Crafting for Healing

As I, and we, have worked to heal from our most recent loss, I have been putting a lot of focus in other areas of my life. On May 4, 2018, I graduated from Michigan State University with my Masters' Degree, and that was a feat on its own. Two straight school years of classes along with teaching, coaching, and attempting to start a family. A huge weight was lifted when I walked across that stage. Hours of homework each week while trying to lesson plan and be about half of the teacher that I could be given everything I was going through was difficult.

Part of my healing has come through crafting. For a long time after my first loss, I didn't want to do any kind of crafting because I had so many plans for our baby's nursery. My Pinterest feed was filled with nursery decor and everything baby. I couldn't even open the app for a while. Since my second loss, I have started to use crafting to help me through all of the grief that I am experiencing.

This post is going to be riddled with the different things that I have made over the last several months and what they have meant to my healing.

The first time since winter break that I spent any time working on crafts was Mothers' Day weekend. I had finally convinced my husband to let me stay home while he was going to his parents because I didn't want to be around anyone while I was feeling the way that I was about the whole weekend. So I crafted.

The first thing I worked on was a project that I had started for my nephew a long time ago. It was a baseball in the shape of a cross with a verse from the bible for his bedroom. I had a hard time working on it after my first loss. First, I took apart a baseball which ruins the red stitching. I used red yarn and a yarn needle to restitch all the red. I used just regular red yarn. My husband brought me the baseball from work, I bought the piece of wood from Hobby Lobby, used acrylic paint that I already had, and then white vinyl on my Cricut for the wording. I used gray paint because it matched his room, and I don't really like working with stain. The inspiration I used from Pinterest had the board stained a dark brown color. As always with anything vinyl and painted, I sealed it all with Mod Podge.

The next thing I worked on that day was a fall banner for my house. I love fall. It is my favorite season of the year. It has the best weather, the best colors, and the best holiday of all time. I have a couple of other posts on here about fall crafting, and the different things that I have done, and this one will include a couple more.

The inspiration for the banner came from this  <--Pinterest post. This was a full on Cricut project. I currently have the Cricut Explore Air 2. I used cardstock that I already had in my house because I am a paper crafter/scrapbooker by nature. The ribbon, twine, and flower embellishment were left over from other projects, and I thought they added something to this banner. The paper cutouts are all stock in the Cricut Design Studio. It was an extremely cheap project, and I just have to figure out how to hang it up on my door this fall.

The next thing that I worked on, which ended up being quite extensive, was a first/last day of school board for my nephew. He's starting Kindergarten this year, and the first day of school thing is a big deal on Pinterest, so I went for it.

The supplies I used are:

• 2' X 2' piece of wood - purchased at Home Depot
• Red, White, and Black Cricut vinyl
• Cricut transfer tape
• Cricut Explore Air 2 and Design Space
• Cricut Dry Erase Vinyl
• Black and Red acrylic paint.
• Mod Podge

 Again, I used a lot of stock images and font to cut the different things out. My husband works for a place that does a lot of screen printing and embroidering, so he was able to get me a vector image of the school logo where my nephew is going to go to school, and this is how it turned out. The school colors are black, white, and red, so that is recurring through the entire project. As always with anything painted and vinyl, it is sealed with Mod Podge. Cameron didn't really understand it when I gave it to him, but I know his mom appreciates it.

 Right around Valentine's Day, I found out that one of my really good friends was expecting. This was right around the time that we had lost our second. I had a really hard time with this next couple of projects. While I was suffering on the inside, I didn't want anyone to feel any less loved or appreciated, so through the pain and tears, I made these next two things for her. The hat and diaper cover set is something that I have made for several of my friends. They are huge Cubs fans, so I had to find the pattern for a C, and then just changed the yarn colors appropriately. The baseball button on the diaper cover was a purchase from Hobby Lobby that has come in handy plenty over the last several years of my crocheting.

