Today's DIY Projects- Framed Toddler Art & Painted Table

I have two Ikea frames for the girls' shared Big Girl Room..

and I wanted to fill them with their own artwork.

So today after nap.. two very excited squealing and giggling toddlers..

got to paint with water colors on large poster boards from the dollar store.

(the back side..since the front is shiny)

I had sienna sign her drawing with her little hand print. so sweet.

SUPPLIES:

--We used water colors we already had

--Poster boards were 50 cents

This is my kind of art to fill a frame!

Inexpensive but most importantly..special. :)

I also decided this afternoon while playing outside to give

our old "loved" Ikea table a makeover with my leftover

yellow spray paint from the Animal Lid Jar Project.

I plan on using this at one of the booths at their

Vintage Circus Birthday party coming up..

and then relocating the table and chairs to the

Sophie & Sienna Cafe in the play room. ;)

Officially out of yellow spray paint..that should slow me down for a few days. ;)

I seriously want to spray paint everything yellow right now. haha.

DIY Animal Jar Lids- Vintage Circus Party Sneak Peek

Yesterday I grabbed up a few things from the Dollar Tree and

spray painted up a fun DIY party detail!

I needed containers for the prize table at the girls' Vintage Circus Party coming up!

I had seen this idea of Animal Lid Jars done before but with glass.

I used plastic containers from the Dollar Store instead..

was more practical with my little ones..and cheap..

plus I didn't have to wait till my pickle jar was empty. it could be a while. :)

As I was making these up I loved them even with just a coat of white spray paint..

they would be so cute in a nursery. But we are doing yellow and pink for their party

so I went with a yellow spray paint. Love how they turned out!!

Here's a quick iPhone Tutorial..more cute shots to come from their party!

ANIMAL LID JAR SUPPLIES:

Animals.... Dollar Tree

Plastic Containers......Dollar Tree

Yellow Spray Paint.... Home Depot

Just a few steps and you

get these cool containers! I'm in love.

I can't wait to share some cute up close photos from the party next month!

And I think these are going to look so adorable on a shelf in the girls' big girl room..

filled with their small cute stuff. :)

How was your Monday?

I feel like I did equal amounts wrestling and snuggling

inbetween working on projects/work/house stuff. ;)

Top Left: found that headband at Forever 21 yesterday for $1.50....

Sophie is really into headbands right now!

Bottom Left: Caught an argument brooding between the angels..

Bottom Right: Team USA on the balance beam. one team member down. ;)

Pirate Play Date- Toddler Friendly Pirate Details!

 Earlier this week I had some mom friends and their kids come over for a Pirate Play-date!

Summer has been flying by and I really wanted

to get all of us together for some fun and catching up.

I wish our house was bigger so I could have invited all the mamas I know! :)

We had fun chatting and snacking and letting the children run wild.

Our little pirates enjoyed themselves.

I had fun creating toddler friendly pirate details for the play date.

My girls love pirates..but not "real" pirates..

so I made up little friendly koala jolly rogers instead of using scary skulls.

I wanted to put together a spread of fun treats and snacks!

and I had to make printables..I'm a sucker for labels. ;)

Here's a list of what I made for our Pirate Play Date treats!

--I made a shark watermellon..sophia saw one at a grad party this

summer and LOVED it. (If you like carving pumpkins..you will love making the shark..

I don't love carving pumpkins...haha.) But it was worth the smiles from my girls.

the photos below are of when I showed them the pirate spread. :)

They were soooo excited!

I "mellon balled" the inside of the watermellon..but used my cookie scoop....

soooo...let's just say the mellon looked a little mangled.

went with the shark theme. hehe.

--My girls also LOVE peaches right now.

So I made up little sails and taped them to toothpicks and

stuck them in the peaches to make little ships.

--We had pirate punch...lemonade.

I was going to to do "sea water" (blue lemonade)

but didn't have the right food coloring!

--I wanted an excuse to make peanutblossoms...my favorite cookie.

So I used upside down chunks of hershey bars (leftover from a bonfire night)

and made Walk the Plank Cookies!

