Car Seat Poncho

Hello everyone!  I hope you had a very merry Christmas!  Ours was wonderful.  It was the first year that we gave Santa gifts to Lyla and I had no idea it would be so fun to play Santa.  Today I am posting on a sewing project that has been such a wonderful solution to a very annoying problem. Last winter Lyla was still in an infant seat so a blanket over her, a hat, and the car seat canopy that I made which you can read about here were enough to keep her warm with out a coat.

She has been in a convertible seat since last spring and although I am relieved to not have to lug her heavy infant seat around winter has made it much more annoying.  It isn't safe for children to wear puffy coats while buckled in their car seat so you have to take their coat off to put them in and then put it back on when you arrive at your destination.  This is time consuming and I worry about her being cold in her car seat if the car isn't quite warmed up when we get in.  I saw a post from one of my favorite blogs on a car seat poncho and I knew that I was going to make one.  The blog is called Reality Daydream (formerly known as Sawdust and Embryos) and here is the tutorial for the fleece-lined hooded poncho.

Before I talk about the alterations that I made for my version of this poncho, I wanted to talk a little bit about the author of this blog, Bethany.  First of all her story about her struggles with infertility is so touching and real.  I found her blog right around the time that I had been diagnosed with a condition that I believed might prevent me from having children of my own so I really identified with her struggles and found hope in her successes.  The second thing about her that is amazing is that she is ridiculously creative and talented.  I don't think I have seen any other blog that has so many original and unique ideas as her blog.  She is truly inspiring so I encourage you to take a look at her blog if you haven't already.

Okay so back to my version of this poncho.  I really dragged my feet on this project because I knew that one layer of fleece wouldn't cut it in North Dakota.  So I ended up tucking an extra layer of fleece in between the outer layer and main fleece layer.  For my outer layer I used a grey suiting fabric from Joann Fabrics.  The fleece is also from Joann Fabrics.  I cut the other layer of fleece slightly smaller than the suiting fabric layer and sewed the hem of the suiting fabric right over that extra layer of fleece.

I also added snaps to her poncho partly because I love my KAM snaps so much.  After sewing my three layers together I sliced an opening on one side of my circle.  I took some pink grosgrain ribbon and pressed it in half.  I then sewed the ribbon over the raw edges that I had created by cutting the circle.  Next I added 5 snaps. I didn't measure them out, just eyeballed it.  I decided to add grosgrain ribbon to the neckline instead of hemming it just for aesthetic purposes.

This awful picture is just to give you an idea of how it works in the car.  I drive a small Ford Focus so this was the best shot I could get ha ha.  The back of the poncho drapes over the back of the car seat. It is easy to buckle the child in underneath the front of the poncho.

This poncho has been seriously amazing.  Lyla loves wearing it (she even cried when I took it off of her the first time because she wanted to keep wearing it).  It has made going places so much easier.  I have also gotten a ton of compliments on it at daycare.  One mom even said that I should make them to sell because she would buy one!  This isn't my best sewing work however.  I would need way more practice on these before I would be confident enough to sell them but it was nice to hear anyway. Thanks for reading this post!  Next up on the blog: Lip Balm Christmas Cards using my Silhouette Portrait.

A Simple Backyard 1st Birthday Party

Hello everyone!  Today I am posting about the party that we threw for our daughter's 1st birthday.  I was on the fence of whether or not I wanted to throw a party for a 1 year old but after attending the 1st birthday parties for a few of my friend's kids, I realized that it is just a fun excuse to spend some time with friends and family and to make cute decorations.  I kept it very simple and since it was summer I decided to make it an outdoor event.

I started by making the invitation.  My daughter loves kitties so I decided to make the invite cat themed even though the party itself didn't have a specific theme.  I usually make this sort of thing with my Pixelmator software but this time I decided to use my Silhouette software instead.  I chose to use the Silhouette software because I could find the kitty shapes in my library in the software instead of having to find and purchase the right png images.

For the smash cake I made a kitty cake.  I made the cake layers in a 4 inch CorningWare ramekin.  I made a basic buttercream frosting and after frosting the cake with a crumb coat I piped on the "fur" using  Wilton No. 233 Multi-Opening Decorating tip. I then used some purchased fondant to make the face and ears of the cat.  The black and pink on the eyes and nose was gel icing.  The whiskers bled a little, they looked better after I first finished the decorating but I forgot to take a picture then!

The cake stand was a $5 purchase from the dollar aisle at Target.  I used a barnwood frame purchased at Hobby Lobby to showcase the monthly photos of Lyla.  You can read more about the monthy photo sessions here and here.  I purchased the prints from Shutterfly because they have a new 4" by 4" print option.  The baker's twine, thumb tacks, and clothespins were all leftover items from this photo display in Lyla's nursery.

I used a tablecloth I had on hand and the bunting from her monthly photos to finish decorating the food table.  We served fried chicken, watermelon, cowboy caviar and chips (you can find the recipe in this post on our last NYE party), a couple of store bought pasta salads, a layered jello salad, and this delicious broccoli salad.

My mom borrowed some tables and chairs from a couple of friends and I simply decorated them with a few jars wrapped in burlap ribbon (originally from Lyla's baptism but they also made an appearance at this baby shower) filled with some budget blooms from a local grocery store floral department.