The blanket that you see on the right there, with my adorable puppy standing on it, is a car seat blanket. My mother in law sent me this pattern, and I used Bernat chunky yarn that had several colors in one. She is having a boy so I stuck with something that had blue in it. They make so many patterns and colors now it's unreal! For this blanket, with this super chunky yarn, I think I left off 4 or 5 rows because it was going to be really big. That being said, I did follow the pattern perfectly throughout in terms of number of stitches and rows with the exception of the end. This particular blanket has two openings for the harness of the carseat to go between and hook in.

This is a project that I started right around when school was getting out. I have wanted to make one of these chevron blankets for a long time, and this was a huge part of my healing process. A baby born after a miscarriage is called a rainbow baby, and I made this with the intention of giving it to my own rainbow baby someday. I used all Caron Simply Soft yarn in the different colors. I think the only two yarns that are different are the orange and the yellow because I wanted brighter colors. It's not quite complete yet, as you can see from the gray near the top, but it is something that has helped me through the grieving process.

This project was one completed for my sister when she moved in to her new house this past spring. She wanted something to hold keys and change when they came through the door. Supplies are:

• large piece of wood - I purchased this at Michael's for $12.99 and I used a coupon
• large mason jar - I purchased this one at Joann Fabrics on clearance for $0.97
• key hooks - purchased at Menard's for $0.98 each. I did 4 because that's how it worked out on the board.
• hose clamp - 4" diameter to accommodate the larger mason jar purchased at Lowe's for $3 I think
• Cricut Explore Air 2, White vinyl, transfer tape, and Cricut Design Space.
• Mod Podge for sealing and finishing

The words were cut at 2.5 inches because that's how big the spaces were on the board. I wish I could have made them a little bigger, but I don't think it would have worked well with the vinyl. We had quite a situation when attaching everything because the wood was thin and the screws were long. We had to go to some creative measures to make sure that no one would get stabbed and that it wouldn't mark up the wall.

 So for my last project, we are back to the fall. Earlier this year when I made the curtains for our spare bedroom, I had extra fabric and I made a couple of pillow covers to match using this tutorial from Pinterest. It was super easy to follow and the covers came out perfect.

Now, earlier this summer, I took a beginners sewing class at Joann Fabrics. It wasn't super beneficial to me in terms of being able to use my sewing machine or teaching me new things, but one thing I did get out of it was the magnetic seam guide. This thing has been a God send. When I first learned how to use a sewing machine, the person put a piece of painter's tape on the machine for me to follow to sew in a straight line. The magnetic seam guide does that while also providing something solid to follow up against. You line up the edge with whatever your seam allowance is, and then sew up against it. So amazing. I bought mine at Joann. It normally retails for about $5. I think I got mine for somewhere around $2.50 with a coupon, and it is some of the best money I have spent for my sewing machine. The photo on the right above shows the use of the magnetic seam guide as I was using it for this project.

For this project, I wanted to make some fall themed pillows to put on my couch for the fall months, and I wanted to make envelope pillows so that I could change them out for Christmas. I am super big into decorating for those two seasons specifically. The other ones are slowly catching up, but I don't think they will ever truly be equal. I made three pillows for this project. I wanted two to be the same and then another accent pillow.

Supplies for this project included:

• Fall themed fabric - Purchased at Joann Fabrics. The pumpkin fabric was $9.99/yd on sale for $6.99/yd. I purchased one yard of this fabric for two pillows. The leafy, floral fabric was $12.99/yd on sale for $9.09/yd. I purchased half a yard of this fabric for the accent pillow.
• Three Pillow Forms - I bought pillow forms because they are envelope cases and the pillows go in and out easily. I purchased two 14x14 pillows. They regularly retail for $12.99. I also purchased on 12x16 pillow which regularly retails for $14.99. All of the pillow forms were on sale for 40% off when I went shopping, so score!
• Thread - I bought a maroon thread to accent the colors in both fabrics. I could have used any colors because the seam lines are not really visible in these type of pillow cases. 
• Sewing machine & accessories - I have a Singer sewing machine
• Cutting mat - Not super necessary, but I use one because it saves my surfaces :)
• Rotary cutter and fabric scissors - the rotary cutter is amazing for helping with straight lines
• Ruler, tape measure - again for help with straight lines

