Alayna's Creations

Getting in the mood for

2012-01-26T12:22:00.000-08:00

Valentines! That's right, I'm trying to stick to my goals and get ahead of things and that means getting a jump on Valentines Day. I actually have all the Valentines for the kids' classmates ready to go out - but that's another blog post. Today I wanted to show off the crafty cuteness from yesterday's little get together with a couple of my friends. Actually it was our second attempt for the month. Life being as it is, our first craft day last week was kind of a no-go and our reschedule only worked for half of the ladies that were originally in on the plans. No worries, I'm learning to take whatever life gives me (and use the no shows as excuses to have fun one on one with them later) and roll with it. And we all know that crafty with buddies, be it one or ten, is always a lot of fun. Yesterday was no exception. I really enjoyed myself and the crafts turned out super cute.

I did 2x4 pumpkins for October, and trees for Christmas, so when a friend asked if we could do Valentines crafts this month my first thought was "what can we make with a 2x4?" :) This is what I came up with.

I always regret not taking out the camera before everyone goes home because each one has it's own special look. This time in particular I really loved how the other sets turned out too. Remind me to take photos next time, someone, please!
I like my set so much I'm pretty sure I need to list some on etsy and share the love, doncha think?

And for our second craft, a Valentines themed shadow box. I'm really in love with this concept. Don't be surprised if you see a green version in a couple of months...

Picky Eating Chronicles

2012-01-23T13:09:00.001-08:00

I'm on a quest. A quest to get my kids to eat a wider variety of foods, so they can lead healthier lives, and possibly turn dinner time into something fun again. That's not too much to ask, right?

I have to admit that in the area of picky eating, we were doomed. I'm a picky eater. My husband is a picky eater too, only about different things. Where I won't eat ground meat or anything resembling eggs and would be happy to eat vegetarian more than half the time, he loves hamburger and steak but won't touch squash or strawberries and apples. Yes, I said STRAWBERRIES. He's the only person I know that doesn't like strawberries. Other than my son, of course. So as I said. We were probably doomed to have picky children, both through genetics and the fact that because we know how it feels to be on the other end of it, we don't pull the "eat what is put in front of you or you don't eat at all" card.

We do, however, realize that life could be much easier if the kids are willing to expand their horizons. You know, so we could go out to eat and actually have everyone find something on the menu that they like. So the littlest one doesn't rely quite so heavily on "dinner cereal" (our solution to not being a short order cook - if the kids don't want the meal we have fixed for dinner they eat the one (super healthy) cereal we have designated as the dinner cereal). And because they are both getting old enough that trying to reason with them actually works once in a while.

After much discussion and research we have now set out on our quest. Our first plan of attack is a series of rewards and a sticker chart. We want to go really heavy on the rewards here at the first, while they are really enthusiastic and willing. Later we'll switch techniques. I have a few up my sleeve and I'm sure I can find more as needed. For now, this is the sticker chart, which we have taped to the inside of a cupboard door in the kitchen. The kids add a sticker on the calendar each day that they try something new. We track which foods they have tried and whether they liked the food or not. Any food that doesn't go on the Like column will be tried at another time (see I've done my research and I know that sometimes it takes many exposures to a new item before a child is willing to try it or like it). We make a point of offering them something new to try every night at dinner (sometimes more than one) and sometimes at other points during the day. Sometimes we decide what will be the new item, sometimes they get to choose one.
The rewards are:
-Trying a new food 3 days in a row = they get to pick a dessert
-Trying a 5 new foods (doesn't have to be in a row) = fun activity
-Liking 5 new foods = $
And once both kids have tried 30 new foods each we get to take a family vacation to Great Wolf Lodge (indoor water park - it looks really cool and they'd better earn it soon because what's the point of going to an indoor water park in the summer?!)

And guess what?! It's actually WORKING! Tyler surprised us by jumping on board right away and trying more foods than Kaitlyn in the beginning. His enthusiasm has fizzled a little and she is now ahead of him in the new food count. But despite a little more nudging than I would like to have to use at times, and having a hard time sometimes handling our own disappointment when they won't try something we know they will like, I'm pretty happy with their progress. As of last night Kaitlyn had 16 things on her list (and only 1 or 2 she didn't like) and Tyler was up to 12. That seems pretty good considering we are only 23 days into the month.

I'll update with our progress and new ideas as we go. And if anyone has any additional suggestions of ways to make it fun, foods that I may not have thought of as kid friendly, or anything else along those lines - please share!

Scrappin

2012-01-20T11:28:00.000-08:00

More than a week since my last post? Really? ooops

One day last week I had no urgent items on the To List and no motivation to do any of the million things that will need attention eventually. So I decided to use the 2 hours of kid-free time during preschool to do something I haven't done in a while - scrapbooking! I'm not ready to start rocking and rolling on album pages yet, but I figured I could handle a few cards and tags. And I've been meaning to add to my stash for months now. So I pulled out the paper scraps and got busy. The final result: 4 baby cards, 6 mini-birthday cards, and 8 tags - yay!

I ran across this card quote on pinterest and thought it was fun. So I made a girl version and a boy version.

I still have a bazillion more scraps in the box. Wonder what else I can do with them...

The List 2012

2012-01-09T10:59:00.000-08:00

I have one more piece of "housekeeping" I need to do before I can fully start 2012. Update my Projects List! Do you see it over there on the sidebar with all those things crossed off?! Yep, I did TONS in 2011 (mostly on the house) and I'm so happy with how productive I've been. I want to continue that trend, (though a bit more slowly than before) and finish up a few more projects and rooms in the house this year.

Projects List 2012:
-Master Bedroom
-find new nightstands (brand new or refinish)
-new bedding: sheets, duvet, duvet cover, shams (Euro and King), throw pillows
-console table (new or refinish?)
-wall decor
-frame mirrors in all bathrooms
-wall decor in Craft Room
-shadow boxes for Sam's car collection (sun room)
-Living Room:
-console table
-ottoman
-wall decor
-when nightstands are replaced, move old nightstand into guest room
-something on wall above guest bed
-when we have console table in bedroom, move dresser into playroom for TV and storage (DVDs, Wii games, etc)
-give kids' table/chairs to Megan
-refinish nightstand from playroom (currently used as TV stand) for Ty's room
-Tyler's monogram wall
-new blinds for living room and craft room
-baby items/shadow boxes
-need to make more cards/tags for stash (esp bday and baby)
-Organizing
-sort/purge all toys
-kids arts/crafts supplies
-bookshelf in play room (sort books, display scrapbooks, storage solutions for kids magazines and supplies)
-go through all boxes in storage closets, purge/sort/put away
-figure out better storage solution for seasonal wreaths
-Spring Cleaning (detailed list later)
-Yard
-new gate
-extend planter/flower bed on front side all the way back to the fence
-get grass to fill in in back yard (regular weed treatments, fertilizer, additional seed)
-add a few more bushes/flowers

Word of the Year (2012)

2012-01-08T09:16:00.000-08:00

(image credit)

Well it's a good thing one of my resolutions for this year wasn't keeping up with the blog or getting ahead of things (though maybe it should be) as I would have already blown that one :) I picked my Word for the Year a couple weeks ago but didn't blog about it yet. And you know it isn't real until I blog about it! (and put it out there where everyone can see and hold me accountable).

For those of you that have known me for a while (in person or online), you know that every year I follow Ali Edwards' example and select a word to use as my touchstone for the year. I spend some time thinking about where my life is, what I see happening in the next year, and where I could use the most help in focusing mentally/emotionally. This isn't a goal-setting activity, it's more about guiding my state of mind. As Ali says about her One Little Word:

"You live with it. You invite it into your life. You let it speak to you. You might even follow where it leads. There are so many possibilities." (you can read her entire blog post about it here)

So what did I see for myself in the coming year? I see it as a year of transition. My youngest will be finishing up preschool and moving on to Kindergarten. And as a Stay-At-Home-Mom that is something more than just a sign of a child growing up. It means a major shift in my every-day life. I actually see it as quite freeing, though bittersweet. There are just so many things lately that remind me of how quickly children grow up. But in between now and then is a lot of learning and growing for everyone.

So the word I selected for this year is:

Moments.

Live in the moment. Appreciate the moment. My kids aren't getting younger - remember the moment. Take advantage of the moment. Capture the moment (photos). Quit procrastinating and get stuff done so I can better enjoy the other moments. :)...

Do you do a Word of the Year? Please share. Ran across a great quote that uses the word moment? Please share that too!

Welcome to 2012!

2012-01-02T03:13:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year! I hope you all brought it in with a bang - or happily fast asleep as I usually do :) This year my husband and I actually did stay awake until midnight (barely). And we started the New Year off right by going on a date while my mom watched the kids yesterday afternoon - so nice!

This week life will slowly be getting back to normal. The kids start school today. Sam goes back to work tomorrow. And my mom flies out on Wednesday. That means Thursday I'm gonna be doing my happy dance in my quiet and empty house! :) Not that I don't love having all of them here. But it will be good to get back some time to myself.

As usual, the new year has prompted me to think about where I am in life and the direction I want to take from here. I'm finding myself thinking less about the end result this time around and more about the process.
-I want to continue developing the etsy shop. Put in some time on it on a regular basis as well as start thinking far enough ahead to get new items introduced well before their intended season.

-I want to keep practicing and learning photography. And try to get to the point where I have a bit of confidence in my own abilities and knowledge of the camera.

-I want to continue to settle into the new neighborhood (how long do you keep calling a place new after you move? It's been a year and it still feels very new in a lot of ways), the new house, the new friendships, exploring new places.
-I want to continue to finish off rooms in the new house, though at a much slower pace this year than last year. Next on the list is the master bedroom.
-I want to continue to help my kids learn and grow. Tyler will need some additional attention to get him completely ready for Kindergarten next year, both with the ABC stuff and with some of his speech issues. And Kaitlyn just needs more dedicated one on one time on a regular basis.
-and the one that's at the front of the list for now - developing more healthy eating and exercise habits for myself and my family. Sam and I are going to be doing a big push here at the beginning of the year to try to get our picky eaters to expand their horizons a bit and eventually make our mealtimes easier on all of us. I really need to exercise more regularly so that I sleep better at night (I think Ty might need the same thing). And I really do intend to concentrate on it enough for myself to take off the rest of the "baby weight" to the point that I'm happy with my weight and my fitness level and I can maintain it from there (forever - hopefully).

I'll be doing a few more in-depth posts on some of these in the next few weeks, but for now it's time to start waking up the house and get the kids off to school, then Mom and I are headed out for a girls day of shopping and a movie :)

Happy 2012 Everyone!

Upcycling

2011-12-27T04:38:00.000-08:00

Did everyone enjoy their Christmas weekend? We sure did! It was a very pleasant, relaxing weekend with very happy (and extremely well-behaved - wow!) children who got completely spoiled. Just as it should be.

Now that the big day is behind us I can take a breath and enjoy the feeling of being on top of things, if only for a couple days. With the New Year upon us you know I have a million projects, plans, and ideas swirling in my head. But for now I'll take the opportunity to share one of the projects I didn't get to blog about yet.

When my mom was here in October we were up late one night watching junk on TV and surfing pinterest and blogs. We kept seeing all these really cute girls' clothing items and thinking "oh we could make that!" And then we were off an running. Not wanting to make anything from scratch we decided to go the upcycle route. This is Kaitlyn's new dance outfit. I bought her the Hello Kitty shirt for her birthday along with some sweat pants, but the sweats drown her and are not dance-y enough. So we went on a quest to find some yoga pants. And when I say quest I mean it took us probably 10 stores to find something that we thought would work - crazy. They were either the wrong size, wrong color, didn't fit right, or way more than we wanted to spend on something we intended to change. But eventually we did find a good price on some black leggings with little rhinestones around the bottom. We got some pink striped fabric to pull in the colors of the shirt and sewed then into ruffles around the bottom, being sure to still show off the rhinestones. And we finished the upper edge off with giant rick rack. Kaitlyn loved them, and so did her dance teacher.
(bad photo quality I know, but it's hard to get this kiddo to pose sometimes and I've learned to take what I get)

We also dug through her existing clothes and pulled out quite a few of her older things that still fit her well but were just a tad boring. Kaitlyn is super-skinny so a lot of her clothes fit her for years and these were some she had had a while.

Some more fun fabric and ruffles and viola! She loves it and looks adorable. And she now has a completely coordinated, "new" outfit for school for just a few dollars.

I even whipped up a hairbow with the scraps.

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-24T13:36:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas from my family to yours! We wish you all the best this holiday and into the new year!

(card template via Becky Higgins)

Elf Antics

2011-12-19T02:43:00.000-08:00

Thought I'd share a few photos of our elves this month. They've been quite busy! Trying to break the pinata the day of Tyler's birthday party

yarn & candy cane zip line

ooops! He must have fallen into the stocking while trying to leave a surpise for the kids! (mini gingerbreah house kits)

blanket fort!

Thank goodness he was too little to get the Harley out of the garage! The elves did get to ride in the car to take the kids to school that morning though.

Playing dress up

What have your elves been up to?

*you can see original idea post for our elves here (link) as well as some of the other elf antics throughout the years if you search tags for Christmas, or elves.
Linking to:
Elf on the Shelf party at Come Together Kids

Christmas Prep

2011-12-15T13:37:00.000-08:00

I just sent off the boxes full of gifts to our families in Utah - woohoo! Do you know how big a relief that is?! In my mind, they should have gone out at least a week ago. Sure, they'll still make it there before Christmas, but if I'm not at least 2 weeks ahead of the big things I stress. So deep breath here and relax :) For a minute.

I still have a few things to finish up, but as of now the hard part is done! Good thing too because tomorrow is the last day of school before Christmas vacation. It was Polar Express day for Kaitlyn, which means the whole school was in their pjs today, and I helped out with their little party this afternoon. One set of classmate/teacher gifts delivered - check! The party at the preschool is tomorrow after lunch. I'm still trying to work out the details on that one since I usually pick up Tyler before then, plus the time of the party is pretty much the exact time Kaitlyn will be getting off the bus due to an early release. And tonight is dress rehearsal for the dance recital this weekend. Busy, busy, busy...

Before I rush off again I thought I'd take a minute and post a few photos of the smaller Christmas projects I've been working on.
Neighbor Gifts: The message is on the back. I printed that off first then did the faces by hand.Classmate gifts:Teacher Gifts:

Woohoo for progress! :) Time to see what's next on the list...

Almost Christmas!

2011-12-14T10:45:00.000-08:00

Does anyone else feel like this whole month has been like one giant rollercoaster ride? Or maybe it's a marathon. Either way, I feel like I haven't had a minute to catch my breath before jumping into the next thing. It's not quite at the Crazy Busy stage, just so much going on that if don't stay on top of things I might get trampelled. And thus the reason I haven't taken the time to post any of my Christmas decorations. That's completely not like me, right? I love Christmas and I love the decorations. And since we were just moving into the house last December the only decor we put out last year was the tree, so I've really been looking forward to making the place festive.

This house is so much more fun to decorate than our old one! We reined ourselves in and didn't go too overboard outside - mostly because we tossed all our old lights last year and didn't remember that until the only day we had to put them out. So we only put out what we could piece together at the time and had to shelve our big lighting plans for next year. The husband has had such a crazy work schedule they wouldn't have been put up yet, even if had managed to pick up more. But the house looks pretty in the daytime, doesn't it?
The tree, on the other hand is at it's best - yay! I walk into the room at night when the lights are on and have to stop to admire it for a minute every single time.

The tree itself is a very pretty one we picked up probably 10 years ago when Kmart was going out of business for $30-40. I keep thinking I should get a prelit one to make life easier, but it's a perfectly good tree so I can't justify replacing it. A couple years ago I tossed the old decorations and completely redid the tree in sparkly red, white, silver and black. I add a little more to it each year, picking up things on sale after Christmas. So it's a fun surprise to open up the boxes and find fun new items for the tree. This year the new items were some giant (I think they are 9" diameter) ornaments, a star for the top (the kids insisted on this one - I worked it into my usual tree topper "explosion"), and some black and white garland (just a few yards of fabric that I cut into strips).

Ready to see the final product? I have to say, I love it! You're thinking I'm a control freak and did it myself right? Not so! The kids put on almost all of the ornaments themselves. And I only moved the ones Tyler put on, since he put every single one on one branch. And the last photo - my attempt to catch the sparkly lights at night.

31 Days: Day 31 - Recap

2011-12-06T23:03:00.000-08:00

I thought I'd wrap up the series by doing a quick recap of all the posts from the 31 Days of Creative Celebrations. The organizational side of my brain demanded it - you know, to make referecing everything easier... :) Enjoy!

Intro

Day1: Inspiration

Day 2: Invitations

Day 3: Guest List

Day 4: Party Favors

Day 5: Gifts for Kids

Day 6: Super Sizing It (DIY projector tutorial)

Day 7: Gifts for Women

Day 8: Happy Birthday to...Me

Day 9: Gifts for Men

Day 10: Party Planning

Day 11: Decorations and Food

Day 12: Orchestrating the Fun

Day 13: Party Checklist

Day 15: Fish Birthday Party

Day 16: Other Gift Ideas

Day 17: Live and Learn

Day 18: It's All About the Presentation

Day 19: Halloween Decor

Day 20: Inspriation Board #2

Day 21: Finding the Fun in Daily Life

Day 22: Halloween Costumes

Day 23: Pirate Party Invitations

Day 24: How to Make a Pinata

Day 25: Traditions

Day 26: Thanksgiving

Day 27: Party Themes

Day 28: Homecoming

Day 29: Pirate Party

Day 30: Cards and Tags

31 Days: Day 30 - Cards and Tags

2011-12-06T10:07:00.000-08:00

We've talked about parties. We've talked about gift ideas and creative gift wrapping. I guess that only leaves cards and tags.

Tags are pretty much a must when it comes to gift giving - at least if you want the person to know who it came from or where it's going to! But a lot of the time the card itself is an after thought. You've spent all this time deciding on the right gift then shopping for it or making it yourself and wrapping it up all pretty and all you want is to be done with it, right? Well, that's what happens to me when I hit that point. But I hate to just throw something on there and ruin the look.

