New Blog, An Actual DOMAIN!

Well I guess my last post, didn't get me into writing like I had hoped, BUT this past year has been CRAZY and so to share our crazy experiences and such I bought a domain to start over!

I'm going to reshare my last post on here on there in the next couple of weeks :)

My new blog is The Life I'm Living

Cozy Coupe Batman Revamp!

Not to long ago, like last week I think? Sad I can't remember, heck I'd be happy if I could remember everything I did yesterday, lol! Any ways my friend Amanda did a revamp of a cozy coupe and I asked her if I could share it on my blog! Great way to get back to posting right?! Well I'll get right to it and share her story in her own words :-D

"Dunananananananana BATMAN!!!

(From a Cozy Coupe!)

So first let me start off by saying this was in NO WAY my original idea.  I’ve seen the “after” pictures floating around Pinterest for some time now and have desperately been looking for a “How-to” so I could make one myself.  I have the BIGGEST Batman fan (among 2 year olds) that you will ever find.  Swear if I would let him my son would live in his batman clothes, eat off his batman plate and watch the old batman (the animated series) episodes from morning to night.  My husband would go along with it no questions asked… However, for my own sanity I have a limit on the amount I can take in a day. 

I digress. Well back when I first saw the Bat mobile floating around I knew I had to make it but there was no way I was going to take a brand new ($60 or more) toy and paint it.  So I’ve been scouring craigslist, second hand stores and yard sales trying to find one.  It took some time but I was able to track down the car a few months back, and it was a STEAL!  For starters it was coming from a local yard sale site, from someone I’ve purchased other items from (yay for not having to meet up with shady strangers) who just happens to live around the corner.  When I got there she told me the car did not have the standard Little Tikes stickers on it (yay, less work for me, because if it did I would have had to peel them off!) So I rushed right over (the day before Thanksgiving) to pick up the car and hide it in the garage until I could get to work on it.

It took some research but I was able to find a site that referenced painting Little Tikes plastic toys, and they recommended: Krylon Fusion for Plastic Spray Paint, which I was able to find at our local Wal-Mart. I started off with two cans of black paint, first let me say I don’t advise doing this at night, since it made it hard to see if the paint was even, and thus caused me to have to go back out the next day and purchase 2 more cans of paint…which I think could have been avoided had I done it during the day. I wore protective eye-wear because well I’d never worked with spray paint before.  I wish I’d have thought of a mask…not because of the fumes, those weren’t really so bad (I did it in our large garage with the door open) but because I was getting black paint in my tissues for a couple of days after. The paint dries to the touch in 30 minutes and is completely dry in an hour.  If you’re anything like me, I had to be SURE everything was black.  I SHOULD have done the underside of the car first but I didn’t…believe me it’ll be easier if you do. Other than that I painted EVERYTHING, including the steering wheel, and the tires.  Make sure that you get the door completely; I had it open to spray the inside and almost forgot to shut it and cover the spot near the hinge.  Oops! I will note that the can says any touch-ups should be done within 24 hours or after 7 days. I don’t know why that is, but I would say cover it the best you think you can and let it dry then if you need to add an additional coat.

I let it dry for about 5 hours, just to be safe, and then I added stickers to the front of the car and to the door.  You could make a stencil (or even cut out Vinyl) and paint it yellow. I had decided to go the sticker route thinking it’d be cheaper than a can of yellow spray paint to do a couple of places.  So that’s really up to you, I’m sure there are tons of other ways, and it could even be hand painted if that’s your thing.

Aside from having to make a second run to Wal-mart in total it took about 2 hours of work, and given my over cautiousness 5 hours to dry (I won’t count the overnight since it wasn’t really done). I think I’ll have one very happy 2 year old Batman fan come Christmas morning."

I hope you all love this as much as I do! It came out great and I can't wait to hear how her son reacts when he sees it! :-D

 

Felt Christmas Tree

Wow I can't believe it's almost been about a year since I've written! Crazy! But, that's life for ya!

