on the cheap: fabric pennant banner.

this was a quickie decor idea for my baby girl's all-pink, all-cupcake first birthday party, which co-ordinated perfectly with her pink and brown 'happy birthday' banner. this one worked just right on the mantel of our fireplace in the kitchen.
you will need:

* a couple of fabric squares (i alternated 5 inch and 6 inch squares)
*a 3 yard-ish spool of ribbon
*pinking shears
*sewing machine or hot glue

this can be a completely free project if you have these basic things in your craft stash, but if you don't, it's not too expensive to find a spool of ribbon and a half-yard or so of fabric (or a scrap-bag!).

here are the steps:
(you can click on the pictures to enlarge them!)
and ta-da! hang and enjoy! you can also use bias tape if you want it a little more secure [or just have that on hand]. i think this would be really cute in a mix of reds and greens to hang at christmas if you have a little empty corner that needs something festive, or maybe make one with teeny tiny squares to wrap around the tree!
i also reused it with my crocheted heart garland for valentine's day:
and it's currently adding some girly sweetness between the two windows of my daughter's nursery! here are a couple of great tutorials for other simple pennant-style banners:

diy fabric garland

celebration flags

or you could just buy some sweet little scalloped ones on etsy if you didn't feel like diy-ing!

teeny tiny kitchens.

thanks to an impromptu stop at ikea on the way home from an out-of-town wedding last weekend and her momma's penchant for all things mini, my daughter is now the proud owner of a teeny-tiny pots & pans set, little bitty baking cookies set, and miniscule silverware set. [or at least she will be when christmas comes around.]

now she just needs, um, a kitchen.

unfortunately, the perfectly sweet and gorgeously adorable ikea kitchen had a not-to-adorable price tag to go with it, especially if you add on the tiny microwave.

then i remembered that surely i had seen some crafty creative blogs out there where folks were making amazingly cute and personalized little play kitchens for their kids out of cheap things like leftover bedside tables. and let me tell you, there are some CUTE ones out there! here are three that are insanely inspiring me to run out to goodwill right now and search for a little discarded wooden something that could become a lovely little play kitchen for my girl:

play kitchen from a nightstand by my little gems

play kitchen renovation by domestic simplicity

[make sure you check out the before picture!]

and a very manly little future-chef gender neutral play kitchen by homemade by jill

[inspired by vintage songbird!]

and even if you had absolutely zero intention of ever making a play kitchen out of anything when you started out reading this post, if you check out the flickr group for play kitchens i pretty much promise you're going to want to by the time you're done. man i love flickr for that!

[seriously, this one? could that be my real kitchen please?]

now that i think about it, i must admit that my current bedside table would be pretty perfect for this particular project, and would be pretty special since it used to be my mom's until we redid it together when i was in high school.
but i'm not quite ready to give it up as a bedside table just yet.

and if i'm going to make her a kitchen, i'm going to want to make her an apron and matching cake. of course.