DIY Felt Dog Treats

I haven't had time for many projects lately because I have a two month old that wants to eat every two hours (including during the night), BUT I was able to find a little time to whip up these pretend dog treats.

This craft might seem completely random (and it kind of is), but I was inspired when Little Man was playing pretend with his stuffed dog one morning.  He kept asking me to fill up a couple bowls I'd given him with imaginary treats and water for his dog.  Then he'd pretend to take her (he named her Bell) on a walk to Target and Chipotle.  Ya know, completely normal places that a two year old to want to go.

It was just so cute, and I found myself thinking it would be nice if he had some "real" treats to give his dog.  I figured it wouldn't be too difficult to make something like play food made out of felt and realized that I had all the supplies on hand.

The dog treats only took about an hour to finish.  I wanted to get them done while Little Man was still playing so perfection was not my goal here.  My stitches are sooo uneven and I used the brown yarn as stuffing because I didn't want to spend the time trying to find the polyfill that I have.  The bone pattern I used is attached below the instructions.  I just printed it out on card stock and traced it onto the felt with a pen.

So easy and Little Man really seems to be enjoying them!

Update!

Look at those cheeks!  It's been over a month since I posted and this little guy is up to 12 pounds!  Once he got the hang of eating and got over being born a month early, he started packing it on by eating every two hours...even at night.  I'm actually not feeling that tired, but it seems like there's very little time to do anything else but feed him. 

Even though I spend a ton of time on the couch with a baby in my lap,  I have managed to squeeze in a couple of projects.

This isn't decor related at all, but I'm extremely proud of the fact that Little Man has been officially potty trained since the beginning of July!

We did the three day hard-core potty training method and by the third day he had it.  We're kind of up to our elbows in newborn diapers and I can't imagine what it would be like to have to deal with toddler diapers too.  Woo hoo!

In nursery and playroom news:  I swapped the rooms.  I originally intended the stripes for the playroom, but once I got our storage unit in the room I just didn't like how it looked.  I couldn't bare to paint over those stripes that I spent so much time on, so I just moved the nursery furniture into striped room.

I'm liking the stripes on stripes look. 

The old nursery, current playroom is now a light gray.

As you can see, it's kind of a disaster and I'm at a stand still.  I just don't really have the time to get anything done.  The good news is that there's no hurry to get this room finished.  Hopefully I can get working on it when the baby gets on a regular nap schedule.  So, until then I think blog posts are going to be pretty irregular.  I have a little project lined up to be posted tomorrow, but after that it may be a while.

Hope everyone enjoys he rest of summer!

Surprise!

On June 7 my mom and I were supposed to make a little road trip to Ikea and pick up all the stuff I still needed for the playroom.  Instead I called her at 6 AM to tell her that I thought I was in labor and she needed to come watch Little Man while my husband and I went to my OB. 

I spent about half an hour hooked up to a monitor and we were sent to the hospital to deliver.  Baby #2 was arriving a month early!

His weight was fantastic (6lbs. 7oz.) considering how early he was and we are so thankful for that!  He had to spend an extra eight days in the hospital at the special care nursery until he could eat well on his own. The picture above was taken in the nursery while he still had his feeding tube. 

He's been home for a week now and I'm settling into life with two little ones a little earlier than I expected.

My Craigslist Stalking Paid Off!

Finally!  After weeks of obsessively checking Craigslist, I came across an Ektorp chair (usually $250) for $50!  I know it looks gross in the picture, but that's because the slipcover was ripped in the front so I just went ahead and took it off  when we got it home, and I'm planning on buying a new white slipcover for $29 when we make our trip to Ikea soon. 

I probably should have waited to post of picture of my chair with a new slipcover for a more dramatic reveal, but I just couldn't wait to share!

Sooooo for all of $80 I will have come in waaaaay below my original $500 budget for a new chair.

Woo hoo!

Stripes and Chevron and Dots?

I'm finally finished with those stripes and it feels amazing!  I was kind of nervous about the vertical stripes because horizontal stripes seem to be so "in" right now.  

Evidence:

If you search "striped nursery" on Pinterest, 90% of the stripes on the walls are horizontal, and honestly...those are my favorite.

But then I saw this beautiful picture...

via

....and even though it's not a nursery or playroom it helped me settle on the vertical stripes.  Don't they look so cool?

