DIY Demin Roads

Today, Gid wanted to play cars and roads. We pulled out his denim roads (that I made for him for Christmas) and I realized I'd never shared!

Basically, last summer I found a pin and realized I had a bunch of old ripped pants I'd saved for ...something. I'm a crafty pack-rat. I acknowledge this.

And we took a few days to get it done.

The first day I just cut out a bunch of road shapes. Straight, curvy, turns, and intersections. Gid liked to lay down right on top of whatever I was cutting like a cat, so once they were all cut up, I was done.

The next time I pulled them out, I made a quick stencil (That link- it's my .studio3 file. You're welcome.) on cardstock. Yellow tulip soft fabric paint and a movie later I had some painted roads.

Then I packed them away so that when Christmas came around they were totally new to go with the new cars from his dad. I'm not looking forward to the days that I have to craft in secret from him.

Have so much fun! With your own roads, they are so fun! It's like the best of...train tracks and a road rug combined! Lots of combinations, fold up soft, and they take up a large space without the expense and required storage space.

Here's Gid (still in batman jammies, I know!) and his roads, and the pic that I posted to insta. He waited so patiently so that I could get a pic.

 

#CraftyCostumes or Adorkable Dress-up!

ok...it's been established that I'm crafty and a celebrant right?

so it's no surprise that I like to dress up (and make those around me do the same)

Chris has always been amazing about matching costumes, which is nice. Halloween has been awesome over the years:
2010: Star Trek

2011: Mermaid and Pirate
2012: Fighter Pilots!

2013: Monster and kiddo (Chris got to wear jammies.)
2014: Mummy and Vampire

2015: Star Wars

2016: 101 Dalmations

April 2014 I learned of the Salt Lake Fan-Xperience. It's like a ...bonus Comic-Con. I dressed up, each day. My favorite day was Chell. (If you haven't played Portal... Do.... ASAP. It's STILL my favorite video game ever. So great.)

So of course I went from then on. SLComic-Con 2014:

Han Jago, Leia Katie, Death Star me, Vader Chris and Stormtrooper Jacob

Comic-Con 2015:

FanX2016:

 Thursday we wore our Harry Potter Costumes. 

Friday Firefly: Baby Jayne (thanks to Marilyn for the hat!), River mom, and Kaylee Tessa. (And we got to meet Levar Burton!)

Saturday was just Tessa and me. Portal and her companion cube.

Comic-Con 2016:

 Dr. Horrible Jacob, Captain Hammer Gid (that's a fun story in person!), and Fan girls. "We do the weird stuff!" ahahah! (oh, and another dr. horrible we found. forgot to get one with just us.)

 Friday was Harry Potter. Any chance to wear my new robes (see Harry Potter b-day for pics of said robes) and dress him up like the cutest little house elf! Tessa met the fat lady. :)

 Saturday I had my whole Turtle crew! (Gid LOVES turtles.) Tesssa made an adorable April in all yellow with her own hair. Turtles: Mikey Chris, Donnie me, Raph Gid, and Leo Katie. Jacob humored us with the mask as Casey. Pop-O was Splinter.

Then there's the trip (#momlovesmatchers)

The plan was Blue. So we Disneybound - Dory, Marlin, Nemo:

Mickey and Minnie: 

Harry Potter:

How about random events like-

FairyTale Festival:

Dragon Eve, Prince and Princess Seth and Julia, Fairy Mother me, Squire Gideon, Sir Christopher the valiant, and Little Red Tessa. :)

Dr. Seuss Day:

We've got stars on ours!

Harry Potter's Birthday:

2015: Ravenclaw and Mandrake (everyone else dressed up too.)

 

2016:

Here's most of the everyone else - we had quite the crowd. Not pictured: Chris and Dad.

 

Here he is again in his house elf costume! And my new Adult Robes! (cuz I can't ALWAYS dress as a student, at some point that kid will be a student and I need to be a 'grown-up'. I got my robes by apprenticing at Madame Marilyn's Couture Robes for the Modern Witch. ;) haha Eventually we'll make my other set. I'm really enjoying learning to sew without being a total failure.)

 I'm sure there have been other events I'm missing. We like to dress up. And I love to make them myself - or I should say put them together. We love our #CraftyCostumes!

This was actually a random Sunday where he ran away before he was totally dressed and LOOK how cute and Risky Business he looks. I love it!

I'm Crafty!

