Some Previous Projects

As promised I will document a few of the projects I've been up to.  Luckily for you, if you are interested in repeating anything I've done on this post, most of what I've done I got from Pinterest.  So I will post the links for you too.

In October my little Joby turned three.  For his birthday I decided, of course, to make him a cake.  Right now he is obsessed with The Backyardigans, and his favorite episode is Tale of the Mighty Knights.  At the end of that episode there is a Dragon, which is what I decided to recreate for him.

Here's the picture of the cartoon dragon:

Cute, right?  Joby has GREAT taste. ;)

So here's the awesome tutorial I found on Pinterest:

And here's my attempt at recreating it:

Not great, at least compared with the tutorial, but Joby and Vaeh were impressed.  That's all I care about.

Also, for Joby's birthday I thought I'd make him a super hero cape.  Sewing is one particular skill that I am lacking talent in (as you will soon see), but I wanted one made especially for him with his favorite colors and initials.

Here's the tutorial(also from pinterest):

I used satin, which as a warning, is very difficult to sew with, but nothing flows through the wind like satin. :)
Here's Joby's cape:

Once again, not perfect, but it sure is a favorite toy at this house, and with all my kids friends too!  Every little boy (and some girls too) wants to be a super hero. :)

My next project has to do with some pants my husband bought me last year for my birthday.  Now, last year  on my birthday, I was 9 months pregnant.  My husband bought me a size nine skinny jeans and some awesome boots to rock them with!  I tried on the jeans(while pregnant) and couldn't even get them past my thigh, so I figured they would be perfect when I lost all my baby weight.  I lost about 50 pounds and am now a size 3, or 5 depending on the pants.  As awesome as that felt, my cute skinny jeans were too big!  They looked more like baggy jeans. :( They were so cute that I was determined to make them work!  So I began googling, and I found a tutorial to turn flare jeans into skinny jeans.  Close enough!  I don't have a before, but here's the after:

Sorry, not a great picture, but in my defense its hard to take a picture of your own pants.  Don't believe me?  Try it!  Anyway, those pants had about an extra two inches at least on each leg that I cut off.  I'm pretty proud that I saved them.

 The next project is the one I've been promising for a while.  We finally added the back splash to our kitchen!  It had been sitting in our laundry room for about 6 months while my husband decided how we were going to do it, what tools we needed, blah, blah, blah.  He's the "get it done right" guy, and I'm the "get it done fast" girl.  We make a good team. :)  Finally one day I decided I was sick of it sitting there, so without my husbands permission I started throwing it up.  If I hit any hurdles I would jump them when they came.  Surprisingly it was super easy!!  My husband was very pleased.  I highly recommend the meshed backed squares to do your back splash.  The only tools we needed were a glass cutter, and a trowel.

Here's the before:

And here's the after:

What a difference, right?
I'll give you a super quick tutorial.

1. Watch youtube videos to get a feel for it.  I know it sounds silly, but youtube is great for DIYing!
2. We bought mastic so we didn't have to mix anything and I highly recommend it
3. Lay your mastic thick enough to have the tile stick, but not so thick that you have to clean out extra mastic that comes out through the tile.  Maybe 1/8 inch thick.  Only lay as much as you are going to put your tile on.  I had to work slow because I also have three kids.  I only did one to two tiles at a time. 
4. Plan it so that you only have to cut the tiles where you won't see it.  This for us meant we started at the edges of our kitchen.  We ended up cutting them in the corner behind the microwave.
5. Lay as many full tiles as you can, then come back and cut the ones that need to be cut at the end.
6. When you do the grout do it with a partner.  It was surprisingly the hardest part of the whole project.  It just takes muscle, and dries fast.

We also redid our guest bathroom.  No before of this either.  Here's what it looks like now;

We framed the mirror with baseboard, added bead board and chair rail, painted it a bright a festive color, and added a new shower curtain and towels.  Its so fun now, nobody uses the other bathroom.  Maybe its time to give the master bath a makeover. :)

Oh, and before I go, my awesome wall!

I got this idea from my favorite decorating blog All Things Thrifty.  Check her out!  You will love her site!