ABC Playroom Wall Art

I was so inspired by Penelope loving learning her ABC's that I wanted to do something to keep that fire going.

I had a ton of fun making Penelope's ABC art for her newly redesigned playroom.  It was a little time consuming, and a tad logistically difficult, since the painted ones needed 2 to 4 coats of paint.  So I would have to paint a coat right at the beginning of nap time and then put everything away until bed time and had to repeat the process over several days, till everything was done.

I bought all these letters at Michael's.  I spent about $35 on everything. They have several different shapes and fonts, but it is not the same as my original inspiration where all the letters were larger and more different from each other.  But for the price, I am really happy with the way it came out.  I also like that it is smaller, so that with Rainbow Canvas Art, it is not too much for one wall.

When I was at Micheal's, I set up the letters on the floor, right in the middle of the isle.  I am a very visual learner and I needed to see exactly what it would like, with the different letters next to each other.  Somehow, I managed to forget the M and X.  Oh, I know how, her name is Penelope and she was having a princess sticker meltdown and I needed to get the hell out of the store before I bought her anything else to keep her quiet.

I used tape to mark off the lines of the Z, but I didn't measure.  If ya'll remember, I do things the Good Enough Stephanie Way.

I loved the button letters.  Penelope really likes them too.  She keeps asking to pull them off.

I wrapped the O, in scrap ribbon, did glitter on the T, wrapped the U in yarn (like my wreath) and wrapped the V in fabric from Penelope's 1st Birthday.

I got the inspiration for the letter B here.  I did all my crayons in the same direction, but she did hers going the opposite direction, I like hers better.  More wrapping scrap ribbon for C.  I am sure its obvious, but I used a hot glue gun for any letters that had things attached to it.

I attached them to the wall with velcro.  My original intention was do them lower so that Penelope could easily pull them off the wall and play with them.  But with the shelves, tent, and rainbow art, it needed to be higher up to make it all fit.  She can stand on her art table and reach several on the bottom row and she loves to do that.

She also likes to stand on her carpet and look at it and point to and shout out whichever letter.  I had my Goddaughter Ella, and her sister Ava over to last week.  Ava, who just turned 6, got inspired to make each letter with her body from looking at them.  It was really cute.  This is an X!  This is T! She would shout with excitement,  while her T looked like a drunken person trying to get into the back seat of a two-door car.  But it spurred some natural learning so I was pumped!

Have you done any ABC's in your kids' nursery or playroom?  I also like these from my Playroom Makeover board on Pinterest.   A full ABC's of these would be super cute!

Vote for me!

By Best Kids Health Blog

Playroom Makeover Reveal!

Drum roll please...Penelope's new playroom!

Here are my before photos, in case you missed them.

This project came together fairly quickly.  I made the ABC wall art, the Canvas Rainbow wall art, the bean bag chairs in the tent ( I will show you tutorials for all, in the coming weeks), and painted the hallway wall with chalkboard paint.  My Dad put up the shelves, raised the light fixture, and drilled the drip pan to the wall.  I spent a little over $100 on craft supplies, paint, drip pan and filler for the bean bag chairs.  My parents spent a little over $100 (thank you!) on the rug, the two red chairs and the three white shelves. All from IKEA.

I wanted the room to be very playful (duh) but also inspiring and educational.  If I do end up homeschooling, I imagine this room evolving into our little classroom.   I wanted to brighten it up and make it special for her.  It's kind of odd, but between this room and her swing set outside, I finally feel like this is a family home.

The HABA tent!  Penelope loves this thing.  It is a hand me down, from Penelope's Godmother.

Her kitchen and push toys area.  That's a KidCraft kitchen, I got it for less than $30 at Tuesday Morning, a Pottery Barn stroller and HABA walker wagon.

This table is a used art table from Land of Nod.  It is still a little big for Penelope, but she will grow into it soon. I use this black bin under the table for all her art supplies

Her toy storage area.  I would have liked to repaint these white, but I got burnt out. Maybe I will later.  I got these bookcases while I was in college from Target. They have stayed in good shape, surprisingly.  I got the bins from Bed, Bath and Beyond.

