Hannah's room is finished!

I got Hannah's room pretty much all done before grandma and grandpa came...there are still a few things to finish up but I'm happy with how everything has come together!

Please go check out the full room tour at my photography blog!
 

  

I'll have a quick tutorial for this chalkboard coming up soon! And that long painting isn't done yet...

 

Gifts for Neighbors

I am excited to share this little gift with you today because I think it's truly one of those very versatile gifts but very personal as well (and also inexpensive and quick to make). This gift could be made for just about anyone on your list! I like to give gifts that people will use. I like to make paintings but it's hard to make a painting for someone without their knowledge. What if it's the wrong colors, wrong saying, etc...and then they feel obligated to hang it up since you spent time on it. Well, this painting is for Christmas. People usually love to receive Christmas decorations as gifts and this way, it's personalized and holiday specific so they can put it away after Christmas and when they bring it out the next year they'll have fun memories of you giving them their cool personalized painting!

This idea is not original. The original idea was from here. Obviously mine is different, but that's what I love about pinterest...you see a good idea, bookmark it, then make it your own!!

What you need:

Canvas (board or stretched)
Paints

Pencil

Sharpies

My board is 8x10...use whatever size will fit the amount of ornaments you need to paint.
Paint a base coat, let it dry and then draw your ornaments and a little outside decorative edge with pencil. I used a small sippy cup cover to make sure my ornaments were actually circles!

 I then painted the outside a contrasting color to give it some life and dimension.

 I then painted my ornaments and added some extra little "flair" with a few sharpies. I added the red border and outlined the ornaments to really finish them up and make them pop.

Can you see the tremendous difference it makes to outline them? Look at the second ornament and notice the difference. And when you outline it you can cover up some of the little mistakes that you may have made :).

So here it is all finished! You could present it like this or hot glue some ribbon to the back so they have the option to hang it as well.

And you could make this cute little card to go along with it. I love it when gifts match their cards!!

And here's my quick little painting tip. Use a Frisbee for your pallet...if you don't already own a pallet, it's washable, sturdy and makes a great cheap pallet. Also, buy some of those "magic towels" from the dollar store and keep a few with your paints. You never know when you may want to use a little towel to wipe off your brush or to use on your painting. It is also very handy to have these around if you're painting with small children...need I say more.

Just another idea.

I will include this painting with a few other family gifts and some home baked goodies.
You can never go wrong with home baked goodies!

What if you don't know your neighbor too well?

How about elfing your neighbor?

I love this idea and think I'll do this as well!!!

And for those of you who like to work with wood
what about this idea.

Love these as well!! I may have to make some just for me!!

Can't wait to see what you make for your neighbors!

Naomi and Micah's bedroom

Finally got the big kids room cleaned up, organized and presentable!
Time for some photos! Check out more photos here.

 

Gift for the post man or other workers

For my gift for the post man or other workers I was really thinking about Christmas time...and hopefully some cooler weather. (I actually made these as Valentine's gifts, thus the hearts but I think it would be easy to adapt for Christmas...and maybe the hearts would be applicable for some people.)

These will be great to stick in the mailbox with a little note thanking your postal worker for their faithful service. These little coffee mugs can be filled with lots of different goodies...hot chocolate packets, tea, mini candy bars, starbucks gift cards...you name it, the skies the limit.

These are pretty easy to make and I don't have a step by step tutorial but if you need some more help with figuring out how to make these let me know.

Start with two pieces of felt and your favorite coffee mug.
Lay your coffee mug on the felt and losely trace it (it doesn't need to be perfect it just gives you an idea of what size to make it)

Cut out your embelishments:

Christmas trees, ornaments, holly, whatever suits your fancy.

Sew the embelishments on to the top piece of the coffee mug with different colored thread
or the same color, use your creativity!
I also sewed a little brown oval near the top to make it look like the mug is
already filled with some hot chocolate (you could skip that if you want).

Then use your sewing machine (or sew by hand) and sew around the outside of the mug.

Make sure to not sew the top shut. I also sewed right up both sides and didn't worry about leaving the handle open (but make sure to sew the two pieces of the handle together).

 I will have some of these in my etsy store too!!!

Let me know if you have any questions about how to make these!

Hannah's first birthday!!

Hannah is one!!
Yes, the days go slow and the years fly by, it's true!
We had a good time with Hannah today, but she wasn't in the best of moods.
I think she may FINALLY be starting to get some teeth, but I'm not fully convinced of this.
She's had a low grade fever for a couple of days and is more cranky than normal.
I hope she enjoyed her big day and I cannot wait till her party at the end of the month!

 I made a little cake for Hannah to dig in to and some cupcakes for the rest of us.

 She enjoyed the frosting...

 

but didn't want to eat her cake. She kept crawling away. So we put her in a chair and made her eat it! ha!
It took her a while to even dig into the cake, we had to help her. Then she just played with it for a long time before finally taking some bites of what was on her hand. I had given up. Taken down the decorations, went inside to make dinner and that's when she started eating it, go figure!

 I took these the day before her birthday...she would NOT SIT STILL. I was lucky to get the few shots that I did get.

 Do you like the "wallpaper"? It's just a piece of fabric taped to the wall!!

 We went to a local park before her birthday too and got some fun shots of Hannah in front of a cotton field!

Well, that 365 days went by in a blur..here's to many many more days with my sweet Hannah Joy!

Birthday posts

I will be posting about Naomi's 5th birthday over at JT Photography all weekend...come and check it out!

Gifts for aquaintances

Some gifts are easier to come up with than others. I've really struggled with what to give an aquaintance. I was thinking of who these aquaintances might be and why I might be giving them a gift...

The only thing I came up with is a white elephant gift exchange, or someone hosting a secret santa for someone you don't really know. I had the same idea as Tara...FOOD! and goodies at that! Easy, inexpensive and universal. So, I made some cake balls for my daughter to take to school after her birthday (with leftover bday cake, which I'll share on Saturday). But I forgot to take pictures. I thought that would be a good aquaintance gift. So, yes, I bugged out and didn't get my own gift made but I have found a few gift ideas that I thought I'd share with you. Click on the links to be taken to the original creators site and give them some props for cool gift ideas!!

I saw this a while ago and have saved our Pringles cans (my husband probably can't wait till I get them out of pantry). I plan on making these for neighbors that I don't know very well, thus making them aquaintances. You can find the original post about these here.

Today's Fabulous Finds has 12 of these super cute and creative gifts to give to aquaintances, friends, neighbors you name it and they're all under $2. You can't beat that!!!

I've also made these for my daughters Sunday School teachers and they went over really well, so there's another idea for you. Do you have any ideas? And which aquaintances do you give gifts to?