Super Mario Nursery Room Decoration

Bad news:  It has been a whiiile since last post.

Good news: We have been very, very busy getting ready for Thing 2!! Yep, a second blessing to fill our home. This time a little Bam Bam. We feel so blessed having the chance to have a little boy to complete the pretty couple pretty soon...

This is going to be a very short post (with a couple of pictures) of JS Nursery Room... The theme: Super Mario Bros!

 After a couple of conversations looking for the right theme (funny, and not easy outgrown) we opted for the Super Mario Bros theme. We found some wall decals, a rug, and best of all the dresser knobs on eBay. (Picture of the knobs will be added later!)....

I found a big fleece throw blanket with the motive on Sears and just cut the Mario character and added a black binding to the edge to re size it to a baby size.

 One of my favorite decorations is the crib mobile. I used the frame from my girl's mobile and sew a new cover from coordinating red and blue fabrics from my stash. We bought the "1ups" (color mushrooms) from eBay (5 for about $10 shipping included!). Then, I just hang them using a red sneaker lace that was laying around (I cut the lace in 4 equal lengths and sew it to the cover).

 The opposite corner of the room has the rocking chair with a cute Mario plush toy and a couple more decals. Finally, the conversation piece of the room:  the custom made lamp. Hubby made this awesome lamp out of PVC tubes, and a PVC piece of board. Painted it all, added a rubber Mario figurine and wire it up!

Isn't it amazing!  We love it!! (I might write a detail post about the lamp creation process in a future)... Stay tuned.

As for now, we are ready to welcome Thing 2 (JS) to his room, our home, our lives!!

30 Minute Fabric and Felt Nesting Eggs Tutorial

Who doesn't love simple, fast, and cute projects. Today's post is about a nice sewing project perfect to give away to little ones. The best part: it just takes less than 30 minutes and a couple of fabric scraps. Recently I stumbled upon these adorable nesting eggs on Toddler Approved blog and could not resist the temptation to make a set.  Since these are for my Little Soi, I decided going girly on the eggs fabric choice. I’m so pleased with the end result and excited on seeing how little one liked the new nesting set.

Want to take a look at the easy steps to create the cute set? Although I followed Toddler Approved's tutorial I tweaked instructions a little. My set consist of four nesting eggs.

Materials:

• Fabric - I selected four different cotton prints from my stash. Scraps are ideal for these.
• Felt - I used what I got on hand..in this case I used 3 different colors.
• Fusible Interfacing - Pellon to provide structure to the cotton side of the eggs.
• Sewing tools - machine, thread, scissors....

1. First gather all your materials:

2. Now draw the biggest egg shape (or whatever shape you wish) on a piece of felt and cut it out. In my case I happened to have a decorative tin can in an oval shape that was the perfect reference to cut my second nesting egg. To make the biggest egg I just cut a piece of felt about 1" larger than the lid.

Eggs approx. measurement are as follow:

Bigger Egg: 6 1/2 x 4 1/2 inches

Second Egg: 5 x 3 1/2 inches

Third Egg: 3 1/2 x 2 1/4 inches

Smallest Egg: 2 1/4 x 1 1/2 inches

3. Use felt oval shapes to cut out a piece of Pellon for each one of the eggs.

4. If using multiple fabric prints as I did, decide which print is going to be which egg and place Pellon on back of a piece of fabric that is a little bigger than the Pellon piece.

5. Turn fabric right side up and adhere the Pellon with hot iron (follow manufacturer's instructions).

6. Cut out excess fabric.

7. Repeat with remaining pieces. Now you have the four felt oval shapes and the four fabric shapes with interfacing.

8. Pin matching felt and fabric ovals, wrong sides together.

9. Sew all around the closest to the edge as possible making sure to caught both pieces. I did sew three times all around to ensure it will handle lots of play. (Sorry, stitch is not visible in the photo)

10. Cut a straight line (or cracked as in original tutorial) in the middle of the eggs on the felt side of the egg. Make sure not to caught the fabric from the other side. I did for the three biggest eggs, and did not cut the smallest one.

11. You did it!! A cute set of fabric and felt eggs. Cheap, fast, simple, cute!!!

Little Soi is certainly over the learning the shapes already, but I just expect these to reinforce sizes notions (small, smaller, smallest; big, bigger, biggest) and moreover, feed my little’s endless curiosity (at least for a while).

