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My computer is a piece of junk. This isn’t new information of course. Now to sweeten the deal even more, now I can’t upload any of the new pictures I’m taking, and since I’ve committed to blogging at least twice a year now, I’m forced to share boring old pictures (gasp) until we save enough pennies to buy a new computer.

Remember back in September when my kids had their first day of school? Didn’t you know all the cool kids save those pictures until January.

Just doesn’t quite have the same impact 6 months later huh.

Well, how about a fun project to keep you inspired. Remember how I talked about Mrs. King being my favorite teacher of all time. Well I wanted to show you the gift I made her for just being awesome.

I’m not going to lie, it wasn’t easy to put together. But she loved it, and she is worth all the time in the world. The whole thing cost me $1.25. $1 for the frame and .25 cents for the crayons. Not too shabby huh.

bunny tails.

Today I made these adorable little Bunny Tail treats for Lily’s school class. They couldn’t be easier than stuffing 2 jumbo marshmallows in a bag, printing off a bag topper and attaching it on.

Oh, wait, that’s exactly how easy they are to make.

And have you seen these marshmallows? I mean, what teacher wouldn’t like 2 huge sugary marshmallows for each of their students to snack on?

You’re welcome Mrs. King.

PS. I’m not the genius mega mind behind these adorable concoctions. Found the idea HERE! (one of my favorite blogs.)

get the party started.

I’ve started preparations for Grey’s 2nd birthday, which is 2 weeks away, but I will admit, I’m doing it pretty begrudgingly.

Why, you might ask.

Well, because the theme is just so uninspiring to me. Grey loves trucks. Me, not so much. I really wanted to do a monkey party, or a puppy party, or a carnival party, or an airplane party, or an anything but a truck party.

So, I’m dragging my heels, complaining a lot, but keeping in mind that it’s not my party, it’s Grey’s. And if trucks are what he loves, than trucks is what he’ll get.

I ordered his gift online this year, I’m having it shipped, we’ll assemble it beforehand, and put a big fat bow on top. Done. It’s so adorable, but I’m going to make you wait to see what it is. I’m cruel like that.

My color theme is yellow, black, orange and brown. Like the CAT trucks, that sort of idea.

I’ve got plates, napkins and some fun little trucks to decorate the table with. But I really wanted something unique and boyish as the table runner, so I came up with this super original idea, all by myself. ;)

I bought some really, really cheap fabric, like less than $3 a meter/yard. It’s a really heavy suiting fabric, heavier than denim. I cut it to the size I wanted and then simply serged the edges.

Next I took some white carpet binding (that’s what it was labeled as at the store)

and cut it into 4” pieces. Totally get where I’m going with this yet? Well Lily didn’t understand, so I drew on a scrap of paper what I was making. She added the adorable cars.

A ta-da my road table runner.

It’s not all sewn together yet, cause Grey woke up from his nap, and as we all know, free time is over when nap time is over. And by free time I mean my life.

So probably 1/2 hour worth of sewing those little white rectangles, a good press and done. And all for less than $5. Love me a deal.

countdown to halloween.

You didn’t think I would leave you without at least one or two Halloween posts now did you? There’s no way I could resist my favorite holiday of the whole year!! So of course with only one week left until Halloween, I have a whole week full of super cool and creepy ideas to share with you.

I was asked to teach a class on gifts in a jar for our Ward’s Super Saturday. I was kind of disappointed, because I feel like that’s been done a hundred times before. But thanks to the good old internet and some extra creativity this is what I came up with, and I’m pretty sure it was a hit!

Halloween S’mores in a Jar.

These were so easy to make and without having to go camping to enjoy a delicious S’more bar is even better in my books.

You start by layering graham cracker crumbs in the bottom of a 1 quart jar. Line with seasonal Halloween Peeps. (they come in ghosts and pumpkins) Topped up with extra marshmallows, chocolate chips and brown sugar. Yummy! (recipe at bottom)

I topped my jar with some sheer spider web fabric and tied it with some twine.

Add a cute little tag with the directions and you’re done!

(The S’more stamp and bat punch is from Stampin’ Up, call me if you want to order ☺)

The sad news about these is that you can’t get peeps in Canada. (I’m so sorry…) But if you have someone who loves you very much, I’m sure they would be willing to express post you some ASAP! ♥

S’mores in a Jar

· 1 sleeve graham crackers (about 1 1/2 cups crushed crackers)

· 1 package of seasonal peeps brand marshmallow candies

· 1/3 cup white mini marshmallows

· 1/3 cup brown sugar; packed

· 1 cup milk chocolate chips or Halloween m&m candies

Directions

1. Layer ingredients in a wide mouth 1 quart canning jar. Crush graham crackers into crumbs using a rolling pin, layer onto bottom of the jar.

