Moments Of Sanity In My Madhouse

Just Another Tutu Tutorial

2013-04-14T12:59:00.003-05:00

My baby girl will be one year old in less than a month! I cannot believe it! She will be getting her first birthday pictures made next Sunday afternoon. I wanted her to have one of those really cute tutu outfits with a "1" onesie, but I really didn't want to spend $16-30 ordering one from a website, especially when I already know how to make tutus!! I've been asked how to make them, so I decided to take pictures of each step as I made this tutu so that I could share it with anyone who wanted to learn! This tutu is VERY simple to make!

So here we go.

You will need:
Scissors
Elastic --3/4" Knit Elastic (or whatever you prefer)
Tulle -- One or more colors (as many colors as you want)
Needle and Thread
Tape Measure

I started by measuring my little, almost-one-year-old girl's waist. She measured 18.5in around. I cut the elastic to size, and sewed the ends together. I sewed about a quarter inch from the edge, so the elastic will end up at 18in around. You can do a quick stitch with the sewing machine, or just sew by hand. Easy either way!

Next, you cut the tulle. Here is how to figure out how much tulle you need:
Measure how long you want the tulle to be on the child (start from waist). I want mine to be 8 inches. You then double that number, because the tulle will be folded in half. Mine becomes 16 inches. Then you add 1 inch for the knot. So, the length of my tulle becomes 17 inches.
The spool of tulle I bought was 15 yards. I used the entire spool for the tutu. Don't worry about cutting all of the pieces of tulle EXACTLY the same length, but try to get them pretty close.

Time for the knotting. First, make sure to turn your elastic to where the extra "edge" faces in:

Then, take a piece of tulle and fold it in half to make a U:

Stick the bottom part of the "U" to the inside of the elastic:

Fold the ends of the tulle down over the front of the elastic (the U stays behind the elastic:

Tuck the ends of the tulle through the U:

And pull the ends of the tulle downward while pushing the "U" up towards the elastic:

Be sure not to make the knot too tight. You don't want your elastic to fold up.
Here is what it looks like after the first couple of knots:

Repeat the knots until you have gone all the way around the elastic:

Trim up any long ends if needed and.....
Tada! You have made your tutu! Be proud!

**Just a few other tips and suggestions**
~If you spread the tulle out over the elastic it looks better at the end
~You can put a little ribbon bow on by sliding the edge of a ribbon through one of the knots and then tie a bow!
~For multi-colored tutus, simply cut different colors of tulle and alternate the colors around the elastic!
~If you made a pile of tulle it is good to pull from different areas of the pile as you go along, that way if there are any varying sizes of tulle, they will be mixed up well throughout.

Glittery tulle users, BEWARE! The glitter gets EVERYWHERE!!!!

HAPPY TUTU MAKING!

Pin-Tested

2012-11-12T18:21:00.001-06:00

I have been very busy for a couple of months, but I have managed to tackle some random pinterest projects. Some were fabulous, others were failures! I will cover 5 in this blog and will have more Pin-Test blogs to come! These are just my opinions on the Pins, so feel free to try them yourself and tell me if they pass or fail in your opinion!
Here are 5 of the Pins I have tried:

1. Original pinner said "Just arrange your clothes on hanging Shelves To Go and drop them into your suitcase. When you arrive at your hotel, just hang them in the closet. No need to unpack."

Find original pin HERE

I was actually very excited about this idea. I tried it back in October while packing for our Florida vacation. I found that while this sounded good in writing, it was not an efficient way to pack. The "shelves" did not lay flat, so as you added more days of clothing, it ended up sitting funny in the suitcase. Much to my disappointment, this did not work for me.

In my opinion this was a Pin-Fail.

2. Original pinner said "Elmers glue and food colouring"

Find original pin HERE

This one I tackled back in August; I was excited to have all the supplies that I needed on hand. I painted a flower vase. It streaks a little with drips and it is NOT meant to be washed afterwards, or touched with wet hands. But, it definitely looks like sea-glass. Here is what mine looked like:

This is now a decoration in my guest bathroom!

In my opinion: Pin-Pass!

3. Original pinner said "Wine rack to hold bath towels"

Find original pin HERE

If you have read any of my other blog posts, you know that I recently updated my guest bathroom. This is one thing I used. I was concerned about how hard it would be to put the towels in and remove them for use, but it is actually very simple! Here is the one I have in my bathroom:

Clearly, this one is a Pin-Pass, in my opinion!

