My Love, Love, Love Heart

Let the Valentine decorating begin.....

(yes, hanging my head, I did just take down my Christmas card garland and put my nativity set away yesterday)

I started this last week but just put it together yesterday and I can feel the love! It looks so cute in the entryway.

It took a little while to make the heart but it wasn't difficult. I did it in Microsoft Word and just played around with the spacing so it would look like a heart. I used all different fonts and tried to space out the ones that were bolder. I started off with 20 for a font size because I had an 8x10 frame that I was planning on using. The heart by itself looked really lost and blah in the 8X10 though and since I couldn't get out to check out any scrapbook paper or embellishments - my 4 year old has been down with a stomach bug all week - I made do with what I had. I changed the font to 16 and went with the 5x7 frame and some cute Valentine Day fabric.

I can't take credit for this idea-wish I could, but I know I saw something like this on another blog. I'm pretty sure it was on one of the blogs that lets you link up your projects every week (love those link ups) - but I've tried to look for it and I can't find it anywhere. This is why I really need to put a notebook by my computer so I can jot ideas down. That or I really need to start marking my favorites more often. I always think oh I'll remember that.......yeah, right! I have no memory after 5 children. The project I saw had 3 small frames with I love you each in a different frame. The love part of the saying was a heart like I made-I'm not sure how it was made, I just saw the picture and thought it was cute. If this is your project or you know whose blog it is, please let me know so I can link up and give you/them credit.

Edited to add.....I found where I saw the heart to begin with.....it was at The Stories of A to Z. Beth has been having a mantel party on her blog every week and I saw the heart when she showed us her Valentine's Day Mantel. Her mantel parties are every Friday and another great place to get some wonderful, creative ideas. She did print her heart out and it's way cute! She just tweaked her mantel for the holiday and you can see it here. Glad I finally found it so I can give credit where credit is due. Thank you to all who share their creativity with all of us daily.

In honor of Valentine's Day and love and sharing (both of which my children are having trouble with this week!), if anyone is interested, I'd love to send this file to you. Right now, it's saved in the size 16 font but it's easy to change to make smaller or bigger. Send me your email address or leave a comment here and I'll send it out as soon as I can. If you do use it, I'd love for you to leave a comment with a link or send me a picture so I can see what you've done and we can share all the projects.

I linked up to Weekend Wrap Up Party at Tatertots and Jello, Strut Your Stuff Thursday at Somewhat Simple,

Get Your Craft On at Today's Creative Blog,

Show and Tell at Blue Cricket Design

and

Show Off Your Stuff at Fireflies and Jellybeans.

How to make your mom feel old.....Part 2

With my daughter's birthday last week and my son's coming up, the girls and I were chatting over the weekend about birthdays, when they were all born and when I got married.

My 6 year old: I can't believe how young you was when you were married.

(I was 24, turned 25 on my honeymoon.....oh a birthday in Hawaii-how I'd love to do that again some day.!)

My 9 year old: Yeah, you were so much younger when you got married and had a baby.

Me: What, you think I'm old now.....

My 9 year old: No (slight pause)- not old, just not that much younger anymore.

Good way to try to make nice to mom!!

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I'm very honored and excited to be featured today on Somewhat Simple

Steph is highlighting Baby and Kid items and she featured some of the baby bibs I've made for gifts!

WOW!

Big Happenings at our House......

we've had a busy few-and emotional for mom-days at our house

On Monday, my youngest (I need to stop calling him the baby) got his haircut for the first time...sniff, sniff. I really resisted this and put it off for probably waaaaayyyy too long. Not probably, yes, way too long-oh boy, I had such a hard time with this. After he was called a girl again last week, I bit the bullet and while the girls had school off and my husband was home on Monday, we went to the hair salon. I had a knot in my stomach the whole time.

Before.....

During.....
After.....
He looks adorable but so different and of course, older. He was so good and the hair stylist was so fast. As you can see, she gave him a lollipop and he was happy as can be!

The girls loved their lollipops too-they were so excited to see him have his haircut-I'm glad we did it while they were home.
and as if the haircut wasn't enough for me.....my oldest daughter celebrated her 13th birthday yesterday-sniff, sniff, sniff!

13
Wow!! Aaahhh!
I'm still trying not to think about having a teenager!!

It's hard to believe that 13 years ago, I was just starting off with my first child, but what a wonderful 13 years it has been.

We went out to Red Robin after the haircut and had a fun dinner. The birthday person always gets to pick where they want to go for dinner. We celebrated again last night with some more ice cream sundaes-she doesn't really like cake/cupcakes-and presents.

Happy, Happy 13th Birthday!!


