First, I covered the wreath with ribbon.  I actually forgot to buy ribbon for this step, but I found some red glittery ribbon in my stash to use.  It was sheer, but I made it work anyway.

It seems there are several different techniques for how to fold your cupcake liners for a wreath.  I decided to keep things simple and just folded my cupcake liners in half.  I originally tried folding the cupcake liners more, didn’t like the section I glued, and ripped them all off.  I’ve seen that technique used effectively, but for some reason I couldn’t get the hang of it.

I applied hot glue to a small section (maybe 1 inch) then stuck on the cupcake liners as quickly as possible.  Then repeated all the way around the wreath.  I used about 250-275 cupcake liners.

Once I finished the cupcake liners, I hot-glued these felt flowers (also purchased at Hobby Lobby).

An easy wreath for Valentine’s Day!

So all that being said, here’s Slingshot’s room….

We LOVE that giant window and all the light it lets in, but it sure does make it hard to photograph this room!  The photo below shows the little attic door on the left (there is another door on the opposite wall).  We used those as a guide for how tall to make the board and batten, and I’m so glad that we did.  I feel like those little doors are much less of an eyesore and really blend in now.  I am SO pleased with how the board and batten turned out.  The Picky Apple did a fantastic job, don’t you think?

Here’s the other side of the room, that is definitely in need of some wall art….

We bought that train table for The Littlest Apple’s second birthday.  He never really enjoyed playing with it.  His favorite part of playing with it is taking it apart and throwing the tracks on the ground.  We love it too much to get rid of it, but don’t have another place to store it at the moment.  So we’re hoping that Slingshot enjoys it a little more than his big brother!  Luckily, this bedroom is second in size only to our master bedroom, so there is plenty of space for a ginormous train table.

The curtains are my personal favorite, because I made them.  I’ll share more on that in another post!

And here’s the rug I ordered….

The wall art is a big sticking point right now.  We can’t make up our minds, so we decided not to rush it just so we have something up before Slingshot’s arrival (though it IS driving me a little crazy to not have room “finished”).  We want a series of 5 or 6 framed somethings on one wall (prints?  fun fabrics?  art that my husband and I create?), framed in IKEA Ribba frames like these:

I like these Alphabet Prints from Finny & Zook (and I’m keen on these letters later in the alphabet, which might be weird):

We could also use these Pattern Pieces (in lots of different colors) available for free from Sprik Space.

But for now we’re happy with the nursery, and it’s time to move on to cleaning the rest of the house like a crazy woman.  I have SO much to do in the next few days!!

Before we even get to the menu, it was very important to me to make this a “special” breakfast with a tablecloth, decorations, and special cups and plates.  However, the only NEW items I purchased were the red and white snowflake plates and the fun cup (from Target).  I spent around $10.  Since The Littlest Apple is very interested in Nutcrackers, I included the 3 we own on the table.  I recruited my husband to cut out some snowflakes which I hung (okay, taped haphazardly) from the light fixture along with some red and silver ornaments.

I also tied some red tulle to the back of the chairs.  I did all of this late the night before the breakfast, and The Littlest Apple was SO EXCITED when he came downstairs and saw the table all set up.  He couldn’t wait to wake Daddy up to have breakfast.  I think these few little decorative touches really made our North Pole Breakfast extra special.

The menu was festive too!  This was not the healthiest breakfast, but The Littlest Apple certainly enjoyed it.  In fact, it reminded me very much of the types of foods that Buddy The Elf likes to eat…

North Pole Breakfast Menu

Peppermint Pancakes-(recipe below)

Strawberry Santa Hats-strawberries dipped in white chocolate

Snowballs-mini-donuts covered with powdered sugar

Snowman Snacks-banana slices with pretzel stick arms, blueberry buttons and chocolate chip eyes

North Pole Punch-fruit punch served in a neat-o cup

There were also some candy canes and Winter Oreos on the table just for kicks.  It didn’t take very long to throw this all together.  The most time consuming part was the pancakes, and you could prep the batter the night before.

