Father's Day book...

I know... I know... Father's Day was a while ago, but I wanted to post about this super cute book that I made for my husband for Father's Day.

I made this book a while ago, back when Oprah was doing her free book from Shutterfly promotion. So I only had to pay for the shipping. I made a book about my little boy and his dad to give for Father's Day...

I love it, my husband loves it too! It's mainly just about the cute things that they do together. Pictures of things they have done and cute moments between them. And what kid doesn't like to be the star of their own book? I love that they can read this together, good father son bonding time...

Mother's necklace...

I've been pretty absent from this craft blog for the last little while. Those of you who read my family blog already know my news, but those of you who don't I thought I would leave a little note here...

On May 15th I became a mother of two. I now have a 20 month old adorable toddler and a little baby who is in heaven...

I ordered this mother's necklace from JJewelry on Etsy. I wanted to wear something that reminds me of my two sons. On the front it has their initials, and on the back their birth dates.

We named our little boy Clayton and he was 1 lb and 11 inches long, born at 21 weeks.

Sleep peacefully little baby...

Tree mural...

I've been working hard the past little while on finishing up my sons room. The last little (kinda big) part I have to do is this tree mural on the wall. Good thing my friend Mindy is a muralist (is that a word?) She came over to help me draw the tree on the wall so that I could start painting. She did a great job, and she didn't even get mad at me when I told her after she drew out the tree that I wanted to move it over six inches... thanks Mind!

Here are a few things that I learned about murals...

- When you draw out the picture don't use a pencil. That's what I was planning on using but the pencil markings will show through the paint. Instead use a paint pen. You can get those at any craft store. Then you just paint over it! Don't worry if you draw where you don't want the picture, you can just paint over that with the regular wall paint.

- Also, hardware stores can sell you a little "sample" of paint that is just a few dollars. That way you don't have to buy a whole pint and have a lot left over.

Hopefully I can get this room put together soon and then I'll post up some pictures.

New Vase...

It was a great Mother's Day for me this year. Second year being able to celebrate such a great thing, being a mom. I hope that all of you other mother's out there had a great day as well!




My little guy gave me this pretty little vase (it's suppose to be a pitcher, but I'm going to use it as a vase.) I can't wait to fill it with some Billy Buttons when they come into season...

Woodland draft buster...

I love this Woodland Draft Buster that I saw over at Purl Bee. We have wood floors in our hallway and it makes for easily heard footsteps and creaking when trying to sneak past a certain toddlers bedroom. I've been putting a towel down in front of his door to try to muffle the sound but that's not very nice to look at everyday. This would be much cuter.

I also like her idea of stuffing it with plastic grocery bags...

Dry spell...

Thank you for all of the closet suggestions. I've decided for now to not paint the closets. Mainly because my list of stuff I want to do is ever growing and I'm getting worried about getting it all done. So the closets will stay the way that they are for now.

Also, I realize that this blog has been lacking. I've been a little uninspired lately, so I'm going to try harder to get the creative juices flowing again...

Closet question...

I want your opinion on something...

If you are re-painting a room do you re-paint the closet? I have a few rooms I'm going to paint and the new color is very different than the color it is now. Should I take the time to paint the closet or do I just leave it?

Photo from the Container Store

Stripes...

I'm pretty much in love with these little green and taupe stripped leg warmers I just finished. I can't wait to pull them up over some chubby baby legs...

Sproost...

My friend Ashley told me about this great Interior Design website called Sproost that has a test you can take to determine your own personal design style. I took this test a few months back and it said that I was 33% contemporary, 33% modern elegance, and 34% cottage chic. I was a little surprised by the results... because I like modern and contemporary but I do think that I'm a little more cottage chic.

I went back today and re-took the quiz. I was very serious this time, looked at the pictures and gave my true honest answer. This time it said that I was...

100% Rustic Revival

Amen... just look at this picture. I do love the mix of modern and country. I like solid clean colors. I like to throw in plants and prints here and there but this room feels like home to me. This is more of what I would like to achieve someday in my home. I would love to get a cow print rug (sorry animal lovers...) and put a set of antlers on the wall... as long as it was modern and classy and not cabin fever.

Go take the quiz! I think I'm going to have to re-take it again in a little while just to double check... it's fun!

Coconut Macaroons...

Oh man, these are the best cookies ever. If you like coconut that is. We are coconut fans over here and we can not get enough of these cookies. I was looking for a good macaroon recipe around Christmas time and found this one over at all recipes. I picked this one because it said that it had won many first place ribbons at the state fair... ya sounds like a good one to me! Also, I like to cook, but I have a hard time with recipes that have a million different ingredients in them. I like to keep things simple and this is a very simple recipe.

Coconut Macaroons

2/3 cup all-purpose flour
5 1/2 cups flaked coconut
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper or aluminum foil.
In a large bowl, stir together the flour, coconut and salt. Stir in the sweetened condensed milk and vanilla using your hands until well blended. Use an ice cream scoop (or you know, a spoon) to drop dough onto the prepared cookie sheets. Cookies should be about golf ball size.
Bake for 12 to 15 minutes in the preheated oven, until coconut is toasted.

*** I like to insert my own little goodness in here. I think that most things taste better dipped in chocolate (at least when it comes to cookies) so I like to melt some semi-sweet chocolate chips and dip the cookies in that. Then I put them in the fridge for the chocolate to harden. At Christmas we also dipped the chocolate part into little crushed up candy canes. Very sweet and good!

Baby leg warmers...

