Week 16: Christmas Pine Cone Basket

I've seen these pine cone baskets on Pinterest around the holidays (see photo at right), but my mom has been making them since I can remember. These baskets are great additional light pieces around mantles or next to trees to help decorate.

To make something like this, you need a basket, pine cones, holiday ribbon, clear lights, additional holiday decoration, newspaper (for filler). Note that there's no right or wrong ingredient for your basket. If you want to use multi-colored lights, go for it.

First, use the newspaper or cloth filler in the bottom of the basket to line it. This way, you won't have to use pine cones underneath where people won't see anyways.

Begin filling your basket with pine cones and holiday decorations. You'll use a hot glue gun to secure the pine cones, decorations, ribbon, and lights so they don't move around. I chose silver balls and red flowers with green leaves for my decorations.

You'll continue to fill up the basket until you can't see the filler (newspaper or cloth) anymore. Once your basket is full, it's time to add ribbon, securing with hot glue. You can add ribbon however you'd like to the basket. In the Pinterest example above, they laid the ribbon on the outside. I chose to cover my handle with the ribbon and make a bow on the outside.

After the bow is in place, it's time for the lights. I like a lot of light so I glued the lights in very densely and around the handle. You can see the finished product in the example on the left.

One way to add another dimension to your basket is to add smell. You can get scented pine cones, or my mom always glued cinnamon sticks into the baskets. Whatever smell reminds you of Christmas can be integrated into the basket by purchasing scented things or scenting them yourself with oils.

Week 15: Personalized Baby Poster for Nursery

My husband and I chose to not to share the name we had chosen for our son until he was born. But to
tease the masses, we did share the initials with them and told them they had to guess. I collected all of the name suggestions from when we found out we were having a boy until we revealed the name. Some of the names were real suggestions and some were funny, but we kept them all!

I listed them vertically on a page, next to a photo of our newborn, his name and stats. I chose the bright green color because it matched in with the bright color of the Angry Bird nursery. I had it printed using a Groupon for Vistaprint and received an 11x17 glossy print. What I didn't anticipate was the limited frames available with a mat and opening for 11x17. I decided to find a deal on a larger frame (about $20) and had a custom mat made for about $16 with a 60% coupon at Joann's.

All-in-all, I'm really happy with how everything turned out. Love to hear your comments or if you've done something similar. 

Week 14: Holiday Step and Repeat Banner

We're back on with celebrating the holidays with an annual ugly sweater party. This year with all of my Pinspiration, I wanted to make sure our home was all decked out as well. In addition to plastic candy canes lining the driveway, the pictures of ugly sweaters in our entryway and a hot chocolate bar, I wanted to make an area that we could immortalize our ugly sweaters in a photobooth-type fashion.

Our large windows in our dining room provided the area and some wrapping paper taped together provided the backdrop. First, I measured the width and height of the window, planning on being able to tape the final product on the window frame. Then I placed various pieces of wrapping paper on the floor, attaching them together with blue tape. I took a plain piece of brown paper and wrote "Happy Holidays 2012" at the top so when we took pictures, it said that at the top. The final touch was the bows that taped up after I taped my creation to the window frame.

For the party, we had a camera with a tripod set-up so we could take individual and group pictures. It's definitely something we'll do again for next year's party.

Next year I'll have to challenge myself to find uglier Christmas wrapping paper and make the "Happy Holidays" part a lot bigger.

(Thanks to my model, Schooner, in the photo!)

Week 13: Angry Birds Pumpkin for Halloween

It's been many years since I've carved a pumpkin so I wanted to make sure that the pumpkin my husband and I carved was awesome. Since we're still on an angry birds kick, we decided on that. It was a last minute decision so I pulled up what I could on Pinterest and found a picture with an angry bird outline photoshopped on a pumpkin. Shouldn't be too hard to freehand, I thought. And it wasn't!!

I had this picture displayed on my phone and sketched with a pencil first. Next came the punching to outline cuts and then came the actual cutting. The hardest part was cutting the lines thick enough that we could see light from a candle inside the pumpkin. That's where my husband's expertise came in. I think it turned out pretty well considering it was freehanded. It definitely made me miss carving pumpkins - I'm looking forward to next Halloween!

Week 12: Hard Copy of Daily Baby Record

As we were packing up our things in the hospital to take our baby boy home, the multiple nurses who came through each mentioned to us that we needed to keep track of how often (and how long) he was nursing,  hen he had a wet diaper, when he had a BM diaper, etc. They each said that the pediatrician would be asking for that information at the first doctor's appointment. 

I had seen a post on Pinterest about great apps for mom's and one of them was Baby Connect ($4.99 for your iPhone). Once you download the app you can track all of these things and more! It's awesome because you can designate others to login to the application (like your spouse, grandparents or other caregivers) so they can input the information into the same place as well. Even though you have to pay the $4.99 for each device the app is used on, you can login for free from any computer. 

Fantastic if all of your caregivers have smart phones or access to a computer 24/7 while watching your little one, but what if they don't? It's still important to me to have that information tracked, so I created a hard copy document that I can print off as I need to. I even put instructions at the top so each new caregiver knows how much to feed (or not feed) the baby and what other expectations you have as far as activities are concerned. You can download an example document here that you can customize to your child's name and criteria. (Simply click Ctrl + S when the preview pops up to download the original word file.)

This may seem like a more manual process, since you'll have to log the information back into the Baby Connect interface yourself, but at least you'll have the information logged and you don't have caregivers trying to remember how many wet diapers there were and how many ounces the little guy or gal has had since early that morning.

Week 11: Crib Dust Ruffle

I saw this tutorial for making a crib dust ruffle on Pinterest and wanted to make an Angry Birds dust ruffle for my baby's crib. First I purchased the smallest sheet set I could find (twin) and was going to cut it up and follow the instructions.

However, I felt like it was an ambitious task I was about to undertake considering how tired I was in the third trimester. So I improvised.

The sheet set was completely useful in its twin set state so before we put the mattress down, we just used the flat sheet as the dust ruffle. Not only was it a heck of a lot easier than sewing a dust ruffle (like the one pictured top left), but now we can reuse the twin sheet. Some may call it cheating or a short-cut... I call it efficient and achievable. :)

Week 10: Hospital Goody Bag for Dad

Once my bag was packed in preparation for going to the hospital, I put together a special bag for my husband based on something I saw on Pinterest. Yes, it's true that once you go into labor you are limited on what you can eat and drink, but I didn't think my husband should be punished and starve because I couldn't eat.

On Pinterest I saw a "Daddy Hospital Survival Kit" filled with some candy, magazines, homemade bread, soda and some magazines. Although the packaging was very nice and included some cute printables, I knew my husband wouldn't really care about how nice it looked. I did package my version like a present (gift bag with tissue paper) so he wouldn't look through it before I went into labor.

I let him open his "Survival Kit" when we arrived at the hospital and were unpacking our hospital bag. My goal was to give him some snacks and something to do during the first night where I anticipated being in labor all night long. Once the baby arrived he would have plenty to do!

Here's what I included in my version of the "Daddy Hospital Survival Kit:"

• Two magazines (fantasy football guide and a guide to phone apps)
• Two Snickers bars (his favorite candy)
• Peanut butter crackers (peanut butter for some energy)
• Mountain Dew (for a lot of energy)
• Angry Birds Cheese Nips (our nursery theme is Angry Birds)

No matter what you put in your "Daddy Hospital Survival Kit," make sure that you pack some snacks for yourself in your regular hospital bag for when you're done delivering your bundle of joy. Daddy will likely be happy with whatever you pack for him, but making it personal will make him feel special as well.