Growing Up

Growth charts are popping up in all of the major kids’ catalogs right now. This is a little bit bigger than a "Nap Time" project, but it’s worth the effort for the cute factor and cost-savings. This is a great housewarming gift  or a 1st birthday gift for a friend who delights in watching her family grow! 

Materials:

• 2x4x12 piece of wood
• Sandpaper
• Pint of Chalkboard Paint
• 6” foam roller
• Paint tray
• Paint pens
• Pencil
• Chalk
• Ruler
• Rubber stamps (optional)
• Drill (optional)

 At your local hardware store, purchase a 2 x 6 x 12 piece of lumber. Ask an employee to cut the piece in half so that you end up with two 6 ft. pieces of wood. Make sure you are involved in the wood selection – sometimes the lumber has large cracks and flaws. 

** Do NOT be intimidated. Just walk in that lumber department like you own the place. Or walk in like me, looking confused and tired, and eventually someone will ask if you need help!**

 Lightly sand the wood to smooth out the roughness.

Paint the entire plank with three layers of chalkboard paint. Wait 20 minutes between coats.

  

Random tidbit: The vinyl drop cloth I use for my painting projects (seen above) was our table cloth when we lived in Chicago. We had it draped over a 4-person card table, and that was our official dining room table. Fancy, right?

Use a ruler and pencil to measure the inch markers. 

**Even though the piece of wood is 6 feet long, I adjusted the inch markings to account for the wood hanging 6 inches off the floor. In other words, your last marking at the top with be 6 feet 6 inches.

Use a stencil, or rubber stamp, to trace the number markings on the chart with pencil.

Once the wood is measured and marked, draw over the pencil with a paint pen. Decorate the rest of the chart with chalk!

Drill a hole in the top of the chart so that it can be secured on the wall in the garage, kitchen or playroom. The wood is 6 feet long, so you have to hang it 6" off the floor to get the measurements right.

I plan to mark Drew's height once a year on his birthday - and I plan to do that with a permanent paint pen. You can keep track of multiple heights on the same chart, just choose a specific paint pen color for each child. 

The rest of the growth chart can be decorated by Drew with chalk - easy to wipe clean and start fresh when the creative mood strikes! You'll notice a few Drew smudges in the pic above. :) 

Below is a growth chart I made for a friend. I wanted to include a full length photo so you can see all 6 feet...and Frank. Always have to include Frank. 

For anyone reading this locally (Maryland), I would be happy to create a growth chart for you - just message me about pricing. 

My Lucky Day

I haven't gotten news this good since I received my invitation to join Pinterest. And that's saying something.

After submitting a portfolio of ideas, I was chosen to be the first Craft Columnist for Maryland Family Magazine. It was a very good thing that I was home alone with Drew when I got the news. He's very forgiving with my singing voice, and seems to turns a blind eye to my dancing.

I will be contributing kid-friendly project ideas that will hopefully inspire families to pull out their glue guns and get crafting! I'm trying to filter my projects by thinking about crafts that moms will actually want to keep on display. I know children create a lot of art over the years in pre-school and Vacation Bible School, and believe me, there is a place in my heart (and home) for cotton balls, construction paper and toilet paper rolls. However, I do feel there is a sweet spot in this category that results in a fun activity for the child and a cool finished product that mom is happy to display.

Hopefully you guys will keep an eye out for the articles. The remaining 2013 printed editions of Maryland Family Magazine will hit newstands in August and November. The other months' projects will be featured online at http://www.baltimoresun.com/features/maryland-family/

The first project was featured on Wednesday and is a great activity to get your family ready for Mother's Day (read: THE MOST IMPORTANT DAY OF THE YEAR)

Answering the call...

We have officially lived in our house for 3 years. For some (read: most) families, 3 years is not that long. For our little family, 3 years is a lifetime. A.J. and I moved 4 times in the first 4 years of our marriage for various job and life opportunities. I wouldn't change a single decision, but my good friend Ann's father used to say "Don't move near Meghan, her stuff's on wheels"! 

When we moved in to our townhouse I was thrilled when we got to the point where the house felt fully decorated. Curtains hung - check. Pictures on the wall - check. Walls painted - check. But now that we've been here awhile, I hear the house whispering for a refresh. So as life is giving us a little pocket of downtime, I'm answering the decorating call by starting in the kitchen.

These pictures have hung in every house we've lived in, and they were my first big decorative purchase for our first house. I have a vivid memory of painting the gold frames black in the bumpy driveway of our sweet house on Skipwith Rd. If you look around you'll see these prints everywhere, but I love them  for all the good sentimental reasons. They're getting packed away for now, but will hopefully make a return to the walls in the future.