2. Using the seasonal peeps, line the inside of the jar, so peeps are facing out. Fill center of peeps with mini marshmallows.

3. Layer remaining ingredients. Milk chocolate chips, then brown sugar on the top.

4. Instructions to attach to jar; 1. Pour contents of jar into a bowl. Using scissors cut the peeps into small pieces. Return the cut up peeps to the mixture. Mix well. 2. Melt 1/2 cup butter; then add 1 teaspoon vanilla. Pour this over the dry ingredients, mixing well. Place into a greased 8" or 9" square pan, pat it downs gently. Bake at 350 degrees F for 15 minutes. Cool and cut into bars.

silhouettes.

With older homes, comes charming older features, and we have this sweet little window on one of our walls, that I absolutely adore, but the problem is that it sits about 5 feet off the ground. With a ton of un-usable space under it. Well after 3 years of having no ideas what to stick there, I finally found the perfect (well I think…) solution.

I know silhouettes have been very popular recently, and I just love the idea of having them done of my children. And honestly EVERYONE that comes over asks how I did it, and I mean everyone. So just in case you’re curious, here’s my process.

Start by taking a profile picture of your subject. Use a nice clean light colored wall so that you have a lot of contrast between person and wall.

Using a photo editing program, fill in the outline of your subject in black. I made Darren do this part for me, because he has more patience for this fine detail work, but I assure you, it's not hard to do.

The next part is not necessary at all, but because I’m cheap when it comes to my printer ink, I took an erase tool and made the inner black part of my silhouette white, so I wasn’t using as much ink when I printed it.

(I know, it looks funny now…)

Next up. Print your picture. And grab some supplies.

-An exacto knife, a self healing cutting mat, black cardstock, removable adhesive and your printed picture.

Using the removable adhesive apply VERY generously on the back of your picture. I used Dotto, and it literally rubs of when you’re done. I love it!!

(I really darkened this picture, so you could see the adhesive, make sure to get the edges, as you don’t want them lifting off when you’re cutting)

Stick your picture to your black cardstock. (I trimmed around my picture, so I didn’t have so much bulky white to cut away)

Using your exacto knife, cut all the way around your picture. You can be as detailed as you want (i.e. cutting out strands of hair) or really just make it a simple outline.

You’ll be left with your image and your left over cardstock.

Peel off the printed picture, and just rub away the extra adhesive, and because you used black cardstock you can flip your image either way if you want them facing left or right in your frame.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All I did for mine was back each picture on some white cardstock and used some really cheap frames from Wal-Mart ($1.99).

The finished result is so adorable!

You can see a little of the baseboard in this picture, so you can see how high up this darn window is.

That lonely silver hook is patiently waiting to hold the newest little Workman’s silhouette.

And here he is…

Your Welcome. ;)

car seat blanket tutorial.

Awhile back when I was sharing pictures of the new baby’s clothes, I had mentioned that I had a cute tutorial to share with you, that was so easy your cat could do it. Well, I finally got around to getting it done and blogged. Hope you enjoy!

Now, you could do this 2 ways if you wanted. You could pick your own fabric and sew a simple hem around all 4 edges, or you could use a ready made receiving blanket, or even a thicker lined baby blanket like I chose.

You will also need a coordinating piece of fabric, or ribbon for this project. Luckily for me, when I bought the blanket, it was rolled up and tied with the brown/white band pictured above. Perfect!

Take your blanket and fold it in half.

Mine is all creased and wrinkly, which I’m assuming, is because it was rolled up tight when I bought it. But whatever, I’m trying not to let it bother me…

And then fold it in half again. We’re looking for the middle point people.

Pin out about 3 inches from the center of your blanket, on both sides. (Just ignore my clearly not even pins… LOL!)

Okay. Next step. Take your ribbon, or coordinating fabric and cut two even strips about 6 inches long. If your making your own strip using fabric, you will want to sew it into a tube so that you don’t get raggy edges that fray. Don’t worry about finishing the top and bottom, it won’t notice.

For mine, I just clipped the snaps off the bottom and was ready to go.

Using Velcro or snaps if your heart desires, sew your Velcro to the bottom of your fabric strip.

The second piece of Velcro should go on the opposite side of your fabric strip at the bottom. Be very careful.

It should be able to roll around itself like a bracelet and close up.

Simple so far, right? Well, we’re almost done.

Next up, take your strips of fabric and line the top up with your pin marks on your blanket.

Stitch your strip to your blanket, following the Velcro as your guide.

See only the Velcro part is stitched to my blanket.

The best part about mine, is that you can hardly tell from the back where I stitched it on, because the fabric is so plush.

Line up your second strip evenly and do the same thing. (It totally doesn’t look even in this picture, but I swear it was… LOL!)

And that’s it.

Grab your car seat and try it out.

Push the sun hood back and thread the blanket under the handle.

Loop your straps around the handle and there you have it!

An awesome car seat blanket that won’t shift or fly off on a windy day (I’ve had that happen more times than I can count)

Plus this helps keep people away from touching baby or trying to peek while they’re sleeping.

It keeps it cozy and warm in the winter, but still very accessible to lift and make sure baby is okay. From both the front and back.

A couple of things to remember… every car seat handle is different, so before you sew on the straps just make sure they are going to work with your style of handle. I picked a thicker blanket, since my little guy will be in it most of winter. A thinner cotton would work better for a summer baby. Also make sure your blanket/fabric isn't too big, you don’t want it dragging on the ground or getting all caught up in the base of your car seat when you click it into your vehicle.

So, that’s it. Told ya it was easy. Total time for this project, took me about 20 mins start to finish. Now if your cat does happen to make this, I wanna see some pictures. ;)

Totally off topic… I added a search feature to my blog, after a dear sweet friend of mine couldn’t find a particular post. Since it drives me nuts when I can’t find something I’m looking for, I thought I’d help ya out! ♥

nursing cover.

I’m one of those people that are really good at being discrete while I’m nursing my baby. One time I was walking around Costco nursing (Lily I think??) and some lady came up to me, trying to get a peek at the new baby, I told her she was eating right now and the woman was so surprised, she said “I couldn’t even tell you were breastfeeding and you’re walking around while you do it!!??” Well, when you got stuff to do, you just keep on going right.

Anyways, although I’m really good at what I do, Darren really prefers if I cover up, completely. So I made a nursing cover for those times I’m not at home and I think it turned out pretty cute. I started doing step by step instructions, but it was just taking way too long and it’s really not that complicated (I just add crap to make it that much more difficult. LOL)

Start with your fabric choices.

I’m using the pear fabric and accenting with the polka dots.

Cut your fabric 26” x 38”. A yard or meter of fabric is the perfect amount for this project.

and 4 Hours later…

The color scheme kind of reminds me of the circus, LOL, but I think it’s pretty darn cute anyways.

Some details.

The ruffle I added. Really simple to do, if you need any instructions on how to do this, I can post some additional details.

The neck straps are made with the yellow polka dot fabric too. I cut the fabric 3” wide and sewed them up the middle with a 1/4” seam allowance. Ironed flat and cut one 8” long and the other one 25” long. Added a simple D ring to tie them together.

I really wanted to use the brown polka dot somewhere, so I added a cute little fabric flower and used a red button from my Mom’s button tin. (spare buttons from clothes and some she cut off when I was little and saved in a metal tin. I got the button jar as a gift for Christmas this past year and I treasure each and every button in it. ♥)

Lastly, the neck has a stiff ridge to it, so when you are nursing the baby you can see down, and so they can get some air flow while eating. I just sewed a tube in the middle, about 14” long and added some corset boning to create an arc in the middle. My straps are sewn at either end of the boning to stop it from sliding out.

I’m sorry that this is probably the worst tutorial I have ever posted. (If you could even call it that) If you have any questions, please, please ask away.

I muddled my way through this by looking at pictures of Bébé Au Lait’s- “hooter hider” version online. The only difference… theirs costs $35, mine cost less than $10. ☺

our super dad.

Have you ever been inspired by one tiny little thing, that has snowballed into a full blown avalanche of ideas? This happens to me all the time. It can be a color scheme, a paper plate, a kids toy or even something as simple as a bottle.

And that is how a bottle of this…

turned into an all out ‘Super Dad’ Father’s Day bash!

I had stopped down the pop isle to grab a case of Jone’s Soda, figuring I would put a cute little label with a picture of Darren on it, to drink for Father’s Day. But when I spotted the case of Dad’s Root Beer, I couldn’t have been more excited.