--Chocolate Covered Raisins for Canon Balls

(Or you could use Cheetos Balls)

--I made up blue jello in little cups with swedish fish as shark bait.

That was a hit with the kids. My husband kept giving me a hard time the night before while i made them...asking if I was doing jello shots with my mom friends. har...har..

Psh I don't even know what a jello shot is.......... ;)

--And cheese is a toddler favorite!

So made up some Cheese chunks as Pirate Gold...

and Crackers as Polly's Crackers!

DIGGING FOR TREASURE - Luckily the torrential crazy insane

rain storm let up for a few hours so we could play outside!

I burried some dollar store "treasure" in our sandbox and let them dig away!

I made up and printed off some fun easy DIY Pirate hats..

let the mamas staple the construction paper to be the right size for their child's head.

PIRATE SHIP BATTLES - Once the heat got to be too much..

we headed back inside for some play time!

I LOVE my Dollar Store. they are awesome. I go in like every 6 months to ask about boxes in the back and they load me up! They let me use a dolly. ;)

I cut the sides off 2 of the boxes so the kids could climb on in to their ships..

but ended up needing more ships for the kids so dragged

in more plain boxes from the other room!

I made cardboard swords from the leftover scraps of the boxes.

They had some good giggles while playing pirates in their ships!

It was so nice having these lovely ladies and their kids over!

I thought it was funny how so many of them told me how well their kids napped that day..

That's what we did in our house when everyone left... a longg family nap time. ;)

I'll be adding the Pirate Printables to my Etsy Shop later this week.

I think other moms would appreciate a more toddler friendly pirate theme too!

You could use these for play dates or birthday parties.

I'll be sharing more play date ideas on my blog.

I think moments like this are fun for both kids and moms. :)

We mamas need the support from each other..and our kids...

well...it's always fun to be a pirate crew!

Filming Day at Ikea

Today we spent the morning filming at our Ikea here in Pittsburgh!

Very excited about a collaboration with them that is in the works..

I'll share more details soon..You are going to want to get in on this one! ;)

We enjoyed our time at my home away from home and

I can't wait to share what we were up to with them! hehe.

Baby Book- 22 Weeks Bump

BLANQI Mama

22 Weeks! Still taking photos every week for a baby book and video..

my Blanqi is stretching with me! :)

I seriously feel this baby move...ALL THE TIME.

I feel like he or she is either break dancing or trying to escape.

Lately been feeling very "crazy pregnant lady-ish"......

I would like to blame the moodiness on being hungry but nothing tasting good.

Seriously..things that I loved before..now taste so bad I can't even finish them.

I feel so high maintenance. 

Cranky Pants all afternoon...But let's just say...

a perk of my bad mood was that we now have a VERY clean house. ;)

Nesting has kicked in...

I have been cleaning/organizing/planning parties & play dates.

I am the kind of person that, even when not pregnant, wants to have projects to do..

and it's even more on my mind when I'm preggers!

My poor husband.. I almost made him move our entire bedroom set into another

room before I realized I'm a crazy person and that that wasn't

going to solve our small house problem at all.

I also seriously felt the urge to paint a wall with chalkboard paint yesterday.

haha. any wall.

Happy Monday everyone!

I have to go.

I'm being fed play food by sienna.

The only way this blog post happened was by me

asking for more water and her "filling up" the cup in her play sink.... haha.

But now I need to go and be a more attentive customer. ;)

Our Week by iPhone-Get all up in our Business!

I love instagram. my husband says if he doesn't know what

he ate the past week he can just look at my instagram feed.

Funnnnnny though..

I caught him instagraming dinner the other night!

ok..mainly his cool looking beer for dinner...

but still! ;)

I love iPhone Photo dumps on blogs I read...

I don't know why but for some reason I love looking at people's

photos that they take with their phones. there is something

candid and totally acceptably nosey about it...... ;)

Here's some of our recent happenings.

Sophia took a trip to ikea with me for a meeting.. then we had a mommy sophie lunch date.

lots of pool trips. chalkboard drawing playing "teacher"

date nights.. went and saw a concert one night..

