Finn's Wall Hangings

We are working away in preparation for Finn's arrival!  Our list is slowly getting smaller.  Since Finn is taking over Lilly's room we decided to have the kids do some sharing.  For the wall hangings, we took apart Lilly's initial wall hangings (Lilly Elizabeth) so we could still use the white boards we had weathered.  

 We cut three pieces of burlap into a squares.  

 We doubled stitched the back of the burlap to give the edges a nice finish.

 Mitch drilled holes into the corners of the board and punched holes into the corners of the burlap.

 

Next, we put all the pieces together.  We are using heavy washers and bolts to secure the burlap to the boards.  Think that's manly enough for Finn??

 Mitch used wire to attach the new letters for Finn's initials.  

Here they are all finished and ready for Finnegan Thomas Longtin's arrival!

The 24 Hour...or 4 Month Baby Quilt!

So I fell in love with this quilt idea several months before we were even pregnant.  So when we got pregnant and found out it was boy I got started on this "24 hour quilt."  I started it in April.  I just finished it yesterday, July 9.  Yeah... leave it to me to take a simple project and make it very difficult.  I kinda took pictures along the way.  I'm very happy with how it turned out!  

This part I could handle.  Cutting the gray and teal fabric to be the same size.  

I didn't take pictures (probably because I was too frustrated) of the most challenging part for me which was cutting and sewing the white "patches" on each side of the quilt.  The corners kept gathering.  I finally went to my amazing mom and had her help me fix it!  This is the point were I just wanted to hand it off to her and say please finish it but I continued forward...

Here's my little helper.  He isn't supposed to touch the fabric or the crib.  Parenting is going so well for us!

Next, I lined up the fabric and two layers of batting.  To keep them lined up while sewing I had to loosely hand stitch the layers together.  

 Next, we spent several evenings sewing back and forth across the quilt.  

Then I trimmed the edges off the sides of the quilt.  I cut and sewed the edging together and attached it the gray side of the quilt.  Lastly I hand stitched the other side of the edge to the teal side.  

After all this work I am very happy with it.  Hopefully Finn appreciates it someday soon!

Easter News

What better way to celebrate Easter than finding out we have a healthy baby growing.  

Look what the easter bunny brought us last night!  

We had an ultrasound Thursday and found out Finn is growing just they way he should be!  We couldn't be more grateful.  We also feel fortunate to be feeling him move around all the time already, which is such a nice reassurance.  We hope Easter finds you feeling just as blessed as we are!

Happy Easter!   

We're Pregnant!

Yep, you read that right, we are pregnant again!  We are very excited and grateful to have this opportunity again.  We are currently 14 weeks along.  We found out we were pregnant on new year's eve!  It was a great way to ring in 2013.  Baby is expected to arrive in early September.  We have already been blown away by the love, support, and prayers this little one is receiving.  We can see God answering our prayers and taking care of baby each and every day.  We continue to pray for healthy development and peace as we patiently wait for baby to be in our arms.  We will be watched closely by the specialists here in Des Moines.  We feel very fortunate to be under their care!  Yes, we will definitely be finding out gender as soon as possible!

9 week ultrasound- baby was already moving and kicking!

Baby belly at 12 weeks

My mom and I made cookies and brownies to announce at Mitch's and my work.

12.31.12- Very exciting news!

Indoor Herb Garden

We saw this idea on Pinterest and we quickly set out to try it for ourselves.  The whole process took about one month.

The first step was to get the herbs started.  We decided to start from seeds so we had to plan time for the germination period.  

We put rocks in the bottom of our jars for drainage.  

Next we added the dirt, planted the seeds according to the directions on the seed packets, and watered.  

While waiting for the seeds to sprout we started working on the rest of the garden look.

We wanted the herbs to be labeled.  I found these antique forks at a consignment shop for a dollar a piece.  

We flattened the forks with a hammer.  

Mitch used the metal dies (he purchased in order to make my Christmas gift) to stamp the letters on the handles of the forks.  

Meanwhile, within about ten days the seeds started to sprout.  We did keep a fluorescent lamp on them during the day.  This really seemed to help them grow.  

Next, we had to prepare the boards that would hold the herbs on the wall.  To stain the boards we made a steel wool and vinegar concoction.  We let the steel wool sit in the vinegar for several days to corrode and dissolve until it was the desired color.  We sprayed the boards with three coats of this stain.  Apparently, this steel wool-vinegar mixture super oxidizes wood when applied, essentially aging the wood as if it had been sitting outside for several years.  Cool, huh?

Mitch drilling holes into the concrete.  This is never easy!

