Tree Growth Chart

Growing up, I loved being measured on our refrigerator and seeing how much I had grown. I always wanted a growth chart for our kids, and finally decided to just paint one on our wall in the schoolroom. And yes, my daughter is 11 now, so it's a bit late, but oh well. Better late than never, right?

So here is my Tree Growth Chart:

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I was having a hard time with my lines staying straight though, especially on the birds, and figured that might have something to do with using my kids' craft painting brushes that are pretty cheap and flimsy. I looked into buying better brushes but it turns out artist's brushes are really expensive. Lame. 

So if you ever want to send me a present because you love me, a nice paint brush would be appreciated. (hint, hint, MOM and DAD) :)

my owl looks worried. Probably because he's seeing what my kids are doing when I'm not in the room. 

No-Sew Heart Garland

I had seen cute felt heart garlands on pinterest and wanted to make one for my mantle.  The ones I had seen were made of hearts cut from felt and sewn together in a line, but I had no desire to cut out a bunch of hearts.  I started looking around and found some pre-cut felt hearts, but they were the peel-and-stick variety.  I thought "I can't sew through those! But wait . . . . I could just stick them back to back around a string and then I could even skip the sewing part! Yes!"

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And that's what I did.  I found these packs of Stick-it-Felt Heart Shapes at a local store and bought a few of them. The packs come with two different sizes of hearts in 4 colors.  I used just 3 of the colors (I didn't care for the hot pink).  I took the paper back off of a couple of hearts, laid a thread down the middle of one and put  the other sticky heart on top. I just continued sticking them to the thread until it was as long as I wanted. The felt hearts have a nice weight to them.  I'm happy with how it turned out.  

My garland is about 10 feet long.  It was not so long at first, but I left string on each end when I first hung it up.  When I decided I wanted some hearts hanging from side, I just made a new strand, tied it to the first one about a heart apart, and then stuck a new heart over the knot.  Did that make sense?  My mind is a little fuzzy tonight.  

I'm still working on the rest of the mantle. :)

The kids really enjoyed helping with this project.  It's pretty simple and they can do it on their own (although I had to lower my expectation that the hearts would be lined up perfectly).  They want to make lots more to hang around our house and their rooms.  

Do You Want To Build a Snowman?

This is a fun and easy winter craft that can be used as a decoration and a toy!

"Do you want to build a snowman? C'mon, let's go and play! . . . "  That tune has been stuck in my head since we saw Frozen last month.  Am I the only one here who's kids won't stop singing those songs?

We made these snowmen as a fun winter decoration/toy.

 I bought three square blocks at Michael's, but you could also just cut your own if you're crafty like that. These squares are a bit bigger than 3x3x3in. Sand them (although I actually skipped sanding because I'm lazy). Paint them white and let them dry.  Now find felt, ribbon, buttons, paint, googly eyes, and other assorted crafty things to make your snowmen!

Honestly, I didn't take a lot of time thinking about what to make each side look like. Since it's purpose was to be something the kids could play with a lot, I didn't want to invest too much time and money into it because then I'd just get cranky with them if they were rough with it.  I'm sure all you crafty ladies out there can make some super cute snowmen.  

The only tip I would have in your snowman construction would be to advise you to use some glue on the ends of the ribbon/lace to keep it from fraying.  I also tried using burlap for one scarf with lots of glue to try and freeze it in place.  I mean lots and lots and lots of glue. The buttons I stuck on with glue dots.

After I had made mine, the kids wanted to make their own. I bought smaller blocks and let the kids create their own mini snowmen.

And then they stacked them all, because that's fun.

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a Valentine Craft so easy a child can do it

The other day we pulled out the red pipe cleaners and some pink pony beads.  Voila!  Heart decorations.  We cut the pipe cleaners to make different sizes.

Maren also made Cupid's bow and arrow, and a flower, and
is that a candy cane?  Crazy girl.  

We decided to hang them with thread from our kitchen light.  It turned our boring fixture into a fancy valentine chandelier.

The kids like them a lot.  Especially the one that has curly cues in the middle of it, because they say it looks like a mustache, so they call that heart Mr. Mustache.

