In Your Easter Bonnet, with All the Frills Upon It

If there was ever a time that I am more convinced than ever that I need to have a baby girl, it's now. Craft is really fun with Max, but it's not pink or frilly. Which is ok, I love doing craft with Max. But I really, really, really love making pretty girly crafts with my niece Ava.

Last night Ava needed to make an Easter hat for her school's Easter parade, so I got to crack out the glue gun, pink ribbons and glitter! Last year Ava insisted on making her hat all by herself, and my sister said that when she wore it to school she was really upset because most of the other kids had 'proper' parent made hats. This year Ava was quite keen to let us 'help' her make the hat!

We started off with an old Australia Day hat ($2 a couple of years ago I think), and using only stuff that we already had at home we came up with a really sweet creation.

I started out by covering the brim of the hat in crepe paper ruffles, then added a few bands of extra crepe paper around the sides of the hat.

While I was wrapping the hat in layer after layer of pink crepe paper, Mum and Ava (with some help from Max) covered some foam eggs in glitter and made a birds nest out of pipe-cleaners for the top of the hat.

I added some ribbons, a bow in the back and hot-glued the nest to the top of the hat and we were done!

Ava went to bed last night before we finished, and she was so excited to see the hat in the morning!!

Mum took Max along to see Ava in the hat parade this morning and he really loved it. He wanted his own hat to wear once he got home (and refused to pose for photos once it was done!).
 
Stay tuned, I have plenty more Easter posts on their way!!

Meme Month @ Max & Me

Like I said the other day I have a few memes to catch up with this month (plus it gives me time to get my mojo back).

I was tagged by one of my favourite people (even though I've never actually met her), Leese from A Life of Domestic Bliss.

This one is actually a little meme and award rolled into one. It's called the Liebster Award and it's all about promoting bloggers with less than 200 followers.

Max & Sean

 So....What I'm supposed to do is list five little known facts about myself, and then, share the love by passing on the Liebster tag to 5 other blogs that I enjoy reading, in the hope that you will enjoy reading them too; so here you go....

Five Facts You May Not Know About Me.

1. I try to be a nice person, & I often come across as quiet or shy when you first meet me. But when it comes to protecting my family I can be so fierce that it scares me. About the only time I'll ever get into a fight is if a person says or does something that upsets someone I love.

2. I am really messy. And I hate it. It's one of those things that I am continuously trying to change about myself.

3. I dream about finding a way to earn a living from being creative, but haven't found a way yet.

4. When I was 20 I managed to conquer a 2 year long drug addiction. That was something that I used to be so ashamed of and considered one of my darkest secrets. But as I get older and happier I've started to realise that I'm grateful for anything that has shaped my life and brought me to where I am now.

5. I often ask for power tools for my birthday and Christmas, but am yet to receive any.

So there you have it, some things you probably didn't know about me.

It's my turn to pass the award on to 5 fabulous bloggers with less than 200 followers. I hope you'll check these guys out, they are definitely worth getting to know.

1. Melody at Big Little Sister 
2. Kristin at Pritty Tings
3. Girl Friday for Hire
4. Brittany from Knewly Wifed
5. Whitney at The Curtis Casa

Max @ Two and a Quarter

Kate over at Picklebums has written a great post today about the little things she wants to remember about her toddler. It served as a good reminder for me to write down some of the little things I love about Max. The things that I want to remember forever, but could so easily be forgotten if I don't make a note of them.

* Max has gone from speaking like a toddler, to speaking like a little boy (with a toddler's voice). These days he speaks in complete sentences, but still sometimes mixes up his words. We regularly hear things like -  'I can has bun (hot-cross bun) please Mumma?' -  'I no baby, I a big boy!' - 'put milk in my cup please Mumma' -  'pick my up now' - 'love you Dadda' - 'get ipad, call Nona please'.  It really is the cutest thing ever!

* Max is really loving swimming at the moment. He loves jumping in off the edge, running along the floating mat, kicking his legs & paddling his arms. He just has so much fun :)

* I love the noise of our bedroom door creaking open early each morning and knowing that it's Max coming in to visit us. He comes straight to my side of the bed, climbs up and snuggles up against me for hugs.