The need for more photo space and the desire to display some of the art we've collected over the past few years led me to this final product...

Sorry for the weird pic - I had a hard time getting everything in the shot!

Notes:

I'm obsessed with these picture ledges from Ikea - they're streamlined, affordable and provide some creative space to lean frames or put small items on display. 

My girlfriend Jessie gave me the awesome birthday gift of a class at Wine and Design in Richmond. We spent a lovely afternoon in March sipping Prosecco and painting stress-free Cow faces. Sounds weird, but trust me, it was so fun. I named my cow Boyer after the very best Richmond ice cream shop in all the land. 

The Fork is a personal favorite. Whenever we go back to Nashville, my husband's hometown, we try to eat at one of the Nashville Originals restaurant. The city is onto something - local restauranteurs have joined together to increase the visibility of local restaurants as more and more chain restaurants pop up. We were at Tin Angel and I saw this cool poster hanging on the wall. Once we were back in MD, I looked on the website to see if I could purchase a print. No luck. I took a stab in the dark and called the restaurant. I spoke to the owner and he told me that they weren't for sale, but that he had a few extras in his office and he'd be happy to give me one. Score! I love generous people. My mother-in-law was still living in TN at the time, so she picked it up and now it hangs on our walls as a fun reminder of A.J.'s southern roots, good food and the importance of supporting local business.

The clipboard is there to display all of the future artwork that Drew creates. I'm basically counting the days until he's old enough to wield a crayon. Coloring was such a great part of my childhood, and I can't wait to share that creative time with Drew. For the record, I was an in-the-lines colorer. 

I couldn't find a cork board that I liked, so I bought a frame, removed the glass and bought cork to fit. 

Drew's big-headed silhouette makes me smile every time I see it. It also reminds me of the silhouette wall in my grandparents' house - my mom is the oldest of 5, and I have a strong memory of seeing the collection of 5 sweet girl profiles on their walls.

Between this new display, the removal of Drew's exersaucer (hallelujah!) and the addition of an easel (future project) and new rug, the kitchen is feeling fresh and new. Maybe this new eye candy will inspire me to cook a little more - I'm doubtful, but hopeful!

Nap Time Projects: Canister Upgrade

A fun project came to mind that was inspired by Anthropologie's monogrammed mugs, which I love. (We have a set of 4 - A, M, F, L - that are in heavy rotation.  I was secretly (or not so secretly) sad that I didn't have to add a new one when the baby was born since he already shares an "A" initial with my husband, but then I thought... should I buy a "D" since we call him Drew... but that's a question for a different post. )

I love the simple B&W design from the mugs and thought I'd use that look to give our current address a shout-out in the kitchen. We have officially lived in MD longer than any other city during our married life. I've hung curtains this time. There is furniture in all of our rooms. We've made it through two, count 'em two, rounds of seasons in our house. The house to-do list has gotten shorter instead of longer. While I don't regret a single move that we've made, it's also been awesome to relax a bit knowing that we're going to be in our home for more than a mili-second. My best friend's dad once told her (jokingly) not to move near us b/c "Meghan and A.J. have their stuff on wheels".

I found this awesome shop on Etsy that makes decals. The best part is the decals are removable, so should we move one day, I can take them off without a lot of hassle. I also think the canisters would look cute with descriptive decals on them as well (flour, rice, etc.) and my decoration-ADD may get the best of me and require a design change one day.

Here's how it all went down:

The decals came with easy instructions and a good ol' handy Popsicle stick for application.

I eyeballed the position of the numbers. I was most concerned with their placement vertically. Horizontal placement didn't matter since the canisters are round. :) Once the number was positioned, I pressed the decal onto the glass working from the center out, making sure to press out as many bubbles as possible.

Slowly, you remove the paper starting from a top corner.

Ta-Da! Finished project. I love the finished look. I love that this little makeover cost $9. And I really love that I was able to do this during one of the baby's naps!

And here's what you all really came for, a random gratuitous picture of the Frank man. He's hanging in there since the baby's arrival. I sometimes think he wishes Drew would take the next train headed for Babyville, but for the most part, I think he's happy. I mean, who are we kidding, Frank still lives the life of a little puppy prince.

Hearts All Over the World.

February was an awesome month - chaotic, emotional, joy-filled and life-changing. My little man Drew is a real sweetie and we are slowly figuring out what our new version of life looks like.

As I adjust to life as a stay-at-home mama, I want to make sure my projects aren't completely replaced by diaper changes. My goal is to post one new thing once a week. That sounds small but I'm learning that is a big goal when your free time is limited. That means I'll need projects to be in the works and I'll need to be carving out time to think about future creative ventures. Growing up my violin teacher used to say "Practice makes Permanent", so I'm hoping to create a little blogging habit over the next few months.

