Cupcake turns 2!

Happy Happy Birthday to my SWEET Lil' Cupcake!  Today she turns two!  =)  Since this is obviously a very busy time of year we had her party early.  The first weekend in December actually.  Before the party she and her sister followed me outside while I was loading up the swagger wagon.  I grabbed my camera and tried to snap some shots.  This was the best I could get before the party.  (Don't ask what she's doing with that tongue.  Her sister did the same thing at the same age.  LOL!  It's hard to get a smile when they are always cutting up!)

I decided to have her bday party close to her school in hopes we'd get better participation from friends.  Chuck E. Cheeses was about the only option.  AND it turned out to be a great one!  We had several friends show up:

And of course family:

By the way, if you can't tell from this picture, my niece, the one in the car accident, is doing well!

The birthday girl and all her friends had fun!  And this was the easiest possible party a mommy could ever dream of having!  WIN-WIN!!! 

I was worried about how she'd react to Chuck E.  She loved him!  He put the birthday crown on her and she high fived him:

I was unsure about how she'd do opening presents, but she was like a pro!

Lil Cupcake was quite possessive of the inflatable red crown!  She wore it for at least a week and would say "my happy day!"  She would not dare share it with her sister.  I had to pull out the Princess hat that the Princess wore for her bday celebration so they'd both have "happy day" hats!  Ha!  And Cupcake did an awesome job at blowing out her candle!   

To all of my friends and family who made this day so special THANK YOU!!! 

Cupcake At TWO!

My sweet little two year old!  I can not believe it's been TWO years since you were born.  You are such a sweetheart. 

• You LOVE your babies.  You are always trying to kiss, love, diaper, put a blanket on, or just playing with baby dolls or a stuffed animal!  You are such a little caregiver. 
• You love our Einie and you are always trying to hug him and pet him.  You love to go visit friends with pets! 
• You are also very strong willed and self confident.  I love this about you. 
• You love to sing and dance.  You are a wonderful singer!  I noticed at a very early age you are ON KEY AND HAVE RHYTHM!  You love for me to sing to you and you always sing along with me.  I have lullabies that I made up, but your favorite is "you are my Sunshine".  :) 
• You can count to 15 and you know your colors and alphabet.  You know most words to many songs we listen to or sing.  You also know how to say the blessing over our food and frequently join in with me when we say our night-night prayers. 
• You are my blond haired beauty. 
• You love to read.  If you see a book you are asking someone to read it to you.
• You love your sister.  You two have such a special bond and I pray it is a never ending friendship.  You want to be a big girl like her and will do everything she does.  =)  You two can love on each other one minute and fight like it's the end of the world the next!  But mostly, you love each other. 
• You are SUCH the snuggle bunny!  You love to cuddle up to your mommy or daddy and go to sleep. 
• You love your daddy!  You two have a special bond.  I'm not calling you a daddy's girl just yet ;)

You have such a sweet and kind heart and my mind is filled with the endless possibilities of what your life will bring! =)   

I Samuel 1:27 "I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him."

M-i-c-k-e-y

As I was trying to clean up the room I've been using to craft in, I noticed I have a few of the clear ornaments left over.  I've been thinking of what to do with them to make them cute!  I think I will save a few for next year, but the little square ornaments?  They were calling to me.  They were saying M-i-c-k-e-y M-o-u-s-e....

 And from the side because I loved the pink Minnie ribbon with it!

What do you think?  The pictures do not give it justice.  I made one for each of my girls and one for a gift.  Used some ribbon I had on hand and black vinyl with my silhouette.  I just downloaded some font with mickey's head and letters inside!  I might try to find some white glitter or some fake snow and add in.  That might help the mickey to pop more.  For now we are stuck inside.  Princess has the flu :(  It's pitaful!  But we are trying to have fun in between the yucky symptoms.  Today I'm making her a chalkboard to write on.  She loves those!  ;-)     I will be linking this up to any applicable parties on my side bar!  Merry Christmas everyone!

Ribbon Hoarding

One day a couple of weeks back I decided to make a new bow for the Princess for Christmas.  Her dress was red, Cupcake's was green.  So I pulled out my ribbon bin and came up with this: 



Well, I noticed that I had a ton of that beautiful double ruffle ribbon that I had ordered probably over a year ago.  Shhhh...don't tell my hubby.  ;-)  Hubby, if you are reading this, pretend you did not!  Anyhoo, I also remembered how EASY it is to make bows with that ribbon.  You CAN.NOT.MESS.THIS.UP!  That's how easy.  So I "went to town" on them as we say in the South.  Here is the result: 

 

I don't think this was the final pile of bows, but you get the idea.  My girls now have matching bows for any and everything....as if we were lacking in that department.  ;-)  So, I am calling this my crafty bow post...sort of.  I have a hard time calling something this easy a craft! 