For the 14x14 pillows, I followed the tutorial exactly. I did cut my fabric with a one inch seam allowance on either side just because I did not trust myself to be so perfect with it as I am just a beginner. The half inch seam allowance on the sides made me nervous. For the 12x16 pillow, I cut the fabric at 13x38 following her instructions on the measurements and adjusting them to a different size pillow. The longer part of the pillow is where the envelope ended up, but it worked for this fabric because there is no true up/down pattern. While I am not wishing for fall to get here any sooner than it will be here, I am excited to start pulling out those decorations.

I am so happy that my love for crafting has begun to return as I have worked through everything over the last year. I still have a long way to go, but I am starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel.

Until next time...

Strength

What does it mean to be strong? How do you know you are strong?

The more I hear that word, the worse I feel about it. After writing a message about how God is good, and being blessed with a new pregnancy, it is with a heavy heart that I have to write that a second little angel was called to heaven before their time.

As I laid on the table in the ultrasound room, waiting to see and hear this new little baby that we were bringing into the world, there is nothing to describe the absolute devastation that would follow. There was no baby. We had a gestational sac and everything was where it was supposed to be, but there was no baby, no heartbeat. Just am empty sac. To go from such hope and happiness to despair and devastation is difficult to describe. I couldn't cry. I could just sit there and wonder why this had to happen to me again.

I am not sure where to go from here. Something in my heart has told me that I am meant to be a mom, and I don't understand why that has not been allowed to happen. Maybe we will have some answers in the future, or maybe we will never know the answer. I do know that we are taking some time off and are going to be just the two of us for a little while longer. I never thought that this would be my journey, but God has other plans. I can only hope to one day appreciate them more than I do now.

Happy Fall Ya'll

This fall has been a journey in healing. There is nothing that prepares you for the hardships that we have had to endure as a couple this year, but I think going through this has helped us to grow closer together, closer to God, and to appreciate everything just a little bit more.

Part of my process to healing was to talk. Talk about what happened with my husband and my family and my friends. The rest of my process was to return to some sense of normalcy. I continued to coach volleyball. It was hard because there were definitely times when my heart wasn't in it. I continue to teach because this is the area of my life where I can truly make a difference. I can form relationships with my students and help them to be better while I make myself better. There are definitely days when I walk out of my classroom knowing that I didn't do the best job that I could, but it just reminds me that I have to take it easy on myself. I am still healing and not every day is going to be perfect. I continued to work on my masters degree. My goal in life is to give my future children everything I had growing up and more. I want them to live in a house, with a dog, and have everything that I could possibly give them, and pursuing my masters degree makes me better and more valuable, which will make things better for them in the long run. It's been difficult, stressful, and has caused me a lot of anxiety, but all of the challenges will be worth it when I walk across the stage in May officially a Michigan State University Alum. The last thing that I have continued to do as a stress relief and a method of healing is to craft.

My home is one of the most important things to me and when I am given a spark of creativity, I have to run with it. The following projects that I am about to share were completed with my mother-in-law while she tried to keep me positive and help me heal. Fall is my favorite season of the year. It is the time where we are reminded to give thanks. To appreciate what we have and what we have experienced and thank God for all that is coming in the future. When September hits, my home turns into a fall haven of reds, yellows, oranges, and browns, and I spent a lot of time on Pinterest pooling ideas and thinking about ways that I could make them my own. My mother-in-law and I spent a whole afternoon crafting earlier this fall. We made two different kinds of wood pumpkins and then a stacked pumpkin address stand for the front step. In the rest of the post that follows, I will give you details about the supplies you will need and how we completed these projects for our homes.

