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Pin-spired Baby Sushi Gift

May 30, 2012 in Gettin' Crafty

I love finding creative baby gift ideas. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure expecting moms LOVE receiving all the essentials… but sometimes it’s fun to think outside of the box.

Last summer I whipped up a super simple photo-prop baby gift for a friend. She loved it, and is still using the blocks for her weekly baby photos.

With another Mom-to-Be in need of a gift, I headed to Pinterest in search of an idea I remembered seeing floating around. Isn’t it amazing what you can find on that site?! (Sidenote – if you need an invite, just shoot me an email and I’d be happy to do it!)

Oh man… I hit the jackpot. I found what could be the cutest gift -

As a sushi-loving gal, I can feel the sacrifice of a Momma-to-be that’s had to drop her chopsticks and give up sushi for 9 months. Now that’s love! I studied the how-to instructions for this project and headed to Walmart / Target for a supplies run.

Ok… I can’t wait any longer. It’s killing me. I’ll just show you pictures, and then give you a run-down of what’s inside!

I don’t have step-by-step photos of this project. I wanted to give credit where credit is due and direct you to Creative Dollar for the full how-to.

So what’s inside? Well, this gift was for an expecting couple that chose NOT to know the sex of their baby. (I know… I’d never be able to wait. Kudos to them for the will power!) It made shopping a bit tricky though, since so many of the smaller baby accessories seem to be either pink or blue. All in all, there were:

3 pack of white onesies (Walmart)
2 yellow wash cloths (Walmart)
2 white with yellow piping wash cloths (Target)
1 squirty fish bath toy (Walmart)
2 pacifiers (Target)
Foot booties / rattles (Walmart)
Wrist rattles (Walmart)
Decorative plate (Walmart)
Black plastic tablecloth (Walmart)
Rubberbands (Had ‘em)
Black electrical Tape (Had it)

Are you wondering what the red fluffy schtuff is? Don’t get excited… it was just for looks. The sushi needed a pop of color and texture. I had some large-scale, oversized pipe cleaners laying around so I snipped some short pieces to tuck in a couple rolls.

When shopping, just look for items that can be squished, rolled or sweet-talked into looking sushi-esque. …and yes, I think all three of those techniques were used in the creation of this gift!

After these photos were taken we added a couple chopsticks and wrapped the whole shuh-bang up in a shrinkwrap bag.

The gift was a hit and I definitely recommend you pin this project for future inspiration. Don’t forget to visit Creative Dollar for the full how-to!

…..and now I want sushi. Yum!

Gone to the Dogs…

October 17, 2011 in Do it your Dog-Gone Self, Living Room, Pups

This week I want to show you a bit more of my living room. Up to now, you’ve seen makeovers and projects and I thought it might be nice to highlight some of my favorite things.

With three dogs in a small house, you can imagine it quickly becomes dogapalooza. …and when guests come over, it’s IN.SANE. I’d like to say I have polite dogs that wait patiently in the corner until they are called over to say hello. But lets get real. That couldn’t be further from the truth.

Let me paint the picture for you… Doorbell rings. Emma, the boxer, snaps into action and gives her biggest big girl bark. At the same time, Quinn jumps up from a deep sleep and gazes sleepily around the room wondering what the hellsinki Emma is so fired up about. Still not knowing what’s going on, she decides to start barking too and both girls jump up, paws on the door, to get a peek at the person outside. About this time, Roxy, my 14 year old Jack Russel wakes up and sees the commotion. She can’t hear well, but that doesn’t stop her from barking in every direction. CHAOS. Does this sound like an episode of The Dog Whisperer with Cesar Milan? I WISH! …because at least then I’d know my story had a happy ending with three perfectly behaved dogs and me the leader of the pack. Reality check…. I’m far from the leader. “Enabler” might be a better term. I’m a sucker for all things spoiled and crumble at the sight of cute, squishy boxer faces.

Ok… back to the chaos… dogs jumping on door, barking… me trying to side-swipe them out of the way and shoo them away from the door. Sounds ummmm welcoming… RIGHT?! I cringe even to reenact it in my mind.

