I learned to make Japanese water balloons!

A few weeks ago, Ashley put up a series of lovely blog posts what engendered great feelings of whimsy in me. One of the things she mentioned was sending a birthday package to a friend (I would venture to guess it went to mutual friend currently featured in Ashley's blog) that had a bag, with instructions, full of folded origami balloons. I decided I must learn this for myself! And then put these little balloons in an emergency party kit a long with some other goodies (mentioned below) - you can, too! With these step by step photos, I did my darnedest to depict how pictorial instructions for you (mouse over the image for step instructions):

At the same time as discovering Ashley's balloons, Hollin visited and photographed the 6th Annual Puces Pop DIY Craft & Fair where equal amounts of celebratory decor dotted the church's basement and merchandising displays of crafters' booths. A particularly lovely and simple decoration Hollin captured were the pom-poms strung up above the entrance:

Apparently, though, you can purchase something similar for $65 from anthropologie (while these pom-poms are felted, they do NOT make this project worth that hunk of change in my humble opinion):

I finally got myself to Michael's where I was able to purchase a HUGE bag of brightly colored pom-poms for $5 and string them together myself with some magenta embroidery floss - it was very therapeutic:

(Yes. Our hallway is pink.)

I Made-Up a Picture Hanging Technique! (and filmed some pretty adorable footage of Petra)

Petra is almost 3 months old. The collection of pictures meant to hang on her wall is almost 5 months old... I've been procrastinating putting them up because 1) I'm not very good at arranging things, and 2) I'm very good at procrastinating.

Matt's recent appendectomy made him a perfect candidate (as the resident-artist-with-more-than-a-few-spare-moments) to help me get the images on the wall. When I laid them out, I kept finding myself naturally putting them into a grid, which ruined the effect I was going for: I wanted the images to look crowded on the wall giving the room a fuller feel. I was also trying to pay homage to my dad's similar nautical theme the den he had in the house I grew up in - the crowded, global nicknacks leant to an air of travel that I wanted.

1) I measured the area on the wall I wanted to fill.

2) Then I laid out that area on the floor and arranged the pictures in it over and over until I got a configuration that pleased me.

Matt laid out an initial pattern for the images that gave each pictures an inch or two of breathing room. The arrangement looked nice, but again, I wanted to have a crowded feeling. After some rearranging and the addition of a few blank frames, we came up with this - "french gallery" he called it - layout; there is a diagonal sweep and the sizes are deliberately varied in their positions.

3) Next I flipped all the frames over exactly where they were laying.

4) I laid tissued paper over the frames and marked where the hanging holes were.

5) Then, I taped the tissue paper to the wall* and proceeded to place the nails, in the marked places.

6) After getting all the nails in place, I hung the pictures up to make sure the translation from floor wall worked.

(*I ended up moving two of the images around after the tissue paper draft on the wall. Even after putting the nails in the new configuration, I left an image off until after I put up all the pictures of the wall paper. Then, I redrew in darker marker where I thought the new placement of the picture should go, approved, and added the nail. Glad I double checked before adding unnecessary holes!)

7) Finally I removed the images, tore down the tissue paper - leaving the nails behind -and hung up all the images.

Viola!

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Who says you need to buy toys for baby?!

Petra had a grand time playing with the tissue paper, kicking and crumbling it awkwardly in her new grip; it was the first time I saw her stimulate herself without a cooing parent over her!