Charlie's NEW Room!!

We have a 3-Bedroom home. One might think "that's plenty of room for a baby and a guest room!" Ha! Well maybe for another couple, but Ryan and I both have offices, him being a Graphic Designer and me being a seamstress. We thought we would have to add on to our house to get Charlie his own room. But all we had to do was....that's right! GET CRAFTY! It was an absolute must for Charlie (and us) to sleep better.

What we did was: Combine our offices into the master bedroom (that is very large) which freed up his office down, becoming Charlie's room. Then my sewing room (office) turned into our bedroom. Musical rooms! 

(I am sorry I don't have the before photo I know how fun those are!)

Here is his room turn-by-turn

From the door

His super fun play table (courtesy of The Krannawitters!)

His very own closet

His NEW Mirror!

His jammies laid out

Thanks for checking out Charlie's new room!

Mirror mirror on the wall...

So I have this neighbor who owns an junk antique shop and much of it ends up on her lawn. Well, I have had my eye on this mirror for months. It has this great 70's/Moroccan cut out. Before I even knew we were giving Charlie a room I knew it was a find. So when creating his room I thought this mirror would be perfect! I went to her shop to ask about getting the mirror out of her yard and to pay for it ($10). I had already purchased the spray paint (krylon dual in ivory) the week prior.

I cleaned it off, inside and out. Man was it filthy!!! 

Taped it with newspaper, but the hoarder lady said something about using petroleum jelly and not having to tape...I was not feeling overly adventurous and was kind of in a hurry to get out of there so I didn't hear all of the instructions (snob alert: her store is like her front yard).

Sprayed it. I took the advice of YHL: If I was a sprayin' my arm was a swayin'.

Removed the tape, cleaned the glass with my trusty rusty razor blade to get off the lipstick smooches of Veronica 760-4265.

To hang the mirror it didn't have any hooks on the back so I used a drill bit to create pilot holes into the frame. Since it is going to hang above the changing table it had to be secured properly. Voilà!

Fast & Easy Creamy Enchiladas

Most every Sunday night we eat dinner at my parents house and my mom always sends me home with something (thanks mom ;-). So this week it was sautéed tri-colored bell peppers. Delish. I called her yesterday (3 times actually) to see what she was doing with her peppers and she said she was making enchiladas for dinner. Whatever she makes are always two things: low in calories and absolutely delicious! She gets recipes from all over and changes them to be lower in calories and to use what she has on hand. So when she said she was making enchiladas I was thinking to myself how they seem so time consuming. On the contrary! These were super fast and easy. The only difference was that she had already prepared chicken frozen in pieces and I had raw chicken.
So here it is:
Inside mixture
-1.3 lbs chicken (I used tenders bc they cook faster) rubbed with s & p, cumin and chili powder blend
-medium onion sliced
-1/2 pkg cream cheese
-sautéed peppers from my mom ;-)

Enchilada sauce
-1 or 2 cans green enchilada sauce
-I small container of fat free sour cream

1 package medium sized tortillas
1 cup shredded cheese (optional)
Sliced jalapeño (optional)

In a large skillet heat oil. Throw in onions and cook for a few, then add chicken. Let brown a bit...if it gets dry just splash it with the beer you're drinking ;-) Once the chicken is pretty much cooked (99%, but dont worry bc the chicken will cook completely in the oven, but yoi dont want it to dry out) take it put piece by piece, shred, and toss back in. Throw in peppers and cream cheese until is a creamy delicious mixture. Fill tortillas and roll up into a 13x9 dish. Mix up enchilada sauce and sour cream and pour over enchiladas. Add shredded cheese if you like and bake at 400 degrees covered for 20 mins and uncovered 10 mins. Let cool because these bad boys are gonna be H-O-T!

* If you want more enchilada flavor add another can and you can hold back a little in the sour cream. All up to you!

My mom is my domestic mentor and best friend. There's nothing she can't cook! I keep telling her she should have a blog too, healthy recipes, exercises and such. I'll let you know if she does! FYI: she is an exercise instructor and has been for 30+ years.

Hope you enjoy this recipe! I know I did :-)

Thank goodness for Forever (stamps)

So while swapping the rooms in our house (full story on that coming soon!) I found a bag of unsent, but stamped christmas cards from our first year of marriage.

So lucky for me they were forever stamps! JACKPOT! There's like $10 worth of stamps there. Tonight when doing my bills I realized I was out of stamps :-( but wait! I DO have stamps, I said. I just have to peel them off with a razor like a psychopath.

The blade is even rusty too! Fantastic.

