DIY Circus Marquee Sign

I cannot wait to give you a full rundown of the amazing party we threw to celebrate my 5,3,1 kiddos. But before the full show of pictures, I have to share a few of my favorite projects from the party. Has anyone noticed that these circus marquee letters are everywhere in decor these days? I’ve seen them in so many stores, from Hobby Lobby to Target.
I knew I HAD to have these but when I started hunting around, the lowest price I was seeing was still upwards of $15 for EACH letter. Yeah, not going to happen. So I did what any good crafter would do and started scouring Pinterest for good ways to make them on the cheap. I found a few blogs out there (here and here) but the costs were still a bit high using the paper mache letters or wood. Then I started finding a few that used cardboard. (here) Bingo. My kind of price.
So here’s what you need:

1. 2-3 sheets of posterboard in the color you want
2. 2 sheets of foam board (walmart even carries it).  Great if it’s in the color you need, but just paint it if it’s not.
3. acrylic paint (see above)
4. hot glue gun
5. something sharp like a pencil to create the holes
6. 1 string of Christmas lights (I used a 150 light strand I think)

Step 1
Some people can freehand letters. Not this girl. I used my Silhouette software to print out large letters over 4 sheets of paper. You can also do this in excel or photoshop. I used the free font Budmo found here and used text size 1500. Print the parts of the large letter, cut them out and tape them together.  Then trace them onto your foam board and cut those out. I needed to use an exacto knife to cut through the foam board.
Step 2
If your foam board is not the color you want it to be, paint it.  Mine was yellow on one side and white on the other and I needed it to be red. So a little thing of acrylic paint and 2 coats later, and it was red. You don’t need to worry about painting the sides of the boards, just the top. A word of warning, I bought 2 kinds of foam board, one from Walmart and one from the Dollar Tree. The Dollar Tree one was much thinner and actually curled a little bit after the paint dried. I didn’t really care as I wasn’t going for perfect, but you might be happier with the thicker foam board from Wally World or your local craft store.
Step 3
Poke the holes for the lights. Now there are tons of cool strands of lights out there that look much more like marquee lights. And if I was using these letters for room decor or something for the long haul, I would have splurged. A friend even offered to loan me the lights hanging above their patio (thanks Laura). But 2 hour party folks. A free strand of Christmas lights from the basement tub worked just fine.  I started the lights at the top of one letter and poked a hole just a little shorter than the distance between the 2 bulbs on the string. You’re not leaving the lights in the holes yet, just poking the holes.

Step 4
Cut your posterboard into 2” long strips. I used almost 2 full sheets of posterboard for my 6 marquee letters.

Step 5
Heat up your trusty glue gun. Then slowly, very slowly, put a line of hot glue on the edge of the foam board in 1-2” increments.  Line up a strip of posterboard with the bottom the foam board and press to attach.  Does that make sense?  Continue around the edge of the letter and around the inside. It will take a bit of finagling on the small inside spaces of some of the letters, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it’d be. I found that on the large curved letters, it helped to use 2 smaller strips instead of one long one to get a best fit and without it getting weird and bendy. Step 6
Now that you have all your letters done, all you have to do it insert your string of lights in the back.  They fit pretty snug in the holes, but I did add some painter’s tape along to secure it. Sorry I didn’t take any pictures of this step.  When I was done, all the letters were strung together and now had to be moved as a group. Here’s a picture with the lights in focus, not the letters.

Step 7
Then you just need to have someone else hang it for you. haha. I simply put some command strips on the back and hung them from the overhang on our patio.

I was pretty impressed that they even survived an hour of good rain. We took them down so they could live in our basement now! Definitely added just the amount of pop I wanted for the party. And not bad for under $5!

DIY paper airplane mobile

Now that I’m trying to get back in the regular routine of blogging, I need to show off some of Miles’ room cuteness.  Since I overhauled the plan for his room about 2 months before he arrived, his mobile plans also needed to change.