Baby Prep

Remember me, the sister-in-law that never posts anything? Well, here I am, determined to start contributing to this amazing blog even if I don't have the killer ideas they put on here. I am pregnant with my second girl right now so all of our time, energy, and money are being put toward the preparation. I was an interior design major in school so I don't know how to do anything around my house without a clear design plan, even with just decorating. I made up an inspiration board and a big, long list of projects to do. With this being the second girl we should be able to save a lot of money but it also means we are already sick of the color pink. In attempt to do something for the nursery not-so-girlie but still save money, we have a lot of DIY projects on our to do list. I thought it might be a fun idea to post my plan and then projects as I go on here. I rarely share projects that I do (I get embarrassed) but maybe this will keep me motivated to keep working on all of them during these last hot few months of my pregnancy!

Here is the inspiration board. Some of it might have to wait until after the baby gets here because I don't want to overload my poor husband who has to do all of the painting and "hard" stuff.


Very non-girlie in color but still cute and fun. (Even after I posted that board I have already seen things I want to add to it. Like more peacock stuff and a mobile over the crib.)

The plan is to paint the walls, sew a crib skirt, make roman shades, paint the changing table, sew a cover for the rocking chair, paint a table lamp, make a toy box, make nesting tables, sew pillows, blankets, and a cover for the bassinet. Wow. Lots. I promise my husband loves to paint, repurpose, and do wood-working. We definitely don't plan on getting this all done before the baby comes in October but we will do what we can.

First project coming soon, the bassinet cover!

Spring Butterflies

My friend Renee had done this craft with her kids and I had to copy her.  It's such an easy, quick craft and the kids loved doing it.  Plus, she gave me some of her extra coffee filters to use, so I had to.

First, the kids colored with markers on the filters. The non-washable markers had more vibrant colors after being sprayed.

Next, the kids sprayed them with water.

Then, we gathered up the middle with a short piece of curling ribbon and curled the ends for the antennae, then gathered up a second one for the bottom wings and attached it to the first with a long string to hang from the ceiling.

Some butterflies I left little, without bottom wings, just because.  The kids think they are a lot of fun and love to see them hanging over our table.

Halloween Decor and Crafts

Well, it's now or never. This is my first post on the amazing Chicken Babies blog. My name is Hayley Neil and I am Erin and Emily's sister in law. I married their goofy little brother John four years ago. We have a two year old little girl named Grace. I am a stay at home mom and I love to design, sew and decorate. It has been exciting to start involving Grace in my creative endeavors. She is still a little young for a lot of things but I try to always give her even a small task to feel involved. I hope it will at least instill within her a love for creating and beautifying.

I have never really decorated for Halloween before but have been wanting to start so that I can make the holidays special for my family. This is the year! Holiday decorations can be expensive and they are only on display for a short time so we decided to make ours this year. I love the eerie, spookiness of Halloween so we went that route.


I scored some great vases, candle sticks, and a ceramic owl at a local thrift store. Then I spray painted everything! The candle sticks were painted a black matte and then sprayed on a really cool spray called Krylon Webbing Spray. It only comes in gold but it pretty much shoots a web of paint onto the surface. It gave the candlesticks a really unique look. Then I sprayed a light coat of black matte over the top once more to just dull down the gold webbing. Complete the look with black and orange taper candles.

The ceramic owl was just painted with a black gloss spray paint.

The vases were sprayed with another really cool Krylon product called Looking Glass Mirror-Like Paint. (I split the cost of all the supplies with a friend.)
You spray this stuff on the inside of any glass surface and it gives it a mirrored look on the outside. Amazing! Then I sprayed a black gloss paint unevenly on the outside so the mirrored would show through but it would look dirty, old, and creepy. The roses are just fabric red roses that I painted with a black matte.

Holidays are not complete without a wreath on the front door so we made our spooky Halloween version. The wreath was just a dry, natural looking brown wreath that I picked up from the thrift store as well. I sprayed it black like everything else and added some black ribbon and black crows from a craft store. It is definitely creepy and I think I read somewhere that a black wreath signifies death in the home. Which is a kind of perfect for Halloween but a bit too scary for kids so I kept that bit of information to myself when Grace and I were making this.

Obviously a two year old is too young to be doing any spray painting so I just let her help me set everything up to paint it and then asked her opinion on each piece as I was going. She was thrilled to be a part of "mommy's project" for Halloween. Then we did a more kid-friendly project. She helped me draw and cut out the shapes for our Halloween garland. We cut everything out of glitter craft foam. We made a pumpkin, skull, bat, witch hat, ghost, and black cat. She loved helping with the cutting and gluing the best.