When it comes to Christmas I try to think about the tags ahead of time, print them out all at once, then have them ready when I'm wrapping up the gifts. This year I went for a monogram look on the tags. Simple, easy and classic.

For all the other gift-giving events life throws at me, I try to keep a good supply of cards on hand. Most of my stash lives in this little guy - my card organizer box. I created a bunch of these a few years back as gifts, along with one for myself (see original post here) and it has worked pretty well for me.

Inside are tabs so I can keep the cards organized by category.

Here's a look at a few of the cards in the box.

And for those little things that don't really require a full out card, just a place to write To and From I use little tags or small 2x2 cards like these. They're also a great way to use up all those scraps!

Keeping the box fully stocked was pretty easy back when I lived in Utah and participated in a monthly card making group. I'm overdue for a big card and tag making session. Hopefully I'll get around to it after all of this holiday craziness passes us by.

31 Days: Day 29 - Pirate Birthday Party

2011-12-05T09:55:00.000-08:00

Ahoy Mateys! Party day finally arrived for Cap'n Tyler! He was so excited and we had such fun! (and plenty of guests showed up yay - I have to admit I was still worried despite a few more RSVPs than last time)

Let me walk you through Tyler's Jake and the Neverland Pirates Birthday Party.

I blogged about the invitations earlier (link) so I'll skip right to the

Food:
First and foremost for every birthday party is the themed cake! I was happy to find a fairly easy recipe for making a pirate ship cake (link)

Tyler informed me that the ship's name is Bucky. And that Bucky MUST have 2 blue and white striped sails. And that Jake MUST be on the ship. Lucky for me I found a nice little printable playset (link) and just printed the characters onto cardstock and stuck them in the frosting. The party was scheduled from 10 - 11:30 so that I wouldn't need to serve a full lunch. But to round it out a little we had Cannon Balls (grapes), Treasure Maps (fruit roll ups), and Pirate (root) Beer.
And this little guy is the cupcake(s) I took in to Tyler's class today
Decorations:

I loved the idea of making a sail to add some height to the food table. It was pretty easy to tie a couple dowels together, stick them in a bucket of sand, and add a fabric remnant for the sail.
I liked the look of the pennant banner on top of the sail. I used the red/white striped part of the printables found here (link) (and also used that same site for the sailes on the cupcakes)for some of the pennants and cut a strip off one of the black plastic tablecloths for the other pennants and just added the letters (that I printed onto cardstock and cut out in circles - the same set of letters I used for the banner for the Fish Party) I went themey with the with the plates and napkins and just grabbed the pirate ones they had at Target. They worked well with the black, red and white color scheme I was going for.

The table was covered with the a black plastic tablecloth and an old looking net I picked up at the dollar store around Halloween. Add in some gold coins and a few other pirate accessories and I think it turned out to be a pretty cute table. Also note that little treasure chest. It too was a printable from Disney.com and we used it as our "Team Treasure Chest" throughout the party. (You'll see what I mean when I get to the activity part of the party).
A quick look at the outside. I didn't want to do too much out there but I do think it's important to put out some balloons to mark the party house, especially when some of the guests have never been to the house before.

And a sign on the door to set the mood.

Favors:
As I may have mentioned before, it was really hard to guage how many people were actually going to show up at the party. And in order to hopefully increase our chances of a good turn out we invited pretty much everyone in the neighborhood under the age of 12, and Tyler's entire preschool class. If everyone had come, we would have had 30 or so kids running around the place. Eek. We ended up with closer to 10, which was a great number. But I didn't know that during the prep work so I tried to plan accordingly. Instead of putting together favor bags, I just gathered a bunch of pirate theme prizes (stickers, candy, chocolate coins, real coins, plastic jewelry, etc) and used them in the games and the pinata. And for everyone to collect their "loot" I threw together my version of the bag "Izzy" on Jake and the Neverland Pirates wears around her neck to carry her Pixie Dust.

I printed out a bunch of blank tags, with a place for me to write the child's name on later. Then cut them into strips and stapled them to the strap of the bags.

The bags themselves were made out of felt, cut into a circle with a piece of embroidery floss (I tried the jute I had used everywhere else in the party but it was too thick and the bags didn't close well) around the outer edge to cinch it closed.

The Activities!

According to my usual MO, we started the party coloring pictures so that the kids would have something easy to do while waiting for everyone to arrive.

Then it was time for our Treasure Hunt! I had taken a piece of brown craft paper and drawn a map/blueprint onto it. Then I tore the map into pieces that I hid at each station, along with a few gold coins.
The first piece of the map led the kids upstairs to the playroom where they found the Walk the Plank game.

Basically it was a balance beam made from a 2x4 and a couple scrap pieces of wood. The kids walked across it to the far end, picked up a gold coin, then walked back across the plank and deposited the coin in the Team Treasure Chest.

Once everyone had a turn I helped them find the next piece of the map.

Which led us back downstairs to the living room and the Pirate version of the Open the Present game (does anyone know if it has a real name? I've never heard it called anything which makes it very hard to define). You've played that game right? Usually it's done at Christmas parties with large groups of people. You all sit in a circle and take turns rolling a set of dice. When a person gets doubles it is his turn to start opening the gift (which has been wrapped in many many layers of paper).

The catch is that first he has to get dressed up before he can start in on the gift. At the Christmas parties you usually have to put on a hat and scarf and a set of gloves (making it hard to get the gift open). For our Pirate version we used an eye patch, a pirate hat, and a hook in one hand.
The person that rolled doubles hurries to unwrap the gift before someone else rolls doubles and takes over the unwrapping (after first having to take the dress up clothes from the other person and put them on themselves). The kids really had fun with it.
The prize at the end of the gift was of course another piece of the map and a few more chocolate coins.

The next piece of the map took us to another section of the living room for the Coin Toss. Self-explanatory right?

Another piece of the map, another journey - this time to the sun room where the food was set up. Yay! Time for Cake!But we hadn't found the treasure yet! The next piece of the map led us to the garage for a scavenger hunt through the sand. Each person needed collect 2 silver coins, 1 copper coin, one precious gem and a pirate flag. At the bottom of the bucket, the final piece of the map was hiding.I had hidden the pinata inside a plastic tote and put a red X on the lid of the tote and the kids had to find the X. This wasn't as easy as it sounds, as our garage has its share of plastic totes, but it wasn't hard either.I made the pinata. You can find my tutorial here. (link)

Luckily the pinata held up long enough to give everyone a turn (thanks to forcing the big boys to wait until last). After that we went back inside to open gifts.

I think the kids had a great time. I certainly did while planning it!

Oh and in case you were wondering - the budget came in under $50, including food. yay!

Linking to:

Giveaway!

2011-12-03T02:15:00.000-08:00

My shop on Etsy (link) is part of the giveaway lineup at the Holiday Giveaway Extravaganza over at Table for More! Head on over for your chance to win $20 credit to the shop! (link) Discount Code available there too! While you're there be sure to check out her fun blog and some of the other giveaways that are going on.

31 Days: Day 28 - Homecoming

2011-11-29T13:02:00.000-08:00

It has been interesting living in a mostly-military neighborhood. There is usually one friend/neighbor that is deployed or anticipating deployment or going off for training of some sort. It makes for an unusual dynamic as well as some unique experiences. We've had more than a couple "girl power" moments helping to change tires or repair fences when the husbands weren't around - oh how fun that was (ha). And though we've had our share of deployments, I've been thankful that there haven't been any recently, nor are there any on the horizon for my husband.

This weekend I got to experience deployments/homecomings from a slightly different angle. The husband of a friend of mine has been gone for the last seven months and he returned Sunday. It's been a rough one for her, as she found out she was pregnant just a few days after he left and the pregnancy itself hasn't exactly been an easy one. Of course she's been incredibly excited and nervous about the homecoming and shortly before leaving to pick him up she asked if I would tag along and take photos (and the added moral support probably didn't hurt either).

It was a fairly smooth homecoming, as far as those things go. They had the place for the families to gather all prepared and were handing out little flags and things for the kids to color while they waited. The plane itself was only 30 minutes late. And talk about your celebration plans - there was a marching band, some sort of honor guard of bikers holding a line of flags, and they literally rolled out a red carpet on the tarmac. Then there were the families, who I'm sure had spent the day cleaning their houses and planning big dinners, with homemade signs and balloons in hand, all shined and polished and dressed up (oh some of those outfits were absolutely darling. A little girl in a camouflage tutu, a toddler in a mini set of fatigues). All of this for just that one moment of seeing their loved one for the first time - a guy who cares about none of it except for the big hugs and kisses.

I stood back and watched it all - for once not being the one experiencing all of those crazy emotions. Seeing it from the outside while understanding it from the inside. It made me think about things a little - that endless time spent waiting, all those hopes and plans and dreams and preparation leading up to that moment...totally worth it.

31 Days: Day 27 - Party Themes

2011-11-24T17:40:00.000-08:00

Does anyone else take the time to look through past blog posts and enjoy all the little trips down memory lane? Today I took a little time to re-explore all of my little craft get togethers, baby showers, birthdays, and the BBQs with The Girls
Like this pinwheel BBQ one - I had completely forgotten about it!

So I thought I would do a quick round-up of past party posts from the blog. You can see the complete list of party posts here. (or just use the keyward party on the labels list on the sidebar)

Topping the list for my most Over the Top or labor intensive birthday parties is either:

Kaitlyn's Sleeping Beauty Birthday party where I created an entire castle out of cardboard boxes
or
Kaitlyn's Dora the Explorer birthday party where I turned the whole thing into one giant episode of the TV show.
And the most popular party on my blog - Tyler's Dump Truck Birthday Party. According to the blog stats that post gets the most hits monthly and of all time, by a huge margin. (I thought that was interesting, don't you?)

Ok back to Turkey Day. I hope you are all happily in a turkey coma by now! :)

31 Days: Day 26 - Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T04:02:00.000-08:00

(photo credit)

I have a "thing" for the word happy. Or joy. If I see a quote using one of those words, it almost always calls to me. One of my other favs is "just for today, be happy."

I believe that a lot of our moods are based on our perspective and outlook on life, not on what happens to us. I also believe that it is our "job" to find and create happiness for ourselves and other people in our lives. We can decide to have a good day. We can recognize when we are cranky and do something to lift our moods (chocolate always works! haha or music). We can enjoy whatever small moments life hands us and not go looking or wishing for something better. Because whatever we have right here, right now is enough, in fact, I bet it's pretty great.

We are celebrating Thanksgiving here at home today, just our little family of 4. We had the option of traveling back to Utah for Thanksgiving with our extended families but we chose not to. And we're still relatively new in town so the neighbors and coworkers we felt close enough to to invite to join us for Thanksgiving already had plans. That's ok. Because the people that are here in this house right now (currently all sitting on the couch watching cartoons) are all it takes for me to feel loved and happy. I know the rest of our loved ones miss us and may even spare us a thought or a phone call today but I want them to enjoy their Thanksgiving without us as well.

Parties and celebrations come in all shapes and sizes, right? It's all about putting forth just a tiny bit of extra effort to make a day, or a moment, just a little more special than the norm. So today we are doing our own version of Thanksgiving dinner - a turkey that Sam will spend the day smoking (with menu plans for at least 2 other meals that incorporate leftovers!), cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and gravy (Kaitlyn's favorite), rolls, dressing, and corn (another request from Kate) and two pies (pumpkin and chocolate, already waiting for us in the fridge). The green bean casserole, jello salad, mac and cheese and other things that may usually grace the table didn't make it into our top 5 and we're ok without them. (in fact, other than the jello salad, the kids are probably glad about that) And instead of spending the day sitting around the kitchen visiting while the kids are off playing, maybe we'll have them help more with the meal preparation. Or sit down and make a family list of things we are thankful for. And probably print off one or two of the great printables I've seen online (like this printable placemat or
this Roll a Turkey game). But whatever it is, I will be happy to be spending the day with my adorable kiddos and great husband, and very thankful for all the wonderful people and things that make up my life.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

31 Days: Day 25 - Traditions

2011-11-22T12:43:00.000-08:00

What is the first thing you think about when it comes to celebrating the holidays? My guess is that most of you would list something that involves some of your family traditions, right? Gift giving, decorating, parties...they all include some sort of tradition. For example, I always wait until the day after Thanksgiving to get out the Christmas decorations and put up the tree and I almost never fail to do that on that day. Tradition. My husband makes gingerbread waffles on Christmas morning. Tradition. Taking one night to drive around the neighborhood to see the lights while drinking hot chocolate and listening to Christmas music (Trans-Siberian Orchestra). Tradition. It's what makes the holidays special and fun.

Traditions aren't just for the holidays. I'm sure a lot of you have ways you like to celebrate birthdays or good grades on a report card or a promotion or National Cheesecake Day. ;) The kind of things that make the difference between and ordinary day and one that's just a little bit more. Please share!

One of my favorite traditions for the upcoming holidays is the month-long visit from Santa's Elves. This is an idea I started 4 years ago (original post here) and the kids have been in love with it ever since. In fact it's very highly anticipated and Kaitlyn has already been talking about them this year.
For those of you that aren't familiar with what I'm talking about, our Christmas elves are a variation of the Elf on the Shelf. Santa sends his elves to our home to report back on the kids' behavior. During the day the elves are just stuffed toys, but of course they're magic and at night they like to play. We often wake up to find they have been up to some silly stuff while we were sleeping. Sometimes they bring things for the kids. Sometimes they leave notes. Sometimes they get in a little bit of trouble. (really it just depends on how creative I am and how well I planned ahead!) It's all a lot of fun.

Since I started the tradition, I've had more than one of my friends join me in it. And this year I've been happy to see even more ideas and fun things online that go along with it. (Check out my Christmas board on pinterest. I have a few unique ideas pinned on there) There is a fun website devoted entirely to Elf on a Shelf (link here) and they are even coming out with an Elf on the Shelf movie! (set your DVRs! this site says the TV special will be on CBS November 25th then on DVD after that) So fun!

Now, it's time for me to get a couple orders ready to go in the mail before heading up to the school to watch my daughter race in the elementary school's traditional pre-Thanksgiving Turkey Trot. I'm interested to know though - what are some of your favorite traditions (holiday or otherwise)? Do Santa's elves visit your house, and what do they do while they visit?

31 Days: Day 24 - How to Make a Pinata

2011-11-21T15:07:00.000-08:00

My son's only real request for his birthday party was a pinata. Swinging a stick at something until you bash it open to reveal fun prizes? Yeah, that sounds perfect for a 4-5 year old boy, right? Specifically, he wanted the Transformers one he spotted at Walmart. But since he party theme is Jake and the Neverland Pirates, I thought a treasure chest might be more appropriate. And since I have a hard time wanting to pay $15-20 for an empty pinata at the store, (and because it's me and I'm known for doing things the cheaper, more labor intensive way!) of course I made one myself! And since I was going to all that work anyway, I figured I'd take photos along the way and share a quick tutorial with all of you.
Here is my inspiration photo.

(photo credit)
I started out with a couple sheets of posterboard. Cardboard or foam core would work too. Whatever you have.
For the sides of the chest I cut a rectangle approx 10" wide and 8" tall, then cut off the corners to make the top wider than the bottom.

I also made 2 half circles, the diameter of each the same width as the top of the side pieces (8")Once I had the sides for quidelines, I measured the angled pieces and cut a series of rectangles for the rest of the pieces. I decided I wanted the chest 15" wide, so that is how wide all the rest of the pieces will be and the other measurement corresponds to where it fits on the chest. The width of the bottom piece matches the bottom of the side piece (approx 7"), the front and back match up with the sides on the side piece (approx 8 1/2"). I cut the top piece slightly larger than the round part of the half circles, again, at 15" wide.

I added an extra piece of posterboard (using spray adhesive) to the top piece in the center, then punched holes through both and ran a piece of yarn through it for hanging.

Now it's time to assemble! Using small tape pieces I took one side and just started adding pieces. Once the pieces were in place I went back in with larger pieces of tape and fully covered every edge with tape.Assembling the top as one piece and the bottom as another piece, then joining them together from the inside at the back and sides. I left the front open so I could stuff the pinata later.

On to the decorative part! I simply took a roll of crete paper and using spray adhesive, applied it in overlapping strips (you could also fringe the edges, but that's a whole lot more work). Once the entire thing is covered you can go back and trim the edges and put on one more strip of crepe paper to make it all clean and pretty.
Time to add the prizes!On any other pinata I would have left a small tab opening on the side to stuff the items into. As the design on this one worked better to just leave the front open and it's hard to get tape inside to adhere it as we did the other sides I fudged it a little by punching a few holes and kind of lacing the front together with yarn. You hardly notice it and could cover it up with decorative items later if it bugs you.
It was a pretty simple matter to add the lock and the trademark sword on the sides. I just free-handed something that kinda, sorta, resembled them onto some golden yellow cardstock and cut them out.And there we have it! A fully assembled treasure chest pinata in under an hour and probably less than $2 in materials (not counting prizes). Yay! Next on the list - party favors or games...

Linking to:

Get Your Craft On

Blue Cricket Design: Show and Tell

31 Days: Day 23 - Pirate Party Invitations

2011-11-21T14:34:00.000-08:00

I promised myself I would finish off my 31 days series from last month. One blog post every day for 31 days straight, all about a specific theme - that's tough, especially during a crazy busy time of the year like October (still boggles my mind that October is always so busy, even more so that December). Obviously I didn't quite succeed. And although I considered "cheating" and back-dating all the other posts, I'm not going to. My guess is that few people scroll back through posts when they check blogs anyway, so what would be the point in posting something that no one reads? So, the new goal is to finish the last chunk of them off this week, even if I have to post a couple per day.

