Friday, May 25, 2012

The One With the No Sew Birthday Banner

 This year I wanted to make a birthday banner for my hubby. I also want to use this banner for all the birthdays in our family. I think it will be a fun tradition for the girls to wake up on their birthday and see the fun banner and have a  yummy birthday breakfast.

I love banners/garlands on the fireplace. I think they are a good way to decorate for an event/holiday without having to decorate the whole house. These are the supplies I used:

1. Ribbon. I wanted something wide and colorful. I also made sure it had boy and girl colors in it, without being too girly or boyish. Colorful polka dots worked for me!
2. Felt. I love felt! I brought my ribbon over to the felt section of Hobby Lobby and picked out some coordinating colors. I also got white felt for the letters.
3. For extra fun, I got pom pom trim. (As in, the stuff that dangles off of sombreros!)  I don't know why, but I think this stuff is adorable. 
4. Hot glue.  I can technically kinda sew, but it's not pretty. Hot glue is my friend.

First, I hot glued the pom pom trim to the front of the ribbon for a fun textured look. 
Then I cut out a bunch of triangles out of the felt, and glued those to the back of the ribbon, making a pattern with the colors.

To make the letters, I typed the words "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" in all caps in a cute font. I made sure that the font had a lot of straight lines, because they would be easier to cut later on. I used size 150 font, but I forget the name of it. It wasn't fancy.  I printed the letters and cut them out.  Once they are cut out, I traced them backwards on the white felt with just a regular skinny Crayola marker. That way, you didn't see the yucky ink when you flip it over. 

Then I cut the letters out an hot glued them onto the triangles. Voila!

And here is my hubs with his birthday banner! I can't wait to take a picture with it every year!


My inspiration to make a family birthday banner is from a website called www.Icanteachmychild.com  Its my FAVORITE blog. It's from a Christian mom that used to be a reading teacher and now stays at home with her 2 boys. She has a lot of fun themed ideas, and sorts her arts/crafts/learning games/book activities by age! Love it! She has 2 boys, so a lot of her things are boy-themed, (but not all of them). All of her ideas are cheap too, like "match your pots and pans with their correct lid" etc. A lot of good rainy day activities are there as well. You should check her out!

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

The One with our 8 month photos

We just got our 6-9 month photos in! They are fun!
 bow heads
 yummy grass
 wagon party
 squinty family
 we love grass!
 girly girls
 Char has 1,000 arm rolls! :)
 nom nom necklace
 cutesy baby
 chevron buds
 Char was a ham!
 slumber party
I was kinda bummed because normally Emily is SUPER smiley, but she wasn't that day. Oh well.  They turned out cute and I'm excited to print some off!  Thanks Melissa Dieterich!

Thursday, May 10, 2012

The One With Baby Adventures

I thought I'd make you feel clean and awesome by telling you about recent adventures.

1. Poop.  I walked out of my bedroom the other day (while the girls were napping) and distinctly smelled poop. You know that smell when somebody steps on dog poop and everyone immediately checks their shoes? That smell was wafting across the house from the nursery. I found Charlotte happily asleep with her entire bed covered in poop.
Moral dilemma: 
A.) wake up your baby and clean her off (although none is near her face or hands) knowing that she will scream, wake up her sister and they both will hate you all day long
OR
B.) let your baby happily sleep in a poop bed while risking the fact that she could wake up at any time and possibly eat/play with her poop

sigh. I cleaned her up.

2. My babies can take off their diapers now. And they're tying to take off each others diapers as well. We put 2 diaper babies to sleep and woke up with 2 naked babies in pee beds.

3. Charlotte was caught almost teething on a used rectal thermometer.

4. I apparently didn't prewash my new underwear. Therefore they dyed the lower region of me fluorescent pink. For 2 days.

5. I Febreezed my jeans because I didn't have time to wash them. And by Febreeze I mean Great Value lysol spray because we ran out of Febreeze.

6. Emily ate a button.

7. I poked Emily in the eye with a baby spoon full of cottage cheese. Ok, she actually head-butted the spoon. But there was a lot of crying and cheese involved.

