Falling in LOVE

It is officially FALL and it finally feels like it outside.  It was a rough summer and I'm glad to get into a new season.  And the best part is decorating!  Summer seems to be so boring when it comes to dolling up the house.  There is really only so much you can do.

Fall is when you get to break out all the fun decorations.  Here are a few things that I hope to get around to sometime.  They would be great additions to my fall decor!  I found all of them on PINTEREST.

Better Home & Gardens has this AMAZING table scape!  I am in LOVE with the table runners.  The houndstooth and the ruffles!  Perfect color combo in my book.  Go to their site and look at all the details.  They also use hedge apples for decorating!  LOVE LOVE LOVE it!

Lolly Jane Boutique used funkins and painted them with an awesome argyle pattern.  Nothing says fall like argyle!

The ever inspiring HGTV  has used lentils, beans and dried corn to embellish funkins and candles.  It makes it VERY harvesty!

I think these papier mache pumpkins from THIS Etsy Shop are too adorable.  With all the decoupaged pumpkins around the blogs it would be super cute to do one with recycled book pages.

Poppies and Sunshine posted this on her blog.  I'm not sure where the actual source is because she didn't link it up, but these lighted pumpkins are amazing.  They would be super easy to do with a drill and Christmas lights.  I hope I can try these this season.

And finally, Girlyme's Tumbler  has these beautiful autumn cookies.  The colors are amazing and I love the way they all work together to make an inspiring fall cookie platter.

If only I had more time in my day....SIGH.

Brother's Swaddler Blankets

My son is the EXACT OPPOSITE of my daughter when she was an infant.

He smiles and laughs all the time.

She was my Serious Sally.

When he falls asleep, he sleeps like a rock.

When or if she fell asleep, she was easily awaken.

ie: taking this picture woke her up...

and as you can tell I didn't even have the flash on.

She loved to sprawl out and hated being covered up.

He has to be wrapped up tight in his little cocoon.

Seriously, he cannot sleep at night without be swaddled.  Lotte never used her one swaddler we had for her.  {I'm not ashamed to say my sweet son gets wrapped up in his sister's never used PINK swaddler.}  We go through those things quickly in a week at my house.  So I used Prudent Baby's tutorial and made him a set of DIY Swaddle Blankets out of coordinating flannel.  They were super easy to make and Mister Caterpillar loves being tied up in these at night!  I recommend doing this because they are about $10 cheaper than buying the velcro ones at the store.

A Bubble Dress That Didn't Bubble

It was still super cute on my Little Lotte, but my poor bubble dress didn't bubble.  We wore this at a wedding rehearsal and she was by far the cutest little girl there...it doesn't hurt that she was the only little girl there!

I had a hard time making her sit still long enough to get a good picture.  So here are a slew of mediocre pictures that you can piece together to get the idea of how cute it is.

Here it is hiked up to her diaper due to the swing, but she is HAPPY!

You can see a close up of the rosettes here, and a cute little face.

This might be the best view I got of the whole outfit.

Notice the matching headband...it might be my favorite part!

Never a dull moment with a full fledged toddler!

In case you don't remember when I showed you the bubble dress from Me Sew Crazy, here it is again.

I followed her tutorial but my bubble didn't bubble.  Can anyone tell me why it just looks like a regular skirt?  I want to make a dress for Lotte's birthday party that bubbles, but I need to find out how to do it right.  Is it the fabric that makes a difference?

Lotte's Ruffle Chickie Shirt

So there is still a week until Easter and if you are like me then you still have 100 things to do or that you want to do.  Here is one thing checked off my list!

A local photographer offered a mini-session at her studio for spring.  It was a GREAT deal...and the background was a cute little wooden dock with a duck pond and BABY DUCKIES!!! So I had to have a cute outfit for Lotte to wear.

I had to go with the chick/duckie theme...so here is what I came up with!

Amy at Positively Splendid made THIS adorable egg shirt!  Lately I've been obsessed with ruffles and so I decided on a variation of this for our photo shoot!