1. 2 x 4 Pumpkins

This project was almost an afterthought as we were walking through the hardware store getting a 2x6 and some spray paint for a couple of my other ideas. As a shameless Pinterest addict, this is a straight from Pinterest special. This is the post that I originally saved and they include a supply list for what they used. I will preface with the fact that I am not super into the new - old look type of thing and while I think weathered wood looks pretty, it's just not my style. With anything that I do on pinterest, I tend to make a little my own.

Supplies

• 2 X 4 X 8 - I bought mine at Lowe's for less than $5. The original post used scraps that she had her house. I bought new.
• Saw - My husband the DIYer for our home of course has a table saw that I used to cut the wood pieces. If you are truly using scraps, obviously they don't have to be perfect.
• Sandpaper - You don't have to, but I recommend sanding the wood down for a cleaner finish. My husband has a Ryobi sander from Home Depot, so that came in handy.
• Hot glue gun & glue sticks. Those are pretty much a staple of any craft project.
• Paint. I used acrylic paint called Pumpkin Spice and then just regular brown for our stumps.
• Ribbon - The ribbon that will is pictured in our final products was something that my mother-in-law had in her crafting stuff. Any ribbon that you like will work :)
• Fake leaves - again, not necessary, but definitely something that we liked. We also had these laying around from a previous project.

 I am the one that purchased the 2 X 4 from Lowe's and cut it down to size. I followed the measurements laid out in the blog post above for two 6" and two 8" pieces. My husband screwed the pieces together before we started painting. The stem pieces were made with the scrap wood left over from the piece of wood and cut down smaller. Then we painted. I just used regular acrylic paint from the craft store. The particular color of the orange was Pumpkin Spice. It's a little darker, but still pretty orange. We painted the stems brown. My MIL is pretty gifted with ribbon bows, so she tied those for the both of us. And then we used a hot glue gun to add the leaves to the stems. They are fall colored, but you could use any that you like. To the left is our finished product. Mine is sitting proudly on an end table in my living room.


     2. Three 2 X 6 Pumpkins

 Our second project together was actually the one that started the whole premise of the crafting day. I saw these pumpkins at a craft show and then upon some perusing on Pinterest once again, I found them again, and they looked fairly simple. Just like the pumpkins we made above, these were again made out of scrap pieces of wood, some paint, and then a little something here or there for embellishments. A majority of the posts that I had seen on these pumpkins were from Etsy where you could buy them already made, but so very often I think to myself, "I could make those cheaper than I could buy them from this person," so I made them myself.

Supplies

• One 2 X 6 X 8 - I bought mine from Lowe's again.
• Saw and Sander - again, love that my husband is a DIY guy because we have these in our garage.
• Acrylic Paint - we used Pumpkin Spice Orange, a brighter neon looking orange, rose gold, silver, and then brown and green for the stems (the stems are not done yet)
• Hot glue gun - again, a staple
• Painter's tape - how else would we make those straight lines and that fancy chevron look
• A ruler - what perfectionist doesn't love straight lines on her work?
• Miscellaneous embellishments to finish it off

So this project is one that is not quite complete yet. We each got the first two pumpkins of our three completed, and then just ran out of time before dinner and they had to head home. I got the project started for us by getting the 2 X 6 from Lowe's. I cut ours into 8", 10", and 14" pieces. We wanted one of them to look short like a pumpking and then the other two to be taller. I then used smaller pieces to make the stems as I did with the previous pumpkins. I sanded them down to a nice smooth surface, but did not have my husband attach the stems. We learned from the other pumpkins that painting them while they were attached was difficult and touching up was a pain in the butt. Sanding just gave them a nice smooth surface and cleaned up the rough edges from cutting them with the saw.




My mother-in-law decided that she wanted her pumpkins to be silver and orange because a lot of the accents in her house are silver or brushed nickel. We have a lot of warm tones in our house, so I went with rose gold and the pumpkin spice orange. We started off by painting each of our pumpkins the base color. I did the rose gold, and she did silver. We decided that it was easier to paint the orange over the top. My pumpkins were going to have vertical stripes, horizontal stripes, and then a chevron pattern. She did vertical, chevron and polka dots for hers. The only one of each of ours that is not complete is the chevron. They are the hardest to accomplish perfectly when using painter's tape and we ran out of time. I used a ruler to measure the different increments where we would put the painter's tape, and then I also used the ruler to keep my lines straight. My mother-in-law used different sized bottle caps to make her circles before she carefully painted them in.