The finished product!  It is right next to our stove so it will be easy to grab herbs when we are cooking.  

The Making of Christmas!

We had so much fun making a lot of our Christmas gifts this year!  Hopefully everyone else will enjoy them as much as we enjoyed making them. We were very blessed to spend lots of time with both my side of the family and Mitch's side.  I hope that everyone had a blessed Christmas and that your next year will be filled with joy!  Here are some pictures of the things we created.

Homemade Beer Bread and Beer

This was our first attempt at making our own labels and attaching them.  Mitch created and printed the labels on brown parchment paper.  We tried lightly coating the back with milk and sticking them onto the jars/bottles.  We had read several different blogs online about how this works great.  It did not work for us, the labels fell off by the next day.  Since I was running out of time we ended up just using rubber cement and it appears to have worked.  

 

Holiday Home Brew

Several months ago Mitch set out to make a Holiday Ale for the beer lovers in our family.  To make these extra special Mitch hand dipped them in green and red wax.  He had hoped to make six pack carriers but ran out of time.  Maybe next year!  

For our sewing friends and family- 

A homemade pin cushion and container.  I of course found this idea on Pinterest and just had to try it.  Since we have several family members on both sides that enjoy sewing I thought it would be perfect. The most difficult part was finding the Ball Jelly Jars.  Once I found those it was a simple project.  I just cut my fabric of choice one inch larger around than the lid.  Hot glued the fabric to the lid leaving a small opening.  Then I filled the opening with stuffing and finished hot gluing it closed.  Screw on the top and you are finished!

For our Nieces:

The teacher in me couldn't resist this project!  Big time consuming projects made with lots of love!  

For Lucy- 13 months old

A complete set of 3 inch capital alphabet letters and a drawstring bag to hold them.  She probably wont play with them too much yet but hopefully she will get into them at some point.  Right now she is more into taking care of her baby!  

 

For Stella- 3 years old

Another set of 3 inch capital letters but for Stella I added magnets.  She has always loved playing with magnets so I thought it would be a good addition for her.  Adding magnets made this project much more challenging because the sewing machine is metal and every magnet wanted to stick to it.  I eventually found a way to sew in little pockets for each magnet and completed the set.  I of course did an extra L so she can spell her name.

Magnetic suitcase-

I forgot to take a close up of this part of Stella's gift but I did take a few pictures of her playing with it.  I found a small wooden suitcase at Hobby Lobby and painted the inside with several layers of magnetic paint.  I then painted pink (her favorite color) over the magnetic paint and outside of the suitcase.  I then used an iron to transfer her name onto the front of the suitcase.  

Stella appeared to LOVE the gift which made Aunt Whitney very happy!  :)  She immediately started playing with it and continued to play with it through out the rest of our time together.  

For our Nephew:

Jude- 8 months old

We decided to make magnetic fabric animals for Jude.  He absolutely adores his big sister (Stella) so we wanted him to be able to play with her.  The final present consisted of 8 animals, two trees, and a drawstring bag.

Mitch was a huge help with this!  He hand drew each animal so I would have something to trace.   He also helped me brainstorm the best way to create/sew each animals mane, tails, eyes, etc.

It is difficult to tell from the picture but each animal is the same on both sides.  The banana is magnetic and comes off of the monkey's hand.  The elephant's ear flaps back and forth.  I did a large zig zag stitch on the crocodiles back and small zig zag stitch for his teeth. 

The finished kid gifts!

For the Sister-in-laws:

I made three small keychain lanyards for Mitch's sisters.  Two of the girls had asked for them and picked out their own fabric so I just decided to make one for all three.  I remembered to take a picture after I had already wrapped two of them.  

The gifts are wrapped and ready for Christmas!

Whitney's Mystery Surprise Gift!  

Mitch and I obviously love to spend time creating and making things but rarely make gifts for each other because it is difficult to hide projects from each other in our small loft home.  I knew Mitch was up to something because he kept disappearing into our spare room to work on an unknown project.  At one point he came out and grabbed an empty canning jar, boiled an egg, smashed the hard boiled egg in the jar, and then went back into the bedroom.  This really piqued my interest.  I was even google searching what you do with hard boiled eggs in a mason jar but had no luck figuring anything out.  Well when Mitch gave me this gift it all made sense.   He melted down one of his collector silver coins, formed the shape he wanted, and hand stamped our daughters initials onto the silver.  Setting the silver in the hard boiled egg for one hour caused the silver to have the weathered look it has below.  I must say he is AMAZING!

What a wonderful Christmas!  I am excited and ready to start making things for next year!