Sweetheart Dress Tutorial

Little Girl Toddler Heart Cutout A-Line Bow Shoulder Dress

TUTORIAL/pictorial 

follow the jump to read all about it!

New House - New Projects!

We have set out on a new endeavor: living with roommates in a big house.

Our roomies are another married couple around our age, with two little girls same ages as ours. We'll be splitting rent and household duties. The whole "it takes a village" idea. I think it'll be great.

Also great: my to-do list of little (and big!) projects will keep me occupied for a looonnng time.

Here's our progress so far during the 15 days we've been here. Total cost so far $250 for paint and supplies (not including new furniture, in that case $3,550)

Dining room before after. Amazing what some paint and a new light can do! Capiz shell chandelier and turquoise paint. White trim also, creates a beachy vibe. We still need a proper table and to paint the floor trim. But I like where it's at so far.

Again, amazing what paint can do. We're pretty much under the belief that natural wood trim should be painted white. I also spray painted the ugly brass on the fireplace to make it a nice matte black with Rustoleum for hot surfaces.

Our bedroom. White walls and ugly brown windowsill. A little paint, a nice new bed and a pretty antique map make for a very nice relaxing green and earth toned bedroom.

Playroom! We think it was meant to be the formal dining room, but we're using it as the communal playroom. The paint we chose is a really nice bright (but not lime) green which we've lovingly named Guacamole. Makes me hungry.

Upstairs living room before after. Light & dark grey paints, and a whole new living room setup from Ikea. Unfortunately I didn't take a picture of the window side of the living room before I excitedly started painting.

Moral of the story: paint is amazing.

Cheap remodel paint project before after

Nerd Christmas Gifts - Logo Etched Beer Steins

My husband and his friends are geeks. Comic books and Doctor Who are their favorites. So for Christmas, I'm making them some personalized beer steins with their favorite symbol of geekdom.

I'll be posting a pictorial (picture tutorial) of how I made the Batman one for my husband, since the guys sometimes see my blog and I don't want to reveal theirs.

Materials needed:

• Beer Stein ($1 at the Dollar Store!! Made in US even!)
• Clear packaging tape
• Paper stencil (printed on normal paper)
• Armour Etch paste
• Xacto knife
• Qtips

Halloween! We Scare Because We Care.

We're Monsters, Incorporated!

Our costumes - 
Sully - Husband
Celia - me (wife)
Boo - 2 1/2 yr old Maya
Mike Wazowski - 8mo old Amelia

The Sully costume and Celia's purple bodysuit ordered from Amazon
I sewed the girls' costumes and my (Celia) green dress.  I also cut and velcro'ed the Mike Wazowski costume to fit around the baby carrier!

Loose Tank Top for Big Boobs - Tent into Fit!

I have large boobies. I have a comparatively small waist. Those flowy racerback tank tops are super cute on the A-cup size 0 mannequin but when put on my busty bosoms the tank looks more like a tent. I have a sewing machine. I'm not great at it,  but

I'll share with you what I did to turn this: 

Baggy, oddly-shaped hips, rides up in the front

Into this: 

Fitted but comfy, flattering, professional-looking!

And you can obviously make it looser/tighter according to your preference. So here goes...

I successfully birthed a second human!

Pictures!

Hubs' mom took my older daughter Maya for the night while I was in labor, so this was her reaction upon coming home the next morning! She was very happy and seemed to understand pretty well where Mama's tummy baby went.

Baby Sidecar Co-Sleeper Bed

I finished this project in 2 days. First day was five hours, next day was two.  

We registered on Amazon for a bassinet or a co-sleeper bed that could be pulled up next to ours, instead of having the new baby (still not out yet by the way) sleep in bed with us. Doing our part to reduce the risk of SIDS. 

Here's my little tutorial for the co-sleeper sidecar bed I made in two days! I got the idea from this blogger, his was the only one I found online, so I pretty much just copied it outright.

Block Party! Baby's 1st Birthday Party

Maya and her cousin are a month apart, so for their first birthday, my sister and I threw a joint party! It was alphabet-block themed, so we called it a block party! It was back in May 2012, but I just found the pictures I took! They were hiding on my videocamera.

Block-shaped foods and cakes

Mini Kitchen from re-purposed entertainment center

Fabulous Mini Kitchen: Part I

I am going to make this:

I found a mini-kitchen someone else did, and colored it in Photoshop to match my vision.

And I will post pictures as I go! I'm going to start it very soon (within the next month) so it's done by the time baby gets here.