4. Original pinner said "Best Cookie Pie EVER!! Great for Kids Birthdays, and my Fiance would LOVE this at any time. MMMM"

Find original pin HERE

These tasted like they were missing something. I double and triple checked the recipe to make sure I added everything (I did). However, I did cook them a few minutes longer than it said (on accident), so it wouldn't be fair to make my judgment based on that one experience. I'll have to try again!

Pin- Undecided, I'll get post this again once I retry it! (If you try it before I get to, please let me know what you think!)

5. Original pinner said "pizza casserole"

Find original pin HERE

This was delicious! I actually cut the recipe in half because I was only cooking for my husband and myself. I put it in a square casserole dish. I will be making this one again for sure!!

Pin-Passed

October-November

2012-11-12T14:37:00.001-06:00

HOGWARTS!

Okay--so I have not been blogging as much as I intended to! So many things have happened during the months of October and November.
In October we took a vacation to Orange Lake Resort in Kissimmee, Florida! We went to Universal Island of Adventures. We were stoked to see the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, but ended up slightly disappointed.

My favorite section in Island of Adventures was Dr. Suess. Avery rode on a carousel for the first time. He hated it!

While we were in Florida, my baby turned 5 months old:

Then Halloween was on our doorstep before we knew it!

And then comes November. My baby girl turned 1/2 a year old, and the kiddos Aunt Ashley came for a visit!

Now, here we are in the middle of November (not sure how September all of a sudden became November) and we are getting ready for the Holidays! I am excited to start some Christmas Pinterest projects!

My next post will be about Pins I have tested and whether they passed for failed!!

"Diaper Cycle"

2012-09-17T17:32:00.000-05:00

This "diaper cycle" was made for my brother-in-law and sister-in-law's baby shower. This one was geared towards the daddy. I got this idea from pinterest, of course!

Here is what I used:

28 diapers (I used Parents Choice size 2)
2 rubber bands
Ribbon (I used tulle)
2 receiving blankets
1 link toy
Bottle
Baby washcloth
2 bibs
A pair of socks
Stuffed animal

I started by layering the diapers in the cake pan:

Then, I put a rubber band around the diapers, adjusting them to keep the right shape. (Don't forget to make 2 of these!!)

Next, I tied tulle (ribbon can be used also) around each "tire" to hide the rubber band:

Make sure that you have left a hole in the center of each tire:

I then rolled up one of the receiving blankets and fed it through the front tire:

And through the back tire. Once you have done that, be sure to hide the ends of the receiving blanket in the back tire:

Next, I rolled up the second receiving blanket and also fed it through the front tire. This one will become the handle bars:

Add one bib "fender" to each tire:

Wrap a bottle "head light" in a wash cloth:

Next bring the handle bars together and slide a linking toy around them:

Position the headlight and push the link down to hold it in place:

Add socks (stuffed with tissue paper to keep shape) and position the handle bars:

Finish it off with a stuffed animal:

Here are the instructions I followed.

Simple 3 Tier Diaper Cake

2012-09-17T16:41:00.000-05:00

This diaper cake is super simple! I made this one for my sister-in-law and brother-in-law's baby shower. They are expecting baby girl, Harper, in October! I can't wait to meet her! My SIL does not like super girly (lots of pink) things, so I decided to go with neutral colors. As with most things I have made, I was inspired by some blogs found on pinterest, but I did not follow any of the instructions. I came up with my own ideas and played around with it until it looked the way I wanted it to.

Here are the supplies I used:

Diapers (I used 68, size 2 parents choice diapers)
Receiving blanket
Fabric or ribbon
Rubber bands
Safety pins
Base
Cake pan
and not pictured...tulle

I started by folding the diapers in half:

I used the cake pan to get them in a circle easily:

Put a rubber band around the diapers:

Then, I added diapers to the circle until it was the size that I wanted the base to be:

To help keep the shape, I rolled 4 diapers and put them in the center:

I finished off the bottom layer by tying a piece of fabric in a bow (covering the rubber band):

For the second layer, I used all of the steps above, only using fewer diapers. I only had to use one rolled up diaper to fill the center. I folded a receiving blanket to cover this layer:

And used safety pins to hold it in place:

The top layer used the fewest diapers. I wrapped it in the same fabric as the bottom layer, only this time I didn't do a bow, but used a safety pin. I cut a few strips of tulle and stuffed it in the center:

At the baby shower: (The motorcycle is in a different blog post!)

