Little Orange Monkeys

Survivor Birthday Party for Paige

2011-09-17T09:34:00.000-05:00

Paige decided she wanted a Survivor themed birthday party. This one took quite a bit of preparation before the party, but the girls had a really good time. I even made a custom logo that we used on the invitations and also the tribe buffs.

Here's Paige at the start of the party - wearing her "buff" and holding our tiki man voting container (old formula can covered with paper mache and painted).

As the girls arrived, they drew their buffs (which determined which tribe they were on) and then they went to their tribe 'camp' and worked on their tribe flags, tribe name, and mascot. We had two tribes - the green tribe became the Polka Dotted Panthers:

And the blue tribe was the Shaba-Laba-Ding-Dongs and their lovely mascot had a cheetah front end and a zebra read end :-)

Then we got started on the challenges. For the first challenge, each team designated a 'caller' who stood on their tribe mat and directed teams of two that were tied together at the wrist and blindfolded out into the yard to find bags of puzzle pieces.

They had to bring each bag back to the mat separately and the caller had to direct both sets of tribemates at the same time - by yelling at them which direction to go.

Once they retrieved all three bags full of puzzle pieces, they had to untie the bags that were knotted really well

and then assemble their puzzles...

After that was our very first Tribal Council, where the girls from the winning tribe all voted for who they thought did the best in the challenge. There was no 'voting off the island' in Birthday Survivor :-)

The next challenge was the infamous food challenge. The girls went head to head against the other tribe with mystery ingredients. First girl to finish her portion and stick our her tongue showing an empty mouth earned a point for her tribe.

I figured I couldn't get away with anything too gross so it was all standard grocery-store fare: pimento stuffed olives, sauerkraut (pictured above), potted meat, baby food peas, and sardines. We ended up with a tie, so the tiebreaker was Wasabi Peas - each person had to eat two and the tribe that finished first won.

The next challenge was an endurance competition. Who can stand on one leg on a brick the longest? After two minutes, they had to put their hands on top of their heads... after another two minutes they had to lift their non-standing leg out in front of them, etc.

The next challenge involved two balance beams with a large bucket of water at one end and two empty containers at the other end.

The girls had to walk across the beam and collect water through whatever means possible... mouth, hands, hair, buff...

and then return across the balance beam and deposit the water in their tribe's container. Once they made it across the next tribemate went. If someone fell off the beam in the middle, they had to start over. First tribe to fill their container won.

There were a couple more challenges, including the typical Survivor auction, but not as many pictures were taken. We headed inside where Paige had a Tiki Man cake:

Then we opened presents, the girls played for a little while, and then they camped out in a tent in the backyard. A good time was had by all, but we all got very little sleep. In the morning I made muffins and sent them on their way!

Happy 11th Birthday Paige!

Way past due overly long post about the boys' birthdays

2011-09-17T09:02:00.000-05:00

Wow! It's been a while, eh? Both boys' birthdays have passed so just a quick updated on those.

Blake's was in May. We just took him, Paige, and a few close friends to an indoor arcade/amusement type place. They played lots of arcade games, but this ride was their favorite:

Then we just came back to the house for some Pac Man cake:

Then Dean's 3rd birthday in July. We just invited some family friends over for the day. I think Dean's favorite part was the blowers:

They jumped in a small bouncy house...

Played on the Slip-n-Slide....

and feasted on monster cake...

That's it for those sweet birthday boys! Thanks for looking

Happy Easter

2011-04-25T13:02:00.000-05:00

Just wanted to share some Easter pictures. We had a nice one - kids enjoyed their baskets and we had a small egg hunt in the backyard. Paige and Blake made another Bunny Cake, which turned out really cute! Thanks for looking an Enjoy!

Shout out to Mah' Peeps!

2011-04-25T11:18:00.000-05:00

As usual, I planned out the holiday WAY in advance and was out shopping for Easter Basket 'goodies' two days before the holiday! Whew - glad I didn't wait until the last minute. So I had no problems finding Peeps in exactly four colors (a different one for each kiddo) but when it came to selection of cute stuffed rabbits to add to the baskets, the selection was abysmally limited.

