Yo Gabba Gabba Ruffled Skirt for a Sweet Gabba fan!

My dd is a BIG fan of Yo Gabba Gabba!  All of our children are, but sometimes the boys act as if they are too cool for it... even though they will sit through the fun, colorful program with awesome music and not complain.  Just a few years ago, our oldest was DJ Lance Rock accompanied with his younger brother Brobee, and we have seen them LIVE every time DJ comes home to STL!

Hoffman fabrics has 2 lines of Gabba Fabric and they are fabulous!  I was thrilled when I saw tweet feeds from quilt market with Gabba characters! OVER the MOON! In years past I had created shirts with characters... and we found the hats here.

I made this little ruffled, tiered skirt using free sewing tutorials.  I have tons pinned here. We found the top at Old Navy and she ready to go to the theatre to see Gabba Live! We can't wait to party, party with DJ Lance Rock and the Yo Gabba Gabba gang!  

DIY Pink Play Kitchen perfect for girls!

What we have here is an old wooden play kitchen remodel.  It was flat, dinged up and had painted burners and black plastic knobs.  It has been princess-ized for our dd who enjoys hosting tea parties.  After 2 boys, most of our home has been dinosaur-ed, hot wheeled, cowboy-ed out, so the pink kitchen is perfect for our hostess.  It is one of her favorite colors.  

The old plastic tub sink was replaced with a shiny "stainless steel" dog bowl and the faucet is recycled from the main bathroom.   Glass knobs are from HomeGoods and stainless handles are from HomeDepot.  The pink is inspired by PBK!  I added some trim along the top and bottom of the sink to add some details.

The burners are wooden skewers with E6000 glue and silver spray paint.

Curtain fabrics are inspired by our dd's bedding and designed by Tanya Whelan and Bari J. Ackerman.

Cupcake Creations, Piping Cupcakes with Kids!

The kids have had a really good week and frankly, I was craving chocolate cake.  To make it fun for everyone, I made cupcakes and let the kids decorate with piped frosting from zip lock bags.  We used some leftover treats from our gingerbread kits too.

I made 2 dozen cupcakes and lightly frosted them with some Pillsbury light blue Vanilla icing.

After icing all the cupcakes, I added more blue food coloring and confectioners sugar to thicken up the frosting.

We placed the icing into ziplock bags and let the children be creative.  While I was baking, my boys were intrigued with some how to videos on Youtube.com.  We particularly LOVE howtocookthat.net.  Ann Reardon can pipe really pretty flowers using zip lock bags... you should check it out!

Even the princess got into the action... she enjoyed the candy pieces.

In the end, you can't tell who did what... they are so pretty!

If you are looking for some toddler fun... check out Ann Reardon's channel on youtube.  All you need is some plastic bags, icing, food coloring, confectioners sugar, scissors and cake mix... then have some fun!  We did.  Some cupcakes disappeared while decorating, but that is half the fun!  ENJOY!

Fun Thrift finds for a Tea Party and Decorating Projects

Cruising my favorite thrift stores and I found these great treasures perfect for my dd's 3rd birthday tea party.  Vintage lamp from Germany... $10

Czechoslovakia tea pot (purchased specifically for the pink and purple) $10

pink tea cup and saucer $4

and cute little mini tea cup $2.

Post tea party... what will I do with all the tea cups and pots? I plan on creating a floor lamp... I've seen so many cute ones on Pinterest for inspiration, like the one below, or even the curtain tie back from Better Homes and Gardens.

These cute ideas are from a cute blog called the silly old suitcase! Check it out, what a cheery place to visit for ideas and DIY's!

Master Bedroom Transformations... Time for a Change... Again

In all its splendor... this is our home when we purchased it in July of 2009!  A 70's fixer upper, right down to the multi colored shag carpeting... the decor hadn't changed since the home was built, and we loved the opportunities it presented us... most of all square footage! Lots of room for a future family.  We're maxing it out with the 4th baby on the way, and I am itching to redecorate... we can call it "nesting".

A major bummer is that our digital camera was running out of battery power when taking all the BEFORE shots, so we just jumped into working and don't have many original photos.   A MAJOR regret.  This was before picture cell phones... otherwise we would have been in the clear and you would have seen this room in it's glory with wallpaper  and bright royal blue shag carpeting.

Decked with my husband's bachelor pad furniture, we painted the room a tan color with a dark brown accent wall... my husband hated the brown wall... I didn't mind it, but we ended up just painting the room a Ben Moore Manchester Tan. My hubby busted his butt putting wood flooring throughout the entire home.

This is the current state the bedroom is in.  2 Christmas' ago, I painted over that boring tan... and it is this caramel color.  I like it, but am not in LOVE with the color... so off to the hardware store to get paint swatches... I want a GRAY.

How to get this look...

Ethan Allen Armoire: craigslist... $250

Pottery Barn King Pine Bed: craigslist... $100

8x10 Pottery Barn rug: clearance + discount... $180

Home Depot ceiling fan... $40

left dresser/nightstand: craigslist... $10

right dresser/nightstand: goodwill... $20

long navy Thomasville dresser (as seen in son's bedroom): craigslist... $FREE

pair of chairs: goodwill...$20 for set

Pottery Barn Bedding: king cream velvet comforter $60, Bettina duvet and shams $120

lamps from GW: $20

shades are from Target donations at GW: $10

TOTAL is less than $1000, not bad.

today I changed out the rug... got GRAY paint swatches, and bought an antique desk that might go under the left window for $20 at GW!  Good-bye caramel brown. I don't know what I was thinking... So this is the BEFORE... stay tuned for the AFTER!

Act out your Favorite Books, great kids activity... We love David Shannon!

One of our favorite children's authors is David Shannon!  My children love the character, David, and all his mischief!  For a summer activity, we decided to recreate the book, No, David.  If you are familiar with the book, I have shared just a FEW of our splendid pages with you because we had fun and shamelessly recreated the book in its entirety!  My 5, 4 and 2 year old had a blast!  My dd, who is the youngest can now read the book on her own.  She has it memorized.  We recreated the scenes with our own personal flair, adding personal touches like the Pillsbury Dough Boy cookie jar, and we created scenes of our own.  For example, our son, Matthew painted his 8x10 Pottery Barn rug with cobalt blue acrylic paint... we have a scene that represents that fine day.  First, we took all the pictures.  Secondly, I put them into a word program to add the text in a specific font.  Then we saved the document as a pdf.  Once we completed the book, we sent it off for publishing.  There are many photo book publishing companies out there, but we used viovio.com because they published 2 page spread books in portrait view, rather than landscape and were very reasonable.  The softcovers were $15 for a 40+ page book... I love that my kiddos have this to share with their children some day.   We had a blast making it, and it was a surprise gift for daddy who got the biggest chuckle out of it!

Go figure... they all wanted to do this scene!

We even have #4 in this one... Being a mommy is  such a blessing.