Party Spotlight: Dinosaur Birthday Party

Happy Friday! Today I'm sharing with you my nephews super adorable dinosaur birthday party. They just turned 3 last week and my sis-in-law put together this fabulous party. It's just too cute not to share! She made the paper medallions and banner herself. You can view the tutorial for the medallions here.

Here is the fabulous party planner. Isn't she cute? And brave... she held a scorpion. Yikes!

These food signs were created using extra paper straws she bought for the party. You can view the tutorial for these here.

 Even the dinosaurs are celebrating.

The Critter Keeper did a fabulous job of entertaining the kids with a variety of critters.

Since the boys already loved dinosaurs a lot of the decorations were things she borrowed from their room. 

Each child received their very own fossilized dinosaur egg she made using this tutorial.

Claire is graduating from Kindergarten tonight so tomorrow our summer begins! I'll be taking a couple weeks off from blogging but if you would like to keep up in between posts you can follow me on Instagram.

Our Gallery Wall

I've been meaning to take photos of our gallery wall for a while now but I hadn't decided if I was finished with it yet. I've got other projects I'm focusing on currently so I decided it's finished for the time being at least. And really... is anything ever completely finished? 

Here are the first set of photos I took.

But then I switched the chairs around and put the striped one by the fireplace and the white one by the tv. Hmm...which do you like better?

And just for fun here is a look at the photo wall before I made a couple changes to the top right corner.

Most of these frames were taken from other places around the house. I've collected them over the years and knew I wanted to make a gallery wall when I found the time. A lot of the photos were taken by me, some are professional and some were taken by Matt. The top left frame is filled with book pages. I'm not finished with that project yet but also not sure what else I'm gonna do with it so we'll see. The numbers and key are from Hobby Lobby. The S is just a cardboard letter I modge podged with book pages.

So tell me...what do you think? For more gallery wall inspiration and instructions on how to put up your own gallery wall you can view this post. Happy weekend!

Linking up with a few of these parties.

Stuffed Elephant {tutorial}

Happy Monday! Today I'm sharing with you the tutorial for how I made this little stuffed elephant. Isn't it adorable? It's really very easy! I found the pattern at Riley Blake Designs. It was created by Jess at Craftiness is Not Optional. She's so talented! Read on to see how to make your own.

Materials needed:

• Pattern found here
• 1/2 yard fabric for the body
• Coordinating fabric for the ears
• Felt for the eyes
• Thread
• Ribbon for the tail
• Polyfil
• Scissors
• Sewing machine

                                             First, using the pattern I cut out all the pieces.

Take each of the ear pieces and match them up one on top of the other with right sides together and pin in place.

Sew them together at 1/4" seam allowance along the outside edges, leaving the inside curve open for turning.

Trim the seams, turn right side out and iron them flat.

Using a basting stitch (the longest stitch length) sew along the curved inside edges of each ear. Pull one of the threads at the end to gather the fabric. Once you've gathered them sew along the top of the basting stitch with a regular stitch to secure it in place.

Line the ear up with the edge of the elephants neck making sure to leave half an inch at the top for the  back seam. Sew in place. 

Do these next few steps to both sides of the elephants body.

Next, line up the head piece with the edge of the elephants body. With right sides facing, pin and sew in place.

Iron the pieces so they are nice and flat. Sew the felt eyes onto the head piece.

Cut your ribbon tail to the size you want and tie a knot in the end. Mine was about 3". I melted the edge of the ribbon with a lighter to keep it from fraying.

Pin in place and sew it so the tail is facing the inside like this.

I pinned the ears down to keep them out of the way while I sewed the two body pieces together.

Line up each of the body pieces with right sides facing and pin in place. You're going to sew them together along the edges leaving a three inch opening on the top for turning. Clip the seams and turn right side out. Stuff your elephant with polyfil and hand stitch the opening closed.

Voila! Super cute little gift in just a few easy steps!

Don't you just love those floppy ears?

Reupholstering drop in seats

Happy Monday! Can you believe I got a post out on a Monday? Even if it is the afternoon! Today I'm sharing with you how to reupholster a drop in seat. Dining chairs with drop in seats are seriously the  easiest thing to reupholster. I often see them at yard sales and thrift stores for cheap so you could really score a great deal if you just take the time to look. My mother-in-law got these Napoleon style arm chairs for me years ago for $5 a piece. (She's brought me several bargains she's found for me to redo or use in some way! Love her! ) 

Here is what they looked like before their latest makeover. I had recovered the seats once before using a table cloth from Pottery Barn and decided it was time for another change.

To recover a drop in seat you will need:

• Fabric (1 yard will be enough for one, 1.5 yards for two)
• Staple gun
• Staples
• Scissors
• Phillips or flat head screw driver 

First, you will need to unscrew the seat from the chair. Lay it flat on its back and there will be four screws to unscrew, one in each corner.

Next, lay your seat face down on the backside of the fabric. You may want to take off the existing fabric and replace the  padding underneath depending on its condition. Since I had already recovered these once before I left it as is. I only had one yard of this fabric since I was using what I already had on hand so I had to stretch the fabric a little to get it to cover two seats. Next time I would get a yard and a half for two chairs. Cut out what you will need for the seat. Enough to wrap it around and have two or three inches onto the back of the chair for stapling.

Flip it over to make sure the pattern is lined up where you want it on the front.

Smooth it out on the top and then flip it back over and start stapling. I stapled one staple in the center of each side to hold it in place and then put the staples about an inch apart on all sides pulling tight as I went so it was still smooth on the top.

Pull the corners tight so they look like this.

Once everything is nice and secure screw it back into your chair and you're done! So easy right? And it takes such a small about of fabric you can change them up to your hearts content! While the seats were out I painted the chairs with some white paint I had and gave them a quick coat of poly on top to keep them from chipping. The perfect versatile chair for my dining room/work room makeover.

I'm loving the white! I almost painted them gray but since the walls were already grayish I decided not to. Maybe next time I'll venture out and choose a fun color!