Bows Galore

The girls already have too many bows and headbands. I was keeping all of them in the same tub in their room but it was beginning to get impossible to find what I was looking for and I was forgetting that we even had some of them. Once again I stole this idea from my brilliant sister who made these to hang in my nieces nursery. I bought several different sizes of wood embroidery hoops and different colors of ribbon and was ready to begin.

I was a little worried about the amount of hot gluing that was required since I have a pretty good record of burning myself but surprisingly I didn't get burnt once!

I absolutely love how they turned out. Not only are they functional but they will look great on the nursery wall. They are small enough that I can fit them beside the closet and I was even able to add a little more green to their room! The only bad thing about this is now Mardell knows exactly how many bows the girls have... and he knows how many hoops I made. The plan was that I could make more hoops as I buy more bows but I'm not sure that will work now :)

For now all of the flowers that the girls have for their headbands will have to stay in the tub because there is not enough wall space or hoops to display all of those {yes, they each have one of every color}! Anyways this craft was quick and easy - I was able to finish it in two evenings and that's with the constant sticking binkies in mouths every 5 minutes! Here is a picture of my finished project:

Father's Day Gift!

Friday I was still idealess on what to get Mardell for his first Father's Day and just figured I would settle on a card. I had found several very creative ideas but all of them took time and money and in our house money = diapers, formula, and graduate school! Thank goodness I have a wonderful sister who decided to share her crafty gift idea with us and invited the girls and I up for a mini photo shoot. Saturday morning I loaded up the girls and we headed to Blue Rapids to visit Aunt Dava and their cousins.

Dava had bought wooden letters and glitter foam so we were ready to begin. While we had all four grandchildren together we also made a father's day gift for Papa Dave. Trying to get pictures of all four cousins holding different letters was an adventure. Charlie had fun riding around the yard on his John Deere tractor while Emma was very interested in trying to eat grass. Malia and McKenna were having a competition to see who could spit out their binky the most... I think they were even awarding points for who could spit it the farthest - extra points if it hit the ground! :)

Thank goodness for the help of Nana who ran around chasing, holding, and loving on whoever was not being photographed! After all of the pictures were taken Dava and I had a short amount of time to get the pictures loaded, sized, printed and put into frames before they had to leave for a birthday party.

I've decided that this is the perfect gift to give every year to show how much the girls are growing. After the old pictures come out I will put them in a scrapbook with the year they were taken. Yearly neck ties are out and yearly pictures are in! :) I'm looking forward to seeing how the photos will change throughout the years.

All-in-all it was a very BUSY and eventful morning but the pictures and gifts turned out great! Here were how the other gifts turned out:

Frame a Picture | Preserve a Memory

While preparing for the girls arrival I was very excited to dive into decorating their nursery. Mardell did all of the painting, put the furniture together, and hung the chair rail and crown molding. That didn't leave me with much to do other than pick out the colors, bedding, and the wall decor. I found some paintings that matched the bedding for the wall by the window {wall #1}, I painted and hung their names above the cribs {check off another wall}, we hung a white shelf between the door and closet - above the book shelf {wall 3 down}... that left the big wall above the changing table.

This wall was so big and I was so indecisive about what to hang there. I bought several different mirrors that I thought might look good but never hung them. The girls arrived and the wall was still empty. After having pictures of the girls taken it finally hit me what I wanted to do {thank goodness I didn't hang the mirrors}. I decided this would be the perfect place to display the new pictures we had. Since the chair rail and crown molding were white I decided I wanted a wall of white frames... so the hunt began.

After searching every possible place in town for white frames and coming up with NOTHING I was feeling discouraged. My wise husband then pointed out that we could just spray paint the frames. While this sounded like a good idea I hated the thought of spending money on something that I was going to have to change... in comes my mother to save the day. While my sister and tends to tease her about her small hoarding problem I happen to appreciate it because it can come in handy!

Mom brought down three plastic tubs full of old frames she no longer wanted and I was able to dig my way through them. After laying out different frames of all shapes and sizes I finally had an idea of what I was wanting on the wall.

Mardell and I had fun spray painting the frames and picking out the pictures. Since I'm not really the most patient person Mardell took charge of the hanging portion of this project. I told him how far over, up or down I wanted the frame and he took care of the rest! I absolutely love how the wall turned out and love that I'm able to show off all of their amazing pictures!!!

Some of the frames are going to be moved because I don't like the spacing but I do love that I can add more frames as we get more pictures! 1+ months after the girls got here their nursery is complete! :)