Her bookshelves. I think they are my most favorite part.  It makes the room just feel like a little school room.   I think I may add one more at the bottom.  That's a HABA click clack track, another great toy.

The drip pan!  So much fun.  $9.99 from AutoZone.  My Dad drilled it to the wall, but another reader used heavy duty velcro.

The chalkboard wall.  I am so glad I defied my husband on this one.  I painted it late at night, after Penelope had gone to bed, and the first thing in the morning, Penelope went over to it to draw.  I love being able to write my to-do lists at the top as well. I had to do two coats, but it was such a small area that I was totally done in less than 45 minutes.  This was regular latex paint, but it does not contain lead.

Coppa (Grandpa) installing the shelves, and little Miss, in her princess panties (more on those in another post!).  BIG thank you to my Dad for doing all the manual labor (while hubby was away) in the playroom, not to mention all the other house work he did too!  And BIG thank you to my mom for braving the craziness that is IKEA to get all the finishing touches.

Sooooooo...what do you think?!?  Penelope loves it, her independent play has been taken to the next level, she loves exploring everything and going from activity to activity.  I can't wait to have get together with friends and see lots of kids playing in there at once!

By Best Kids Health Blog

Frozen Ice Toy Project

I have mentioned my friend Stacey, here on the blog before. When we went to California just recently, they are the family we stayed with.  We first met them when they were childless and living in Tallahassee.  Her husband, Adam, is an engineer and surfs. And ya'll know my husband is an engineer and surfs.  So it was love at first site for Peter.  They have been fast friends ever since and me and Stacey are peas in a pod too.  She is uber laid back and calm, a good fit to my craziness.  


Also a good fit for her wild child, Kalen, who just turned 4.  I saw this idea on a blog somewhere, I can't remember now, sorry!  And I thought, oh man, that is exactly the kind of thing Kalen would get a kick out of and sent it to her.


She took pictures and wanted to share with you here!  P.S.  Stacey works for Petunia Pickle Bottom and all the cool PPB stuff I give away on the blog is because of her, so make sure you give her lots of comment love and maybe she will send something new to giveaway soon!!

And with that, take it away, Stacey!


As a mom of a son, I find it more difficult to do projects with him at home.  He just doesn't have the attention span to sit.  If we try to color, he wants to break the crayons. If we paint, he wants to put paint over the entire house.  If we bake, he wants to eat the dough before the flour and water are even mixed....so when I saw this idea, I knew it was just perfect for my son - who loves to destroy things.

First you freeze toys into water at different intervals.  I took a large ziploc storage container that I already had and filled it up 1/3 of the way and placed toys in and let freeze.

I repeated this until the the container was full - it took a full day to freeze, so you need to plan ahead if you want to do this project.

We got Kalen set up with his safety glasses and hammer.  I ran some warm water over the whole container and the ice piece just lifted out nicely.

Then I let him whack away!

Here he has decided to throw some pieces since he doesn't have the patience to try to break it open with the hammer - make sure you warn them about windows if this happens.

Back to the hammer.

 and Ta-Da - all the toys have been recovered! It took Kalen about 10 minutes to get all his toys out.

Thanks for sharing Stacey!  This is a perfect thing to do at home with a crazy preschooler.  I am tempted to try this with Penelope but maybe in a smaller container so she can just throw it in smaller chunks, I am thinking she is not ready for a hammer yet!  This could be a cool home school project too, teaching about the chemical properties of freezing and thawing water.

Barefoot Books GA Review and Giveaway!!

Oh. My. Goodness. Get ready for this, Mama's!!

I had to contain myself when I opened up my little green bag, because I was out in public, but I wanted to squeal with delight, when I saw what goodies were bestowed to Penelope through our newest sponsor, Barefoot Books GA.