To make the transition easier, I'm going to start by posting about the projects I completed during pregnancy. Many of the projects were ideas I found on the best site ever created. When I have my next child I would seriously considering naming him or her "Pinterest" (a nice gender-neutral-celebrity-kid-worthy name, right?) I love the site THAT much.

Let's start with the easiest projcet I've done in a long time: HEART CRAYONS. I saw this idea on Pinterest and was impressed by how polished, and seemingly easy, the project looked. I had found heart-shaped baking molds in the $1 Spot at Target a few years back and still had not used them for baking. The thought of actually using the molds made my heart skip a beat. That's the heart of an organizer/planner/weirdo I know. It turns out this project WAS easy and it used up all of the old, junky crayons that had worked their way to the back of the shelf. Finding a use for these wayward crayons was another heart-skipping-moment.

TIP:
1. When removing the labels from your crayons....
I used my fingernails and they were destroyed. A good friend came up with the ingenuous idea of slicing the label with a small razor blade. So much smarter and faster.

2. If you  don't have crayons lying around and need to buy new ones, I would think cheap-o ones from the Dollar Store would work just as well as the more expensive Crayola crayons. No one needs to know!

3. Always keep an eye on the dollar bins at your favorite stores...some of my most fun projects have used materials from these spots.

I can't wait to pull these out next February as valentines for all of Drew's lil' buddies. It's mind-boggling to think he will be ONE and will be able to maneuver these crayons with his little chubby baby hands (which are currently shoved in his mouth as he tries to find his thumb!)

Push Pin Project - eat your heart out Martha Stewart

Despite her criminal tendencies, I love me some Martha Stewart, especially her line of crafting tools and embellishments at Michael's. Over the last few years I've been stock piling button stickers from her line. I  literally bought a pack every time I went into the store in fear that they would one day run out and my life would end. At some point I snapped out of this nutso behavior, and stopped buying once I had acquired 15-20 packs. Not something I'm proud of, but I want to give you a peak through the small window into my craft-supply-hoarding tendencies. ;)


I hung a bulletin board over the baby's book shelves for future pictures and artwork, and I wanted to spice up the board in some way. I decided to make push pins out of the beloved button stickers - and fortunately, the project took a matter of 10 minutes.


Directions: (take notes, it's complicated.)


1. Take two matching stickers and stick them together so it's a double sided button with no sticky side.
2. Pull out the glue gun.
3. Put a small dab of glue on a normal push pin and smooshed that bad boy to the stickers.
4. Voila - button push pins!

Leimabean Disaster

As many of you know, the baby picked up the name "Leimabean" pretty early on in the pregnancy. Honestly, I was pretty pleased to find a fun nickname out of our tricky last name. Once the nickname stuck, I knew that there would be some sort of craft project involving Lima beans for the nursery. 

First,  I tried cooking frozen Lima beans to see what they would look/feel like once they cooled/dried. Not pretty. Not craft project worthy. They would probably have grown mold on them by day 5. 

I then went on the hunt for dried Lima beans. Giant didn't have them. Safeway didn't have them. I thought for sure Whole Foods would have them, but no luck. FINALLY I found some at My Organic Market. I brought them home, pulled out my blue spray paint and drop cloth and went to town. 

I decided that the blue beans would be a cute "vase filler" for a few stalks of bamboo - and the project would take no time at all to pull together. Winner.

I bought my stalks, bought my vase and set up in the kitchen for what I thought would be a super easy project. I filled the vase halfway with the blue Lima beans, "planted" the bamboo and then filled the rest of the space with beans and water. It looked awesome and I checked the project off my list.

A few hours later I was admiring my work, and noticed that the paint was starting to chip off some of the beans. A tad frustrated, I figured that would happen a little bit since I didn't put a sealant on the paint. Oh well, still looked cute. I put the vase up in the nursery.

The next day I went into the nursery and found a bunch of blue Lima beans on the floor. At first I thought "Fraaaaaank" - b/c he's nosey, and has been especially curious of the baby's new room and toys. Then I looked at the vase and it was like all of the Lima beans had channeled the Incredible Hulk. The beans were growing and expanding and busting out of their blue shells.  I was so confused, and then this college graduate had the lightbulb moment she should have had 3 days before - I was working with REAL beans that were used by 99.9% of the population for FOOD in soups and stews and normal recipes. When you add water to dried beans they are going to SOAK UP the water and expand. 

Luckily I found a compromise - once I hacked the bamboo to freedom, the second round of this project consisted of re-filling the vase with marbles, and then putting that vase in a larger vase of DRY blue Lima beans. Not my brightest moment.