Criss Cross Applesauce: DIY Fancy Tee

First of all. Don't freak out. Don't run away. You're still in the realm of the llama. Yes, we're doing a fashion DIY today.

I originally saw this on a facebook video. (I think one other DIY was thanks to facebook as well!) It was just a minute long video, so I had to watch and rewatch about 50 times before I felt comfortable enough to even try this for the blog! (Emily, #fortheblog). I lucked out last Friday and my step sister wanted to help out, so we totally practiced on one of her shirts before I attempted one of mine. Full disclosure: I did two of my shirts.

What You'll Need:

• A Shirt you won't hate that you totally ruin if you mess up (hey, all honesty, it could happen!) But it also needs to be a shirt you would want to wear more often than not! I suggest a plain, but cute Tee. 
• Sharp scissors
• Needle 
• Thread (preferably to match your shirt, but hey, get adventurous. Why not?)

What To Do:

• Fold your shirt in half in the back ONLY. We're not cutting through the whole shirt here, y'all. Just fold the shirt in half in the BACK. 
• Cut into the back of the shirt. Your incisions will need to be at least half an inch but up to two inches into the shirt. The smaller your cuts, the smaller the width of the "box" on your back will be. 

• The closer the cuts, the smaller the bars you will have across your back. So the distance between your cuts depends on how you want yours to look. I made mine pretty close together. 
• Start About where your shoulder blades would be on the shirt and cut down as far as you will like. (If you don't want to sew much, don't go too far down!) 
• Unfold the shirt. 
• Intertwine your fingers (using both hands) and GENTLY stretch out your cuts to thin out the "bars"

Now here's the tricky part:

1. Take the top "bar" (I don't know what else to call it!) Overlap it with the one immediate next to it. Grab the next "bar". 
2. Sew these together in the middle. Just enough thread to where they don't pull apart. 
3. Do this until you're done! 

Basically, the bar you grab will always overlap the one next to it. You're sewing every other bar together to get the criss cross appearance.

Once you get to the bottom, that's it. You're done! Now you have a really fancy looking tee, that in stores could have cost big bucks!

I want to hear from you! Would you try this shirt? Do you love this look? Tell me in the comments!

Hero In a Half Shell: DIY Turtle Costume

Welcome to the last week of school for my precious five year old. This week, his teachers have basically decided to completely forgo all educational planning and essentially make this week a party everyday for the kids. Which I absolutely love. As a kid in school, what was better than counting down to summer? Why not countdown to summer with a fun different activity each day? Today is Super Hero Day!

Zander wasn't really sure what he wanted to be for a super hero. He's totally in LOVE with every super hero lately, so this was a hard pick for him. Finally he settled on Raphael. AKA the Red Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. He already had a mask. Technically we have two masks which turns into all 4 ninja turtle masks. They're reversible, so one mask has two colors. Boom. Awesome. We're partly there for the costume! What about the rest? Enter my rare creative DIY Mom side of my brain. Thus the need to share this with y'all. You're welcome.

Y'all. I'm not gonna lie. I'm super proud of how this turned out. You see, I refused to buy anything for this super hero day thing at school. Refused. I immediately started googling how I could make this costume for Zander.... and I immediately got discouraged. Most of what is online required things I didn't have around the house. (Like spray paint)... So I really had to get creative.

How I made Zander's costume!

Turtle Shell
What I used:

1. Cardboard box insert
2. Markers
3. Ribbon
4. Stapler 

What I did:

• The insert was a rectangle. I drew the oval shaped turtle shell in the middle of the box. 
• Using markers, I drew the shell pattern and colored it in. No, it's not perfect, but who cares? It's for a 5 year old. 
• After coloring, I bent the edges of the box so it would form a shell-like shape. 
• Holding where I folded, I stapeled it in place
• Using Christmas curling ribbon, I strung it through the folds & formed a "back-pack" like method to where Zander could wear the shell on his back. 

Turtle Belly.
Y'all! Huge props to Amanda for this. When I was posting all over instagram the progress of the shell, she suggested how I could do the belly. I took that idea and ran with it!

What I used:

1. Old white T-shirt (too small for Zander so he won't miss it)
2. Markers
3. Scissors
4. Needle & Black Thread
5. Pins

Because Amanda is a Genius and really helped me out. I had to share via Snapchat!

What I did:

• With I pencil, I sketched the outline of a turtle shell belly on an old white t-shirt. (I used the help of a google search image to see what several looked like.) I combined the look of two different pictures into one. 
• Using a black marker, I went over the sketch once I was happy with the design. 
• Now color away to how you want your shell to look! 
• Once I was happy with the look, I cut out the outline of the shell. Here, I cut out both the FRONT and BACK of the t-shirt. The idea here, was I didn't want it to fray, so I was planning to sew a little. 
• Because I wanted to sew, I left some of the white on the edge. 
• Here, I sewed by hand with a running stitch along the black outline. Once I was happy with it and satisfied there'd be no fraying, I cut the remaining white. 

To finish the look:
// I took Zander's green ninja turtles shirt and pinned the belly over the logo. This way, he looked green and didn't have to ruin his favorite turtle shirt!
// We put the "back-pack" shell on, and finished the look with the mask and khaki shorts!

