i'm not here today... but i'm over there!

at chelsey's blog, the paper mama!

she has been doing this kinda amazing series the last few weeks called "50 DIY days of christmas."  everyday she posts a DIY craft masterminded by either herself or a guest blogger.  welp, today is my day to put my little DIY hands to work & show off something i did my very own self.

so hop on over there & see what i did & how you can do it too.  wahoo!  {sorry, i had to.  it rhymed.}

... posted over at the paper mama.  go check it out!

stickin' it to pinterest - vol. 5

seems like it's been a while since i got my craft on, doesn't it?

well i saw this little diddy on pinterest & decided it was something even i could handle.  i pinned it & went on my merry way not really thinking much more about it {as i usually do}.  then one day i was walking around the craft store surrounded by christmasy crafts & decor & music & feeling all hyped up on christmas spirit when i walked right into a display of mixed christmas cardstock on sale.  i immediately remembered these cute stars & decided it was meant to be.

such an occurrence could only be explained by divine intervention, yes?  

i followed this tutorial.  it's pretty dang similar to my own tutorial below... just different paper?  and fonts.  yes, i used different fonts.

not pictured:  stapler & string.  and super glue.  oh & a pencil.  turns out i suck at making supply list photos.

just follow the steps below.  if you can't read the type on the picture, just click & it will enlarge big enough for your reading pleasure.

the original tutorial used plain ol' elmer's glue to stick the stars together.  i didn't have that on hand & couldn't get the stapler to make it work either.  that's where the super glue came in... stuck a few drops on the insides, smooshed the two halves together & now they're bonded for life.  how romantic.

there you have it!  make some in different colors, designs & sizes.  then attach some string & hang 'em up all over the house... i love 'em!

special thanks to my sister in law jodi for making these along side me the other day.  the stapler was her idea & i must say it was genius.  pure genius jodi.

another pinterest project crossed off the bucket list.  hip hip hooray!

stickin' it to pinterest - vol. 3

remember back in this post how i said pinterest gave me anxiety?  how i worried about after all the time i spent pinning, i would never actually put all the carefully placed & picked pins to perfect pin-ity use?  well here i am.   continuing in my endeavors to make use of my well curated pinterest boards & stickin' it to the pinterest man.

go me!

{see previous projects here & here}

this was actually something i'd seen a long time ago... before the days of pinterest {aka: the dark ages.  what'd we do before pinterest??  dishes?  sleep?}.  when i saw these shelves pop up on pinterest in a couple places i decided it was time to incorporate them into p-ray's room.  it had to happen.

the very first place i saw these IKEA spice rack shelves turned bookshelves was here, but they popped up again here.  it's not like you need a super detailed tutorial on this one, but who would i be if i didn't provide one?  not the amy you all know & love.  that's who.

here goes.

it really doesn't get any cheaper to make some sort of awesome wall-storage for the little man's books.  at $3.99 a piece i think the whole project cost around $20 after the spray paint & wall screws were bought {the shelves don't come with anything to hang them by}.  check out IKEA's website & see if yours carries these sweet little racks.

remember, they're sold as spice racks so they're around the kitchen shelving stuff.

obviously you don't have to do this, but i wanted to match the shelves to the rest of p-ray's furniture, which for the most part is white {check out his whole nursery tour here}.  also, make sure your husband doesn't care if you get white paint all over the garage floor despite painting on top of something.  lucky for me, mine didn't.  because yeah, that happened.

it wouldn't be from IKEA if it didn't require "some" assembly.  but lucky for you & me it's pretty easy to put these bad boys together.  unless you're prone to wrist cramping from the the little wrench that's included when putting in the screws... which i may or may not be.  ok i am.

it was pretty obvious where this needed to go.  we read books on p-ray's great-grandmother's hand-me-down rocker before naptime & bedtime but had nowhere handy to store the books.  so... duh.

it's true.  while sam helped me level the shelves & hand-drill holes into our wall, i got caught up in lots of p-ray picture taking.  i couldn't help it.  because how cute is he watching toy story on my phone with all his stuffed animal friends??

