Sshh! Princess's Sleeping!

I just love the vinyl lettering that you can apply right onto walls.  Long before the craze of Cricut's, Sillhouette's and other cutting machines that allow you to cut vinyl on a whim; my friend introduced me to this website:  It's a Sign!

Since I am not lucky enough to own one of the above mentioned machines, I still love to visit the website and covet the things I see there.  (I have neither enough money or wall space!)

So, I while back I made these for my daughters:

 (There's a lamp hanging directly above here, so the color is a little distorted.  The wall is actually lilac, as you will see in the next picture.)

My girls room is done in lilac and pink.  I picked out this design and simply put a request in the notes section detailing the colors I wanted when I paid for the order.  Lisa is great.  If you want something custom made, just contact her.

I originally intended to apply this vinyl directly to the wall but decided against it for two reasons.  First of all, we live in an old house and some of the walls have texture.  I was afraid the vinyl wouldn't stick properly.  (I was probably wrong - see below)  The second reason is that my girls share a room.  When I originally made these, my little one was in the crib and we weren't sure if we were going to end up with two twin beds or bunk beds and what configuration the beds were going to go in. I wanted to be able to move things around as needed. 

So, I ended up buying 2 white frames from Michaels.  I cut some scrapbook paper down to 11.5 x 11.5 to fit in the frame.  I selected a white background with subtle purple dots.  Then I laid the vinyl onto the paper.  Instructions are included.  Vinyl is repositionable on your wall, but you will need to be a little more careful on paper.  (If you notice, the design I actually chose has an oval around but I opted not to use that as it didn't fit in the frame)  I used some pink ribbon I had laying around and looped it through the existing hanger on the frame and tied it into a bow.  And voila - wall art for my two princesses!

Remember how I said I didn't think the vinyl would stick to the textured wall?  I found this vinyl princess castle set online and decided to give it a shot.  Not only did it stick just fine, my little one has peeled it off about a million times, and we have put it back up and it always stays!

Spooky Skull Crayons

I was making a little Halloween care package to send to my nieces and nephew in Las Vegas and I came across this cute idea from Homemade by Jill.  Custom made crayons!  Just too cute.  I decided I needed to make some to add to my package.

I found this ice cube tray at Party City and thought it would make a cute mold for the crayons.  I did like the end result but it took a lot of crayons to fill the individual molds and they didn't come out of the molds as easily as the cheaper candy molds.  Spraying the mold with Pam cooking spray helped a little.  It did take some effort to get clean once the crayons were unmolded.

The next mold I used was a very inexpensive candy mold that I got from Michaels.  It worked great!

The mold size was perfect.  Once the crayons set up, they released from the molds with no effort at all and cleaned up really easily with warm water and soap.

Making the crayons was a pretty easy process - you can check out Jill's post for her instructions. I simply grouped similar colors of crayons together, peeled off the wrapper, broke them up into small pieces and melted them using the double boiler method.  I covered a bowl with foil to make it easy to clean.  I was also able to fold the foil into a little spout to pour out the melted wax.

The best piece of advice I can give you?  Absolutely DO NOT use cheap crayons!!!!!  I started out using Crayola Brand, then switched to a cheap no name brand.  They didn't melt nicely and look at the difference when molded - not smooth or shiny.  And they crumbled after I unmolded them.  I switched back to Crayola brand and everything worked just great again.

It only took thee years and three days!!!

About three and a half years ago, this little fella was born:

A little while later, I bought this fabric:

 

 (Yikes!  Ignore those wrinkles in the picture!!)

You see, I was super excited to finally become an aunt.  Both my sisters had been aunts for years and I was the only one who wasn't an auntie.  My husband had some nieces and nephews but I was just couldn't wait for my sister's son to be born.  So when she decided to decorate his room in the Disney Cars Theme I thought, you know, being the cool aunt that I am and all, that I would make him a blankie.  Donovan LOVES blankies.  So I started to make him one - no big deal, made a ton of them before, I'll just whip one right up.  The cars cotton fabric for the front, some blue fleece for the back and I cut some strips to make a cute little gathered ruffle.  I pinned the whole thing and decided the ruffle looked too girlie.  I kept trying to "boy" it up a little and couldn't decide what to do, so I threw it in the closet and left it there for three years.  Phew!  Problem solved!!

Fast Forward a couple of years and I decided to clean out said closet.  Donovan still loves his blankies and still loves the movie Cars so I decided its time to finish this darn blanket.  I added some checkered flag fabric for a border, left off the ruffle completely and swapped the blue fleece backing for red fleece for a little contrast.  Then I top stitched it around the checkered flag border.

 

Since my dad was traveling to my sister's for a visit, it was good motivation to just get it done so I could send it with him.  But my sister has had two daughters since then and guess what?  They like blankies too!  So I couldn't send one for Donovan and not for them.  So I made a quick run to Hancock's and found some Tinkerbell and some Disney Princess Material  and over the next two days made two more blankets for the girls.

For Princess Meagan:

 

(This fabric is really cute - the princess dresses have sparkles on them!)

And for sweet little Mackenzie

 

So it only took my about three years (and three days) but now all three of them have a 

blankie from their aunt Clair!

Easy Flower Headband

Spring has sprung in St Louis and my girlie is super excited to wear her spring dresses.  Sometimes she wears the craziest clothes.  Other times she becomes quite the fashionista and she wants the perfect accessory to go with her clothes.

She wanted a pink flower headband to go with the pink and black dress she planned on wearing for Easter.  I've seen this on a lot of different craft blogs made out of all sorts of things.  

I'm sure little explanation is needed here but here goes:  I used a store bought plain elastic headband (I think it was a Goody one).  I took two flowers in different shades of pink and a little pink button and simply sewed them on to the headband.  You can buy the flowers at most craft stores or scrapbook supply store.  I made a blue and brown one (my favorite color combo) for my younger daughter but she refused to stay still for a picture.  On that one I used one large and one small flower and I liked how that one looked better.  It seemed to add more contrast.  I think I will also try sewing some flowers on the elastic hair ties since my little one sometimes takes the headbands off.