Some of my Craft Projects from 2014

Here is a summary of some of the fun projects I did during the past year:

 A Hanging Carseat Cover

 Made Especially for Kelsi's baby…. and kept in mind the colors of their favorite university in the process… ;)

This is a Christmas Cookie tin that I repainted for their little one (to hold all of her goodies). 

 Baby Bow-ties and Suspendered Onesies in Preparation for baby boy

My Inspiration (as seen on makeit-loveit.com )

(bow-ties in progress)

Completed Onesie and Bowtie Combo. 

The thing that makes me happiest about this project was that I was so happy to discover that you can "dress up" and make stylish things for boys too… not just girls.  Right now I am super obsessed with making stylish skinny leggings for little man in different prints…. he already has like 7 different pair…. but those will have to be for another post as they are TECHNICALLY a "2015" thing and I just so happen to STILL be behind and blogging about 2014.  LoL.

Nursery Vinyl Tree
I designed the Colors and prints of the scene… but knew it was super unrealistic to try and cut it with my little machine…. so I found someone on Etsy to Print it :)

 Baby Shoes and Bows (for a ward member's baby shower)

Nail Polish Rack

 I read a tutorial on Pinterest that made it seem pretty easy….. It was a lot more difficult that I thought it was going to be…. but I did it! Wahoo!

Vinyl creations via Silhouette Machine

A Saying for my Craft Wall

Just Painted

Plus Dark wax and gold paint accents

A quote on a canvas, also for my craft room 

Above the headboard in our bedroom

I am a child of God

I made this to match the nursery for the baby girl of our besties in Phoenix

I am a child of God-2nd Edition

I ended up switching it up and making baby boy's like this… more of a subway art style… and in a color theme to match his Nursery too of course :)

Door Numbering for the rooms upstairs

I felt like it was too boring to call it "the craft room"… and since technically I also have my nail polish and a few other not directly "craft related" items… I decided this was a more appropriate title.  Not to mention I found it humorous to have "all things feminine" directly across the hall from "The Man Cave"--insert chest thumping audio clip here-- :)

Item Revival: White Mirror to a Cork Board

Yup…. No before Pictures…. Curses. It started out as a plain white frame around a mirror.  I painted it SeaFoam green and took out the glass and replaced it with Cork Board. Once I added ribbon, I started using it right away to pin up projects that were in process

 Then as I thought about it… the SeaFoam green was cute, but I wanted it to have a little more character, so I painted in the crevices with a shade of light blue to add some dimension...

And then  I antiqued it with dark wax. NOW I absolutely love it and still use it all the time in my craft room!!!! One of my most used, if not THE most used craft I've made to date!

Item Revival: Refinishing a D.I. Table
I'm sad I didn't do a TRUE before/After Shot. I sincerely just didn't think about it because I was just so excited to transform it!  I found this super plain wooden kitchen table at D.I. for $15 and thought that if I refinished it, it would make a fabulous addition to my Craft Room…. and I was right :)

As you can see by the unpainted leg here…. super plain at first. I painted the whole table olive first (as you can see by the back leg), and then painted the top a teal color.  Afterwards I distressed/antiqued it with sandpaper and wax.  These pictures were taken on my phone at night…. so the coloring is off and doesn't really do it justice….. but I am so happy with the finished product!

And this picture is to document that I was able to lay down plastic and paint right in the house! Gasp!  However, you should know, I only felt comfortable doing this because I was using Annie Sloan Chalk Paint, which is super fun and easy to use (after you've taken a class to learn its idiosyncrasies)… and my favorite part is that the paint is organic so it doesn't give you a headache from fumes and you can actually use water to dilute OR clean up any spills, so long as you haven't already applied the wax. It has fabulous coverage so you can layer and sand to reveal, or not sand if you decide you didn't like original color and just want to repaint down the road. When I paint mirrors or picture frames with the chalk paint, I don't even use tape or plastic because I know that I can just use a damp cloth to wipe up any spills….. #AMAZING.  Seriously… I feel like it has totally boosted my confidence to refinish things.  Before painting was always scary and felt so "permanent"…. but it doesn't have to be…. so between taking the class and using this product, I feel like I have a complete boost of confidence in my transformation abilities :). 

The Hulk

Because I already talked about this in the October blog… not gonna go into explicit detail-rather a quick summary… but yes. I made baby's costume…..
-Went to Joann's and picked out the fabrics I liked
- Drew on a piece of paper the way/size I wanted the muscles to be
- cut out the individual muscles in the pattern and traced them onto NuFoam.
- took a pattern from a 3-6 month onesie (as he was only wearing 0-3 at the time) for a little extra space
- Cut out the muscles and using a washable gluestick, I adhered them to the appropriate pieces of the onesie (before it was all sewn together).
- Placed a piece of soft knitted fabric on the back of the muscles to enclose them, and then sewed along the outline of all of the muscles.
- Sew the onesie pieces together with muscles already attached, then make a quick pair of leggings, shorts, and hat.