So I was gonna post a bunch of pics of the crafty stuff I do, but I have way too many to choose from. Let's just say that since I got the silhouette Christmas of 2012 I fell in love with crafting. I cut vinyl. Lots of vinyl. I've done posters, wall murals, water bottles, stickers, stencils, and more. I make stencil painted shirts. Lots of shirts. Once I did over a hundred for my mom's girls camp project. And I don't stop at shirts, I've painted onesies (yup, lots of those), vests, hats, pillowcases, blankets, etc. Fabric painting is fun- now that I don't have to be talented like my mom and can use a stencil (which is where my talent lies, I've discovered.) I etch cups and glass pans. My favorite wedding gift is a pan with the 'new last name' especially here in mormon-ville where you tend to take your pans to things and bid them goodbye. With your name etched in, you tend to get them back! Nerdy cups are also super fun, and my favorite white elephant gift. Dicuts. Game cards. Handouts. Envelope printing. Boxes- oooh cardstock boxes cut in the machine are fun.

Ok I caved, let's do some pics:

Nerdy cups:

Zelda for Karli

Netrunner for David

Nursery Murals:

Gid's Mural

Mural for Carl's baby

Some Shirts:

 Star Wars Halloween 2015 - Gid's R2 was painted by me, Chris' Darth Vader - me, Dad's Chewbacca

Already Gobblin' Time for Wobblin' as he learned to walk. Future Hogwarts Student for HP's B-day!

 I LOVED making preggo shirts.

Ok, well I'm done for now. Gid's waking up. I've done lots of fun stuff!

Our Home

Ok, so while I do not intend to give you a tour of this home, I wanna take a sec to talk about some of my favorite decorating things we've done!

So when you walk in, there's an entryway with a giant calendar and scheduling stuff that takes you to the Family room (Kitchen + Living Room) and hallway. 

The kitchen is decorated with Black, Brown, and Red- as my hope chest kitchen stuff and then wedding gift dishes match the Tootsie Roll Theme (that Chris agreed looked nice and let me keep.)

Not sure if you can see my 'mod-podge'd tootsieroll wrapper LOVE and signs. but yeah. (also, I didn't show you the counters. It's...kinda clean right now, but hey, we live here.)

Family room is Black and Red. Here's the TV and shelves.

 Here's the 'mantle'. Right now I've got my Give Thanks pumpkins up. (flip them around for Halloween "Trick-or-Treat" and jack-o-lanterns)

So we walk down the cute picture-lined hallway, and there's a door marked as the bathroom. When we first moved in Chris and I agreed it needed to be a Disney bathroom. so BOOM-

Behind the door/across from the mirror are a few of our favorite disney characters with quotes. I cut the vinyl, but Chris (dear, wonderful man) cut the glitter paper silhouettes by hand.

 Next to it on the wall is the towel storage, I got three round baskets and mounted them to the wall to look like a Mickey Mouse head. Red and black hand towels and washcloths.

 Here's our big quote. "Laughter is timeless, Imagination has no age, and Dreams are Forever."-Walt Disney. This pretty much sums up how Chris and I choose to live. :) You'll also note our little Mickey and Minnie plushies and ears from our first Disneyland trip together. And other random disney trinkets - Mickey & Minnie pez, disneyland crowns, etc.

 This image was taken at a weird angle so you could see if you're standing in front of the mirror, you'll see the quote and stuff above the toilet, across from the towels, and hanging quotes. 

 Back out of the bathroom. There's more rooms, like my craft/laundry/storage room. See the silhouette and desk on top of the washer/dryer? Then the laundry baskets on the wall and to the right is our storage. (*This photo was not taken today- it's not even close to this clean right now, I craft! This is from when the baskets went up)

Here's the library/guest room. What you can't see is that the air mattress is still on the floor from the last time Tessa stayed over...we try to have her over often enough that we don't feel the need to put it away. But I love our shelves. (Quick moment to express my frustration that Ikea decided to stop carrying them in black. only black-brown. which is bad, cuz we need a few more DVD towers in which color, oh right, BLACK. Sigh. Rant over.)

Oh! Nursery! Gorgeous gray crib from the Mathis Family, who I think got it from the McGibbons. The nursery vinyl mural was me. Isn't it gorgeous? The quote is kinda hard to read in this dark pic but it says "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Do You Know How Loved You Are?" Couldn't decide on space or jungle, it became Elephants and Stars (my favorite parts of those two themes). 

And you're NOT gonna see my bedroom. It's not clean. It's never TOTALLY clean. I have yet to get my shadow box from Grampa Ivie and pictures actually mounted in there. Our bed is only made on days I KNOW for SURE I won't get a nap (which I do try to do regularly when he naps). Oh, we also don't have 'a bed' just a mattress on the floor (which I actually really like. cuz I just flop, and Gid can go up and down on it without any trouble. Someday my Grampa is gonna build me a beautiful magical storage bed without an ugly headboard (why do I hate them...not sure, but I do...) and so we're just gonna keep waiting. Cuz we're patient like that....and I like our mattress. 

Ta-Da! Decorations Shared!