ohbrooke

My Exciting New Venture: GiftCardGirlfriend.com

My sister Shelley and I have just launched a fun new venture for us, revolving around something Shelley feels passionate about: GIFT CARDS! And who doesn’t love getting a gift card? It could be one of our favorite gifts to give, but often times our friends and family feel that by giving a gift card, they’ve lacked thought. Gift Card Girlfriend is a resource for CHEAP and fun, thoughtful ways to give a giftcard and still get the “oohs and aahs”.

Here’s a sneak peak

Cookie dough, bread dough, or Play-Doh attached to your gift card “dough”.

Smarties candy or Smart Water for the graduate.

We “whisk” you a Merry Christmas {Happy Birthday, Happy Anniversary…}

No, we’re not selling you anything

Just giving you fun new ideas on how to give a THOUGHTFUL gift card. We’re calling it “guilt-free gift carding” because it’s more than stopping by the store on the way to the party.

Please, play along

Be a doll and fan us on our brand-spanking-new Facebook page, Follow us on Twitter, and hop by the website and comment on our blog. Shelley has been posting some REALLY good ideas… do me a solid and tell her you popped by. Oh, and subscribe to our blog!

ENTER THE GIVEAWAY

Of course, it’s a gift card. We know you’ll love it. Leave a comment on the Gift Card Girlfriend blog post to enter to win!

Angel Chandelier

This is my West Elm Chandelier that I like to decorate for the holidays. This year, I used my new angel wing tree decorations from Pier 1 tied with Whitney’s Divine Twine {you need to buy this stuff, you can use it for EVERYTHING}.

I decorated with bats for Halloween, and tree branches for Christmas last year.

Tags For PillowsByMom

I’m trying to get off my feet in the evenings a bit more. But I still need a project in my lap. Here I’m making shop tags for Pillows By Mom, whilst my little one encroaches on my surface area.

{I made the tags in Illustrator, attached Whitney’s Green Apple Divine Twine, and clipped them on with assorted colored safety pins from the fabric store.}

Christmas Vignette

I know, I’m sorry, it’s way too early. But in efforts to procrastinate cleaning, I pulled out my blingy Christmas decorations and made room for shiny things.

Black Friday Shopping

Every year I have participated in “Black Friday” shopping. Although I feel my list is small, there are a few things I’ll be needing.

Let’s start with my bent/warped/wobbly baking sheets. How’s a girl supposed to make some good looking cookies if they all slide to the middle? I either embrace it and open up a “Crooked Cookies” shop, or hit Target for some new baking sheets.

I don’t know why I don’t have this. I’ve been wanting it for a year or so, and keep borrowing one even though they aren’t that expensive. BUT, if it’s on sale, I’d like to get a Flip Camera.

SHEETS! We have one set of sheets. Partly out of laziness, partly cheapness. We need another set of sheets.

And here is where I need your help:

Baby stuff. If it’s on sale, I might look into getting ready for our little nameless baby.

1. What stroller do you recommend? What features are the ‘must-haves’?
2. What’s the difference between one bottle and another? How do you choose?
3. Do I need a Diaper Genie?
4. What about gowns? Do you use gowns quite a bit in the beginning?
5. What were your ‘must-have’ products?
6. Do I need a bassinet? How long are they in there anyway? I’ve seen the bassinets that self-rock… do I want that?
7. Humidifier in the baby’s room?
8. Baby Monitor?