It seems appropriate to start up again now since I'm back in party planning mode. It took me a while to get my enthusiasm back (after Kaitlyn's party in Oct) and many days trying to make myself stop procrastinating. But here we are, less than 2 weeks from my son's 5th birthday, and I have spent the afternoon working on party prep - go me! I wanted to get the invitations done ASAP so we can deliver them this week. Luckily, once I got going it was pretty easy to continue working on the rest of the printables. I not only have the invitations created, printed and ready to go out but the tags for the favor bags, coloring pages, pieces for the banner, signs, and misc other things are spread all over my craft table :)

So, without further ado - here are the invites! As you may recall, Tyler requested a Jake and the Neverland Pirates theme. Going with the quick and easy digital route again, I started with a Google search for ideas and clipart. It was pretty simple to take one of the photos and add the party information on top of it. (I used Paint - much to my dismay, PhotoShop still kicks my butt though I swear I will learn enough to make my Christmas cards on it this year!) Then once I had the jpg where I wanted it, it was a simple matter to copy/paste into Word and print them out 4 to a page.

When I showed them to Tyler he was pretty happy, and made me smile when he literally gave me a pat on the back and told me "good job." :)

Up next - the pinata!

You wouldn't believe

2011-11-16T06:50:00.000-08:00

how much I've been working on lately! I've been crafting up a storm and have a million and one other ideas I'd love to create. Not enough time here, people! Part of the push is because the holidays are almost here - eek! I love, love, love Christmas - the decorating, the lists, the music, the lights...
But thrown into the usual rush before the holidays was my wish to get a few new items in my etsy shop. I even roped my neighbor into letting me use her brand new baby girl as my model - so fun! (of course it didn't take much pushing - what mom doesn't want MORE photos of their baby?) The photo shoot was on Monday and I had a little time to edit some of them yesterday and she's so dang cute I just couldn't wait to share! I haven't even had a chance to list most of these items in the shop yet! (but they will be, oh they will be!) That's how excited I am. Because usually when it comes to "photo sessions" my nasty perfectionistic side kicks in and I over analyze every single shot and end up disappointed in the results. But not this time - nope nope nope! For the first time ever I didn't rush through it. Instead of going with a "let's see what we can get" approach then quitting as soon as the kid stops cooperating (which is usually about 2 seconds into it when it comes to my own children), I went into it knowing it could take a few hours and that whatever it took was great. 2 1/2 hours later, which I think is actually pretty good for a newborn shoot, I think both my neighbor and I were pretty confident we had a couple of decent shots. I also gave myself permission to not try to make them "perfect." We all know I'm not a professional photographer - right? So I tried to stay very open-minded when I was viewing and editing the photos.

Ok enough of my babbling. I give you Miss Lyla and a small sampling of the hats and hairbows I've been working on the past few weeks.

Oh! And not to be forgotten - another one of my neighbors offered her daughter for hat modeling a couple of weeks ago. Look at those gorgeous blue eyes!

Linking to

Show and Tell with Blue Cricket Design

My Craft Room

2011-11-14T05:24:00.000-08:00

I've heard horror stories about moving damages, so guess we were pretty lucky. The biggest thing to get broken was this dresser. They completely snapped all the back legs off.

We weren't too upset. It was an inexpensive dresser that we purchased for Kaitlyn's room more than 8 years ago (ack! still can't believe my baby is EIGHT). With the new built-ins in the closets, we didn't need it in Kaitlyn's room anymore. But with a little TLC, I knew it would be useful SOMEWHERE. So the dresser has been sitting in my craft room, mostly unused, since it wasn't totally stable without the back legs.

10 months after the move, we finally got around to refinishing it! It was part of our big project day right before my birthday (last month) and I've been excited to show it to you. But let me show you what else we worked on that day before I show you the reveal.

They were replacing all the tables in Sam's classroom at the base and were giving away all the old tables. These things had been beat up, what with being used to clean guns on, etc. And they were pretty utilitarian looking to begin with. But really - free tables? Can't pass that one up. And they had to be an improvement over the teeny tiny table I had been using in the craft room.

Metal base, wood top -pretty basic. We forgot to get a Before photo, but here is the first table after Sam got done sanding down the top. As it turns out, when we were restaining the tops we ran out of stain after the first one. The new stain on the second table didn't quite match the stain on the first. So Sam brought home a 3rd table top and sanded that one down too. We did remember to get a photo of that one.

Here is a close up - ick, right?!

Alright, enough with the Befores. Are you ready for the big reveal?

Tada! Here is the dresser after a coat of black spray paint and some new handles.

Sam cut off the rest of the legs and replaced them all with a solid base so now the dresser looks more like a piece of cabinetry.

The black looks really pretty against the red and white on the walls and the wood on the floor. (I have to say though - you have to dust black furniture WAY more often than any other kind!)

There! Now my printer and my Silhouette have a nice new home!

And those tables? Well they look pretty good too!

As it turns out, once they were sanded down the wooden tops had an almost butcher block type look. After a nice dark coat of stain and some spray poly (first time using the spray - love the smooth finish from the spray. I don't think we'll go back to the kind you have to apply with a brush) the wood looks gorgeous! And of course we hit the bases with a coat of black spray paint too.
Total cost: under $50 for paint, stain, poly, and new handles. $50 for all three pieces!

I think I can get a lot of crafting done in this space, don't you?

November

2011-11-04T07:32:00.000-07:00

Can you believe it? November already! I've been fully occupied lately and sadly the blog took a back seat. Rest assured, while the blog has been idle, I however have not! I have lots and lots of things to post, including the last week or so of the 31 days of Creative Celebrations series (I'll be back dating that one so please scroll down!). Also on the list of things I need to share are some new items for my etsy shop and some really great updates to my craft room!

For now, I'll just share with you this little guy. I call him my wood block, ribbon tail turkey (also listed in the shop for anyone that wants something specially handmade by moi!). Since making the 2x4 pumpkins and "monsters" for craft day a couple months ago, I've been obsessed the idea of creating something for Thanksgiving using a 2x4 as well. This, my friends, is the result. The idea for the ribbon tail come from an embellished Tshirt I saw last year. You truly can find inspiration everywhere. I think he turned out pretty cute!

This is probably the only nod I will give to new Thanksgiving decor this year. I haven't even packed up the Halloween stuff yet! And as I'm sure some of you are doing as well, I'm turning my attention from Halloween and birthdays to Christmas...and birthdays :) And ramping up things a bit with the etsy store. And starting to voluteer at Kaitlyn's school on a regular basis - once a week helping out the second grade, plus getting more involved with the random stuff like the book fair next week. And I have photos on the brain - family photos for Christmas cards in the works, new techniques/ideas and even new models (just had my first session this week with the baby down the street. It's so fun to see my hats and stuff add to such cuteness!) for photographing new items in the shop, and ... and...

Honestly, I'm having a hard time focusing on any one thing!
*insert reminder to self of my word for the year FOCUS. For November I am directing my thoughts and energies almost entirely into the creative side of things - how fun is that?! Every year I use that month of November to pull together all my ideas, lists, shopping and projects for the holidays so that when December hits all I have to do is sit back and enjoy the fun. I'm sure that this year some of that will spill over into December for sure, as adding to the etsy business (if it can be called that - more a hobby? maybe?) will be taking up some of my time. But I've gotta do it, because if ever there was a time to get some selling momentum going it would be the Christmas season, right? So I repeat - birthday (Tyler turns 5 on Dec 5th!), Christmas, crafts, birthday, Christmas, crafts....here we go!

Linking to
BFF Link party at The Answer is Chocolate
Fingerprints on the fridge

Pin It Challenge (#6)

2011-10-23T08:35:00.000-07:00

I hosted another neighborhood craft day last week. With crazy schedules, only one of the four others that signed up to craft showed up on the appointed day. Another neighbor came over Friday for some craft time to finish hers. And I still have 2 sets that I still need to deliver or arrange to have them come over. Why is October so crazy busy?

The craft I chose for this time around was one of those deco mesh wreaths you may have been seeing lately. It just so happens that these also qualify as my Pinterest Challenge (where a few of my blogging friends and I challenge each other to actually create some of the items we have pinned on Pinterest) for this round. One of the many wreaths I have seen and pinned for inspiration can be found here. It's a cute idea that can be used for any season/holiday, and fairly easy to put together.

All it takes is a roll of the deco mesh, a wire wreath frame, some floral wire, and whatever

embelishements you choose. The mesh I found was about 24" wide, 10 yards long, and $10 for the roll which was just enough to cover a 24" wreath frame if we didn't do it too tightly. (as you saw on my witchy wreath, which was basically the same technique, tulle works as well) You just gather a handful of mesh together and wire it onto the frame, making the loops as large/small and as loose/tightly placed as you choose.

I went with a red/white/blue theme as I don't have much in the way of 4th of July decor. One of the ladies went with a purple wreath that she will leave on the door year round and change out the bow and accents for the different holidays. Another neighbor is going with the colors of their favorite football team. See? Totally versatile and fun idea right?
In the time I had, I only managed to get the base mesh and some accent mesh on there and still need to add all the fun accents. As I don't see myself finding getting around to finishing it any time soon, I'll just give you a little sneaky peek at what I have so far. I can't wait to see the finished result but I still have Halloween costumes to pull together, another birthday party to plan, and my mom is in town...

31 Days: Day 22 - Halloween Costumes

2011-10-22T06:41:00.000-07:00

Can't have Halloween without the costumes! With only a week left before the day, I figured I had better get on the ball and get them done. We went pretty simple and inexpensive this year. As much as I love making a big production out of things and wouldn't mind spending hours sewing an elaborate costume (especially with my Mom in town to help!), we all have to pick and choose where to spend our time and money. So we're going with quick and easy on the costumes this year. Nothing wrong with that, right?

Dressing up is not somthing I enjoy, personally, but the kids love it when I join in so the last couple of years I put on an embellished witch hat for trick or treating. Kaitlyn decided she wanted to be "twin witches" this year. Lucky me!
We were able to find a fun sequin skirt in her dress up clothes and she had a black shirt that I added a witch silhouette to (how great that we found some matching sequin material at Hobby Lobby!). Add a $2 witch hat with some fun embellishments and we're done!

Kate wasn't too enthused about wearing the dress up skirt until I pointed out that it had a matching doll size outfit, so Hello Kitty could dress up with us. I made HK a little hat out of felt and now Kaitlyn is SO excited for Trick or Treating.

Now Tyler, all he can talk about is Monster Trucks so it's almost expected that he requested to dress up as a Monster Truck Driver. I just happened to find a suitable jumpsuit at a children's consignment sale a couple of weeks ago - score! It was a couple sizes too large but it was easy to hem up the pants and roll up the sleeves.

I found the helmet in the dollar section at Target. It said POLICE on the side so I printed off some monster truck clipart (Big Foot is Ty's absolute favorite monster truck - no idea why) on a sticky address label and now it's a monster truck helmet. And to pull it all together I added a couple more sticky labels to the jumpsuit.

And now we're ready for Halloween! Can't wait to see the kids all dressed up!

What are your kids going to be wearing? Do you dress up for Halloween?

31 Days: Day 21 - Finding the Fun in Daily Life

2011-10-21T16:44:00.000-07:00

Our move out of state almost a year ago has been the hardest on my Mom. (Who can blame her for missing the cutest kids in the world? :) And having them across the country instead of just down the street isn't easy I know. ) So she makes it a point to arrange a visit as often as possible. She flew into town this week!
I've been totally caught up in the whirlwind that is my life lately so this time around I didn't do much prep work for her visit. I changed the sheets, made sure the house didn't look hideous, and decided that she'd probably be perfectly happy just joining in as I did my regular thing (instead of planning some fun outings and activities as I usually try to do). Mom, however, put more thought into it and came bearing an entire suitcase full of fun surprises - and not just for the kids! Yesterday morning the kids got some fun Halloween stuff to decorate their room and I got scrapbooking supplies - score! (now if only I can find time to scrapbook...) Her list of fun things to do with the kids also includes arts and crafts, baking cookies, spoiling them rotten, and who knows what else! :)

But that's what Grandmas are for. :)
And the lesson for today - celebrating doesn't have to be a big deal or a special event. Little guestures go a long way. So go out and do something special today!

31 Days: Day 20 - Inspiration Board #2

2011-10-20T17:17:00.000-07:00

Can you guess the theme for Tyler's birthday party?

My little guy turns 5 on Dec 5 and he wants a Jake and the Neverland Pirates party. I think it sounds like a lot of fun! I have been collecting a bunch of ideas on my Pirate Party Pinterest Board and now with Kaitlyn's birthday out of the way I have about a month and a half to pull the next one together.

Wish me luck!

Witchy Wreath

2011-10-20T07:55:00.000-07:00

(I'm taking a break from my 31 days series because I really want to post this tutorial!)

T-minus 11 days and counting until Halloween! Fun fall/halloween decorating ideas are plentiful. I think I added 3 more ideas to my list just this morning! :) What I am noticing over and over again is that I'm in love with the witchy stuff - not the whole witch though, just the hats and the boots and those funny sayings ("if the broom fits..."). So I decided to make myself a wreath for my front door using just that. I also wanted to try out the mesh wreath type designs I've been seeing over and over and combined I ended up with a really fun wreath!

It was my intention to spend very little money on the project and I always love the challenge of creating the pieces myself, if possible. So I pulled it all together using a lot of things I had around the house. I pulled apart a berry wreath I had made a few years ago (that I had never really liked because it kept falling apart) so I could use the wire wreath frame. I gathered up fabric scraps and spare silk flowers. The only thing I purchased was 3 yards of purple tulle, which I split down the center to form 2 long strips.

I started with the legs for the witch. Using some inexpensive white fabric, I cut a strip about 4" wide and 12" long. I wanted the witch stocking to be stripes so I used black craft paint and painted the stripes onto the white fabric. After the paint was dry I sewed the fabric together to form one long tube. (You could use hot glue for this too, if you wanted to do a completely no-sew version)

I drew a boot pattern onto some scrap paper (if I find a scanner anytime soon I'll turn it into a printable template) then used it to cut out 4 boots (2 at a time) from black felt.

I didn't want the legs to just droop lifelessly, so I hot glued a wire to the center of the boot

then used the hot glue around the edges to glue the 2 sides of each boot together, leaving the top open

Then I stuffed the boot with a little bit of cotton batting.

I cut the tube of striped fabric into two 6" long section for the legs, slid them each onto the wire and into the top of the boot, and stuffed them too. Then closed up the top opening of the the boot with the hot glue.

The hat is made out of cereal boxes. I cut one into a half circle for the hat brim (I didn't want a full circle because I wanted the hat to sit more flat once it was attached to the wreath), and formed a cone with a second cereal box. Then spray painted both of them black.

And hot glued the cone to the brim. To make it even more "realistic" I cut a jagged piece out of some scrap black satin, to use for the witch's skirt.

Now with all the pieces prepped, it was time to put it together. I used the wire to attach the legs to the bottom of the wreath form then used the hot glue to add the skirt fabric.I used small pieces of floral wire (about 5" long. You will need to clip the ends off after you attache the tulle, but it's easier to work with if the wire is a bit longer) to attach the tulle to the frame, making little poufs with the fabric as I went.

See, now the wreath is really taking shape.

As it turns out, the tulle I had wasn't quite enough to make it really pouffy and cover all the wire (I'd get 5 yards next time which would give me 10 yards total to work with next time). So I took some coordinating fabric and wrapped the wreath frame.

The only left to do was add the embellishments. On went a little sign (just a small piece of wood painted black with vinyl lettering for the quote), some flowers, a little ribbon and polka dot fabric strips.Some more ribbon as laces on her boots.

And I now have a happy little witch wreath for my front door

Linking to:

Strut your Stuff Link party at Somewhat Simple
Feature Yourself Friday at Fingerprints on the Fridge

31 Days: Day 19 - Halloween Decor

2011-10-19T11:48:00.000-07:00

Birthdays aren't the only things worth celebrating (though I do admit that I tend to get obsessed about birthdays and party planning!), right? It's a lot of fun to get festive for the holidays and the biggest way to prolong the fun is to have things in the house that reflect the holiday/season. As I mentioned with party decor, the biggest bang for your buck isn't spreading things all over the house (this gets expensive, plus it makes it harder to change out for the seasons and that can get overwhelming) but in focusing on just a few areas of the house and making them look really good. My top spots are the front door (sometimes extending to the porch), one corner of my kitchen cabinets, the fireplace, and the ledge in the stairway. (Oh! And I change out my window box in my entry!) By keeping the holiday/seasonal decorations in just these locations, the house feels festive but not over the top. And it makes life much easier when changing things out for the next season. (Do you know how many times I left an item on top of kitchen cupboards for months after Christmas simply because I hadn't noticed it when I was putting away the other items then got too lazy to take it down and hunt up the correct box to pack it away?)

You've seen the my witchy wreath which now resides on the front door, and I gave you a bit of sneak peek into my fall decorating/crafting earlier (see earlier post here). I have since managed to do a quick transformation on my fireplace mantel.

And most impressive - for the first time I have fully decorated the ledge in my stairway! See how sad it looked before? I had just stashed a few things up there, fully intending to fill it in at some point. And that window frame thing, which I love - it has been leaning against the wall for months just waiting for me to force the husband to climb up on the ledge and officially hang it up. Well, a couple weeks ago this poor neglected space got some much needed attention.

These ghost footprints have also been a work in progress for over a year! I saw this idea in September or October of last year but with the move and everything I didn't get around to making them. Then in December of last year, still stuck on the idea and not wanting Tyler's cute little feet to grow anymore before I got around to it, I talked the ever-obliging husband in turning some leftover MDF into display boards (12" squares with routered edges). I painted them black and got the footprints on them (with dates on the back - don't forget dates and kids ages if you do these!) then packed them into the Halloween decor box where I again discovered them this year! The black paint got a bit of a touch up and then I put a clear coat over the top to help repel dust, then each footprint got some googly eyes and a few fun embellishments.

And look! Not only is the window on the wall above the ledge, but my ghost footprints have a home there too! And isn't Ty's tiny just turned 4 year old footprint cute?

The rest of my Halloween/fall decor went onto the ledge.

And now I can happily saw that I have one more space fully finished - yay! I think I want to add a few larger pieces for next year and not quite as many small things. But I'm totally happy for now. And I got it up just in time for all the great fall temperatures we've been having!

