Around Here - Almost Spring!

I've been trying to think of a better lead in to this blog post than something cliche like "I can't believe how fast time is speeding by" or "It's the middle of March ALREADY?!"  But I couldn't because the fact is, the days really have been going by too quickly for me and often by dinner time I'm left with a partially unfinished To Do List and not enough energy or time to do anything other than hope there is something decent on the DVR so I don't get stuck watching some strange documentary my husband runs across on the History Channel.  Don't get me wrong - I'm not overwhelmed or stressed right now.  I'm on top of all my Have Tos for the house, the kids, the Etsy shop, finally getting a handle on an exercise routine and getting more active, and even working in time with friends, fun things with the family, and even a few things from my When I Get a Chance list.  Still, there always seems to be things I don't quite get to for days at a time - like blogging!  So I thought I would do a quick Around Here post, if only to get myself back into the blogging groove. 

This is what my craft table looked like this morning - remnants of last night's Card (making) Group and today's crop of countdown blocks getting ready to ship out.  

And have I mentioned I finally joined Instagram?!  

It must be "baby season" again because I've had a pretty big bump in sales for the pregnancy countdown blocks in the past few weeks and quite a few friends and acquaintenances have announced pregnancies in recent months too.  It was my turn to host our monthly card making group so, of course, I chose baby cards for the theme.

Can you guess which one was mine?  Yup, the one with the baby feet ;)

Speaking of babies - it's baby season out on the ranch too.  We have a handful of new calves born the last few weeks, including this little guy.

He was born in the middle of the night during a really cold snap and my Dad was concerned that he wasn't eating.  I was the only one around to help out first thing and "got" to spend the better part of my morning playing cowgirl as we attempted to get the baby and his mom in from the back pasture and into the small corral near one of the closer sheds.  It was quite a process and in the end we had to bring almost the entire herd into the corral then take them all back out to the pasture again.

On the up side, while it was may have been cold it has been absolutely gorgeous outside.

On the Mom Front - the kiddos are keeping busy with school and activities.  Miss Kate is doing great on the swim team and knocked quite a few seconds off a couple of her best times at the meet last weekend. 

Tyler's class was required to participate in the school's creative challenge (the theme being "Behind my Reflection is so Much More, Talents and Skills for me to Explore) and he chose to do a photo project in which he used mirrors to take selfies doing things he enjoys or is good at.  We got that turned in just in time for him to start working on a "storytelling" presentation that must be 3-7 minutes long and include expression, guestures, and props.
Kaitlyn also had a big book report due, in which she had to turn the book into a breakfast cereal then create a TV-style commercial for it.  We all spent a funny evening as cast and crew recording said commercial.  I was dreading it, but as it turned out I haven't laughed that hard in weeks.  Seriously though teachers, can the parents get a little break here?

As I said, the weather has been gorgeous with very few storms and the a-typical practically snow-less winter has continued.  I was nervous that we wouldn't get a chance to use the groupon for tubing that I got the kids for Christmas but we managed to slip in on one of the colder week nights shortly before they closed down (early) for the season.  The only snow in sight was what they had manufactured for the tubing and cross country runs.  Crazy weather.  The tubing itself was tons of fun.  We also managed some time at the ice skating rink with cousins, which was pretty much the last of the activities left on our (imaginary) Winter Bucket List.

My husband got both of us fancy new pedometer thingy's and we've been trying to make being active a priority.  That has involved a lot of walks outside - with the dog on the ranch, or loading up the kids and their bikes/rollerblades and getting to know the local walking paths.  The second option was prompted in part the day the dog came home all muddy and full of burrs from our walk in the field, and from the fact that no longer living in a neighborhood means the kids can't just step out the door and have somewhere to ride their bikes.  Everything else makes up for that little issue though, and we are very happy to be living "back home."

And that, my dears, is part of what has kept me away from the blog lately.  That and the multitude of things that needing fixing - the computer spent a week being repaired, the brand new fridge finally arrived but conked out within days of it's arrival, and so on.  But I'm trying not to dwell on the annoying parts and enjoying the fact that for today I have found some free time to do some "catching up"  And maybe, just maybe after I grab some lunch I might be able to do some scrapbooking before the kids get home from school.  Ya think?!

Horse Birthday Slumber Party - Cowgirl Style

 Our house has been Party Central this weekend - fun fun!  (and exhausting!)  My daughter turns 11 next week and she has been helping me plan the party for months.  She is definitely my child - she knows what she wants and is full of ideas, she wants it to look good, and she wants to Do It Herself.  ;)

After all the horseback riding she did while we were in Utah this summer, it was almost a forgone conclusion that she would pick Horses for her theme for her birthday party.  And her very first request- after specifying that she wanted a slumber party, of course - was that she have chocolate horses topping her cupcakes - and that she be able to do them herself.  She had seen a YouTube video about piping chocolate onto wax paper to make shapes and that was what she had in mind, but that sounded a little intense for her first attempt at real cake decorating so I found a chocolate mold online.  With our lives as crazy as they are right now and the amount of time it takes each batch of chocolate to cool I did end up making most of the chocolate horses myself, though I did make sure she got to do a few on her own.