All of you momma's of girlies or aunts or grandmomma's of girls, do you make or purchase your bows for them?  I have found the $10 I spent several years ago on a tutorial worth far more in the long run!  There is NO TELLING what I've saved by making our own bows.  And as far as all that ribbon I keep?  It comes in handy if I need a bow like, in 5 minutes.  Or if I need some for a craft like the ornaments I made here and here...and the ones I made that I didn't post about.  Even comes in handy to add a little punch to the details like here for this glitter tree I made or even here for the chalkboards.    ;-)  So I'm always on the lookout for cute ribbon.  And if it's on sale and I like it...you bet your bottom it's going home with me =)  I can always figure out something to use it on eventually.  Do you have any other ideas for uses for ribbon?  Have a post you've shared?  I'd love to hear about it!

Fix It Friday

Today I'm participating in Fix-it Friday with I heart Faces!  Go check out all the other fantastic edits to today's photo!

Fix it Friday

Here is the original photo:

The following are my edits.  I had a hard time deciding which one I liked best.  I did not have a hard time editing the picture.  I only used one type of 'fix' if you will, through picnik.com on each photo. 

Edit 1: Faded Daguerrotype

 

 Edit 2: Cross Process (I think this one is my favorite after having them all side by side)

 Edit 3:  Polychromed Yellow (I've grown to love this 'action' on many photos lately.  I really like the warmth it adds to the photo)

 Edit 4: Lomoish  My go to favorite action through picnik.  Though I often tone it down.

Which edit do you like best? 



Christmas Parade

So last weekend was supposed to be our annual Christmas parade.  The company I work for is celebrating 50 years in the community and had requested for some employee volunteers to participate in local parades.  I was planning to participate in the parade in my city.  I got the girls all decked out:

It was FREEZING that day!  So underneath each of their little outfits were additional shirts and tights and socks...lol! 

The weather was 'iffy' and the parade ended up getting cancelled.  It had already been postponed the day before.  Since we were all dressed we ended up getting out for dinner that afternoon at Applebea's.  The girls were decently behaved.  Well, Cupcake was acting like a two year old all night, but hey, she is almost two.  At any rate, we enjoyed a family dinner out.

On another note, the girls made the following ornaments at school and brought them home last week.  Each of them made snowmen.  Princess's ornament had two pieces on the bottom...a dress.  So she's a snow girl actually.  Ha, ha!   

The girls also made rudolph's using their hands and fingerpaint as the antlers.  They were adorable kiddy crafts 2!  Did your kids make any cute crafts to bring home from school? 

Santa Claus is Comin' 2 Town!

Santa Claus has set up shop downtown.  He and Mrs. Claus always come to our town and stay in the same historic home to take time and visit with children.  Since we had a 'snow day' Monday the hubs and I took the girls to visit Santa!  =) 

Cupcake didn't want ANYTHING to do with Santa until he made a peace offering.  At that point she was willing to look at him without crying.  ;-)

Princess on the other hand, was ALL about Santa this year!  She told him she wants Zhu-Zhu pets.  (thank you Saturday morning cartoons)

She was so excited this year!  Last year she was saying "NO HO-HO!"  I am really happy that she is enjoying Santa visiting this year =)

I took a couple of shots of the girls in front of our tree before we left to visit Santa.  It was SO cold here I had to put long sleeve shirts and leggings underneath their cute little smocked dresses!

My girls...my love and my life! 

Have you all been to visit Santa?  How old were your kiddos when they began to enjoy visiting Santa? 

Birthday gift

In my last post I showed you all the heat transfer project I worked on for Cupcake.  Well, her bff's birthday is 4 days before hers.  Since school was canceled due to snow flurries (yes, that's Alabama for ya) I went out and grabbed the stuff to make a shirt for her!  Cause we all know there wasn't even ICE on the roads today.  LOL!  So here she is:

I used a black turtle neck from Tarjay and white smooth heat transfer vinyl coupled with the flocked heat transfer number from Hobby Lobby.  I actually thought I purchased a sheet of the flocked heat transfer like the zebra I used in the last shirt, but the number was good as well.  Now I can use the other numbers for other shirts.  Princess has a birthday in a few months ;-) 

Here is the up close.  I think it's pretty cute.  Hopefully she will as well.  I decided not to go with the zebra for her.  I love zebra print but I understand it's not for everyone.  Since I actually don't know her that well, I played it safe and went with polka dots.  Everyone loves polka dots, right?!  =) 

On another note we visited Santa's village tonight with the girls.  I will post on it soon.  Can you believe next week is Christmas?!  =) 