And I use my ghetto broken two sided tape (which I also found in the shuffle) to tape the stamps on.

Hopefully they won't fall off ;-) 

You can call me cheap, but I say...When Broke...Get Crafty!!!

Dreaded Sleep Training = Great Results!

People often ask me "Does Charlie ever cry?!" because he is such a happy baby with a calm disposition. My response is generally "not really :-) " but I was keeping a secret...
Around 9 months Charlie's sleeping habits flew off the handle and he was waking every few hours. By 10 months it was about every 2 hours. This night waking was really starting put me out. Ryan could do nothing for Charlie. All he wanted was the boob. Is that so bad? Well it was because this was a game little Charlie was playing on us. Something had to be done. We had to sleep train him. We tried the check and console method and that didn't work. He knew I would give in and nurse him, but then he wouldn't go back to sleep. This wasn't working, so I enlisted the help of Dr. Marc Weissbluth of Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child. A difficult read I must say. All I wanted to know was HOW TO GET MY BABY TO SLEEP! I bought this book on my Kindle and gave up reading it page by page and used the search tab to find Charlie's age and came upon the Extinction method.

This is a no nonsense, cut throat method of sleep training. You basically have to ignore your child :-( It's awful, but "they" say it works wonders and everyone benefits especially baby. If you don't train your baby to get a full nights rest they can have issues all their lives. Blah, blah, blah...a bit dramatic, but lets not take any chances. We needed to know he is not crying because he's hurt, it is merely a way for him to gain our attention, and in doing so it can become a game to baby (which it did).
Here's what happened...


Night 1: * Note - Charlie's crib is in our room.
6:30 - Bedtime routine
7:15 - In bed and cried until 7:30
11:45 - Woke up crying until 12:10 when he fell asleep...or so I thought. I was stiff as a board in my bed letting him cry, pulling for him thinking "there are like 3 pacifiers in there baby" and "you can do it!" When he stopped crying I got up to check on him and cover him with the blanket and he popped up! Ah! I didn't know what to do. So I panicked and layed flat on the ground, but he saw me. I just got up tried briefly to give him a paci and bolted out of there. Ugh. This sucks. Is this right? All I can think is would baby Jesus accept this method of parenting (it's midnight folks and I'm sleep deprived)?
12:30 - still crying. I'm such a jerk. 12:40...still crying...still a jerk. 12:50...still crying and now I am think how badly I want to hold him and make it all better. 1:00 sound asleep and still alive. Oh wait! 1:45 - he's up again and there is NO way I can let him go any more so call me selfish I pick that sweet baby up and nurse him back to sleep. I may have failed at the extinction method, but not as a mom. It felt so good to hold him and he hugged me right back.
4:45 - Up again, but I didn't move and he squeaked for about 2 minutes then went back down.
6:00 - I nursed him and put him down (he could genuinely be hungry), but of course that didn't work. He was wide awake. I let him snooze in bed for a bit, which for him is rolling around trying to get to Ryan. Checked my clock, 6:45 already, well that's a reasonable hour to be up.

Night 2: * Note - We kicked that kid out! We moved his crib into my office upstairs.
Charlie slept from 8:00pm until 4:45am!!! I heard him cry at 4:45 so I went in, then he stopped, but the cat was trapped in the room with him so I had to open the door. He popped up quietly. I knew he'd be hungry so I nursed him and he went right back to sleep. He didn't wake up until 8:00am. So was it  it was the extinction method that worked? Was it was because he was in a room if his own? Or was it was because Charlie ate the most food ever in one sitting of short ribs with noodles and green beans followed by a cherry cheesecake oatmeal dessert at my folks? All three I think :-)
* Another note - Charlie fell asleep in the car on the way home, so no bedtime routine.

Night 3: * Note - Charlie moved yet another time downstairs into his own room (we switched around all of the rooms...post on that soon!)
6:30 - Bedtime routine.
7:00 - Out like a light. No fussing, fighting, or popping up.
5:00am - Woke up and I nursed him. He slept until 8:00!!

Night 4:
8:00 - Bedtime routine.
6:00 am - I went and nursed and back to sleep he went!

I think I can safely say we are out of the woods. Thank God. Now I will have to sleep train myself back to sleeping through the night ;-)

Book Review: So the Extinction Method worked for us and many others. It may be the hardest night you'll ever have, but the reward is so great and so needed. Something else we learned from the book is that babies are often overtired causing their sleep to be shorter and night wakings to occur. There is a magical time he speaks of where the will be no fussing when put down and that time will probably change from night to night depending on the naps they took. And if they to go to bed earlier they can sleep longer. Well he was right about that, he was right about all of it. Getting my child to sleep was worth the $12, but hopefully this will help and you won't have to. Good luck!

