A Handcrafted Father's Day Family Tree Mural

Check. this. out. Is this not the coolest wall art that you've ever seen? It's a Bed, Bath, and Beyond hack. As soon as I saw it, I thought to myself, "I can make that too!" What a great father's day present!

Jig saw and sander? Check.
Lots of random frames? Check.
Scrap wood? Check. (I used luan plywood ... it's a really thin plywood used in flooring. We had some leftover from our laundry room remodel)
Black spray paint? Check! (I ran out of spray paint mid-project, another can set me back one dollar)

The only other things I had to purchase were double sided tape (the thick, heavy duty kind, sold near the Command Strips but way cheaper) so that I could attach the leaves and trunk to the wall, and the letters to spell the word "family." I found a nice silver font at Michaels, and with my 40% off coupon, it came to just over three bucks :)

I'm not sure I like how the upper right hand corner turned out. I might add another frame. We'll see. The more I look at it, the more I'm okay with it the way it is.

Unfortunately, we ran out of ink, and so my final photos didn't get printed out yet. I wanted to get this blog post up for Father's Day, so oh well!

Update: I opted to add the seventh frame after all.

Halloween in June

My son loves Elmo. (shocker, right?) Since my parents got Joel an Elmo costume for Christmas, I decided that being Elmo for Halloween this year would be a good choice! The other day, at two different garage sales, I found him an Elmo treat bucket (50c) and some Elmo tickle-me gloves ($2) to go along with his costume. He's all set!

For baby Jonas, who will likely be less than a month old when Halloween rolls around, I decided that dressing him in a Cookie Monster costume would go cute with Elmo. Several years ago, I thrifted a McCalls pattern for baby clothes and hats. I never did use any of the patterns on Joel, so I figured I better get some use out of it, because there's no way I'm going through pregnancy again in case this is the last time I have a baby!



I made the sleep sack out of some fabric, vintage bias tape, and a vintage zipper from my stash. (I love me some vintage, thrifted notions!) Unfortunately, when I went to make a matching hat, I discovered that the hat pattern was missing. (Darn those used patterns). Never fear! Using Prudent Baby's awesome pattern, I was able to make a matching baby bonnet. Since I was not using fleece, I needed to finish the edges, so I added more bias tape. I also left off the ruffle on the front, since Jonas is a manly man-child. The only thing left to do is find some thrifted ping pong balls and add some googly eyes to the top of the bonnet.



I decided to add a felt cookie to the front of the sleep sack. I figured attaching it with velcro so that it could be removable would be the best bet. I'm pretty sure felt shouldn't go through the washing machine. The world doesn't need another felt cookie tutorial (plus I didn't take any photos of the process), so let's just suffice it to say that I used some thrifted fusible web to make the chocolate chips and some batting sandwiched between some tan felt from my stash. I probably should have used a blanket stitch around the outsides, but instead I used a straight stitch on my machine because that was a lot quicker. You can still tell it's a cookie, so I'm okay with that :)

A cute little boy in a thrifted tie

Or as most people would call last Friday, my brother's wedding!


We had the wedding at my parents' house. My mom did most of the cooking (I helped make the Ambrosia salad!), and I was in charge of things like wrapping plastic silverware in napkins then tying them with pretty little bows, and putting the tablecloths on the rented tables. Very strenuous. I also had the very important job of photographer :)

I had some time to squeeze in a little thrifting because we arrived to my parents' house a day early, and so we hit up two thrift stores and a neighborhood garage sale. At the neighborhood garage sale, I scored this dresser for $10. The lady had $12 on it, but when I was pulling out the drawers, one of the knobs popped off. She said "I'll take $10 on it." Deal!


I thought my mom was going to kill me because I dragged another piece of furniture home to store in their basement, after she just spent the past several months cleaning out the basement, getting ready for the wedding. My dad thought it was hilarious... my mom, not so much. I'm sure some day she'll look back and realize that baby Jonas needs a dresser, and $10 was just too good a deal to pass up!

I found a few pieces of clothes at the thrift stores, including a still new-with-tags dress for one of the cousins at Christmas for $2.60 and a cute, like-new toddler camouflage raincoat for $2.11. (Goodwill was having a 35% off everything sale, hence the odd prices). At the second thrift store, I found two more kiddo ties and a pair of little Old Navy khakis for baby Jonas, all for a total of about $1.50. I don't know what it is with me and little boy ties, but every time I see one for about 50c, I feel compelled to buy it. Isn't he handsome in his new tie?!

