Craft Show Adventures

This is what my craft room AND my sunroom have looked liked for the last two weeks.  My husband jokingly tells me he is so glad he found me a house with TWO craft rooms :)
I have been crafting up a storm and the place has been a study in not-quite-controlled chaos and just plain messy to boot.  Why crafting and messy-ness go hand in hand, I'm never sure, but they do.  You just can't craft without a mess. And since I've been neck deep in preparations for my first foray into the craft show world...
(It wasn't just the house that got a little neglected.  I have SO many new items that I need to shoot photos of, blog about, etc.)

A friend and I have been talking about trying our hand at craft shows for months now.  We looked into what was available in our area and tried to pick a few that looked promising and I have been gradually adding to me "stock" every since.  I had hoped to avoid the whole rush to complete things at the last minute.  But in reality it's just a LOT of work and it's hard to control the creative monster until you are down to the wire and have to ruthlessly start regulating your time.  So I pretty much wore myself out the past couple of weeks trying to get things ready, on top of everything else that makes up my normal life.  And yesterday was the big day!

We rolled out of bed early and were on our way by 6.  Set up went pretty smoothly and we were happy about how things looked.  It was a beautiful day and the activities of the event pulled in a lot of people.  We talked to quite a few people, handed out plenty of cards with links to our website, and did a lot of people watching. Since we were at "Mule Days" my friend was continually amused/amazed by the number of people walking around in cowboy boots and other cowboy gear.  For me, it was a reminder of the big 4th of July Celebration back home (small town and completely Western) - something I don't feel very often in North Carolina.

Overall, a good day.  Except for the sales part of it.  Even after moving the tables to the front sides of the tent (after realizing that people would walk by but rarely venture into the tent to take a close look at anything), which did help draw more attention, we spent most of the day wondering why things weren't selling very well.  Were the items not cute enough?  No, we got plenty of compliments.  Was the audience wrong for out items?  Don't think so - there were plenty of people with strollers and most of our stuff is for babies and children, most of which were dressed adorably.  What about pricing?  Well, that is something we evaluate pretty fully and there is a line where if you don't charge a certain amount it just doesn't cover the costs and time that goes into it.  And to us it seems fairly priced.  Was the venue wrong?  Possibly - other vendors we talked to weren't making loads of sales either.  Displayed in a way that didn't show things to their best advantage?  Were people just there for a day out (or maybe just to steal ideas - we caught at least one person taking photos) and not to shop?  Were the other events too distracting?  Do we simply just not know how to talk to people in a way that will close a sale? Just the luck of the draw??....
Honestly selling on Etsy is easier in that respect, since you don't have to phyically watch how many times people look at an item before the right buyer comes along.  And it WAS our first show.  So I'm staying optimistic and still looking forward to our second show at the end of next month.  Wish us luck!  And if anyone has any suggestions or tips - please share!

Fall Beadboard Pennant Banners

School has started and the weather is starting to cool off (love that!) which means that fall isn't very far behind.  I love the feeling of fall.  The cool crisp air.  The colors.  And the excuse to make more decorative crafts! :)

I've been wanting to use up some up the extra beadboard we have laying around, so I came up with these fun beadboard pennant banners.  The first one I made is double-sided - one side says "Trick or Treat" and the other side reads "Give Thanks."  Two holidays - one decoration!  Halloween and Thanksgiving are so close together the decorations don't have a chance to be on display very long.  Plus the color scheme works really well for both holidays.

It also gave me a chance to use this great grey/teal/brown/orange argyle fabric.  I fell in love with it months ago when I picked some up to make baby gifts but haven't had a single project for myself where I could use it.  So I'm excited about that too  (yes, it's the little things) 

Side #1

Think it's too early in the year to leave the mantel like that? ;)  I had to dress it up a little bit for the photos - poor thing was very sad looking this summer.  I still haven't fully figured out what my permanent/non-holiday decor should be in that room.  Now I don't want to pack the stuff away and look at a bare mantel for another month.