 

Fun with Heat Transfer =)

How many crafts can you make in one long weekend?  A LOT!  Ha, ha!  I have had heat transfer vinyl for a while now and have not sat down long enough to work with my silhouette and read the directions on how to use it this type of vinyl.  It is almost Cupcake's birthday and I wanted a cute shirt for her to wear to school.  I had already purchased a very cute and  for our budget, expensive birthday outfit.  (You will see it in a birthday post for her, however, it completely tore up while washing it on HAND WASH cycle!  Which I am more than a tad bit upset about, but that's another story and I won't post it on my blog.)  Anyhow, back to my latest craft!  Tonight I was checking out She's {kinda} Crafty where Stacy did some cute heat transfer stuff.  I was inspired to use the supplies I had already stocked up on to make something for Cupcake.  I previously purchased some zebra print heat transfer from Hobby Lobby and a cheapo black t-shirt (in case my attempt at heat transfer was a bust), and my pink heat transfer from silhouette.  Cut it out, slap it on the shirt, hit with heat, repeat until desired result achieved:

And here it is up close:

The silhouette would not cut the zebra print heat transfer.  It was WAY to thick even on the setting that is for thicker media.  So I traced a circle on it and cut it out by hand.  That was what the directions said anyway, trace and cut.  Circles ...easy peasy.  It's three layers for everything but her name.  What do you think?  I am thinking this would be a really cute gift for someone.  I can see that in my future!  =) 

Linking here:

So are you wondering why in the world I am up so late?  Well, we had SNOW FLURRIES!  Nothing stickin'  just flurries.  And our schools are opening late in the morning.  LOL!  Oh well, I got to do one more craft than I had planned.  =) 

Tutu Cute! Little girlie birthday gifts!

I finished up another craft to share with you today.  I am fairly certain that I originally saw this linked up at one of my favorite blog parties! Tatertots and Jello's weekend wrap up party.  When I saw the cutest girlie chalkboard gift with a tutorial by Greenbean's Crafterole I knew I had to bookmark it so I could do it later!  I have a niece and a friend's little girl whose birthdays were both this month.  I decided this would be a good gift for them.  =)  Here is my version:

You will have to excuse the poor photo quality.  I'm using my point and shoot for all these latest posts since it's faster for me.  My addition to the original was to cut out names in vinyl and place them on the board.  I love to personalize things.  =) 

So what do you think?  I hope they love these little chalkboards!  I think they are truly adorable. 

What's next on my agenda?  Getting a few more of the frames ready for gifts and kitchen cabinets of course!  =)  Have a fabulous Sunday friends!

**I will be linking this up to my fav parties on my side bar this week**

It's Hip 2 be Square!

Anyone else a child of the 80's?  =)

I've been up tonight finishing up some gifts for my co-workers for Christmas.  As I mentioned in a previous post I'm taking a good bit of vacation this month due to a new company policy and so are they.  I had to get these ready to take to work next week.  I have very little time during the week so I thought I'd go ahead and get them done.  I am going to give a HUGE shout out to CAM NEWTON!!!!!!!!!  I am a HUGE Auburn fan and tonight, he won the HEISMAN!!!  Woot-Woot!  =)  Why the shout out?  Because I love my co-workers to death but they are Alabama fans, our big rival.  And I'm not one of 'those' fans, so I made them Alabama-ish gifts.  Wondering what they are? 

This one is for my friend who also has a birthday this month.  She is going to get a frame for her birthday. For her Christmas present, I busted out the Silhouette and used some Crimson and Grey vinyl and cut out some circles and a monogram for her name.  That big ole Alabama A...Uh, not a font I can find.  And I understand it is their "own" font.  Thanks Alabama, you really show the love!  So, what's a girl to do?  I went out and bought myself and exacto knife! Yep, I printed an Alabama A off the computer and then I cut it out with scissors.  Then traced it out on the vinyl and used the exacto to cut it out.  I of course had to do some touch ups.  But, I think it turned out okay....being that it is for Alabama.  ;-)  The ornaments I used were square.  I really liked them as well once they were finished.  Tied them up with some red/black/hounds tooth ribbon and they are good to go. 

This one is for my other co-worker, also an avid Alabama fan.  I made her an ornament and changed the placing of the polka dots due to the actual monogram itself.  No plate for her though, she is getting a frame.  =)  Told ya I was making a lot of these gifts!  Ha, ha! 

And here is a close up of one of the ornaments.  They are not as big as the circle ornaments but still just as adorable.  Hey, it's hip to be square!  At least in this case, ha, ha!