I even called Mark from the store to ask if it was fair for Dean (obviously) and probably Paige to get stuffed animals in their baskets but not Blake. He's not that into 'stuffies' anymore AND there was just nothing at "Tarjay" that suited him. He's out of the Webkinz-phase and the rest there were just, well, ugly. So inspiration struck and I decided I had PLENTY of time to sew something for each of them.

Friday afternoon, I started hunting for cute tutorials and patterns out in blogland. I found all of these cute bunnies and other Easter-y animals (and, seriously, check out these great blogs):

Oh, but then the clouds spread, light shown down and I swear I heard angels sing when I found these:

So I stopped by Hobby Lobby on my way home and conveniently found fleece in the same four colors of actual Peeps I had bought for the kids. It was meant to be, I tell ya. I started with the bunny and then made the chick. She's right - even though the chick has more pieces and more seams than the bunny, it is easier to sew. By Saturday evening, I was running out of time and even though I would have loved to make a bunny AND a chick for each of the kids, it just wasn't happening (at least, not if I wanted to sleep at some point).

I asked Mark's opinion and he's a little old school - he preferred the chicks over the bunnies. And (like I said, meant to be) the *real* marshmallow Peeps I had bought were the chicks as well. The store didn't have the bunnies left in all four colors.

So here they are! I didn't embroider the eyes - I used paint and a pencil eraser. Shortcut City, baby! They turned out REALLY cute - I was very pleased with them and the kids thought they were pretty neat too. I'm glad we have four different colors so everyone knows which one is theirs.

I still have enough fleece to make the bunnies next year. Since they seemed harder to find in stores, though (the marshmallow ones) - I may have to plan a little further ahead next year.

Hope everyone had a very Happy Easter!

Kids' Valentines

2011-02-14T15:19:00.000-06:00

Just wanted to share the Valentines the kids (and I) made. I had found a lot of neat ideas online and we looked at a bunch of them together and then Paige and Blake picked out the ones they wanted to use.

This is a huge idea all over blogland lately and they really did turn out pretty cute. Blake liked the idea of taking a picture of him with a fist oustretched, then cutting a slit in the picture above and below his hand and sliding a lollipop into it. We taped them on the back for security. These would have benefitted from being glued to some cardstock first, but we just used the photos as they came and it works ok too.

Paige saw these printable iPhone valentines that wrapped around a box of conversation hearts and really liked them, so that's what her classmates are getting today.

I usually do some kind of special Valentine's Day meal, but haven't planned anything yet and don't have any ideas... so maybe I'll just make some chocolate dipped strawberries for dessert tonight and hope that is 'special' enough.

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

Random Thoughts of a Blog Stalker

2011-02-11T12:36:00.000-06:00

It was probably mid-2008 when I started reading a few blogs. Anyone that reads blogs knows that reading one leads to another (probably via a link) and it's possible to literally get lost linking from one blog to another - clicking "next page" or "more posts" to see everything each blog has to offer, then following a link to yet another blog... et cetera ad nauseum.

I have always loved making new things, trying new crafts, etc. It wasn't until I started finding all of these blogs (first making them 'favorites' and then becoming a 'follower') that my list of 'to-do' projects became unattainable. The list of projects I've seen and said "Oooh! I want to make one of those!" is probably in the thousands. I've bookmarked, downloaded, and read more tutorials for projects than I'll ever have time to make... even if I didn't have four kids, a full-time job, and a life!

I'm making an effort, though. Here are five of the projects I'd added to my 'someday' file that were completed in time for Christmas. I've added a link to the 'inspiration' blog for each of them. Go forth and stalk!

All the kiddos needed new hats for Christmas, of course.

Erika got a Jack Skellington (from Nightmare Before Christmas) hat. Here's the pattern, and I just used a basic adult beanie pattern to start.

I thought a Super Mario Brothers mushroom hat would be the perfect fit for Blake (and he has probably worn his the most out of all of them since getting it). Pattern here. This was my first time doing a pattern within the stitches. It was hard... lots of loose ends inside the hat... but he loves it!