Linking to:

31 Days: Day 18 - It's All About the Presentation

2011-10-18T07:10:00.000-07:00

Ok ok, we all know that wrapping paper and bows are just a means of keeping the gift a secret and soon will be a muddled pile on the floor. But you know we all still love a well-wrapped present. Somehow, it really does add to the gift. Even the most mundane item becomes lovely if presented in a unique or fun way.

I grabbed the above photos off pinterest using a search for gift packaging. Pretty right? And there are a million more ideas out there, most of which are pretty easy and inexpensive. Like the toilet paper roll I used to wrap the necklace we gave Kaitlyn for her birthday. Did you know used toilet paper rolls make fantastic pillow boxes? (inspiration post found here)

The tutorial says to modge podge the paper onto the roll, but I was lazy and just used tape :) It worked perfectly too. You just cover the roll and fold in the ends, then tie it together with a ribbon and viola!

And don't forget those little touches like tags or fun accents instead of those plastic bows from Walmart. I grabbed a couple of shells and used them with a small piece of ribbon to dress up the rest of Kaitlyn's gifts this year.

Now please share - what are you favorite/most unique packaging ideas?

31 Days: Day 17 - Live and Learn

2011-10-17T06:11:00.000-07:00

Confession: Saturday wasn't a very good day. You know those days in life where everyone should be happy happy all day long? Birthday party days should be like that right? Ha! Well, Saturday all 4 of us were grumpy and the kids misbehaved much more than usual. I was on top of the party prep so the set up itself wasn't stressful - can't blame it on that. Everyone seemed to have gotten enough sleep the night before - can't blame it on that. It was beautiful weather - can't blame it on that. But for some reason everyone was a bit off.

Then to top it off, the party was almost a non-starter. As in no one showing up, feeling like you got stood up for the prom, flop! Party time rolled around and there was no movement on the street outside our house. Then around 10 minutes later, one single solitary guest rang the doorbell. I wanted to cry. But I put on my happy face and started the party with the 3 kids (including my 2) and of course they enjoyed themselves. About an hour into the party another little girl showed up. I invited her mom to stay too and that just about made it feel like enough people for a party. We were having cake at the time, so we dished up some more and when everyone was finished eating I started the games all over again. The kids loved it. And I was starting to feel like my hours of planning and prep weren't entirely wasted. Phew.

Moral of the story - you just never can tell what is going to happen. No matter how well you plan (we had invited 15 kids - you'd think that would be enough right?), there is always something that won't go the way you want it to. And as far as the people not showing up part - I'm choosing to tell myself it's not because we are unliked (at least 3 of Kaitlyn's friends from the neighborhood showed up bearing gifts during the next few days and apologizing that other things had gotten in the way), it's because once again people are busy busy busy and possibly not entirely considerate all of the time. So. My reminder to myself and to you - take everything in stride, make the most of it, and learn something for the next time. I can guarantee that I will be completely over-compensating for Tyler's birthday (which takes place about 6 weeks from now!) and not only invite every child under the age of 12 in the neighborhood (I estimate that would be around 14) but all 18 children in Tyler's preschool class as well. Then maybe we will get at least 5 to show up! Or all 30 will show up and I'll be overwhelmed. Wish me luck! And I wish you luck too. And the next time when it's the cake that doesn't turn out, or the birthday girl trips and breaks her arm right in the middle of the party, or any other disaster the universe throws at us, we will all shrug our shoulders and remind ourselves that these things happen and it's ok.

31 Days: Day 16 - Other Gift Ideas

2011-10-16T06:32:00.000-07:00

We are always in search of the right gift for every ocassion, aren't we? I've covered gift ideas for kids, women, and men so far. Now let's do a quick round-up of ideas for the other people/events in our lives.

New Baby: I think this category is possibly the funnest one of them all. Who doesn't love going to the store and sorting through all those teeny tiny clothes? But sometimes I want to give the new mom and baby something a little more unique and personal. Like:
-embellished onesies (more details here)
-first year scrapbook. I've done this one for some of my closer friends, as it takes a little time to put together. In a 20 page scrapbook I put together one page for every month of the baby's first year with a spot for a photo and some journaling for that month. I also include pages for things like milestones, baby's hand/footprints, letters from Mom and Dad, etc.
-car seat tent/nursing cover (more details here. I also sell these in my etsy shop)
-hats! (especially all the cute ones I've been having so much fun making for my etsy shop/photo props!)
-monogrammed ANYTHING
-personalized room decor. I've seen tons of adorable ideas lately using the baby's name, birthday, weight, etc in frames, subway art, wooden blocks...

Grandparents/Parents
-I love to do gifts that revolve around photos. This year while we were visiting my parents I took the kids and my parents out for a photo session. I am going to blow up a few of the best photos for them to display and have made a photo book for them as a Christmas gift.
Other ideas with photos: spelling out a person's name or a message as I did for my husband for Father's Day a couple years ago (see details here), photo CD (my MIL requests one of these every year so she can have her own copies of the photos I post on my blog)
-family recipes/recipe book
-quotes in frames, on boards, even on T shirts. There are a million fun grandparent quotes out there

Wedding:
-monogrammed/personalized home decor
-personalized door mat (you've seen them right? Where you take a cheap door mat and spray paint a design on it? it's on my list of things to try)
-picture frames
-serving dishes (you know I have a thing for the white ones!)
-cooler/picnic basket and supplies
-recipes

Housewarming:
-personalized door mat
-new house kit (fill a bucket with things like picture hanging supplies, cleaning supplies, etc)
-food
-plants/seeds
-decorative piece/plaque for the front door/front of the house with their monogram or house number (I saw this on Nate Berkus the other day and thought it was so cute)

What am I missing? What are you most creative gift ideas?

31 Days: Day 15 - Fish Party

2011-10-15T07:07:00.000-07:00

Party Time! All those hours of planning and prep all boiled down to 2 hours of fun for the kiddos. Without further ado, I present: Kaitlyn's 8th Birthday FISH PARTY!

Invitations: details can be found in previous blog post here

Food:
A fish cake, of course!
Quick how to on this one because I know you are all thinking this is harder than it really is. I used 2 boxed confetti cake mixes (I could do home made but I think the boxes are faster and taste just as good. Same applies to canned frosting) and cooked them in the round pans. I did this a few days ahead of time then wrapped them and stored them in the freezer. Having them frozen (not totally - let them sit 10 min or so before working with them) makes it easier to cut the cakes to shape, or at least I think it does. Plus it cuts down on prep time right before the party.
So, on the morning of the party (one of those days when I'm glad I naturally wake up at 5AM so I could do this in a quiet house without little ones trying to help) I stacked 2 of the round cakes for the body, then used the other set of 2 round cakes to form the tale and extend the fish's nose a bit.

I tinted 2 cans of frosting with a fun blue color and spread it all over the cake. Then I used the back of the spoon to make the "scales" while the frosting was still sticky. I tinted a tiny bit of frosting a darker blue, put it in a baggie and cut off the edge, then used it for the details on the eye, the outline of the face, and the tail. See? Easy, easy.

The rest of the food included goldfish chex mix, jello fish aquariums made out of blue jello with swedish fish inserted in the center (sorry people, no up close photos on that one. Silly me saw an inspiration photo and thought I knew how to do it. I let the jello set up partially then inserted the swedish fish and let is set up the rest of the way. The result - soggy fish that look a lot like those sad beta fish you see in their individual cups at Walmart. Turns out that if I had read the notes instead of just looking at the photo I would have seen that they created theirs by cutting a slit in the fully set jello and slid the fish in. Ooops. No big deal - the jello still tasted good and we just tossed the soggy fish), and blue lemonade.

The Decor: lots of blue, fish, and seashells

Here is a close up of the balloon fish. Bad photo I know, but the kids got to them before I could get good photos and had a blast running around and bopping the fish to each other. The poor fish didn't look so good after all of that.
I had three of these fish and 2 paper lantern "octopus" hanging from the ceiling in the screen porch. I'm happy to say I came up with the fish idea all by myself! (nope, no web inspiration at all!) Just free handed some shapes for the fins, tail, and lips and cut them out of cardstock. Then taped them to the balloons (the same ones we filled Kaitlyn's room with the night before her birthday) and added an eye using a marker.

The Favors: felt fish-shaped bags filled with home made moon sand, pencils, shark fruit snacks, and a fish hair bow. More details on them can be found in previous blog post here
The Activities:
I always like to start the party with something low key to give the kids something to do while waiting for all of the guests to arrive. Usually I just print out some coloring pages that go along with the party theme, or puzzles or something. This year Kaitlyn took the initiative and came home from library day at school with a book about sea horses and told me she was going to read it to her friends while they waited for everyone to arrive.

-the limbo (Kaitlyn's request. No photos of that because I was holding the limbo stick)
- seashell race. I put a bucket of water on one side of the yard and smaller buckets on the other side of the yard and the kids had to run back and forth, carrying small amounts of water in their seashells until their own bucket was full.

Pin the fin on the fish And sand art. I got these great little sticky paper kits at Michael's (3 for $1). You just peel off one section of the paper to expose the sticky part and pour colored sand on it. Shake off the excess and repeat for every section of the picture. The kids loved this one and each one did at least 4 pictures.

Then of course we finished off the party with the cake and food, and opening the gifts.

I was told by one of the small guests "this is the best party ever." Awww. Thanks! :)
Oh and side note - while I didn't really track expenses on this as things were picked up here and there and I used a lot of stuff I already had, I'm betting I pulled the whole thing together for under $50 including food.

Linking to:

Made By You Monday at Skip to My Lou

31 Days: Day 14 - Birthday Traditions

2011-10-14T15:05:00.000-07:00

My sweet little girl turns 8 today! Happy Birthday Kaitlyn!
Amazing how quickly they grow up. I can't believe it was 8 years ago I had this tiny 4 pound 12 ounce bundle of happiness...

Anyway. I think today is a good day to talk about birthday celebrations and traditions. I'm one of those people that likes to make a big deal out of things (or at least a small deal), because let's face it, my life would be super-de-dooper boring if I didn't. And birthdays rank right up there with Christmas and Valentines. And my kids' birthdays rank even higher than that. So I try to put at least a little of my creative energy into making sure their days have more than one surprise or fun thing in store for them.

It has become a bit of a tradition to do something on the "eve" of the kids' birthdays, to surprise them when they wake up. Kaitlyn even asked if I had anything planned a couple days ago. One year we blew up a ton of balloons and covered the floor of her room with them. Another year we covered the door with crete paper streamers that she had to break through to get out. Yet another year I only had mini balloons on hand so we filled those up, then rigged them in a piece of tissue paper hung above her door that was designed to rip apart and let the balloons fall on her head when she opened the door. We just duplicate whatever we do for her on Tyler's birthday that year. There is a limit to my creativity :)

This year I was planning to put all the balloons on fishing line and hang them from the ceiling all around her room. But due to being really tired that night and the fact that once I started hanging them I realized being in her room that long would really risk waking her up, I only suspended 3 of them and lined the floor with the rest. She was happily surprised all the same :)

Then came breakfast. This year I kept running across the idea of cake batter waffles over and over on Pinterest so I decided to try it. Mmmmmm. It's really great if you want a giant dose of sugar first thing in the morning. And it tastes just like cake!
*all you do is make up the cake batter just as instructed on the box (with the oil, water, and eggs) then use it just like waffle batter in your waffle machine. The same applies to pancakes I'm sure. The only difference is that the cake waffles did seem to take a bit longer to cook than regular waffles.

Kaitlyn asked if she got a candle in her waffles - so I hunted one up. And added whip cream and fish sprinkles (how funny that digging through my cake/cookie making supplies turned up those fun sprinkles in not only her party theme but her party colors as well). The waffles really didn't need syrup. (and I made the kids eat yogurt for breakfast too just to balanace it out a bit)
She also got to open one gift before heading off to school.

Do you ever find it interesting how often celebrating revolves around food?

Kaitlyn had requested that she get nacho lunchables in her lunchbox on her birthday, along with some "cake and sprinkles" yogurt (have you seen those? we discovered them about a month ago and the kids love them). And as I have been doing every year for her birthday, I dropped off a little treat for her to share with everyone at school. Normally I do cupcakes that match the theme of her party and had the fish ones all planned out for this year. Then someone mentioned that this school doesn't let you bring in anything home made (what?! why do people have to be such control freaks? It's not the first rule at this school that annoys me lol) and since I wasn't gonna drop $15 on a couple dozen cupcakes from the bakery I grabbed some mini donuts instead and dressed them up a little bit. Kaitlyn also got to pick what we were eating for dinner (mashed potatoes and gravy with corn on the cob are her favorites this year).

That's about as far as we go with traditions. She got to open her gifts as soon as her dad got home from work. And we saved the cake and another set of candles for her birthday party the next day.

What is your favorite way to celebrate a birthday?

31 Days: Day 13 - Party Checklist

2011-10-13T14:40:00.000-07:00

Kaitlyn's birthday is tomorrow! And her birthday party is on Saturday. I'm neck deep in the final stages of birthday and party prep so I thought I'd give you a quick run down of my typical pre-party checklist and time frame.

-1 year before party and approximately one hour after her previous birthday party, Kaitlyn announces the theme for her next birthday :)
- 3-6 months before party date: finalize the party theme and start gathering ideas and supplies (yes, I plan that far ahead. No, I don't expect you to. But I do recommend you start thinking about your party at least 4-6 weeks ahead of time)
- 1 month before the party date: take a look at the calendar and finalize party date/time. Make (or buy and address) invitations. Start working on any craft/decoration/favor/projects, if I haven't started to already
- 2 weeks-10 days before party date: send out invitations
- 1 week before party date: double check all lists. Pick up any supplies/groceries still needed for the party. Recruit husband/friend/grandparent to help with the party, if needed. If using a rented facility, confirm reservation. Same applies to any catering, cake order, etc. Wrap gifts.
-day before party:
-last minute grocery store run
-prepare any food that can be done ahead of time
-gather all party materials into one place
-start decorating, if possible
-clean the house (if I'm having the party at home)
-find cameras (still and video cameras) and make sure batteries are charged
-double check all lists
-Party Day!:
-last minute food prep (I usually decorate the cake first thing in the morning)
-party set up and decorating
-enjoy the party!
-clean up (oh joy)
-blog about it all :)

31 Days: Day 12 - Orchestrating the Fun

2011-10-12T13:32:00.000-07:00

What is a celebration all about? Why, to add a little fun to our lives, of course! Right? When it comes right down to it, a party is simply a reason to get together with people you like and to have a few laughs. A way to break up our regular, every day, normal lives. And while every person is responsible for their own fun, it's our job as hosts to facilitate that.

The amount of thought and planning that needs to go into the activities at a party varies. Sometimes all you are really shooting for is to get a group of people together to talk - a dinner party, lunch with friends, etc. So all you really need is a time, a place, and some food. And maybe a couple of good conversation starters up your sleeve. At other times you will need to keep the guests engaged at all times. Some factors to consider:
-Adults always require less direction than children, and are also less likely to enjoy party games. -Some occasions are more suited to games/planned activities than others. Would it really be a baby shower without a couple of corny party games? :)
-Children, if left to their own devices, will always get into trouble. Guaranteed.
-Sometimes the party IS the activity, like when I do my craft days with the ladies in my neighborhood or if you were doing a murder mystery dinner or whatever.

I repeat - children need to be entertained! So let's explore that one a little further. If you are having a neighborhood BBQ or a gathering of your extended family, it's likely you'll have a pack of kids running around and a group of parents that want to spend as much time as they can chatting with the other grown ups. Your best option would be to make sure children have a way of entertaining themselves, with or without supervision. This may be as simple as planning the BBQ at the park so the kids can swing and slide and run to their hearts' content. Set up a TV with a kid-friendly movie playing. Put out a few toys or games that you don't mind if the kids play with. My biggest pet peeve is seeing children running and screaming around and around a crowded room and parents pretending to ignore them. I don't blame that on the host, but really can it hurt to try to avoid having that situation? Nope, not at all.

My own personal notes on children's parties:
-I have developed my own little formula for putting together the activities for my children's birthday parties. For variety, I like select one or two active games, one that is more quiet, and one craft project.
-the activities almost always go faster than you think they will so keep one extra game idea in reserve just in case you need to fill some time. But don't be afraid to go back repeat games either.
-3-5 activities, plus time to eat and open gifts is usually all you need
-keep the party moving. Bored children = chaos.
-fill all of the time during the party. When there is down time (usually at the beginning and end of every party), make sure it is structured down time. As soon as they arrive, give the kids something to do. They will all be really excited and loud and tend to run around like crazy monkeys if you don't, so plan a small activity for everyone to do while other guests are arriving. Coloring pages, puzzles, etc are good options.
-Most people are late to parties. Again, plan for this with a low key activity to fill the time and plan on starting the "real" party games 10-15 minutes after the designated party start time
-if you are hosting a children's party, focus on the kids and only the kids. I know you want to huddle over in the corner with the other moms and watch the fun, but save that for the time after the cake is cut, the gifts are open and the party is winding down.
-open the gifts at the party if you choose to, but then put the gifts aside and don't take them out of the packaging for the kids to play with. There is nothing worse than having to break up a fight over a toy, or having a new toy broken or pieces lost before the child gets a chance to play with it himself.
-1 1/2 to 2 hours is just about the right amount of time. I'm exhausted by the end of the 2 hours and so are the kids. (slumber parties are the exception to this, obviously)

I was at a couple of children's birthday parties recently (I'm starting to think half the neighborhood was born in the fall!) and it occurred to me that not all people are good hosts. Maybe they just don't know how to be good hosts. Or maybe they just aren't into throwing parties yet feel compelled to try give their child a good time anyway. There isn't anything wrong with that. But I think Miss Manners would tell you there are a few things that every host should know. Since she (Miss Manners) isn't around (nor do I feel like googling it!), here is my short list:
-every guest should be greeted individually, preferably as soon as they arrive
-the host and guest of honor should strive to have a little bit of one on one time with every single guest at some point during the party. Some people call this mingling :)
-if you are the host, you are in charge. Don't leave it up to someone else to decide when to cut the cake or open gifts. Be decisive, be assertive, and stay on top of things.
-never ever leave the children unattended. This may require you to enlist an extra set of hands at the party. Plan ahead for it.

