I kept looking for different ideas for displaying the alphabet in nurseries. When I saw these cute I ♥ U alphabet ideas, I knew it was something that I had to recreate for Giuliana's room and hang in the reading nook I'm in the process of creating.
1) Anna C: http://pinterest.com/pin/29062360065507057/
Cute, right? And when would be a better time to share then the Summer Pinterest Challenge? :)
The DIY link-up brain-child of Katie and Sherry? Count me in!
To make my alphabet art, I used an Ung-Drill frame that my brother and his girlfriend had given me as a gift last year.
It was so easy- the colors in G's room are pink and brown, so I busted out the paint and made the frame pink. I also bought some wood letters and painted them brown- except for the I and the U which I painted the same pink as the frame. I also painted a wooden heart pink to use in place of the letter O. Then I arranged and rearranged the letters on some recycled wrapping paper until I liked the way it all looked.
Once I felt good about it, I glued it all down, slapped it into the frame, and ta-da!...
I love it! I'm so happy with the way it came out and I can't wait to finish the nursery and get everything hung up- update to follow!
Silhouettes seem to be all the rage right now and with a new room to decorate, I wanted to get in on the action! I found several tutorial that seemed easy enough- but I don't have a projector and after seeing how expensive self-adhesive vinyl can be, I decided to forgo that route for a first time project. This is my super easy version of DIY silhouette art...
First, you find (or take) the picture that you want to use. I would say if you're just using someone's head, use a profile picture. But if your subject is an animal, it could be fun to use a full-body shot in an off-beat pose, like I did here. For this project, I decided to take a new picture of Kevin. The only problem was that Kevin happens to be a total ham.
He will pose for the picture and then as soon as the shutter clicks, he will lunge for the camera. He really enjoys smiling. Needless to say, it's not easy to get him to focus on something other than the camera to get that profile shot.
Unless I catch him looking out the window. In fact, that's what he's doing as we speak I type.
Cute, right? Neighborhood watch at its finest. Anyway, I said something to the effect of, "Kevin, look at that bird!" and I pointed out the window. (There was no bird. I feel kind of bad. But I got my shot!)
Boom! He looks intense, right?
I uploaded it to my computer and changed it to sepia so I could see the definition around his head better.
Next, I printed that bad boy out, cut out around his head, and gathered my supplies...
Supplies:
cut out of your picture
canvas in the size you want
acrylic paint
paint brushes
something to mix paint in (if you don't care for the colors the paint comes in)
double sided tape (not pictured)
Once my supplies were laid out, I stuck some double sided tape along the edges of the back of my cut out.Then I positioned it on the canvas. Because Kevin was looking down when I snapped the picture, I thought he looked kind of sad. I wanted to make sure he looked more proud in his silhouette, so when I attached the picture to the canvas, I titled his head at the angle I liked.
Next, I mixed my paint. I wanted a soft pink, but only had hot pink, white, and brown. So I mixed a lot of the hot pink with a lot of the white and a dab of brown to get the shade I was looking for.
Then I painted around the edges (cutting in, I suppose), brushing out from the picture to ensure that my paint started at the edge of the picture and didn't seep underneath. I wasn't sure if this technique would work until I was finished...
After I finished the edges, I filled in the rest of the canvas so that the pink would be on the outside and the actual silhouette would be white. (If you wanted another color for the silhouette, paint the canvas that color first, let it dry, and then begin from the start of my instructions.)
After I finished my painting, I peeled off the picture, and ta-da!!!
It still looks a little splotchy in the picture because it was drying, but it looks pretty sweet now that it's all dry!
And Kevin approves!
Now I just have to find the perfect spot for it in the nursery! :)
This whole last week has been kind of lame. The weather's been kind of cold and crappy, work was dragging on all week, and Brian had to work a lot of overtime. Kind of the opposite of perfect. All of the down time led me to try something new- attempting to crossover to a self-hosted blog. Turns out it was a little bit more complicated than what I was expecting and my patience was just too short to try to deal with it. And for as much crap as people talk about Blogger, I've really liked it. That's kind of all that really matters. I'm sticking with this for now. Enough of that.