This is what Celeste, the owner of Barefoot Books GA, had to say about why she started her business:

"I saw an article in Mothering Magazine about moms who own their own home based businesses and Barefoot Books was represented. I have a background in Montessori education and know the importance of language and art in a child's life. Barefoot Books is the perfect fit for me and my family. My son loves to be read to and to pretend to read. The illustrations are amazing and the content is too! And the key to joining for me, was the fact that there is no pressure to sell or meet quotas. You can literally do as much or as little as you want. I love the complete freedom to run the business in a way that suits my lifestyle. It is such a great community of people too!"

P.S.  Celeste, also happens to be an awesome Doula, you can find her Doula info here.

Check out all these books that one lucky reader will win! And the one in the back comes with a sing along cd!

As I started to browse Barefoot Books website, I immediately resonated with the company. This is the kind of business I like to support! Check out their philosophy here. On top of that, their business strategy is providing opportunity for lots of women to have a flexibility in their career, in order to stay home with their kids, they call it living barefoot. Double points in my book!

This is the cute bag you will receive with all your goodies inside.  You will also get their catalog of all their book titles, even the catalog is goregous.  But, beware, you will want them ALL.

These Yoga Planet cards were what got me the most excited! As you all know, we are big on yoga around here. They are beautifully illustrated and have all sorts of yoga poses, games and relaxation ideas on each card. When I used to teach kids yoga (ages 5 to 12), I would use the Yoga Pretzels card deck and would allow each child to pick a card from the deck and ask them to "teach" their pose to me and the rest of class. The possibilities with games and independent play are endless with a stack of cards like this. If you want to make yoga apart of your family's lifestyle, and you are not a yoga pro yourself, this really is a must have.

Penelope is REALLY into farm animals these days. She loves to do her signs or make noises. Or rather, attempt to make noises, the only noises she has in her repertoire, is a really good elephant and very weird meow noise. Both are very cute. We even took her to a farm this weekend and she got to see all sorts of animals in person. You could just see her brain expanding while we were there! She was putting it all together that the animals in the books are real!

Anyway, so she saw the farm books in the stash, There's a Cow in the Cabbage Patch and The Farmyard Jamboree, and she grabbed it from my hands and sat down with it.

The one above is a board book and the picture doesn't do it justice, the art is actually pictures of hand sewn felt masterpieces! It's amazing!

You can put an order in till Dec 22nd with overnight shipment.  OR if you are local, Celeste has several titles in stock and she can meet up with you to deliver.  If you would like to place a last minute Christmas gift order, you can email Celeste at BarefootBooksGA@gmail.com or give her a call at 229-393-6210.

These are just a few of the titles she has in stock:

I Took the Moon for a Walk
Listen, Listen
African Animals ABC
Barefoot Book of Earth Tales
The Boy Who Grew Flowers


Are you excited yet?!  Well, this is whatcha gotta do to enter this giveaway:

MANDATORY ENTRY
Check out Barefoot Books GA and tell me what other products you love or what you love about their philosophy.

You must be a Mama and Baby LOVE Google Follower to participate.

EXTRA ENTRIES
Must include email address if not listed in profile. Each entry must be a separate comment.

* Become a fan of Barefoot Books GA on Facebook

* Tweet about this giveaway for 1 entry per day! Please include Mama and Baby LOVE in your tweet and leave me the permalink.

* Follow Mama and Baby LOVE on Facebook

* Blog about this Giveaway on your blog and provide post URL.

* Post about this Giveaway on Facebook and tag Mama and Baby LOVE.

Good luck everyone! Giveaway will run until 1.11.11! I will use random generator to pick a winner and will email the winner and announce it here on the blog. The winner will have 48 hours to respond or a new winner will be announced.

DISCLAIMER: I was not paid for this post. I was given the product to review, and I have provided my own honest opinion and ya''ll know me, I call it like I see it. Thank you, Barefoot Books GA for allowing us to review your products and for the awesome giveaway. If you are interested in having me do a review and giveaway for your business or product, or about our adveritsing pricing, send me an email at info at mamaandbabylove dot com.