Whew! That one was kinda long and rambling! :)
Input?

31 Days: Day 11 - Decorations and Food

2011-10-11T12:40:00.000-07:00

What is the #1 thing that makes a party? I'd say it's a toss up between food (you can't have a party without food can you?! and so many other celebrations revolve around food as well) and decorations, so we'd better talk about both.

You can spend as much (or as little)as you want, and be as extravagant (or not) as you wish when it comes to celebrating. Honestly, if you're happy with it, it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. I love making a big splash, but I also like keeping most of my money in my wallet to use for other things. So I have a couple of tips when it comes to the decorations and food for a party.

First, focus on just a few areas. You don't have to decorate every single inch of space in the room, nor do you need to spread the decorations all over in order to make it look festive. There are two or three key places that if you put your attention on making them fun, the entire party will feel well decorated.
1 - the food table! I don't always use this table as a buffet (that could prove disastrous with a group of 5 year olds), but I do like to display any food I'm serving, even if I plan on dishing it up and distributing it myself. It doesn't take much to make this area pop. Go with something that accents your theme/color scheme for the tablecloth and use the food, paper plates, napkins, etc as your decor. Remember to use different heights (cake plates, empty boxes placed under the tablecloth, etc) to add interest. To bring the eye up off the table a bit, I try to place the table somewhere that forms a natural backdrop (or make one out of fabric or something - that would also be a good option) then add in something fun like a banner and maybe something hanging from the ceiling.
2 - the entry to the party. It doesn't have to be complicated - a bunch of balloons tied to the porch and a sign on the front door would be great. But it is nice to have something to signal "here's the party!" to the guests (especially if some have not visited your lcoation before).
3 - the dining table/any table the guests will be using to sit down and eat. A tablecloth and some sort of centerpiece - be creative.

Food:
Anything and everything goes! Questions to ask yourself when deciding what to serve:
-do I want to serve a full meal or just snacks and cake? (this will also be influenced by the time you choose to have your party. If you schedule the party from 11:30 - 1:00 you'd better plan on serving lunch!)
-do I want guests to sit down to eat or do I want to serve easy-to-eat food that guests can munch on while standing around or sitting on the couch?
-who will be attending the party? You don't serve sushi to 4 year olds right? An all-women get together tends to eat lighter/want more healthy options than a mixed gathering would. Beer is probably expected at a Super Bowl party, but wouldn't be welcome at something for children. Etc. etc.
-do I want to make it myself? buy it? have it catered? potluck?
*One note about potluck: Since it's hard to know what people will or won't be bringing I tend to stack the deck a bit. I assign myself (as host) the main dish as well as anything that we can't live without at the party (plates, napkins, at least one type of drink, etc). Then I get together with one or two of my close friends/family - people that I KNOW will be coming to the party and not change their minds at the last minute, the kind of people that would jump on the opportunity to help - and ask them to bring the other major items that make a party like dessert, drinks, salad, etc. I also make a quick list of ideas to give guests if they ask what they should bring. This includes things like salads, chips/dip, veggies, fruit, cookies, etc.

Keep in mind that the food is another area that can easily be used to enhance your party theme. Try to think out of the box a little bit with creative ways to decorate the food (chocolate covered strawberries that look like footballs, anyone?) or food that naturally goes with the theme (how could I not serve goldfish crackers as Kaitlyn's fish party? or chocolate donut "tires" at Tyler's monster truck party?). Small touches go a long way to add that little bit of "wow factor" to the party. My favorite thing to do is use clipart (usually the exact same pictures I used on the inviations, party favors, signs, etc) to make decorative pieces for drinking straws or water bottle labels. Trust me, those get oohs and ahhs every time and they take only a couple minutes to make.

Whatever you do, make sure you have enough to feed your guests! And if you need a little further direction - make sure you have something for each of the 3 most imporant categories: Drinks. Something sweet. And a little something savory (or slightly healthy) on the side.

So... anyone have any favorite party recipes they want to share? What are you serving at your next party?

31 Days: Day 10 - Party Planning

2011-10-10T11:55:00.000-07:00

I know I've been jumping around a lot with the topics in this series about celebrations. (In case you are just tuning in - I am participating in the Nester's 31 Day Challenge, to choose a topic and write a blog post about it every single day during the month of October) The perfectionist part of me wants to start over, make a list of topics needed and take you through the party planning process from beginning to end. But here's the thing - jumping from thing to thing IS how party planning goes. Sure I could sit down for 10 minutes and go through the list "Ok I'm inviting ___, _____, and _____. The party theme is ____ with _____ for decorations. We are eating _____." and call it good. However, you know that's not how you get the most creative, fun parties, crafts, or ideas in general. Some things are collected. Some things just jump right off the computer or the shelf at the store screaming "use me for the Fish Parteeeee!" And the rest of it just kind of falls into place. And, of course, some things can be worked on ahead of time and others have to wait until right before the party. My husband would put me in the nut house, for sure, if I started constructing the princess castle (Kaitlyn's 5th Birthday party) when I had actually started planning the party - in June! :)

So I've been posting things as they pop into my head, or whatever I have been working on that day, or just because I felt like it. Well, today let's pull it all together a bit by talking about organization, and more specifically, lists! (my favorite thing! ha)

It's one thing to collect fantastic and creative ideas, it's a whole other thing to remember them and be able to access details on demand. I can depend on my brain to remember maybe 75% of the things I put in it, most of the time. But worrying that I'm forgetting something, or not realizing I've forgotten something until it's too late really isn't worth the stress. I have learned not only to write things down, but to put those lists where I can find them easily, and most importantly, in the same place every time so that I'm not losing the list itself.

I have developed my own little system when it comes to planning parties or any other fun event, relying heavily on the computer to do so :) First is the idea phase, which means a lot of fun time spent blog hopping. I make sure to Pin (pinterest.com - its an online tool for keeping track of websites and links) anything that even half-way sparks my interest so I can always go back and find it later. Before I discovered that handy tool I did the same thing on my own by creating a Word Doc where I copy/pasted website links, photos, etc and wrote down any ideas/thoughts I had. I also use Word to keep track of the party plans as they take shape, adding ideas for decorations, what I found for the party, who is being invited, etc as I go along. And today I turned that all into a printable Party Planning Worksheet to share with all of you! I included a section for each of the major things that go into planning a party: details like date and time, theme, decorations, food, activities, guest list, favors, and even a spot to keep a running list for supplies and shopping. And condensed it down to only 2 pages (1 pg if you print it front/back), for convenience.

(you can download the pdf file for the worksheet here)
(if you prefer the Word doc, feel free to email me with your request)

So please, print away and let's get started planning your next celebration!

Linking to:

Today's Creative Blog

31 Days: Day9 - Gifts for Men

2011-10-09T11:28:00.000-07:00

This one is going to be short and sweet because frankly, men aren't all that fun to give gifts to! No, I'm kidding. The truth is that I just don't feel that I'm very good at coming up with creative gift ideas for the guys in my life. Once in a while I hit on a winner (like the camera you see Tyler helping unwrap for my Dad in the photo above. He had been wanting one he could carry around in his pocket for years, not that he would have come right out and asked for one), but usually I feel like I miss the mark. Especially when it comes to my husband. *sigh*

So without further ado, here is my short list of gift ideas for men:
-anything related to hobbies. Fishing, camping, skiing, golf, etc etc etc. My brother loves horses and used to make a list for my parents every year so that he would get exactly what he wanted for Christmas. A new halter or riding boots would make his day, even if he already that was exactly what he was getting.
-anything with a logo of his favorite sports team/athlete. Tshirts, jackets, coffee mugs, hats, etc. My husband even has a hammer with an 88 on it for Dale Ernhardt Jr (yes he's totally into NASCAR. Can you guess where we spend any Sunday noon I don't already have plans for?)
-sports equipment
-tickets - movies, concerts, ski pass, etc
-CDs/Itunes gift cards

So help me out here. What is the best gift you ever gave your guy/Dad/brother?

31 Days: Day 8 - Happy Birthday to

2011-10-08T01:53:00.000-07:00

... Me! Woohoo!
Today I am thirty-three (a very uneventful, stuck in the middle, un-milestone age). I'm not one to get upset about turning another year older. Nor am I one to get all reflective and start setting goals (at least not on my birthday - I get all reflective and set goals at the drop of a hat in regular life lol). And I am fully aware that as an adult birthdays have lost a lot of the magic they once had. I don't expect people to acknowledge or even think about my birthday anymore and it wouldn't bother me if they didn't. But the great part about a life full of wonderful people is that, even sitting here at 5:07 AM in a dark and quiet house, I already feel special and loved. Thursday I got to play hookey from my regular life and go meet a friend for lunch and some shopping. We had delicious Cheesecake Factory Cheesecake, wrangled kids, and talked and talked and talked - perfect! Then yesterday my husband had the day off and instead of trying to sleep in and relax on the first day off he's had in the last two weeks (oh how we both get sick of the dirty dozen from drill weekends!), he was up helping me get the kids off to school then spent the entire day with me working in the garage. We got all the mess organized, built some new storage for the balls, pool noodles, bikes and scooters, got rid of all the dirt and cobwebs, and even got half-way through refinishing my craft tables. You know how happy I get when it comes to organizing and Projects! I've also had a handful of happy birthday wishes already.

If all of that was all the birthday celebrating I get, I'd be happy. But I know there is still more coming! Kaitlyn (my 7 year old little sweetheart, who is gonna be an even bigger party planner than her mama) pulled her brother and her dad into her room for a pow-wow after dinner last night then they all took off to the grocery store. Not wanting to spoil the surprise but also not being able to contain her excitement, Kate told me, "mom when you wake up tomorrow you don't need to make your own breakfast." :) So I will be sitting here at the computer for another half hour then taking myself up to bed again to await what they have in store. I am also giving myself permission to just play today. To leave the laundry and the bathroom scrubbing that I didn't get around to yesterday until tomorrow. To take the kids out and find a fun family activity and to eat out for dinner and not feel guilty.

My message for you today is that celebrating isn't all about a big party or even a special event. It's about the little things in life that make us smile and make our lives just a little brighter. Eat a piece of cake with me. Take the kids out and enjoy the sunshine this afternoon (or the snow if you are in Utah!). Hug your sweetheart. Call your mom. Find a reason to celebrate!

31 Days: Day 7 - Gifts for Women

2011-10-07T07:33:00.000-07:00

Hello ladies! Let's talk a little about ourselves today, or rather - what gifts we like to receive and give! I think women can be both the easiest and the hardest people to shop for. I know that I personally can be pretty picky when it comes to certain things. I have a pretty good idea of how I want things to look or at least the feel I'm going for and would much prefer to pick out my own furniture, decorations, and clothing. In fact, I have forbidden my husband and my mom from ever buying me clothes because I don't want ANYTHING I haven't tried on first. (My mom ignores this rule when it suits her, of course :) ) So I hesitate when it comes to trying to predict what someone may or may not like. But I also rebel against the thought of gift cards because most of the time that doesn't seem personal enough. (as with all of my rules, I still break them sometimes. I fully intend to buy my brother a gift card for his birthday because one, he's even harder to shop for than me, and two, I hate paying postage and since we moved out of state gift cards are the easiest things to send.)

On the other hand, women are the most likely people to be thrilled with a gift, no matter what you got them. As wives and mothers we are so used to being the ones taking care of everyone, it means a lot when someone else goes out of their way to for us. A friend bringing me a cupcake on my birthday absolutely makes my day. Getting a card in the mail makes me smile. And I have had my share of things that I usually like to pick out for myself that someone else did an equally lovely job of choosing for me.

So here is my list of can't fail, low cost gift ideas for all the special ladies in your life:
-books. They are one of those things that we can never have too many of
-fragrant lotions/soaps, bubble bath, pedicure kits, or any other spa-like, self-indulging items
-home decor - the smaller stuff. No one can ever have too many holiday decorations or random, unique pieces (that fit their style).
-picture frames! or really anything that has to do with photos.
-recipes or anything to do with cooking. Could be as simple as your favorite cookie recipe typed up and attached to a couple of cookie cutters, a fun apron or set of oven mitts, a recipe book you yourself love, or something like the family recipes I put in a photo book last year (you can see them here).
-serving dishes. Everyone needs a good set of serving pieces, even if they don't entertain much. They can always use that cake stand as a decorative piece on their counter, or that pretty bowl to hold their keys and spare change. I try to find things that are slightly unique in shape but in classic colors/materials like white ceramic or glass.
-accessories - hats, scarves, jewelry. Need I say more?
-plants/flowers/bulbs/gardening tools
-something to drink out of. There is a huge selection here. One year my college roommates and I decided to exchange those giant mug/bowls with saucers. Water bottles for those athletic types. Travel mugs. That new kind of insulated glass with the straw that looks like something you would get from a fast food restaurant, but cuter. Or what I have been giving to all my new neighbors/friends with birthdays recently (seriously - fall is a HUGE time of the year for birthdays around here), a ceramic coffee cup with lid. Filled with chocolate, of course!

If those ideas aren't enough for you, here is Flylady's list of clutter-free gift ideas for women. And please share - what are your favorite gifts to get/give?

31 Days: Day 6 - Super Sizing It

2011-10-06T15:48:00.000-07:00

A-ha alert here people! Are you ready to learn my new favorite trick?!

With every single party there is always as least one time I have to play artist and free-hand something because my printer can't produce the sizes I want for things like posters, pinatas, and signs. I usually employ the grid transfer technique I learned in 7th grade art - you know the one where you take a picture, draw grid lines over it, then use the lines as guides when copying it all in a different size? No? Well, anyway, that's usually what I do and I've had decent results. But I found this new technique yesterday (thank you pinterest!) and was excited to try it out. Prepare to be impressed because this is the absolute lowest-cost projector you will ever see ;)

Instructions found here but I'll give you the basics. All you have to do is trace whatever you want to blow up onto a piece of transparancy. I had a scrap piece of acetate from an old scrapbooking project but my guess is that this would work with anything clear like a page protector or maybe even plastic wrap if you were really careful. So - I took the acetate and traced one of the fish from the favor tags. Then I taped it onto the end of an empty taco box (because that's the first box I grabbed out of the recycle bin haha) and told the kids to bring me a flashlight (seriously, the hardest part of this process was having to change the batteries in Ty's Cars flashlight) and stuck it in the other end. The only other requirement for this is a dark room, which is why I was doing it at 6:30AM when usually we are neck deep in getting ready for school :)

See? There's the set up. Flashlight in the box, box on a chair, posterboard taped to the wall. It's a pretty simple process to play with the distances of the box from the wall and the distance of the flashlight itself from the drawing. As you can see, angling the flashlight off to the side actually gave me a clearer image than shooting it directly through the sketch.
I used a Sharpie to do the tracing, thinking it would give me a better line on the wall but as it then ended up 1/2" thick once it was blown up, I think using a finer pen might work better. It didn't matter too much for my purposes because the drawing was pretty simple to follow either way.
One minute later and with much applause from my cheering section (who thought this whole thing was WAY cool), I had converted a 2" drawing into a 3' poster. Go me! (ha)

Now are you wondering what I am now going to do with my giant fish? Well I took another 10 minutes to paint it (after getting the kids dressed and Kaitlyn off on the bus) and cut out a dozen tails.

And now I have a Pin the Tail on the Fish game for Kaitlyn's party. Which, by the way, was her idea - she loves the Pin the ____ games, for some reason, and we have one for most parties. That's my second and third tip of the day - always try to incorporate the birthday girls' requests for her party (within reason) and if you need a quick idea for a party game, pretty much anything can be turned into a Pin the ___ on the ____. Pin the tail on the dog, the crown on the princess, the eye patch on the pirate, the bow on Hello Kitty (that was last year), the tire on the truck, the.....

*I'm also using this project as my Pin It Challenge post this time around. In fact, a lot of the projects I've been working on for Kaitlyn's party would apply to the challenge. You can check out the other ladies that are participating in the challenge here:
Julia

Jackie

31 Days: Day 5 - Gifts for Kids

2011-10-05T03:58:00.000-07:00

Let's face it - cute party themes and games and fun cakes aside, it's really all about the gifts. And for anyone other than my own children, the gift giving is the hardest part for me. Will they like it? Will they use it? Does it fit their style/taste? Do they already have one? Is $X enough to spend on a gift? etc etc

So let's give ourselves a reality check here, shall we? The point of any gift is to show the person we are giving it to that we are thinking of them and wanted to brighten their day a little bit. It truly is the thought that counts. So let's give ourselves a little break and stop worrying about spending too much money. With a little creativity we can give great gifts without breaking the bank.

I also subscribe to Flylady's concept of clutter-free gift giving. That means I try not to give anything that will be used once then tossed aside to collect dust and take up space. Kids, in particular, usually have WAY too much stuff already. Sometimes I try to think of gifts that can be used up like treats, bubbles, sidewalk chalk, lotion, or even gift cards. Sometimes I try to give experiences like tickets to shows/zoo/museum, a kit with all the supplies to bake cookies or make something, or lessons for things like dance classes. And sometimes I have to fall back on my list of ideas that you can never have too many of, like books or games.

So here is my quick list of Go To gift ideas for kids:
-card/board games
-books
-arts & crafts supplies (anything from markers and paper to premade craft kits. Always remember to make sure everything is washable!)
-movies/DVDs
-music (CDs, Itunes gift cards, etc)
-tickets/events
-outdoor games/sports equipment
-water/pool toys
-dress up supplies

My oldest seems to naturally request things that follow along with the No Clutter ideal and generally has very few toys on her list. For her birthday this year we have a new bike helmet (she's is getting a new bike for Christmas but the helmet isn't going to wait until then as her old one is cracked), a desk lamp (so she can read at night without having to get up to turn off the light - her request. I had big dreams of finding an inexpensive one and dressing it up with ruffles or bows or something to match her room but in the end I found an adjustable one more in line with what she had requested, on clearance at Target for $5), new dance clothes (Hello Kitty theme - her favorite!), and a Hello Kitty necklace/watch locket thing (it's cute and she's going to love it). She also requested some Kids Bop music so if I can find a good deal on those I may add that to the list.