As shown in this post, Paige has taken a liking to all things Sock Monkey after we made one for her. I found this pattern and just new it would be the perfect hat for her.

Little Dean... I just wasn't sure what to make him. He does, like many a toddler, love Elmo though. So when I saw these patterns for Sesame Street beanies... I just had to make one. The others may follow, in time.

And lastly, the other project I made for Dean as well. He loves to tie his beloved 'blankie' around his neck and make a cape out of it. So when I saw this reversible super hero cape... I just knew he'd love it. And he does! We call him Super Dean when he puts it on and runs around the house.

The pattern was super easy! Disclaimer: Keeping it real, here. I didn't take pictures when I first made it, so this is what it looks like after use and being shoved haphazardly into a toy box... wrinkles and all!

Next week maybe I'll post my 'want to make' list with links to some of the projects. Anyone interested?

Next project, though, I do believe needs to be a dog bed for poor Miss Eden. She must be tired of contorting herself to fit into a cat bed. Anyone have a good pattern/tutorial link?

Teacher Gifts - Coffee Cozies and a Gift Card

2011-01-21T10:37:00.000-06:00

I have several other Christmas crafts I made but I haven't posted yet because I keep forgetting to get some decent pictures! I need to wrangle those kiddos this weekend to get some and will post them next week.

I made the kids' teachers Coffee Cozies this year and included a cup (I just asked for them when I bought the gift cards) with a $5 gift card inside. They turned out really cute! I made three of the brown/turquoise fabric. Paige also has one male teacher and I was originally going to come up with a different gift for him. However, it was the evening before the last day of school before the holiday break and I hadn't ever picked up an alternate gift. So.... I dug around and found this faux-leather that I bought at Halloween to make Blake's boots and wrist-thingies from for his Halloween costume. I used a brown houndstooth on the inside and it ended up looking very manly :-)

It wasn't what I had planned for him but I'm happy with how it turned out and hope that he can and will use it. If not, at least he got the giftcard too. Here they are all packaged up and ready to go. I included a personal note from Mark and I as well.

And while I'm posting, let me throw in this cake I made for my nephew's BDay last month. His party didn't really have a 'theme', but my sister-in-law was taking all the kiddos go-carting and one of Nate's favorite video games is ModNation Racers, so I just took inspiration from the game cover. He was happy and it sure was yummy, so I call it a hit!

I apparently need to work on my 'writing names on cakes' skills as well as my counting skills. I started putting down little 'stars' of frosting to stick the candles in to - put down 12 'stars' but only needed 11. We'll just call that extra one a decoration, shall we?

I'll get those pics taken this weekend and will post some more crafty-goodness next week.

Handmade Birthday Gift - Bella hat from Eclipse

2011-01-10T13:47:00.001-06:00

One of Paige's friends has a late December birthday. They're always hard, especially because money is usually tight right around that time. She was having an "Eclipse" themed party (Team Jacob, of course) and I proposed that we make her a hat like one Bella wore in the movie. It's this one, from the camping scene:

I found a crochet pattern online here and whipped it up in under 2 hours. It came out pretty good, I think. Here is Paige modeling it:

The ribbed brim should have been a little longer, but I was adjusting the size as I went for a child's head, so couldn't go as far down. Paige said the BDay girl liked it, wore it while they all watched the movie, and then even did a "Hat Dance" during that scene. When we wrapped it up, we included a print from the movie so she understood what she was getting.

Score for handmade gifts! Enjoy!

Ridiculously Absent...

2011-01-10T13:41:00.000-06:00

I haven't posted in over a month. That's just plain pitiful, I know. No excuse other than the typical ones... busy with family, with work, with the holidays, etc.

We had a very nice Thanksgiving even though we ALL passed around a yucky stomach bug the weekend before. The week before Christmas we went to visit Mark's grandmother Lora in Snyder, TX. It was a very nice visit and eased some of my roadtrip-with-kiddos-anxiety. They did very well and really had a good time.

Christmas was just excellent. I think everyone was really happy with everything. I had a LONG list of handmade projects I was going to gift this year, but my sewing maching really started acting wonky the last few months so I started and failed many times. I abandoned some, but still plan to complete others, but my handmade gift giving was a little limited this year. I'll post what I did get done separately.