 Once we started looking at ideas online (you can see my Pinterest inspiration board here) we decided to go with a Cowgirl theme in pink and brown with a few blue accents thrown in.  The invitations, of course, came first.  (You can see the invitations in an earlier post here)

 Kaitlyn fell in love with the idea of a big wooden pallet sign with the outline of a horse on it, but I didn't want to work on a project that big right now.  Instead, I grabbed some scrap wood from the garage, distressed it and stained it, then used hot glue to attach some jute "rope" to spell out the word Howdy.  We used this sign on the front door to greet everyone and set the mood for the party.

When the guests arrived they each received a cowboy hat.

 From previous experience with birthday slumber parties I know that the girls are always super-hyped, loud, and anxious to direct their own fun.  They spent most of the party playing Just Dance or playing with Kaitlyn's fast-growing collection of Ever After High dolls, but I did set up a couple of stations to go along with the party theme.
The Photo Booth props were a lot of fun

 And I threw together a bucket of stuff for mani/pedis, though it didn't get used.  We also had the idea to YouTube some line dances (perfect for a cowgirl party, right?!) and would have done so if the party was lagging.  As I said, the girls had no problem having fun on their own so I just let them do their thing.

 Knowing that, I spent more time on the food and the decorations than I did on the activities.  The beadboard pennant birthday banner got some theme-appropriate fabric and ribbon and provided the backdrop for the dining table.

 The longer I do this, the easier it gets.  I also have a handful of Go To tricks that I can use for any theme - like dressing up the drink containers.  For this party, I picked up a 6-pack of cream soda bottles and added a vinyl horse silhouette (made it using a horse dingbat font and my Silhouette machine.  I love that there are so many great fonts out there for free!).  The plates are part of a stack of inexpensive plastic party plates we picked up at Sam's club a couple years back - they work great for parties.  The napkins, bandana, and tiny pink cowboy hats (aren't they cute?!) were all fun finds at the party store.

 On to the food!  The cupcakes turned out great - though I suggest putting the horses on only at the last minute.  It was a warm day and some of them wanted to tip over when their legs got a little soft.

 For dinner, Kaitlyn had requested ribs and mashed potatoes.  And you know what that means?  That means the husband did most of the food prep because he is the rib smoker expert ;)
Side note - the rolls down there on the end are in a pink plastic cowboy hat.  I forgot to get a detail photo of that, but I wanted to point it out because the girls thought it was a fun detail.

 Once the girls had a couple of hours to play and were ready to settle down a bit, I prepared a tray of goodies so they could snack and watch TV.  Included:  popcorn in brown paper bags (that I had folded down and fringed the edges), water bottles with the horse decals (I try to avoid having any colored drinks on the playroom carpet - it is horrible when it comes to stains), Cow Tales carames, licorice "ropes" and rice krispie treat "hay bales."

 I went to bed around 11:00 that night and I'm told some of the girls stayed up only 'til midnight while the other half made it to around 2AM.  But they were all awake and hungry by 7:30 in the morning.  We did a full cowboy breakfast spread with pancakes, sausage, bacon, hash browns, and chocolate milk.

 Party favors were their cowboy hats, more of Kate's chocolate horses, some cute fingernail decals (in the closest we could find to the party colors), a pen, and some more Cow Tale caramels.

If noise levels and chaos are any indication (naw they weren't that bad - I didn't even have to wake up in the middle of the night to tell them to tone it down), the party was a rip-roaring success.  Yay!

Linking to:
Tutorials and Tips Link Party @ homestoriesAtoZ
Time to Sparkle Link Party
Made By You Monday Link Party

Horse Party Invitations

 I've managed to find a little breathing room this week in among work, keeping up with the house and all the moving preparations.  October is fast approaching and with it comes Birthday Month in our families - there are at least 10 that we actively celebrate with close family and friends and several others that I acknowledge with at least a note all within about 18 days between the end of September and the middle of October.  It's intense.  So I took advantage of some extra time this week and dug into the actual party prep for my daugher's birthday.
I thought I would go ahead and share the invitations I finished yesterday.  (I'm always so excited when I finish things, you know?!)  The last few years I have been leaning more toward the digitally designed invitations so I could just get one all laid out and print out as many as I needed.  This year Kaitlyn wants another slumber party and I limit the guests to only three so I decided to make them a little more "scrapbook-y" and three dimensional.  She was very quick to select horses as her theme this year and a few weeks back she sat down with me and we looked at all kind of ideas on Pinterest.  It was a lot of fun.  In the process we narrowed her theme down even further to a western/cowgirl style in pink and brown and that was all I needed to set myself off an running.

