Fabric Wreath Tutorial

Posted on Friday, January 27th, 2012 by Tabitha

I decided after the holidays that I wanted a pretty new wreath to brighten up our door. I still don’t have a Christmas wreath or a winter wreath made, but I decided to go with something flowery. [Mostly because I'm ready for spring...] Here’s my new wreath:

I think it turned out pretty, so I thought I’d share how I made it. Here’s the tutorial:

First, gather your supplies.
Wreath Form in the size you want – I used a pool noodle taped end to end, so mine is pretty large.
Fabric strips 3-5 inches wide – I used about 1/2 yard of white with gray polka-dots.
Wood letter
Mod Podge
Extra fabric for the letter and roses and bow
Ribbon for hanging
Glue Gun

Alright, plug that glue gun in and get it warmed up. Then attach the end of one strip of fabric to your wreath using a dab of glue. Start wrapping the fabric around the wreath and glue and repeat as needed with more strips until the whole form is covered. My pool noodle didn’t hold us very well with the hot glue [kind of melted a bit] but the fabric did stick and is staying on fine.

After your fabric is on, get your wood letter. If you want to paint it, go ahead. If you want to cover it with fabric like I did, use your mod podge and stick it on. I just cute a piece of fabric a little larger than my letter and slit where it would need to fold over. then coat the top of your letter with mod podge and lay the fabric over it, smoothing it toward the edges. Flip the letter over and start painting mod podge and folding the fabric to the back and gluing it down. After you get all of the edges folded to the back paint some mod podge over the whole back. When that is dry flip the letter again and coat the front with mod podge to seal it.

Now, you have to decide what other embellishments you want on your wreath. I tied a black polkadot bow near the top and tied the wreath to the hook with a wide black ribbon. I hung it on the door for awhile like that. I thought I wanted some fabric flowers, but I didn’t have time to make them then. So later on I made some rolled rosettes.

You can find many tutorials for making these, so I won’t repeat. They are so easy to make though! I used all three of the fabrics that I had used on the wreath. Then I just hot glued them onto the wreath.

This wreath is pretty simple to make, but it looks like it took a lot of work. It will also brighten your home and make it more welcoming. Enjoy!

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9 months

Posted on Saturday, January 21st, 2012 by Tabitha

Wow, Kyler’s first year is flying by! I can’t believe he is already 9 months old. He doesn’t really look like a nine month old to me. While he is bigger than he used to be, he still seems like a little baby.

Here he is on January 13th:

We went to the doctor for his check up last Thursday. He weighed 16 lbs 2 ounces and was 26.75″ long/tall. That puts him not on the chart for weight and in the tenth percentile for height. Tiny boy apparently, but we can’t tell because of all the fat rolls! I am used to being told that I have children on the low end of size; he is fine. And even if other babies are almost all bigger than him he does fit into the “right size” clothes. He is wearing 6-9/6-12 month clothes. Apparently children who are the norm wear clothes that are bigger sizes. Don’t you think that’s odd?

So, at 9 months, Kyler can:

- still not sit up on his own, though he is getting better at balancing. He could probably do it, but I don’t think he wants to. When I put him in a sitting position he just flops over to rest on his hands or tries to get on his belly.
- stick his legs up underneath him in a crawl position, but can’t figure out the arms…
- tries to put everything in his mouth.
- laugh at his sister and brothers all day and it is such a beautiful sound. His favorite is when they blow those little party horns. He has such a big laugh.
- sleep 12 hours at night, almost every night. This is fabulous!!
- eat cereal, and most of the vegetables and fruits. He has even had a bite of cake and a little ice cream. Shhh, don’t tell! And, he loves those wagon wheel baby snacks, but can’t figure out how to keep the puffs in his mouth.
- wave. At Kody. Sort of.
- has had this weird thing where he spits up/throws up every time he poops, since we started baby food. It’s getting better now, but it has been gross. The doctor and nurses all said they’ve never heard of a baby doing that before, but when checked out he was fine. Apparently he just had some issues with his belly working out the new foods. I’m glad he’s not doing it as much now.
-loves to be held or to play on his belly.
-still toothless.
-holds his feet, one in each hand, when he’s on his back. He is so funny!

He is still the happiest baby around and we love him so much. He rarely gets really upset. I love to get him out of bed in the morning because he is just so happy and he kicks his little legs and smiles because he’s so excited to see me. He peeks over the top of the crib bumper, through the bars, to see if I’m in bed too, which is adorable. (the picture from yesterday’s post was of him looking out while I was folding laundry. Usually the side of the crib is pulled up, but we were playing with him.) I just can’t say enough about how wonderful he is.

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{this moment}

Posted on Friday, January 20th, 2012 by Tabitha

From SouleMama: {this moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

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On Growing Up

Posted on Sunday, January 15th, 2012 by Tabitha

Photo by Makenzie Lynn Photography

Here’s the deal: I don’t mind getting older. In fact I embrace each birthday and new year with excitement. I don’t like my children getting older. Not because I necessarily want them to stay little and helpless forever, but because each year brings them that much closer to leaving me. It gives me less time to make memories with them. Less time to hold them and tell them that I love them.