Bathroom Mirror Frame

2012-09-01T16:25:00.001-05:00

The month of August was practically non-existent. Sam had a business trip to Colorado, I took the babies to visit friends and family in Arkansas, and we stayed busy doing other little things around the house. So…after putting this off for over a month, we FINALLY tackled the bathroom mirror! It wasn’t nearly as much work as I thought it would be (granted, my husband did most of the work)! This project could be done in one day; however, it took us 3 days. Two kids can be a handful sometimes! =)

Of course, this project was inspired by this pin from pinterest. We didn't follow the directions exactly as the person explained, but this is where the idea came from.

Back in July we bought trim from Lowe’s. We got the cheap pieces, so we spent about $8 on trim. We had to buy caulk, liquid nails, and paint as well, so this project ended up costing us $19 and some change. Seriously, not bad for the end result! We looked at already framed bathroom mirrors and they were $150 and up! CRAZY! So, I’m thinking $19 and a little bit of work is well worth it!

The supplies we used

Measured and marked

Making the cuts

Avery was afraid of the circular saw!

Sam measured the sides of the mirror and then cut the trim. I’m not going to lie; he made a few wrong cuts before getting it perfect! Thankfully we had plenty of trim for mistakes! Once he cut the pieces, he sanded down the edges so that they would sit flush against each other. Now they’re ready to paint!

Painted trim

This is the mirror before the frame

When putting the liquid nails on the trim, make sure to put it in the center of the trim so that when you push onto the mirror, it won’t ooze out. Also, the trim is likely to slip once you let go, so we had to get crafty:

Painters tape did the trick!

I googled how long it takes for liquid nails to dry. What I found was that it takes one hour to dry and 24 hours to cure.

I did not take pictures of this next part, but the day after putting the frame on the mirror we went back and filled in with caulk. We put caulk in the cracks where the trim pieces came together, and also on the inside where the frame met the mirror. The day after caulking, I painted over the caulk with paint to match the frame. FYI: BABY OIL gets paint off of the mirror (and fingers)!

Finished product!

Looks fancy-shmancy and it was easy-peasy! The last thing I want to do in this bathroom is change out that ugly light fixture! But that might be a while. I have a couple of other projects I would like to tackle first!!

To God be the Glory

2012-07-28T22:02:00.000-05:00

"He said in a loud voice, 'Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come. Worship him who made the heavens, the earth, the sea and the springs of water.'”

--Revelations 14:7 NIV

The political issues, recent tragedies, and life in general are all a little bit overwhelming right now. Then, after coming across this verse, I am reminded that there is no need to get caught up in politics and other things of this world. We need to stop and remember that God is the ONE who matters most. We need to be focusing on giving Him the glory he deserves.

This verse made me think of a song: “To GOD be the glory, GREAT things He has done!” Thinking of this song then made me think of a version of the song at VBS one year….

What's in a Name

2012-07-27T22:44:00.000-05:00

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."

~William Shakespeare

Avery Fisher

Avery’s name was easy to pick out. My husband’s favorite name for a boy was Avery, and I loved the name when he suggested it. According to babycenter, Avery means “leader of the elves”. It has a unique (pretty silly) meaning, so that made the name even better!

His middle name, Fisher, was not originally going to be his middle name. Up until I was 26 weeks pregnant with him, he was Avery James. We were going to save the name Fisher for our second child, should it have been a boy. But we decided to go ahead and use it just in case we didn’t have a second boy (good decision!). That is how he became Avery Fisher!

Selah Lynn

So many people have asked where we came up with the name Selah. When I was in high school, one of my best friend’s sisters named her baby Selah, which was also the name of my favorite Christian band at the time. I absolutely fell in love with the name! The band, Selah, pronounces their name “Say-la” and there is an explanation for why on their website.

Selah is Hebrew and is actually pronounced “See-la”(but in my opinion, that is not as pretty). It is a word found in the book of Psalms. One of my favorite verses using Selah:

“You are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance. Selah”

–Psalm 32:7 NIV

Popular meanings for it that I have found are “pause and reflect on what was just sung”, “amen”, and “to lift the voices in praise”, all of which I like!