This is what I'm looking like now:
Pretty hefty, huh?
I think the camera may have added those 10 (or 20) pounds though. I mean, obviously I'm getting bigger, but I look like a cow in the 23 week picture. In my own defense I ate a pretty big burger for lunch and I had just downed a cup of almond milk.
Or maybe it was a bad angle.
Or maybe I'm just that effing big now. I don't know... more pictures to come soon though.
On a positive note, I managed to squeeze into my old jeans last night (which I hadn't tried in a couple of weeks, so that's a good thing, I guess).
On another positive note, the baby is definitely getting bigger and stronger. She's kicking a lot more, which is very reassuring. And now, not only can Brian feel her, but we can see her moving! It's nothing too crazy yet, but if I lay down, all of a sudden my stomach will twitch. Right now it just kind of looks like a muscle spasm, but it's neat. :) Saturday
Brian had to work all day yesterday, so that kind of sucked, but I got to spend some time with my family, so it worked out. My mom and I went to our step class in the morning. I noticed that although my energy level is back up, my dexterity level is down. Like, if I make the wrong move in class (which happens more frequently than I'd like to admit), I can't adjust my body in time to catch up anymore, so I have to stop and figure out where the class is, and then join them again. It's kind of frustrating, but if I concentrate, I think I can manage. Or I could just look like an idiot. Either way.
After class, we went to Joann Fabric to get some quilting supplies so we can finally begin our project. While I was there, I got a canvas to I could make an art project...
A Kevin silhouette for the nursery! I'll post a tutorial tomorrow- it's super easy. And Kevin-approved!
That night after Brian got home, we went over to our friend Rachael's house for some corned beef and cabbage. It was St. Patrick's day, after all! It was nice to get to spend good quality time with our buddies.
Sunday
Today was a good day. We rounded up the moms and went to Buy Buy Baby to start our gift registry! Buy Buy Baby is affiliated with Bed Bath and Beyond and it's basically laid out the exact same way- a huge store filled with baby stuff. We've been in there 4 or 5 times now and each time, I get super overwhelmed. Like, I don't even know where to begin to shop for things.
Brian put up with me pretty well because I was kind of being a jerk. Not to him, but in general. The long week caught up with me, I was exhausted, and being in a huge store and not knowing what's what was making me feel like a pretty inadequate mom-to-be. But the moms were patient with me and Brian calmed me down. So between us, the moms, and a very helpful saleswoman, I think we made some pretty good decisions about what we want to get for the baby. Oh, and we bought a crib, so that was pretty exciting! Things are starting to come together and I'm feeling a lot better. And I got to spend more time with this guy today,
I always enjoyed reading while I was growing up. My parents have a picture in of me that is still hanging in their hallway from when I was like a year old, fast asleep with a book opened up and resting on my chest. My mom used to continues to tell people that I brought a book to my first Dodger game. Before I got a TV in my room, I used to put myself to sleep with a book every night. I still have my huge collection of Baby Sitters Club books hidden away in a closet, and you know I've read each one at least twice.
Needless to say, I like getting lost in a good book and I believe all the reading I did as a child helped me immensely in school and broadened the range of my imagination. I want my daughter to enjoy reading as much as I do, so like I discussed in my last post, I want to create a reading area in her room from the get-go.
Over the weekend, my dad and I started working on a book case. My dad's pretty awesome- as soon as I told him what I wanted to do, he sprang into action by creating plans and drawing out dimensions of shelves. We went shopping for a bunch of lumber and started construction on Saturday morning.
A couple of hours in, Brian came over and jumped right in to help. Why wasn't he there from the beginning, you ask? It's because he's the best husband ever! He stayed home to vacuum and do dishes while I went to go play with power tools. He's awesome! ♥
But like I said, as soon as he got there, he jumped right in, so this piece of furniture is really going to be a collaboration of love for this little girl! We're still not done yet. We still have some trim to add and then some sanding and painting to do, but it's looking good!