Since December 2011 my daughter turned 4 and my soon turned 1! We also found out we may be moving to Maryland this next spring! We'll know for sure next month and I can NOT wait to find out! We are really hoping we get to because we'll be SO much closer to our home town, where about all of our family is. After that news, at the end of August we went to Michigan to visit my father-in-law and for a NASCAR race! Then as usual we went to New York to visit our family and I was in my cousin's wedding! I'm so happy I got to be there for it. While we were gone, I went back to college so I can graduate with my Bachelors degree here and not have to deal with transferring again. The semester officially ends Friday, December 14th! I took 5 classes all online since with our trip home I was gone the first 3 weeks of school. 2 down, 3 to go!

Although I haven't made anything really of my own yet, yep I'm still a Pinterest addict ;) After making a project last night I thought about this blog and wanted to get back to writing.

Now to the craft! Here is the link I got the idea from,  Play Felt Christmas Tree & Ornaments.

I bought 1/2 a yard of green felt, thought it would be decent, well I should have gone with the full yard, ah well, next year I'll get the yard. So, I did as Natalie did and cut the green felt into a triangle for the tree. I don't have any spot where I could use hot glue to hold it up on a wall so I used my Stampin' Up Tombo to glue the felt to some poster board I had. Since my tree is smaller I decided to not make presents this time. All that matters is that my daughter loves it! :-D Oh and yes I know my snowflake is pretty sad, haha! It was hard trying to cut it with the large siccors I used, don't ask me why I didn't use my nice Stampin' Up Snips =P

With the felt i have left over I'm thinking of making something for St. Patrick's Day. Plus that's my daughters birthday so I have to try even harder to go all out ;) Either way I want to try these Christmas Felt Button Trees. 

Nothing fancy, but quick to make, cheap, and easy entertainment :) Soon I'm going to share my friend's cozy coupe makeover! Wait til you see it! :-D

Hanging Christmas Cards

I think I saw something like this on Pinterest, but I never repinned it. What I saw was someone using ribbon, I think, but since I just bought a lot of twine I decided to use it for this.

It worked pretty well, some cards I had to move to different spots because they were to heavy and moved it down some, overall I like how it turned out. Next time I'll use ribbon though :)

Infant Carseat Cover

Yet again another idea from Pinterest was THIS carseat cover. I didn't have one of those winter covers for our daughter and wasn't sure if I wanted to buy one for my son since he's doing really well sitting on his own. My daughter was a month older than my son now, he's 7 months, so when it was winter when she was an infant she was sitting in the cart at the store and it was easier for me to take her out & carry her in than carry her in the carseat. I'm short [4' 11"] and my arms aren't too strong and those things get heavy with a child in them! Then of course I don't want to use the stroller in the snow, we have one of those nice stroller/carseat systems so the carseat just sits on the stroller. Then adding a toddler into the mix...it gets crazy! So I decided I would make the cover. We're not outside with him long, just from the car to store, restaurant, or a friend's house, so I figured this would be price efficient :) I bought the fabric to use in pictures and then I figured I'd think of something to use it for afterwords as well. It's not like we don't keep him warm, trust me if I felt he needed it I'd buy one. And now you would think it's spring, all our snow is melted and it's warming up...I don't know if you believe in global warming, but this chick does! Crazy!

Any ways I did some short cuts, I didn't cut like she did, I just rounded the corners some. Sorry it's dark, I was making it at night so the lighting wasn't the greatest. My fabric is folded in half in the picture of course :) Then I sewed a hem around it. I also cut the strips like the other blog says, I folded the strips in half and sewed and then turned it right side out. I swore I had some buttons some where for a shirt, you know the extras you get with some shirts? Well I was trying to hurry and couldn't seem to find any so I grabbed a shirt I was going to donate and took 2 buttons off, haha! At least it wasn't that nice of a shirt, if it was I wouldn't have done it. 

Then I measured like she did, the 28" and the 22" to place where I wanted to sew on the strips. I sewed the buttons on by hand and then just cut small slits for them on the other side. Not until after did I realize I should have sown the buttons on the other side of where I put them so the fabric would lay better once its buttoned. Ah well, still works well :)

 

Wasn't bad to make at all and I probably could have taken more of my time. I was borrowing a friend's sewing machine and trying to get all my sewing projects I want done now fast. Now I have it for a few extra days, lol, so I just bought more stuff to work on, haha!

DIY Stocking Hangers

Another Pin-spired craft! I saw a friend share THIS on her's and had to re-pin it! I put it on my "Hubby Needs to Build" board, hehe! And he did it for me! :-D I told him what was on the site, but instead of doing one screw in the middle, he insisted on two so it wouldn't spin...I told him do what he thought was best since he's the one who works with wood, not me. Makes sense though, so he did that :) 

I didn't paint them until after he put them together, it was easy and not a problem to do it that way. I didn't have many colors of paint, but didn't want to buy more so I went with the green for the base. I didn't have red, of course, but after awhile I decided on using my children's first initials so I went with pink for my daughter and blue for my son, perfect! :) Plus I thought if I want to use them for something else they won't have the Christmas look and can easily go with other ideas...no idea what yet, haha. Maybe something for Easter? hmmm...Oh and reminder, these are for empty stockings. When I told my husband that the site I got the idea from said it he said, "duh, there's no weight to them," I probably would have tried it, ahahaha ;)

And the stockings were was hung! =P 

Last year we bought this huge stocking since I love Disney. We hoped for a baby boy of course & I said he could have Mickey's pocket if we did & sure enough we got blessed with him :)

Socks to Leg Warmers

I'm sure you've all heard of baby legs by now, if not they are leg warmers for babies and toddlers too :) My friend made her son a pair probably a year ago now and ever since I've wanted to make them. So finally I bought a pair of long socks to do it and since I was borrowing my friend's sewing machine I was all over it! *I asked my mom for one for Christmas, if I don't get one, I want one for my birthday! lol*

Any ways, my friend sent me a video, but I like websites better so it's not moving on me, haha! THIS is where I looked to figure out how to make them. Which this is all you do, cut a pair of long socks! Really that's it and well sew the hem back and voila! You're done! :-D And since these socks where over the knee socks I got a pair of socks out of it as well, $3 for leg warmers for my son and a pair of cute winter socks for me, pretty awesome deal if you ask me! ;)

 

I made them so they are a touch big on him since he is an infant and we all know how fast they grow! After this pair this is all I want to do, is make baby warmers! Oh and if you never looked them up they are usually around $11 for a pair! So $3 is A LOT better! :) And they're so much easier when you're changing your baby's diaper, you don't have to take them off like pants, really nice. Plus look how cute they look! :-D

I'll Just Call Them Jalapeno Cream Cheese Rotellas

My friend Lauren makes these yummy rolled up snacks when we have gatherings at her house and last week I finally asked her what she used in them! I was in the mood for them. I never asked what she calls them or if there was already a name for them so I made up my own, haha!

Any ways it's just:

• One 8oz brick of cream cheese
• some diced jalapenos [I bought a jar & used a couple spoonfuls]
• Some diced green onions
• Tortillas

I then bought everything I needed then had to ask her how she mixed it, haha! Wasn't sure if she just put it in a bowl or used a mixer. She just said a bowl, mixer would be easier if you're in a hurry, if not let the cream cheese soften up some.

Then just put the mixture on a tortilla and roll it up. I did that and swore it wasn't big enough, so looked online, haha, yep I'm that dork ;) I actually only used half a brick this time since it was just me who was going to eat them and she said she usually used 5 tortillas for these.

Lauren told me after you roll them its easier to cut them if you put them in the fridge for a little, so I did that for maybe an hour max, I can't remember I've been cleaning up the house for Thanksgiving =P They cut very easily that way though and they were de-lish! :) 

I'm not sure if my husband liked it, he ate one bite and didn't have more, but he was also playing a game an already ate dinner before hand. But our 2 & 1/2 year old daughter loved them! I thought they were a touch spicy for me so I thought there's no way she'd like them, but she kept asking for more =P

Well that's all, just wanted to share a quick and easy recipe I learned :)

Glitter Shake Bottle

Another craft inspired by Pinterest! I came across THIS on Pinterest and knew I wanted to do it for both of my children! My daughter is 2 & 1/2 and my son is about 7 months. I had everything I need, BUT the bottles so the other day I went to the store and grabbed an 8 pack of pepsi. I've been wanting pepsi for awhile, we don't ever buy soda any more besides once in awhile and I figure with Thanksgiving coming up I might as well, hehe. It wasn't that much and well worth the price since I get to use the bottles for my crafts :) Then last night I texted my friend Lauren and asked if her and her daughter, my daughter's best friend =P wanted to come over to make them with us :) So today we made them together :)

Almost all of the label came off...