{sidenote:  sunday was kind of another sick day for him.  i thought he was 100% better, but turns out it's more like 75% since his fever has been coming & going.  boo.}

parker LOVES his new reading nook.  he loves being able to sit on your lap & have all his books on display for his choosing pleasure.  just when he was getting impossible to keep settled on your lap for story time, this glues him right back down into that chair.  and for that?  we're loving it.

and for your viewing pleasure... two more pictures.  because i couldn't decide which one not to include & thus?  included them both.

vote? thanks!

stickin' it to pinterest - vol. 2

remember back in this post how i said pinterest gave me anxiety?  how i worried about after all the time i spent pinning, i would never actually put all the carefully placed & picked pins to perfect pin-ity use?  well here i am.   continuing in my endeavors to make use of my well curated pinterest boards & stickin' it to the pinterest man.

go me!

this was one of the first pins i pinned to my "i'm crafty" board.  i love how simple it is & yet it's so freaking creative.  who thinks of this stuff?  i'll tell you who.  martha stewart.  well, the people who write for her website, anyway.  the original tutorial can be found here.

and here is my version:

nothing crazy here in our ingredients list.  probably all stuff you already have sitting around your house right?  so you should probably make this.

funny story.

i went to the craft store for a balloon paper punch & got real mad when i couldn't find one after looking for over half an hour.  all the balloons in the original tutorial are perfectly uniform & i knew they HAD to be punched.  so i went home angrily cursing all things jo ann's.  i decided to look over the tutorial again & realized the balloons are just circles with little triangles attached.  duh!

so moral of the story is unless your craft store is awesome & has balloon punches?  you just use a hole punch, cut out triangles & tape them on.  lesson learned.

there's probably a few ways you could do this.  i made my triangles in photoshop with the letters already on them, printed them out in the color i wanted & cut them out.  that's one way.  i then folded them over the thread & glued the halves together to make cute little banners.

this was the fun part.

i followed the tutorial & put the banner up before the balloons.  this makes no sense & if i ever make a card like this again i'll do the balloons first.  duh!  it'd be a lot easier then reaching behind & around the banners.

anywho, to attach the banner i made small holes in the card, threaded the string through & tied knots on the other side of the hole.  it makes your string come out of the front of the card, but i didn't care.  i wanted it to be sturdy.  i attached the first layer of balloons using a glue stick & then the top ones with 3d foam squares to make them pop out.

you're pretty much done & at this point it's looking pretty cool.  i fussed around with where i put my balloons & moved things around until i liked the overall look.  yes, it did make a difference to have a yellow balloon here instead of a red one.  and a green one there instead of a blue.  obviously.

after all that fuss for the inside of the card, i bet you totally forgot about making something for the front, right?  silly you.  we can't have a card with nothing on the front can we?  nope.

i just went along with what the original tutorial did & made a single large balloon.  seemed easy & it was.

so now your card is done & you want to take pictures with it for your blog right?  you set up your camera with the self-timer, hit the shutter button & it starts to beep loudly to count down.  your 16 month old hears the loud beeping & comes running in from where he was playing to see what the noise is & an impromptu photoshoot takes place.

this step is mandatory.

and now you're done!  all you have to do is find someone who is having a birthday & give it away.  sam was the recipient of mine which works out because now i get to keep looking at it another week or so.  yes, i'm that proud & you will be too.

what things from pinterest have you made?  i'd love to see!

thanks for your votes friends!

stickin' it to pinterest - vol. 1

so if you follow me on facebook, you may have caught my little bout of pinterest anxiety the other night.  i can waste time on that site with the best of them & after a while it makes me anxious.  why?  so so many projects/recipes/outfits/diy crafts/home decor ideas/kids games/blah blah blahs that i LOVE, but i may or may not ever look to pinterest again when it comes time to use them in the future.  ya know?

in short, it fills me up with inspiration & then i hear this little voice saying, "hey, you just spent all kinds of time looking at random things on my site.  are you ever gonna do anything with all of this?"

actually yes i am, stupid belittling pinterest-voice.  i am.

so here's how this is gonna go down.  every now & then i'm gonna do a pinterest-inspired post.  it may be a recipe, a craft, or my interpretation of an outfit i pinned.

this is me stickin' it to pinterest.

i picked this project because i really just wanted to improve my sewing skills.  sewing triangles to a ribbon seemed easy enough & the reading nook in p-rays room needed a little somethin-somethin.  win win.

here are sites i had pinned for inspiration:  this.  this.
and here's the tutorial i {semi} followed:  tutorial here.

but honestly?  i pretty much made it up as i went along.  here's what i did & how you can do it too.

parker was such a trooper in the fabric store.  it is SO hard for me to decide on fabrics... there are just so many!  i'm like a kid in a candy store.