And don't mind those ugly counter tops.  I'm crafting so much that I have limited places to snap shots.  But in our kitchen make over they will be a thing of the past soon enough!  BTW, the pic in the previous post that showed cabinets being painted...that was primer, not the actual color we are using.  Once I can figure out what I am going to do about hardware I will get a pic of the desk area.  But I have to find time to a. order new hardware b. go to a local store and buy new hardware, or c. remake what I have (it's brassy so it has to be painted or something if we go back to them).  Alright girls, I've had lots of fun today but I am hitting the hay!  Nighty-night!  I hope you are getting much rest during this busy Christmas season! 

**I will be linking this up to my fav parties on the sidebar.  Check them out!**

Pinkalicious Decor!

My last post said I was working on multiple crafty projects and I have another to share with you!  Today, with the help of my Princess we made a Christmas decoration for her room! 

I have seen this on so many blogs and have no clue whose original idea it was.  It's SUPER easy and my 3 and half year old helped me!  You will need:

• modpodge or glue/water
• E6000 glue
• Styrofoam cone
• candle holder from $ tree
• white spray paint
• ribbon
• glitter

I spray painted a dollar tree candle holder white.  I think I did 2 coats.  I did this without the help of the Princess.  I didn't want her around those fumes.  Next, the Princess and I covered the cone shaped foam in modpodge.  The fun part?  I used a hairbrush with a sharp end to skewer the largest part of the cone while the Princess covered it in PINK glitter!  After it was dry I glued it to the candlestick an tied on a ribbon for a cute accent.   Now one more shot by one of the frames I made yesterday (though the glare of the flash kills the beauty of this frame):

The Princess loves her new Pinkalicious Christmas decoration!  =)  I have another to make for the Lil Cupcake.  I will tackle that one tomorrow most likely.

  Still working on a few other things.  I plan to show them to you as soon as I can!  It's getting so close to Christmas I have to work faster!  Ha, ha!  Anyone have any time to spare?  I'll take it!!     

*** I will be linking this up to some of my favorite parties on the sidebar this week.  Check them out! ***

Christmas Gift for Teachers

I've been SUPER busy lately!  There have been five different crafts I've been working on getting done.  I first made ornaments for all our teachers at daycare.  I said before, at some time all those teachers are doing something for my kids.  But, their individual teachers are with them the most.  So I wanted to do a little something extra for them.  I saw this post over at Shanty2Chic and thought they were SUPER cute.  I thought I'd give them a try.  Princess has two teachers and Cupcake has one so currently I have three finished frames.  I have several more to make for Christmas gifts and I like them so well that I want one!  Ha, ha!  If you want a tutorial on how to, please visit Shanty2Chic, those girls are awesome! 

Here are the different positions/colors/embellishments:

For this one I used Heirloom White and the Fleur de Lis embellishment and it's positioned horizontally. 

For this one I used just what Shanty2Chic did!  Scrolly embellishment, canyon black paint, and vertical alignment for the frame.

 My sweet hubby cut my 2x8x8 for me and drilled the holes to put in the finial for the topper. I did all the assembly, painting, and distressing. You probably notice I did embellish a couple of them with something different than the swirly they used. I thought the Fleur de Lis was cute as could be and was dying to try it on something. =)  And a few more shots with these cute frames holding pictures. 

(Yes, that's our family Christmas card.  I might put it in some frames I'm giving as gifts to family =))

I have to admit, I fell in love with the black vertical frame from the original post by the Shanty sisters.  But after making them I think I am going to have to have TWO.  One in Heirloom white that will be vertical and sit on my hearth and a second black horizontal for the entry way table. =)  I may have to wait until after Christmas to make mine.  Why you ask?  Because we have a BIG home improvement project going on!  We've been busy doing this:

I know you are thinking, why in the world did she start refinishing her kitchen cabinets during Christmas, while she has been a crafting maniac!  Yep, I'm thinking it 2!  BUT, my company is changing it's vacation policy and it's now use all you have this year or lose it.  So I was off work Friday and will be off work again next Friday.  Hubby was off today as well so he helped.  Next week I might have to enlist the help of my brother.  It's a big job to sand, prime, paint, paint, and paint again!  Ha!  We did manage to finish the desk area today.  We decided to take it in phases as we were able.  I think that was a great idea, thanks to my fab hubby!  =)  Anyway, that is a sneak peak on our cabinet project.  You will have to check back to see the follow up!  I won't post on it again until I can show you either progress or finished project! 

So, what all have you been working on this holiday season?  Are you super busy like us?  Were any of you crazy enough to start to refinish cabinets?  We gotta get a move on because we are going on a long road trip soon! 

*** Linking this up to some of my fav parties on the sidebar this week!  Check them out! ***

Edited to add: Linked up to CSI challenge for The color White =)