Like I said before, these are not a finished product, but I will make sure to add more to this portion when they are completed. Which is hopefully soon!

     3. Address Pumpkins

My final project, also a Pinterest inspiration, was to make something for my front porch that was super cute and fall themed. Again, my mother-in-law was in on this action. It is a craft where I merged two different ideas together to form what I came up with.

The photo on the left is what inspired the fact that I wanted the address on the pumpkins that I put together, and the photo on the right is where I drew the rest of my inspiration. Below is the supply list of the things I got for this project...

• Four trick or treat pumpkins (or however many you need for your project) - I got mine from Wal-Mart for $1 each
• Bronze spray paint - I got mine from Lowe's for $6. You can obviously get whatever color you would like.
• Flowers/Embellishments - I got mine as a bouquet from Hobby Lobby when they had all of their fall floral on sale. It is obviously up to whatever you want.
• Vinyl - I had some leftover from my Cricut starter pack. I used tan for mine and silver for my mother-in-law. Again, use whatever color you deem necessary.
• Cricut - to cut out the vinyl, I used my Cricut.
• Hot glue gun/glue - to put the pumpkins together
• Pea gravel/sand - I used pea gravel as a weight to weigh down the bottom pumpkin to keep it from falling over.
• Mod-Podge - to seal the vinyl on the pumpkins
• Florist foam block - got mine from Joann

My husband, the wonderfully supportive man that he is, spray painted all 8 pumpkins for me once I took all the handles off. One side of the pumpkin has the jack-o-lantern face on it, so we just faced those the other way. I bought a florist foam block from Joann to hold the flowers in place for the top. The bouquet that I bought had a variety of fall flowers in various colors - purples, maroons, golds, oranges, reds, etc.  I had to cut the block down because it was a little too big, but was able to use one block for both of our top pumpkins. We did address numbers, so the next thing was to load up the laptop and get the Cricut ready to go. I still have to seal the numbers and glue the pumpkins together before I can put it outside. It may be one that gets saved for next year since it's nearly time for the Christmas decorations to be out!

The top picture here is the almost finished product. The bottom picture is the flowers that I arranged for the top pumpkin.















Until next time...

13 Weeks 4 Days

13 Weeks and 4 Days. That's how long I got to know you. On June 25, we got the best news of our lives. We were pregnant. After 4 months of trying, we were pregnant. It seemed so fast, but it seemed so perfect. Seeing that little plus sign was everything I had ever wanted. I've always wanted to be a mom. I've always felt like I was supposed to be a mom, and now I was going to be.

The first 12 weeks of pregnancy seemed like a breeze. I hardly had any morning sickness. I was always tired and super hungry, and man did I always have to pee. All of those things were just a minor setback for a dream come true. At 11 weeks and 3 days, I heard your heartbeat for the first time, and it was the most beautiful sound I had ever heard. As I laid on that exam room table with a doctor standing over me, I have never concentrated on a ceiling so hard in my life. And when he got that doppler in just the right spot, and I heard that fast little heartbeat for the first time, the tears just poured from my eyes. You were in there, and this was real. I was going to have a baby.  We were becoming a family of three.

At 12 weeks and 2 days, I experienced one of the scariest things in my life. A gush of blood. You're not supposed to bleed when you're pregnant, and I was terrified. It was a Sunday night, and unless I went to the ER, there was nothing we could do but wait. At 8 AM on Monday morning, I called the doctor thinking I had already lost you, and they were going to tell me the same. We had an ultrasound at 10 AM to see what was going on. Sitting in that waiting room, waiting for my name, I couldn't stop the tears from falling. I had lost my baby and they were going to confirm it. They took us back to the ultrasound room, squeezed that goo on my belly, and stuck that wand on me, and there you were. Your heartbeat was a strong 167 and you were rolling around and stretching all over the place. It was a miracle seeing you on that screen, healthy and perfect. The diagnosed me with a subchorionic hemorrhage, a small cut on my uterus that was discharging and causing the bleeding. You were fine and everything was going to be okay.