 I was SO SCARED I was gonna mess up and it wasn't gonna work out…. but I was so determined that I just gave myself plenty of time (a few weeks) and was so pleased when it actually came together. Granted…. there are things I would have done a little bit differently in hindsight… but for his #firstcostumeever….. can't beat myself up too much :)

Item Revival: Hope Chest Refinish

Yup….. You guessed it…. Also an Annie Sloan Chalk Paint Special!!!
Another Before/After Fail….. As evidenced by the fact there is only an After picture posted here. Haha.  Background on this piece: It is actually a Hope Chest that was given to my mother by her parents (my grandparents), but the exterior was destroyed when my parent's house flooded around 2012 (I think?).  My mom gave the piece to my older sister who was going to give it to DI or toss it.  I took it and refinished the outside, but preserved the original cedar wood on the inside :). LOVE.

A kid fort

I made this for Joe/Jillian's baby John for Christmas (we drew them for gift exchange this year).  She told me her nursery colors were going to be a light green and grey, so I found this print and thought it was perfect. I also made him Suspendered Onesies and several baby bow ties, of course…. and then we did glass etching on 8 mugs that said their last name.  We were pretty proud of ourselves…. Okay, correction…. I was pretty proud of myself, and Jason was happy that I was proud of myself. Haha. 

Playing Catch-up on 2014, Part 7 (December)

December 2014

Lucas got his first Picture on Santa's knee:

Don't you love the "deer in the headlights" look?  I guess it could have been A LOT worse… I was just happy he wasn't screaming! hahaha.

Rice Cereal:
 This little guy LOVES to eat. That's for sure!  However when he does, poor little guy doesn't stand a chance at staying awake to play.

Mmmmmmm......Food Coma

Other Happenings:

Hates being alone during nap time and it's quite an ordeal every day

Loves Sunday naps next to Daddy

This is what grocery shopping looks like lately

I Continue to be SO GRATEFUL for my ErgoBaby Carrier. Whether out and about, or just around the house, it's seriously a lifesaver. 

Hair seems to be getting thicker, longer, and more blonde all the time.

TEETHING!!!!

Obsessed with Leidy and her toys!!!!  SERIOUSLY loves her so much. It's adorable.

Play Hard, Sleep Hard

First BYU Jammies.... Costco for the Winnnnn!

Family Pictures for Randi:
She asked me to take pictures for her family. All of her kiddos are so dang cute that it made my job SIGNIFICANTLY easier!!!

Everyone was trying to get him to look at the camera, so he started to imitate us. Cutie. Lol.

And don't you just LOVE this one???!!!  It totally has a dreamy, "timeless" look to me. Love it.

And of course by the end they were ALL getting antsy.... so the way I was able to motivate them to focus and give good smiles just a LITTLE bit longer, was because I promised we would do silly pictures and jumping pictures at the end. 

And these ones crack me up because they had SUCH a hard time jumping at the same time. LoL

Reminiscing:

With the Holidays fast approaching, I find myself reminiscing that it was a year ago now that we were getting ready for our surprise Christmas announcement that we were expecting Lucas!  This picture was taken like 2 days before we made the announcement on Christmas Day 2013….. SO CRAZY

This year we were with my Family (Wyson's) for Christmas, and some of the happenings are outlined below.