When we found out Selah was a girl, we were beginning to second guess our girl name decision. We knew people would always be mispronouncing and misspelling it. So we agreed to go with another favorite, Chloe. I tried so hard to call her Chloe. I even went so far as to paint decorative letters and hang them on her wall.

But, I kept accidentally calling her Selah. I kept this to myself, because Sam seemed really excited about the name Chloe. Then one day, out of nowhere, he tells me he doesn’t want to name her Chloe anymore. I was really relieved, because it never sat right with me. It is a beautiful name, just wasn’t right for our baby girl. So, at 35 weeks pregnant, we switched her name back to Selah, though we weren’t positive we wanted to spell it that way. We spent the next 4 weeks deciding between “Selah” and “Sayla”. I asked others for their opinions, I spelled the name out on paper, I searched the internet, and still kept flipping back and forth between the two. I really wanted the original spelling; however, “Sayla” is phonetically correct. People would say it right and most likely spell it correctly. But in the end, I just could not bring myself to spell it any other way than Selah. I have had that name picked out for about 10 years. We actually didn’t make it “official” until she was born. There was absolutely no doubt once she was born, that she was our little Selah Lynn.

As for her middle name, Lynn, it is my mother’s middle name! I have my maternal grandmother’s middle name, and now Selah has her maternal grandmother’s middle name!

Oh, and funny little side note: one of our other favorite names was Olivia. According to www.babynames.com that name means “elf army”. That would have gone well with “leader of the elves” (Avery), don’t you think? =)

Bow Holder

2012-07-26T08:14:00.001-05:00

This project was inspired by this pin from Pinterest.

I went through a box of picture frames in the garage and picked out the frame I wanted to use. I spray painted it black from the left over paint I had from the dresser (see last blog post). Once the frame was dry, I pulled out some ribbon I had in my craft box and hot glued it to the back of the frame. I hung it on the wall and clipped bows to it. Easy Peasy!

It will eventually need to be bigger, but this will work for now!

Selah's $25 Dresser

2012-07-26T08:00:00.002-05:00

This has been my favorite project to date. I had been looking for a dresser for a few months. Garage sales, resale shops, Goodwill; I could not find what I wanted anywhere! Finally, in July, I found this treasure at Goodwill:

Sure, it is a little beat up and looks rough around the edges, but all of the drawers work, and it is exactly the type of dresser I had been searching for.

I bought this dresser for $20

As you can see from the picture, some of the drawers looked a little crooked, so before I painted, I took time to figure out which drawer went in which spot the best. Once I figured that out, I labeled them so that I would remember when putting them back in. I bought a few cans of black and pink spray paint from Wal-Mart (roughly $5, I bought the cheap stuff). I removed the hardware from the dresser and began the transformation. I painted the dresser itself black. The drawers I alternated pink and black (3 pink, 2 black).

It was incredibly humid outside as a storm was coming in, which made spray painting a chore. Every time I sprayed, it was as if the paint just sat in the air. Needless to say, even with a sheet down on the garage floor, the paint floated around so much; it put a nice pink coat on part of the garage floor! I did the first 2 coats the day after I bought the dresser, and then finished with the last 2 coats the next afternoon. I did not sand the dresser; I only wiped it down with a clean rag before painting. Once the paint was dry the second day, I put all the hardware back on (I didn’t have to buy new hardware because I like what it already had on it! Bonus!) and then moved the dresser into Selah’s room. The dresser was missing a panel under the bottom drawer, so I stapled black fabric that I already had (for a future Pinterest project) to replace it.

I am absolutely in love with the way this turned out. It is not perfect but it serves its purpose. And the best part about it is: $20 dresser + $5 spray-paint = $25 awesome dresser. I’d say $25 well spent!

Avery's Sports Room

2012-07-26T07:29:00.000-05:00

My husband and I bought our house on May 3, 2010. It was 3 years old at the time and looks like all the other houses in our neighborhood. The inside of our house was never changed by the previous owner (paint color and such). All of the walls were the same tan color and the cabinets were honey oak all throughout the house. From May 2010 to May 2012 every time I would get the urge to paint or “decorate”, I would talk myself out of it. I didn’t want to personalize the house too much, because I didn’t want it to be hard to sell. I finally have come to the realization that we will be living in southeast Texas (blah!) for a while, so I might as well be happy in my house. I am hoping that decorating and making the house “ours” will make me happier living down here. I am trying to turn our “house” into a “home”.

