Halloween Party

October was busy for me! I was asked to decorate for the ward Halloween party. I had a little help (you know who you are) but mostly, it was me! I was in charge of decorating the gym including 16 tables. I actually really enjoyed it... anyone who knows me knows that I love to plan parties! Decorations are my favorite part, so I was all for it. This was just time consuming! I also made mine and Q's costumes, also time consuming, but worth it! I altered Jordan's costume, but a family friend made that one a while back.

 I made these trees out of table cloths from the dollar store. They were so fun! I first laid out the table cloth and using a hair dryer, went over all the wrinkles lightly until it didn't look so bad. Then I used a silver permanent marker, free handed the tree and cut it out! I kept them on a skirt hanger folded a few times, to avoid getting wrinkled and knotted up. They turned out better than I had expected.

 I made the bats out of tulle tied into a knot. See the tutorial at i heart naptime here. Super easy, and they added some fun to the walls!

Also around the room I put up these trash bag spider webs. Also easy to make using this tutorial from HGTV.

For the centerpieces I went to the thrift store (DI) and found some tall glass candle stick holders, and borrowed other short ones. I used tall white candles from the dollar store and cut up one black table cloth for underneath. I spray painted little pumpkins white and black and added those around the tables as well.

The Fabric on the Wall

Many of you have probably seen this on pinterest. I decided to try putting fabric on one wall in the nursery. I read a bunch of different blog posts about how others did it, what worked, and what didn't. Then I got to work. This took a little time but totally worth it! I don't think it took any longer than it would have to paint and then have to paint over again before we move. I no longer have all white walls in every single room. I'm tempted to do it again in the master bedroom and living room! But, that will have to wait. Back to the process.

These are some of my supplies. I also used a small sponge paintbrush and a razor blade knife.

I took some old sheets that I had that I liked the color of for the nursery. I cut the seams off and then pinned the flat sheet to the wall. Of course I don't have pictures of the whole process so hopefully it makes sense. I began by covering the floor just in case. Then I took the liquid starch and poured some into the paint tray. I used the paint roller to soak some of the starch up and carefully 'painted' over the sheet on the wall. It took a little while for the starch to penetrate the fabric so if I wasn't careful the starch would just run down the wall onto the floor. After a few moments the fabric would look wet and then I could add more starch to that spot to make sure it was good and saturated. I tried to go from one corner downwards and move sideways. I did end up with a few bubbles in the end, but I found that after it dried I could add more starch over the bubbles. I used pressure to get the bubbled fabric to stay and once that dried it looked a lot better.

The one flat sheet wasn't big enough so I ended up cutting a portion of the fitted sheet out. You can probably tell from the picture there is a slight overlap and the fitted sheet was more faded, but you really can't tell in person. I didn't have quite enough fabric to go all the way to the ceiling so I decided to leave the top section blank where it lines up with the overhang. I did starch the fabric almost to the ceiling in case of shrinkage since I had read a lot about that on different blogs. But, I didn't have any shrinkage. I think it's probably because I used old sheets that have been washed many times. To get the fabric straight across and lined up where I wanted it, I carefully cut the fabric with a straight edge and a ruler after it had dried. The fabric would then easily peel from the wall leaving a beautiful straight edge! This was nice because I didn't have to worry about it lining up from the beginning. I ended up using about 3 quarts of the Sta-Flo.

I added a little detail across the top. Can you guess what it is? My 8 year old sister figured it out :) ... it's the elastic part to the fitted sheet. I thought it added a little texture and fun!

There you go! All done!

The Q

This was a fun little project that took longer than I imagined, but I think it was worth it :) I started by getting the letter I wanted, obviously a 'Q'. Next, I bought the fabric I wanted and cut them into small circles about 1 1/2 inch in diameter. Then, I just scrunched the circles in the middle and hot glued them to the letter close together. I alternated which fabric I used to get the look I wanted and Ta-Da!

Crib Bumper

When looking for bedding for my baby's crib I couldn't find any that I liked. So, I decided to make some myself. It was more of a project than I thought. But I'm happy with the results.

My Baby's Wardrobe Portfolio

I showed this idea of mine to a few of my friends and Aunties and they all said, "You should put that on pinterest!" Well, it has taken me a while to muster up the time and courage, but here it is. It will take a bit of explaining, but I have loved this idea. I call it "My Baby's Wardrobe Portfolio."

Basically, I took a photo on my phone of every article of clothing and pair of shoes I have for my baby. I then made a folder for each size as you can see below. (Please excuse the labels on my phone as they are currently in Portuguese :)

In each folder I organized the clothes into the correct size. I then would edit the pictures into the order I wanted them. For example: pajamas, dresses, outfits, onesies, tights, etc.

For the shoes I decided to put them all into one big folder. Since every child's feet are different I could then just look at the sizes I have instead of putting them into the folders by age. I then organized them accordingly.

For some I could take a picture with the size of the shoe in clear sight. For others I would write the size on a piece of paper and set the shoes on top to take the picture.

The main point of this Wardrobe Portfolio is to have it handy while I am out shopping. That way I can see what I have and what I still need. For example: "Oh I still need a pair of pants to go with that cute shirt in this size..." etc. I hope it helps you become more organized too!