Find Vienna was in town and they are childhood friends of

ben's so they stay the night when they stop through pittsburgh on tour.

they sleep on the floor and our girls wake them up by creepily

staring & giggling at them. But we feed them. and they enjoy playing with the girls and getting creamed by sophie in iPhone games. the girls call them "the guys" and they think they travel through just to play and sing to them.

Busy with blog and etsy shop stuff.. fun creative busyness though. :)

Sophia felt the baby kick.

Sienna pretends like she does..

but this girl doesn't sit still long enough for that yet. ;)

We had a busy past week 1/2..... 

It was so funny though..this morning ben asked me "what are we doing today?" and I was like...nothing! We seriously had nothing "planned"..and it felt awesome. We ended up taking a last minute trip over to the zoo.. girls fell asleep on the way home..and have been sleeping ever since. Think I might do something exciting like laundry. And finish up a felt order.

Have a wonderful weekend! 

Vintage Circus Party Sneak Peek: Dessert Table Details

I am known..for not being able to keep party details a secret!! ;)

I am in the middle of putting together DIY party ideas...

and creating printables for the girls' Vintage Circus Party next month!

I wanted to share how the dessert table is coming together!

I LOVE the mini marshmallows as the circus train smoke..

thought that was perfect since my girls love mini marshmallows

and I put a circus train on the invitation!

For the Circus Ballerina Cupcakes I thought I would make

toppers out of the ballerina photos I took of them the other day..

with a puff of cotton candy!

I love the Lion jumping through the ring of fire..

Already have the red and gold pipe cleaners..

and purchased this set of mini animals from Party City

(best deal I found online and in stores.)

Can't wait to put the dessert table together at the party..

lots of other fun details in the works that I'm

realllllyyy trying not to share at this point. ;)

train smoke

strongman dumbbells

circus lion cupcakes

cotton candy cupcakes

animal crackers 1 & 2

DIY Tulle Tutu Tutorial

My girls love being ballerinas...

They put on little shows. mainly of sophia dancing..

and sienna trying to copy her. :)

I thought it was only fitting that these girly girls have tutus!

The girls are having a vintage circus party next month..

all the kids are invited to come dressed up and join the circus!

The girls are going as circus ballerinas!

While I vacuum they use the cord across the floor as a rope

and pretend they're tight rope walkers...

I really want to get/make them little parasols!

I think for the party I'll put something across the floor for them to pretend with..

something a bit less hazardous than a vacuum cord. ;)

A million tutu tutorials out there..

but here's a run down of how I made mine!

I had seen some tutorials via pinterest.. this tutorial was a favorite.

I first went to Jo-Anns for the tulle..but they didn't have it on the rolls..

so ended up buying at Michael's. I highly suggest using the rolls

and not just buying yardage. sooo much easier!

1. Take your ribbon..and start 15" from the end.

2. I did the slip knot to tie them on. Check out this tutorial for good photos on that

I first tried the double knot..but didn't like how it felt/made up.

3. It helps to tie the other end to something..I used my chair back.

4. I wrapped it around my girls to figure out how much tulle to put on..

left enough ribbon to tie in a bow..and trimmed the extra.

Done!

If you have little girls in your life..you should make them a tutu!

They made up really easy..and were a HIT.

Seriously. I was the mom.

My only suggestion...would be to not use sparkly tulle

unless you don't mind it ALL OVER THE HOUSE. :)

my husband had it on his face...haha.

Perfect for the party. But I might make up a couple more

in other colors for around the house dancing and no sparkle mess.

Love how they turned out though! and LOVED the smiles on my girls' faces.

PS. I've been working up circus printables for the party..I'll be sharing them soon!

sooooooooooo excited.  My favorite designs/party details yet I think.

Not going to be your typical red and white circus..

my girls are bit more girly than that..

and I like taking a regular theme and making

it special and unique. excited to share the details. :)

My Bottom Dollar Food Shopping Experience!

Excited to share my shopping experience of  Bottom Dollar Food.

Check out my video review below!

This was one review that the hubby was very excited about.

