Pennant bunting

A few weeks ago I came across a cake similar to this one on etsy Here.

Of course then I had different ideas on what I was going to do for my ape baby's 1st birthday. As the day crept up on me and had to change my ideals and thought back to this idea.
I made the pennant bunting rather quickly, but as I put it together I realized I used the wrong size sharpie and really wasn't loving it. So then I had soldier boy print off a monkey on card stock. Wasn't loving it either.

Well I searched thru my scrapbooking stuff and found a black and white flower. I pulled out the pink nail polish and voila a cute lil girl monkey with a stylin' flower just like my lil ape baby!
She loved it!! She was so excited.

I would do this again in a heart beat! I love this new fad!

Punched tin- another UFO

This year my soldier boy and I celebrated our ten year anniversary. We decided to be low key about it. Ten years is the gift of aluminum or tin. I thought it would be fun to do something with aluminum or tin as a themed gift.
I walked thru the hardware store looking for ideas. I walked down an isle of these


I knew just what I wanted to do. I found one that opened up so I could flatten it out and one that wasn't too thick so I could actually do something with it.
I found an image and learned how to reverse images on a Mac (without my husbands help).
Back in the day Toy Story one had just come out. As we looked at ourselves in the mirrors moments after we were married my soldier boy looped his arm thru mine as he pointed a finger upward, he whispered in my ear "To infinity and beyond!" So I chose to frame the image of the temple we were sealed in with those very words.
I gathered these tools

An embossing tool, my very own tin snips, and a 4lb hammer.
I taped my reverse images to the backside of my aluminum venting and started hammering my image into the venting.

I taped it down to a board knowing it would take me a while to finish and didn't want to have anything move on me.

Heres a close up of my punches.
In my quest to finish all my UFO's (UnFinished Objects) I pulled this out and 5months later have it finished and framed.

I used gorilla glue to adhere it flat up against my picture frame.

One year birthday outfit

I know it has been done before but I just love having a little girl to do things like this for!

Yesterday was our Ape baby's first birthday! No lil girl should celebrate her first without a new outfit! LOL She is quite the precious little treasure!

Do you remember this post when I used a leftover shirt to remake a onsie. Same idea here. I even got to use some of my grandmothers buttons on her barrette. My favorite addition is the cork screw ribbon to top the candle with.

Side note- Have you ever seen one of these?

The chickens even celebrated our Ape baby's first by laying our first green egg! We now have two laying hens! Just wish I knew which one so I could give it a little more lovin and a thank you!

Halloween blocks

Take a look at these!!

One of my favorite times of day is the time I spend alone with this boy!
Meet Emo boy.

While the older two are in school and the younger one is napping me and Emo boy usually watch TV, read, play games, learn letters and almost always do some sort of craft or drawing.
Today I wanted to make something fun for Halloween. It had to be with wood as I am not allowed to buy any more crafting stuff until I get rid of some of my materials first.
I turned to google images for some inspiration and came across these foam sticker thingies.

I got out a paper and pen to sketch and away we went.

What I used-
2x4 cut to 8"
black/white/light purple card stock
toilet paper roll
purple/green acrylic paint
silver spray paint
sharpie
adhesive (I used Mod podge)

We painted the hunks of wood. Then I free handed my faces with chalk on the cardstock. I cut out my desired hair, eyes (2 black circles slightly bigger than your 2 slightly white circles per character), mouth for Frankenstein, nose for Dracula (light purple card stock). I placed them where I wanted them then drew the nose on Frank and the mouth on Dracula with a sharpie and put a dot on each white circle. I then mod podged my face in place. While I waited for it to dry I cut two 2" strips off my toilet paper roll. I cut slits about a 1/4" down on one side and folded them in like this.

I then spray painted them silver. I used the folds to adhere the ears onto the Frankenstein head.
For Dracula's ears/wings (as Emo boy calls them) I just folded the ears in a 1/4" and glued the fold to the head. Emo boy just had to have a mustache for Dracula so we added a mustace from the leftover trim from his hair line.

My little man loves his Dracula! He watched TV with us this afternoon, went for a bike ride with us, played army tanks with us, and even ate dinner with us. Simple pleasures out of a hunk of wood...
When the older two kids came home from school they wanted to create one too. My flittering butterfly made this pumpkin cat

My Sensitive child and my soldier boy are working on a viking (should be interesting considering the lil man already painted his orange like his sisters).

September long

Can't say we did much of anything this weekend.
About the only interesting thing we did was enjoy the first of our flock...
Meet Top Dog. Isn't he beautiful?! He has the most gorgeous colors and the most beautiful crow!
Recently he has gotten quite aggressive with the other chickens so he had to go! :-(

This is my soldier boy getting up enough guts to do the deed. He has "chicken"-ed out a few times all ready. Neither one of us has ever killed, and butchered a chicken before...

Did you know that if you hang a chicken upside down by its feet it goes limp and is very calm?
Well I will spare you the in between images but this is what top dog now looks like.

Yummy chicken and dumplings!
For as much slack as we got for trying rooster meat, we enjoyed it. The meat wasn't tough or nasty at all. I could have added more salt, but that was easy to fix. It will be a few more months until the younger chickens will be ready for another meal, but in the mean time we will enjoy our one laying hen and the last of our chicken and dumplings.

I am taking the week off to get my house in order and organize myself. We have a big 1st birthday coming up, I am finishing another UFO (UnFinished Objects), and we are starting to plan a big surprise bedroom makeover. I am very excited to share with you our projects!

Jewelry

Jewelry making is not my art! But I found something I can do and it looks decent.
A few months back JK Made posted these beauties

I had my Brother in-law who was making a trip to Harbor freight pick me up a few different size stamps. I have made a few to give away but never took any pictures but this one.

Well I wanted something else to do with these for the boys. I found all kinds of ideas. You could stamp them to make key chains, or as gift tags, or to label hooks.
Then I saw these here

Still not for the boys! but I had to make these

Still on the look out for something the boys could make I saw a tutorial on D.I.Y. TV an online little series. Now that I want to blog about them, do you think I could find there URL?! UGH Story of my life.
The boys have since lost theirs, but me and my Flittering Butterfly have been making a few examples for our churches Christmas craft day.

What did we use?
A washer
NAIL POLISH
diamond glaze
a toothpick
How?
Simply paint the washer your base color
Rosette- put a drop of accent color on while base coat is still wet
Take your toothpick and make small swirly motions starting from the outside working your way in, cleaning off the end and dragging a little more of the base coat in if needed.
Other ideas- put a few drops of your accent color on your freezer paper/plastic/work space and use your toothpick to write your name, make swirls, draw or use the edge of your toothpick to lightly paint on your color letting some of the natural washer to show thru (like the purple one in the lower left corner in the grouped picture above)
Let dry for a few hours (they suggest a whole day but really who can wait that long?!)
Apply a layer of diamond glaze and let set for a full day. A MUST! it does take that long.
String it and wear for all to enjoy!

For the boys I tied them like this on a cord.

Here are a few waiting to be glazed. Can you see the butterfly in the green one?