Aren’t these adorable? What other shapes would you suggest to add the fabric nesting collection? Have you tried making these? Share your photos and link back to us.

Get Mail Organized - Hanging Fabric Basket Storage

About two weeks ago I was in the exercise of reviewing my goals list (is just I don't want to call it the New Year's Resolutions, in case I get to year end with more unfinished goals than expected!)... One of the priorities and therefore with a goal set to first quarter 2012 was completing my craft studio/office organization and decoration. I know, I know all this sound so calculated, but, hey.... you can not just flip the switch because no longer working on the corporate world.

Anyway... I noticed that one of the main objectives was to figure out an effective, cute way to handle our mail. It happens to end on every corner of the house...and cars. This was becoming a little problem as we needed a way to keep track of what needed action without having to look around the house for two days for an almost forgotten incoming mail.

I search the web and found this great tutorial on hanging fabric baskets on The Mother Huddle and knew I had to try it for something... In this case it resulted the perfect solution for our incoming mail spot problem.

These wall hanging fabric baskets are so cute and easy to complete. The fabric baskets are a great solution to any messy problem.

I made two hanging baskets, one for holding all incoming mail, and the other to hold all mail that requires any action (i.e. make a call, make a payment, etc). I hung them from a tension rod that was laying around the house with no use and decided to hung them at the bottom of my studio window (that is desperately screaming for a window treatment...but, that is another project). They happened to hang just above the desk surface, which is great as it allows me to use the counter surface and clean with no clutter on top.

As for labeling each basket, I grabbed two old pins (from my drawer full of "I don't know what, when, or where but these are gonna be handy someday Stuff") glued a yellow foamy circle to it. Then glued a light blue cardboard circle on top of the yellow circle. Finally, I just wrote "Mail" and "Action Required" on the light blue circles with a black marker and pinned one label on each basket. Tadda! Problem solved! Check it out the first set I made... aren't this pretty.

As for now these work great, I might add a couple more to sort "To be Filed" documents and "Receipts" in a future. One step closser...now I go back to check that To Do Goals List and see what else needs some handy crafty inspiration.

Visit to Arecibo Lighthouse and Historical Park

One of the outdoor activities last week was to visit Arecibo Lighthouse and Historical Park. It was a really sunny, nice day out there. As their website describes "The Arecibo Lighthouse and Historical Park is a cultural theme park located in the surrounding area of the Arecibo Lighthouse. It has an innovative and unique concept that includes among other things five cultural representations of the Puerto Rico's history, which transports all of our visitors through historical and cultural events from the Spanish Conquest of 1493 to the 1898 when this lighthouse was built and the Spanish-American war occurred."

It is a cool place for little ones to see big ships. And no so little ones can get on them and feel like in an adventure of Jack and the Neverland Pirates. Also, there is a small aquarium that is nice and has a good sampling of seawater creatures such as sharks and eels. My girl was a little hesitant at first, given the dark cave like environment where the aquarium is built. But then, she wanted to "touch" all those strange friends.

A visit to the Arecibo Lighthouse and Historical Park is a great opportunity to expose little ones to some cultural and historical background where one can vary level of details depending on the needs. As for our trip, we had a super nice family day together. Our little pea saw real sharks, real size ships, she walked the over the sea deck feeling the caribbean breeze and listening to the splashy waves, and we went up to the top of the lighthouse for a worthseeing view of the beautiful north coast of our little island. We will very likely be back in a couple of years when studying some science and history courses. But for now, all in all, she was exposed to many sensorial experiences, new vocabulary, physical activity and best of all quality time with mommy and daddy.

Have you been in the Arecibo Lighthouse and Historical Park with your little ones?

What did they enjoyed the most in the park?

Floral Wreath for Mother's Day --- Isn't mother's day on July!?

Since I recently created Purple Pink Pig I'm traying to load fast enough some of the projects I have completed in the last couple of months.

Today, I am going to share a picture of a Mother's Day Floral Wreath. I believe it turned out really cute! Moreover, I just spent $5 in flowers from a dollar store. All of the other materials I already had on hand (foam for the wreath support body and ribbon).

I chose bright fuschia pink flowers and a silver tone ribbon.

It turned out really cute!

Hi everyone! Welcome to the first tutorial post here in Purple Pink Pig!