i bought half a yard of each color, which was way more than i needed.  if i was to do it over, i'd just use the little scraps for a buck or so each & do way more colors.  like, a couple different orange patterns, a couple different blues, etc.

i experimented with different pattern sizes until i liked the way the triangles looked.  i think my final ones ended up being 5.5" across the top & 6" down the sides.  like the tutorial, i chose to have a raw edge on my flags rather than finished.  i like the look of it, & it's way easier.

so you cut out all your triangles, stick them back to back {"wrong" sides together} and sew down the sides.  i left the tops open since they'd get shut when sewing the ribbon on top.

i measured out my ribbon to the length i wanted & then started laying out my flags.  you can experiment with spacing & color patterns.  you're the boss of you.

then i folded my ribbon down the horizontal line & ironed it so it'd stay folded over nicely for pinning & sewing.  wanna know a secret?  sam helped me hold down the ribbon so i could iron it, but he probably wouldn't want you to know he helped.  so don't tell anyone.

i only pinned about four or five flags on at a time & then went & sewed them on just so it didn't get too crazy keeping it all together.  again, personal choice.

after you've sewn all the flags on you can sew up your ribbon ends & celebrate!  because you're done.  easy peasy.

ok, actually this wasn't suuuuuper easy for me since it was my first time sewing all on my own.  but it was a huge learning experience.  i got way better by the end & i even had to do all kinds of crazy things like re-thread my machine on the top & the bottom.  AND, i even had to wind up my bobbin!  i used youtube tutorials for help with that.

i feel like an old pro.

so here it is in p-ray's room.  it was really hard to get a good picture of it so you could catch the "essence" of what it looks like.  if you want to see more of his room, check out his nursery tour here.

{bookshelves stolen from here}

and yeah, those bookshelves are totally photo-shopped in.  they'll be added soon & it will complete his little reading nook!  this is where he gets stories read to him in his great-grandma opal's rocker before naps & bedtime.

so yeah.  i think my first pinterest-ing project was a success!  take that, pinterest.

wanna feel successful?  just click twice to vote.  you'll succeed every time.

freezer jam 101: where i give you directions for something super easy.

{pictures above taken with my iPhone}

this weekend consisted of some serious raspberry picking {and yes, parker is in his pj's.  it's totally normal}.  my sister-in-law jodi has a ton of bushes in her backyard that were just begging to be picked.  who were we to say no?  p-ray was totally into fresh raspberries right off the vines... little pig.

we picked enough to make a batch of freezer jam.  i committed to doing it even though i've never made it before since jodi swore it was super easy.  and ummmm, it really really was.  why have i not been doing this year after year?

have you ever made freezer jam?  no?  why the heck not.  it couldn't be easier.  and bonus!  you get to feel like you're totally domestic & old-fashioned.  see for yourself.

and that's it.  it probably took me fifteen minutes total & now we have this massive supply of fresh, ridiculously delicious jam just chillin' {ha! punny!} in my freezer.  be jealous.

i'm gonna eat all of it.  

click if you love jam! or if you hate it. either way.  but seriously... who hates jam?  no one.  that's who.

my apologies & a tutorial.

how to make your pictures look the same across all web browsers.

did you know your pictures might look different to different people depending on the web browser they're using?  i've been using google chrome lately & noticed the pictures on my blog looked AWFUL & not at all the same as how they looked to me in photoshop.

sorry about that.

i complained to my friend ben who did some research.  turns out, in order to make my pictures look the way they do to me on my computer across all web browsers, i have to convert them from the RGB color space that photoshop uses to the sRGB color space the internet uses.  or something like that.

ok, here it is in english.

without doing this one additional silly step in photoshop, your pictures will appear ugly & desaturated to some web browsers.

here's the difference.  i didn't convert the first photo.  the color isn't as warm & p-ray looks a little zombie-ish.  although, still cute.

the second photo is how i edited it to look in photoshop.  warm, smooshy, & definitely kissable.  and it looks like there is actually blood running through his veins.

here's how you do it.  {i only know how to do it in photoshop... sorry elements users.}

after you've edited your photos to be how you want, go up to edit, then "convert to profile."

then make sure you are converting to sRGB blah blah blah 2.1.

and now your pictures will look good to everyone.  you're welcome.

if anyone knows some other way to do this, some way to get around having to do this, some other way to explain why you have to do this, or anything else on this topic, please let me know.  i am such an amateur it's embarrassing.


know what isn't embarrassing?  clicking twice to vote.  all the cool kids are doing it.