We also set up Lyla's birthday gift for the kids to play in at the party.  There will be a separate post on the making of this teepee at a later date.  There you have it, a very simple 1st birthday party.  It was fun and the weather turned out perfect despite a little bit of wind.

3 Years!

It is hard to believe that we have been living in our house for 3 years now.  Each year I like to recap the big projects that have happened in our house over the past year.  I'll start with the exterior.  Last summer we had a issue with our roof sliding off in sheets of shingles.

It was not a pretty sight.  We were hoping to make it a few more years in the house before having the roof replaced but I guess our roof just decided that it was done.  So we bit the bullet and got it replaced.

Another part of the house that saw some major changes this year was the living room.  We painted the living room and put up a chair rail before we moved in and then I made some curtains in November of that year but other than that the room stayed the same until this past fall/winter.  First we bought a new couch that was smaller than our previous one so that it fit the shape of the room better.

Then we purchased an Expedit shelving unit from Ikea that we turned into a media console.  You can check out the hack here: part I and part II.

We also purchased a new TV and then I stenciled some storage boxes for the console.

Next I made a skyline painting to go over the couch.

Finally I completed a small update to the living room curtains by adding grommets.

So without further ado, here are some photos of the living room in its current state.  I have also updated the house tour photos for the living room since the previous pictures didn't even include the living room curtains!

The next room that has gone through the most drastic change over the past year is our guest bedroom.

The only thing that had been done in this room previously was painting the walls and trim.  I had always anticipated that it would become a nursery so I didn't really try to do much else with it in the meantime.  I am not going to update the house tour or post a lot of pictures of the room until I do the big reveal but I thought I would give you one sneak peek photo so you could see the drastic change.

Just a little bit of a difference, right?  A few other parts of the house have gotten some small changes over the past year.  In the spring, I added some drawer inserts to the window seats on the porch.

I also painted the office.

So that is a recap of the year.  We are getting to the point in our diy home journey where major room overhauls are mostly a thing of the past but there could be one drastic change to the addition (office and bonus room) over the next year.  Stay tuned for that!

A Colorful Entrance

I love the outside of our house.  The landscaping is absolutely gorgeous, the window boxes are adorable, and I love the gray metal siding.  But the front door left something to be desired.  Technically this door is a super heavy metal storm door.  We had some issues with it this Spring because the thing that makes the door shut slower was broken.  This door is heavy so when it closes quickly it gets stuck and is almost impossible to open from the outside.  Thankfully my husband bought a new part for it and it now works properly again but it was pretty boring to look at.  I especially hated that gold kick plate at the bottom.

So I decided it was time for a new bold paint color for the door.  Originally I wanted to paint the door a bright yellow a la the Petersiks of Young House Love.  But then I happened to be reading another diy blog that I like, IHeart Organizing, and saw that the lovely Jen had decided to paint her front door a lovely deep teal color.  I loved the color that she chose so much that I decided to put the same color on my front door.  Her house has gray siding too so I new that this color would look fantastic on my house as well.  The color is Behr Harbor and I absolutely love it.  I get giddy every time I see it.  Well enough talk, let's see some pictures!

Also, with the new color I am totally digging the gold kick plate now.  Teal and gold is a fabulous combo. 

I also thought I would include a little raised garden update with this post because the garden is looking dramatically different these days. This is what it looked like not even a month ago:

And it looks just slightly different now ;)

 

 Many of the cucumbers, zucchinis, and tomatoes have blooms now and I can't wait to be eating delicious home grown veggies!

Cinder Block Veggie Garden

So I have been growing tomatoes and various veggie plants from seed for about 4 years now as seen in this post. This is the first year that I am able to plant them in a garden bed instead of containers and I was so excited.  I knew that I wanted to go for a raised bed of some sort because the soil here in the Red River Valley is mostly clay and is very dense.  This makes it hard for roots to spread unless you do a really amazing job of tilling.  

There were several options for raised beds but the option that I chose in the end was the cheapest and the most weather resistant.  I chose to make a raised bed with cinder blocks.  The blocks were only 96 cents but getting them home was an adventure.  We do not own a truck so we loaded them all into the back of my husband's Dodge Avenger.  We looked like we had tricked our car out to be a low-rider and we had to drive very slow.  Thankfully we made it home without destroying the car.

I laid the blocks down 2 deep and eight wide.  The rectangular shape helps with being able to reach all the plants for maintenance and harvest.  Then I went to work getting rid of the grass and I also broke up the soil a little bit.

After that I laid down a layer of newspaper to stifle the grass and weeds that still might have roots in this area.  Then I put the topsoil in and rake it so that it was even.  I figured out how much topsoil I needed by calculating the cubic feet or volume of the bed.

Finally I planted the tomato plants.  My pepper plants went in the containers that I used for both peppers and tomatoes last year.  I also purchased a couple of cucumber plants and planted seeds for squash and green beans.  Squash and green beans are fast growers so they are coming up nicely already.

Another nice thing about the cinder blocks is the extra planting space in each nook of the cinder blocks.  I decided to plant a few of these with basil, rosemary, cilantro, and mint.

I hope to be eating a lot of delicious veggies later this summer!