DIY Growth Chart!

Well, I finally did it! I finally got around to making a growth chart. I've only been meaning to since before my daughter was born. Probably even conceived. Oh well, better than never. It's a good thing I've stayed on top of both of their baby books, so that I can easily fill in the growth chart! 

The best part about this project... it was 100% free! The previous owners of our house had left some wood in the shed, so I didn't need to buy any! And I just used paint and stain we had on hand.

 Plain old boring 6' board that has been sanded. I stained my board and let it dry. While it dried, I printed out my numbers and carefully cut them out so that I could trace them.

I carefully marked out the foot marks and then the inches and hand painted them on in white and grey.

As my marks dried I worked on tracing the numbers along the foot marks and then filled them in with a blue paint.

I am considering adding my children's hand prints to it. It was in my initial plans, but my daughter was napping when this was finished and I wanted to hang it up and see the finished look!

Spinach Frittata

We love breakfast around here, but sometimes it starts to get old, the same stuff over and over. I made our normal spinach and eggs into a frittata a couple of weeks ago and it was really good!

Ingredients:

9 eggs

Turkey Ham

Spinach

Onions

Cheese (optional)

Olive Oil

Seasonings of choice

Directions:

I sauteed my onions and spinach together in a little olive oil. Chopped up the turkey ham and added it all to a pie pan.  Then mix your eggs up and pour it over the top of the spinach mixture. Add cheese on top if you'd like. Bake at 350, until done. I believe it was 30-40 minutes.

And there you have it, a different way to make your same old breakfast! My family of four had plenty of leftovers and it holds up pretty well the next day.

Banana Coconut French Toast!

This french toast is simply amazing! In my mind, anyway! My kids gobble this one up and ask for more! It's super easy and you really don't need syrup! 

(Don't mind my chipped plate, oops!)

Ingredients:

Banana

Eggs

Vanilla

Cinnamon
Coconut milk (canned or carton)

bread

Whatever else you usually add to your french toast

Here's what you do:

Take that banana and mash it up really good then mix it together with your eggs and remaining ingredients. The amount of ingredients really depends on how much french toast you need to make. I use some coconut oil on my griddle to cook these. They really taste like banana bread to me. So yummy! Hope you like them!

DIY Love Sign

While scrolling across Pinterest a week or so ago, I came across this fun sign that I just had to make!

I set out to make it right away and I couldn't be happier with the finished product!

I decided this would hang above our bed. Our bedding is white and grey and our curtains are grey. I decided to paint the board white, and the letters grey. And have the hand and footprints be blue, since that's the color of our walls. I think it really pulls everything together in there. 

I took some left over plywood that we had laying around from building a new hatch door to the crawl space... I didn't even have to cut it! Yay! Then I painted it white, with the leftover paint from a previous project.

 It's probably hard to see, but I then printed out a huge "L" and "e" and cut them out then traced them on to my board. 

I carefully had my son place his hand on the board and then had my husband help me with my daughter's feet. I free handed the heart and filled in the letters. Once everything dried, I added some picture frame hooks to the back and called it a day! 

I adore the finished product! We seriously had nothing on our bedroom walls besides our curtains, until now. But I really think this was the perfect thing to go above our bed!

This project was free to us, since we had all the paint and supplies on hand! YAY! 

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies (Clean)

My favorite cookies are oatmeal raisin. I just love the spices! So, I set out to create my own CLEAN recipe that wasn't like those "breakfast" oatmeal cookies going around with banana as the sweetener. I wanted more of a REAL cookie. I have succeeded!

Ingredients:

1-2/3 cups oats

1/8 tsp salt

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/8 cup melted coconut oil

1 tsp cinnamon (I actually didn't measure this)

1 tsp vanilla (I didn't measure this)

1/4 cup pure maple syrup (you could use less)

(Add water a teaspoon at a time if needed, I didn't need it)

1/3 cup raisins

Directions: Preheat oven to 325. Mix all ingredients together. Then add raisins. Form dough into balls and place on parchment paper on cookie sheet. Push balls down a little.

Bake for 10-15 minutes. They won't rise.

Dough may be a little crumbly, I just squished it together into balls, although adding a bit of water may have helped this. You could also use this as a granola.

Mine made about 17 cookies and were about 66 calories each. Next time I think I will do a little less maple syrup, since we're used to less sweet things and I know I could get away with it.

Enjoy!

Cupcake Dress

My daughter's second birthday is coming up and I found some adorable cupcake fabric at Hancock Fabrics a few weeks back. I just had to make her a dress! I don't have a tutorial, but it's pretty easy to throw together for someone who can make a basic dress. I just measured my daughter and made rectangles for the most part. 

For the straps, I used pre-made ruffle stuff I had laying around the house.

The red strips are both about 3 inches wide. and the middle piece I believe was 13 inches... I measured under her armpit, to about where I wanted the dress to hit and then drew out the dress on paper and did the math. That's how I always figure out my dimensions when I freestyle.

There are a lot of tutorials on the web for how to ruffle fabric to make them cinch at the bodice. Next time I made her a dress, I'll be sure to take picture during the process!

 

I probably should have done the seams down the sides instead of the back and two buttons like her last dress I made. Oops.