Thinking I would do a red/blue/yellow color scheme, I quickly realized that Superman’s colors are exactly the same, and the ‘Super Dad’

theme was created. (that’s how my mind works, in case you were wondering how I do it)

Red paper plates, blue napkins and yellow tissue paper, coupled with some funky bowls (which I already owned, and couldn’t have matched better if I planned it)

And my favorite part was the Super Dad banner, which honestly was so simple. (I put together a little mini album if you want some instructions as well as the font I used. LINK)

And there’s our Dad himself, cooking up his own dinner, how cruel of me. LOL! (I don’t bbq, or mop if we’re being honest)

Now, let me tell you. Those steaks he cooked were to DIE for!! Seriously, I actually worked up the courage to ask the butcher at our local grocery store to pick me the best cut of steak they had, and he didn’t lead me astray. I doubt I can ever got back to the cheap steaks we’ve been eating. haha!

We had a short break from eating to digest all that yummy food, and opened some gifts from the kids.

Some new killer shades. ha!

Then onto the cake. Darren requested Chocolate Skor Cake, but with Crispy Crunch bars instead.

Add some red/blue/yellow sprinkles and turn it into a Super Dad cake.

This mess however, was not quite so super.

Hope you had a great day with the men you love!!

diy hair bands.

First of all, a HUGE thank you to all the sweet comments. I’m glad to be back too. I missed my blog, and I missed all of you too! I am overwhelmed at how hard everyone is working to vote for me and get the word out there, so THANK YOU!!

Today I wanted to share some really cute hair bands that I made for my girls a while back. Unfortunately for me, they don’t like wearing them, but I can’t stop making them, as they are SO easy and inexpensive to make.

Hmmmm… maybe a giveaway from this crazy amount of hair bands I’m accumulating is in the near future. ☺

So, the worst thing about hair bands is that they poke into the side of your ears, give you a headache and really can only be worn for a few hours at a time. I really wanted to come up with a way to make them pain free and still adorable.

So gather some supplies.

Next take your flower and turn it over. Usually they will have a little foliage base like this green one. I take it off, because you can’t see it anyways once you’re finished, and it just adds bulk to the hair band.

Next push the petals of the flower down as far as they will go, exposing the little green stem.

You want to cut off as much of the stem as possible so that your flower will lie flat once it’s attached to your hair band.

I like to take a dab of hot glue here to just hold the petals all together, since we just cut off their support system. Try to get it right into the hole where the stem was.

Next, take your elastic (I used thin baby elastic for mine, you can find it at any fabric store or maybe even Wal-Mart) and measure around your child’s head. You want it a little bit stretched, but not so much that it will be tight and hurt. My girls who are 4 and 7 use about 12 inches of elastic. I also can wear them comfortably too.

Next glue one end just slightly off center of the hole in the middle.

(In case just can’t leave the glue to set, because you’re impatient like me, and you touch it before it cools, don’t worry if the back here looks like a mess, as mine does, we’ll fix that right up.)

Take the other end of the elastic, making sure it’s not twisted, and glue it slightly over the top or bottom of the last piece.

Next take your scrap of felt and cut a circle just smaller then the circumference of your flower. (big words, hey!)

Glue it to the back of your flower to keep the elastic secure and your little ones noggin soft and comfy.

And there you have it. An adorable hair band that cost less than .50 to make.

My less than willing subject agreed to let me take a few pictures of some of the different styles of hair bands I’ve made.

Here’s the green one you just saw.

And a double flower hair band.

Then I took a bow and did the same thing, minus the felt backing.

From there I started using some fabric to make these sweet little discs that are becoming very popular.

And that was about all she would do. But you get the idea, the rest are just more of the same.

To make the fabric discs above is SOOOO simple. I can make one in about 2 minutes, start to finish. All you need for this is a strip of fabric. About 1-2 inches wide and anywhere from 24-48 inches long. The bigger the circle disc you want to make the longer your fabric has to be.

I like to tear my fabric so the edges are frayed. Gives it a more rustic look.

Next take trace a circle onto your felt scrap.

And cut it out. You can always make your circle bigger and trim it down if you find it’s getting too big. (and don’t worry about the pen lines, you won’t see them when we are done)

Next take your fabric strip and tie a knot in one end.

Glue the knot onto the center of the felt circle.

Take your fabric and start twisting it until it’s pretty tight.

Then start winding the twisted fabric around the knot. Hot gluing it down every once and a while.

 

Keep going until you used all your fabric, or it’s the right size that you want it to be. When you get to the end, just tuck and glue the end under and you’re done.