Do you have any other ideas for fun gifts for kids? I'd love to add to my list.
Flylady also has a fairly comprehensive collection of ideas from her readers here. I hope you find one of these ideas helpful the next time you have to buy a gift!

31 Days: Day 4 - Party Favors

2011-10-04T17:05:00.000-07:00

Oh, party favors - those little bags of silly candy and cheap toys that we all feel obligated to give out because everyone else does, right? Yeah maybe. But I prefer to think of them as our little Thank You gifts to the guests that attend the party. And as another creative way to bring the theme of the party full circle, giving the guests a little something to take home to remember all the fun.

It may seem slightly out of order to talk about party favors now when they are usually tagged on at the end of the party. But I've found that it is the party favors and the decorations that I need to think about first so I can keep my eyes open and grab fun things when I spot them in the stores. It's really hard to go into a store a week or so before a party and find exactly what I'm looking for, especially when I don't know what I'm looking for until I find it! So as soon as I decide on a party theme, I start collecting favors. Good places to look for this kind of thing are the dollar sections at Target or any of the craft stores, dollar stores, party stores, etc. Also pay attention to packaging and unique food items when you walk down the snack or candy isle at the grocery store.

Plus, I felt like working on them today :) I did much more than my usual running around yesterday (early out for school, parent/teacher conference, dr appointment, dance class) and today I wanted to stay home, indulge myself, and maybe get a few things crossed off the To Do List. So this afternoon I turned on Nate Berkus (DVR'd of course - I watch very little TV and pretty much none of it is watched in real time anymore - am I the only one that does that?? I also only watch TV with about half my attention, choosing to work on projects during home improvement shows or using cooking shows to zone out right before bed), plugged in my glue gun and got to work.

When choosing party favors I always look for two things - does it creatively fit the theme? And is it unique or useful enough for someone to want to keep the item longer than the time it takes to drive home? Oh, and #3 - is it inexpensive? Because very few of us want to drop more money on the party favor than the amount we would spend on a gift if were were the guest.

The theme for the party I am planning for my daughter's 8th birthday is Fish. And I decided to go with a straight blue and color scheme - blue in many tones as it's very very hard to get the same shade of anything unless it's black or white - since blue is her favorite color right now.

A lot of my ideas for the favors came from inspiration I found on Pinterest - like these cute ribbon fish. The original idea was an embellishment for a card (instructions can be found here), but since my daughter has also declared the party to be "girls only" I turned them into hairbows. Fun huh? Kaitlyn was pretty pleased when I showed them to her.

I also found a recipe for homemade "moon sand" so I whipped up a batch and divided it into snack-size zip top baggies. I then printed out a little label/instruction tag and stapled it onto the baggie. Notice the fish clipart? She's the same little fish I used on the invitations. I like to repeat things like that in more than one place, to tie it all together. And because it makes people ooh and ahh - especially when you do things like putting the same logo from the invitation on all the water bottles :) I had picked up some pencils and shark themed fruit snacks (I didn't know at the time that they were packaged in blue too - how lucky am I?) when I ran across them and I think the four items fill out a goodie bag just right.

It's all about presentation right? I love to do something a little unique when I package anything even if it's only adding ribbon or feathers to the top of a colored paper bag. This time I decided to cut fish shapes out of fabric to make bags. This blue patterned flannel was on sale for like $3/yard and I thought the circle shapes looked kind of like scales so I grabbed it. I used the hot glue gun around the edges to attach the two sides together, leaving the mouth open so I could fill them.

Printed out another sheet of fish clipart for the tags. Used a stamp to add a "thanks so much" message, and cut them apart.

And there you have it - a fully stuffed fish all ready to party.

31 Days: Day 3 - Guest List

2011-10-03T06:32:00.000-07:00

(photo from Kaitlyn's birthday party last year)

What is the most important part of any celebration? Nope, it's not the food. And it's not the decorations...
It's the people you choose to celebrate with!

A guest list is a tricky thing. Invite too many people and you end up with chaos or worrying about if that many people will fit in your home or trying to find a bigger venue. Invite too few people and the party is a dud. As I mentioned yesterday, I think you can usually count on getting only half the people invited to actually show up at the party, if that. Schedules conflict, etc. So I do believe in beefing up the party list a little bit to compensate.

My biggest pet peeve, however, is inviting too many people for the occasion. In particular, this applies to children's parties. It only takes 4-6 children running around to make anything feel like a party. :) And the younger the children are, the harder they are to supervise and the fewer I think you should invite. I try to cap the guest list at about 12 kids total. This means that I DO NOT invite my child's entire school class or all of the children in the neighborhood to the party (unless I know most won't show up lol). I know some schools encourage that and I think it's crazy. While my child may like most of the kids in her class, she will only gravitate to a few of them and that's ok. I don't mean to encourage you to be rude, but please don't let the thought of possible hurt feelings lead you to inviting someone that doesn't mean a whole lot to you or your guest of honor.

One way to make sure I stick with my rule is by dividing up my child's birthday into 2 parts. I have the kids' party with all the decorations and the games and fun invitations, etc. And I have the family party where the focus is only on cake and ice cream and letting the grandparents have tons of one on one time with the birthday girl/boy. This may sound like a lot of work, but in reality it works out so much better. It allows me to focus on the kids and the activities during the first party, then I can relax and enjoy my time with the family later. To make it even easier I schedule them both back to back so I only have to decorate and clean the house once :) I plan the kids' party for sometime during the day or directly after school. Then I allow a short break for dinner and a quick straightening up before the family arrives.

*This year, we are not doing a family party at all since we now live out of state and there is no family nearby to invite.

The opposite, however, applies to parties with adults. The more you invite, the better chance you will have of getting a good turn out. It's even harder to get adults to parties than it is to get children there. Busy, busy, busy lives we all lead! And with adults, the only real consideration when planning parties is available space and plenty of food. No supervision worries (well unless uncle So and So gets really really drunk and breaks the coffee table or something!), no having to try too hard to keep everyone entertained and happy. So invite a house full and enjoy the fun!

Any additional thoughts? Please share! Tomorrow I'll start showing you some of the crafty stuff...

31 Days: Day 2 - Invitations

2011-10-02T16:31:00.001-07:00

Ack! Blogging everyday has already got the best of my and it's only day 2! It wasn't that I didn't have the time earlier today I just let myself get distracted. Urgh. Anyway. On to today's theme - Invitations!

The invitations are the first thing any of the guests see and they are your first opportunity to start setting the mood for the party. Once I have gathered a few ideas for my theme it's pretty easy to start picturing what sort of "look" I want for the party. I narrow it down to a specific color theme, look around for a few clipart ideas online, then I'm ready to design.

For the fish theme, I decided to go with multiple shades of blue (Kaitlyn's favorite color right now) and white. I Googled fish clipart and found some cute options, and as soon as I saw this pretty little fish I knew that was what I wanted to use on the invitations. Now, the more invitations and cards I do, the easier I tend to make them as I know that I quickly get sick of the duplication process. So I did the background and wording in Paint (still working my PhotoShop skills grr) and printed it off, 4 to a page. In order to match the color of the fish, I just took the color dropper tool and grabbed the darker color from her tail. Then I used the paint roller thing to turn the background of a new file a solid blue in that color. It was a simple matter of adding a few white circles for bubbles and typing in the details of the party.

Remember: the only things you truly need on the party invitations are the Why (ie: Kaitlyn's 8th Birthday), When (date and time of party) and Where (location and directions, if needed). RSVP and a contact number are optional, but I generally like to put them on there. I have to note that failure to RSVP is something that gets me every time. I generally don't rely on the RSVP count very much and just plan on about half (or fewer) of the people invited showing up. If you get a better response than that, consider yourself lucky. People lead busy lives - don't be offended. I always have plenty of extra food and a few more favor bags than I think I will need on hand and have never had any problems.

Other than that, the rest is just fluff. I try to find a cutely worded intro to it all, then leave it at that. The less said on these things, the better. People have very short attention spans.

Once I had the basic design of the invitation the way I wanted it, I saved the file as a jpg. It was then a simple matter of copy/pasting it into Word to print it out. And to give it that little extra pop, I printed out a page full of the fish clipart, cut them out with scissors and added them to the invitation with dimensionals so that the fish stood off the background a little bit.
Viola!

(don't mind the paper scraps - I didn't want to have to go back in and edit out the phone number and address after taking the photo)

I was going to do a big round-up of fun invitation ideas for you, but it's almost bedtime for the kiddos and I need to get off the computer for the night. I'll leave you with a photo of the invitation I've had the most compliments on to date - Tyler's Dump Truck party (age 2).

31 Days: Day 1 - Inspiration

2011-10-01T05:35:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my 31 Days series - 31 Days of Creative Celebrations! I'm going to post every single day for the next 31 days on the topic of Celebrating. And why did I pick that topic? Because in my world, October is back to back parties and special events! And let's face it - we all LOVE a good party! From birthdays, to Halloween, to crafts - I'm jamming it all into this month.

If you've spent much time around me, you'll know that I'm the go-to girl for party ideas. That's my favorite part actually - the planning! Most of my friends know this, and many of them come to me when they're trying to decide what to do for their kids' birthdays. And I have a bit of a rep when it comes to the parties I throw for my own kids. They're all a bit over-the-top ;) I'm not an expert, but I do know what works for me. So I thought I'd walk you through my process, step by step. With Kaitlyn's birthday exactly 2 weeks away I'm doing all the work anyway - may as well blog about it, right?

As with anything creative, it all starts with the inspiration. My daughter is just as into parties as I am (in fact, she planned her first party, for her grandpa when she was just 4 years old!) and basically the day after she has her birthday she starts planning the next one. And surprisingly, once she settles on a theme she doesn't change her mind. This year her theme is Fish. I know - it's kind of off-the-wall for a theme right? But there are a lot of different directions I could go with that theme - fishing, mermaids, under the sea, etc - and that's what makes it a good one.

You don't have to choose a theme before you start searching for inspiration, but it certainly does help to narrow things down. So how do you choose the theme? Well, just pick anything that you can get excited about. Favorite things are a good place to start. If the party is for someone, what is their favorite TV show or movie? Favorite color? Favorite hobby? Favorite food? There are all kinds of themes to be found there from princesses or Spiderman, to black and white polka dot, from baseball, to chocolate - all great themes for a party! The point is that you pick something that not only says something about the guest of honor (or the reason you are having the party if it's for a holiday or a monthly book club or whatever), but to pick something that makes YOU excited to plan the party. You aren't going to enjoy planning a party if it's all about football and you, yourself can't stand the game, right?

I also want to point out that when it comes to kids' parties (or any party really), while I do recommend you ask for your child's input, don't let that tie you into the theme. A lot of times the guest of honor will be thrilled with the party, no matter what theme you choose in the end.

Now, once you have a little bit of direction it's on to gathering ideas - my favorite part! And for this I usually employ the good 'ole internet. (duh) I don't do this all at once, but I spend some time looking around when I have the chance. Part of the fun of planning a party is building it up gradually. This cuts down on the stress levels too.
This is a quick inspiration board I created from some of the things I found on Pinterest (you can see my whole Pin Board here). Pinterest is now my #1 place to search for things like that. Another good one is Google, of course. For a child's party, try places like familyfun.com or birthdayparyideas.com. If the theme is a specific toy, TV show, or a movie, a lot of times you will find party ideas on their websites (NickJr.com, disney.go.com, tonka.com, etc) For terrific party eye candy some of my favorite blogs include Celebrations at Home and Kara's Party Ideas. And if you are a DIYer, there are tons of ideas and tutorials at TipJunkie.com

Now it's your turn to share -how and where do you find inspiration?

31 Days...

2011-09-28T10:05:00.000-07:00

The Nester (and a few other bloggers) have started a little tradition for October - to pick a theme and then right about it every single day for the entire 31 days in October. This year they took it a step further and encouraged everyone else to blog along with them. At first I thought, "oh no, I'm too busy in October and what would I blog about anyway?" Because October is Birthday Month around here with multiple birthdays in the family all crammed into the first two weeks of the month and then while we're still gasping to catch up we get hit with Halloween. To make the month even busier, my Mom is coming out for a week long visit. Then I thought, "well I'll be blogging about most of that anyway so...." and thus I threw myself on the bandwagon and am declaring to all that I, too, will be blogging along with the 31 Days challenge. Look! I even made a little logo for myself!

Can I actually do that? I know I get overly chatty sometimes but to actually post every single day?! Wish me luck! And be sure to check in often and give me some encourangement! ;)

My theme? Birthdays, of course! Well, not just birthdays but celebrations in general, as that way I can tie in a little Halloween too. How to plan a great party without breaking the bank, gift ideas for all ages, personal party prep for my own two kiddos, another crafty day with the girls...

Pin It Challenge (#4)

2011-09-24T05:08:00.000-07:00

In keeping with my fall mood, I chose a little home decor project for my Pinterest Challenge this time around. It was one of those cases where inspiration and opportunity collide, as my intention while out shopping with a friend the other day wasn't to come home with crafting supplies. But right there in the Dollar Tree sat those fun little foam pumpkins and brightly colored fall flowers and when I remembered pinning an idea for a flower covered pumpkin, I knew I had to grab them and try it out. (Inspiration post found here).

Lucky for me, the pumpkins were the foam carvable kind so all I had to do was cut down the stems of the flowers and stick them in the pumpkins.

Then I glued on a wooden steam (leftover from my craft party the other day) and a leaf.

And that was pretty much that! $5 and about 20 min and I had a fun new pumkin for my collection.

I also got on a bit of cleaning kick the other day. Mostly because there was a funky smell coming from somewhere in the vicinity of the sink/dishwasher/garbage can - ewwww! Not being one to take any chances I tackled all three. Took the garbage out. Then looked up this post (obviously another one I had pinned so I could remember to try it at some point) and talked the husband into figuring out how to remove those screen things in the bottom of the dishwasher. Once the screens were out it was pretty easy to clean them off (esp since the hubby did that part - thanks honey!), wipe down a few of the bigger patches of gunk in there, and run it through a quick cycle with a cup of vinegar in the top rack. I also ran a glass of vinegar and ice through the disposal, just to be thorough. And now everything is all sparkly and happy! :)

What have you pinned this week? Have you tried any of them yet?? My fellow challenge do-ers have. Check them out:
Julia

Jackie

Shana

Fall, Anyone??

2011-09-23T13:01:00.000-07:00

I had to pull out this photo from last year because that's exactly the mood I'm in lately! :) Bring on fall!

I absolutely couldn't wait any longer. I started putting out my Fall/Halloween decorations yesterday! I've had fall on the brain for weeks now. I've got, like, a million ideas pinned and at least 10 craft projects on my Want To Do List. The weather is totally in on the consipiracy too! We have had cloudy skies and cooler temperatures for over a week now (though after this length of time I'm starting to miss the sun) and every morning all I want to do is heat up some hot chocolate, crawl under a blanket, and enjoy the excuse to do nothing but indulge. (which I do in small spurts - can't have myself sitting on my rear for an entire week now, can we?) I love the change of seasons, every single time, every single season. But I'm really really into the thought of fall right now. And although I really did want to wait until October to put out the Halloween stuff, well, I just couldn't resist any longer! My sunroom currently looks like Halloween blew up in there and I am slowly deciding where I want to place everything I do have and working on the things I want to have.

One of my projects was a wreath for the front door. I pulled apart an older wreath that I had made entirely out of fall colored berries so that I could use the wire wreath frame. (I'll show you that little project another time. I'm really really happy with that one). I took the old berries and a foam ball I had in my craft supplies
and spent about 45 minutes with the hot glue gun. No idea where it's going, but it was fun (and free!) to make :)

Anyway, back to the decorations! I think it's fun to pull out the boxes every year and revisit some memories as I pull them out (did you realize it's not just Christmas decorations that hold memories?). That's part of the fun of crafting - every item has its own story. I found the ceramic haunted houses that my mom gave me for my birthday the first year I was in college. Some projects I made with friends...many many projects I made with friends :) The floral arrangement I did for a friend of my mom many years ago and duplicated for myself while I was at it.
(the top pumpkin was falling off so I pulled it apart this year, pared down some of the leaves and flowers and am going to use the two pumpkins seperately this year)

I have decided that in this house I am going to concentrate on creating vignettes in just a handful of spots and not try to decorate the whole house. That way I can spread the decorations out enough that the whole place feels festive but without having to gather up things from every room when it's time to put them away (I always miss things when I do that and come February I bet you would find a lonely pumpkin sitting on the dryer waiting for me to reunite him with his friends in the garage). So far my key points are the corner of my kitchen cabinets (not doing anything over the cabinets this year. I'm just going to find things here and there that will work year round for those), my kitchen table ...

(I love this witch hat. Actually I love anything witchy lately. Do you think that says something about me?? :P I made this centerpiece two years ago on a crafty day with my friend Audrey (I'd say at least half my project days are with Audrey!) and this is the first time I've had a good place to display it.)

...and changed out my window box, of course. The fireplace and the ledge in my stairwell are currently a work in progress. As I said, I've got a lot more crafting ahead of me - fun, fun!

Recipe Binder

2011-09-21T05:00:00.000-07:00

I am constantly trying to figure out ways to simplify/make my life easier. And one of my big concerns (this applies to most moms I'm sure) is dinner planning and prep. Every. Single. Day. Right? I always have my eyes open for new recipes I think we may like, new meal strategies for my picky eaters, and any ideas I may find or come up with that help streamline meal planning and cooking.
A few years ago I created a recipe binder as a place to corral all of our most loved and well used recipes instead of having to flip through our collection of recipe books and stack of random recipes torn from magazines or printed from the computer or jotted down on paper scraps. I spent a good amount of time typing up recipes and getting it all put together and was happy with it. But over the months as we collected new recipes and our lives evolved and of course I once again ended up with of a collection of random pieces of paper all shoved in among the original typed recipes. Another organizing session was long overdue and I've been slowly working on typing up and printing out the newer recipes (or ones I forgot the first time!) over the past few weeks. And this week - success! I finally sat down and put the whole thing together, including the part where I make it all organized and cute :)

This was my original binder, which I still love. I didn't do a thing to the binder or the cover (it's just a 3 ring binder from the office supply store that has the pockets on the front so you can customize it). I couldn't find the same type of divided page protectors as I had been using before, so I ordered a big box of 100 from Amazon (divided page protectors with two 5x7 pockets per page) and switched those out.
Once the recipes were all in page protectors and categorized I was left wondering what to do about divider tabs. I had a few on hand but they were either pink floral (not gonna go with my black and red color scheme - ick!) or those cheezy slide in ones (those have their place - in my idea binders where I don't care what things look like. Yes I'm OCD like that :) ). Yuck. I just couldn't do that to my binder after all that work. And I wanted it done NOW, not after the 1 1/2 hour round trip to Walmart I would have to work into my schedule if I wanted new ones and no guarantee that they would have some that would work. Then inspiration struck.