Here’s the recipe for those yummy pancakes….

Peppermint Pancakes

pancake recipe adapted from The America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook, topping inspiration from Come Together Kids

Ingredients:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 large egg
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
• 2 cups buttermilk
• 1-2 tablespoons cooking oil (I used coconut oil)
• red food coloring
• crushed peppermints/candy canes
• chocolate syrup
• whipped cream (I forgot to get mine out of the fridge…oops!)

Whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl.  In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg, melted butter, and then the buttermilk.  Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients, pour the buttermilk mixture into the well, and whisk very gently until the buttermilk mixture is just incorporated (a few lumps should remain).

Pour half of the batter into another bowl and add red food coloring until you reach your desired color.

Heat a 12-inch nonstick skillet over medium heat for 3-5 minutes.  Brush the pan bottom with 1 teaspoon oil.  Using 1/4 cup of batter per pancake, add the batter to the skillet (only 2 or 3 pancakes will fit at a time) and cook until large bubbles begin to appear, about 2 minutes.  Flip the pancakes and cook until golden brown on the second side, about 1 1/2 minutes longer.  Repeat with the remaining batter, brushing the skillet with oil as needed between batches.

Serve alternating colors of pancakes topped with chocolate syrup, crushed peppermint candy, and whipped cream.

Here’s my version:

I was originally going to use some scrap plywood we’ve got in our garage, but that stuff is HEAVY!  So I went with a canvas (24″x36″?) instead.  Canvases are frequently on sale for 50% off at Hobby Lobby and Michael’s.  I covered the canvas with burlap.  Then I hot glued the red envelopes to the  board.  (The envelopes got trimmed to 4 1/2″ x 4 1/2″- it was a happy accident that they wound up perfectly square!).  I dipped in to my stash of Christmas scrapbook paper and fun scissors to decorate the envelopes.  The numbers are glittery chipboard stickers.  I would have preferred another color besides white, but they were the best I could find.  I purchased lots of embellishments to use, but once I got started, I didn’t really like the way they looked.  I may jazz up my board further for next year (add some trim, words, other embellishments), but I’m pleased with it for now.

So what’s in each pocket?  Well, there is a little slip of cardstock with a Christmas activity printed on it.  Each slip has a green ribbon to make it easy to pull out of the envelope.  The ribbons in the picture look a little wonky to me…I might need to trim those.

Here is a list of the activities I’ve included for this year with our 4 year old (and I haven’t discussed them yet with my husband, so he may be raising his eyebrows at a few of these!)  I tried to include a nice balance of crafts, baking, doing things for others, fun traditions, movies, Santa, and celebrating the birth of Jesus.  Easier said than done, if you ask me!

Our Advent Activities: (not in order!)

• Make cinnamon applesauce ornaments
• North Pole breakfast
• Build a gingerbread house
• Make hot cocoa and watch The Polar Express
• Visit Santa
• Write a letter to Santa
• Pop popcorn and watch Elf
• Watch Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
• Make cookies for Santa and reindeer food
• Make gifts for teachers
• Make gifts for grandparents
• Shop for Giving Tree gifts
• Make “stained glass” ornament to hang on the window
• Thumbprint Christmas tree out of salt dough
• Bake a birthday cake for Baby Jesus
• Make candy cane playdough to give to friends
• Go look at Christmas lights
• Button and nail Christmas tree craft
• Birdseed ornament or wreath for the birds
• Kidz XD Christmas Eve Eve Celebration
• Donations to Ronald McDonald House at Texas Children’s Hospital
• Shop for and wrap gift for Dad
• Decorate Sugar Cone Christmas trees
• Sleep under the Christmas tree
• Christmas scavenger hunt

The Littlest Apple is very excited to start this tomorrow!  We’ll also be starting our Christmas Book Countdown….now I’m off to wrap some books!

What fun holiday traditions do you have?

The Walls

In the past, I’ve been the primary painter-of-walls around here, but The Picky Apple has been a tremendous help in getting the nursery ready.

