A Little Homemade Mobile...

Hi all, I am finally back with a blog post featuring something I have made!!! Today I am going to share the mobile I made for my son's nursery. Right from the start I new I wanted something that wasn't plastic or cheap for a mobile. I also knew I didn't want to spend 70+ bucks for something that usually ended up not working after a while. There was also the issue of not finding one that fit my "ideals". Cue husband shuddering in background. So at the end of the day I decided I was going to make one. Okay, lets be more realistic - coming from a very crafty family, I was always going to make one.

In keeping with my theme, I chose to make a mobile of elephants using colors that (thanks to my diaper pail) made up the nursery.

I started by drawing out a template on some plain white card stock. I got mine from Staples. I used an elephant punch from Martha Stewart as my Elephant inspiration. I wanted the mobile to look cute and not so real.

Once I was pleased with my templates, I cut them out and traced the outline onto some felt. I used this teal color (was as close as I could get to my robins egg blue diaper pail), grey, and white. As soon as that job was done, I began the tedious job of cutting out all the pieces. There were a lot!

The next step was sewing two of the same pieces together, but leaving about an inch opening so that I could stuff them. Once all the pieces were sewn and stuffed and sewn again, I started piecing them all together. 

I spray painted a wood floral wreath in semi-gloss white spray paint. Used the existing pre-drilled holes to hang my threaded elephants and birds, and voila...my mobile. 

I also added some beads in between the shapes to make the mobile more interesting. Everything was triple knotted and glossy accents were added to double ensure that the mobile would not fall apart. Small broken pieces and babies mouths don't mix, ya know. 

I have also added some blue, white, and silver ribbon from which I plan to hang it. Since baby B has just started sleeping in his own room, I have yet to hang the mobile. As soon as hubs is back from up North, this bad boy is going up and B's room will be complete! Yippe! I'll update this post as soon as the mobile is hung!

Have a happy fall afternoon!! 

:)

Flowers in September....

I love flowers. Simple things. Simple pleasures. I came home the other night to see that my second Dahlia plant has finally bloomed! It only took what all of summer and the beginning of fall...? Granted I only decided to fertilize at the end of summer. LOL. In my defence I thought they died over the winter. I didn't have anywhere to store them indoors. I really do hope it blooms soon. I have my doubts though...fingers crossed. I also couldn't help but notice how vibrant the blooms were in my second plant. Seriously gorgeous. I could sit outside and watch them all day, but they look their best just before dusk.

For the first time I have decided to get some "fall" planters. We finally have our drive way done and an extended section of our patio kind of done, so I'm trying to think of ways to decorate them for the season. Kind of excited being as it's Baby "B's" first everything!!! Posts on those will come once I make up my mind on what I want to do...

Take care, 

K

Thankful Tuesdays...

Wow, there is so much to be thankful for that I do not really know where to begin. I guess I will start with Baby B and his 3 hour nap!! Yes,  you heard correctly, my son has finally decided he wants to sleep longer than 15 minutes during the day. Of course he is sleeping in his car seat, but that's a story for another day.

Three hour long naps for baby B (lets hope this is the start of a new beginning)
YES!!!! You did in fact read that correctly, Baby B has finally decided to embark on the path of long naps. As I said, lets hope this is the start of a new beginning!! Anyone who knows my son, knows that he rocks the 15 minute power nap.

My hubby finally started his job up north 
Well, as the title implies, hubs has gone up north to work. Better him than me for a multitude of reasons the biggest being SNOW. Ugh! We moved to Vancouver Island to get AWAY from the snow. If he wants to work up north, go for it, but don't expect me to come visit. LOL. This news as exciting as it is, is also a bit of a bummer because hubs is gone for 20 days at a time. That, my friends is a LONG time to be away from your family. The plus side though is he gets a 10 day holiday every single mont, yes EVERY. SINGLE . MONTH. Time to pack my bags, I will be taking advantage of my father's condo in Mexico...Wait a minute if hubs is gone for 20 and I'm alone for 20 with the boy, I could go for 20...hmmm, I'm going to have to rethink this one. Ha.

