Winnie the Pooh T-shirt

My family is taking a vacation this year.

A very big vacation. A very special vacation.

Some people may think I'm crazy for taking a 2 year old and an infant to visit Mickey Mouse but we are all super excited!

And, we got a great deal when I booked back in March. Yep, March. So, I have LOTS of time to plan things and create fun stuff for our trip.

We'll be driving down at the end of August with my parents in tow. So, I will have plenty of posts in the coming weeks before our trip and even after with my tips, tricks and ideas for an awesome Disney vacation.

I completed my first real 'Disney Vacation' project last week. I want to make my daughter a lot of her clothes for the trip-while also stocking up on a bunch of Disney character garb at mom2mom sales-OMG I have a ton! I am not talking about making a princess dress though. That talented I'm not. My favorite character growing up was Winnie the Pooh. I was obsessed. So, I wanted to be sure along with Minnie and the princesses, Poohbear would be in her wardrobe for the week too.

I found this Disney shirt on Pinterest and it's from Honeybee Vintage.

I had a different idea in mind for a princess inspired piece so I took this idea and turned it into my own Winnie the Pooh creation.

I simply found a picture of Poohbear that was a side shot and traced it onto my paper. I went through my fabric scraps and found some yellow cotton fabric and red felt. I used ironed some heat n' bond to the back of each and then cut out each Pooh bear shape. After attaching it to the shirt I hand stitched around it with some yellow embroidery thread since I wasn't sure I would be able to do all the curves with my machine. I found a pack of honeybee buttons at Jo-Ann's and they were the final touch. My little girl loves the buttons and makes the zzzzzzzzzzzzzz sound while she plays with them :)

There you have a very cute and extremely inexpensive Disney shirt for a fun vacation memory. And, now I don't have to spend an arm and a leg at the park or the Disney store to get her something to wear!

Garanimals shirt from Walmart: $3.88

Honeybee buttons from Jo-Ann's: $1.99

(but I used a coupon too so they were cheaper!)

everything else I had on hand!

And, she loves it!

Magnetic 'Princess Puzzle'

My daughter named this project all by herself. I had no idea what I would call it but she calls it her 'princess puzzle' and since I had nothing better, it stuck. Pardon the pun :)

I bought some princess magnets in the dollar spot at Target a while back. I thought they would make a fun prize for her for one thing or another. Then I thought "what 2 year old would have fun looking at something stuck to my fridge"? Yes, she has lots of magnets on my fridge and I am constantly kicking on of her alphabet magnets but enough is enough. I decided I did not want anything else for her to play with on my fridge.

And, the idea for this 'toy' came to be. I made her an activity set she loves and since it is magnets it is also something she can only play with when with someone else. An adult someone else, to supervise, so I get to have lots of fun with her and this one!

I started with the magnets and an old cookie sheet.

This is a really old cookie sheet. It was actually one I kept in my oven as a 'drip pan' which is why it is so black and forever tarnished. I hate when my stuff starts to look like this so I didn't use it anymore.

I was hoping to find some scrapbook paper with pictures or scenes on them that I could just cut out and around but I didn't. I bought some plain green, plain blue,  and a page of 'cloudy sky' paper. I also found a package of Disney chipboard pieces that included a castle, trees and flowers among a few other things (I didn't use the other pieces so I don't remember). Plus, it actually matched some of the magnets perfectly...it had the same coach and castle so I knew it would go together well! I had a 50% scratch off coupon so that only cost me $2.50.

A bit of white spray paint. lots of cutting, a bunch of two sided tape and my cookie sheet looked vastly different.

Now add the princess magnets and she has a fun new plaything! I just have to remind her every so often that only the princesses and the carriage move so if you do make this for a smaller child, using the chipboard might not be the way to go unless you are always going to be there to make sure they don't rip pieces off :)

Personalized Clock

I made this project as a gift for a bridal shower recently. I found the tutorial long ago and finally decided to make it.

With the hubby's help of course...I don't touch the power tools :)

My friend, who is the bride and the recipient of this gift loved it. In fact everyone at the shower was amazed that I made it myself. The mother of the bride was almost in tears over how much she loved this gift. I even had a little old lady (friend of the bride's family!) that wouldn't leave until I gave her my contact info so I could make one with all of her grandkids on it.

The tutorial originally came from Rosy Red Buttons.  I will give you my .02 worth on this project too.

1. Sam's Club does not offer a 12x12 photo size. They don't offer any 'even' (8x8, 12x12) prints that I could see. I had to order it as a 12 x16 and cut four inches off. This was ok since my photo was 'artsy' anyways and it didn't matter if I cut it apart. But, for a family photo or something with subjects all the way to the edges you may have to work on it. I really wish I had photoshop!

2. Sam's club does have the cheapest prices. My poster cost $3.14 after taxes and it was ready in about an hour. The next lowest price was $6.99 at my Walgreen's and the prices went up from there. I looked into having it done as a engineer blueprint at Staples but they start at $9.99. I wanted to keep this cheap!

3. PicMonkey is a great site. I never really got into Piknik so I was not too sad to see them go. Maybe I just didn't try enough. I didn't really 'get' it. But, I tried PicMonkey and it was so easy and I loved how the picture looked.

4. I bought my clock set at Hobby Lobby for $4.99 and bought an extra set of longer clock hands that were black for $3.49. The set comes with short gold arms and they didn't go with the image in my head.

5. I bought my numbers at Jo-Ann's for $2.99 in the Scrapbook section. Hobby Lobby has a much better selection. And, better prices. I originally bought some there but I didn't like the way they looked once I was done with the clock. Since Jo-Ann's is closer and the shower was two days away I didn't have much choice. They still looked nice but they were flat and I wanted them to 'pop' off the face a bit.

All in all once my husband cut the board for me it went really fast from there. I was so happy with how it turned out and so was everyone who saw it. I LOVE this idea and am so glad I found the tutorial!

My finished product:

This picture is one of their engagement shots and sums up my friend's personality well. She has had this shot as her profile picture on FB for months so she was excited to see it as the clock I think too!

Tangled hairbow holder

My niece turned one this past weekend and surprisingly I did NOT make her entire gift :)

When my daughter celebrated her Minnie Mouse birthday this January people took the theme and 'ran with it'. And, we now own nearly EVERY 'Minnie's Bowtique' toy on the market. Most of her presents matched the party for some reason. I decided I wouldn't do that for my niece since I figured everyone would probably be choosing 'Tangled' toys to match her theme.

Thankfully (in my opinion) she got a wide variety of items. I went against my gut and decided that the one piece of her gift that I was going to make would have a Tangled theme to it.

I simply bought a mini unfinished birdhouse at Michael's for $1; the one I chose had a tin roof to it. I also bought three wooden spools for .79 each and a round wooden plaque for .59.

A little glue, some paint, yards of yarn and some handmade bows (also by me) and she has a pretty cute hairbow holder if I do say so myself :) My sister-in-law has been asking for bows for my niece more lately so I thought this would be the perfect way to gift a bunch of them to the little cutie.