Side #2

And because I was on a roll, I put together a generic fall banner too.  I think this one will end up on the decorative ledge by the stairs. 

I'm pleased enough with both of the banners that I think I will make some for the upcoming craft fairs (a friend and I are going to share a booth at a couple this fall and see how it goes - eek!  Craft fairs sound like so much work - and what if I don't sell anything?!) and of course I will list them in my etsy shop.

 

I've had so much fun with this idea that I've got a lot more ideas swirling around the brain - parties, photo prop, other holidays...stay tuned - I'm sure you'll be seeing more of these from me soon! Linking to:

Today's Creative Blog
 

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Sending them Back to School

I just listened to my 8-year-old tell her brother (in her whiniest, most annoying, loud voice) to get out of her room because "I just need PRIVACY" while attempting to shut the door in his face (I assume).  That's the third time today.  *sigh*
School starts in a week and that was probably just the reminder I needed to get me out of my nostalgic mind-set (summer can't really be almost over can it?! But it was so much fun! And dang, are my kids really this OLD?!) and back to looking forward to the fact that this year both kids will be in school all day and I will the have the house to myself - clean (because no one will be home to mess it up), quiet (with no one around to blast the music or interrupt me every 5 minutes), and with plenty of time to work on anything my little (crafty!) heart desires - WOOHOO!
So today I got on the ball and pulled together everything I've been meaning to get ready for the transition to school.  I have a whole list - and a Pinterest Board (see it here).  The kids and I went through their closets last week, reorganized everything and made sure they were all set for school in that department.  Today I pulled all the supplies together and double checked the school's lists (missing one thing for each kid - urgh) - see that big pile of stuff?  I remember when all we needed for school was a pencil and maybe a Trapper Keeper :)

Then I labelled everything that I thought would need labels.  Supplies.  Backpacks (Sharpie on the inside with names and name keychains we picked up in Utah for the zippers).  Coats, etc etc.  And I made sure to bundle everything up and put it where we would need it - backpacks are now back on their hooks in the mud room (tight fit with the pool bags still out), supplies in grocery bags for us to take to Back to School night.

I even printed out some of the fun First Day of School memory/scrapbook stuff I've spotted online.

I will have the kids fill these out this week (printable can be found here)

And the kids will hold these signs for some of the First Day photos.

I even prepped a quick little First Day gift for the teachers.  (printable found here)

That just left lunchboxes.  I tracked them down, added new bottles of hand sanitizer, and put them in the pantry so they will be easily accessible when needed.

I fired up the printer one more time and added a few more fun lunchbox notes and jokes to my stash.  And I made myself a quick list of lunch ideas.  That's always the hard part - figuring out original but healthy ideas so the kids don't get sick of PB&J over and over. 
My list includes:
-sandwiches:  peanut butter with Nuttella as a treat.  Cut into shapes once in a while to vary it
-see if the kids will try wraps, even if it's just peanut butter on a tortilla
-make your own lunchables (crackers and cheese for Tyler, crackers and bologna or pepperoni for Kate)
-nachos
-waffles/pancakes
-french toast sticks
-muffins:  easy to do variety with these and the kids eat almost any kind.  The pumpkin/cake mix kind is a big favorite and pretty healthy.  Bran.  Sweet potato.  etc etc
-yogurt
-yogurt and granola
-trail mix/nuts:  these are good to add when the rest of the items in the lunchbox are low on protein
-nachos (this is more of a once in a while thing to add in some fun)
-smoothies: fruit, yogurt, milk/juice, even some veggies/spinach and the kids love them.  Can make ahead of time and freeze and the containers will thaw by lunchtime plus help keep the rest of the lunch cool
-tomato soup or chili for Kaitlyn (need to remember to try the hot water trick to see if it really does keep the thermos extra warm - she hates it when her hot food gets cold before lunch)
-chicken nuggets and maybe mac n cheese for Ty (he likes his food room temp so I don't have reheating issues with him)
-Kaitlyn will eat all fruits (and I mean ALL fruits - it's great) but Tyler sticks to apples (have finally been able to get him to eat them whole/with the skin on yippee), applesauce, bananas, carrots, celery (sometimes, with PB), and once in a while some grapes (thinking I need to try the trick of rolling them in jello mix and freezing them.  Bet he gobbles them up that way).
-raisins/craisins
-and mix up the drinks between milk, juice, water mix-ins (love these!), juice boxes/capri sun, and Splash (sneak in those veggies!)
I have pinned a ton of those cute Bento Box and Muffin Tin ideas that I want to work into the lunches maybe once a week.  Often enough to make the kids' lunch extra fun, but not enough that they complain when I just throw something together quickly and not made it cute :)

