princesses, cake and a mind freak moment

One of my good friends, M, had a birthday party for her daughter today. Her birthday was actually in September, but we celebrated in January because, well, we did. We celebrated M's birthday in September, and it's actually in November, so I'm thinking she just likes to mix things up ;) Anyhoo, she had a princess tea party and the Fin and I had a ton of fun getting her ready this morning. She picked out her favorite princess dress, we curled her hair, put on make up, even some glitter. Don't worry, I didn't go overboard. See??

You can't even tell she's wearing any makeup, but she certainly felt special. And yes, it's winter and she's wearing tiny straps. I did make her wear a cardigan but she refused to keep it on. It covered up her beautiful dress, and we just can't have that!
I also made the mistake of asking her what I should wear. Um, yeah, we ended up compromising and I wore a tea length black dress with strappy heels. In January. It was snowing during the party. I was a bit cold, but she thought it was great, so whatever. I would insert my picture here, but I was behind the camera. But believe me, there were princesses:

I took another shot at cake decorating and had way too much fun playing with fondant. I made a few flowers, then polka dots:

And then some more flowers, until I didn't know what to do with them, so they just kind of landed on this cake:

And around the cake:

Working with marshmallow fondant is super fun. It's like play-doh, but it tastes better. And you don't get those strange looks when you eat it. Not that anyone was watching me in my kitchen at midnight, but you know what I mean.

And here's for the mindfreak moment. I'm new to blogging and haven't really invested much research or time into it because, really, I don't have a ton of time to spare in this season of my life, but I see alot of people with cute signatures after their posts, so I decided to grab one. Here it is:

See? Cute, right? Well, I made it at this website where you type in your name and it brings up a hundred different signatures and you just right click and save. Well, you know when you look at a word too hard and it starts to look funny. A simple word like "and". And you begin to second guess yourself. Is "and" really spelled A-N-D?? How else would it be spelled?? But if that's right, why does it look so weird. You find yourself sounding out one of the first words you learned to spell. You know, back in KINDERGARTEN!! Anyhow, I had that mindfreak moment with my own name today. Yep, my. own. name. Ryanne. RYANNE. R-Y-A-N-N-E. The frustrating part is my name isn't spelled like it sounds (it's just "RYAN") so I was seriously weirding out for a minute. I checked my government issued IDs. It's Ryanne. We're good.
Hope y'all are having a great weekend!

What I made Monday- Fabric covered journal and matching pens!

Hi  y'all! Welcome to "what I made Monday". On Friday. Cuz that's how I roll. I made it on Monday, or maybe it was Wednesday ("what I made Wednesday" still works) but things are chaotic pleasantly busy around here, so I'm just now getting around to posting. I had big plans of making a bunch of journals to send with the super lovely woman that leads our bible study on her trip to Russia, but, as always, I overestimated my ability to actually make it happen. But I made one! And hopefully I can make a few more before Monday. I can do it, right?? Yep, it's happening. Anyhoo- I picked up about 30 of these generic composition books back in September for 5 or 10 cents a piece after the back to school rush. My friend Jen, has a super cute fabric covered prayer journal, and I thought it would be a fantastic craft for MOPS, so I got a bunch. But now I'm not doing MOPS anymore, so I just have a ton of journals... I google image searched (you know I loooooooove google image searching- until it goes horribly, horribly wrong) fabric covered journals and found one that I really liked at By Small Means- she has a great tutorial that is super easy to follow. Of course I didn't have all the supplies, so I did it a little differently, but I think it turned out pretty cute.

The Beast is in the house!

This has been the longest project ever thanks to some very uncooperative weather, but I'm so relieved to finally say: The beast is in the house! Hoorah! So, for anyone who cares how it turned out, here she is-

Apparently I'm a horrible photographer, or this just isn't what you would call "heavy distressing" because you can hardly tell it's distressed unless you look at it close up. 

I pretty much love it. Wyatt and The Fin can't reach the tv- you know what that means?? NO MORE FINGERPRINTS ON THE TV!!!!! And... the drawers are childlockable. I'm superpsyched about this. This was my life before:

 Always open and a mess, thanks to this guy:

Our old tv stand was see-through, which I disliked, and Wyatt the great houdini kid could get into every type of child lock we tried on this thing. I'm pretty excited that I will be able to hide our dvds and equipment and that Wyatt won't be able to make such a mess. I'm also pretty excited that something this ugly:

could turn out this attractive:

YEA!!! 

Oh, and for those of you that inquired on facecrack- I don't know if I'm doing it right, but I've just been sanding the furniture down to get rid of the varnish (there is also varnish remover chemical for the more difficult finishes), prime it with a white primer (I used a rusty brown primer for the green tables), paint with the desired color, distress, and apply a satin polycoat.  

