A fun order!

Every once in awhile I get people who order numerous gifts for a few different baby occasions, all at once. So fun. This customer just told me the names and sexes of each baby the gift was for and told me to do whatever I wanted! Love that!

The first gift was a burpie set and a onesie. I decided to have them coordinate. I have been wanting use this Alexander Henry fabric for awhile...I bought a year ago! This seemed like the perfect project for it.

 A close up of the sweet monogram. Oh how I love a monogram!

A close up of the R for the second burpie. This is different than I normally do my burpies but I tried something new and this will be an option from now on. I think it turned out so cute!

Here is a close up of the onesie. I love how this turned out. I think my own little miss will be sporting a tee which these letters soon. I'm thinking some matching ruffle capris to go with!

The set!

This sweet tee was for a little guy. I have such a love affair with anchors so I knew that would be a perfect applique for this! I love red, white and blue too, so this was definitely a favorite of mine!

This is actually the first burpie set that I made for this customer in this order but it was a rush order and I didn't get pictures of the whole set before I shipped it off...this is just an instagram photo but you can still get the idea! I seriously love this set!

Happy Tuesday! Hope everyone's week is off to a fabulous start!

xoxo,

Ashley

Organize Me

As you can see by my Great Purge of 2012 post, a huge organization project is going on in our house lately. I am in the process of switching offices with my hubs, so that project is on-going and I'm still waiting for some of my new furniture to arrive, so there is a bit of a lull at the moment but I am looking forward to getting it completely finished. I already feel like I can breathe lighter! We have made a few trips to Goodwill and have been just giving stuff away, which feels great too! I can honestly say that my garage doesn't look any worse than it did before, in fact it looks a bit better...there's still work to do in there, but anything that was taken out of the house has been sold on Craigslist, is waiting to be sold, has been given to Goodwill, given away or put in the trash...I did NOT want to just simply move my clutter, I wanted it gone! We are very blessed to have lots of room in this house, however, sometimes, like in our case, we were holding onto too much stuff just because we had space for it! I'm working very hard to remedy this problem and plan to be very strict about what we keep and don't keep from here on out!

One of my favorite organization projects so far has been our closet under the stairs/coat closet.

It was an utter disaster before...and so easy to ignore. We would just throw something in there when we had people coming over and say "hey, I'll put that away later when I have a free minute!" Let's face it, we don't have many free minutes, so this is how this closet became the awful mess that it was. No more of that!!!

Then after a few Goodwill trips and trash pickups, it looked like this. Way better!

But then while I was laying in bed one night (my best ideas come to me while I am trying to fall asleep...main reason I don't sleep great!) I realized I could make an awesome wrapping area towards the back, which was empty for the first time since we moved into this house! The next day I set off to make these plans happen and I love how it turned out! My two HUGE dining table leaves live in this area as well. I need them far out of reach of the kiddos! :)

I have had this Elfa gift wrap cart from The Container Store for about 6 years now. It has definitely come in handy and I love the organization it brings. It has totally paid for itself over and over, but my wrapping paper selection was getting to large for it! The wheels broke in our last move, so I have just had it sitting, sans wheels in my old craft room. I really didn't want it sitting out in my new craft suite and I didn't want to have to leave it up my hubs' new home office. So this area seemed like the perfect solution. On the right side is my gift pile...just gifts I keep in case I need an unexpected present for someone and don't have time to shop! Then I have some gift boxes on the left that I have kept just in case. The drawers are full of tissue paper, gift bags, leftover wrapping paper pieces, etc.

I have some of my ribbon on top of the gift wrap station, but the rest is upstairs in my old craft room closet. Love how I can have scissors, tape, gift labels, etc in the top drawer of this cart!

Now, onto my favorite part of this gift wrap area! I used to have wrapping paper in a bunch of different rooms and it was making me crazy! Now I have it ALL in one organized spot! Gotta love that! Woohoo! 

These fabulous wrapping paper organizers are actually plastic bag dispensers from the lovely Ikea. They were $1.99! I mean really you can't beat that price!! I'm sure you could find similar things like this elsewhere made for wrapping paper but I can almost guarantee they'll be way pricier! Another bonus is that you can order online if you don't have an Ikea near you(so many Ikea items are not available for online purchasing!). I bought a bunch of the dispensers and actually plan to buy more because I keep coming up with more ideas for these babies! I also bought some similar square shaped baskets from Ikea and I show you what I did with those soon!