The plan: a darker blue paint on the top half of the walls and a board and batten treatment for the lower walls, painted white.

Here’s an inspiration photo:

from Simply Smithwick via Pinterest

Here’s what our nursery looks like now…

We’ve got to apply one more coat of white paint to the bottom, and then it’s on to the board and batten treatment.  There will be a thick chair rail/molding right where the blue and white paint join up, so there was no need to paint a perfectly straight line there.

Still not sure about this board and batten thing I mentioned?  The Casabella Project, Decor Chick, and The Handmade Home all have great board and batten tutorials that we’re using for guidance.  The trim we picked wound up being the exact same as what was used in the Decor Chick tutorial, so that’s probably closest to how ours will look.

The Furniture and Bedding

Once the board and batten is done (which will be no small task—lots of cuts, painting of wood, nailing/gluing, caulking), we’ll set up the crib, changing table, and rocker (all white) formerly used in The Littlest Apple’s nursery.  We’re re-using the same striped crib bedding, which I still love.

The Rug

I still need to decide on a rug for this room.  With the lower half of the room and all of the furniture white, it’ll be important to bring some color to the floor.  Here are a couple of rugs I’m considering…

Boys’ Rugby Stripe Rug from Pottery Barn Kids

Here’s the same rug with red.  I kind of like the idea of bringing some red into the room, but I don’t want it to be too patriotic looking…

This is another one that caught my eye….definitely a bolder choice, but it could be super cute, especially if we get these star crib sheets in red (we have these sheets in The Littlest Apple’s room and LOVE them).

Super Star Rug from Pottery Barn Kids

The Curtains

Curtains are a whole ‘nother issue.  This west-facing room has a giant window with an arch above it that lets in LOTS of light.  So we need curtains that are not only decorative but that also block out that light as much as possible when it’s time for Slingshot to sleep.

I’m really drawing a blank on curtains though.  We don’t want white or navy or red.  Burlap or dropcloth curtains could look neat (or a tan twill).  I LOVE the dropcloth curtains in our Master Bedroom.  I’d have to add blackout panels which could be a pain.

Dropcloth curtains in our Master Bedroom

Would patterned curtains be too much or compete with the bedding?  I don’t really have a clear vision for the curtains yet…

Wall Art and Decorative Touches

The plan is to bring in some white frames and colorful prints and accents to offset all the blue and white.  We haven’t really decided on anything, but here are a few things I thought might look neat.

I like these vintage transportation signs…

Wall Art from The Land of Nod

I contemplated painting a dump truck or firetruck for The Littlest Apple’s big boy room.  Something like this might look cute in Slingshot’s nursery as well…

Fire Truck Triptych from Pottery Barn Kids

I’d love to incorporate some prints and quotes.  These prints are available in lots of different colors and with lots of different word-themes:

Inspiration Series by Wallfry @ Etsy

Bright alphabet prints.  I’d put them in white frames, and I’d either do a series, or maybe Slingshot’s initial.  Or the A for Apple print.  I’d love to incorporate an Apple reference somewhere!

Sweet Alphabet Prints from Etsy

And I’d love to make a fabric or felt pennant like this in bright colors….

Pennant Chase Felt Garland from Land of Nod

Any opinions on the rugs?  Thoughts or suggestions on curtains?  I’d love to hear from you!

Behold, my Thankful Banner!

Completed during nap time this afternoon.  And I am so thankful that today was a nap day.  Naps are mostly a thing of the past here, but it was a good day indeed.

This was a super easy, super satisfying project.

