Dr. Seuss Reading Corner

I recently added a little reading corner to my son’s room. As you may know, my son’s room is Dr. Seuss themed. So everything that I added has a hint of Dr. Seuss.

The room already had a couple of book shelves.

Underneath the shelves I added a magnet wall.

I just used Rustoleum magnet paint. This stuff is amazing! You can even paint over the magnet paint so that the magnet wall can just blend right in with the rest of the wall. I decided to leave it for the time being so that my son can see the contrast between where to put the magnets and where not to. I think eventually I’ll paint over it and then just frame the part of the wall that is magnetized.

Here is the wall before right we painted it.

I love the magnets on the wall. I happened to come across some Dr. Seuss foam stickers at Hobby Lobby one day. They came in a pack of 200. I thought that they would be perfect for this project. I just converted them to magnets by adding some adhesive magnet tape to the back of each sticker.

There are some cool magnets. All of the ABC’s, plus pictures of Dr. Seuss books and characters. They even have a magnet for every page of Green Eggs and Ham so you can even read the book right there on the magnet wall.

In addition to the magnet wall, I also sewed my son a bean bag chair using various Dr. Seuss fabrics. I used the Michael Miller child bean bag chair pattern.

It sits right next to his book shelf.

Contrary to the story this picture tells, my son actually loves his chair. He spends a lot of his day sitting and reading in his bean bag chair. He just wasn’t interested in sitting in it when I wanted to take a picture.

Here is a view of the entire reading corner, complete with a pennant banner made from Dr. Seuss book pages.

Here are a couple of links to other Dr. Seuss projects in his room.

Cat in the Hat Mobile

Dr. Seuss Storage Boxes

P.S. Happy Halloween! We spent our evening reading Halloween books in our Halloween PJ’s. We’ve had 3 rounds of trick or treating over the last week so we took the night off from candy collecting to pass out candy to others. It was just as fun but without the sugar high. My son would get so excited every time the door bell rang!

The Cash Wallet- Part 1

*Update: The Cash Wallet tutorial is no longer available for free. It available in the shop Walter and Veronica, for a very reasonable price.

I have been helping Whitney with a little project that she has been working on. She is starting a new budgeting system, which she will explain tomorrow. She wanted a cute wallet to help out with this new system- maybe give her a little more motivation to stick to her plan ;) I helped Whitney sew together a cute cash wallet.

We used this pattern to help us create the wallet. We used it more as a guideline for our measurements, but then we took our own spin on the project. If you go check out the tutorial, you will see that we used a button instead of a Velcro closure, we used fabric instead of vinyl, and we also used Velcro for the cash pockets instead of zippers. There are a few other little differences as well.

There are 6 pockets for cash. Whitney will explain why tomorrow. Each pocket is held closed with Velcro.

There is a back pocket to hold your receipt's, coupons or checkbook.

There are pockets up front to hold your ID’s and credit cards.

It is a cute wallet! I hope it keeps Whitney motivated to stick to her new budget!

Breezy Summer Skirt Tutorial

I shared with you a while back, my breezy summer skirt. Today, I thought that I would share the tutorial. It is super easy- less than 10 steps. No zippers, just elastic. Perfect for summer.

What will you need?

• Sheer fabric
• Solid fabric for the lining
• 3/4 inch elastic
• The regulars- thread and sewing machine

*I do not know the name of the fabric that I used. I do know that it is made exclusively for Joann's. That is where you will find it.

Step 1: Hem your fabrics.

Step 2: Sew your sheer fabric and your lining together. Only sew it together at the top of your skirt. Leave the bottom- the parts that you just hemmed- unattached.

Step 3: Pin in your pleats.

*I obviously botched my fabric while I was cutting it. But once I fold the fabric down to make the band for the skirt, you will never be able to tell. So don’t stress too much if your fabric is not cut perfectly.

Step 5: Sew in your pleats. You are going to measure 1 3/4 inch down from the top of your skirt. At that point, you will sew a line across the pleats.

* After this you may want to iron the pleats all the way down the rest of the skirt. This will give the pleats a more defined look.

Step 6: Fold down the top of the skirt 1 inch to create the band. Pin it. Sew the band shut along the bottom edge.

Step 7: Pull the elastic threw the band that you have just sewn.

Step 8: Sew the elastic in place.

Step 9: Fold your skirt in half while inside out. Make sure the two fabric edges are aligned. Sew up your skirt. Turn it inside out, and done!

Now you have a comfortable breezy summer skirt at a fraction of the price of the JCrew version. You can wear it will a belt and pair with a fun summer tee and flip flops(my fav option). Or dress it up with a fancy blouse and some heels. The possibilities are endless.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Beach in the Backyard

We are in the process of revamping our backyard. There are quite a few outdoor projects that we have slowly been working on every Saturday. All projects(minus the one that I am showing you today) are about 50% done. None would make it to being 100% done, if we hadn’t built this first…

The previous owners of our home had built a special place to put their patio furniture.It was a 7 ft by 7 ft box. We thought it was kind of strange. It was something that really had no use to us. We felt it was just taking up space in the back yard. We wanted to do something with it that would benefit us. So we asked ourselves, what could we do with this space? And the answer… an awesome sandbox!

We started by taking all of the stone off and temporarily relocating it to other parts of the yard.

Next we dug out most of the dirt and relocated that to other parts of the yard.

Then we dug deep holes to hold our pvc pipe.

Then we rolled out the landscaping fabric, cut it to size, and secured it to the ground with landscaping staples.

Then we poured in the sand!

And of course, our son just patiently waited till this was done :) More like tried to crawl out of his swing.

Next step was to paint the pvc pipe. We sprayed it with a plastic primmer first. I recommend that you paint the pipes before putting them in the ground. I am not entirely sure why we put the pipes in before we painted them.

The last piece to this back yard beach was the awning. The awning and the pennant banner were made from duck cloth. Because of it’s size, I had to purchase two 2 1/2 yards of the navy duck cloth. Each piece was 60 x 90 inches. I needed an 80 x 80 inch piece. I had to cut the cloth down to a 60 x 80 inch piece and a 60 x 20 inch piece. Then I sewed those together. For the ties, I just hot glued pieces of twine to the end of the cloth. Then I just tied the twine around the pvc pipe. I was worried that it would slide down the pipe, but it doesn’t. It stays!

It is my sons favorite place to play. Yesterday, while I went to go get his swimsuit, he escaped out the back door to go play. Oh to be 14 months old, with not a care in the world, and the only thing required for playtime is a diaper and some crocs.

This has been a dream. I could not get any of my other outdoor projects done if it wasn’t for this backyard beach.

It’s my sons place to just lounge and read a book while taking a nice relaxing soak in the pool, or while reclining back in his perfectly pint sized chair.

The genius part about this being a sandbox/pool is that I can just hose him down before he comes inside. That way no sand gets inside my house.

This has been the perfect place to play. Although, my son better watch out for the zucchini growing behind him. It has already over taken the carrots. Hopefully it doesn’t overtake the sandbox too ;)

 

Also, I updated my JCrew knock off- Breezy Summer Skirt. I just had to add those pleats. Feel free to check it out again.