* Although it can sometimes be frustrating I love that Max has an opinion on most things in his life now. He knows which cup he wants to drink out of, what he wants to wear, what he wants to eat and want kind of things he wants to do. He has also grasped the use of the word 'need'. He will say "I want this cup Mumma' and I'll say something like 'that cup doesn't have a lid Max, you can choose a different one that has a lid', he will look at me, shake his head and say 'I need this cup Mumma'. How can you say no to that!

* I think Max is quite creative and I love watching him draw and paint, sometimes he goes crazy and scribbles all over the place and other times he concentrates really hard and is quite precise. He's just started drawing faces.

* He loves his trains at the moment, he plays with them every single day and when he's not playing with them he's looking for train videos on you tube. He thinks its the best thing ever that his Dad gets to catch the train each day. He tells us that Dadda goes to work on Thomas and comes home on Chuggington :)

* Most of all I adore how much love he has. If I'm sad for any reason he will come up and say 'you ok Mumma?' then he will kiss me on the face and say 'all better now'. He regularly tells Sean and I that he loves us, and it makes me heart burst every single time.

Two and a quarter is the sweetest age ever!

DIY Outdoor Chalkboard

There's nothing quite like a Pinterest Challenge to help a girl get her DIY mojo back!

On the weekend I tackled a quick and easy project for Max. An outdoor chalkboard.

Max loves to draw so I was really hopeful that he would love this, and he does! Once I let him loose with his jumbo chalk the only thing that could drag him away was the lure of the trampoline.

I was inspired by this project from the pinterest challenge.

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I started out with a 900 x 1200 piece of marine ply from bunnings and I painted it with some left-over chalkboard paint that I had from my kitchen chalkboard. I thought I was going to need three coats, but after only two it was perfect. I also painted along the top, bottom and side edges just to give it a little bit more protection from rain.

Try not to be jealous of my designer outdoor area (sarcasm). One day we will get there!

Because of where I was planning on screwing it into the fence I also added some extra bits of wood to the back of the board to help prevent it warping over time. I used liquid nails to attach it so that there wouldn't be any nails or screws getting in the way of Max's artistic endeavors.

Once the liquid nails had set Sean gave me a hand attaching it onto the fence. We just used regular timber screws (making sure that they weren't long enough to pop through on the neighbours side of the fence).

That chalky look is from where I 'seasoned' the board with white chalk.

We decided to hang it down the side of the house next to the clothesline. It's a part of the yard that isn't really seen, meaning that the chalkboard won't get in the way of the landscaping I'm (one day) planning to do.

Random Cooper photo :)

I added a chalk tin and some jumbo chalk and we were ready to go.

Max (and his cousins) absolutely love it!

Like I said, it was really easy and it was super cheap too:

Marine Plywood -  $10.50

Chalkboard paint - $0 (left-over from another project)

Timber Scraps - $0 (left over from a retaining wall we built)

Screws - $0 (from the massive tub of screws we have in the garage

Chalk tin - $4 from a dollar store

Chalk - $6 (but you can definitely get it cheaper)

Total - $20.50 (if you had to buy everything you'd probably be looking at around $35 - $40 at the most).

Probably the easiest DIY I've done to date!

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My entry into Just Something I Whipped Up sponsored by Appliances Online and the Bosch Washing Machines

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Pinterest Challenge Winter Edition - Round Up

Another round of Pinterest Challenge is over and done with. Thank you all for your sweet comments about my DIY jumbo ruler height chart. I really appreciate your feedback. (Oh and we've hung it on the wall now, click back to the original post to see an updated photo.)

After the last challenge I did a round up of my favourite projects. I really enjoyed doing it, so I thought I would do another round up post this time.

Here are the posts I loved best :)

Rebecca (with some help from her Husband) put together this great wrapping station on the back of one of their closet doors. I love this for so many reasons; it stops the problem of wrapping paper getting crumpled in the back of the wardrobe; it's on the back of a door so it can be hidden away; and it definitely appeals to the ocd in me!

This DIY is right up my alley. Brandi from 'His Shabby, Her Chic' took a cheap and ugly craft store Rhino and with the help of some spray paint, turned him into this fine looking fellow. Adorable!