I needed a way to contain the dogs while guests came in the house. PLUS, sometimes it’s nice to just have a dog-free space. Not to mention my dogs are high maintenance… there… I admitted it. Three dogs… three different foods. Ridiculous? Yep. Roxy is on a special kidney diet. Quinn is on large breed puppy food. …and Emma, the biggest diva of them all, eats a special Blue Buffalo food. It’s a pain in the arse to separate them at meal time, but it’s worth it to know that they are all getting exactly what they need (and Emma isn’t puking every other day… was that TMI?)…

So what I’m getting at in my True-to-Dana-Form LONG story is I needed a barrier. A dog gate. I had been using a super-grande-extra-large pressure mounted gate, but it was so annoying to try to set it up 2-3 times a day and then take it back down so I could walk freely between the kitchen and living room. I looking and looked online for another inexpensive solution. Dog gates are pricey people!

Ultimately I purchased an extra-tall baby gate from Walmart that mounts to the wall and swings open and closed. I was hesitant to drill holes and mount it, but decided it was the only way to not ALWAYS have a pressure-mounted gate leaning against the wall. The gate I bought is made by Evenflo and ran me $25ish dollars in my local store. Here’s a link to Walmart’s online.

Plane jane, but wooden… which to me means… potential! I brought it home, gave it a light sanding, primered it in Kilz and then painted it with left-over paint from my living room. I wanted the gate to hide and blend as much as possible. After the second coat dried it was mounted to the wall and ready for action! Once it was on the wall I wasn’t quite sold with the finish. Yes, it was blue like the wall, but the color didn’t seem spot on. It was the same gallon of paint, but maybe the wood made the color appear differently? Anywho, I sanded some edges and then glazed it with a darker stain to (hopefully) make it look a bit worn and darker. …unfortunately I might have just made it look dirty. Ha!

…and without further ado (I can hear you saying “FINALLY”), here are some pics of the dog gate in action!

Swung open against the wall… and yes, Emma is sticking her tongue out in the photo on the wall. Such a brat!

Sidenote – the bells on the door have been there since Quinn (the lab) was a PUPPY puppy. She rings them when she wants to go outside. Unfortunately she abuses this and I’ve learned to ignore her (seemingly constant) ringing!

…and one last shot showing it open again. It’s one of the most frequently used things in this house. ….and makes my life SO much easier. Now, when people come over, I can’t guarantee they won’t be barked at, but I can make sure they aren’t jumped on (right away). There’s no shortage of slobbery kisses and four-legged cuddlers in this house!

You can see bits and pieces of my take on a gallery wall. I’ll show you more of that on Wednesday!

Happy Monday everyone. Hope you had a great weekend!

Baby Shower Gift Idea

October 10, 2011 in Gettin' Crafty

I had an awesome time at my good friend Lesley’s baby shower yesterday. Nice gals, tasty food, fun games and a glass of wine. Sounds like a good Sunday to me!

I was trying to think of something fun, but different, to take as a gift. I strolled the aisles hoping something would jump out at me. Of course I saw TONS of cute outfits, but I was hoping for something a little more unique. I finally made my way to the toy department, still walking up and down the aisles.

….and then it HIT me. Wooden alphabet blocks! I remembered seeing a blogger who had made it a point to take weekly photos of her little one, documenting the entire first year of the baby’s life. She had used alphabet blocks to spell out the baby’s age… 2 weeks, 3 weeks, 4 weeks, etc. I loved the idea and thought it would be a fun gift!

Blocks in tow, I headed home to personalize it a bit. I wanted to make a page to insert in the packaging to explain what the blocks were for. I didn’t want her thinking I was wackadoodle for giving a newborn some wooden blocks! Soooo I did a search and came up with 6 stinkin’ cute baby photo ideas… ALL done using the wooden blocks. I added on the words “Avery Photo Op Ideas” and printed it out. Would you believe the sheet of paper was the EXACT same width as the packaging?! PERFECT! All I had to do was fold the top and bottom a bit and it looked like it’d been there all along. You could no longer see the original label on the box and my new “cover” was perfectly nestled inside the clear plastic packaging.
Here’s a looksie:

These are the blocks BEFORE I changed up the packaging. They even come with a little fabric pouch to store them in! Here’s a view of the back:

You can see a little bit of the bag showing through at the bottom. AND you can see that the set includes NUMBERS.

…and here is the set AFTER I added the personalized Avery page. Hopefully I don’t upset any of the people who I borrowed pages from. Hopefully they’ll take it as a compliment that I loved their photos enough to want to share them with a friend!

Pin It

I was so surprised that the page was the perfect width. Oh how I love when things work out like that! I finished the gift off with plain brown paper, pink ribbon, and a bonus car seat carrier toy. Who doesn’t love a little functional gift garnish?! I like to take a cute sharpie (silver this time) and write a little note to the recipient right on the paper. I could be wrong, but I think it feels casual-cute this way.