I ended up having the hubs screw the gift wrap holders (what I call them!) into the wall. They come with adhesive stickers on the back, but some of my wrapping paper is too heavy to be held by just the stickers. They have holes for screws or nails, but you'll need your own nails and screws, which I was lucky enough to find a bunch of during the purge, so I saved myself or the hubs a trip to the Home Depot! :)

 I have to say, just looking in this closet makes me happy. It's really nice to finally have a place for certain things and have that area organized. I feel such a sense of relief lately because of all the purging and organizing. It's really a TON of work, but I'm glad I'm sticking to it because once I'm completely finished, it'll be that much more of a relief! Hope you all had an amazing weekend! We sure did. As always it seemed to fly by and I can't believe, yet again it's Monday!

xoxo,

Ashley

Sweet Twin Blankets

I recently finished an order for set of twin girls. I didn't have much direction from the person who ordered them (as a gift for a friend) except that she wanted their monogram on the blanket and typically with twins or siblings, I like using coordinating fabric, which I did in this instance. I absolutely love how the blankets turned out and hope that the person who receives them as a gift will love them as much as I do!

Sweet coordinating blankets

I love how this monogram looked. The letters looked so great together! On rare occasion, letters can look awkward together, so I was thrilled with how this turned out.

I love how this monogram looked too. I love using blues for a girl. So sweet and unexpected. I really love the mushrooms on the blanket ruffle too.  

The little twins be so adorable strolling around together with their matching blankets! 

All wrapped up and ready to go! Seriously the perfect baby gift in my opinion. Everyone I gift them to for baby showers or after having a baby, seem to agree! :)

I am pretty positive you will see more of this Red Riding Hood fabric from me. I really love the sweetness of the coordinating fabrics, as well as, all of the fun colors!

Happy Tuesday!

Xoxo,

Ashley

Romper Chic

Rompers are so "in" right now and really who doesn't love a romper? I think they are pretty darn flattering on lots of body types and really fun too! I love them for myself and my little lady. I've been snatching them up right and left for both of us for summer! My buddy Grace, put a picture on Instagram a few weeks ago of her sweet baby girl in an adorable navy and white nautical stripe romper and I immediately text her to see where she bought it! I love pretty much anything nautical stripe! She bought it at H&M! I rushed over to H&M the next morning and bought the two romper options they had and came home and added my own personal touch. After all, I think almost everything can use some sort of a monogram on it. :) So excited for my girlie to wear these all summer long!

Here is the nautical stripe romper (LOVE IT!):

Here is a close up of the monogram. Did I mention I love how it turned out? :)

Here is the pink and white stripe romper:

A close-up of the R. This romper be so adorable with a lime green bow!

The rompers are being modeled by the new lady in my life, my new dress form. I named her Regina. Suits her, don't you think?

Hope you had a fabulous weekend! I am dealing with the Monday struggles a bit today, but at least I woke up early and got the gym class over with! Happy Monday!

xoxo,

Ashley

The Great Purge of 2012

I am sitting here wondering how our house ever got to the point that this HUGE purge was necessary. I'd like to blame it on the fact that baby and kid stuff takes up a bunch of space...and while it does, we still had/have WAY too much random stuff! I think the hubs and I have both been so anxious about the state of our garage and other parts of the house over the past year but really we just haven't had the time to go through it and fix the problem. Well, finally this weekend, I went crazy and purged a TON! I finally went through my closet and got rid of clothes that were seriously at least 6-7 years old. I have no idea why I thought anything would or could possibly come back to style. I'm not sure why I was hanging onto certain items, but in all reality, it was "out of sight, out of mind," so I ignored it. We have been discussing simplifying our lives for awhile now, mainly just getting rid of unnecessary stuff and finally I took the plunge. When my hubs got home on Thursday night, I could see the stress in his eyes when he walked into in our living room, dining room, office, etc because I had stuff thrown everywhere! I assured him it would all be gone soon and basically I slaved away all day Saturday and a lot of Sunday afternoon and night to get rid of unneeded stuff!

The hubs took a carload of stuff to the Goodwill and my car is huge so it was a very large load! I am pretty positive I may have another trip coming up in the next couple days after I finish the rest of the house!

It is really amazing how many random items we had just stuffed into cabinets/closets and piled in the garage just because we have the space to do so! Here is an example of how our coat closet looked before I got rid of pretty much everything in there...honestly awful (and uber embarrassing to post), right?? Makes me sick just looking at it. I think it was easy to let this get to this stage of awful because I could just throw anything there and shut the door and not see it! This will not happen again!