Lisa Leonard Necklace Giveaway WINNERS

CONGRATS to:

Emails are on their way! Congrats! {And thanks to all who participated. I think we all got good ideas for Xmas presents for our friends and family!}

WordPress and Blogspot {As I See It}

Blogspot is great if:

1. You are using your blog as a journal; documenting your family, books, cooking, etc.
2. You don’t know much about computers, HTML and design
3. You don’t want to spend any money on your blog
4. You want your blog up and running in 15 minutes
5. You don’t mind if your blog has a generic theme, or you don’t mind paying a few bucks to have someone create a new header/background for you
6. You don’t plan on making your blog a business, it’s more of a hobby
7. You don’t mind the standard sidebar: blogroll, images, and the occasional custom widget

WordPress could be the solution if you agreed to most of the items above, but is even better if:

1. You want to take your blog to the next level, and earn some money from it
2. You want to use your blog as a website, showcasing a portfolio, resume, or products, on separate pages.
3. Or, you want your website to be the main attraction, and the blog as a secondary page
4. You want to create a custom blog or website that is easily editable by YOU {even with little or no HTML knowledge} after the programmer/designer is done {or are happy to choose from thousands of free themes}
5. You know a little about HTML/programming and can make customizations on your own
6. You are interested in a web/blog platform that will help you be seen by Google and other search engines
7. You want your blog to do more for you: track who’s talking about you, schedule your posts ahead of time, organize your links and tags, create photo galleries, etc.
8. You want your images to appear BIG.
9. You want access to nameless resources and plugins for making your website/blog better.
10. You don’t mind spending $40ish a year to host your own site
11. You want ME to create a fabulous website for you! {ok, that was shameless. But worth making the list!}

Create Your Own Wall Stencils

I wanted to do some geometric shapes on the wall in the baby room, so I created a stencil. Start to finish on this project is about 1-2 hours.

Pick your shape

You can trace fabric, freehand, or create your own shape. I used one of Tristan’s Photoshop brushes.

Trace your shape

Trace your shape onto the stencil surface. I used leftover shelf-liner {contact paper}. It has a sheen on it, which means it won’t get soggy or ruined like paper would. You can also use posterboard to create the stencil.

Cut out your stencil

I added thickness to my shape. Remember that if you have a shape like mine, you need to leave pieces of the inner portion attached to the outer portion or you’ll have a hole.

Start stenciling

Tape your stencil on the wall with blue painter’s tape. You may need to use your fingers to hold parts of the stencil down to get a crisp line.

I’m using a mini roller cover I had, because I thought it would work best, but you can use a stencil brush, foam brush or sponge.

Get in the corners

I always think it adds interest for your stencils to round the corners. Just use your free hand to help lay the stencil flat in the corner.

If your stencil gets yucky…

Just wipe it off, let it dry, or make a new one.

Clean Up

You can always fix mistakes. Keep a wet paper towel nearby. If you pull your stencil off and see that the paint has bled, you can easily wipe it off. Once it’s dry, just touch up with the wall paint. You should go back and fill in the gaps that were left by the stencil, but in this case, I like how they look. I’m going to keep ‘em.

Making A Crib Skirt Tutorial

Measure the length for the crib skirt

I have the mattress at the highest setting for a newborn, but you should make the crib skirt to hit about an inch off the ground from the lowest mattress setting. Mine was about 12 or 13″ long.

Cut out your 3 pieces

{front and two sides, no need to do the back}, using the height you just measured and the width of the crib. I added extra fabric so I could do a pleat in the middle.

Cut out your crib skirt panel

This is the piece that tucks under the mattress. I pieced this together from fabric I had, no need to make it look fancy since it will never be seen.

Hem the bottom of the front piece

Making a pleat

Mark the center of the front piece.

Measure equal distance from the left and right and create a pleat by folding the fabric and pressing it with your iron, and pin in place. {I had lots of extra fabric, so I did this twice for a double pleat.} Do this equal, left and right.

Pin the pleat together so it stays in place while you sew.

Attaching the pieces

Cut and hem the ends of the front piece. Hem all panels to the side pieces {no need to hem the top}.

Sew right sides together of all sides and the main piece.

The finished crib skirt

Iron everything to make it crisp, and you’re done!

Fabulous Necklace Giveaway!

As a ‘Thank You’ for your support and funny comments,

as a celebration of being half-way through this pregnancy shenanigan, and

in homage to the great Lisa Leonard Designs…

A Fabulous Necklace Giveaway!