Here are the supplies I used:

• 4″ chipboard/cardboard letters-I haven’t jumped on the Cricut/Silhouette bandwagon yet, and this was so much easier than stenciling them all by hand!
• Acrylic paint for painting the chipboard letters- I used Americana Brand in Burnt Orange
• Burlap- I wound up using about 1/2 a yard.  As I mentioned on Facebook, burlap was in short supply today at Hobby Lobby.  I wound up with the last yard of Oyster burlap (an offwhite color) instead of the natural color I intended, but I think I love my banner even more with the Oyster burlap!
• 3 yards of 1 1/2 inch brown wired ribbon
• 2 packages of orange flower embellishments-I found these beauties by the scrapbook/card supplies, but you could easily make your own out of fabric or felt.  If you know how to do that sort of thing.  Which I don’t….yet.
• Hot glue gun-no sewing involved here!!

How I made the banner:

1. First I painted the chipboard letters with my burnt orange paint.

2.  I created a template out of cardstock for the triangle size I wanted for the banner.  Note: be sure to use your widest letter for this (mine was “k”) so you have enough room!

3.  Trace your template on the burlap (I used a fine tip sharpie) and cut out the triangle.  Repeat 8 times.  Cutting burlap is messy business, by the way.  I’m still covered in it.

4.  Once your chipboard letters are dry (and mine were dry by the time I finished cutting the burlap), hot glue the letters to the triangles.  I used an index card (so precise, I know!) to make sure all my letters were the same distance from the bottom point of the triangles.

5.  Then I glued the ribbon across the top.  (I laid it all out first to make sure I had enough ribbon on both ends).

6.  Last of all, I glued on the orange flower embellishments.  I may add some additional embellishments next year, but for this year, I’m happy with the beautiful simplicity of my banner!

One teensy problem.  I had envisioned this banner being hung across my mantle, but it is a bit too long for that.  So I’m still playing around with where I want to display it…

The stairs?

The dining room with the red walls?

The kitchen cabinets?

I love my Thankful banner no matter where I decide to place it!  (And you’ll note that I’m no banner-hanging-expert…I used Scotch tape for these pics until I can get my handy husband to hang it up properly)

Hoping I have time to squeeze in one more kiddie Thanksgiving craft tomorrow….

Finish painting the downstairs: Yup, it’s still not done.  My birthday present this year (at the end of July) was hiring someone to do this for me.  He’s also going to stain our banister.  Yeehaw!  Hoping to have this completed by mid October at the latest.

Playscape construction: Remember how I mentioned that playscape The Littlest Apple got for his birthday?  Construction is underway….

but we’ve still got a long way to go.

one of the many piles of boards taking over our garage

This monster is 12 feet tall and about 27 feet long (and just barely meets our HOA guidelines for size).  My only role in this project is to entertain The Littlest Apple while The Picky Apple (and whoever else he can recruit) gets to work.  This is the main project happening on weekends and evenings around here at the moment.

Toy organization, decluttering and relocation: the current playroom will soon be Slingshot’s nursery.  So ALL (or at least most) of the toys need to be sorted and relocated.  The Littlest Apple’s Room isn’t huge, but he has ample storage space under his bed and there is room for the Expedit unit (either the one we already own, picture below-from a few years ago) or a new one.  I’m not even going to show you a picture of the current playroom.  It’s a disaster!  We’ll also need some type of organization for The Littlest Apple’s growing collection of dress up clothes and accessories.  Perhaps his very own Dress Up Storage Bin or something similar built in to his closet.

Bookshelves for The Littlest Apple’s room- I’ve had this project on my To Do List forever!  The Littlest Apple’s book collection is out of control, and I’d really like a new way to display his books so he can find his favorites more easily.  This will also free up some additional storage space where his old book shelf used to be.

from Raising Olives

Slingshot’s Nursery- Once we get all the toys moved out of the current playroom, it’ll be time to get Slingshot’s nursery ready!  We’re using the same bedding, crib (pictured below), changing table, and rocker, from The Littlest Apple’s old nursery, but in a new room (The Littlest Apple’s bed can’t be moved from his room without taking the frame off the door, so it’s staying put!).  I need to decide how I want to paint the walls this time around.  I LOVED the simple stripes in The Littlest Apple’s nursery, but we may do something different this time around.  Subtle horizontal stripes?  Wainscotting?  One solid color?  Not sure yet, but the clock’s ticking!