What I love is that this can easily translate to a Halloween costume with long sleeves and pants. Plus, super easy! Literally, y'all I didn't even make my markers go dry coloring everything. I was pretty impressed by that.
Do you make your own costumes? I feel like this would've been easier if I had a sewing machine, but lucky for me my running stitch has improved while doing this! What do y'all think?

Llama Hair: Braided Headband Tutorial!

First of all, don't let the title scare y'all away today. You're still in the right place. You're still in the realm of the Llama. I just happen to be doing a hair tutorial today. I know, I'm just as shocked as you are!

Earlier this week, I shared on Instagram a fun easy braided headband. I originally saw this as a hair tutorial on facebook. You know, the ones where someone shared it and it plays a little as you scroll over it. So I thought I'd give it a try. Y'all... this is so super easy. Seriously, if I can do it, you can do it. And I can't even French Braid. So there's that.

I actually bit the bullet and filmed this for your viewing pleasure. Or not. Take your pick. If you're having trouble viewing it on the blog, head over to YouTube.

as always, props to YouTube for the best thumbnail, ever! 

See? So super simple! I'm not even sorry for all of the alliteration. Ha. I also realize the sound on my webcam is a bit wonky lately, so because I love y'all I'll break it down a little more for you.

Easy Braided Headband:

• With clean, brushed hair - on either side of your head, just above your ears, separate enough strands of hair to make two braids. 
• Keeping the hair for your braids away from the rest of your hair, pull back the rest of your hair into a semi high pony tail. Making sure the hair on the top of your head is relatively tight and secure. 
• Now braid! Braid the hair on each side of your hair until you can't braid anymore. Secure with small hair ties. 
• Taking a finished braid, cross it over to the opposite side of your head, starting to create the illusion of a headband. Secure with bobby pins. *I require a LOT. 
• Repeat with the final braid. 
• Now take down your pony tail and ruffle your hair to how you like it when you're wearing headbands. 

Ta-Da!! 

Totally simple, totally cute, and it absolutely keeps hair out of your face! Never waste money on headbands that hurt the back of your head again! Unless of course, your hair is too short. In that case, I'm sorry but I still love you.

If you try this, please let me know what you think! Also, in the comments below, tell me what you think at first glance! Happy Friday! I hope y'all enjoy your weekend!
xoxo! 

Candle Napkin DIY

Hey, y'all. If you're fans of Anne from Love the Here and Now (um, and if you're not... you totally should be because she's just amazing) then you probably remember this post from when I had taken over her blog for a day. It's getting closer and closer to the holidays (yay Thanksgiving and Christmas, and food oh my!) So I wanted to bring this post back in case any of my amazing readers will be hosting a holiday meal at their place!

For as long as I can remember, my Grandmother on my dad's side of the family has always made these napkin candles for all of our family functions. She taught me how to fold these when I was about 11 years old, and I've always remembered how to do it. (Good thing because now if I get to her house early for a family dinner she has me folding the napkins!) Today, I'm going to teach you! Who knows, it could be your fun new family tradition to pass along to your children and grand-children!

What you'll need
+ square, cloth napkin *
       *Grandma always uses cloth napkins and the real silver, so I have no clue if paper napkins work for this
+ these instructions.
[disclaimer: I don't own cloth napkins, but I do own bandannas so that's what we used for this!]

Start with your cloth napkin completely open, as flat as possible. 

Fold in half into a triangle. 

The bottom edge of the triangle then gets folded upwards about 1 inch.
**As you can see from my picture, the "about" is key; it doesn't have to be exact.**

Fold the outer-most part of the top corner down about 1 inch as well

Flip the whole thing over to where your folds are on the bottom

Begin rolling everything as seen below
Once you get to the end, leave a tiny corner
Stand everything up vertically
Tuck the tiny corner into the lip of the bottom of the "candle"

And there you have it, a napkin candle! You can make the "wick" look more like a candle depending on how far you fold the first top corner. Twist and play with the "wick" however you like.

I'd love to know if you try this! Let me know how your friends and / or family like it!

DIY Bed Rail

OK, I have to start by saying I CANNOT take credit for this DIY post! 

Back story: This past weekend we converted Ainsley's crib into a toddler bed. I didn't know if she was ready or not, but we did it because Zander's was converted at 18 months. We figured if she didn't do well, we could put the crib side back on until she was ready.

The way Ainsley's crib is set up is it is a convertible crib, but there was no side rail to keep her from falling off. I knew she needed one, but I didn't want to pay for one. This is where pinterest came in handy. I found tons of posts about DIY bed rails for toddlers. I figured, why not try it! It's cheap, and simple, and worth a shot.

What you'll need:

+ Toddler bed w/ mattress (this could work for older kids too that still fall out of bed!)

+ Fitted Sheet

+ Thick pool noodle 

+ knife or scissors 

• Start by measuring the noodle to the mattress. ** We had to cut down the noodle to fit where we wanted it on Ainsley's bed. 
• Lift fitted sheet on the side of the bed that you want the "rail" to go. 
• Place noodle under the sheet. 
• Simple as that. 

The Finished Product!!

As you can see, it looks just like a regular bed.
I read some reviews of people trying this and it didn't work because their kids kicked the noodle out of place, but after Ainsley using it this past weekend for naps and bedtime, she didn't kick it loose and she didn't fall out. So Camacho Family Verdict: YES to DIY Bed rail! Highly recommended.

Ainsley Likes it too: