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A Toddler Pillow to Make EVERYONE Happy

Today is part two in my mini-craftinista* series and it starts with a little story…

Have you heard of sleep regression? Apparently it’s a wonderful time in a child’s life where after months of going right to sleep and sleeping through the night, suddenly they don’t like to sleep anymore.

For Jack, this happened a few weeks ago – after sleeping like a champ we had to coax him into bed with a tiring combination of reading, rocking, milk in a sippie cup, snuggling with mommy, snugging with daddy and some more rocking. He even ended up in bed with us for a couple nights, only to be kicked out when he kept KICKING ME in the back all night long. I mean, I’ll take that crap from an 8 pound rescue dog… but NOT a 30 pound little man!

It was exhausting.

Which is funny because JACK was exhausted and just would NOT go to sleep.

So in a fit of brilliance (or just overtired madness) I told Jack that I had a SPECIAL pillow only for Big Boys to use. This SPECIAL pillow would go into his crib, but ONLY if he was a Big Boy who would lay down on it and go to sleep.

Can you believe that this worked?

Suddenly Jack stopped fighting sleep and would go right into his crib to lie on his special Big Boy pillow.

I’m a genius. A parenting genius.

Send your checks today to get your very own SPECIAL Big Boy pillow. Also available in Big Girl…

Just kidding. The secret is that I grabbed the closest pillow I could find, which was an old accent pillow that I had made for our couch ages ago. After living on the couch for a while, it somehow ended up in Jack’s room on his rocking chair. It was so well-worn that it’s quite flat… which makes it perfect for Jack since he can’t smother himself on it.

After Jack slept on it contently for a couple weeks, I figured I should make a pillow case for it so that I can keep it clean. So I grabbed an old pillowcase that we’ve probably used for 10 years or so and made it fit:

Check this out… it’s a magical pillow. Which is actually just a pillow I made a bunch of years ago from an old pillow case from Crate & Barrel.

First, I stuck the throw pillow in our old pillowcase and pinned around it with straight pins. I pulled it in and out a couple times to make sure that it wasn’t too snug.

I then removed the throw from the case and stitched around all three sides, removing the pins as I went so that I wouldn’t stab myself and yell out bad words.

Once I finished sewing, I cut off the extra fabric. You can use normal scissors or be all fancy like me with my pinking shears. Is it weird that I have no idea how pinking shears came to live in my house?

The finished magical SPECIAL Big Boy pillow. Mr. Bunny Rabbit approves.

Super cute, right?! And basically free.

And the best part is that I can sleep again!

* If TJ Maxx can call someone a Maxxinista… I can certainly call myself a craftinista!

Toddler Painting: $6 Worth of Materials for $60 Worth of FUN

I think this is going to be another crafty week, because darn if I haven’t been feeling like a crafting QUEEN lately.

As most of you know, I was home for 16 days STRAIGHT for a sweet combo of work being closed (yay for working at a university) and a couple vacation days. SIXTEEN DAYS in a ROW. That’s kind of a lot.

And no, I’m not complaining because I loved having time off to hang out with Jack and Ollie. And yoga pants. And Christmas cookies. But mostly Jack and Ollie.

Keeping Jack entertained for that much time really forced me to be a little crafty, which is why I decided to do two different painting projects while I was home. The first project was from this month’s Citrus Lane box – it was supposed to be a handprint project, but turned more into abstract art. And I totally love it and hung it on my ‘Jack projects’ wall!

Our second painting project was inspired by some wooden snowflakes on clearance at JoAnn’s.

The snowflakes were on clearance for 50% off, which brought them to just $ .70 each. I also picked up a cheap paint pots kit for $1.50 and used some paintbrushes I already had at home. Then, I covered Jack’s little table with some kraft paper and stripped him down for some painting fun.

And it was SO MUCH FUN! I can’t believe how long Jack concentrated on painting the snowflakes… and believe me, doing anything for more than 15 minutes with a kid this age is impressive! When he was finished, I just threw the paper away and stuck Jack directly into a bath (the paint washed off easily).

