Since last Monday...

I made Wyatt a new vest, hat, and pants set for church. I had made the bow tie a while back. $3.00 in materials.


I am really on a dress kick this week, because I made myself another one for church this week. $2.00 in materials.


This was a new design I wanted to try, I think I am going to make some frilly bum shorts to go under it.


This is one of the dresses in a series of three. This will hit about the knee for a 5 year old.


Second in the series, I think this is one of my new favorites.


This is the third outfit in the series, it is a little romper that will work for about a 9 mos. All three dresses cost about $5.00 in materials.




This was experimental, playing with odds and ends fabrics I had. $1.50 in materials.




...and matching pj pants for Wy and I. $2.00 in materials.


I have several projects in mind for this coming week...

Guess what, I love projects... But I don't have the patience to take cute pictures and write tutorials. Once I start a project I am on a mission until it is completed.... Let me show you what I mean.

Floral shirt 20 minutes.

I was experimenting with this one... one of my longer projects.. about an hour.


Wy's sweatshirt has a pretty cool graphic on it that I hand drew in about 15 minutes...


This is a dress with matching flips flops, collectively they both took about 1.5 hours.


Wyatt needed some cool PJ pants, I made both pair in appox 30 min.


This took a little more time, I could not seem to get the neckline right! I was so frustrated, I think this was more like 3 one hour segments!

This was made out of sheer desperation one morning before morning nap... Wyatt will not falll asleep now that he can stand up.... so I made this restraint belt! Works like a charm. HE hated the swaddlers because he couldn't move his arms... I hated letting him move around till he fell asleep because inevitably he would end up in a weird position and uncovered. SO he would wake up in the middle of the night crying. This "Wriggle Wrapper" is our happy compromise.


Our friends were coming into town, and I decided our kids needed co-ordinating pjs for the sleep over. 30 minutes total.


This is just one of the many decorations for Teagans birthday party, they were a little more time consuming, they took about an hour, while I watched "Alice in Wonderland".


While I was preparing for Teagan's birthday I decided I needed an apron because I was covered in powdered sugar! So while the cake was baking I zipped together this little beauty!


This skirt was actually made from an Ikea sheet. ( FYI the best way to buy fabric!) I made this Saturday night because I couldn't find anything I felt like wearing... 1.15 minutes. The silly zipper took about 45 !


I was making a little girls dress and was looking at the skirt part of it, and decided to see if it fit. Worked perfectly so while I was sewing the dress featured below I cut out doubles in this fabric to serve as a swim suit cover/skirt.


This little dress is super easy took about 45 minutes. ( I have yet to do the finishing touches though. I have two others made at the same time... All 3 took about 2 hours. (All made from sheets.)


I decided Collette and Teagan needed matching aprons.. (Also made from sheets.)

So like I said I stay busy. But I never get around to taking pictures... these were the pictures I found on my phone from sending to Megan. The funny part is all of these were made within the last 2 weeks, and I don't have pictures of the other half of my projects. The second Wyatt's head hits the pillow, I am in the craft room, craftin it up!

Teagan is two!

Happy Birthday little Miss Teagan! We have know Trevor and Collette, and have loved being their friends. After a nine months of snow shack icees with Collette, they welcomed little Teagan into their family! We have loved being her pseudo Aunt and Uncle. Well, it has been two years since she brightened our lives, and we needed to celebrate! We had a mad-hatter tea party. It was awesome! Here our some pictures of the little soiree.

So, all of the little elements have been this weeks projects... I love my projects.


Our little birthday girl


Well this was my first experience with cake decorating. I made the fondant, and the mouse on top! It was a pound cake and it was so good!


Wyatt liked the cupcakes too!


I loved the way everything turned out. Lots of work but it looked perfect!




I thought the cheshire cat was a requirement, so I painted it on a canvas,


I needed to paint the rabbit as well.


I also painted the door!




She loved it!




After the party, we went and played couples tennis, the kids cheered us on from the sidelines. Notice the matching PJ's ? I had extra fabric from the party decorations... so I thought co-ordinating PJ's would perfect!

Anyone who knows me at all, knows I live for a project! I love creating, designing, and organizing! So moving is like Christmas to me. So since, we moved to Utah the sewing machine, and power tools have not stopped running (I am sure our neighbors really appreciate it). Regardless, here are some of the projects I completed a while back.

Family Room


Media Center


Andrew spoiled me and surprised and bought me the furniture set I have been wanting! But. before we moved last time we sold our entertainment stand. So I wasn't going to push my luck and get a TV stand as well. Instead I took a small table we used to have and re-purposed it. First I sanded it down, painted it brown, then added the shelf, added the side and back, panels, and took cedar shims, stained them, and cut them down to size. Over all it was like a $10.00.


Here is the front view.