I hope to keep expanding on our decorations each year and having Grace be more involved. It has definitely made October and the build up to Halloween a lot more fun and memorable.

Cookies on a stick

This isn't really an activity I do with my kids, but it's something they think is really fun to eat, so I thought I would share.  I made these for a baby shower I helped with on saturday.  They are sugar cookies on a bamboo skewer that I used as centerpieces for the food table and then the guests took them home as a favor.  They are not too hard to make and look really cute.

This is the sugar cookie recipe I use:

1/3 cup butter
1/3 cup shortening
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
1 Tbls. milk
2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt

Cream the butter, shortening, sugar, egg, vanilla and milk.  Beat it until it's light and fluffyish.  add dry ingredients.  chill.  roll on floured surface and cut with cookie cutters.  Bake on parchment lined cookie sheet for 8 - 10 min. at 375 degrees.

I usually double or triple the recipe, because I figure if you're going through the trouble of making sugar cookies you might as well make a lot.   For stick cookies, I roll them a little thicker than usual.  You can use fancy cookie sticks which look a bit nicer, or just use the bamboo skewers, which are cheaper and work just as well.  I like them better because they have a sharp point which helps in pushing them into the bottom of the cookie.  Push the skewer in from the bottom of the cookie  to near the top of the cookie, being careful not to come out the top.  I usually twist it back and forth a little to help get it up, and place my other hand on top of the cookie to keep the dough down.

Bake at 375 for 8 to 10 minutes.  You want them to be slightly brown around some of the edges.  Remove from pan to cooling rack and let cool.



Here is the recipe for the Royal Icing I use to frost them:

3 Tbls. meringue powder
4 cups powdered sugar
6 Tbls. warm water

Beat until it forms peaks, about 7 to 10 minutes.  You can cover the bowl with a wet towel to keep the frosting from drying out while you work.

I fill a decorating bag with white frosting and pipe the outline of the cookie, or whatever shape I want on the cookie.  I let that dry.  Then I put some frosting in a bowl and add a teaspoon or so of water along with some food coloring and mix it up.  The frosting will be more flowy, but not too runny or you'll get lots of bubbles.  If you added too much water, just add some more white frosting from the big bowl until you get the right consistency.  I use a knife to spread around the inside color and it will usually be flowy enough that the knife marks eventually disappear.  If the cookie has lots of small spaces, sometimes I fill a decorating bag and use that to pipe in the color.






After the frosting dries, I wrap them in plastic wrap and tie a bow at the bottom.  I usually make them a day ahead so they have time to sit all wrapped up, because then the cookie gets softer, and I think it's yummy when the cookie is soft and the frosting is hard.  The day of the party, I arrange them in a container that has the green florist foam in the bottom and colorful tissue paper, cutting some of the sticks to make them shorter.

Is this the best way to make these cookies?  Probably not.  I'm not a professional and there are probably people with better techniques for cookie making, but this is what works for me.

Simple Halloween Garland

My boys helped me make a halloween garland out of pom-poms this morning.  We used a yarn needle to thread black yarn through black or brown pom-poms to make the legs of the spiders.

So easy, a 5 year old can do it!

Then we threaded orange, white, and black pom-poms with the spiders using a regular needle and invisible thread.  After we had them all on, we spread them out and hung them up, and voila!  instant easy decoration.  Joshua especially thought it was a lot of fun and wanted to make more, but we ran out of pom-poms. (His exact quote was "These spiders are so cool!  I love making this!")

Hey little pumpkins!

Hooray for fall!  I love the seasons here in Kentucky and the beautiful trees and cooler weather.  Hopefully that will get here soon, but until it does, at least I can enjoy the fall decorations inside my house.  I've only put up a few so far, but I thought I would share my favorite, because it just makes me happy every time I look at it.

When Maren was a baby, we found a pumpkin costume at the Gap Outlet for $5.  Since then, each of our children has worn it their first Halloween.  Last year, my mother-in-law gave me a little sign that says "welcome to our patch" and I thought "Hey!  We do have a little pumpkin patch!"  So I put the pictures of the kiddos in frames and put them on top of my tv.  I love it.  They just make me smile.

Now, I'm not suggesting that you put your 8 year old in a pumpkin costume and take a picture for a fall decoration (although that would be rather funny).  I just thought I'd share.  

(Here's Nathan in the pumpkin costume.  Will be framed soon.)