There are days where I look at my little guy and wish he was 8 months old again. I usually look upon those days when we have a terrible-two tantrum moment. For me, that time was the “Golden Baby Time.” He was animated, could sit up on his own, go wherever I went, slept through the night, and had the major baby chubs. So, I am looking back at all those cute baby clothes and lookie what I found.Elias & Grace not only have cute baby clothes, they have clothes for your little girls and boys too.

Emily Baier of Tako Fibers, has created awesome embroidery kits for every skill level so you and your kid can have some embroidery sessions together over a warm cup of hot-cocoa. Each kit comes with a screenprinted piece of fabric, a hoop, a needle, wool tapestry yarn, a stitch guide, and detailed instructions. These aren’t your old grandmother’s patterns either. They are cute and updated for the new crafter. These will make great little holiday presents and stocking stuffers!

Here are some pictures of the party. I baked carrot cupcakes and Ben’s birthday cake. I like simple things… haha, who am I kidding? I didn’t have time to make an extravagant birthday cake, so I was lucky enough to find a cute train set birthday candle holder to go on top of the cake. The suitcase which is holding the party favor bags was my mom’s from the 70′s. If you recall, the favor bags match the invitation I designed. Little Ben wore a t-shirt that read, “Choo choo, I’m 2!” from Cantaloupe Corner. And see that garland above the banner? I actually sewed that! Just cut circles out of felt and fed it through the sewing machine. Voila! It was actually simple and didn’t take that much time. It also helps to have the circle fabric cutter that I have.

I can’t wait to have a lemonade stand with the little guy. I want to make him the most bomb-a** lemonade stand ever. I think these vintage looking beverage dispensers from Victorian Trading Co. are perfect for any party, wedding, and yes, the bomb-a** lemonade stand. It will be totally, (in higher pitch voice), awesoooome.

I was super surprised to see this little Etsy shop by Mates & Rubbish, carrying a Customized Birthday Boy Cupcake Topper for boys. I looked around for the girl one, but did not find it! I’m sure they have one or can make one for the little girls too. But for once, I finally felt like this was one for just the boys.

I can’t sew very well. Even straight lines is a challenge for me. When I need to make an absolute straight line, I draw a line on the fabric to follow it. I saw this awesome tutorial for snack bags about a year ago and wanted to give it a try. The instructions are so clear and so easy, that I knew that even I could accomplish this task. I designed the fabric to match the invitations and ordered it through Spoonflower, and loved the way it turned out. If you order from them, I suggest you do this way in advance because it took about five weeks for mine to arrive. They told me that they were backed up, so hopefully it was just bad timing. My amazing mother-in-law is a crafty genius extraordinaire. She recommended that I use a French seam for this project. At first, it sounded like a daunting task, but it was super easy and turned out great!

I’ll be giving out these little favor bags at the birthday party. Parents can use them again as snack bags. I made a couple mock ones before these and have used them for pretzels and crackers. You can even use them for or dirty socks and shoes bags. Oh, you mean that hasn’t happened to you yet? You know, when your kid decides to go play in the puddles and mud and you have to figure out what to do with his nasty socks and shoes? Haha, of COURSE you have!

OMG. Is it really happening? I realize that veteran parents must be laughing at me, but what ev’s. I need to have my moment, and to all you first child mom’s, you deserve this moment too. The little one is turning two and dang, has time flown by that quickly? If so, then WHY?!?!?! I just looked at all the 1st birthday photos ooh-ing and awwww-ing over the cute little boy in his diaper eating his first cake, and missing the chub stomach rolls and chub thighs. Why is baby growing up so fast?! Too fast!!

Ok, I had my moment. Um. Alright. Yeaaahhh, I’m still obsessing about it.

So, on to birthday number two. The little boy is obsessed with trains. I realize that it probably isn’t the greatest idea that I feed his psychological obsession over trains with a train theme birthday party. Nonetheless, the party must go on! I started with the invitations and loved this train drawing on some wallpaper I saw a while back. (Yes, and I have an obsession over wallpaper, I know, I know.) I used that same train to put on the invitation. Then I custom made fabric to give out as party favors for the kiddos. I told myself that I would tone it down for this party since number one was a little insane. Hehe, I guess I just can’t help myself. No, seriously, I will tone it down.

Anyway, here is the invitation I drew up. I made it look like a train ticket and made little address return labels to match. I do not take any credit for the train drawing because that was wallpaper. As you can see, you will find no Thomas the Train theme here because the little one is actually a little freaked out by Thomas the Train. Weird, ain’t it? I’ll post the fabric bags next time so you can see what they look like.

When we moved into our 80′s house, we knew that the house was due for an upgrade to present day. Our master bedroom has three sliding doors that were gi-normous. Not only that, they were mirrored closet doors, boo! I searched and searched for a solution that did not involved installing custom doors because of our budget. Plus, custom closet doors can run you thousands of dollars, especially the size that we needed. So, the handy hubby decided to take the mirrors out and replace it with plywood. We painted it and thought, “Hey, we can put wallpaper up!” Did you know that wallpaper is expensive? Well, at least the kind that I liked. I actually did know about this amazing vinyl wallpaper that can hang over mirrored walls and doors, but since the price wasn’t right, I nixed that too. So, I decided to go with stenciling. UNTIL, I found this awesome deal at ModCloth for temporary wallpaper made out of vinyl. It’s from a company called, Tempaper. I guess we could have kept the mirrors in the end, but if we ever get sick of this wallpaper, at least we know that there won’t be mirrors underneath. Think of it as high end contact paper. Yup, contact paper. But it’s a lot sturdier, nicer, and the patterns are great.

It took about a roll and a half to finish the doors. Now I want to line my cupboards with them. Not really kid related entry, but hey, Tempaper has some very cute wallpaper patterns for kids rooms too! So when your kid decides that he or she is not two years old anymore, you can rip that sucker off in no time.

Here’s the AFTER:

Ok, I have sooo been missing from this blog. As the little one gets older, the less time I have! Gone are the days where he slept all day. Plus, I’m keeping busy doing other things like, work, helping with weddings, the Lolli Jewelry line, and trying to find music jobs that don’t exist anymore because of harsh budget cuts. (I shake my finger at you, US government, for not caring about education!) But I have thought about the ol’ blog. Haha, I know, not the same. I ran across this little suitcase from Smallable and had to share. I’ve been thinking about traveling with the little guy this summer and this caught my eye. When he outgrows it, I can use it for, um, me. Although he’s not really into flowers, I’ll probably get him the stripes version. I wonder if this little suitcase comes with a step-by-step guide on how to go on a road trip with a two year old. That would be helpful.

My sister gave me this magazine rack about ten years ago because I just had my magazines in piles everywhere. They’re still in piles, but probably because I hadn’t used the rack in years. After ten years, it has become a little outdated and looks like it belongs in a college dorm room. Rather than throwing it out, I decided that it would be easy to spruce up with a bit of paint and new fabric. I wish that I had found a fabric pattern that was more modern, but this hipster pregnant lady at the fabric store had hoarded seven bolts of fabric. One of which I adored, but she bought the whole roll. Oh well, still like my new and improved rack. My son and I now share it with the books that we read. Re-purposing stuff feels great.

AFTER