I think that covers everything - phew!  Now I can just sit back and let things happen.  First day of dance class tonight.  Back to school night for Kaitlyn on Wednesday.  Monday brings the first day of school for Kate and also the first section of the staggered entry stuff (can't believe it takes them 2 weeks to get the Kindergarten fully started!) for Tyler...
It's going to be a busy year!

What do you do to get ready for your kids to head back to school?

Working on the Master

I've been slowly working my way through the house, taking my time making it all pretty.   Now I have finally turned my focus to the Master Bedroom.  Trust me - it needed it!  In fact, when I think about it, I don't think our bedroom has been completely "put together" during our entire marriage.  There is always something else to spend the time and money on. 

When we first moved in we painted the walls and that was pretty much it.  We had always used my old bedroom set from high school, which was basically a queen size headboard, a dresser with a mirror on top, and a single nightstand.  When we replaced our mattresses and upgraded to a king size, the headboard of course never fit and we've been living without one for 8 years.  I used to use an old desk as the nightstand on my side of the bed but we got rid of that a while ago and since we've moved I have just had a big 'ole black spot in the space beside my side of the bed.  And being near-sighted that means I can't see the alarm clock in the middle of the night - not fun. 

We had decided we wanted a sleigh bed and when one because available (for cheap!) we did get one about a year ago.  This past Christmas I told my husband our gift to ourselves was a new set of nightstands.  It took me until February to find the ones I wanted, then another 6-8 weeks for them to arrive since, of course, they had been out of stock.  In the meantime, I had pinned quite a few decor ideas and I now have a pretty clear concept of how I want the room to look eventually.  The first step was new bedding.  I had fallen in love with this Anthro-inspired bedding (inspiration link here) and decided I would take the leap (all white bedding is SCARY isn't it??) and try to make it myself.  I lucked into finding a fantastic deal on sheet sets online ($25 for a king set!), bought two of them, and used them as fabric to make a duvet cover (figuring that is SO much easier to wash than a comforter if the white ever gets stained).  I alternated ruffled strips and solid strips until I had the size of the down comforter we had picked up at Ikea when we were in Charlotte.  Once I got it on the bed, I decided it didn't cover the bottom of the mattress well enough, so I un-picked the side seams and added in a ruffle. 

Much better.  I used the leftover fitted sheet from the second sheet set as a mattress cover for the box springs.  Then picked apart the pillow cases to make king size shams.

For colors, I've been really drawn to high contrast color schemes, especially black and white and I've been excited about building on that idea.  The walls in the room are blue, so I added in a few touches of blue on the pillows to bring it together.

This black and white chevron pillow is my favorite.  Makes me feel like I'm in on the trends, as chevron patterns are still pretty popular :)

Sewing isn't my craft of choice, and the duvet was pretty labor intensive.  The sewing projects took over the sunroom for probably a good 3-4 weeks LOL.  But it was worth it.  I love my new bedding!
Next up - accessories!  And some sort of console table under the flat screen TV the husband talked me into last weekend (it was on the best sale we'd seen, plus he hadn't decided on what he wanted for his "big" gift for Father's Day and our anniversary).  :) Linking to:

Our List This Summer

 It has been my system for the last couple of years to sit down with the whole family and write up a list of things we want to do during the summer.  It serves to give us a bit of direction in what could be a series of long, hot, boring days.  Some of the bigger items need to be planned or scheduled ahead of time while the smaller things can be used to add a little fun when needed.  It's also just a fun activity overall, especially this year when the kids had quite a bit of input.  We ended up with a pretty good list incuding things like roasting marshmallows and learning to swim (Tyler) to visiting the beach and taking a trip to Utah to see the family.