I also listed a bunch of baby items on Craigslist, so we shall see if I sell anything. I really don't have great luck with Craigslist whenever I use it but hopefully I do this time! This stuff piles up quickly when you aren't using it anyone. Even though I am sad to see these items go, as it is the end of the baby era for us, I am hoping to move these items out as quickly as possible because they are taking up space! 

I am still working on all the cabinets in the house and hope to have them all cleaned out and organized by Wednesday night since trash pick-up is Thursday mornings. I have already called and paid extra for all the bags/boxes that won't fit in our trashcans or recycling bin. Again, I am truly amazed that we had that much garbage and junk hanging around! While I don't feel 100% better about the state of our house, I am on a serious roll and am hoping I can keep going and get the rest hammered out before this weekend rolls around and finally be in a state of organizational peace! Wish me luck! 

xoxo,

Ashley

Ps I hope everyone had a fabulous Mother's Day! I had a really nice day and was able to sneak away from my purge chaos for a couple hours to have lunch with my sweet family at a new favorite restaurant of mine, The Naked Cafe. :)

Little Red Riding Hood

The month of May has totally crept up on me...I'm really having a hard time believing that we are actually 10 days in already! My "to do" list is seriously overflowing between the kids, organizing the house, moving my craft suite, reading the Fifty Shades Trilogy (Haha!) and reading Simplicity Parenting, upcoming trips and orders, etc!  First up on my order to do list is blankets for a set of twin girls! With twins and siblings, I think it's so fun to coordinate their blankets to match. For this set of girlies, I chose Little Red Riding Hood fabric. I love this fabric collection so much. I'm sure I'll end up making one for my own sweet girl. I can't help but make her a lot of the cute blankets I sell. After all, it was my kiddos that inspired my business to begin with! The below fabric will possibly be in my summer collection...I am still finalizing all of the fabric choices for that! 

Sweet Little Red Riding Hood fabric:

One of the twins will get this color combo(the pink and red bows are just so sweet):

For the other twin, I'm going back and forth between this combo(I LOVE the mushroom fabric for the ruffle! Love it!):

And this color combo:

But, like I said, the whole collection is just so adorable, it's tough to decide. Each girlie will have her sweet monogram in the corner of each blanket as well. These are my favorite gift for baby showers and baby arrivals! Look for the finished product post in the next couple of days! Hope everyone is having a fabulous week!!

xoxo,

Ashley

TEA-cher Appreciation

Friday night, I was laying in bed with my mind racing, as always and I was going back and forth about what to do for Teddy's preschool teachers for Teacher Appreciation Week which is May 7th-11th. I know most parents probably won't do anything but these ladies are very important people in my son's life and I wanted to do something small to remind them how much we appreciate them! As I was drifting off to sleep it came to me! Mugs with tea and a cute card! I decided to use these adorable monogrammed mugs from Anthropologie! If you know me, you know, I LOVE anything monogrammed...whether it is a traditional three letter monogram, two letters or even a one letter mono. I knew the monogrammed mugs would be the perfect start to this cute little gift. Then I added a box of Tazo Zen Tea to each mug. I'm sure after or even during a long day dealing with 3-5 year olds, this tea could be just what the doctor teacher ordered! Honestly, these ladies probably need something stronger than tea at the end of a long day but wine just doesn't seem appropriate to gift my child's teacher! ha! Then, I tied one of these awesomely adorable spoons to each little gift...the spoons are really sweet and cute in person.  I love them and am going to buy more to keep around...they would be a cute topper to lots of different gifts!!! I wrapped each mug in a little cellophane bag and attached little tea bag cards to each gift...they are pretty darn cute if I say so myself! They say "You are a wonderful TEA-cher! I appreciate all you do! xoxo, Teddy" I LOVE how the cards turned out. They are exactly as I imagined them to look! Yay! I love when that happens...though for me, most projects do not go as planned and I think they often turn out better that way! These little gifts were really so simple to make and didn't take much time to assemble after I purchased my supplies! This could be a perfect gift for pretty much anyone on your list, but if you're looking for the perfect thing to gift one of your child's teachers this week, look no further! Easy and affordable! This is definitely a gift I would love to receive myself! So, go ahead, show your teachers some love this week!

xoxo,

Ashley