I pulled out a stack of used manila file folders and chopped them in half. Then I spray painted the tabbed side black.

And then I made them all cute (strips of patterned paper, vinyl lettering with the Silhouette, and printed on address labels for the tabs)

And finally - a fully functional recipe binder! In addition to the recipe categories I have a tab at the end for menus, etc. For now all that I have under that tab is a list of items my kids will eat, which I hope will help meal planning easier as I can quickly glance at it and see which of their favs I can work into the mix. I plan to add another list of meal ideas (categorized by style like italian, mexican, slowcooker, etc as that is how I plan my menus for the week) and maybe work up some meal plans. But for now, I'm happy to have it done to this point. Happy dance!

How do you organize your recipes and plans your meals for the week?

Linking to:

Home Stories A to Z Tutorials and Tips Tuesday

Pin It Challenge (#3)

2011-09-10T06:19:00.000-07:00

Time for another Pinterest Challenge post! (need a little more info? See my original challenge post here) This week I chose to try out a crochet pattern I had pinned - an infant earflap hat. (pattern is here) I also braved one of my storage areas and dug out a baby doll to be my stand in model as I don't have any handy real-life models in this particular size :) I was a little concerned about the fit but no fears, it works perfectly! It was my first attempt with a crochet flower too. I'm surprised at how quickly the flower came together.
Cute, huh? I think this little beauty will soon be joining her brothers in my shop.

I've also been trying to get better at "product photography" for the items in my Etsy shop so I thought I'd try out this tutorial for an easy, inexpensive at-home technique for studio quality photos (link here).
This was my test photo - what I would normally get with my camera in my craft room with the light in the morning.

Then I did the "studio" set up. First problem is readily apparent - the trim pieces in my windows cast shadows where I'm not going to want them.

First test shot:

Yep see, shadows where I don't want them, and the vellum and aluminum foil aren't quite big enough so we're getting a streak of light across the bottom. I wanted to be able to compare them straight out of the camera, but I think with a little bump in editing this isn't bad. I do like the backlit look.

Test shot #2: again with the size issues on the vellum and aluminum foil, though slightly better use of the reflector has the photo coming out a little sharper and with better color.

Not bad really, but it's obvious I need to keep practicing!

So I'm anxious to know - has anyone else made something they have pinned?

Oh and let's not forget the other ladies that are doing this challenge along with me.
Julia

Jackie

Shana

Linking to:

Hello Baby

2011-09-09T11:04:00.000-07:00

Babies, babies everywhere! (none of which belong to me!haha) This morning I was at the pool with a small group of ladies from the neighborhood, three of which are pregnant - THREE! I'm positively surrounded, I tell you. Not the first time this has happened, but it still amazes me how these things seem to go in cycles.

My next door neighbor just welcomed her new addition home last week and I finally had the chance to meet him in person yesterday. Aww, babies are SO sweet and tiny! I didn't want to go over there empty-handed so I whipped up a set of onesies. You like? I've done these before (previous post here) and always like how quickly and easily they come together.
The rocket ship one is made with scraps from my latest car seat tent for the shop and I am in love with that argyle fabric. As in wanting to rush back to the store and get more THEN think of some sort of project for Tyler using it because I really really want to keep some for myself! :) But what would I make...?
Linking to:

Sumo's Sweet Stuff

Craft Day!

2011-09-08T08:00:00.000-07:00

I love my neighborhood! Between the Back to School party, our neighborhood pool opening, and random socializing/walks with friends, I've been having a lot of fun and getting to know everyone pretty well. While things felt like they were on a roll, I was quick to schedule our first crafting session. And I'm so happy with how it turned out! The ladies and I had a fantastic time while the big kids were in school (the 3 toddlers that left were pretty easy to work around). I think I was the only one that had done this sort of crafting before and I think they all surprised themselves with how easy and fun it was.

Care to guess what projects we worked on this time around? I'll give you one more hint.

Yup! Halloween decorations! I'm really getting in the mood for fall :)

Some people did Monsters.

Some did pumpkins. I did both since a few people didn't make it and I had tons of extra blocks.

So has anyone else started working on fall decorations? I have a million ideas rolling around in my head and am having a hard time keeping myself from pulling out the Halloween decorations already. Is that crazy?!

Linking to:
Young and Crafty

Pin It Challenge (#2)

2011-08-27T14:33:00.000-07:00

Wow 2 weeks rolls around pretty quickly! That's the amount of time we decided we would have in between each Pinterest Challenge (where a small group of my friends and I are challenging each other to not just spend time pinning all these cool projects but to actually DO one of the things we have pinned and blog about it). It's a good thing as it gets me up off my rear and crafting instead of procrastinating all the things I want to do someday.

This week I chose to experiment with using Elmer's glue as a crackle painting technique. This is the inspiration post:
While we were at the outlet mall the other day, my husband spotted some fun little plaques with funny sayings on them and mentioned that he would like one for his desk at work. Not one to buy something when I can make it, I decided that would be a great project to try out this techinque on.

So I painted a scrap piece of wood

Then did a coat of glue on the front

and painted on the top coat while the glue was still tacky.

It looked like this when it was wet

And this when it was dry

Not bad. And a whole lot less expensive and easier than buying the crackle medium - yay!

And here is the final product. (I used the Silhouette to cut the vinyl for the quote, of course)

The lettering ended up on some of the larger cracks so it's a bit hard to read, but I'm trying not to let it bother me. ;)

Also this week, I've been trying out an experiment with the kids to get them to be nicer to each other and to everyone else. I don't know if it's just a product of the summer and the longer periods of time we spend together every day or a monster stage they are both going through, but the kids and their fighting and talking back has been driving me crazy. One day in particular I had just sent Kate to time out 3 times within about 20-30 minutes! I just happened to run across this post about Kindess Coins by Kristen Duke that same day and thought A-ha! I'm gonna try that! So I did.

I ran the idea past the husband and kids at dinner that night and there were enthusiastic. So I shook out the old piggy bank and divided a stack of coins into a few small baggies (that way I'll be prepared for at least the next 3 weeks and can just grab them as needed) and gave the first set to the kiddos. Tyler immediately put them in his pocket and spent much of his time that day jumping around so he could hear them jingle. Kaitlyn actually listened to my advice and put the stack in her closet where she wouldn't lose them.

Oh wait, do you want me to explain the idea because you didn't follow the link back before reading the rest? Yeah, I would do the same thing :) It's simple really. You give the kids a stack of coins at the beginning of the week, making sure to explain that these are a reward in advance for treating everyone kindly, listening to parents, etc. If I have to break up a fight or they talk back or do anything else I deem as unworthy the I will ask them for a coin back (or more if it's a bad infraction). When the end of the week rolls around, whatever coins are still left they get to keep. I started out with a stack of 15 nickels for each, because I knew they would probably lose quite a few coins before they got the hang of it. The first day they lost 3 coins each. The next I think they averaged 2 per kid. I don't remember having to take any away from them yesterday - woohoo. That must mean it's working! I know the motivation won't last for long but I hope that by that point they will both be less in the habit of driving each other and their parents crazy :)

So...has anyone else jumped on the Pinterest band wagon? Have you been trying out any of the things you find? I'd love to hear about it if you have!
Here are the links for the other ladies that are actively doing the challenge with me:
Julia

Jackie

Shana

Back to School, Baby

2011-08-25T15:56:00.000-07:00

Happy Dancin' going on over here! I love the first day of school, especially now that I'm not the one actually going to school :) Kaitlyn gets so excited the day before, all full of plans. And the morning of, she pops right out of bed and jumps right into getting ready for school. I love that, even on days like today where I wasn't fully ready to pop out of bed with her. My morning was a bit of a rush trying to fit it all in - the ABC pancakes that we HAD to have today since we did it last year

and making sure Kaitlyn signed the note on the treat for her teacher. Much as I thought about doing something super-cute I went with simple. Printed off a tag (printable found here) and attached it to a candy bar that I had Kaitlyn pick out on a quick grocery run yesterday. And then silly me forgot to make sure it was all ready to go last night.

And making sure we got a few photos before rushing out the door. Phew! Of course once we were out there we ended up waiting 20 minutes for the bus to show up. Turns out the list at the school was right and although they claim they didn't change the route, the pick up time is somehow later this year. I think it will take a couple more days of this before any of us will trust it though - bus times weren't very consistant last year and more than one child missed the bus due to someone thinking the bus being later a few times meant it was a permanent change. (don't get me started on bus issues - I'm not exactly happy with ours)

But once the kids were on the bus we all breathed a sigh of relief. And I ran home to finish setting up for my own back to school party :) A few of the neighborhood ladies were able to join me for a little brunch and a lot of chatting - so fun! It was a great opportunity to get to know a couple of the newer neighbors that I hadn't met yet. And you know me - I don't do a party without putting a little effort into it. So here are a few shots of the party set up
The drinks:

The table: I grabbed the floral arrangement from my bathroom and an apple from the fridge - easy!
The food table: I had the banner and everything left over from last year's party.

I went really light and easy with the food. Yogurt and granola (Sam's grandmother's recipe that we try to keep on hand), fruit,

and muffins. I've been experimenting with a few different recipes and have been happy to find some winners. Apple oat (perfect for school, right?), sweet potato (on a constant quest lately to get the kids to eat more veggies) and chocolate. You really MUST try the chocolate ones. They taste exactly like chocolate cupcakes (Kaitlyn says they're much better than the store-bought chocolate muffins) and all it takes to make them is a cake mix and a can of pumpkin puree (you don't taste the pumpkin at all, though you might if you tried a yellow cake mix instead of devil's food). I jotted down the recipe one day while watching Food Network, but I've seen variations of it all over Pinterest lately.

And that's pretty much it! The ladies were having so much fun they didn't leave until after lunchtime :) Then I took some of the extra muffins over to friends that hadn't been able to make it for the party and spent the rest of the afternoon visiting with them. Pretty much a perfect First Day of School :) Tomorrow Ty starts preschool and *shocker* I am trying out a preschool program after all. Fingers crossed it turns out ok, though with all the prep work I already have I fully intend to still use that and rely on the program more for the social part for him and a little break for me.
I'll leave you with one more back to school photo. Everyone say awwwww......

Linking to:

Gingersnap Crafts Back to School Party

Giveaway!

2011-08-20T06:16:00.000-07:00

My first Giveaway!

Ginger from GingerSnapCrafts (an absolutely adorable craft blog) is generously hosting a giveaway over on her blog for my new Etsy shop! Coupon code also available. Go! Quick! Check it out!

Argyle (Take 2)

2011-08-19T17:22:00.000-07:00

I pulled out the crochet hooks again the other day and took another stab at the argyle hat - this time in more girly colors. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out and I think I've almost perfected my technique on the diamonds. Kaitlyn has decided that pink is no longer her color though so I went ahead and listed it in my shop.

*For those of you that would like the pattern - I'm working on it! It's my first time writing a crochet pattern and I want to make sure I get it right. I might even have one or two people try it before I'm confidant enough to post a tutorial here. I'd love your thoughts though - how does it look?

Linking to:

Under Construction

2011-08-19T12:57:00.000-07:00

I'm working on the look of the blog. This will probably continue for a couple weeks as I try things out, make decisions, and learn a few new tricks. Don't be alarmed if the blog looks different every time you check in :) And please let me know if anything I adjust makes the blog hard to read or navigate! Thanks!

Ahhh...school

2011-08-16T10:29:00.000-07:00

Look at that list! I thought it would be more filled out by this point in time but like most of my lists, it was overly abitious. With my summer broken up into pieces as it was (only 2 weeks down time before the long vacation home leaving only a few weeks here at the end), we didn't actually need some of the extra things I had added to the list. We hit the high points and have enjoyed ourselves without being too busy. Because really, isn't summer about taking it slower than usual and spending a lot of time just hanging out? (See Jules I really do listen to you! :P)

We're down to the final week before schools starts - yay! While I'm not exactly counting down the days, I am looking forward to it. There is always a sense of excitement associated with the beginning of a new school year and I love the anticipation. It's not just shopping for clothes and supplies (which I do love), it's about preparing myself and the kids for their next milestones.

Kaitlyn is entering 2nd grade - not quite old enough for school to be old news but experienced enough that neither one of us is nervous about it. I think she really likes the social part of school and she absolutely loves learning. And for my part, having her at school for a good chunk of the day feels like "getting back to normal."

I took the time this week to get us all fully prepared for school. We double checked the supplies list, labelled everything, and have it all in bags ready to take to Back to School night. With all the great ideas floating around this time of year I have a Pin Board full of lunchbox fun, teacher appreciation ideas and the like. I have printed off a few new sets of lunchbox notes and jokes. I even have my little "interview" questions for Kaitlyn printed again and ready to fill out. I will probably have Tyler do those this year too.

Tyler has one year left before he goes off to Kindergarten. That transition will be emotional for me, I'm sure. But for now he's still my baby and still home with me all day. I think preschool is important for children, not only to give them a start with ABCs and such but it starts to ease them into the whole school experience - to take direction from someone other than their parents, to start to negotiate the world on their own without Mom looking over their shoulder, and to experience things that are different from their life at home. But much as I would love to have Tyler in preschool, there just isn't a good option for him here this year. Instead, I will be doing the best I can on my own. I have talked to my mom (who was a prechool teacher for years) about it and came home from Utah loaded down with plenty of educational supplies. I took the time yesterday to get it all organized and make a plan so that having School Time every day is pretty painless (or at least that's the hope). I should be able to teach him the basics and then plan to take him to story time (which is fabulous here - with lots of other kids there for songs, games, activities, and crafts in addition to the stories) once a week to give him something outside the house.

And to round out all my Back to School planning - a party! I enjoyed the little Back to School Mom's Brunch I did last year and with the new neighborhood it's a great excuse to bring the neighborhood ladies together and get to know some of them better.
Oh the more I think about it the more excited I am for the first day of school!

Pin It Challenge

2011-08-13T01:00:00.000-07:00

Ok who uses Pinterest?! It's more addicting than blog hopping so if you don't, by all means, go get signed up! You do need an invitation to join, so if you want one let me know (email me or put your email address in the comments section). You can also request an invite from the site, but it takes a little longer (http://www.pinterest.com/) Other than that, the set up is easy and before long your project list will have quadrupled, just like mine did :) Because the ideas out there are SO cute and so easy to find!

So a couple weeks ago, an online friend asked if I would like to participate with her and a few others in a little challenge to take one of the ideas we have pinned and to actually follow through and create it (vs just letting all the pretty ideas just sit there on our boards and To Do Someday lists). I'm all for group motivation of any sort so I said yes right away.

The project I chose to start with is one I've had in my idea files for a few months now - my own version of pinning from before I hopped on the Pin wagon (a whole 2-3 weeks ago ha!). I did make sure to pin it, so it was legal for the challenge :) Anyway. This is my first project for the monogram wall in Tyler's room (you can see Kaitlyn's monogram wall here) - a car/road monogram. Absolutely perfect for my little one. He is in love with anything that has wheels.
(inspiration post found here)
I haven't done a tutorial for a while so I'll walk you through the step by step on this one. First, I pawed through my box of empty frames and found one that would work.

It needed a little TLC, so out came the spray paint.

I cut a couple strips out of black cardstock. Used my Silhouette to print off the center line on white vinyl (it's just a bunch of hyphens - easy!) and attached those to the cardstock.
I glued them onto a piece of posterboard in a "T" shape.
Then I scrounged through Ty's car collection and picked out a few cars I didn't think he would miss and hot glued them onto the road.
And that's it! Easy, quick, NO COST (since I worked with what I already had - love that!) and lots of fun.
Cute, right? Tyler thought it was great...after he got over being annoyed at me that his cars were stuck to it :)

I was on a roll at that point so I did another quick project from the pin boards - a reusable swiffer mop cover! This was the inspiration (post found here)

I had a bunch of microfiber towels (purchased a few years ago at TJMaxx at 5 for $4 or something) so I cut one in half and sewed pockets in the end.
*note for any of you that try this: don't make the pocket fit too tight or you can't get the swiffer in it!

And um...well that's it lol. I just folded it right side out and tucked the ends under. It actually works pretty well. That velcro on the bottom of the Swiffer holds it tightly enough that the pockets may not even be necessary. I didn't zigzag the edges though so we'll see how it survives a couple of trips through the washer.

Now woohoo - 2 pins on my board that can crossed off my Things to Try list! If you want to see what the other ladies did you can find them here: Julia, Shana, Jackie

Linking to:

Home Stores A2Z

Argyle

2011-08-08T09:40:00.001-07:00

I think argyle is adorable as an accent piece, don't you? I ran across an argyle knitted hat pattern a couple weeks ago and really wanted to make one. Except I don't knit. And have you tried finding argyle crochet patterns online? They don't exist! I was shocked. And annoyed. And after much searching I finally decided fine! I'll make my own pattern!

So here is my first attempt. What do you think? Not bad for an amateur, eh? I'm pretty pleased with it (despite the fact that there are a couple things I will change next time I attempt it) and Kaitlyn's in love. I may or my not keep this prototype but it's cute enough to list in my etsy shop, right?