What I made Monday! Adorable Valentine door adornments. (Say that three times fast)

Oh, Christmas. So sad to see you go. This was the first year I've really been totally psyched about Christmas. And not like when I was a kid and I had a super special gift I was hoping for, and I just couldn't wait to see if Santa (err, Mom or Grandma and PopPop) came through, but just really enjoying the season. The music, the lights, the decorations, you know- the whole cannoli. When I took down the decorations and the tree this year, Finley was semi-hysterical. She lost it. And when I got to the outdoor decorations, I just stopped. I left the wreaths up on the windows and the doors. It was just too dang sad to take it all down at once. And then I decided it was just too dang sad to take it down at all. So I had to make something to replace them. Valentine's is up next, so that's what I made Monday. Okay, that's not completely true. It's more like What I finished Monday, but that doesn't have quite the same ring to it.
I've never been a wreath person, really. But our doors here are ugly. They need wreaths. It started in the fall with these:

I was searching online for cute wreaths and found a great tutorial with these rosettes. I loved them so much that I did something very similar for Christmas 

I wanted to do something a little different for Valentines. I had seen some great rag wreaths online and liked the whimsical look of them. They're super easy. Use a straw or styrofoam wreath form and cut strips of fabric, ribbon, and/or felt and tie. That's it. I added some bunting made out of paper and stitched together to read "Happy Valentine's". The "day" just didn't fit. I made an executive decision that it was unnecessary. Here's how my version turned out:

And the guy hanging from the wreath on the left- that's Cupid, stupid. hahahahahahahahhahaha, I'm hilarious.  

What I made Monday!

Poor Wyatt. He doesn't seem to mind, but for the past couple months, he's been riding around in a pink car seat. He got too big for his infant car seat and so I brought Finley's extra out of Shannon's truck and into the car. It's pink. Real pink. With flowers. And gross. And old.

I've been meaning to make him a new cover, and I FINALLY got around to it- yea me! Yea, Wyatt! I used some scrap fabric and pieced together a cover using the original cover as a template. Working with minky is tricky, but it's oh so soft. Soooooooo soft. I used a cotton knit around the arms and sides because it has some give. I thought the green would big boy it up a little. The baby blue minky was kind of screaming baby.  I made a casing for elastic around the edges to help it stay on. What do you think?

  There some extra fabric at the arms, but I'm no seamstress- this was tricky, and again, no pattern. Not that it would have turned out better if I had a pattern (since I've never used one, I'm sure I would mess it up somehow), but I got tired, so this works :)

Progress, people.

C'mon. Be excited with me. Although we started the new year by spending the entire day at home (this is something we NEVER do. NEVER.) and didn't even bother to get dressed (although I did my hair because I still want my husband to be attracted to me) progress was made, people.  I've been looking for an alternative to our current media stand for a while now. It sits low enough that the kiddos can touch the tv- or rather bang on it, hit it, wipe their messy hands on it AND Wyatt can open the doors (which are unlockable- we've tried several different methods) and throw all the dvds around the room and rip the dvd player out as well.

 See?? This mess isn't our fault. It's his:

Sure, he looks all sweet and innocent. Not true.
Fun stuff. So, I was thinking a dresser would provide good storage and get the tv up a bit higher. I looked and looked and looked, and finally found something I LOVE. It's BIG, but not too deep. Has interesting details. Is super heavy sturdy. AND CHEAP AFFORDABLE! Yea, for affordable! :)

I lovingly refer to it as "The Beast". I don't know how we're going to get it in the house because we could barely get it in the garage. Just. Barely. Seriously, it clears the threshold by like 5 inches. Not an issue, though, because I had plans to turn this thing around and get it in place by Christmas. Merry Christmas to me! But.... It's been cold here lately. Or raining. Or cold and raining. Either way, cold or rain is a no-no for painting, so progress was thwarted. My big plans of finishing the dresser purchase to house the media in the living room BEFORE Christmas were a fail. BUT, yesterday it was a beautiful 68 degrees and not raining. YEA!! Today is another story. It's rainy wet, so can't do anything more, but at least I got somewhere. Wanna see?? Okay, here it is:

Are you super jealous of my organized, clutter free workspace?? Yeah, I'm awesome like that. Totally professional in every endeavor. So, it looks white in the pictures, but it's actually ivory like the coffee table.

It needs another coat of paint. A solution to the handle problem: one of them was broken beyond repair and I can't find another like it. Anywhere. Distressing and a poly finish. Then it will be done. Can I get a "woot woot"??? Weather please cooperate. Thanks :)