Thoughts on love

The other day my husband and I were talking how much we love our little munchkin and wondered how in the world are we going to love our next child as much (or any other children we may have). I am sure all parents have felt this way for a moment. Your heart is so full of love for your son or daughter that it's hard to imagine any more love left to give another child, if you are blessed with another. But, of course, there is a way. We are all capable of more and more love. The more we are willing to let into our hearts, the more our heart grows and our capacity to love grows. I am so grateful to be a parent and for this little glimpse into what our Father in Heaven must feel for all of His children.

Yarn letters

Here's a quick, inexpensive project to add to your gallery wall or to a shelf in your child's room-yarn letters! I've seen these letters in a few homes and wanted to make one for Jack's room. And, while I was at it, one for our gallery wall in the living room. I found the cardboard-like three dimensional letters at Hobby Lobby for under $3 (and then I used a 40% off coupon). I bought some navy yarn, also for under $3, and already had some yellow and teal to choose from at home.

The "E" for the living room looked easier to do (no curves) then the "J" for Jack's room (with a curve), so I started with that. First, I wrapped the yarn across the "E" horizontally.

I left a few inches of yarn at the beginning and the end of the wrap, and then tied a knot with it and the newly wrapped yarn. Be sure to always do that on the back of the letter so the front is nice and clean. I'll probably add a dot of hot glue later if anything looks loosey goosey. Next, I wrapped the "E" vertically. This left the corners bare, but I'm not sure what to do for those or if that even bothers me or not (any ideas?).



And...there we have it!



I decided I will probably pod modge some fabric onto the "J". I started to wrap yarn around the "J" but couldn't get it to look right without it being too thick in certain areas, because of the curve of the letter. I'll share that another day with the rest of Jack's room. (Yahoo! It will be great to finally feel like that room is done!)

Family photos

I'm excited to share our first ever official family photos taken at Sundance last October by the wonderful Jylare Smith Photography. Hey-oh!

Bringing in a bit of sunshine

We're at it again! I think I go in waves of wanting to do painting projects. I love bringing color into the house and I'd rather just do a bunch of projects around the same time so I don't have to keep bringing out and putting away the mess that goes with it. Ha.

Because of the new green dressers in our bedroom (thanks again, honey!), we had some old dressers up for grabs for something else in our home. I thought our long dresser could work as a changing table for Jack. His old changing table was nice, but it was a light green color that was all scratched up (because we didn't paint a layer of sealer after the paint back in the day) and so dang heavy that I hated moving it and sort of hated the thought of keeping it for (hopefully) any future babies. I've been wanting to change up his nursery color scheme from light green, turquoise, grey, and white to yellow, navy, grey, and white (I'll show some photos of his nursery one of these days). Aha! Let's paint the old dresser yellow!

This dresser was given to me by my dear friend in college and has been with me ever since. I think the hardware looks so neat and kind of vintage!

Before.

I used a liquid deglosser, white primer (not pictured), yellow paint and a wood finish for this project.



First, I unscrewed all of the hardware from the drawers.



Then, using an old cloth, I wiped a layer of the liquid deglosser all over the wood. Once that was good and dry, we painted one layer of white primer.



Next came our yellow paint! We ended up painting three coats over the next few days (our only available time is nap time and night time, of course). The color we chose was a nice light yellow with a honey tint called Beehive by Valspar Signature from Lowe's. After the paint was completely dry it was on to the smelly stuff (be sure to ventilate!). We painted two coats of Varathane Wood Floor Finish to seal and protect. Because it was cold, we let each coat sit for 24-48 hours to make sure it was dry and not sticky. Once everything was set, we screwed the hardware back into the drawers and it was done! It's so fun having a yellow piece of furniture in the house!

What do you think?

Jack's monthly onesie photos

I have been so excited to share this!

When I was pregnant with Jack, I knew I wanted to do something fun and simple to document his growth with pictures. I would use a cute, stuffed owl my sister Michelle bought Jack to sit beside him each month but wasn't sure about what he would wear. A friend of mine who makes and sells monthly onsesies (darling white onesies with an iron-on number for each month) contacted me just after Jack was born to see if he would be a model for her portfolio. Perfect. (I'll post later about how I set up the shoot each month.)

I printed out one from each month to make a fun banner that I displayed for Jack's first birthday. Let me tell you, it was hard to pick out only one each month because there were some pretty hilarious and dang cute ones. Maybe I'll share some of the outtakes later. It's so fun to have them all together to see how much he's grown. He was so teeny tiny for the first few months and then filled in nicely. He is such a doll. I just love him. Oh. Anyway, I am happy that I can finally share with friends and family the pictures here.



And...as if you didn't get enough, here they are all together. What a cutie!

A mustache and pumpkin first birthday for Jack

Happy First Birthday to our little boo, Jack! Okay, he's actually 15 months old now and this was last fall, but since I just started this blog I'm allowed to post the photos and details from his birthday party now. Right?

Jack turned one year old on October 4, 2013. We invited friends and family over for a mustache and pumpkin themed birthday party! We did a sweet and salty popcorn bar with mason jars filled with candy, nuts and everything in between. Pumpkin chocolate chip and chocolate cupcakes were also on the menu, along with lemonade and water. Mini orange pumpkins, black mustache cupcake toppers, and black and white mustache napkins helped to decorate our teal kitchen table lined with a burlap runner. We set it up outside (so we could finally use our newly laid sodded backyard) but it was too cold so we just got our treats and crammed back into the house. I even ironed a mustache onto a white onsie for Jack. He liked it.