Kristopher turned 10 today…a whole decade has gone by. I think he’s turning out pretty well. I am a bit partial, but I hope that others agree that he is wonderful. I’m having a hard time believing that he is that old. I thought today about where I was ten years ago. A new mom in a hospital room with a tiny baby boy. So exhausted from 21 hours of labor and then a c-section. Drugged and incoherent. Not knowing at all what to do. Surrounded by family, but feeling like I was alone and not supported. Full of love for the sweet baby I was holding. Ignoring all the people who said they grow up sooo fast.

So much has changed since then. Now I know so much more and I want to be an encouragement to others. I know how fast they really do grow up. I am still full of love for my boy, no matter how big he gets. Throughout the day a book has come to mind pretty often. Love You Forever by Robert Munsch is such a good book and I just keep thinking about how I really will love him forever. When you start on the journey it’s hard to imagine and know how much love you really can give. I’m here to tell you it’s a big bunch!

Okay, enough of a sappy long post. I’ve cried some, smiled lots, sought advice from others, screamed, talked, disciplined, laughed so much and been incredibly blessed in the past 10 years. I am so proud to be his mom and I hope that he is happy to have me. By the way he waves and smiles whenever he sees me I know he is. :) Happy 10th birthday to my big boy who is growing up way too fast!

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Lego Party

Posted on Saturday, January 14th, 2012 by Tabitha

Kristopher’s 10th birthday is tomorrow. Well, it starts in about 20 minutes. Today, we had his party, a lego party, as requested by him. To be honest, I thought maybe a Lego party was too young for a ten year old and I really hoped he wouldn’t get made fun of for his choice, but everyone seemed to have a lot of fun and he especially did. That’s all that matters! I found much of my inspiration on Pinterest, love that site!

First up, I bought some Lego scrapbook paper [it is even bumpy and has the lego logo on each dot] in red, blue, yellow & green. I made banners to go all over the place by cutting the paper into 6×8 dot blocks. Then I cut up Kristopher’s Lego calendar from 2011. Then I just sewed the papers together on my sewing machine. Easy Peasy and so cute! I used a couple of the larger pictures from the calendar on the walls. Balloons hanging from the light over the table are fun. I put Legos in clear glass containers on tables to decorate as well.

In the living room, I set up this little table to greet guests. I wanted to have each boy sign the card, get a name badge and guess the number of Legos in the vase before doing anything else, but as guests were arriving I got sidetracked and they all ended up doing this in a bunch. It’s much easier to do that sort of thing with adults!

On the wall in the kitchen we also had “Bob”, who had lost his arm. He was drawn by Kristopher and playing that game was completely Kristopher’s idea. He did a great job with the drawing, but he didn’t win. Going first was not advantageous…with the arms the boys just felt for the previous arm and then placed theirs. So the farther down the line the better your chance. Try to make your arms flatter if you play this! Ours were curling up on the hand end. :)

I found a “favor pack” of Lego build kits that came with 4 each of 2 different designs. We had a little contest to see who could build their’s the quickest. The winner got a prize. While they were building they were very serious and it was completely quiet around that table. Totally different than the rest of the party! So funny to see the difference between the kids when they had something to work for.

After all the games I let the boys play for awhile, while I cooked some pizza and finished setting out all the food. My goal was to make Lego pizza like this blogger did. Mine was fine, but the pepperoni’s slid around during the cooking and so the pieces didn’t exactly look like they were supposed to. Still we had small rectangular pizza pieces with round circles. Good enough, right?! I also purchased the silicone Lego molds and we had Lego ice and Lego shaped chocolates. Some of the chocolate men went on top of cupcakes. I made a second cake since I didn’t know how many people I would end up feeding. For that one I used this idea and put marshmallows on top to create the Lego look. Not exactly how I pictured it either, but still a hit. To make the cupcake stand I hot glued some candle stick holders to the bottom of one Lego board and then set it on top of a larger one. The Hot glue peels off easily and it made a cute display. That gray board was actually mine when I was little. :)

Kristopher wanted to blow out his candle on a special cupcake, not on the big cake, so I just wrote 10 on one of the cupcakes. We prayed and then sang to him before eating any of the food. I had ice cream, but forgot to get it out…

After gorging on sugar, it was time for a little present opening. Kristopher got a lot of cool gifts. Several Lego items were included (how could they not be?!) and he got the two things he was most hoping for as well. It was fun to watch all the kids gather around him while he opened his gifts. They were practically on top of him. During this time he said some of the funniest things. He said he could barely breathe because everyone was so close. When he was done opening everything, someone asked him what he wanted to play with first and he replied, “before I play with anything, I want to clean up this mess!” My boy is so funny. This mamma is thankful that he wanted to clean it up though, less cleanup for her!

Near the end of party-time this fellow showed up:

He sounded like Kristopher and he had the same outfit as Kristopher, but he looked a bit older than 10… Boys will be boys. ;)

Everyone left with a little goody bag, containing a Birthday Lego man and some Lego soap, bought on etsy.

He had a great birthday party and tomorrow we are looking forward to a quiet day of church and celebrating his and Kody’s birthdays with a nice dinner and, you guessed it, more cake! Back to talk about how I can’t believe 10 years has gone by tomorrow…

Posted in Food, Fun, Holidays, Kids | Leave a comment