I just couldn’t land on anything I loved.  I’m not a “themey” person when it comes to my kiddo’s rooms, so I had colors in mind but not a shape.  I was going to just do a cute circle one with my leftover fabrics and then I spotted this on Etsy:

(source)

Adorable, expect for the price tag and I wanted to add a few more pattern instead of just solid papers.  So I busted out my trusty glue gun and got to making one myself.  Here were all the supplies I used:

• 2 wooden embroidery hoops – 8” and 10”
• paint for the hoops
• hot glue gun
• about 8 different scrapbook papers in gray, yellow, and white
• fishing line – I wish now I would have used line that was a bit thinner and more transparent, but you can’t be picky when you’re nine months pregnant and doing craft projects
• little white hook to attach everything to the ceiling

1. There are a few tutorials on how to make your own paper airplane mobile here and here.  Mine isn’t super detailed as I forgot to take pictures of lots of steps.
2. I only used the insides to my embroidery hoops, not the outside part that has the hardware on it.  You can discard that part (or save it for another project).  Then I started by painting my hoops with a gray spray paint I had and hated the coverage and color.  So I switched and did 2 coats using a acrylic craft paint and loved it much more.3. Make your airplanes!  There are a million different ways to make your paper airplanes.  Look here for some good examples here.  After lots of trial runs, I decided I wanted something very simple with very few fold lines.

• I cut my paper into 4.5” x 5” rectangles.
• fold your paper in half
• open it back up and fold each top corner down and line up with the fold down the middle
• fold in half again
• Take each side and fold down so the top fold line, lines up with the bottom of the plane.  Does that make sense?
• And that should make your simple airplane!
• I hot glued it together in all the places it could come unfolded and while the glue was still hot, I stuck in a long piece of fishing wire to hang it

4. I tied 3 fishing wires evenly around each hoop (6 lines total) and tried as best I could to hang the 2 hoops so they were even with each other.  They’re actually not tied together in any way.

5. After I made lots of airplanes, I tied them loosely around the hoops to figure out how I wanted to space them, which colors I wanted where, etc.  When I was happy with the placement, I tied the fishing wire as tight as I could and added a small dot of hot glue to secure it.  Then I cut off the excess fishing wire.  (the beginning stages of mobile is hanging from the ceiling fan in this picture)6. Lastly, William helped me measure and hang it from the ceiling just using a little white hook.I love how it turned out and I hope Miles enjoys this view from his bed.

Miles’ nursery {part 1}

I’m all about real around here.  So here ya go.  Take it all in.This is our guest/craft room after we took out the bed and started getting ready for our garage sale.  I will also say that I was emptying out all my craft boxes and going though them.  But oh yeah, it looked like for a good couple months.  During this time, Miles’ nursery plan went through a couple revisions.  Originally, I had my heart set on doing a wood or pallet wall.  Kinda like this:

 

(source)

I priced reclaimed barn wood and knew quickly that wasn’t going to happen.  Then I looked into doing it ourselves with pallets.  But the larger my stomach got, the less that large of a DIY project seemed appealing.  William was also worried about how to be sure all the pallets were treated in a way we’d want on a nursery wall.  I also looked into “wood” wallpaper.  Again, not quite in the budget range I was trying to stay in.  So I abandoned my original idea and started to fall in love with this color scheme:And these were a few of the inspiration nurseries I found on Pinterest that I liked:So remember when I was 30-something weeks pregnant with Ellie and painting her stencil on her wall swearing I would never do that again?  Hahahaha.  Never say never. I decided that to do this color scheme, the cream trim in his room and on the doors would have to go.  So William prepped and I spent a week carefully painting 2 coats of trim.  Not for the faint of heart, I tell ya.  But oh is is beautiful.  Luckily, the doors for the basement (oh yeah, I haven’t blogged about that yet have I?) were getting painted around this time, so Miles' closet doors and the back of the main door to the room were painted by someone who knew what they were doing.  Because all the outlets were beige as well, I have to give major props to William for being willing to buy all new white ones AND install them for me.