I finished my first set of baby leg warmers this weekend. The only problem was that I had to find a baby to try them on!!! I don't know of any newborns around here... so I had to wait till we saw Trent's sister to try them on her baby.
I think that they turned out pretty cute! I'm going to make little Amelia some that are a bit more girly.

Fancy Jean Quilt...

Holy cow... I have the most amazing sister in law. My SIL Nicole has more talent in her little finger than I will ever have in my whole body!!! Too bad she's too busy sewing up cool stuff to keep a blog huh (that and take care of her 3 1/2 kids...) She whipped up this amazing jean quilt for my other SIL's wedding shower that was on Saturday. By whipped up I mean she started this on Wednesday and had the whole thing done and ready to go Saturday morning. Unreal!

She used these adorable 1940's prints for all the squares. By the time I got my camera out they had already rolled most of the quilt so I didn't get a picture of the whole thing. But I was so impressed. She also brought a bowl of spring colored taffy to munch on while we tied... because all the colors were springy. She put my jean quilt to shame... However, this is not a competition! I love that I can get good ideas from her and she is constantly teaching me new things about quilting.

Double pointed needles...

I've been pretty obsessed with knitting lately... which is pretty funny considering that I have only knit one hat in my whole life! I just can't stop thinking about it! I saw these adorable baby leggings on a blog and haven't been able to think about much else since.

One thing that I learned a few years back is that even when something might seem impossible... it most likely is not. It just might take some more effort that "normal" but most things are totally doable. For the past few weeks I've been on a quest to find a baby leg warmer pattern. I found a few and have altered them a bit to make something that I like. The next problem... needing to knit with double pointed needles (what?).

I looked up a great tutorial on YouTube to help "teach me" how to do this. It was a wonderful tutorial and so I was off to the craft store to buy some of the most delicious yarn I've seen...

Next thing I know... the dream is becoming a reality. I can indeed knit myself (or you know, someone smaller) some adorable baby leg warmers on these double pointed needles.

I feel a little funny knitting these while the temperatures are climbing quickly around here. Before I'm done with them I'm sure that it will be around 115 degrees and the only thing any baby for miles around will be wearing are diapers... if they are lucky! But as life works, the day will come when there will be a baby around with cold little legs... and I will be prepared. I'm so excited! They are turning out pretty cute!

The next goal is to make some with TWO colors!! Sounds impossible right now but I'm sure somehow I'll figure it out!

Knit Pillow...

I've been really into knitting lately. I love these knit pillows from West Elm. I don't think that I'm advanced enough to knit myself something like this... but I love them! They would be a perfect cozy addition to a bed.

Wedding Album...

It's finally done!!! Six years and three months later (to the day...) I finally finished our wedding album. I like it. It's simple, it has all of my pictures in one place. It makes me happy! Come take a trip down memory lane with me ...

(Sorry for the picture quality here...) This is the page for the day we got engaged. Yellow bandanna is the one I was wearing when we got engaged.

The little hearts are some of the ones that I saved that Trent used to propose to me. I was working at a girls camp and I was hiking with my campers when he proposed. These were all scattered on the trail tied to flowers. They say things that he liked about me on them... Ahhh...

Some mock engagement pictures that we took our at the Great Salt Lake. We had little brine flies all over us... gross.


Our REAL engagement photo shoot. Also on this page I put a copy of our wedding invitation.

Bridal shower page. I saved one of the invitations from the bridal shower my friend Ashley threw. Just lots of pictures of people sitting around...

This is my bridal picture page... pretty lame if you ask me. I didn't know what to do with this page so I just sewed some fabric on there. I don't know what that's suppose to look like... a veil? An old Kleenex? Don't know... but one thing with sewing on paper, once you sew it on you can't take it back!!!

I LOVE THIS PAGE!!! I saved this one for last because I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to do with it. This is the page about the day that we actually got married and it has all of the pictures that were taken at the temple in the pages that follow. I decided to make a bouquet like the one that I had that day. We had our reception a week after our wedding so I didn't have a bouquet that day. I wasn't worried about it, but Trent bought me a beautiful winter bouquet from Costco and I loved it! It was perfect. I had a fun time recreating it. The only thing missing is the pine cone, yes there was a pine cone in the bouquet... but I wasn't sure how to do that and I didn't want to "ruin" the page so I left it out.

We had a wedding dinner following our sealing at the Lion House in Salt Lake. I wrote Trent a song when we were dating and surprised him that night by playing it at the dinner. So for that page I sewed a little guitar and printed out the words to the song that I wrote and put it on the page.
This is the page for our reception. All of the dresses that the bridesmaids wore and the sisters etc. were made, so we had some fabric scraps of everything. My cousin made me a pillow out of all the fabric scraps that has been tucked away in my cedar chest for some time. So I took one of the panels off of the pillow and sewed it onto the page. I also have a napkin from the reception and some leopard ribbon that I used to make my garter belt. I had to throw leopard print into that wedding somehow!!

Lots of reception pictures in here. Can any of you pick yourself out? Ashley, Shannon, Jules, Amy, Erinn, Berlee, Angela!!! Lots of you in there to share this special day with us!

Last but not least the honeymoon. We went up to Yellowstone and went snowmobiling for our honeymoon. It was so great! Nice to "take a break" every once in a while but it was so cold that we didn't break for long! I would love to go back there in the winter and snowmobile around again. I saved a map that we had of the different trails around there.


So there you have it. My non scrapbooked scrapbook! I know that some of you think that this is the same thing as scrapbooking, but I tell you what. It was so EASY and CHEAP and fun to put together. It really didn't take any time at all. I used the same color thread on everything and didn't use one dot of glue. If you would like to review the "book scrapping" method you can refer back to it here.