My cold has finally come to an end and "B" did not get sick (knock on wood - please)
Cue the choir. Hallelujah. The cold is gone, for good, hopefully. Man, that was a nasty one. Loss of voice (not bad for hubs, but entertaining for babe), fever, night sweats, sore and I mean SORE throat, followed by mucus 24/7!! Yes, good riddance and please by pass getting Baby B sick. Thanks :)

and I'm going to add one more...

Finally figured out how to style my short hair
I've recently chopped off a good chunk of my hair. I have always had medium to long hair. Well there was that one exception in 5th grade when I was somehow convinced to get a bob of sorts. Looked bad, still trying to forget. Anyways, this past year my hair was longest it's been in a while. We are talking middle of back type of length. With a baby who just wants to play and be entertained it was getting kind of challenging to do. I often found myself just throwing it in a ponytail wet because it took forever to dry straight, and then flat iron or curl, only to have it look a royal mess 15 minutes later (might have something to do with "B" starting to pull on it every time he nursed or I held him...so pretty much all day). Needless to say I chopped it off. I wanted it cut like this...

Image Rights

...but my hair stylist took about 5 inches too much off. Needless to say my hair is short. Sit on my shoulders barely short. It works though. Doesn't look anything close to the hair style in the above photo, but it works. I had to invest in a smaller curling iron. I ended up buying a 1-inch Hot Tools. The best curling iron ever, and it was on sale. Score one for me. Oh I also had a $10.00 off dealio, so I paid $60.60 for it instead of an outrageous $91.95. And because I love the tool so much, I will buy a bigger one, either a 11/4 inch or a 2-inch, when my hair grows a little longer/before I cut it again. 

Take care y'all (I've been thinking of my Texas friends of late and the y'all is a throw back to them, plus it makes me smile)

A Peek Into My Scrapbooking Process: The Dreaded Binding Part Two...

Alright, so I last left off poking a bunch of holes into all of my signatures or booklets or whatever you would like to refer to them as. I don't really know the proper term and on that note I should probably look it up, but I doubt I will. Just trying to keep it real here. Anyways...the last thing done to my album was the hole poking for the binding. I guess now I get to attempt the binding while taking pictures for you all to follow. Here goes...

Step 1: Figuring out what I am going to use for the binding. My decision really comes down to what I have in stock, which is hemp string. I'm not using a light weight hemp. I would tell you exactly what the weight is, except that I threw out the packaging a long time ago. I had two colors to choose from: pink and natural. Since the book is for a baby boy, I'm going with natural and I am going to die the hemp to match the other details I am doing to my cover.

Step 2: Measure out the amount of string you need for binding. I use 3 arm width lengths. I simply take the hemp, stretch it out between my arms and repeat three times before cutting from the spool. This is a long length to work with so it is very important that I/you/whomever is very careful when dying the hemp, threading the hemp, and ultimately binding with the hemp so that you don't get knots.

Step 3: Once I have the hemp stretched out, I wrap it around my fingers, put it in a container (glass so it does not stain) and spray it with my glimmer mist. I am using Caribbean Blue (I think) Glimmer Mist. Once the hemp is sprayed I can lay it aside to dry. I gave it a good 24 hours and some because it's been about a week since I have touched my book in anyway, but it probably just needs to dry over night.

Step 4: Thread my needle. I'm using a needle from Michaels, size

Here comes the hard part...

Step 5: Binding the first signature to the front cover of the book. I take my first signature and make sure all the holes are lined up. If you have a number of inserts and have layered them so that the inserts have only some holes and not 6 holes, you may want to set them aside when starting your binding (see photo below for visual explanation). Setting some the inserts aside that do not need to be bound with the first hole, just means you have less papers to juggle making your life a lot easier. JUST REMEMBER TO ADD THEM BACK TO THE BOOK.

 Photo above shows signature with inserts that line up with the first hole

Photo below shows signature with inserts that can be set aside to make binding easier

Now for the ACTUAL binding

*Note* I did not show how to bind the front cover to the signatures (which has to be done first) but the steps are the same with the exception of which direction you a threading. For example the images below show me threading to the right, if you were beginning your binding you would be threading your first signature to your front cover and moving the needle towards the left. Sounds complicated, but  it will hopefully make sense after these next set of photos. 

