'An All Things Lovely Blog'
$10. That’s all it took these last few particular days to make an epic day for my little girl. A $10 baby swimming pool filled with water on a warm summer day.
She loved it! But more than anything having her mommy step away from the computer, the cell phone, the other things that tend to fill up our days…. THAT is what made it epic.
Take a couple of hours today, and maybe $10 ;), and spend some time just enjoying your children. I swear to you their smiles make it SO SO worth it!
I’ve been thinking for awhile that my daughter needed a Quiet Book to use for things like Church or waiting in the dr’s office. In case you’re unversed, like my husband who said upon hearing I planned to make a quiet book, “Cool. What’s that?”, a quiet book is a book of “games” and activities for little ones that don’t make any sound. Again, perfect for those quiet places like church or riding in the car for vacation!
So, I did some research, enter Pinterest, and found there are several kinds of quiet books. Fabric, felt, combination, etc. I decided to make mine entirely out of felt. I’m using a sheet of felt for each page thus cutting down on the need to cut and sew fabric. And I’m using felt for most of the activity pieces. I pinned several fun page ideas, asked friends for ideas and decided on the pages I wanted to make and what I would need.
Today I finished the first page for her book and thought I’d share each page with you all as I go along, culminating with the book as a whole as well as some fun ideas I found along the way when all is finished. So, here’s the first one, a Felt Purse Quiet Book page.
The only materials you need for this page are felt for the page, the purse, the flap and the goodies for inside the purse. You’ll also need Velcro dots for the flap fastener and yarn to attach the goodies going into the purse.
I just hand drew the purse onto the felt and cut it out. Then you’ll sew the flap down onto the felt. You could just hot glue it too if sewing isn’t your thing. It gets attached first so you can fold it over the purse body to make the flap.
Then you’ll sew the purse body to the page, fold the flap over and attach your Velcro dots to the purse and flap to make your closure.
I also sewed on a cute felt “button” for the front of the purse flap.
I cut out some green felt for “paper” money, orange felt for quarters, pink felt for a hand mirror and purple felt for Chapstick. You know, the necessities every girl needs. 😉 I just drew on each piece with a permanent marker, then cut a small hole to attach a piece of white yarn. The other end of each piece of yarn was sewn inside the purse so that when she’s playing with the pieces they won’t get lost!
And that’s it! I think it took me about thirty minutes to make the entire page. At that rate surely I’ll get the entire book finished before we go on vacation in a month… Hopefully. 😉
Did you make/buy/receive a quiet book for your children or when you were a kid? What was your favorite page?
FYI, we’re linking this to these fun parties.
It’s been a long while since I’ve shared a DIY or tutorial here on le blog… So it’s about time for one don’t you think?? That’s what happens when you become a first time mommy and the rest of life completely takes over. 😉
Way back in August, a month after my girl was born, she had a ton of cute bows, flowers, barrettes, etc. and no real place to put them. Especially a place where I could easily see them and pick one to match her outfit. So, I decided to make her very own bow holders. Plural because one just wouldn’t be big enough for all the pretty hair accessories this girl had already collected!
The materials needed include:
Step 1: Paint your wood craft plaques. I painted mine pink and purple with brown accents to match the other colors of Klara’s bedroom.
Step 2: If you’re like I was at the time, take a moment while your plaques dry to enjoy your sleeping baby and a cup of tea… oh… and the drying laundry hung over the dining table chairs. You do what you gotta do as a new mommy, right?! 😉
On a side note can we just take a minute and sigh over how tiny my girl was at one month old!!! She’s nine months old now and there’s no way she’d fit in that cute little bed anymore, much less stay in it… haha
Step 3: Once your plaques are completely dry, add the vinyl lettering for the names. I chose to use Klara’s first and middle name. Again, like I mentioned above, I cut out the names in white vinyl using my Silhouette machine and then applied them using transfer paper.
Step 4: Hot glue a strip of ribbon to make a loop on the top of each plaque for hanging. Then hot glue three strips of ribbon to the bottom of each plaque for the hair accessories. After I hot glued the ribbons I added the flat head tacks for added support. I just really wanted it to hold up well. {Side note, so far it has! 8 months + later and there are WAY more hair accessories on them now!} The ribbon I used was a cute set of cowgirl ribbon, to match Klara’s bedroom theme, also purchased from Hobby Lobby.
Step 5: After hanging them up as they were at this point I decided they lacked sparkle and hot glued three rhinestones to each plaque to fancy them up a bit… Much better! Then just hang on the wall and had your hair pretties!
Your turn: Do your girl(s) have tons of hair accessories? How do you store or display them?
Check out where we link up on our Party With Us Page!
It’s a known fact. Every little cowgirl needs a pony of her very own. Our little cowgirl is still a bit too tiny to have her very own real horse… Even though she’s already made her first ride with her daddy on his…
BUT I found a fun way for her to have her very own horse to enjoy until she’s old enough to have the real thing. Or at least old enough to ride her bouncy horse… 😉
A horse wall sticker from Icon Wall Stickers.