The next step was picking a color.  While I was researching nurseries, I saw this blue/aqua/sea green color coming up a lot and several bloggers mentioned using the color Iced Green from Benjamin Moore.  I got a small sample from Do It Best Hardware and it was exactly what I was picturing in my head!

After I got all the trim done, I wasn't quite sure what I had gotten myself into.  Thankfully, my mom came to the rescue to help with the rest of it.  Her and William did one coat on Friday night and knocked the other one out Saturday morning.   Owen and Ellie were great helpers (NOT).Then after the paint was done, we put together his crib and dresser.  It felt awesome to finally get some of the big stuff done so I could focus on more of the fun little details. Ta-da. Paint done and crib is assembled! And here is the adorable light I found at Target next to a sweet little owl I picked up a long time ago at Prairie Gardens.  I’ll post a few more of the individual crafts projects I did and then show you a full tour of his room!

Lil Picasso

Every Monday in the month of April, we went to a class at the Savoy Rec Center called Lil’ Picasso.  We were just one of 3 families that signed up for it so it was a perfect size.  The teacher had 4-6 art projects lined up and ready to go for our 45 minute session. While they were projects I totally could have done at home, it was so nice to have a bunch ready to go.  And the mess stayed there while we just went home!  Totally worth the small cost for the class.  It was a fun thing to do just the 3 of us before baby comes! 

Advent Activities

This was the first year that Owen really “got” Christmas so I wanted to make it a special month.  Also, I’d been doing a lot of laying on the couch so I wanted to try and redeem his October and November months of TV time.  :) 

The first thing that we did everyday was open one holiday/winter/Christmas book.  I had a large stash from my classroom, but I plan on adding one or 2 new ones each year we do this.  Yes, I’ll re-wrap the books every year.

Next, I hung up two red ribbons using command hooks.  I glued red numbers onto white paper crafts bags for en easy Advent countdown.  Inside each bag was a piece of paper with an activity on it.  Many times, I didn’t fill the bag until that morning so I could adjust our activity depending on our schedule.  In 3 or 4 of the bags, there was a small treat or present too but I tried to focus on activities.  I had bought some game/toy things last year on clearance and I did the same thing this year so I have a few things ready to go when December rolls around again.I made my own little decorated papers for inside, but here are two cute printable sheets of activities to save you time if you want to do this next year.  HERE and HERE.
Here is a list of everything we did for the 25 days.  Some have pictures. :)

1. Make a Christmas paper chain countdown.
2. Decorate our door like a snowman
3. Decorate little trees for each of your rooms
4. Make an ornament for your tree (beaded candy cane)
5. Decorate a gingerbread house (this was a big fail)
6. Sing and dance to Christmas songs
7. Christmas ring toss game (bought last year on clearance)
8. Make a bird feeder
9. Watch a Christmas movie
10. Go to the live nativity
11. Go somewhere new – Soccer Planet!
12. Have hot cocoa with whip cream and sprinkles
13. Make a paper nativity
14. Make salt dough ornaments
15. Decorate the windows
16. Play outside and make a snowman
17. Bake Christmas cookies
18. Make snow ice cream
19. Choose three of your toys and give them away.
20. Date night with Mom!
21. Deliver gifts to neighbors
22. Drive to Grandma and Grandpa’s house!
23. Open presents!
24. Go to Christmas Eve Service and drive by lights on the way home.
25. It’s Christmas!

Each day we also had a little advent calendar (that we got from my in-laws) that has a little part of the Christmas story.  We’d read the little book and hang it on our tree.  As we took down our bags, we hung up the Christmas cards that started to roll in: Let me know if you have any other good ideas for our advent countdown next year.  It was such a fun way to get them excited for Christmas!