After a few more practices I may or may not write up a pattern (for anyone that's interested. Is there anyone interested?). But for now I will tell you that I started off with a pattern I already knew and liked, then worked in the brown for the diamonds as I got to that point (I won't tell you how many times I unpicked the first couple rounds with the brown because I kept getting the spacing wrong lol). After the hat was completely finished I went back in with the lighter blue yarn and top stitched in the second set of diamonds. And viola!

Linking to:

Stories A2Z

Not Just a Housewife

Focus for August

2011-08-05T11:06:00.000-07:00

It's a new month (eek! again! time just goes by faster and faster, doesn't it?) and that means I've been thinking about my Word for the Year and how it applies this month. August feels like a big transitional time (more so that New Years don't you think? with summer ending and school starting and all?) and I'm feeling a bit scattered this week, so thinking about my Focus for the month is probably a good idea.

First on the list is getting my Etsy Store not only up and running, but taking the time almost every day to work on getting the name out there, tweak the descriptions, work on new projects, etc. Not all of it every day, but putting small pieces of time in on a regular basis.

I am declaring August as a NO SPENDING month. I feel that in the past 9 months we got too used to not paying enough attention to that part, what with getting the new house set up and all the money flying out the window for it all the time. Plus we've gotten in the habit of going out a lot more than we used to and I'd like to tone it down. There are a number of benefits to this, not only the part about saving a little cash (especially since birthdays and holidays are barreling at us us at an alarming rate), but it also lets us focus more on the more simple things. To get a little more creative about how we spend our down time as a family. To concentrate more on eating healthy (we all know it's hard to not to order those fries when eating out!) and making good choices at the grocery store. And it just so happens that my husband is going to have an extra-busy month at work which means less time for us to go out and break our No Spending rule :)

Which leads me to my next focus point - my husband. I was reading this post (Can O Dates) yesterday and it hit me. We haven't had a date since, oh, the last week of June - over a month! Not a smidge of quality alone time. (major head shaking going on here at that thought) That's not good. And while I don't see us even trying to get out on a date (as in leaving the kids with someone and going to a movie and out to eat - that's our usual date MO and would entirely defeat our No Spending goal) with his crazy schedule this month, I do want to make an extra effort to do the little things. Text him in the middle of the day for no reason. Leave him a note or a treat. Sit down and actually have a conversation together after we put the kids to bed instead of automatically turning on the TV. That kind of thing.

And finally, making the transition from summer time to our regular school schedules and routines. School starts here on August 25 and dance classes start the week before that. I will also be doing some at-home preschool work with Tyler (I probably haven't mentioned the unsuccessful struggle I've had finding a preschool here and finally talked myself into doing it myself - which I'm not exactly excited about) so I need to tweak my plans for that and then get us all into the school groove. Oh boy. It's going to be quite a month!

*updated 8/8. I ran across a new little link party for weekly goal setting and, always welcome to any outside motivation I joined it. So my pared down goal for this week is:
-to do something nice for my husband Every Single Day
-to pull out the Turbokick exercise videos at least twice this week
and
-pull out and update my Family Binder: new routines, calendar, etc.

Headband Experiment

2011-08-05T09:53:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to get out of the "frumy dumpy frazzled mommy" mode, right? And I'd have to say I've made some progress at it over the last couple years as my youngest gets more independant and I have more time to think about doing a few things for myself (and fewer worries that sticky fingers will ruin my new shirt!). And especialy with the move to the hotter, more humid climate I've been trying different things out with my hair. So when I saw the headband challenge over at Little Miss Momma, I knew it was something I wanted to do.

It's simple really - all we had to do was pull out our headbands and actually WEAR them, take photos of ourselves in the headbands and then post about it. Well, at least it sounds easy because as the week went by I realized the headbands still spent more time on the counter than on my head. And the days I did grab one it was hard to take a pic because a) I'm not great at taking photos of myself (thus the quality of photos you see here - all courtesy of the camera on the phone because I did figure out how to work it's self-photo function) b) I almost never put on make-up unless I'm going out (another one of the things I'm working on) and of course I don't want a photo of myself without makeup! and c) the kids always wanted in on the photo session and that always complicated things.

That being said, I do have to say the experiment was successful as realized that adding a headband or any other accessory isn't hard to do and does make a huge difference in how put together you feel and look. I'm going to try to reach for them (and the makeup!) a lot more often.

Oh - and here are the pics!
This scarf-type headband is my favorite of my current (very small) collection. One of my curly-hair days (they are almost all curly hair days, at least with first day hair - I just can't fight the humidity) and flower that I pulled from Kaitlyn's collection and added to the more plain headband.

And of course a shot of Kaitlyn and I trying on the headbands I made for my new etsy shop

Oh, and Hello Kitty had to get in on the headband action. :)

So there you have it - my (sightly pitiful) week in headbands. Head on over to Little Miss Momma's Headband Link Party and check out some other ideas. (I don't think I'll ever pull off that over-the forehead look like some of those girlies but kudos to them for trying it!)

Week in the Life 2011 - Wrap Up

2011-08-03T12:16:00.000-07:00

Sunday was the last day of my Week in the Life project and I'm happy to see I did get quite a few more photos each day than the few I started out the week with. That was due in part to telling the kids I was trying to take lots of photos and letting them take the camera whenever they wanted to. I even let Kaitlyn take the small one with her to a sleepover at her friends's house. It also got easier as the week went on, in part because the end of the week was much more eventful than the beginning of the week. I'm still not sure how much I will take away from this year's exercise of trying to see the beauty in the every day but when I do take the time to sit down and pull it all together with my journaling and copies of my lists I hope I will be pleasantly surprised.

Here are a few of the shots from the rest of the week. Woke up early one day and decided to do my toes. Kaitlyn woke up when I was partially done and got hers glittered too.

Spent quite a bit of time working on crafts for my new "shop" on Etsy (woohoo!) I hope it takes off as it's already been a lot of work.

Made cornbread one night. The kids love it. But does anyone else find that this is the messiest bread in the world?! Every time my kids get near it I have crumbs EVERYWHERE.

Tyler helped me with the bathroom scrubbing this week. His favorite was shining the mirrors - it made me happy too as it kept him off the floor and out of my way so I didn't bleach his pjs.

This one is out of order - it was from Sunday morning. He had taken the motorcycle to Charlottle with a buddy while the kids and I were at Audrey's. He ended up being caught in a rain storm on the way home so of course the bugs and the mud had to be polished away as soon as possible. I totally had to follow him out to the garage to take a photo when I he came in to grab an old toothbrush, telling him I MUST document his craziness :)

Just a couple of my gladiolas chose to wait to bloom until I got back from Utah (we missed most of them :( ). Love the color.

Everyone in the pool at Audrey's - what a blast. We spent at least 5 hours per day in the water both days we were there.

Ice cream Sunday night after a long day at a birthday party and grocery shopping. We love that screen porch.

And here are a couple Kaitlyn took at her sleepover.

I'm on Etsy!!!

2011-08-03T10:07:00.000-07:00

I did it! I opened up a store on Etsy! You can now have one of my Creations for your very own! :) Go now! Here's the link: Alayna's Creations on Etsy

No really, I would appreciate it if you would take a minute and check out my shop, give me some feedback (any comments on the shop's section for that kind of thing would be a good thing to have, I'm sure), pass the word along to your friends, or "like" my page on Facebook (here's the FB page). Thanks!

So what's in the shop? I decided to start with a few of my favorite things to create.
My handy dandy car seat covers
Countdown blocks - my spin on these is to make them usable for any occasion so the bottom block is a mini chalkboard where you can write in whatever occasion it is you are counting down - holiday, school starting, vacation, etc

And it wouldn't be complete without some headbands and hairbows!

I also added in the two things in my house that constantly gets the comment (well, from all four people that have seen my new house ;) ) "I need one of those!"
My wall mounted drying rack and my bathroom towel hooks/shelf.

Now go! Check it out! (pretty please with a cherry on top?)

Week in the Life 2011

2011-07-27T11:25:00.000-07:00

I'm doing Week in the Life along with Ali Edwards this week. Click this link if you want more info. Basically it's just taking the time to document what a regular week in your life looks like. I did it along with her last year and really enjoyed it (but shhh! don't tell anyone that I still haven't scrapped all the photos from it yet! They are sitting in a project envelope, along with the papers and journaling and everything I want to use, just waiting for me to actually get back to scrapbooking. What can I say? It's been a busy year).

So despite the fact that we're just coming off a long vacation and part of the week seems like it's not quite normal, while the other part of it feels like it's a little too normal (read boring), I'm jumping into the project. Because if I don't do it while everyone else is and all the inspiration and encouragement is there, well, I probably won't do it. Here are the photos from the first two days. Pitifully few photos. But that's ok too right? Start slow and work up to it. Hopefully more photos of the rest of the week, especially now that kids have noticed I keep pulling the camera out and taking pictures at strange times and I explained it to Kaitlyn and told her to feel free to use the small camera anytime she wanted to.

Monday:

(laundry and beach trip clean up - that's what you do on Monday's too right?)

Tuesday:

(he hates the peel and when I didn't get over there soon enough to take care of it for him, he started hacking away at it with a butter knife)

Miss Me?

2011-07-27T10:59:00.000-07:00

Did you? Did you miss me? Because I missed YOU! It feels like I haven't been in the blogging or crafting groove for a while now (um...maybe the 3 1/2 week trip to Utah had something to do with it?) but I think I'll soon be back on track. Everywhere I go, everything I see seems to be inspiration or a project...EVERYTHING!

First on my list: starting my own Etsy store! Yup. I'm taking the plunge. For real this time. More than one person in the recent past has asked if I do craft shows and/or told me that I should and the thought got completely stuck in my head. But sitting at a booth hawking my wares...urgh. Etsy is much more my style I think - even if I will have to deal with the post office and worry about shipping and make myself a logo and get the word out there so things actually sell and...

So. This week I'm getting some things ready to put in the store. And shortly I will be announcing the grand opening then begging all of YOU to help me spread the word. Deal? Thanks.

Now you know I didn't spend the last 3 weeks without any projects of any sort right? Right. I posted that hat I crocheted, if you will recall. Well, I'm absolutely hooked (unintentional pun ha!) and have been pulling out the hook and yarn on a regular basis. Not only did I create a bucket hat for Tyler in blue (hmm...not sure where he put it now that I want to take a photo!) but I did another pattern for Kaitlyn in the same blue

and one of those infant size baby elfin hats, because I just love those things and I had the yarn just sitting there (adorable no? I need to find a model for that one. It was cute on a doll my mom had, but would be even better on the real thing)

and a couple of hats by request for a friend.

I did the newsboy one in the car on the way to/from the beach this weekend (love the beach and the 80 degree water!). I think I'm going to make Tyler one in brown. He loves hats.

Now I'm off to put in another short craft session while the kids are still enthralled by the TV...

Linking to:

I just learned...

2011-07-08T20:03:00.000-07:00

how to crochet! Many thanks to my good friend, Dari for teaching me.
I'm just about half-way through with our big trip back home to Utah and enjoying it. Especially seeing my mountains - I miss those mountains. Check out the view from the back window at my parents' place.

And this guy and his buddies visit the back yard every few days, right in the middle of the afternoon.

Anyway. One of the best things about having an extended vacation is that I got to work in some crafty time! Yes, we've been having fun doing family things. But the husband went back home (to work haha) earlier this week and I am now free to do whatever I want for the next two weeks - YAY! Of course the first thing I did was call up some friends and plan some Girl Time. I was happy to find that Dari had the very next day free and we were able to spend almost the entire day chatting and having a crochet session (the chatting was a bit hard during the rows when I had to count stitches). Hopefully I was a good student because I had a great teacher. :) And this is my final result!

I started with a hat for Kaitlyn because frankly, little girl stuff is the most fun to make. I was more than half-way done when I left Dari's house and am happy to say I was actually able to follow the pattern and finish it all by myself! Dari says she can whip out a hat in an hour or two. I estimate this one took me 6-8 hours. But that's not too shabby for a first attempt, right?
Kate is pretty happy with the hat, especially after I clipped on her Hello Kitty hairbow. Tyler was fascinated with the process and asked to try it on over and over. He now insists that I make him one in "light blue" (that's the color of choice for both of my children right now). Kaitlyn heard that and is now requesting a blue hat for herself so I guess I'm off to buy more yarn tomorrow.

And look! She let me have a 2 minute photo session - BONUS! Isn't she a cutie?! :) One of these days soon I'm gonna figure out my new-ish (Mother Day gift!) Photoshop software and really make these photos look good.

Linking to:
Creatively-U

Just a little spray paint

2011-06-21T06:40:00.000-07:00

If you remember, my goal this month was to back off on the big projects around here and I've been doing my best to follow through on that. Painting the living room was the last big project on the list. That was more than a week ago...and I'm going stir crazy! Because you know what happens when I don't have a project up my sleeve? I get bored. So other day I pulled out the spray paint because our bar stools have been begging for an update. Ok they don't look too bad there but here's a close up.

I decided that with our two-tone (wood seat/top, black base) chairs and table already in the room, I'd save myself some trouble and just paint the stools entirely black. Much better! And I have to say, I love spray painting! It's a whole different technique than painting with a brush, but once I curbed the inpulse to cake it on in the places it wasn't covering well, I find I like texture better (no brush strokes! but if you don't sand it smooth first the scratches and paint chips underneath can still be seen) and the fact that it can get in all the nooks and crannies with ease. I think it's something I'm going to be playing around with more once I get out to some thrift stores and find myself some new things to refinish.

But first - summer vacation! In just a handful of days (whew! I don't think I could handle the "low key/relaxed" days much longer!) we will be headed "home" to Utah for a very long visit - almost a month! (that is not an invitation to burgle my house ;) Sam obviously won't be taking that much time off work and will be joining us for only part of the trip) If posts on this blog are few and far between during that time, you now know why. I did, however, ask my friend, Dari to teach me how to crochet while I'm there so I'm sure I'll be showing off whatever I make - if it looks decent :)

Happy First Day of Summer everyone! Now go enjoy some sunshine!

Father's Day

2011-06-17T10:43:00.000-07:00

I have the best husband. No, don't argue with me - yours can be the best too. But in case there was any doubt, mine just proved it to me again yesterday. I spent the whole day working on the living room right? Plus mowing the lawn, running to Home Depot for supplies, and keeping the laundry going through the cycles all day - it was one of THOSE days (the kind where I have way too much motivation and almost enough energy to actually do most of the things on my To Do Wish List ha ha). When the husband got home from work I was in the middle of transferring a load of laundry to the dryer then getting set to remove all the tape from the living room (my process for that is time consuming, but it leaves lots less touching up to be done). So when Kaitlyn asked what was for dinner, Sam volunteered to make it. That would have given him plenty of brownie points right there, right? Well, after dinner he shooed me out of the kitchen so I could finish with the tape and clean up while he handled dinner clean up as well. Then he started in on putting the living room back together for me (the manly stuff like attaching switch plates, mounting the TV, and moving furniture). And he mopped the sun room, which was covered in plaster dust from the wall patching of the day before. Except the mop left some haze still so I figured I'd have to go back over that in the morning.
Now, as if that wasn't enough for husband of the year, he didn't stop there. He then started making ice cream while I stepped outside for a minute, where I promptly ended up chatting with a neighbor for quite some time. Long enough for the ice cream to be finished and my sweet husband to bring some out to us. And for me to discover when I did go back inside that he had folded and put away the mountain of laundry that I had piled up throughout the day.
It doesn't quite end there though. Do you know what I discovered this morning? He had somehow managed to shine up the sun room floor as well! #1 Dad material for sure right?
Well, here's a little peek at what we've put together for him for Father's Day. (keep in mind that we already designated the NASCAR tickets he bought a few weeks ago as his gift so I'm not being cheap here :) )

We saw these candy bar bouquets in the grocery store shortly before Mother's Day and Sam made a comment about what a clever idea they were. Then and there I decided that was what he was going to get for Father's Day. It's pretty simple really. I just taped a bunch of candy bars onto wooden skewers and stuck the skewers into floral foam (which I had concealed with tissue paper in a vase). I found the cute tie printables here.

I was also going to do a cute photo idea I saw on a blog about reasons the kids love their dad, but frankly the kids weren't being that great about coming up with ideas the other day. Guess it was an off day. Oh well. The rest of our plans for Father's Day include making coffee cake for breakfast, a fun family activity that is still yet to be planned, and probably dinner at Texas Roadhouse.
Happy Father's Day to all those great dads out there!

I'm finished!

2011-06-14T19:13:00.000-07:00

It's been busy, busy, busy here the past few days. Before leaving for Audrey's house on Friday I had the electrician in. Finally.
You know those TV cords have been driving me nuts and much as I hate paying the money for something we could almost do ourselves, I wanted it done right.

See? Ugly.
So the guys came in and in less than 2 hours had solved my TV cord problem along with adding a few more outlets (including new ones in the garage so I can plug in the freezer yay!). But we were left with a big hole in the wall.

Sam taped and patched it while I was gone, then I sanded and sanded and sanded it. And added a little texture back so it would (mostly) match the surrounding wall. Yesterday I spent the day painting. And now I'm doing my happy dance because that was the LAST room in the house that needed paint! WOOHOO!
Of course it's far from being done and probably won't be for a very long time. But as Kaitlyn said today "it feels all nice and new again."

Here's the Before:

and After paint:

Summer has begun!

2011-06-14T09:56:00.000-07:00

We kicked off our summer with a pool party weekend at my friend Audrey's house. What a fantastic, relaxing, fun time it was. The kids just couldn't get enough of the water and we let them play and play and play. That didn't leave much time for crafts (nor had we planned on doing many) but really, the two of us can't get together with out doing a little crafty something.
So after the kids were in bed we spent a couple hours with the scrap fabric and glue guns.

I've really been wanting to try out these vintage-y hair bows and I think they turned out really cute. Audrey's husband wasn't so sure about the scale - he thought we'd missed the boat and had ended up with hats instead. (yes they're pretty big) Shows how much men know about fashion, right? ;) The girls thought they were cute though and Kaitlyn has worn one almost every day since.

I started one more that will have the netting over the rosettes but haven't had time to finish it. That's a post for another day I guess...

Linking To:
Today's Creative Blog
Blue Cricket

36th Avenue