They have all kinds of fun wall stickers to choose from including several different horse stickers. I was able to choose the sticker I wanted for Klara’s wall, the size I wanted and then the color. I chose this Galloping Horse Sticker in the small size and nut brown color.
When it arrived it was on one large sheet… I was nervous about applying such a large sticker to the wall, but the instructions included made the process quite easy.
Step 1: Tape the four corners of the sticker with masking tape to the wall. You want the see through side facing out and the more opaque side against the wall. Tape a strip of masking tape through the middle of the sticker to serve as your anchor point.
Step 2: Remove the tape from one side of the vinyl. Peel the back off the sticker to the middle (to the anchor tape). Cut the backing off as close the anchor tape as possible.
Step 3: Smooth the sticker onto the wall using a credit card to remove any bubbles. It’s best to work from the middle out.
Step 4: Repeat steps 2 and 3 on the other side of the sticker.
Step 5: Carefully peel away the top clear paper leaving your fun new wall sticker in place.
Now Miss Klara has her very own horsey on the wall of her bedroom/nursery. I hope to share more of the room with you sometime soon. Including those hair ribbon holders you can just get a peek of in some of these photos. 
It’s a little cowgirl theme and the horse was a perfect addition.
The sticker itself was easy to apply, especially with the instructions that came with it. A word of caution though, our walls are textured so it took some time to really get everything smoothed out so that it would adhere to the wall. But once it was finished it turned out really nice.
Your turn: Do you have a theme for your child’s nursery or bedroom? What is it?
Hey there!! Long time no talk!!! Thank goodness for Fancy This Fridays or you wouldn’t have heard anything from me in weeks!! We’re finally past #weddingbonanza2013 and I’m starting to feel caught back up with everything!!!
So today I’m back on the bloggy-blog to share one of the sweetest gift ideas… Klara recently received her very first Christmas ornament from my friend, Jerri.
Jerri is also a blogger, she blogs at Simply Sweet Home, and she is the owner/creator behind the Etsy shop . When she offered to create an ornament for miss Klara I was absolutely delighted! I mean who wouldn’t want a keepsake ornament to commemorate their child’s first Christmas?!?! AWESOME Gift Idea Alert!!!
I was able to choose whether I wanted just her first name or also her middle name, the color of the ribbon and the cute little charm! Don’t you think the rocking horse is so fitting?!?! The other charms include a Christmas tree, baby bottle, baby feet, pacifier, high chair, or a ducky.
The ornament itself is made of two hand stamped aluminum disks that will not rust and thus hang beautifully on your holiday tree for many years!! I really, really believe this would make a beautiful gift for your new mommy friend, a baby shower gift, Christmas gift for your own new little one… As a new mommy myself I was touched by the simplicity but lasting quality of our ornament.
Plus it makes a darling photo prop!! 😉
You can get your own from Jerri’s shop at that link. She also creates hand stamped necklaces and key chains as well as other lovely handmade jewelry.
Your turn: My family has always had the tradition of a new Christmas ornament every year for each of the kids. I plan to carry on that tradition with Klara. Do you have any ornament or other special Christmas traditions?
Today I have the very first baby craft I did for our little miss… Hope you enjoy! 😉
Ever since we announced that we are expecting and the gender of our little one, we’ve been receiving some of the cutest baby clothes from our friends as gifts. I’ll be honest… there for awhile I had them all stuck in a box and stored in our bedroom. Then we got a changing table for baby’s room so I moved the box in onto the changing table… That’s the way things have stayed for months. Every time we get something new it just got added to the pile.
At about 30 weeks into this pregnancy I decided it might be a good time to get baby’s closet set up and organized. I have a friend that just had a baby boy a few months ago and she said she had trouble keeping track of what she had in what sizes… My solution was to google baby closet dividers. Sure you can buy them at Wal-Mart for a few bucks, but they lack personality… So… I made my own!
The materials needed for this craft include:
Step 1: Trace your wooden door hanger onto a sheet of the craft paper. Lesson learned here… those wooden hangers are not all cut exactly the same… Each one needs to be traced or you can end up with paper that doesn’t fit your door hanger. Then just cut out your tracings with scissors.
Step 2: I painted the sides that wouldn’t be covered with paper just to add a fun pop of color. You don’t have to do this step… you can definitely leave it as just the wood grain. Another lesson learned here… Two paint bottles make a great drying ‘rack’.
Step 3: Next decoupage the papers onto your wooden door hangers using a brush and Mod Podge.
Step 4: I designed sizes on my Silhouette SD software. NB for New Born, 0-3 for zero to three months and so on up to 18-24 months. I cut them out on white vinyl to make stickers for each divider. If you don’t have a cutting tool you could just as easily cut out sizes and Mod Podge those on as well, or purchase number stickers from the craft store to use instead.
Step 5: Hang your new baby closet dividers in baby’s closet then fill closet with adorable baby clothes organized by size!!!
So tell me friends? What is your number one or most favorite baby organizing tip? Links would be appreciated too!
Linking this here and here and .
P.S. Hope you enjoyed this post! If so, we’d love if !