Once we have the list, I type it up and make it all pretty so we can display it and check off the items as we go.  And with the second week of Summer just beginning we already have a great start on the list.  We've had lots and lots of pool time since our neighborhood pool opened.  We met some friends at the zoo for a fun day with the animals.  We fired up the fire pit and roasted giant marshmallows.

And we went berry picking - so fun!  Now there's an activity that gets addicting quickly.  The kids love picking the berries, especially since we go with another family that has become our designated berry picking buddies.  And we're all kind of obsessed :)  Last week we started out bright and early only to discover that we still weren't in time to get a shot at the raspberries (crazy!  they were gone by 7:30AM) so we stocked up on blackberries and blueberries (Kaitlyn's favorite) instead.  And then the true madness kicked in and we made a trip to a second farm where we picked strawberries (the last of the season) and loaded up on a few of the veggies they had for sale (sweet corn, baby potatoes, and green beans!). 

After that is was, of course time, to eat the berries (not that Kaitlyn hadn't been popping berries the entire time :)  ) - and oh how many great things there are to do with berries!  The kids insisted we make fruit smoothies as soon as we got home.  And of course we had the berries fresh with some fruit dip for lunch and dinner.  We had made arrangements to meet up with our berry buddies back at the pool that afternoon (which was of course great fun), then after showers (thus the scraggly hair in the above photo) Kaitlyn and I did some late-evening jam making.

We finished off the last of the berries on Sunday with homemade blackberry ice cream and blueberry crumble for Father's Day.  Now we're left wondering when we can manage to wake up early enough to get a shot at those raspberries...

Speaking of yummy summer food - We spend a good 3-4 afternoons or evenings down at the pool every week and snack food is in high demand right now.  So I got inspired and decided to let the kids mix up their own trail mix with items we had on hand in the pantry.  For that round I pulled out the peanuts, pretzels, sunflower seeds, mini marshmallows, raisins and white chocolate chips.  It was a huge hit with the kids!  It's my favorite type of summer "project."  Simple, quick, inexpensive, and easy to personalize.  I'm already gathering items for the next round of trail mix making - cashews, dried berries, goldfish crackers.  What else would be good in trail mix?

Giant Balloon Flowers

I have a quick and easy party decor tutorial for you today - mostly because I want to remember the process we figured out if I ever need it again :)
Kaitlyn's class did a very short play for part of their end of the year awards program in their classroom.  Her teacher wanted some giant flowers for the "set" (the play was about insects/collecting pollen) and Kaitlyn volunteered me to help out.  Not that I minded.  The teacher probably had no idea what she was getting herself into :)  She wanted a certain amount of flowers, 2 of each color and let me run with the rest of the plans.

Of course I recruited the husband to build the stands.  We did them completely out of scrap wood, painted them green and added big paper leaves.  That was our first installment.  We took these to the school the week before the play so the kids could practice with them. 

Then two days before the play we blew up all the balloons and I put together the flowers.  Thank goodness for husbands and power tools - the air compressor made relatively short work of this big task.

The idea I had been looking at online suggested tying the ends together to form the flower but they didn't keep their shape that way.  So I took discarded cardboard from cereal boxes, etc, cut it into circles (about 6" diameter), then cut 5 slits into the sides and slid the ends of the balloons into the slits.  I punched a hole in the center for the center balloon, then covered all the ends with tape to make sure they stayed in place.

Ta-da!  Giant three foot wide flowers made of balloons.
We carted them all to school (thank goodness I took the stands in earlier as the balloons filled the entire vehicle and I had to recruit helpers from her class to carry them all into the school) and I attached the cardboard to the stands with push pins.

Their little play was a big success.  Kaitlyn had one of the larger speaking parts and did a fantastic job as did the rest of her class.

Summer summer summertime!