The first room I decided to change was my son, Avery’s, room. When he was born, we decorated it with jungle things (but did not paint the walls). When he turned a year old, I started collecting sports things for around the room. I took his jungle themed bedding and decor to a local consignment shop in June and began the transition to his sports themed room.

Of course, my first inspiration came from Pinterest. We decided to turn one wall in his room into a baseball. You can find the original pin here. We did not follow the blog exactly. We figured out how far out we wanted the stitches on the wall and cut a string that would reach. I held one end of the string in the corner as my husband took the other (with a pencil tied to the end) and drew the curve on the wall. We went from the bottom left corner and the upper right corner for our baseball. I tried to free hand the stitches on the wall, as the people did in the original blog, but that wasn't working out great. So, my husband grabbed some card stock paper and cut out a stencil of a stitch. We took a small roller, red paint, and the homemade stencil and painted the stitches along the penciled line. We made each stitch roughly 2 inches apart. Then we used a sharpie marker to draw the line that represents where the stitches bring the fabric together

The wall before

Avery helping daddy put marks on the wall

The finished product

We were really pleased with the way it turned out. While my husband was out getting the paint for the baseball wall, I decided to work on a different project. I bought some sports fabric and batting to turn an existing shelf into a bench. It was inspired by this this pin, but I put my own twist on it so that I could use a shelf that we already had.

First, I spray painted it red. It was brown before. To save on spray paint, I only painted the parts that would be showing after it was covered in fabric.

This is the finished product.

I wrapped the bottom part in fabric only, using a staple gun to hold the fabric in place. I then covered the “seat” in batting, stapled, then fabric, and stapled. I was originally going to cut off the fabric that hangs down (shown in the next picture); however, we discovered that it hides the toys underneath!

Avery loves it!

And so does Peanut!

That night I spent 2 ½ hours wrapping Avery’s name letters in the leftover fabric from the bench. This was a very tedious task. It took about 30 minutes per letter. The hardest part was getting the fabric to pull tightly around each corner of the letters.

The letters were jungle themed

Now they are sports themed!

The next day, I finished adding pictures and curtains. Also, I hung the letters on the wall

Before

After

Avery!

We later added super cute curtain rod ends my mom found at Bed, Bath, and Beyond. I will try to add a picture of those used in his room later.

After a few days of admiring our baseball wall, my husband suggested painting the wall on the other side of the room as a football. I searched the internet for ideas for doing a football wall, but couldn’t find what I wanted (even on Pinterest!). So, we just decided to get inspiration from a real football and go for it. We made a trip to Wal-Mart to get our supplies. We got a football from the sports department and compared paint strips to find the colors we wanted to use. We bought rollers, painters tape, a sponge (from the craft section, the paint section didn’t have the size we wanted), paint, and the football. We started by drawing a line from the bottom left corner of the wall to the top right corner of the wall to make sure we could line the stitches up straight. (We used some string we had in the garage for that). We then taped off the stitches. This took a couple of tries to figure out what size we thought they should be. And then the painting started.

First, we painted the base color. It didn’t take long using a roller, and we only did one coat of paint. Then, we took the darker brown color to do the dots and used a Sharpie marker to draw the black stitches that go around the white stitches.

Finished product!

Inspiration

I am not going to lie, my husband did the majority of the work on the football wall, as I tended to a very hungry and cranky 4 week old.

We are so pleased with the way his room turned out. Hopefully this will be a room that will grow with him.

Moments of Sanity in my Madhouse

2012-07-24T22:53:00.000-05:00

So many days I have wished I would have written down the days events, or how I did a DIY project. Well, here I am. I have FINALLY created my own blog.

I am a stay-at-home mom of 2 beautiful babies, Avery (17.5 months) and Selah (2.5 months). I will blog about each of their pregnancies and births later. I have an amazing husband, Sam, and two dogs, Peanut and Mia.

My amazing family

Our dog Peanut

I have found a new love this year, Pinterest. I have tried recipes and Do-It-Yourself projects from that website and I will show off what I have done (so far) on here as well. You can follow me on Pinterest by clicking here.

I hope I can find time each day to make a new post. Seeing as my days are incredibly hectic balancing my time between a toddler, an infant, two dogs, and a husband, I might not get to write as much as I would like. But here's to trying!

Wish me luck! =)