growth chart

I decided to get creative and make a personalized growth chart for my second baby, rather than buying one like I did for the first.  I have to go back and do some of my own personalization to the first one now ;)

The frame is 4'6" x 36" and this gave me plenty of room to get things on there and have a chart that went up to 6 feet, just in case...

Lawn Jenga

This rocks!  We went to a birthday party at a bar about a year ago.  I saw these and have been wanting my own set ever since.  I finally got my wish for Mother's Day!  We played with them for the first time last weekend, and they rock!  Really easy to make as long as you have a saw.  It is just 2x4's cut in the length  of three of them.  A router was used to smooth the edges and a sander for the sides.  Then they were coated in linseed oil.  Cedar was the wood we used for lack of a better option.  Although cedar is good, it is kind of heavy so something lighter would probably be easier for playing.  However, the cedar does make the garage smell fabulous!

Mother's Day Butterflies

I wanted to do something cute from the grandgirls to the grandmamas.  I decided to do the butterfly footprints.  They turned out alright.  I got very frustrated at my first cricut try, so I ended up just writing the words.  It probably had something to do with patience and time of night.  I have used it since and had much easier attempts at taking the cuts off the mat.  Feet didn't all turn out all that great (my subjects were not all that easy to work with) but the gifts were loved anyway.

Elephants

I was asked to make the kids "costumes" for the end of the year musical.  I felt kind of honored even though there was really not much to make.  They were to be elephants so I made them ears and a nose.  It was all pretty easy and quick, even though there were 18 of them.  Luckily there were a few missing for the performance.  The toddlers didn't really end up wearing the noses anyway since they are pretty young.  The performance went very well relatively speaking ;)

I just traced what I thought looked like an elephant ear.  Made the pink a bit smaller than the grey.  I doubled the grey so I would not need to stitch anything but the edges. I also thought that would work better for putting the headband through.  I cut two small slits in the grey for the headband to slide through.  It stayed on just like that.  I was prepared to stitch it in or use so glue, but when I tried it just like that it worked.  The nose is just a paper towel roll painted and then some cuts in it to bend down like an elephant nose.