erasable weekly calendar { Tutorial }

Today was back to school day where I live.

Thank goodness that doesn't effect me anymore/yet!

Oh I hated those first day of school nerves when I was a teacher.

As a mother,  I am TOTALLY not ready to send either of my children off to school.

They  need to stay with this mamma for.ev.er.

(Today I feel that way. Tomorrow I may be willing to pay someone big money to take them ;)

I know back to school means busy. busy. busy.

I made this little beauty a couple of weeks ago and it has been a life saver.

a weekly calendar

erasable

cute

Yeah, I'm loving it.

You want to make one too?

First go find a frame with 7 or 8 openings.

If you are lucky- you'll find one on clearance like I did. Whoop!

Take the mat out of the frame and cut the burlap about one inch larger than the mat on all sides.

Fold the burlap over onto the back of the mat and glue down (I used hot glue).

Be sure to snip your corners so they don't end up to bulky.

Your mat should look like this from the front once you are done.

Take your scissors and cut from the center of each frame to the corners.

Fold each piece of  burlap back and glue. Trim the excess burlap off.

This is what your mat will look like when your done.

Pretty pretty :)

Use a picture (the size of your frames) to cut out the scrap book paper.

I used the paper that came with the frame- you know the one with all the random smiling people- to tape my scrap book paper to.

Paint the frame white.

Put it all back together and Wha-La ~

You have a cute new calendar!

I hope this helps make your busy school year run a little more smoothly :)

Much love

Spring has sprung!! (Happy March)

Spring is in the air!

Or maybe I just have a bad case of Spring fever...

So to help with the rainy-week blues

I wanted to share some pictures I took of the first

flowers of the season from my yard.

(Doesn't March just SOUND warmer than February!)

I hope you have a wonderful flower-filled Sunday!

~Rach~

Sleep deprivation and a really sweet window seat

I am very tired.

I know that is to be expected.

I have a four week old and an 18 month old,

which means long sleepless nights and long active days.

I am not complaining.

I am strangely really enjoying myself,

but

I felt the need to build my defense before I tell you this embarrassing story!

My sister turned 34 on Tuesday! Whoop!

We went to celebrate at my parent's and had a fabulous time.

But, as all you newborn mommas know,

 any activity that requires you to leave the house

takes that much MORE energy that you do not have!

That being said, when we got home I was tired!

So I nursed baby-M while Brent put Z-baby down.

I laid her down in her bassinet and went to brush my teeth.

Did I tell you yet that I was like crazy zombie TIRED?!

I went into the bathroom to get ready for bed.

I put toothpaste on my toothbrush and began to brush my teeth

only to realize I was using the wrong toothbrush.

At this point I wish I could say I was using my hubby's toothbrush

but that wouldn't be that tragic.

NO,

genius me was using the toothbrush I used to clean the

TOILETearlier that day.

Seriously.

It makes me throw up a little bit just thinking about it.

Luckily mouthwash cleans 99.9% of germs ;)

Brent walked in just in time to witness the entire event.

He laughed until he was crying.

Sometimes I hate him :)

On a happy note,

Now I have a new joke!

You know you have a newborn if...

You brush your teeth with the toilet brush!

I also got myself stuck in a mud hole in my mommy car this week...

with both my children in the backseat.

Leaving a Superbowl party.

So there were PLENTY of witnesses.

Good thing I lost my pride a LONG time ago!

Now, I told you in an earlier post

that Z-baby's big girl room was my biggest project of 2011.

Today I am going to show you the project that took the most time.

It is also my very favorite element of her room!

I need to start by apologizing about the lack of pictures during the building process.

I was in a serious state of nesting and taking pictures never crossed my frantic little brain!

We built this window seat!!

Have you ever heard of Ana White?

If you have not, you really need to take some time to look around her site.

She is SO talented.

And her instructions for building projects are so clear and easy!

First we built her 5- cube bookshelf.

Then, I took her plans for the 3-cube bench

and doubled it to fit under our double window.

(I also added extra support)

Finally, we painted a bookshelf we already had and

Wha-La!

We have an entire window reading/ toy nook.

Now, I need to make the cushion for the window seat.

My goal for Z-baby's room was to have a place for everything.

Hopefully this will help us teach her to keep her room clean.

(Don't worry, I'm not getting my hopes up about that!)

Anywho, I hope you liked our window seat

AND

my humiliating story.

I really hope it made you giggle!!

~happy building

Finished lamp

A while ago I shared a picture about a lamp I redid using an idea I got from pinterest(surprise surprise!)

Here is the post if you missed it.

And a before picture, just for kicks! :)

It is a cute lamp it just didn't match my house anymore

AND

I paid entirely TO MUCH for it to get rid of it.

Step one:

I wrapped the base in rope and hot glued it down as I went.

Step two:

Was to remove the existing fabric from the lampshade and recover it.

But, miss happy fingers over here :)

destroyed the ENTIRE shade as I TRIED to take the fabric off.

I looked for days and days trying to find a way to salvage at least the metal supports of the shade.

There were options

but

they were expensive options.

THEN one day while meandering through JoAnn's

I happened to see that they sold self adhesive lamp shades!

So I whipped out my coupon and paid a whopping 7 bucks.

I had this burlap remnant from a previous trip to JoAnn's.

I just cut it to size and pressed it down.

I folded the excess fabric inside the shade and hot glued

it down.

I covered the rough edges with gray bias tape.

Step three:

Should be adding the painted knob to the top to hold the

shade down.

BUT

It was Z-baby's favorite toy for a little while

AND

now it is in never-never land.

I WILL find it though!

DO any of you have my luck? It seems like every time I am almost done with a project I realize I missed a step/ or am missing something!

It just causes me to be even more creative right?! ;)

I hope you have a wonderfully magnificent Thanksgiving week!

~Happy creating

A new idea...

So I obviously have decided to join the blogging world! Brent (my husband) and I have been working on so many projects around the house, and with Zadie (my daughter) being able to get around on her own now, I have finally gained some time to craft and bake and READ!! I am going to enjoy this sweet little bit of freedom before baby number 2 comes in January and I thought I might share some of it with you!

To get myself in the mojo of this whole blog thing I am going to start by posting about some recent projects I have been working on. I am going to go ahead and let you in on my little secret. I am a stealer. I some how missed that gene that those really cool people get where they just come up with amazing ideas on their own. So to compensate for this deficiency I get most of my ideas from other blogs and just kind of make it my own. or not. Sometimes I follow the directions exactly and mine turns out so very different... AHHHH! But I always have fun. So here it goes....