8. On Tuesday I preheated the oven to make cookies. I found Saturday's unbaked potatoes inside.

9. I tried on clothes in the middle of Old Navy (over my regular clothes) because my stroller didn't fit in the fitting room.

10. I forgot to wear deodorant twice. Sorry, America.

11. As I was about to put 2 naked babies in the bathtub, I found my iPhone floating in the water. (Magically, it still works!)

12. I made an insane trip to Babies R Us in which I pushed my 30 foot stroller while pulling a cart behind me. I felt like I was on Supermarket Sweep. 500 diapers. Baby food. 2 economy boxes of formula. Wipes.
Lots of employees said, "You've got your hands full!!!!" and kept walking.
Thanks. Thanks a lot, stranger. Thank you for your unhelpful, unsolicited comments.


I think other things have probably happened to me that were gross and adventurous, but I forgot. At least I'm never bored, right? :)


                                                              (love my little turkeys!)




The One with the Winner

The winner is...




















Ashley Beane!
Please send me your email address (on Facebook) and the people at Cherry Hill Designs will send you your $20 electronic gift card! Hooray! Thanks for playing guys!

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

The One with Adorable free Stuff

I'm having my very first GIVEAWAY!!!! Yep, I'm giddy.

I'm pretty excited because this stuff is adorable and could be used by anyone (not just moms).
I'll start with the non-mom stuff they have, and then get to the mom stuff.

The site is called www.CherryHillDesigns.com.  Their motto is "Label With Style". Who doesn't love labeling and organizing!?! Even if we aren't successful, we still strive to organize and have cute things, right? Thanks, Pinterest.

This giveaway is for a free $20 gift card!

What I'm newly excited about is their chalkboard labels. They are peel and stick, and are compatible with chalkboard markers as well. You can label just about anything with these. They come in a variety of sizes and shape choices (rectangle, oval, circle, scalloped). I know my teacher friends would think these are super cute! Sets range from $8.50-$10.50. Not bad! I want to order these so I can organize my pantry.


They also have address labels, gift tags, and other personalized household items. I appreciate that they usually give you a choice of cute fonts and colors.  I love their new iPad and iPhone cases!


For moms, they have the coveted waterproof labels. We own these. They can label anything from sippy cups, plates, pacifiers, bowls, toys, etc. We bought a set so we could tell the difference between Charlotte and Emily's bottles and pacis. They go through a beating! We wash them daily and they haven't peeled off in 8 months.  We also use the steam bags to sterilize their pacifiers and they still are sticking strong!

Labels are a "must" for moms of twins, or moms that have kids in daycare/church nursery.  These are much cuter than writing with a sharpie, and they don't rub off! We bought a set that has 48 mini labels for only $10, and haven't even used half of them yet! Adorable and affordable.




                                                                     (our tiny labels!)

They also have personalized melamine plates & bowls, diaper bag tags, clothing labels, and so much more. Their site shows you all of your font and color options.

I will randomly draw 1 winner of a FREE $20 gift card to this site!!!

Here's how to enter:
-Check out their website at www.cherryhilldesigns.com

-Comment below about what you would use your $20 gift card towards if you won! (anyone can comment, you don't have to sign in or anything)

-You get extra entries for:
           -"sharing" this blog link on facebook
           -liking Cherry Hill Designs on facebook
           -bravely commenting if we're friends on facebook but you're afraid to comment because you   think you're stalking me. You're probably not stalking me. It's cool. I like you. I deleted all the weirdos on my facebook.

Just leave a comment below for each one of these things you do. Example:

Comment 1:
Hey Liz! I'm Tina, your long lost friend. I'd buy a super cute owl label set for my baby with the $20!
Comment 2:
Tina again. I liked Cherry Hill Designs on Facebook.
Comment 3. 
It's Tina. I shared your blog link! Now I have 3 entries in your giveaway. 

The end. Easy, huh?
Get hypothetical shopping, people! :)

Giveaway ends at midnight May 9th (my birthday!)
Make sure you check back May 10th to see if you are a winner!