A birthday party!

Back in February, my little boy turned T.W.O. How time flies! My baby has turned into a full-fledged little boy with his own likes and dislikes, mood swings, and sense of humor :) He absolutely loves monkeys, so when it came time to pick a theme for the party, it was a no brainer.

If you google "monkey cake," a million and one cake images come up. I opted to go with the monkey cake from parenting.com. The only bad thing is that all the little things you have to buy in order to make the cake look like a monkey really rack up the price. You need mini chocolate donuts, licorice, brown M&Ms, peppermint patties...

I really like how it turned out!


One cake isn't enough for my husband's ginormous family our large guest list, and so I made some monkey cupcakes to go with it. I used these cupcakesas a jumping off point, however for the life of me, I could not get the vanilla wafers cut in half correctly to make the ears. I eventually gave up, raided the cereal cupboard, and decided that Cinnabon cereal made pretty good ears. They were a little Princess Leia-ish, but they did the trick.


And here's an action shot of my son enjoying said cupcakes:


This one's not the best photo of him, but it does show off the shirt I made for the special occasion. At a thrift store, I found a blue, furry, (still new-in-package!) "2" applique and a solid colored turtleneck to adhere it to. For under $2, Joel had a special birthday outfit :)

Upcycled Baby Gowns

Baby sewing! That's all I've done since about 9 or 10 last night. (I do believe I'm in the nesting phase right now). Following thismamamakestuff's extremely awesome tutorial, I was able to create three baby gowns for baby Jonas for free, just using old t-shirts from around the house. Even the elastic used at the bottom of each of the gowns was thrifted :)

This first one was actually a 50c thrifted tee that I bought awhile ago. I had intended to make Joel a long sleeve shirt to wear in December, but since I never got around to it, I figured I'd turn it into a baby gown.

For two out of the three gowns, I was able to utilize the bottom hem of the shirt for the cuffs of the sleeves. For the Chris Kringle: Designer Chimneywear shirt, however, I had to hem the sleeves. I made it easier on myself by hemming the sleeve before I sewed under the arm. (Once the sleeve is sewn, the cuff is so small that it's difficult to sew. Just a little pointer from me to you!)

The second one was a shirt that's been in my closet since 1996 when my family took a trip out west. It's seen better days, but it did make a pretty cute baby gown.
I got this last t-shirt in junior high. It's by far the rattiest most well loved of the three. And guess what? Ratty t-shirts make ratty baby gowns. Who would have guessed it?!

In about four months, I'll have an actual baby that I can model these gowns on, but in the meantime, these photos will have to do :)

Pregnant! And other updates

I am officially the worst blogger ever. So I haven't posted a single time this entire school year. In fact, it's been so long since I've posted, that I actually FORGOT how to log into blogger! I finally got that figured out and thought I'd give you an update because a lot has changed around here since last August! (Oh, and also let me apologize for the lack of photos in this post. One of these days, I'll get around to photographing the new house, my son's new summer haircut, etc.)

Update: a photo of my son's new summer haircut! Woohoo! (And he's in a thrifted outfit, of course)

We finally got the okay from the seller's bank to close the weekend before school started. We moved in from about 5 PM when we finished with closing until 3 or so in the morning when it wasn't so doggone hot. And then of course there was more moving on Saturday too, and then finally putting things away on Sunday, and then school started the very next day! As a teacher, I would not recommend moving the weekend before school starts. The beginning of a new school year is busy, crazy, hectic, and stressful the way it is... add moving into a new house on top of it, and I just about lost my mind!

With the housing market the way it is, we didn't ever think our old house was ever going to sell. It sat on the market for months with only one or two people ever even looking at it. Then all of the sudden in February, four families went through it in one day, one of them made an offer, and we closed in March, right before we left for vacation in Hilton Head! Woohoo! We were finally able to bring the rest of our furniture to our new house (we had left some of it there for staging), and our new house is finally becoming a home :) We put artwork up on the walls last week, so that makes me happy :)

We also got Joel's big boy bedroom painted last weekend. My baby boy is two years old and is just about ready for his big boy bed! We're going to move him into his new room as soon as school lets out so that we can start painting the "baby room" for his little brother! I probably won't post again for two more weeks until summer vacation, but hopefully then I'll have some time to show you the kids' rooms.