Christmas DIY toddler project

I had a brilliant idea. In fact, so brilliant, I teared up when I explained it to the hubs. The tearing up might be because I'm pregnant and emotional, but I digress... My brilliant idea was... wait for it...
wait for it...

wait for iiiiiiiiiiittt....


DIY Christmas ornaments! Sparkley, glittery, messy, painty, styrofoamy Christmas ornaments to give to the grandparents (those people are so hard to buy for!!) I figured, even if we make a huge mess and they're un-symmetrical and ugly, they'll still be gorgeous and my Maya will have a blast making them. Aaaand... I'm tearing up.

Finished ornaments

Anyway, here's my tutorial on how we achieved such beautiful goodness.

Mommy projects - the good, the bad, the boring

I fell in love with Pinterest for a little while. I'll admit, I did the stereotypical "Oh, yeah lemme pin that, I'll totally do that project this weekend!" for a few too many things. But some stuff I actually accomplished! One that I'm extreeeemely proud of, and a few others that are just 'eh'.

Share in my joy:

 

Gluten-free almond bread with chocolate chips. The chocolate chips all mushed into a gaping hole in the bottom (as you can see in the picture) which was the BEST part of each slice. But it would've been nice if there was chocolate in every bite. 

 

Browsing Pinterest took me over to thebeautydepartment and inspired me to make my nails pretty. This turned out well, looked cute, but took me friggin 2 hours. I'm just not meant for self-mani's I guess. 

 

I successfully convinced my sister to dress up as Miss Piggy for halloween at work! Not an idea from Pinterest, I'm just really proud of my creation... 

 

One of the more boring Pinterest ideas... Smelled like coffee for maybe a minute. Tops. 

 

This one actually came from a dream! I dreamt about cake doughnuts. Isn't that ridiculous? The whole recipe and everything came to me. Woke up, HAD to make them. They were delicious... except for the few over-fried ones. Hmm.. I should do this again.

This is my daughter and my nephew. Born a month apart, and brilliant me decided to volunteer to watch them both at the same time. Blame it on post-partum, or sleep deprivation, or my baby breastfeeding away my brain... but whatever the case, this was one of my more brilliant ideas from that time (there weren't many, I assure you).
I was SICK of being in the house, so I went into the backyard, put them on a blanket, shielded them from the sun with my gorgeous fort you see there, and voila! we all had a nice nap with a side of Vitamin D.

And now, for the grand finale... my most shining DIY project...

drum roll please...

dum dum dum dum dum dum...

Bookshelves made from pallets! 

 

One [free] pallet, a lot of sanding, nails (not screws!!), elbow grease, and wood stain later and I have never been more proud of something I made. Other than my daughter, but I don't think I can take full credit for her.

 

Here they are populated with books and mounted (quite securely) to the wall.

You can tell the top one (in both pics) was the first -more experimental- one. I cut the beam in half because of a knot that made it lay unevenly... but my flipping it over did absolutely no good whatsoever. Oh well.

What are some of your DIY projects gone wrong or right? Leave your tale(s) in the comments!

How to Start Loving Doctor Who (for newbies)

 If you've ever wanted to get into Doctor Who, but are intimidated by its 50 years of history, read and go do the following.

Time And Relative Dimesion In Space. TARDIS.

Read: The Doctor is a time/space-traveller who doesn't use his birth name (which the audience doesn't know), but just goes by the Doctor. He doesn't really die, he gets replaced by a different version of himself (called regenerating). His time machine/space ship is called the TARDIS and it's that blue phone booth looking thing you might've seen (it's bigger on the inside... like... mansion huge). He goes from place to place, fixing things and saving people/aliens and making everyone love him.

Netflix cover art
to look for

Now: Go on Netflix. Find the Doctor Who (cover art is the Tardis with no people) that says it started in 2005. 

• First, watch the episode called The Eleventh Hour (season 5), 
• then the episode from Season 3 called Blink, 
• then go back to the beginning (2005) and watch IN ORDER. 

You'll suffer emotionally, but you'll be happy about it. 

These are the men who play the Doctor in the current seasons. This picture
has them out of order but they're doctor #s 10, 11, and 9.

*The reason I say start with that one then go back, is the production value greatly increased between seasons 4 & 5, so see the 'Eleventh Hour' and know how much better and less cheesy it gets. The first season especially is SUUUPER cheesy... like... green-goo-and-ramen-thrown-against-a-wall-when-an-alien-explodes cheesy. Then 'Blink' sort of explains how the show works (and it's friggin terrifying and awesome).