 So I got out the Goo Gone! I took the picture while I let it sit on the bottle.
I let it sit on it for a couple minutes and most wiped off, I had to scratch some off.

 Getting ready!

Putting the items in the bottle!
I filled the bottle with water half way first.

 All done!

Another view :)

She put pom poms, beads, letter beads, colored paper clips, erasers, & a jingle bell.

I added the glitter for her & then filled the rest up with water.
*Edit, I think the jingle bell is rusting, oops, I'll have her make another

Very easy & fun!

Real Baby Bottle into a Toy Baby Bottle

The other day I saw the bottle sitting on the container that I've there for a few days now. I needed to go through the ones we have and the one sitting there I decided I would give to my daughter to play with with her dolls. She already has a small real bottle to play with for them so I figured she could use another. After I moved that one I forgot about the rest so I still need to look through them, haha! You know the ounce markings on a bottle, well they are wearing off that's why I decided to let her play with it because I can't use it any more and I have plenty more. We have a son so once I knew what I was doing with the bottle I looked for the extra caps we had and grabbed the pink ones, why use them when I have plenty of 'boy' colored ones, haha. The only thing I didn't let her have is the bottom piece, I can use that with the other ones and the nipple I put in it in a slow one and my son uses the fast ones now.

My daughter wants her play bottle open now and then, well I didn't want to put anything in it in case she got it open and well of course it coming out through the nipple. I cut some paper and stuck it in there, to make it seem like 'milk' was in there. She saw me do it and yea it didn't work, it just sucked, lol! So since my husband sprayed my frame for me I got the idea to spray paint inside the bottle some to make it look like milk was in it. I did this last night:

What do you think? I took the caps off, sprayed inside, just had enough left in the can too! Let it dry over night and then put the caps on. I think it looks great and didn't cost a thing since I already had everything! I haven't given it to my daughter yet, once I do I'll share if she likes it or not =P I've been thinking of using hot glue to keep it shut. She can't open them yet, but when she starts to I rather her not have it open. I'll probably ask my husband what he thinks will be easiest to keep it shut, either way I'll do that before I give it to her :)

*Edit my husband suggested super glue, which I thought of, we actually had enough left so he glued it shut for me :)

Frame Re-Do

I've been gathering ideas for Christmas pictures and I saw THIS one which inspired me to find a frame to use for ours. 

I knew I wanted to check Good Will and the Salvation Army, I went to the Salvation Army first and found one I liked so I grabbed it, $4.27. I forgot to take a picture of the picture & frame, so I had to at least show what the picture was....not my style! =P But it was only $3.99 for that size frame, I had to grab it! I only wanted the frame, but later thought I could make a collage of photos. 

Well since I want to use the frame for Christmas photos I was trying to think of what color I'd like the frame to be. It was that old shiny gold...ugggllly [to me at least, lol]! I didn't want it to be black or silver, I already have enough of those frames. Since we'll be wearing green & red I didn't want the frame to be those either. So I decided on white. I grabbed some spray paint, with the help of my husband, from Wal-Mart, around $4. 

 

 I went to Toys R' Us and a friends on Saturday and before I left my husband asked if I'd like him to spray paint my frame for me....of course! =P There's a couple spots where it didn't stick to the frame the greatest, but you can barely tell unless you're close to it. I can't wait to use it in our pictures! A few more weeks and we're getting them done, well my friend is taking them for us :-D I think I take pretty nice photos myself, but my camera still isn't the greatest, plus I didn't want to use a tri-pod for taking our pictures. It's easier to have someone take your picture when it's of your whole family :) Any ways, she has a great camera and I always love her photos! She took our family pictures earlier this year, it was relaxed and fun to do! She didn't charge us, although she could charge people, and I of course paid her any ways :)  Here's one of my favorites she took:

Dress-up Toy as Decoration

For my daughter's room I decided I wanted to use butterflies for decorating. Since I'm all about sales and saw some wings at Claire's awhile back, love that store! At that time I bought one, then went back and bought 2, one I gave as a gift, and then the blue ones I added were from my Halloween costume =P

Any ways, I had some 3m command hooks [my friend told me she uses them for hanging pictures, so I got them for that, it's great, but not all frames work with them sadly] so I knew I wanted to use them to hang up the wings. Easy, simple, fun :)

Pumpkin Cookies

A couple years ago my grandmother gave me an easy recipe for pumpkin cookies. Well I called her yesterday asking how to bake them and as we talked I found out I had it written down, haha, oh well it's always nice to talk to my grandma :)

So the recipe, all you need is spice cake mix and 1 can of pumpkin. 

• mix ONLY cake mix and pumpkin
• GREASE cookie sheet - or if you use stoneware like I did, then nothing, it worked fine:)
• I used an ice cream scoop, my grandmother uses a small cookie scoop - I need to get one of them some day =P I got 30 cookies out of it
• Bake at 350
• Bake for about 15 minutes, keep an eye on it and you may need to change it, since I used stoneware mine were more around 18 minutes

And that's it :)

I tried the DIY Wallflower

Another Pin-spried idea I tried was the DIY Wallflower. After going HERE, I decided after one of my wallflowers ran out I would give it a try since I just bought some essential oils and well who wants VOCs in they're house?! NOT me! I then did just as the post said, let me tell you, it was a pain getting the wic out! But I kept trying and finally got it. So I filled it, took a little to get the wic back in, but not as tough to get it out, then I went and plugged it in. That was October 25th and I think it was 2 days ago now that I noticed it was empty, so it only lasted a week. Of course I don't want VOCs coming from the wallflower espeically since I have one in my son's room, that's the one I tried it out on. Thankfully peppermint oil is pretty cheap and I didn't use much. Next time I might try to use more oil and less water and see how that lasts. Soon I'm having a Scentsy party and they have plug-ins and they aren't bad for you, I think I'll get one for his room - I have it by the trash to help cover the lovely diaper smell, lol. 


Just wanted to share that I actually tried it out and how it went :) Oh yea, the peppermint smell was pretty strong at first, but only a day or two.

Blog Name, What do You Think?

I've really been thinking of names and searching online for tips and once I saw the word "Lucky" I felt that's it I have to use that and then of course "Sweetpea". 

My daughter was born on St. Patrick's Day and since I've called her my lucky charm that's why I felt I had to use that word. As for sweetpea I call my son my sweetpea because he was born in April and that's one of the flowers for that month. Therefore of course I had to combine them somehow :)

Then I thought ok so "Lucky Sweetpea Crafts"? Ehh, it's ok, but I wanted something different so I looked at other words to use and I like the word ingenuity, but f course felt it should be plural for this.

Here's to a new name and more new ingenuities to follow :)

So what do you think of it?

First Diaper Cake

I've wanted to make a diaper cake for awhile now. I've made diaper wreaths before, I love them. Well I had a friend make me one for my son this past year so I saved all the rubber-bands and such. The way my friend made it was just all diapers together, I thought about doing that, but when I searched on how to make it I saw a lot with people using things in the middle. Since I had a small package of diapers I decided to try that out. 

As I was making it I wasn't sure if I'd be able to even have 3 layers, but I got to, so that was nice. One thing I saw and kind of tried was hiding the diapers by using tissue paper, but I didn't like the way that was turning out. So I looked through my bag of decorations and scraps and found the perfect sizes or ribbon to use to hide the rubber-bands :) Yaa for keeping old stuff, you can always reuse stuff some how!

Any ways I love how it came out, now hopefully it'll ship well and still look good! Speaking of I need to find out if I need to ship a  few boy clothes also. Two friends back home [Oswego, NY] are having baby showers next month. One, Garrett & Bree, thought they were having a girl and found out they're actually having a boy! I brought some stuff when we went there this past summer, so my mom needs to look through the bag to see if I need to send more. I know I have neutral clothes, but I can't remember if I had girl clothes in there too or not. My other friends, Jorin & Freddie are having another little girl so this is for them since they mainly just need diapers :)