My thoughts and prayers are with all the people of Haiti and all those families who have relatives in Haiti. My girls' school is collecting money for the Red Cross. When you donate money, they are putting your name on a set of hands and posting it in the hallway to show the kids how much they can all do by working together. They went way above their desired goal the first day! and have collected way more than they ever thought. Although it's easy to feel helpless, it's wonderful to see our community and other communities across the United States doing whatever they can to help out.

We have a winner!!!

and the winner is #6!!!

Juliana from A Blond Walks Into a Blog.......

who can now say she has won her second ever giveaway-she's been very lucky lately!!

Thanks to all who entered-I love doing giveaways-I'll have to plan some more.

Juliana-send me your address and I'll get the notebook cover out to you.

I love tshirt re-purposing.......

Love, love, love it!

My 4 year old fell in love with this Princess shirt at Walmart.....on clearance-yeah!.....her present size-yeah!......short sleeves-boo! I knew it wouldn't fit her in the spring/summer.

Ashley from Make It and Love It to the rescue! I again used her tutorial on taking a shirt from short sleeves to long-easy, peasy, lemon squeezy!!

That's my 6 year old's favorite new saying but I'm not sure where she heard it!

The now long sleeve Princess shirt that my daughter wore on Sunday. I forgot to take some pictures of her so please excuse the wrinkles and possible stains. I used an older pink tshirt of hers that was too small for the sleeves and ruffles.

I decided to fancy the tshirt up and put a ruffle around the neck. I didn't have much time because my daughter was jumping around my sew maching waiting to put her shirt on, so I didn't pregather the ruffle, I did it just like this.
Very simple and quick!

Once my daughter wore the shirt for the day, I thought the sleeves were a little too short so yesterday, I cut a 2 inch strip from the same pink tshirt and sewed it around the bottom of the arm. I didn't gather it at all, I just stretched the arm of the shirt but did not stretch the strip of fabric and it kind of gathers on its own. I just realized looking at the picture that I need to trim those arm ruffles a bit to even them out. Someone has moved my sewing scissors again so I was just using regular craft scissors.

I'm linking up to Show and Tell at Blue Cricket Design,

Strut Your Stuff Thursday at Somewhat Simple,

Show Off Your Stuff at Fireflies and Jellybeans and

Today's Creative Blog Get Your Craft On

Check out these blogs for lots of great ideas!

First GIVEAWAY of the new year

and my second giveaway ever!!

Remember the fabric notebook covers I made for the girls' teachers? Well, it was just as easy to cut fabric for two as for one so...... I ended up with an extra notebook cover.

I'm giving away one fabric notebook cover -complete with notebook-to a lucky winner.

If you'd like to enter this giveaway, leave a comment telling me how nice I am-just kidding, just leave a comment and I'll pick the lucky winner on Sunday, January 17th!

T-shirt Transformation

My last project of 2009 (of course, watch, next time I write the date, I'll put 2009 instead of 2010 and I've been so good!) was something I've wanted to try for awhile......but wasn't quite sure of........ repurposing a tshirt.

I'm a sucker for t-shirts on clearance........and you know, with 5 kids, I'll use it sooner or later ..... someone's good tshirt will get one of those mysterious stains that won't come out or I'll need a last minute birthday present. So, I had a short sleeve, boring, grey t-shirt just hanging around....... begging to be refashioned.........waiting for a child to wear it.......no, really, my 9 year old just needed some more long sleeve shirts for winter. I remembered, a while back, Ashley at Make It and Love It took a short sleeve shirt and showed how to change it into a long sleeve shirt -awesome and easy!! Great idea and so many, many possiblilities!!!

I used a pink t-shirt of mine -I never wore it because it was too long- for the sleeves and the ruffle on the front. Very satisfying to use something that you probably would have gotten rid of any way. I'm looking at t-shirts in a whole new light now. I think the toughest part was measuring the short sleeve to see how wide to cut the longer sleeve. I ended up having to cut the long sleeve smaller and pinning it a couple times until it fit.

I wasn't sure what to put on the front because I've seen so many neat ideas. My daughter picked ruffles on the front. I gathered my strip first though, right down the middle, and then sewed it on to the t-shirt right along the gather stitch. I may add one on each side of the current one, we haven't decided. Another thought was for a flower on the front of the shirt like this or a bunch of flowers like this.

Great project-quick, easy and fun!!

edited to add I linked up with Today's Creative Blog Get Your Craft On

and Blue Cricket Design's Show and Tell Wednesday

and Somewhat Simple's Strut Your Stuff Thursday and

Round Robin at Keeping up with The Schultz Family

Check out all these blogs for some great, creative ideas! Thanks to all who share their wonderful ideas with the rest of us!!!

Happy New Year!!

We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day.

~Edith Lovejoy Pierce

Wishes for a happy, healthy New Year!