Spring Things

Don’t you just love this time of year? It has been unbelievably nice and warm here in Omaha lately. We were in the 80’s and 90’s all weekend and in to today.

No complaints from me. I’d much rather have warmth than cold; sun than snow; green than brown.

But I will miss my cute winter boots.

Remember that glass art project I did a couple Friday’s ago? Well we got them back last week and I forgot to show you how AWESOME everyone’s stuff turned out!

Ta da!

Aren’t they all great? Each one is unique and different, yet super cool. Mine is the second from the left on the bottom row.

Here’s the before pic:

And a close-up of the after!

I am super happy with it and I particularly like how the colors sparkle and shine when the light shines through the window. I plan to hang it in one of the windows above our door. I just have to figure out a way to do that…

Speaking of projects…I tackled another one on Sunday.

A co-worker friend had given me a doll cradle a while back that was hers as a baby. It was in great condition, just needed a little TLC in terms of dusting and touch up work.

(By the way, it was impossible to take a picture without Samson photo-bombing it. Apparently the cradle had some tantalizing smells on it that REALLY intrigued him!)

I decided to paint the wood white and re-upholster the bed part. I’ve done it once before so naturally I’m an old pro…

I started by pulling the bottom out and ripping off the old fabric. I found some cute flannel stuff at the fabric store that would work for a couple projects, this being one of them.

I first laid the board on the fabric so I’d know how much to cut.

Then I trimmed a nice rectangle, making sure I had a couple inches of trim around each side.

The next step involved some very intricate fastening measures that should really only be left to people who know what they’re doing.

In other words, I used duct tape.

I folded in each side and taped it down with a long strip.

Then I folded the corners in and secured those.

The back can be ugly since it’ll never be seen.

When all was said and done, the “bed” looked like this.

Then it was time to tackle the painting. I simply drug the cradle outside and sprayed the bejeezus out of it with white spray paint.

The finished project turned out really nice! Isabella is going to love it!

I plan to give it to her on Easter, and use it as a “basket” for all her other goodies.

And I’d be remiss if I didn’t include one final picture of the cradle with Samson in the background.

Somehow I managed to get this whole project done during Isabella’s nap time. Unbelievable.

Finally…you can’t have spring and Easter season without sugar cookies!

Isabella helped me make them yesterday. I got the dough prepared ahead of time and she helped with cutting them out.

At first she didn’t get the concept of using them as actual cutters. She would just set the cookie cutters on top and them pull them off leaving very faint outlines.

Eventually she got the idea though.

Not only did we do bunnies and butterflies and dog bones (for Samson of course), we also had to do Christmas trees and candy canes and gingerbread men.

Naturally.

Once they were baked and cooled, she helped me frost them too. She chose to use yellow and pink frosting.

They all turned out absolutely perfect! And they taste even better because they were made with love!

My last project of the day was to fix her Gingerbread Man doll which she has slept with every night since December. Mind you, “Ginger” was a toy of mine as a kid so he’s not exactly a spring chicken. As such, part of his shirt was coming unstitched and he head was, um, partly falling off.

So morbid.

I used the same fabric that I bought for the cradle to fix Ginger, basically just sewing a new “bib” on him (which also attached his head back to his neck).