Over the next week, I was nervous about this hemorrhage, but tried to stay positive. The following Monday, August 14, they brought us in for a follow up and said the hemorrhage was gone. They could no longer find it on my uterus and everything was looking great. You were growing. Bigger than the last time I saw you, and moving around just as much. We were sent home with another array of baby pictures, and so much hope in our hearts because you were healthy.

That night, I don't think I slept. I was up all night passing clots and they told me it could be residual from the hemorrhage, but something didn't feel quite right. I called the doctor the next morning, and to ease my nerves, they had me come in to listen to your heartbeat again. I heard you at 10:30 that morning, and less than 30 minutes later, I lost you. I thought it was my fault. I thought I did something wrong. I couldn't even cry for my loss when it first happened. I was too shocked. Now, I thank God that I was at the doctor that day and for everything that they were able to do for me without having to go to the emergency room and have surgery. When your daddy walked in the room, I burst into tears. I couldn't hold it in anymore. I felt so lost and broken and empty. I still do. Some days it feels like it's never going to get better. I am thankful for every single day that I had with you. There was never a time when I didn't think I was going to hold you in my arms for the first time in February of 2018. The last week has been the hardest of my entire life, and I've experienced pain that I never thought was possible, but I am so grateful that God gave me you even if it was only for a little while.

I know that God has a plan. I may not understand it right now, and I may never understand it, but I know he does. I know that I am going to be a mom someday, and for 13 weeks and 4 days, and forever for me, I am your mommy. It may take a while for me to be ready, but we are planning on trying again. The doctors are positive. We conceived you naturally. You were an answer to so many prayers, and the next one will be an answer to so many more.

Birthday Crafting Volume 2

In my first post about birthday crafting, it was all about my best friend and her beautiful twins. This one is about another special little boy in my life. My, now four year old, nephew. This little one has been extremely special since before he was born. He's the first baby for my sister-in-law and her husband. He's the first grandchild. He's our first nephew. So of course his birthdays are going to be special.

As I also mentioned before, I have become quite the crafter. My sister-in-law is quite the planner. She tells me what she wants, and we work together to execute. My nephew has had a theme birthday party each year, and this year was obviously no different. His first birthday was monster themed, and I can remember being up until two in the morning making decorations and decorating cupcakes for a party that this kid wasn't even going to remember. His second birthday was Mickey Mouse themed thanks to a little show called Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Thank goodness that Cricut exists and we learned how to use it. It made things so much easier, but again, we were up until all hours of the morning making everything, but he was so excited because everything was Mickey and it was just for him. His third birthday was Toy Story themed. He had just seen Toy Story 3, and was in love with Jessie after our trip to Disney World that winter. And again it was another late night before the party getting everything all finished up.

This year was no different. The phase of the year was Moana, and more specifically for Cameron, Maui. He loves Maui and wanted a Maui Birthday Party, and we were only too happy to oblige. We began looking up different ideas much earlier this year. Because I have the Cricut Explore Air, if we had vector images of the characters, we would be able to cut them out accurately and create some pretty incredible decorations. The banner above was created using stock images and fonts that were available on the Cricut Design Studio. The Moana accents were added by cutting out vector images that my sister-in-law purchased off of Etsy. This banner was a main focal point at the party, and it was hung in the dining room area of their house.

The week of his party, my sister-in-law came over to our house in order to use our Cricut and cut out everything so that we could get things together before the night before the party. She had a massive list of things to accomplish, and we checked off most of them.

She wanted to make...