I’ve seen these discs glued onto shirts, shoes, made into necklaces. I saw the original idea for these on Etsy, but I can’t find the seller to give credit. :(

Here’s one last picture of some discs that I’ve done. I’m making this into a necklace to match a yellow pair of shoes that I got at Value Village, but I’m not quite finished it yet. But you can really see the winding process in some of these fabrics.

So there you go. Sorry this post got soooo long. A lovely little, tiny reminder to VOTE FOR ME today. You can everyday. I’m sorry, but you do need a facebook account to do it. And thanks again for everyone that has taken the time to do so! ♥

‘creative’ chore charts.

ETA: List of chores as per request. :)

Morning Chores:

• pack your lunch kit and backpack
• get breakfast
• make your bed
• get dressed

Afternoon/Evening Chores":

• help fold laundry
• load dishwasher
• help clean bathroom
• wipe down bathroom
• recycling
• put away your toys
• clean living room
• tidy shoes
• put away backpack, jacket and shoes
• mop kitchen floor
• dust living room
• put away laundry
• do homework
• unload dishwasher
• clean bedroom
• set table
• clear table
• sweep kitchen floor

I tried to add chores that I knew they weren’t old enough to do yet, but needed to learn how to do eventually, like help clean bathroom. Come watch me, learn how to wipe down a sink, toilet etc. and then eventually I can make a new tag that says clean bathroom sucker. ;)

ORIGINAL POST:

For whatever reason, I decided to take some comments made about my blog personally, and to punish the world, I stopped posting. Now really, in the grand scheme of things, people who use words to hurt don’t matter, so I decided to pull up my big girl panties and move on. Plus, I kinda need my blog friends for something really cool.

I need your votes in a contest my friend entered me into. Now don’t you feel loved. ♥

The contest is a search for the Most Creative Mom, and well the prize is a $1000 shopping spree at Michael’s. Which I want, bad.

Okay, so to pay you back for your daily, diligent voting. (which you will do, pretty please) I’ve decided to fill my blog this week with projects galore. If I have to prove to you that I’m the most creative mom alive, then I will die trying.

So here’s the link. VOTE FOR AMY!! You can vote once a day.

Onto the good stuff. So as you know, a year or so ago I introduced the token system on my blog that we started using as our chore/reward system. And it worked, wonderfully, but after awhile, the system just seemed too complicated (for the kids) and took too much of my time (which is precious with 4 kids running around) So I needed to come up with something else that would work for all ages and something I could change and adapt as our kids got older and more responsible.

So I came up with this new chore chart for our kids.

I started by buying 3 frames from Wal-Mart. I chose ones that had a plexi glass insert instead of real glass, just in case they got knocked off the wall or something.

I used the 3M removable adhesive hooks and put six evenly spaced apart onto the plexi glass of the frame.

Next I made the chore chart tags.

Mine are 3x3 inch squares cut out of various patterned scrapbook papers. I printed a list of our chores, cut them into squares and glued them to the front of each tag. I cut a hole in the top and laminated them all. I think I have about 50 tags total. (Some duplicates for each child)

And really that’s all there is to the preparation of the chart.

We’ve broken our down into 2 sets, morning and afternoon chores.

The morning chores are things they have to do before they leave for school. They get the same 4 chores every day (except Saturday and Sunday)

I hang the chores onto the hooks from the punched holes on the cards.

Once they’ve completed the chore for the day they can flip the tag around so that I know they’ve done it and visually they can see what they have left to work on.

When they are in school for the day, I take off the morning chores and replace them with their afternoon ones. The chores are a little different everyday, depending on what I’ve worked on during the day. If I cleaned bathrooms that day, I won’t assign that task, or if there is laundry to be put away etc.

The great thing about it to, is that it’s totally customizable. For Lily, she doesn’t have homework, so it’s a tag she won’t get assigned, but the big kids always get that chore.

I decided to hang them on our kitchen wall, that way I can see what’s been done for the day and it’s easier for me to change the tags daily. Eventually I would like to cut some vinyl names to go above, but just haven’t gotten around to it yet.

These were about as easy and cheap to make as you could imagine. All the paper was from my scrapbooking stash, and the hooks and frames were a minor expense. I’ll tell you how we decided to reward them in a later post, it’s a really fun idea, but eventually we would like to do bank accounts with allowance, spending money, tithing and college savings.

And that’s it. Cool huh.

So a small reminder, to VOTE FOR AMY!! It’s so easy to do, and tomorrow I will reward YOU with another creative idea. So check back soon, and vote, vote, vote!

♥ ♥ ♥