Gingerbread Competition--
This is an every-other-year thing- when the Wyson's have us for Christmas.
Every year it seems to be more and more intense.  It is funny because this year I knew that I had to work the Tuesday before Christmas (I usually work Thursdays, but since Christmas was on a Thursday this year I floated my work day to Tuesday), and I thought Jason would have to work Tuesday as well.  When I said something to my mom about possibly not participating accordingly, she said "Well I am the vice president of the company technically, so I don't think he should have to work that day." I wasn't gonna complain about that!  And then I found out I only had one patient to see on Tuesday.... all of the sudden I started to panic because I no longer had an excuse to not participate in the gingerbread competition. Why did this cause me to panic you ask?  Well, because I don't know how to do things "halfway."  If I am going to actually try to do something, I want to do it right..... Which means there is no such thing as a small project, because everything seems to turn into a huge undertaking. The good thing about it is that Jason, for the most part, likes things "done well" as well (whether it's a house project, people over for dinner, or gingerbread competition, etc).  It is ALWAYS much easier when it's a team effort, that's for sure!
      We started brainstorming and I wasn't coming up with ANYTHING.  Sometimes I have a really hard time coming up with novel ideas. But if you give me any idea, I can develop it and outline all of the tiny details.  This makes Jason and I the perfect team in that regard. Sometimes the ideas he comes up with are out in left field.... but if I don't immediately scoff at them, and actually let the thought "marinate" a little bit, sometimes it can be turned into something fabulous.
     For example, this year he said "I want to do a huge Mayan Temple."  At first I rolled my eyes and laughed, but I wrote it down on our brainstorm list (details of which cannot be revealed JUST IN CASE we use them in future competitions ;) ). However, we both kept coming back to it. Then it hit me..... we have to use the Costco gingerbread house, but there are NO RULES regarding how we have to use it...... so the wheels started turning.  I decided we would build a Huge Mayan temple from Top Ramen, and then use the Costco gingerbread house as the "tour guide hut."
    From there it was all fun and the creative juices were flowing as we were figuring out how we could create this masterpiece.

Even with 3 cases of ramen noodles, we realized once we started building it that we were a few ramen short and needed to improvise accordingly:

Notice all of the detail that went into this scene?  I seriously feel like pictures don't do justice, so I am going to highlight some areas... not to mention we were so proud that we were able to pull it off and keep everything edible.
- Pretzel Steps up to the Temple
- Monkeys
- Green sprinkles, coconut flakes, and licorice to represent grass/vines/greenery
- **Rippling Hard candy waterfall and river below** (supported by pasta and thick pretzel sticks)
- **Hard candy walkway
- pretzel/pasta bridges over the river
- Intentionally Misspelled tour guide signs.
- The tin (thus silver) roof make of pasta noodles.
- The Mayan Sun

.... And the list goes on.  No Wonder this thing LITERALLY took us about 10 hours despite all of the planning before to know exactly where everything went! No wonder Jason got bored. HA!

Aren't all of these other houses amazing too??

Alice in Wonderland (Tracie and her friend Sam)

Noah's Ark (Natali and Reed)

Descpicable Me (Randi)

Log Cabin  (Joe and Jillian)

Mario Kart (Jaimee, Joey and Jayden)

The Wyson Retreat (Sam and Melissa)

The Hunger Games-Catching Fire (Jared and Sid)

SERIOUSLY??!!!  HOW in the WORLD do we all come up with different ideas every year, and yet so creative at the same time.   It BLOWS MY MIND.  Mom and Dad said that next year they will give a specification on how large your board can be to make sure we don't start making "gingerbread villages".... hahahaha. In all honesty, that would probably be a good idea to put the limitation so we don't get too crazy. lol.  Every year I think to myself, "There is no way we will be able to top last year's!!".... and then we do! Here's to 2016!  Hoping it's the best one yet :) .... though I'm seriously wondering if that is even possible. lol.

Christmas/Family Pictures

SUCH a smiley little guy. Love him to pieces.

Christmas Caroling

My mom sent out the music before everyone came out so we could practice our parts.  Here is a clip Jason caught of us warming up our vocalizers (if you are unable to view this video, go here: jdubandladyd.blogspot.com)

The Nativity:

 The Wise Men

Joseph---throwing a tantrum because that walk to Bethlehem was JUST TOO FAR!!! :)

The Angel

Mary

 Mary, Joseph, and Baby Jesus

 The Shepherd being "sore afraid"

 Lucas was so happy and peaceful throughout.... it was such a tender experience!!! He was the Perfect little baby Jesus!!!

 The WHOLE Nativity Crew

Lucas was seriously the hit of the Holidays. Everyone loved him during caroling as he just hung out in his ErgoBaby Carrier.... totally content... not making a peep.  Then around the Wyson home, everyone there was swooning over him and wanting to hold him.  And as you can see below, he was ESPECIALLY doted upon by his Aunt Natali. It was so fun.  He soaked up all of the love and attention, while wishing it could have lasted forever.

 The Pajama Crew

 "This way to the gun show....." lol

 Special delivery straight From Santa..... ;)

He's starting to turn into a little man... so crazy!!!

And He already LOVES playing and spending time with his Daddy

On a side note....... Stefanie and Sam (Jason's sister and husband) had us for Christmas this year, and Lucas absolutely  loved EVERYTHING he got from them.  Nice Work guys!

Leidy loved her gifts too as you can see in the video:

(if video does not work click here to see full blog)

Lucas Also loved the other gifts he got too!!.... ALMOST as much as the wrapping paper or tissue paper they were under or wrapped inside of. Haha.