 I'm all about using what I have right now and I was happy to find this great chocolate brown and two tone pink polka dot paper in my stash so I used that for the background.  I then proceeded to find some fun western fonts and a font of horse dingbats that I was able to use for the horse silhouette (and will be repeated in most of the other printables/decor for the party).  The rest of it just kind of flowed from there.

The invite reads:

Wanted

your presence at

Kaitlyn's 11th Birthday

so put on your boots and mosey on over for a 

Slumber Party

The Caldwell Homestead

(address)

The shindig begins at 6:00 PM and you can round up your cowgirls at 10:00AM Saturday
(date)

Give a Holler:  Alayna (phone number)

Don't forget your bedroll!

I printed that onto cardstock then tore along all the edges and inked them to give it a weathered/distressed look.  Then finished it off with a pink ribbon and the horse silhouette which I had mounted with foam tape to give it some dimension,

Kaitlyn is very happy with the invitations and I'm starting to get kind of excited for the party myself.  Four more weeks to go...


Linking to:
DIY Projects and Receipes with the Party Bunch

My Little Entrepreneur

 My daughter loves those stretchy band loom things.  Loves them.  Loves the process of creating, experimenting with different color combinations, trying new patterns (she was quick to figure out how to YouTube tutorials by herself) and making up new designs of her own.  She discovered very quickly, as all crafters do, that there are only so many things you can make for yourself.  And as all crafters do, she started giving her creations away as gifts.

She made a lot of things for family members for Christmas, including a gift for my mom.  And my mom, being a very enthusiastic and encouraging Grandma, wore her creations to work where the middle school students she works with were quick to admire them.  Before I knew it, Grandma was taking "orders" (I'm pretty sure she is buying them herself and giving them to the kids as rewards but I'm making a point to stand back and let Kaitlyn handle all the details on her own) and emailing them to Kaitlyn, who then made a list (haha) and got to work.

 I wonder...is it learned or does it come to her naturally? ;)  Or maybe a bit of both?

She had quite a few bracelets ready to send off with Grandma's gift for Mother's Day.  And me being, well me, I asked her if she wanted to make some tags to attach them to before sending them out.  You should have seen her face light up at the idea of making her own logo.  She immediately told me she wanted a flower on it so I Googled some flower clip art and she chose one.  It was a simple matter of letting her chose a font and inserting the "designs by Kaitlyn" wording into the center before printing a bunch out on card stock.

 Turned out cute, right?  I think she has a talent for this.

 I had to push her a bit to get her to finish up the rest of the list in time to send them out before school was finished, but she did it!

Her first foray into the business world.  I can see her as CEO of some big company somewhere, can't you? ;)

Craft Fail - Almost!

It should have been an easy project.  Kaitlyn wanted a bulletin board for her room.  No big deal right?  Buy an inexpensive bulletin board, slap some spray paint on it and viola!
Hahahahaha!  Nope!
I bought the bulletin board months ago, then finally pulled it out to cutesy it up (after many promptings from Miss Kate) one day when I was in Get It Done mode.  My first idea had been to spray a chevron pattern on it.  Yeah right!  Do you know how long it takes to try to tape out a chevron pattern?  And how particular you have to be with it to get it to look clean?  Yeah that idea survived all of 5 minutes with the 'ole painters tape before I decided to give up and go with stripes instead.

So then I sprayed it.  Easy enough.  And from far away it doesn't look bad.  But you know what happens when you buy a cheap bulletin board?

 The spray paint doesn't like to stick to cheap plastic frames and chips before it even makes it in the house.

And the thin cork sticks to the tape when you pull it off and causes holes.  Even when you are super careful and use the blow dryer.
So the poor bulletin board sat there for more weeks, with the tape half-removed because I didn't even want to think about it.  But there was my 9 year old who had been patiently waiting for the craft project I had promised her.  So the last time I took a trip to Hobby Lobby (and was in the fabric section anyway for supplies for a Halloween costume) I found some cute fabric - in the chevron pattern I had wanted originally.  Yay!  And the very next day (or maybe the one afterward) I pulled out the staple gun and attached the fabric.

Woohoo!  Much better right?!  And it took me all of 5 minutes.  Why didn't I do that in the first place?!!!

 Oh and adding the "nail heads" was a suggestion from a friend.  I wanted to give it a bit more detail than just fabric stretched over the board and I think these did just the trick.  As I wanted to get the project finished RIGHT NOW, instead of running to the craft store I simply painted a box of thumb tacks with spray paint and used them instead.

Ta-Daaa!  Now I have a happy Kaitlyn.  And one less project on my To Do list.