I hope mine look at least half as cool when I get all the other stuff in the room.  Fingers crossed!

Now on to the chevron portion of this post....

 ....I bought this brown and white chevron from Allegro Fabrics (which I highly recommend!) and I'm going to use it, I'm just not sure if I want it on my curtains like I had originally planned.

These are actually the curtains that gave me the idea to just put fabric on the bottom of my white panels:

via

Looking at these curtains makes me think that I might need a pattern in a larger scale than the chevron I have for the bottoms of my curtains.  Yes?

Maybe something like this (here come the dots)...

via

 

...or maybe I'll just leave them white.  It might start looking a little busy in there now that the walls are striped.  

I'd planned on getting my curtains done as soon as that chevron fabric came in, but now I think I'll be holding off on them 'til most everything else is finished. 

So that's the playroom for now.  

I made some major, major progress in my hunt for a cheap chair (like $50 cheap) for our bedroom over the weekend and I'll share tomorrow!

New Prints and Free Shipping!

Just so you know.....

...this is available in my Etsy Shop.

So is this little monkey.

All prints are $12 for an 8x10, $20 for an 11x14 and $28 for a 16x20.  Thrifty Abode readers get free shipping with the code "FREESHIP"!

To make up for the self promotion I have another post coming up in just a little bit!

Crazy Pregnant Lady...

....that's me!  What did I get myself into with these stripes?  I had a plan...a very well thought-out plan, and I still found a way to do things the hardest way possible.

Long story short:  In an effort to not spend $20 more on white paint (I had enough for the white stripes, but not to coat the entire room) I went ahead and measured and taped my walls with just a coat of primer on them.  Then I thought it would be a good idea to add just a touch of brown to my white paint to make it not so stark.  Well, I spilled way more brown into my white paint than I meant to and ruined it.

SOOOO....not only did I have to spend more money on more paint, but I'm also going to be spending more time re-taping so I can paint my white stripes.  I'm a  DIY genius!

I just keep telling myself that I'm over half-way finished.  Also, we didn't get to Ikea this weekend so I have plenty of time to get these walls done before I have to worry about moving any furniture in.

Plus, anything is an improvement when compared to the state of the room just a few weeks ago:

State of the Playroom

We're not making a trip to Ikea for another week and a half, so I'm trying to get done what I can get done until then.  

I'm not making much progress...that picture is so sad.

I'm going to be painting during naptime today!  Hope you're doing something way more fun.

Kid Sized Modern Chairs

via west elm, pb kids, target

Yesterday, in my little Kid's Table DIY/Makeover Roundup, I mentioned that this post had inspired me to use modern style chairs for my boys' table and chair set in their future playroom.  The chairs pictured above are the most affordable ones I came across.

Keep reading or just scroll a tiny bit to see which ones I ended up getting...

The inspiration chairs were actually the set of Target chairs (pictured above) and they were originally $60 for a set.  That seemed a little high to me, plus I didn't really want to use white chairs, and I would have ended up painting them, so I searched a couple other places to find something similar and hopefully in a color I wanted.

I never, ever would have thought that I would have found a decently priced modern-ish chair at PB Kids.....and in exactly the color I wanted.  I think my jaw literally dropped when I walked in the store and saw them.  AND due to some gift cards and coupons (which is why I even bothered to look there and West Elm in the first place) I was able to get two chairs for $50! 

I picked up my chairs yesterday and then came home and started looking up links for this post when I realized that the Target chairs were a good $20 less than the ones that I had just bought.  Doh!  I considered returning the PB Kids chairs, but then realized that between shipping and painting the white Target chairs I probably would have ended up spending $50 on them anyway. 

Those Target chairs are a fantastic deal, but Little Man is already enjoying his!

Mini Kid's Table DIY/Make-over Roundup

I've come across some pretty great kid's table and chair DIYs/makeovers since I've been searching for a way to avoid spending $100+ a new set for my boys' playroom.  These are just a few of my favorites.

1.  A little paint and collected chairs from Carrie at Lovely Etc.
2.  Chalkboard paint plus a $10 garage sale find from Lolly Jane.
3.  From scratch and under $30.  Amazing!  Shanty 2 Chic
4.  Another table from scratch plus it's a PB Kids knockoff from Andrea at Strawberry Chic.

That little modern chair in pic number 4 inspired me to find something similar....so I did!  I'll share tomorrow!