Busy, Busy Fall!

This fall has been busy, busy, busy for the Johnson family! Levi has school Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and works almost everyday (sometimes twice a day), and I just got a job at Chuck-a-Rama--which I have really liked. The worst part is how much we're away from our little guy. Thank goodness for such great grandmas! It relieves a lot of anxiety for me to know he's with people we love and trust (heck, they raised us! We figure they know what they're doing!)

Another fun thing I've been doing lately is CRAFTING. Oh, man, do I love to craft. Unfortunately, like most addicts, something's gotta give...so our house's cleanliness suffers...sorry, Levi :) But boy, do we have some cute stuff on our walls!

I'd never been to Hobby Lobby, but I knew there was one up in Layton, so I decided to go check it out...bad idea for me... It's the most amazing store I've ever been in. I was completely overstimulated and it took me over two hours to go through the whole store (and I mean the WHOLE store...I looked at every, single thing on those gloriously overstocked shelves). So here are the crafts I've been working on!

I bought some letters to put on our wall and wanted to antique them. Here's how I do it:

First, I spray a primer, and then the color I want (this time, it was "Catalina Mist"). 

I then use sand paper to rough up the edges and make it as worn-out as I want.

I then cover it in antiquing glaze.

 Here it is covered. I let it sit for a minute and then...

Wipe it off! I learned the hard way not to let my fingers touch the letter at all while I wiped it off. Since the paint had only dried less than an hour, it was still soft, so there are a few finger prints on some of my letters! Worse still, the stain will soak into those finger prints... Ah well!

Here's a before antiquing and an after.

 I decided to match the clock in mine and Levi's room to the letters.

 Taping it off...(I used a screwdriver to get the paint right up next to the clock)

Paint and antique

There's my little helper!

He didn't like being stuck inside with all the fun going on outside.

Update! Besides "Mama" and "Dada" Walter's first words are (drum roll please....)

"What's that?" 

He says it all the time about EVERYTHING. He'll pick something up, show it to me and say, "what's that?" Half the time, I don't think he quite understands, he just likes the conversation. It's so cute!

Completed clock

 and letters! I'm so happy with how they turned out! I'm going to order a large "&" sign (the only thing Hobby Lobby didn't have) off the internet and paint it yellow!

I had some great coupons to Michael's and a project I saw on pintrest in mind.

I bought three plastic pumpkins, and the letters "Boo"

 Stuck some nails on the bottom so that after I spray painted them, they wouldn't stick to the ground.

  I also bought the letter "J"

 Nails in the bottom

 I sprayed the pumpkins with glitter paint and the "J" blue.

Some fake flowers

 Completed "Boo" pumpkins

Letter "J" wreath

Felt flowers fall time wreath

I found these cute, black mushroom beads at Hobby Lobby and turned them into earrings. A little Halloweenish!

For a long time, I've been wanting to get Walter a dresser. Since he was born, we've been storing his clothes on shelves, and it was always disorganized and messy. So after stalking KSL for a while, I found a tan dresser for only $30! I was so excited. While we were picking it up, though, it dropped and two of the drawers fell apart. Easily fixed with glue, I thought. We took it back to my parents' house, because I wanted to paint it. While my dad was looking at it, he noticed that one of the legs looked weird. When he went to inspect it, the leg FELL OFF! He found out that the dresser was made out of cheap particle board (hence only being $30...sigh). The man works close to 80 hours every week, is building my mom a new patio outside, and has other countless projects to do, and yet when he sees that my new project is destined to be a failure, he stops what he's doing and comes to my aid. So my amazingly busy dad went to work fixing the drawers, and reinforcing all of the legs! It's now stronger than ever. Thanks, Dad! 

I then painted it a cute blue and antiqued it!

I LOVE IT! What's that on top? Cute owls?

Why yes, it is! This is another project made possible by my dad. "Hey Dad, will you help me cut out some wooden owls?" I asked him this while he was cutting stones for the patio.

"What's a wooden owl?" I show him pictures on the interwebs. "Cute!...I take it you want me to do this now...?"

"Oh no, whenever you have time." I then stood there watching him, because I was interested in what he was doing.

"Fine, I'm coming. Between your's, your mom's, and your sisters' projects, I never get anything done!" Hahaha.

 He then cut out and sanded my owls for me. My dad is your typical Renaissance man. He does it all!

Now, I'm not a fan of placid white walls. They make me feel like I'm in an institution. And Walter's room has been so uninviting since we've lived here all because of those blasted white walls. So I decided to paint them.

  Bleck, awful.

 Hideous

 Yuck

 So cute! I painted them a happy, light green color.

For Walter's birthday, our friend, Katelyn Merkley spent HOURS and HOURS working on an amazing "Zelda Quiet Book" for Walter. I had been wanting to make one, so I looked forward to using her's as a template for the barn animals one I had in mind. Let's just say, I have bitten on a WHOLE LOT more than I can chew... I tried using my sewing machine--like Katelyn did--but I'm so unskilled with it, that Francis stole the pig I had made and it's nowhere to be found. He must have thought it so hideous that he ate it or something. So I've been hand stitching it. I feel like my embroidery skills are getting better with each one. So that's exciting! Each animal takes me about 2 hours to do, but I've really enjoyed it!

(They're in the order I've done them)

 Pig

 Cow

 Horse

 Chicken. She's going to be on the same page as 10 eggs that will help with counting

 Sheep (my favorite, so far)

 Cat

 Dog

 Bird

They each have a snap on the back.

Hanging out with cousins! Now that Levi works at Tru Golf, we all do lunch together on the days Levi and Logan work.

 This Fall has been quite a busy one, but we've loved it!