Once the snowflakes dried, I stuck some thread through the holes and hung them up in my kitchen window. I also wrote the date on the back of one of the snowflakes so that 10 years down the road I remember when we made them.

I really like my happy little snowflakes because they’re not “Christmassy” but more “wintery” so I can keep them up for the next couple months. This is especially nice since we took all our Christmas decorations down over the weekend and I’m totally going through withdrawal.

Do you have a super cheap and fun craft project for toddlers that I should try? Feel free to leave me a link below! Also, are you suffering from Christmas decorations withdrawal too? I kind of wanted to leave my tree up for another month…

My Christmas Ornament Obsession

I LOVE Christmas. It really is the most glorious time of the year (except for that perfect Fall day with a bonfire and changing leaves… or any day where I’m splayed out on a beach with a frosty drink in my hand).

Like many of you, our little family went Christmas tree shopping over the weekend.

I love this picture, it’s like Jack is mid-strut…

Then – like most of you – we brought our tree in the house, shoved it in a tree stand and unwrapped the plastic wrap so that the limbs could breathe again. My husband and Jack were then shooed towards the living room while I brought up the Christmas ornaments and lights.

This is where it gets a bit…dorky.

I’ve been collecting Wizard of Oz ornaments from Hallmark for over 20 years.

That’s right, this tree looks like any other tree from far away…

But when you get a little closer, you see it.

Almost 25 ornaments of different scenes and characters from the Wizard of Oz.

It started quite innocently many years ago. As part of our Christmas gift, my paternal grandparents would allow each of the grandchildren to pick out an ornament from the Hallmark catalog. This usually would happen during the summer, way before sugarplums were twerking anywhere near our heads. Then, on Christmas Day we would receive our ornament along with our bounty of gifts.

For a few years, I just picked out random stuff. I was a kid, so it was mostly dancing ballerinas and cute little Christmas mice. Then in 1996, I chose a little Emerald City music box-like hanging ornament. It was awesome and when you plugged it in to a light socket, the little characters would spin on the yellow brick road and “We’re Off to See the Wizard” would play.

I was hooked.

From then on, I’d choose a Wizard of Oz ornament every year. When I received the Miss Gulch ornament in 1997, I remember my grandmother playing with the wheels on the bike… and saying how nice it was. Every year brought a shiny new ornament for our family tree and when I moved out into my own house, I took my collection with me.

The year that I moved into my first townhouse was also the year that my grandmother passed away. However, she left my grandfather pages and pages of written instructions which included directions on collecting the Christmas ornament orders from the grandchildren.

For the next few years, I continued to pick out my Wizard of Oz ornaments and eventually decorated my own tree with JUST the collection and some simple balls to fill out the extra space. I remember the first Christmas that Travis and I were together. He wandered over to the Christmas tree, looked around a bit and then turned slowly and said, “wow…this tree is very…girlie.”

We would laugh hysterically every time I turned on the tree and all the music box voices would yell out at and sing at the same time. The noise would startle Potter from his perpetually relaxed position on the couch. Every single time.

Last year my grandpa had some health issues and decided to skip the ornaments. I found out on Christmas Day when I looked around for that familiar Hallmark box. It felt like a piece of my Christmas was gone. Like my grandmother had finally moved on and left us.

I couldn’t let my collection end though and was lucky to score the 2012 ornament off ebay after the holidays. This year, I checked in and found out that my grandfather is finished with giving the grandchildren their ornaments. It’s really the end…after more than twenty years. And it makes me incredibly sad that Jack will never be a part of this tradition. Perhaps we will start a new tradition.

But for now, I made my own trip to the Hallmark store to purchase the latest ornament for my collection. Because it makes me happy and I can imagine my grandmother smiling from above at the pretty green in the lion’s cape.

Maybe someday Jack will be the one buying me my yearly ornament. Maybe he will roll his eyes at his silly mom with the Wizard of Oz tree. Or maybe he too will smile every time the tree lights go on and “The GREAT and POWERFUL OZ” screams out of an ornament while another sings about the wonders that must exist on the other side of the rainbow.

Do you have a collection that you treasure? How did it start and do you feel guilty of you miss a chance to add to it?