"Interactive Chalkboard Peek-a-boo Board"

I have been collecting lots (I mean lots!) of those baby wipes lids every time a package was finished... I had the hope that some one of a kind use would come to those other than tossing them in the trash.... And I did (sort of I think!). So, today I am going to share this aha! moment with you. I hope it is detailed enough, otherwise just email me or feel free to come up with your questions at the comments section.

OK.... enough blah... Set, Ready, Create!

This tutorial is for an "Interactive Chalkboard Peek-a-boo Board"

Materials needed:

•  Mod Podge
• Sponge brush
• Stretched Art Canvas (mine measured 16" x 20" as it was an old canvas that got a hole on it and I was looking to give it some extended life).
• Fabric (I used 22" x 26" of cotton fabric from my stash and it was enough to cover the canvas and provided 3" on each side to stretch it to the back of the canvas)
• Sandpaper (3 sheets no. 600 grit -- for metal as I was told by my Dear H...again I used this as it was what I got on hand. You may try with any real thin sandpaper sheet you find)
• Baby Wipes Lids (Mine are from Costco Kirkland Brand baby wipes. I used 18 for this project)
• Craft Foamy (I just collected what I got on my foam sheets stash making sure they coordinate with selected fabric and that it was enough to cover the back of each of the 18 baby wipes lids).
• Spray Glue

How To:

1. Gather your materials. 



2. Stretch the fabric (iron if needed) and place canvas back side facing up. Make sure to left a clearance on each side (in my case 3" all around).



3. Since my fabric choice has vertical lines design I taped the fabric in place and turned the canvas around to make sure the fabric lines look straight parallel to the canvas side edges.

4. Alright....Spread some Mod Podge in the canvas and place the fabric on it...then turn it around and finish the back with more Mod Podge trying to smooth the corners as much as possible.This is how mine turned out.

5. This is the front of the canvas already "Mod Podged".

 6. Now gather the sandpaper and a baby wipe package lid. I cut a piece of sandpaper big enough to cover the baby lid top. Once I make sure it covered well all the top of the lid I used it as a pattern to cut 17 more rectangles for the remaining lids. Notice I decided to cut round edges to keep with the look of the lids.

7. Then spray glue on the lids covers and cover with the previously cut sandpaper rectangles. Let these dry while we work on the next steps.

 8. Bring in the craft foamy sheets and a spare baby wipe lid. (told you... I still got plenty of these!). I placed the lid in top of the foamy and cut around the perimeter with the exacto knife to make a back cover for the lid. (White rectangles of photo below).

 9. Place the foamy at the bottom of the lid, open the lid and draw a diamond shape as figure below (my diamond lines extend about 1/2" to the center of the lid.

10. Cut the diamond shape out with the exacto knife. Repeat this 17 more times. (Note: I used random foamy colors matching the fabric, if you want a specific pattern for these make sure to count the right amount for each color to be cut).

11. Once all foamy rectangle backings are cut arrange on the canvas and locate evenly spread. Notice I left a header on top of the board. It is about 4" height to place a board header (shown in following steps).  



12. Once location has been confirmed hot glue foamy rectangles in place.

13. Next cut a rectangle of foamy for the header back of 3"x8", a rectangle of sandpaper of 3"x8", and another rectangle of foamy of 3"x8". On one of the foamy rectangle cut out an inner rectangle opening of 2"x7" (See picture below has  a green foamy frame that is the cut out rectangle allowing a clearance of 1/2" all around).

14. Sandwich all these three parts (sorry no photo of this step). Simply place the backing rectangle and spread some hot glue on it. Place the Sandpaper rectangle on top of the backing rectangle with glue. Then place the frame or top rectangle with the inner opening on top with some more hot glue ( got it?!).

15. Now hot glue all the baby wipes lids on top of the foamy rectangles placed in the canvas.

  

 16. It is good to ask you quality control representative to inspect all parts before completing the last couple of steps.

17. Glue the header on top of the canvas.... Voila!!!! We are done!

Now get some chalk and start writing on this new and unique board.

For the first use I just placed some hand draw counting figures (each row with a different symbol and arrangement) to start exposing Lil Soi to low quantities.



And then just let the kids play with it a while... This will certainly provide good amounts of entertainment and fun learning.

I just have a long list of uses for this board. To insert pictures and place the first letter of the name on top (good to practice ABC's)... To insert simple math equations and the kids to write the result on the lid... To write some sentences parts and the kids to identify if they are nouns, verbs, etc... and much more.

What do you say?!  Did you liked it?  What else can it be used for?