Mother's Day Flower Pots

I have always loved the idea of painted flower pots for a Mother's Day gift, but I get sad thinking about the girls doing a project without me... So last year Ben, Cora, and I painted together and now our new Mother's Day tradition is to have a family flower pot painting session. I buy $1 terra cotta pots (like these from Home Depot or Lowes), lay out the drop cloth, put on some music, and we all get to work. It is fun to see what everyone decides to paint and I can't wait to have a huge collection of painted pots.

This year was extra exciting for me because it was Ida's first time painting. Cora started painting around 18 months, so I knew Ida should start painting soon. Ida ended up loving the project and doing such a good job. She only tried to eat the paint once and was surprisingly clean overall. She observed the rest of us as we would pick up our pot or move it around and followed along so well... Ida is basically a prodigy.

Ben started out with a simple plain white and brownish pot, then added this creepy character. The face creeps me out a bit, but it's growing on me and now I kind of like the weirdness of it.  

Cora picked a rainbow pallete and got straight to work. She painted stripes of rainbow around the sides and then took some inspiration from Ben and added a person. Cora told me it was "a zombie with it's leg ripped off"... thank you Cora, so lovely!

We repotted some mini roses that I already have and we'll find something new for Ben's pot. I love looking at these when I stand at my kitchen sink and I love the little memories from our family painting session.

 A couple days later, the girls worked on their Mother's Day pot for my mom.

What is your favorite Mother's day DIY?

Baby Quilts

My sister and college roommate are both expecting (my sister just had her babe), so I wanted to make something special for them.  I don't have a lot of money and love making things, so getting a handmade gift from me is pretty much a given.  I was inspired by a quilt that Rad&Happy made (sidenote: if you aren't following her on IG, then you need to... I pretty much love everything she's done and sums up the anxiousness of gifting quilts in this post perfectly).  I made a couple size changes and added lots more color and pattern.

I stuck with blues for my college roommate's quilt.  I loved the monochromatic look and she said they were keeping their nursery more neutral and blue colors.  I went with the green thread mostly because I couldn't find my blue thread and already had the green on my machine, but I like the small hint of another color that isn't very obvious.

For my sister's quilt, I went with the green border to go with her nursery... I was worried it might be too neon green, but it ended up being the perfect match.  I added the blue tabs mostly to fix a binding mistake I made, but I love the color blocking and it adds a little something else to the quilt... so a happy accident :).  I also used black crosshatched fabric on the back of this one instead of the gray I used on the other one.  No real rhyme or reason, I just bought enough of each for one quilt because I loved them both and couldn't decide on just one.

I started these around the end of March and worked in small increments (usually my Thursday nights when Cora is at her grandparents) finishing just in time for their showers in early June.  These are only my third and fourth quilts I've made (see my first here), but I loved working on these knowing they would be wrapped around babies that I love.  Now I just need to work on a quilt for my own baby.