How cute is this little Anthro inspired tea towel?! Kindra has a great tutorial over on her blog showing you how to make it from start to finish!

I am really loving mercury glass at the moment and these votives that Michelle from Ten June made are no exception! On her blog she details how her first attempt didn't work and gives some great advice on how to get them perfect.

Tanya from Dans le Townhouse is one of my absolute favourite bloggers! I first 'met' her when I DIYed my own version of her felted billy buttons. Her spin on these paint dipped spoons is perfection!! I'm going to have to do my own very soon I think :)

I don't think I have enough words for how much I love these gold, chevron painted napkins. If you do one thing today, you have to go over to Morgan's blog and check them out!

I adore this ruffled lampshade that Laura from Markham Street Design made, I first saw a sneak-peak of it on Instagram and couldn't wait to see more. It's organic and textured and girly, everything I love when it comes to home decor.

I'm not sure what it is about Roman Blinds, but I love them so much. I desperately want to switch out all of the faux timber blinds in my house for Roman blinds, but I can't justify buying them when we only just bought our blinds three years ago. This tutorial from Made 2 Style is the perfect solution because it uses framework of the original blinds as the backbone for the new shades. Genius!

 

This project from Andrea and Kris was an easy choice for my list of favourite projects. They didn't just make-over these bedside tables, they actually made them from scratch using one of Ana White's plans. I am totally inspired to give this a go myself!

As far as Pinterest and DIY blogs go, ombre is just about the hottest thing out there right now. This  ombre dresser by Nick and Amber is sooooo good. I really want to do a pink version for Ava's (my niece) room!


So there you have it. A round-up of my absolute favourite pinterest challenge projects! Are you feeling inspired?

Pinterest Challenge # 3

Ok, I'm running a little late... But better late than never right!

I've been a little distracted lately, and didn't get my project done by last night as planned. And I also forgot to take photos along the way. Whoops!

Hopefully the photos of the finished product will make up for it.

Anyway, onto my project & pinspiration.

A while back I saw this amazing wooden ruler height chart that Sarah from The Table made. I pinned it straight away and figured that now was the perfect time to DIY my own version.

I've been keeping track of Max's height on the trunk of the tree decal in his room. But seeing as it will probably come down when I make his room into a 'big boy' room I needed something new.

For mine I used a cheap piece of pine from bunnings, a tin of walnut stain and a sharpie.  To get my numbers nice and neat I printed them out on cardstock, cut them out and then traced around them onto the timber. I also ran them through my xyron sticker maker before tracing them so that they wouldn't shift around as I drew around them. Obviously I also did mine in cm's rather than inches :)

And here's my finished project.

I haven't hung it on the wall yet. I think I'll need Sean's help to do that when he gets home from work tonight.

I love how it turned out & Max loves it too. He's really into numbers at the moment and has been calling it his special number stick :)

So, that's me done. Go check out what Katie, Sherry, Erin, Cassie & everyone else has done. There are some crazy-good DIYers out there!!

Edited - We've since hung the ruler on the wall, and I've added an updated photo below.

On the wall just outside of Max's (messy!) room.

The rest of #febphotoaday

Have you checked out Bower Power or Young House Love lately? The next Pinterest challenge has been announced!! It's safe to say I am VERY excited!! Pinterest Challenge is just about my favourite thing on the internet. I'm hoping it will be just what I need to pull me out of my DIY funk.

I'm going away this weekend, but I plan to get my project done in the afternoons and evenings next week, ready for the big reveal on Wednesday evening. If you are interested in seeing the projects I did the first two times around you can click here & here.

In the meantime, I thought I would share the rest of my photos from #febphotoaday. The earlier photos can be found here.

Day 24 | inside my bathroom cabinet | organised chaos

Day 25 | Green

Day 26 | night | Max has just moved back into his own room after getting used to sleeping with us over Christmas

Day 27 | something I ate | yoghurt & blueberries for afternoon tea

Day 28 | money

Day 29 | what I'm listening too | the voices in my head

Tell me, have you joined in with the pinterest challenge before? Are you planning on playing along this time?