One of the highlights of my week was coming home to one of my first purchases for the baby... books!!!
Sure, they're well beyond the reading comprehension level of a baby-toddler-young child, but they're classic stories (that I want to read/reread myself), so I'm going to start young! I felt kind of silly at first, but I'm looking forward to diving into some of these stories with her. Plus, Brian and I found a bunch of Golden Books (remember those?) and Disney books that we'll read to her too.
I'm so excited for it all! These books are really cool too- leather bound with shimmery pages and even some very pretty illustrations.
Purdy!
And for anyone keeping track, I've moved into my 22nd week, so here's last week's picture:
And compared to the previous weeks':
Starting to get bigger! The cool thing is, aside from the occasional heartburn (which is bad when it hits), I'm feeling pretty darn good. I'm staying awake later, I have more energy, and I'm starting to look pregnant in clothes and not just fat and frumpy. I've been feeling good at the gym each morning and the ladies there have been very sweet and complimentary, which has been making me feel good too. I'm also starting to feel her kick (Jab? Upper cut? Swing a bat? Not sure but she's getting stronger!) and that's been very reassuring. It's been a good week!
I should probably update this blog more often because we have so much going on lately! We've been pretty much making over the house. We added a shelving unit from Ikea to the living room, we got new floors throughout the entire house (wood laminate in the dining room and bedrooms, and carpet in the living room and up the stairs), we just ordered a new bed and picked out some new bedding yesterday for our room in colors that are totally new to us, and then of course- most exciting of all- we're starting to put together the nursery! For example, my mom and I spent over 2 hours at Joann's on Sunday picking out fabric and patterns for a baby quilt. This is what I ended up with:
I've never made a quilt before and the last time she did was like, 15 years ago or something, so this should be a frustrating fun bonding experience for us. I will have to add some pictures of all of that madness soon!
In the meantime, I'm rounding out week 19 and entering week 20- the halfway mark! I'm noticing now that my stomach is finally starting to pop a little bit. I'm still not totally thrilled about it getting bigger, but it's starting to look more pregnant and less beer belly. So that's good.
The latest update from The Bump says the baby is the size of a cantaloupe at week 20. That seems huge to me! Especially since she's only halfway baked! The cool thing about her getting bigger is that I'm finally starting to feel her. I've been "feeling" her for a couple of weeks, but wasn't sure until this weekend.
Some people say it feels like gas bubbles or butterflies or tickling from inside. The most close comparison to what I've felt is the gas. Not like, farty gas though. Just like digestion, I guess. You know how you'll be sitting in class or in a theater or somewhere extremely quite and then all of a sudden your stomach starts to growl and everyone hears it? Well you know that little movement you feel right before that deep growl? Well it's a movement like that that I have been feeling.
Of course, I like to eat, so I didn't know that it wasn't my stomach growling... until recently when she started getting bigger. Like, now I can definitely tell it's her moving because it's starting to feel stronger.
The other day, I felt her so I put my hand on my belly right away and after a couple of seconds, I felt her bump again! That's been the only time I've felt it externally. Every time I start to feel her, I call Brian over, but he hasn't been able to feel her yet, so I think most of what I'm feeling is all internal. My little baby canteloupe!
Do you want to see something scary??
At our ultrasound last week, we could see her doing so many cute things like touching her face, sucking her thumb, kicking her legs. And then the technician pointed out that she yawned. The tech caught a picture of it and printed it out for us.
Our baby went from this sweet little thing:
To this yawning beast:
That's frightening, right? Every time I look at this picture, she reminds me of a t-rex, or an alligator, or this scene from Beetlejuice:
Do you remember when Geena Davis makes that face to scare Winona Ryder?? Yikes! :)
No, I can already tell she's going to be beautiful by her cute little button nose and I can't wait to meet her!