I made a mini burlap banner with mustaches to hang on his high chair. But my favorite touch was the banner hung behind the food table with all of Jack's monthly onesie photos we've been taking of him all year (details to come later)! It was so fun to finally see them all together and how much he changed month to month.



Jack seemed a little shocked to have so many people over with most of the attention on him. But, I think he was okay with it in the end. I made him a chocolate cake with a whipped cream frosting. He poked at it with his finger but wouldn't dig in so we fed him his birthday cake with a fork. Little bug.



We are so happy and blessed to be this little guy's parents. We can't imagine our lives without Jack. We loved celebrating his first birthday with both sets of grandparents, many cousins, aunts, uncles and friends. He is one loved boy.

DIY tufted headboard

When we first moved into our home in the spring of 2012, we painted an old wooden door green and hung it above our queen-sized bed. Over time, the old door started to come apart on us so we gave it away. Our wall was bare for at least six months with a big ol' metal bar still screwed in right above our pillows. Lovely. We talked about making another headboard and I suggested a nice and soft tufted one (since nursing Jack against a wooden door was less than comfortable for a sleepy momma). Tyson decided he wanted to make one for me for Christmas. After reading many tutorials, we gathered the supplies over a few weeks and started the headboard a week before Christmas (we were procrastinators). On December 26th it was done and hung up on the big metal bar that was waiting patiently to be of use again.

Since there are so many tutorials on how to make a tufted headboard, I'm not going to write it out. Here is the link to the tutorial we followed the most: http://involvingthesenses.blogspot.com/2012/06/diy-button-tufted-headboard.html

Before:

After:

A few things we learned that could save you some headache (if you want to make one yourself):

-This is how to figure out the size of your headboard. You can probably choose whatever height you'd like, but two standard headboard heights are 24" and 36" (ours is 36"). To get the width, just measure your bed from side to side and add 3" to each side (so it's 6" plus the width of your bed).

-You can use any thickness of foam you'd like, but 3" or 4" is recommended. Ours is 4" but we probably could have done 3" and not noticed a ton of difference. We bought ours off of amazon because it was less expensive then a fabric store. It comes 24" high, so we had to order two for our 36" headboard.

-It isn't cheap. We probably spent just over $200 on everything. If you are willing to pay a little bit more rather than put in the sweat and time, then go for it.

-Pick a solid color. If you are a beginner to everything "upholstery" like we were, maybe stay away from stripes. We picked a grey and white striped upholstery fabric. Although it turned out pretty good, it was hard to align the buttons to the middle of a stripe, with the correct tension needed to create the tufts.

-Be sure to use a staple gun. It was quite handy! (Thanks Besi.)

-Buy some waxed thread to use for the buttons/tufts. We thought we could use a bunch of other things (fishing line, upholstery thread and even thin wire) but after a lot of trial an error, we reread the tutorial and noticed it said to use waxed thread in the first place. Ha.

-Be okay with a little imperfection. We are. It is homemade, after all.

Sunday snapshots

How could I resist taking a few photos on our way out of the door to church last Sunday with these two cuties? Showing off their matching ties from Christmas. To see what we believe, you can go here.

A green dresser or two

Yes. We painted our bedroom dressers green. I love color and when my sweet husband surprised me with two, ready-to-be-painted dressers from IKEA (love that place), I jumped at the chance to add some happy color into our room. Of course this meant I got to start from scratch on colors for our bedroom to match our new grey and white striped headboard (photos coming soon). I was debating between yellow, coral, and green but since Tyson also loves green, that was the clear winner. I was worried that the shade I wanted would be hard to find. I didn't want lime green, pea green, or anything of the sort. Just a happy, cheerful, shade of kelly green...and I found it! It's called Aragon Green by Olympic paint from Lowe's. I bought a gallon which was way too much for this project (does anyone need some?). I guess there will be more green projects coming in our distant future. Enough chatter. Let's see the pictures!

Nice and ready for some love.



We painted two coats of Aragon Green (which was paint+primer) and then one coat of Varathane Wood Floor Finish to seal and protect. That stuff is very potent so be sure to have lots of ventilation. Also, keep in mind that the colder it is the longer it takes to dry.



Ta da! All finished. I love how it turned out.

Floral Flashback. A fall wedding

This was the perfect fall wedding and the bride was a dream. T was an intern with us when I worked in the Wedding and Site Decor Department and Thanksgiving Point, so she was familiar with flowers and had great taste. She met me at my wholesaler where she gave me a color palette and then free reign to choose everything else. A floral designer's dream. The groom made all of the wooden boxes used for the centerpieces (awesome!) and the bride planned every detail of her decor with beautiful taste.

Her photo bouquet and bout are the images at the top and her cake flowers, centerpieces and wedding day bouquet are the bottom photos. I wish I had a better picture of her wedding day bouquet because it may have been one of my absolute favorites! For this wedding I used roses, mini calla lilies, dahlias, stock (my favorite), yarrow, heather, solid aster, wax flower, billy balls, scabiosa pods, seeded eucalyptus, silver dollar eucalyptus, green trick, variegated pittosporum, and buplerium. Burlap and twine were used to wrap her bouquet and every corsage and boutonniere were different from one another. A perfect fall wedding.