Shoe Rack


Does this look familiar? Well I had some leftover cedar shims from the entertainment table, and threw together a matching shoe rack with some extra lumber I had from various other projects. A few coats of matching stain and I had a custom shoe rack.
$5.00


Custom Wall Art

Wall art can be pricey, and it is hard to find just the right style for you. Well, for mine I took $3.00 frames from Wal-Mart and sanded them down, painted them,then painted the mats that came with them. I simply took fake plants and framed them with a cardboard as the backing.
Overall about a $20.00 project.

More Wall Art

I had one more large blank wall in my family room. I knew I needed to bring in something with a pattern, because everything was to "spa". I found some scrapbooking paper, that fit my color scheme, and mod-podged it to pieces of wood, I then took some leftover fabric from the curtains (will be featured later) and covered some canvases. I also used the leftover shims from the media center and used it as my background. Over all, it was nothing but left over pieces, from other projects. Tip: when doing decorating, opt for wall art, it is not as easy for little fingers to access!

Plant

For my finishing touch, I needed something vertical. In our last apartment I had put together a flower arrangement that did not co-ordinate with the room. I took out a few pieces that would work, and used the vase. ( I used the leftover flowers in another room). I went and found the n awesome tall sticks at Tai Pan house 75% because one was damaged. I added a few more pieces to add interest.
Overall the whole thing only cost $6.00.
I love being able to brag about how cheap everything was done! $41.00 for all the decor. I got the rug for $40.00. I know they are out there for cheaper but that color is not the easiest thing to find. That color was my basis for the entire room. I love slate blue!

Easter

It was a rather bitter sweet holiday weekend for us. It started off rough but over all it was a good relaxed weekend. On Friday afternoon I saw a post of my friends Facebook that she wanted to get a Puppy. I have been there before! Well, anyone who knows us at all knows that I LOVE my dog Coach, we adopted him two years ago and he has been my pal and cuddle buddy. On the flip side there is Andrew who was very tolerant of Coach, but always joked that we should get rid of him... not so subtly. The hints didn't go un-noticed. Then we started to have sneaking suspicions Wyatt was allergic to dogs. Ever since he was about a 1.5 months ( when we started laying him on the floor) he has been extremely congested! I kept thinking he had a cold, but after a few months I decided that wasn't it. Then I thought maybe it was something in Ohio, so we made the move to Utah and still he couldn't breathe through his nose, poor dear was having a hard time sleeping, breathing,etc... In the end my friend Morgan came and grabbed Coach for the weekend to give it a trial run, in the end they liked him, and lo and behold Wyatt's congestion cleared up and he is a much happier baby. It is the ending of an Era in the Decker home.



As you can imagine I was a little distraught about Coach, so I was trying not to mope, but I was. Well Andrew had purchased an ipad a few months earlier. I had been watching all of the release videos and becoming envious, I could read all my books, create art, and edit photos so easily! Well it came Easter weekend and I LOVE IT! He really is the sweetest guy, he felt so bad about Coach.


The rest of the weekend was fun and relaxing, we just stayed in and watched conference and gorged ourselves on Easter candy. So did Wyatt, he got to eat some of his first solids, and he loved it!

I love sleep.

Ok, so about a week before we made the move to Utah, we started sleep training Wyatt. It was going ok, ( this kid will wake up about 5 times a night for a bottle!) So only waking up two times a night felt like a huge accomplishment! We weren't able to finish the training before we made the move. There was new schedule to adapt to, a new room, and his crib. ( All new things, he had been in a bedside crib next to us.) Well we had family in town, so the progress we had made was gone. We didn't think our family would appreciate listening to a baby crying through the night. So the progress we had made was gone. Well after our family visit was over we decided it was about time to start it again. Andrew and I had a little confusion over who was going to take him for the night. I took a tylenol PM, because I was feeling awful and tired. So I was expecting to have Andrew take him and Andrew thought I was taking him.
I woke up the next morning and Andrew and I both started talking and realized neither of us had gotten up with Wyatt because we never heard him cry... (We forgot to turn the volume up on the baby monitor)
And that is how we accidentally slept trained Wyatt. I let him cry it out all night long without the guilt of letting him cry! It was wonderful, I did feel a little bad, but the full night sleep made up for it!
So it was easier to let him cry the following nights, knowing that he had already lived through one full night of it. So Tylenol PM has become my friend this week. I think he has almost got it down! I have not gotten this much sleep in almost a year! LOVE IT!
We will do this MUCH EARLIER, if there is a next time!

My new room

This was one of my newest projects.


Finishing touches.

Custom wall art.


New throw pillows, Megs made the circular one. The others were my own design.

So designing new spaces is one of my favorite things in the world. I am going to start documenting some ideas here :
www.sewingandsanding.blogspot.com
It is going to be slow starting out, but if you are interested make sure you become a follower so I know if people truly are interested. Thanks, and enjoy!