As we were folding the laundry earlier this week my husband commented, "you know it's summer when you don't have to fold any socks!"  True, right?  Summer has it's own style and pace.  And the biggest difference between summer and the rest of the year isn't the fact that we spend most of our time in flip flops but the fact that the kids are home All Day, Every Day.  Oh boy.

I know a lot of schools have let out for the summer already.  Here in North Carolina we are still on our final week of school - and oh what a fun week it is.  Graduations (Tyler's preschool graduations was A-dorable), awards ceremonies, parties and field days, etc etc.  And while I'm just as excited as the kids are for lazy mornings with no schedules/places to be and fun filled afternoons at the pool, I am also dreading the long days that could lead to boredom and sibling arguments. Which means I've been gathering ideas for weeks now on how to combat these issues (and there are tons of great ones out there thanks to the internet, blogs, and Pinterest).  I am spending a good chunk of time today pulling things together - you know I don't tackle anything without a plan and a cute gimmick or two up my sleeve.

This morning found me in need of groceries (and probably one of the few opportunities I have left to go to the grocery store without kids in tow) and while I was out I made sure to stock up on on the summer Must Haves - freezer pops and fruit chillers and drink mixes and pool friendly snacks. I piled all my loot on the craft table and hunted up some of the other things I had stashed for summer use - a new extra large bottle of bubble solution, water balloons, and some water/pool toys (these aren't new, but we haven't used them much and I'm pretty sure the kids don't remember we have them) - and dumped it into a big bucket.  I plan to have the bucket sitting out to surprise the kids with when they get home from the final half-day of school on Friday.  (Plus a new sarong for Kaitlyn and a cap for Ty if I can find one that's cute and in his size.  Easier said than done, I'm finding.)

In addition to the bucket of fun, our plan is to celebrate the last day of school with a popsicle party at our neighborhood pool.  I've already posted an invite to all the neighbors on FB and it looks like we'll have a nice-sized gathering that afternoon.
Now I'm sitting here with notebook at the ready, flipping through all the ideas I have gathered to keep us all busy and happily entertained this summer.  I have a few new items to add to our Summer Fun Ideas Jar (you can see my post from last year here).  I've already pulled it out once already (this weekend when the kids and a couple of their friends just couldn't seem to agree on anything.  Worked like a charm - woohoo!) and I know it will come in handy many times in the next couple of months.  Basically it's a jar full of ideas that the kids can pull out when they are having a rough time.  The catch is that whatever idea they pull out, they MUST do that activity for at least the next 15 minutes, without complaining.
The boredom isn't the only thing I know we might get frustrated with this summer.  We have a fantastic neighborhood and a whole pack of kids that like play with each other as often as possible.  That gets a little hard on the parents when kids are in and out constantly, so I'm already considering a designated No Friends Day or at least a portion of each day when friends aren't here.  I even printed off this great little "Yes we can play/Sorry we can't play door hanger (printable found here).
Also on my mind - daily/weekly routines, learning activities, our Summer To Do List, and a good idea for dealing with bahavioral issues (like the many many arguments!).  I'll save all that for a post tomorrow and leave you with a few photos of the little treat I whipped up for Kaitlyn to give to her bus driver. She has stopped Kaitlyn more than once, and even pulled me aside at the bus stop to say how great/sweet/nice Kaitlyn is.  Love that!  She totally deserves a treat and a thank you.

Ok.  So I just grabbed a big ole' box of Junior Mints.  No idea what the bus driver likes, but this seems a safe bet.

Then I tweaked this printable (found here) to fit the box and printed it off on cardstock.  I would have printed it on yellow if I had known the yellow wouldn't print (printer issue on my end probably? I have since changed both ink cartridges), but instead I just colored in the background with a crayon.  Should have wiped off the icky crayon debris befor taking the photo - oops!  Stick a cute, quick and easy bus driver gift idea, even with the crayon crumbs, right?

Now it's time for me to wrap up my blogging and put my lists aside and go pick up my little guy from one of the few days of preschool he has left.  *sigh*  Oh they grow up so quickly...