Besides adorable handmade jewelry, Lisa has a fun and endearing blog at lisaleonardonline.com/blog. She has the most adorable family, tutorials and fashion ideas {we all need those!}

To Win the Petite Family Crest Necklace – 2 WINNERS!

1. Head over to LisaLeonardOnline.com, and look at her adorable and inspiring jewelry.

2. Leave a comment with your favorite piece from her shop.

3. Tweet or post about the giveaway {and be sure to mention it in your comment} for an extra entry.

Rules and Reminders

1. Winners must be in U.S. or Canada

2. Contest closes on Thursday November 20th at midnight, winner will be chosen the next day.

3. Don’t forget to Become a Fan of the ohbrooke Facebook Page {I haven’t been too proactive about advertising this}. You could get the scoop on the next giveaways! In fact, I have some Christmas giveaways lined up…

20 Weeks: What I Know Now

1. All my pants shrunk
2. The popular ‘Kids Meal’ will heretofor be called the “Kids/Prego Meal”. I crave cheese, and kids know how to do cheese right: grilled cheese, mac ‘n cheese, quesadillas…
3. 3 of my good friends are pregnant which is more than awesome. I lent my pre-pregnancy pants to one of my friends so she can wear them DURING her pregnancy, which is less than awesome.
4. After watching several episodes of “I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant,” I’m scared to go to the bathroom.
5. Half-way there and I’ve only gained 8 lbs. {I know, don’t burst my bubble, I’m enjoying it while it lasts}.
6. I have a headache at the same time everyday. Hormones, my doctor says. Only Tylenol or Diet Coke can cure it.
7. My little boy doesn’t like it when I sit down. He leaps into all sorts of acrobatics while I’m at my desk at work, watching television, or doing my precious crossword puzzles. I guess he feels that I should be working on his room instead.
8. That same little boy kicked for what felt like 8 hours straight one day. Toward the end of the day I was feeling annoyed by this constant motion, then cried all night for being a horrible mother who is annoyed when her perfectly healthy baby wants to tell me he’s here and is ready for me to sign him up for team sports.
9. If my pre-pregnancy panties were XL, where do I go from here?
10. I still haven’t puked once. {Did I just jinx myself?}
11. I’ve been having wild dreams. My husband tells me how I talk of all things crazy: giftwrapping and giggling, in the middle of the night.
12. I had a dream that the baby kept sticking his little precious arm out of the top of my shirt so I would hold it because he was scared. He had a name in this dream too! *secret*
13. When I bend over, I emit an involuntary grunt {you were scared of where I was going with that, weren’t you}.
14. I understand crawling babies in jeans, but I just don’t get newborns in jeans… what am I missing? Okay, yes, it’s adorable, but can they really be comfortable with that muffin top? {I know I’m not}
15. I’m in the “honeymoon phase” where, for the most part, I feel normal. I had been feeling crampy and achy for about a week, and it didn’t go away until I tried a pair of maternity pants on in the dressing room. I guess if mom weren’t cramming her roly poly-ness into her normal jeans, this could have been avoided.
16. This week, the ultrasound technician said each one of these phrases: “hyper baby”, “exhibitionist”, “playing with his ***”, “wants to keep showing me his ***”, “is that a gun show?” and then finally, the words I longed to hear: “head size on the smaller end of the spectrum”.

Making a Hamper Liner

Remember I bought this cute metal bucket for a hamper in the baby’s room? I made a liner for it…

Project time, start to finish: 20 minutes.

Step 1

Measure the bucket from the bottom to a few inches over the rim. Also measure the circumference of the bottom. Sewed all pieces together {two sides first, then bottom. This is shirting material which has stretch: great for sewing the circle part evenly, and wrapping the fabric over the bucket}.

Step 2

Measure how far you want the liner to overlap.

Step 3

Add trim. {I always sew the trim as I go, then cut the piece to the right length when I’m almost to the end… this eliminates cutting it too short or too long. I also pin as I go. Eek! Classic case of the non-trained seamstress}

Step 4

Connect trim.