Amy's tutorial is very well done and I'm going to ship you over there if you need to learn how to make and assemble the ruffles.  I did make my ruffles a little "rufflier", so my stripes were a little longer.

Here are my ruffles.  I alternated solid yellow with a patterned yellow.

I used my biggest egg shaped cookie cutter as a stencil.

I didn't have any interfacing on hand, so I sewed my ruffles onto felt.

I just did a lot of pinning to make sure there wasn't any movement.

I used orange ric rac for legs.  They were pinned under the ruffles before I started sewing.

I left them dangly, but you could hot glue the on.

Finally, I sewed on some button eyes and a felt beak.

Here is the finished product coupled with a cute yellow tutu!

I love this girl!

And everyone loves a tutu bottom!

Here is one last look at the close up!  It was fabulous for pictures...the photographer loved it, and so did the duckies!  Thanks Amy for the inspiration!

These AWESOME blogs are hosting parties with this little cutie this week! Thanks ladies!

Easter Link Party @ Somewhat Simple

Sundae Scoop @ I <3 Naptime

Just Something I Whipped Up @ Girl Creative

Motivate Me Monday @ Keeping It Simple

Get Your Craft On @ Today's Creative Blog

Tute Tuesday @ Little Birdie Blog

We Did It Wednesday @ Sew Much Ado

Show and Tell @ Blue Cricket Design

Inspirering Creativity @ Dragonfly Designs

Sugar and Spice @ 733

Get Your Brag On @ Gluesticks

Friday Funday Finds

Today I want to list the things I have found from around the internet that I LOVE LOVE LOVE and desperately wish I had the time to make...maybe one day my son will start to sleep.

First off is the bed.

We are 100% doing THIS for Lotte.  We (meaning my husband while I yell out directions, give the stink eye to anything that doesn't look right, and take pictures of his progress) MUST build this as Lotte's big girl bed.  Lotte and Brother will be sharing a room as soon as she is able to move into a big girl bed.  We are hoping to make the move a little after her 2nd birthday.  But because space is limited we love this "loft" bed.  The best part is the stairs.  Lotte can do stairs, but I wouldn't feel comfortable if it were a ladder.  PLUS the under part will be perfect to put her play stuff in...and look at the stairs, they are actually storage containers!

I freakin' LOVE Ana White.  She makes furniture (which is a big deal for some people) seem so easy to do.  She has the shopping list, the cut list, and clear concise directions.  She even gives you an estimated price for the total project.  There are a million things I want to do from her site, and I have could spend hours gawking at the amazingness.

I also want to make THESE from Ten Cow Chick.

I really like sculpture bows and her tutorial makes it too easy not to do!

I also can't wait to make THIS from Me Sew Crazy!

The other day I bought the perfect summery lemon fabric for one and I can't wait to see how it turns out!

I'm also currently working on a variation of THIS from one of my many favorite bloggers, Amy from Positively Splendid!  It should be done this afternoon so I can post it tomorrow.

There is so much inspiration to glean from such amazing blogging women!  Hopefully I can start inspiring others too.  Life is good

I heart naps and elephants too!

So I guess I was mistaken, but I was under the impressions that 12 day old babies sleep all the time.  My sweet little guy has been awake a majority of the day and that means I have been nursing him just about every hour, hour and a half.  I love nursing and I wouldn't have it any other way, but I'm getting a little sore here.  Enough of the TMI.

So today while Brother was doing this...

I took some of this...

(Left over scrap fabric from my friend's daughter's first birthday party I helped plan.  It was already cut in 12x12 squares)

And I used this tutorial...

From The Little Birdie Blog

To make these...

I used the zig zag stitch on the purple one for Lotte 1st.  I didn't like how much "bulk" it added to the seam, and I didn't like how long the elephant was.  So for Brother's I shortened him up, and used a straight stitch...and he turned out perfect.  I might remake Lotte's at a later time.

These were both done in approximately 15-20 mins a piece (including sewing machine set-up and tear down)! And that is literally about all the time he has napped outside of my arms today.  In fact, Brother is currently snuggled up on my chest half-napping while I type around him.

He really wouldn't let me get a good pic. sigh.