 Photo above shows my binding up until this point in the book.

Step 1: Close the signature so that you are looking at the folded spin. Take the needle and poke it through the first hole (I'm working top to bottom on this signature - you'll notice that I have already done the first 3 holes moving from the bottom up). Pull the needle all the way through so that the signature is tight up against the rest of the book. See photo below.

Step 2: Push the needle and thread through the next hole (in this case the last hole of the signature). See photo below.

 Step 3: Pull the needle and thread all the way through the hole. See photo below.

The inside of the signature should look like the photo below.

 The spin of the book should look like the photo below.

Step 4: Take your needle and push it underneath the last knot (not really a knot, but for lack of a better word...) of the previous signature. See photo below for visual explanation. Make sure that you only push it under the one knot.

Step 5: Pull the needle all the way underneath and up towards self. See photo below. Thread should be looped under the other signature.

Step 6: Push your needle through the same hole that you just came out of. This should be the last hole of the signature that you are currently binding. See photo below. The picture doesn't really show the thread already coming out of the hole but trust me it's there. This is how you create the knot or binding.

 Step 7: Pull the needle all the way tight from the inside of the signature. See Photo below.

Step 8: Thread the needle underneath the thread on the inside of the signature. See photo below.

Step 9: Push the needle back through the same hole you just came out of. This should be the third time you have gone through this one hole. See photo below.

 Step 10: Pull tight. See photo below.

Step 11: Grab your next signature and push the needle through the first hole and repeat steps 2 to 10. (I flip the book so that it is easier to hold and work with). See photo below.

 Photo below shows step 1 starting at the beginning of a new signature.

Photo below shows step 2 (pushing needle through the second hole in the signature).

Once you have completed binding your book (including the front and back covers) you simply tie a really tight know and add a little bit of glue to ensure the knot does not come undone. 

To add the cover to your first signature, you would hold your signature to the front cover (like a book), lining up the holes. Then you would push your needle from the inside of the first signature (moving towards exterior folded part). Keep about two inches of thread and hold with your fingers so that you can tie a knot.  Push your needle through the hole on the cover, but instead of going straight through the cover, you would wrap it around the cover so that the thread was hugging the edge of the cover and coming back through the hole towards the signature. Tie a knot here so your binding does not fall apart. Now follow step 6, moving on to step 2, followed by step 6. Keep repeating until you have reached the last hole of the signature, where you would the do step 8 and step 9. At the time your cover is attached and you can now add your next signature starting at step 11 and going through steps 1 to 10. 

This looks and sounds complicated...and it can be hard but it's essentially repetition. The hardest part is not getting your long thread tangled up!!!

Enjoy and goodnight :)

Frustrated...

*Edit* I found a copy of it!!! Thank goodness!!!

Alright, so I was trying to do something with my blog and I accidentally deleted my post on how to do a binding. Needless to say I am bummed as that post took me forever and a day to do!!! Worst part, the post had not been on my blog long enough for google to "save it". Still trying to figure out a way to recover it, but in the mean time I think I'm going to make myself a tea and have a small pity party :) That will teach me to back everything up!!

Night

Please Excuse...

Please pardon my blogs current state...we are currently undergoing a cosmetic overhaul. Hopefully I will have my blog up and running in appropriate, matching, somewhat attractive attire, with the help of one of my besties, Rachel. You can find her, at her blog here.

Thanks for stopping by.

K :)

Thankful Tuesdays...

Today is Tuesday and today I am feeling especially thankful...

I am thankful for...

Three hour long naps
A healthy baby that laughs more than cries
And Buddy, our boxer, who loves unconditionally

I think moving forward Tuesday's will be Thankful Tuesday's...why? Because today is Tuesday and it's the first time I have blogged since having my son!!! I feel like I have actually accomplished something huge!!! Don't get it, have a baby. LOL.

Now I am off to finish my blog posts about my baby book... :)