Free groceries is always nice! ;)

The girls loved the cold room with all the produce..

and I loved the options of the private and national brands!

The prices were great.. And I love that they take coupons and have the membership program where you can upload coupons to the cards. Always handy!

Glad that one is being built just down the street from us..

Check out Bottom Dollar Food's Website to see if you have a store near you!

We are going to be regulars of Bottom Dollar Food!

The girls got to fill up their piggy bank after bath time.

We had to empty it and fill it up again a few times........ ;)

Baby Book- 19, 20 & 21 Week Bumps

Can you tell that I have been a bit busy lately?

Sorry for the lack of blogging love..

I was able to keep up with taking photos..

but the time to do them has become a quick second..

before sienna jumps in the frame.

Here's the past 3 weeks of bump photos!

I can't believe I'm past the half way mark of my pregnancy!!

The doctor told me that sometimes it goes slow for a while then speeds up..

I don't mind it right now.. I need these next weeks to mentally

prepare for 3 babies under the age of 5. haha.

Sophia has been walking around the house with her baby doll under her shirt...

then she slowly has the doll drop out and goes "Mom my baby popped out!!"

She totally gets the whole birthing process. ;)

Sophie has sienna sit on the couch with a pillow to hold the baby.. telling her not to touch the baby's face!..haha. They are going to be good little mommies.. and this baby is going to be smooched on. a lot. and possibly dressed up like a tiny princess.. girl or boy. ;)

Our house the other day was covered with pink sparkles from the tulle I used to make tutus for the girls.... ben was rubbing my belly going boy..boy...haha.

I have been feeling good... Except some days I am so hungry..
but NOTHING sounds good.
Which makes for a very hungry crabby pregnant lady.

not good.

One day I seriously felt like I would karate chop anyone that looked at me wrong. haha.

Good thing I have an understanding husband...who knows when to hug..when to NOT hug..
when to do dishes or take the girls out.

Don't really feel "beautiful" this pregnancy..

the hubby is pretty good about telling me differently.

But sometimes a pregnant lady..just feels.....pregnant.

I have been having A TON of braxton hicks contractions this pregnancy.
probably because of how busy I'm kept with sophie and sienna.

Need to drink more water...because sitting down more isn't really an option. ;)
I love being able to feel the baby move! SOOO active.
Right now it's not too uncomfortable..but once he or she is a little bigger...
My rib cage is going to be the sorry one. hehe. It is so amazing though..
I feel even more connected to the baby now that I feel it moving around..
when I see newborns now I get that "ahh I can't waittttt" feeling. :)

BLANQI Mama

Heavy Hearted

I posted a while back how we went down to charlotte for a summer trip..

spent the 4th of july with my family there...

I was so excited to make the trip..but it also brought up in me memories of shannon..

memories that made me even MORE emotional than I already am.

(crazy hormonal pregnant lady here.)

The last time I heard shannon's voice she was calling me to figure out

plans for meeting in Charlotte around the same time last year...for a summer visit.

We were so excited to let the kids play together. to catch up. to actually be in the same state!

I missed that call. So I only have a voicemail from her..

We never got to make that trip. because a few days later she was murdered.

So the whole time I was packing.. and the whole drive down.. and the whole time I was there... a part of me was thinking about her. and how it could have been.

I had a heavy heart as we drove home. It just felt..like something was missing.

someone was missing.

His court day was scheduled for thursday..but got moved back again to august.

Been thinking a lot lately about all of us missing shannon..

and having to go through this. especially her parents and siblings.. her two little kids..

Please send up some prayers for all of us.

A part of me just wants that part to be over and done with.

If you..or someone you know..or barely know..

is experiencing domestic violence..

please..do something about it.

It still comforts me..the message that I recieved a while after shannon was killed..of a woman in brazil, who after reading her story on my blog, took her child and left the domestic violence she was experiencing in her home. Take that first step..or help someone else take it.

To read all posts related to Shannon you can click here.
Please share her story..donate if you can.
If you have been touched by her story and would like to 
visit her Memorial Page you can visit here. 

Please Pray for peace in our world 
and for all those affected by Domestic Violence.