Wait a minute... "baby brother?" you say? I found out at the end of January that I'm pregnant again! About a month ago we found out it's another boy, which is a bit of a bummer because I always thought I'd have one of each, but on the flip side, we had good boy names picked out and never really could decide on a girl's name :)

This little peanut's name is going to be Jonas Alexander. Joel has my husband's initials (JMR), so this one will have my initials (JAR)! We decided to stick with names from our family tree, and of course they have to start with "J." That left us with either Jackson, Jonas, Josiah, or Jeremiah as our top picks. Jason really liked Jackson, and while I love that name too, it's too common right now. As a teacher, I'll probably have a dozen Jacksons in my class in about a decade. I wanted something that is a little less common, but still classic and timeless. One of my 10-great grandfathers on my mom's side was Jonas Potts. He was a Quaker who lived in Philadelphia in the 1600s. I figure a 400 year old name is pretty classic! What's also cool about this name is that if you take my husband's name, Jason, and rearrange the letters, you get Jonas :)

And there's one more reason I love the name Jonas. On my dad's side, in the late 1800s my great-great grandfather, Joseph Martin Bruhen, came from Switzerland all by himself at the age of 16 and settled in Ohio. He never saw his family again, and in fact had siblings born after he left that he never got to meet. (How sad is that?) But in the new world, Joseph prospered. He sent money home to Switzerland, and eventually he got married and had my great-grandmother, Josephine Marguerite Bruhen. Sadly, she was their only child, as their other two babies were either stillborn or died right after birth. Josephine, or "Nan" as we called her, had a daughter name Joan (pronounced JoAnn). My parents then decided to carry on the JO name even though it skipped a generation, and they named me Jodie. I wanted a name that started with the JO sound that hadn't been used in this line already. Jonas is perfect :)

I think there's a cup of coffee calling my name... it's only 6:30 in the morning. Pregnancy insomnia is at it again :)

Are you sick of Baby Thrifting? Me Neither!

I'm trying to keep my mind off of the house. This house is a wreck with boxes stacked everywhere, and we can't get into our new one yet... so how about a post chock full of thrifted baby clothes?!

I love posts where I can combine my two favorite things: photographs of my son and thrifting! Woohoo! Here we go :)

Thrifted Soccer tank top, still new with tags, and 50c khaki shorts.
Notice the pretty bush in the background :)

Thrifted brown Gap Polo with adorable plaid shorts that were a gift.
Notice the cardboard box in the background... packing is good times!

I have become addicted to thrifted baby ties.
The dress pants and dress shirt were thrifted too.

59c pants with a 45c "Beep, Beep!" shirt

A rocket onesie, because my little man is as smart as a rocket scientist!

A very thrifted outfit, right down to the shoes!
I splurged a little on this sweater ($1), and he only got to wear it twice. Bummer!

Another one of my favorites! Same black dress pants, but different thrifted tie and dress shirt.

Thrifted plaid shirt, Gap jean shorts, and Champion shoes all for under $3.
Will someone please tell my husband that those jean shorts are cute and not straight out of the 80s?! He doesn't like the faded look AT ALL.

A little polo and blue shorts

We got a lot of mileage out of these 59c pants and little polka-dotted jacket :)

Well, after LeBron James left, this jersey isn't very fashionable anymore.
We can't wear it in public for fear of getting jumped by angry mobs of ex-fans.

"One MILLION dollars!" (Doesn't he look just like that guy from Austin Powers?!)

Thrifted soccer tee with handmade t-shirt pants.

50c tee with a pair of pants that were a birthday gift.

Isn't this thrifted Gap hat the absolute ca-utest?! Still new with tags!
The blue jacket was thrifted too for 50c.

My baby's first steps!
To do so in a thrifted outfit is just an added bonus!

Celebrating our independence in a thrifted tank top,
while holding thrifted flags!

Another small splurge on this tee. I saw it at the thrift store, and even though it was a whole dollar, I bought it. My husband grew up on the south side, and this tee just spoke to me :)

A cute 45c football sweatshirt, matched with Wrangler jeans for 75c.
What I loved about those jeans was their orange trim!