• Maui's fish hook for each of 48 Shiny Cupcakes
• Signs for the cupcakes and heart of Tefiti cookies
• A large cutout of Hei Hei
• A large cutout of Pua
• A large cutout of Tamatoa
• The happy birthday banner and accents
• Palm leaves to create palm trees
• A large cutout of Maui - this one ended up being wishful thinking. We couldn't get it to work for some reason. It was very frustrating.
• A You're Welcome Poster 
• Cocamora boxes for trail mix
• Cocamora coconut cups
• Popsicle stick canoes for the tables

We'll start with the popsicle stick canoes. She bought a box of crafting popsicle sticks and had her mom assemble the little boats. The sail is a triangle cut out on the Cricut with red glitter glue in the form of the Heart of Tefiti.

The Cocamora boxes were a task. My sister-in-law bought the pattern for the boxes on Etsy, and you were supposed to print them on paper, cut them out, and then fold them up. My amazing husband was able to create an image in order to cut them out on the Cricut. We had to estimate the lines in order to fold them up, but it ended up working out. He was then able to create the images in order to cut out each part of their faces in order to put them together. Quite the genius, that husband of mine. And I know he's going to be super helpful when it's time to do this for our kids (which is hopefully soon!).

The cutouts for each of the characters were simple and complicated all at the same time. We ended up having to use several different features of the Cricut in order to make these possible. It's fantastic that you are able to draw, cut, weld, attach, and view the layers separately and together all on the same screen. Hei Hei was extremely intricate and we ended up using the writing feature to display the finer details. Tamatoa was just a lot of layers that all needed to be cut out separately. The gold glitter paper was several layers that I welded together in order to cut it out as larger pieces to make them easier to glue together at the end. Pua was extremely simple and made with larger pieces that were easy to put in the right spot.

The Heart of Tefiti and Shiny Cupcake signs were made using stock images and fonts from the Cricut Design Studio that I just made the right size. The cupcakes were made from box cake mix in chocolate and vanilla, cream cheese frosting from a can, and gold shiny sprinkles. We cut out Maui's fish hook at about 2 inches to glue them to toothpicks for the fish hook that is supposed to be on Tamatoa's back. The Heart of Tefiti cookies are made from sugar cookie dough that was dyed two different shades of green. We flattened the dough and rolled the two different ones together. I then used thread to cut the cookies without having to slice through it with a knife and ruining the round shape. I'm glad I retained that one trick from cooking class in high school! We then rolled the edges in green glitter, and they came out awesome.

For the palm trees that we put together in the basement, I found a vector image of several different palm leaves, and picked one that would be easy and quick to cut out. We had about 16 leaves which were used for 5 palm trees. The trunks of the trees were made from brown streamers that were hung to go all the way to the floor. We used three to give it some thickness. The coconuts are made from brown balloons. They were blown up a little too largely for the task at hand, but it ended up working out. Then we used the leaves to make the palms of the palm tree. Turned out super cute!

The last thing we did on Friday night before the party was make these Cocamora Coconut cups. They were purchased on Amazon and we had a dozen of them. We painted the round part of the face on first in a tan color. There were several different designs in the Pinterest post.

The image that we started with is below. Some of the designs are easier than others when you're using various paint brushes, and I wish I had a picture of our whole group of them because they were so cute. The kids loved them and got to take them home!

I can't say whether or not I will put all of this effort into my kids birthday parties. I guess it depends on the time of year when they take place. I want them to have adorable birthday parties, but I don't know if it's worth taxing myself beyond belief because this kid isn't even mine, and I feel like I am just as exhausted as his parents when the party is over. I guess what helps me is that my Cricut will be at my house already and I will probably know my plan well before two weeks before the party.

Planning and doing things like this make me extremely excited for when it is my kids and I can make their day as special as they are.

Until next time...