It's been exactly a month since my last post. Bad, bad blogger. But there has been good reason for my absence. Full time work, softball tryouts, thesis writing er, planning, camping, MY BIRTHDAY, and some laundry sprinkled in here and there has made my days plenty full. I'm making a come back today though... Here's what's been going on:
I'm trying to cook more often and eat healthier. It doesn't seem like it should be so difficult, but I'm away from the house from 5:45 am to 5:30ish pm right now and by the time I get home, I just want to sit down and relax. But one of my goals is to be the best wife and healthiest person I can be. So I attempted to make spaghetti and homemade turkey meatballs. This is what my meatballs looked like pre-oven:
See the sogginess? Yeah. I didn't know what to expect. They looked ridiculous, but they ended up being pretty good.
I've still been going to the gym every morning with my mom. She's doing a great job! Actually, last week I had to take a little break because my left knee was killing me. It was so bad I thought I had torn a ligament or something serious. But I iced it every night (11 minutes on, 11 minutes off x2) and took a 5 day break and it feels great now! And even on the days I didn't go, my mom still went. I'm so proud of her!
As far as other everyday things go, I'm getting kind of annoyed at work. For reasons I shouldn't just throw out on the internet. The only thing keeping me sane is my own insanity. Like when I saw this:
I wanted to get all Dwight Shrute on my coworker's desk.
And then I just start laughing at my ridiculousness and I feel good again.
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In the spirit of catching up, one highlight of the last month was my birthday. Brian took me out to a very nice dinner at Gladstones in Malibu. Right on the beach during sunset. Perfection!
I love this guy!
Also that weekend, we went camping with a group of our besties. The camping wasn't for my birthday, it just happened to be the same weekend. A weekend that was filled with carne asada, camp fires, s'mores, and bocce ball... sounds like a good time to me!
See how close we were to the water?? For the last several years, I have had a recurring dream that a wave crashes over me. Sometimes it's been a rushing wave, like what we've seen tsunamis looking like in more recent times. Sometimes it's a tidal wave. Sometimes I'm in the water and I just float through it and sometimes I'll be driving along side of it. It's different every time. But the fact that I have had dreams like this more than once gave me pause once I realized how close our campsite was to the water.
But we were obviously safe and it was really nice to fall asleep to the sound of waves crashing on the shore.
I took this picture of Brian and my brother because they were both wearing blue shirts, gray shorts, and hats. So cute of them to dress alike. I'm jealous. :)
On the way home, we went to Ventura for some fish and chips in what has become a tradition to conclude our camping trips. And we had to reenact one of my favorite pictures from last year:
Be still, my heart!
The whole last month hasn't been all fun and games though- the day before my birthday, we actually had a break from all the So Cal heat and there was actually rain. Unfortunately, since it only rains like, twice a year here, any weather that isn't sunny tends to bring out the crazy in drivers. Brian got into an accident on his way to work. He was fine, but his car didn't fare as well.
The bad news- his Ford Explorer was totaled. But some good did come out of it. We bought a new car. It's our first major purchase together, it was a great find, and although this wasn't how we wanted to go about it, we had been talking about getting a newer car.
Brian loves it and I'm happy that he's safe.
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On a creative front, I've been doing some projects around the house. I finally finished decorating the eat-in area of the kitchen.
I went from my usual beach theme to a more world traveler theme. On one wall, I put up pictures that I had taken in Europe two years ago and on the other wall, I just put up some art and decor that I had been collecting. I also took a note from Young House Love and put up a map with pins that signify all of the places that Brian and I have traveled together.
Hard to see, I know. But they're there! And we're planning on adding more!
With the "new" kitchen, I felt inspired to try some stuff in the kitchen. I made some cake pops!
Long story short, they're delicious! Recipe coming soon!
In other creative news, I've made these:
To help keep us organize. I'll let you know if they help.
And this:
It looks better when it's not in cell phone picture form. I'm actually pretty excited about it!
FINALLY, I really want to do this but Kevin needs a costume... what should Kevin be for Howl-o-ween???