Another use for a dog brush

Do you have an old chewed on dog brush you're thinking of getting rid of? Do you have a carpeted sewing room that is constantly filled with threads that clog up your vacuum? Well give this a quick read and you just might find the solution to your problems!

Old chewed on dog brush

My sewing room is my sanctuary, but it is always covered in threads from a speedy project. Yes I could take the time to throw every single thread away, but I don't. I have found brushing my carpet is like my own personal Zen garden. 

Sewing room BEFORE being "brushed"...

Brush after brushing

Sewing room AFTER being "brushed"!

As you can see this works quite well! I am a huge fan of Real Simple Magazine's more uses than one article each month and I try to find more purposes in anything I can. SO when I found this method I felt sewers (with carpeted rooms) everywhere needed to know. Its nice because the brush collects not only the threads that get rolled up in your vacuum but you catch pins and needles as well. Silly me, but I usually sew in bare feet and this method helps me sew in complete confidence. Brushing your carpet is quite suitable for company/customers, but I often times like to give my room the old one two...so vacuuming after brushing is the best for a perfectly clean sewing room!

New Year New Blog!

(Me)

By profession I am a seamstress, crafter, and believer in an open 

mind when it comes to customers and their special projects. 

Stitchouse, my company was started when my husband Ryan

and I decided to have a baby. It was very important for me 

to stay home with the baby and with the price of child care

being so high I would be working just to pay for it. Living in 

Lawrence Kansas with a Fashion Degree I had to get creative. 

Being a stay work from home mom has been great, but with 

Ryan in school and working a super cool, yet extremely low

paying job times have been tough. I have never found myself 

so broke in my entire life, but I have never felt so rich in love 

and happiness either. My new phrase is Broke, but nor poor.

So being the broke early thirties woman, wife, and mother I have

learned to get crafty.  We are on food stamps (which kick ass BTW)

and have learned to make certain sacrifices, but in no way would

I say I feel deprived of anything. I have a loving family, a beautiful

home, cuddly pets, fun friends and a fabulous customer base.

Money in the bank is the only thing I could possibly need. 

It's okay to struggle because it gives you perspective on what you 

truly need. Growing up with most everything I wanted this has been

an adjustment, but I am really learning the value of a dollar and

how to stretch it. 

This blog is about crafts, food, lessons, and all the other stuff 

I enjoy and maybe you do too. 

Let's get started...

Here's a little home project I did for baby Charlie with the help

(as usual) from my dad.

Yes, you may have seen something like this on Pinterest, 

that is in fact were I nicked the idea. They are the most 

coveted Bekvam shelves from Ikea that are only $3.50/pc. 

What I have done here though is applied them to a board 

three long and applied the entire piece to the wall. This 

was a sure fire way to A) get the shelves perfectly aligned

and B) to ensure they were screwed into studs for maximum

sturdiness! Not super tricky and I feel it gets the shelves

away from their spice rack looking (because they are) origin. 

I painted them a neutral salmon color because it matched 

the Charlie window frame picture gallery. 

On that note of sturdiness I have recently heard a sad story 

involving a 3 year old girl getting killed by her very own 

dresser falling on her. I took that as a sign to get large wobbly

objects like dressers and out TV stand bolted to the wall. 

We have just recently gotten a new flat screen TV (I know

I'm suppose to be broke right?! NFM no interest for 36 mo)

which sets upon an old yet quite lovely TV stand my dad

made back in the day. Because it is on carpet the whole thing 

proved to be a bit unstable if some sweet unsuspecting child

comes a walkin' and a rockin' and pulls the whole thing  down.

So I noted the small drill whole in the TV's plastic stand and 

screwed it to the wooden stand and then used L brackets and 

drilled it to the wall where the studs were of course. After 

getting a new drill for Christmas I was quite pleased to have a 

project to do! 

PRODUCT REVIEW:

Bosch PS20-2A 12V Max Cordless Lithion-Ion Pocket Driver

$60

I used this drill at the picturing framing shop I worked at and 

it is by far THE best drill I have ever known (and I have known

a few). It is compact, but man does this thing have power! And

it has a back up battery and charger. So you are never without

power. It is heavy duty, yet small. It is like Secret deodorant

"strong enough for a man...but...for a woman" 

Well folks that is all for now, but I'll keep it coming!

With this new year fresh as a daisy there's all sorts 

of promise here and with you. I will try my best to keep

you interested and coming back for more!

Ta Ta for now!