Step 5

Iron and stretch onto bucket.

Adapt for your project

Using the same technique, create liners for your organizing baskets, laundry baskets, storage bins, boxes, etc…

Blog Tip: Make Your Own Favicon

You know, that little icon in the URL and tabs?

This only works if you have somewhere to HOST the image. If you have a blogspot blog, and no hosting server at all, you will unfortunately be unable to play.

Make your Favicon

Make an image that is 16px x 16px {I use Photoshop to make all my images, but you could crop a logo or existing image you have to these dimensions}. Save it as “favicon.jpg”. You can get an .ico plugin for Photoshop, but it’s easiest to go to  http://favicon-generator.org/, browse to your favicon.jpg file, and download the generated favicon.ico file.

Upload your Favicon

Drop this “favicon.ico” file in the root directory of your hosting account. It might take a few minutes for your site to read it.

If you have a blogspot blog, and you have this file hosted somewhere else, add this line of code between your <head> tags {be sure to change “path/favicon.ico” to the actual path to the image, in both instances}:

<link rel=”shortcut icon” href=”path/favicon.ico” type=”image/x-icon”>
<link rel=”icon” href=”path/favicon.ico” type=”image/x-icon”>

Pant Alteration Tutorial

Preggo pants. *sigh*

I’d love to have some cute ones but I don’t want to spend the money on pants that I’ll wear for less than a year.

My friend gave me these Junior “Jolt” brand jeans that were comfortable, but made me look like a moose {especially paired with a tent-like top}.

So. I. Fixed. Them. I had nothing to lose.

Here’s the before:

Step 1

Put the pants on inside-out. Sit on the ground and take a pen to mark the inside of the leg you want to trim down. You can do anything… boot leg, straight leg, skinny, etc. It was easier to do this sitting down with legs stretched out, rather than standing up. These jeans had cute button pockets that I didn’t want to mess with, which is why I chose the inseam to trim.

Step 2

SEW! Be sure to reinforce the seam in the crotch {ugly word, I know}. My stitching didn’t go all the way to the end of the pantleg, I left the bell shape at the bottom.

Step 3

Trim the excess fabric and flip right side out.

Here’s the result:

And in honor of the great fashionista Maegan…

image from …love Maegan

Blog Tip: Creating Background Images

You can make a background image out of anything. I like to create mine in Photoshop. The easiest way to make a background is to create a pattern that will repeat. Here’s an easy monogram background that I made (with the help of Tristan’s Photoshop brushes {thank you!}.

Upload the image via your FTP, or in WordPress you can use your Media Uploader, or in Blogspot use your Gadget Picture widget to upload an image. In any case, you’ll want to get the URL where the image was uploaded. {For Blogger, I uploaded via the picture Gadget and saved. Then I reopened the Gadget, right clicked on the image, chose ‘properties’ and copied and pasted the URL of the images. I don’t use Blogger much so tell me if there is an easier way to do this}.

Navigate to your stylesheet.

For WordPress

In the admin section, Appearance/Editor, your file might be called “stylesheet.css” or some other “.css” file. If there are more than one, open them all and you’ll be using the longest one.

For Blogspot

In the admin section, under Layout/Edit HTML, your stylesheet is hardcoded all in one page with the blog. The styles are held at the top of the page between <style> tags.

Navigate to your body class {“body”}

Either replace the background image URL you currently have, or add this {replace my image URL with yours… be sure to keep the apostrophes and parenthesis around it:

body
{
background:url(‘http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_lfC4pjYVJgg/SvNw_ngj-ZI/AAAAAAAADGY/bVToZrolTds/S226/b.jpg’) repeat top center;
}

This makes my background appear like this:

If you don’t have Photoshop to create backgrounds

Get creative. Download something from istockphoto.com, crop something out of an image using Picasa, or use another image editing software.

You are more than welcome to grab my “b” background and cover it with any letter you’d like to use.

Good Luck!