My husband built the Dress Up Storage Bin (inspired by Ana White, but customized for our needs).  After building a bed, this was a fairly simple project for him, but it still took about 10 hours of his time.  I am SO PROUD of him and THANKFUL for his willingness to help out!  I did the painting–all 4 coats (gotta love white paint)!  The costumes (or funds to purchase costumes) were generously donated by the AMAZING group of parents from our class.  At one point before Spring Break, I was a little nervous about how this was all going to come together, but in the end we had a Class Auction Basket valued at OVER $800!!  (This is our first year at this preschool, but apparently the auction is a Big Deal).

The storage bin contains FIFTEEN costumes: knight, construction worker, pirate, veterinarian, chef, firefighter, Batman, Superman, Robin, Fancy Nancy, ladybug, cowgirl, ballerina, princess, fairy.

There are some accessories hidden in the storage underneath the costume.  This space will be just perfect for shoes and other big accessories like shields, swords, etc.

The baskets up top are milkcrates from Target.  One of the crates contains more costume accessories (shoes, jewelry, wands, crowns).  Another crate contains TEN books that coordinate with TEN of the costumes.

The last crate contains THREE puppets (pig, cat, and crocodile-though I honestly thought the crocodile was a dragon when I bought it!).  If you turn the Bin around, it doubles as a Puppet Theater.  I hand-sewed the curtains myself with fabric from Hobby Lobby after my attempt at no-sew curtains flopped.  It was my first time sewing curtains, and they aren’t perfect, but I’d say they look pretty cute!

I am ECSTATIC about how this project turned out and glad to have it over with (it’s been a major source of stress since January).  I can’t wait to see how much money is raised on Auction Night.  If you’re local and interested, let me know in the comments and I’ll email you with details about the auction.

Now back to the house painting and Easter crafts!!

I’m sharing this post with….

We are planning to replace our dark wood coffee table with a tufted ottoman.  Better for propping feet on, and no sharp edges to worry about for the kiddos.

I love this one from Ballard.  It’s even got storage!  You can pick a Ballard fabric or supply your own fabric, which I think is awesome!

The Graham Large Ottoman (also available with storage) would probably go a little better with our existing furniture…

I also like the idea of having a square ottoman (this one also has storage!):

There are so many great fabrics to choose from!  Here are just a few that caught my eye….

Plush Dotscape Peacock

Shonnard-Thom Filica Fabric Spa (this is actually really light blue, though it is hard to tell!)

Zen Sumbrella Outdoor Parrot

Zen Sumbrella Outdoor Sky

Waverly Lovely Lattice Jungle

Waverly Ellis Turquoise

Waverly Ellis Flamingo

Premier Prints ZigZag Village Blue/Natural

Dwell Studio Bella Porte Watercress

Robert Allen Jacquard Space Age Agave

Any favorites?

The homeowner uses mostly neutral and natural, laid-back pieces accented with juicy, fresh pops of color found in pillows, vases, lamps, that awesome coffee table and artwork.  I LOVE the painting over the fireplace (which I believe the homeowner painted herself after not finding anything she liked).  Now I’m on the hunt for accessories in coral/tangerine, aqua, teal, and green.  We plan to replace our dark wood coffee table with a tufted ottoman, and I’m hunting for a fabric that fits in with this palette.

Here’s another view of the room.  I’m including this one because I love the styling of the shelves on the left with those big green vases:

The rest of the house is wonderful too!

Here’s the amazing kitchen.  I’ve mentioned before my love of kitchens with white cabinets, and this one is just perfection!

And here’s the breakfast nook.  I’ve always loved banquette seating.

The dining room: I’m really getting hooked on all the horizontally striped curtains I’ve seen lately.  These are bold and look great against those blue walls.

One more view, from the dining room, looking back to the hallway:

Even the covered patio is well styled!

My apologies for the grainy and wrinkled images.  I scanned these images from the magazine pages I’ve been carrying around with me.

I’m really just loving this whole house!

Which room do you like best?