Renovations and Transformations Volume 3: The Deck

So when I dreamed of owning a home, I never thought it would be a fixer-upper. As you grow up, you see a lot of different homes between family members and friends, but you don't ever see the work that goes into making that home. Then I started watching shows like Property Brothers and Flip or Flop and realized that if I wanted my dream home, I was going to have to make it that way. There was no way we were going to afford a house that was already done, so we were going to have to work and earn the house that we wanted it to be. This was the back of our house when we first bought it. There was a covered, screened in porch on the back. The furniture in the next picture was not included when we bought the house. And there was a sliding glass door entering into the porch area, and a screen door leading out into the back yard.

 It was a disaster. The screened in porch was causing issues with the gutters, so we had to tear it off. That was stressful. As we started to dismantle the different parts, the wood that was used to hold it up was rotting away. It could have fallen on us at any time. This was our second experience with a dumpster at our house. In my opinion, two dumpsters too many! We got rid of the screened in porch, and we were left with a cement patio that had cracks and holes in it. After we tore that off, my husband's brilliant idea was that we add a deck that met both levels of our house: one level would meet the sliding glass door so we could walk right out onto to the deck with no step, and the second would meet the level of the door leading out of the back of the garage. Now, it was just down to making that dream a reality.

But before we could add a deck, we came across another issue. Our sliding glass door was leaking. After we tore off the porch, and got the back of the house fixed from it's removal, the first heavy rain revealed that the door was not sealed correctly. We did some research and price checking at the various home improvement stores, and decided on a modified French door from Lowe's. The cost of the door was $418 and the install cost was around $800 due to the issues from the old door. It was a small price to pay to preserve our beautiful new kitchen and keep the water from causing any other issues.

My husband works for a printing company that specializes in sporting goods, and one of the guys he works with used to work for a contractor that built decks. This person offered to complete our deck on his own while only charging us $18 per hour for his services. Now, if you've ever had a contractor work on your house, you know that labor is the most expensive part, and often it is more than the amount that he was charging. He came to our house, measured, helped us order all of the lumber, concrete, screws, and anything else that we needed, and as soon as it all showed up at our house, he was there to work. He spent a total of 5 days and about 45 hours working. My husband helped dig 5 of the post holes, but other than that, his friend was on it. He was precise, worked hard and quickly, and the deck came out beautiful. Below is a timeline of how it was developed.

The first thing he came and did was framed in the upper portion of the deck.He had to install six posts by breaking pieces of the concrete patio off and digging holes. I can't even imagine what it was like smashing a sledge hammer against concrete until it broke, but he got it done. Once he had the upper part all framed in, he started cutting and screwing down the deck boards to complete the upper portion of the deck. This was a good thing because we have a little pup and she did not like trying to go outside when there were joists in her way.

Once he'd finished laying all the deck boards on the upper portion, he began framing up and putting the joists int he lower portion. Slightly easier this time because there was not as much concrete to bust through. 

 

 Once the lower portion of the deck was finished, he began installing a three foot stair around the corner of the deck that leads into the back yard. This idea was with Callie (our pup) and someday our future children in mind. We can't just have them falling off a 16 inch drop into the backyard. He assembled the framing with the remaining wood from the joists and then used deck boards, which he took the time to cut at 45 degrees, to create the top of the step.



Here is a photo of just the step all done. It looks incredible.

Don't mind the mess, but this is a photo of my husband installing the motion sensor back porch light that we got at Lowe's so that our dog would have some light in the back yard. This is also a photo of our completed deck minus the railing. We plan on adding a railing as we can afford the pieces. Building a deck is no easy task and it's definitely not a cheap one.

Lastly, here are some photos of the porch light installed as well as the deck lights that my husband put in for the step down onto the lower deck.

 This is a project that I was extremely wary of at the start. We were asking a friend to complete a large task, and while we were paying him, it is always hard to ask that of someone. I was also stressed out about the cost. Every time it feels like we're getting somewhere with this house, we end up spending more money than we thought we were going to, and I am the budgeter in the house, so it stresses me out. But, at the end of the day, I am happy that we decided to go for it. Not only does it add value to our home, but now I can spend some long summer days sitting on the deck while my puppy plays in the yard. I can only imagine what it will feel like when we have a couple little ones back there.

Until next time...