Monday Made It: 1st Birthday Style

I'm so excited that it's Monday Sunday and time to link up with Tara from Fourth Grade Frolics for her monthly Made It Monday linky party!

I love this linky because I get to see how crafty all my BBB's have been over the last month!

I've mentioned several times that my sweet little girl celebrated her first birthday right before Christmas.  I can't believe that it has been over a year now since she entered our world and added her wonderful personality to our little family.  We celebrated her birthday a couple days late, not that she knew or anything, and I think we did it up pretty big!  She had a great time and did her cake smash justice!

I had several different themes in mind for her party before finally settling on a Brown Bear, Brown Bear theme, because that is her favorite book!  She will find it wherever it is in her room and bring it to you to read.  I had a Pinterest board dedicated to her party for inspiration.  All of my "made it's" for January relate to her party!  Maybe next month, I'll have some things to share that I made for school. I really had too much planned and if my mom and sister hadn't been here to help, I would never have gotten it all finished!  I'm so grateful they were here to help me!

MMI #1: Tissue Paper 1

First, I made the one using a cardboard box and cut off the flaps and duck taped the pieces together for stability.

My wonderful little sister got working on the tissue paper.  Really it was just tissue paper squares put on the end of a pencil and glued to the cardboard.  Reminded me of being in Kindergarten.  Just FYI, if you choose to do something like this, it takes A LOT of tissue paper.  I did help some, too!

This is the finished product that we hung on the front door for the party!  I loved the way it turned out! 

MMI #2: Highchair decorations

Really this is 3 different projects in one!  The back drop is made of plastic table clothes that we cut and tied together to get the streamer affect.  Then we strung all the table clothes together and hung it on the wall using command strips (how I love command strips!). The tutu around the highchair is stretchy crochet with 3 different colors of tulle knotted into the holes.  It took all three of us for that part!  I just duck taped it to the tray for the party! The banner, I bought on Etsy from Sparkling Studio, printed at home and mom cut out and strung together. The happy birthday sign came in an Eric Carl birthday kit and was the perfect addition!

This was quite the project because I made the banner and the circles had to be cut out by hand (thanks again, Mom).  It also made me tear up a little as I looked back at all these pictures.  One of my friends always comments about the incredible shrinking bear when I post these pictures!

If you would like a copy of this banner, I've made it available {here}.

MMI #4 Last, but definitely not least was the chalkboard I made with all her information on it!  I saw lots of these on Pinterest and Etsy but decided making my own would be more special.  And yes, she is a very little girl! 16 lbs at 1 year puts her in the 4th percentile!

This chalkboard is very special to me, because it is what I used to track my pregnancy.  I made it from an ugly painting I found at Goodwill 2 years ago. These are the first and last pictures I took with the chalkboard during my pregnancy.  

Well, that's all my Made It's for this post!  What have you been making?

Resoultions Day 2: Crafting and Creating

Ok, so one of my blogging goals for the year was to blog twice a week.  Well with this post that goal is met for week one!  It's the little things in life!  

I'm linking up agin with Blog Hoppin for their 5 Day New Years linky party.  

Today is all about crafting and creating!  I LOVE to craft!  During our 5 snow days before break I did a ton of crafting!  You can read about those crafts {here} and {here}.  

One thing I am notorious for doing is collecting all the items for a craft but never getting around to actually producing said craft!  Our guest room is really my craft room and I had to clean off the bed so my SIL could sleep in there over the break!  She told me all she needed was  the bed and that is all she got!  I'm going to brave and post a current picture of the mess that is the "guest room"!  

***Big Breath***

As you can see, it's BAD!!!! Hobby Lobby bags everywhere and my drawers are so full, they won't even close!!!!  I really need to get a handle on this situation!

My goal is to make a list of the projects I want to complete in 2014, then take inventory of the supplies I have for each project.  The projects that have all the supplies need to be finished asap (or as time allows).  Projects that don't have all the supplies will have to wait, but I want to get everything in that room organized so that as I get time and supplies I can knock out my projects!

I also really want to use my little Cricut (I'm still a little old school, but with Cricut Craft Room I can do just about anything) to do more projects with vinyl.  I love all the things I see on Pinterest and always think, "I could do that!"  Now I just actually have to do it!

Last but not least, I'd like to learn, really learn how to sew.  All the sewing projects I have done in the past were just "sure that looks even" type of projects.  I love my little sewing machine and want to get it out more than once a year!

What are your crafting goals for 2014?

Also don't forget to head over to Fourth Grade Flipper and Head over Heals for Teaching for their amazing 1,000 follower giveaway!