projects that I started years ago. I originally started making this quilt for my niece before she was born who is now 2 1/2! How lazy am I? Oh well, McKinley will appreciate having this.


I bought this frame and painted it green with the leftover wall paint and I'm going to hang it with ribbon on the other side of the room between the closet and door that you can't see.


And of course I had to post a picture of the star of the room! She's so stinkin cute! I love her!
The only thing left I want to do to the nursery is find some cute saying to put on vinyl decal in brown or white onto the striped wall above the window. Something about birds or flowers maybe? I don't know. Any ideas?

Desk, Before and After

Before

So I bought this ugly old desk from the D.I. for $10.00. I know what some of you may be thinking, "That's one ugly desk, you spent too much!" As we were loading it into our truck the bottom half of one side of it just fell off, but I was still determined that it would be cute with some hammering, a little bit (ok a lot) of sanding, priming, paint, and elbow grease! I think it ended up so cute and I had to show some pictures.

After

I love my "new" desk. I gave it the distressed look by roughing it up with some sandpaper. I think my neighbors got a kick out of watching me being hugely pregnant (ok, maybe not that huge, I only lasted 33 weeks) working on this thing in my garage all day, bending over at that point wasn't exactly easy.


Notice my $4.00 chair I also found at the D.I. You gotta love a good deal. I really love it when something that was once so ugly can turn into something cute. I found this website where it's full of before and after photos a while back, it's called Better After. Click HERE to check it out. I think I could sit here for hours looking at all that kind of stuff. I can be such a nerd!

Car Seat Canopy

I just made this car seat canopy for McKinley from one of the tutorials I found and I thought I would share. I know they've been around for a long time and many of you already know how to make them but if you don't and you want to make one I found instructions HERE and HERE.



I think my favorite part of the whole thing is this little fabric flower I made to attach to the straps! I could make a million of them. If you want to make one then click HERE.

Blog Parties

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