However, after hearing me lament about my crappy second-hand machine, Mark and the kids all decided to get me a new Janome sewing machine for Christmas. I'm still in the 'playing with all the cool features' stage with it, but expect to be doing a lot more sewing soon.

All in all, all is well and I hope to have much more to post for this year. My wonderful sister-in-law Kim went out with us one weekend to do some family pics for our Christmas cards. We got some good ones.

I do hope everyone had a wonderful end to 2010 and is looking forward to great things to come in 2011.

Last of the Halloween costumes

2010-11-30T10:33:00.000-06:00

I kept hoping I would get some better pictures of Blake's and Dean's costumes. Once we finally got everyone all dressed and ready to walk out the door for Trick or Treating I couldn't find my camera anywhere. We ended up just getting a few bad pictures on Mark's cell phone. Really bad quality, but all I've got.

Here we go... Erika and her friend were going to an Anime Convention on Halloween weekend - Oni-Con. Erika changed her mind. She had initially planned to be someone else, but then changed to Sailor V from the Sailor Moon series. Here's the inspiration:

Her friend wanted to dress as Luna from the same series. Here she is:

So we based Erika's costume on a cheerleader pattern. The skirt is not quite right, but I definitely didn't want to go without a pattern for this one. She ended up painting the glasses and the shoes to get the right colors. Brittney's was just based on an a-line dress pattern. I would have preferred something with a fuller skirt, but the girls picked out the pattern so I went with it. It looks a little "Wilma Flinstone" to me, but they were happy and actually got stopped by several people at the convention - people asked to take their pictures.

Blake wanted to be Ezio from the Assassin's Creed 2 video game. This was probably the most ambitious costume but actually came together fairly quickly. The white tunic is a boy's dress shirt - I sewed the red fabric underneath and then cut through the shirt to make the stripes. The gray is a small man's dress shirt. The cape is made from some faux-suede and then red satin on the inside. The shoulder piece is just craft foam (as is the belt medallion) and then the wrist and boot pieces are made some from faux-leather. I was able to get a few closer pics of the pieces after the fact.

And here's Blake:

I ended up running out of time (ugh!) so poor Dean got the "Sweats, Felt and Glue Gun Special". I actually did scour the Halloween aisle at WalMart on the morning of and could not find a single boy toddler costume in his size. Good thing, though, as he turned out to be an adorable puppy.

Everyone had a great time and all was a success! I plan to start much earlier next year - maybe like in January!! Happy Belated Halloween!

Lady Gaga is IN THE HOUSE!

2010-10-26T09:35:00.002-05:00

Unfortunately, lots of sewing = very little blogging. Lots to come in this next week as I finish up Halloween and a few other projects.

Other costumes are still in the works, but Paige needed hers before the Girl Scout Halloween party - it was early because we had it during our last regular troop meeting of the month. Here she is in all her Gaga-glory:

Once she decided she wanted to be Lady Gaga for Halloween, we perused pictures of Lady Gaga fashion through the years. Not wanting to deal with raw meat, go sans pants, or be overwhelmed by Kermit, Paige picked the 'Triangle Dress', but not strapless and a little more coverage down the legs...

I was working without a pattern, but it turned out pretty good. I bought 2 yards of costume satin for $1.98/yard (50% off) and less than 1/2 yard of the sequin fabric. Everything else I had on hand. I made a quick tulle underskirt but it still didn't make it stand up enough, so there is flexible tubing along the side hems (to round the sides) and then angled coat hanger wires that run down the sides of the bodice in a casing and then angle out under the sides of the skirt. Still not perfect, but good enough. I reworked the skirt several times trying to get that nice flare without gathers, but it just didn't work out, so I ended up just gathering the circle skirt. The back of the bodice has grommets down either side that we just laced up with ribbon.

She will actually get the most use out of her costume since she wore it at this party, will wear it at another event Saturday night, and then for Trick-or-Treating.

I can't figure out why this picture won't rotate, but here's the food I made for the party. Deviled Eyeballs and Used Q-Tips (lollipop stick with mini marshmallows on the end, dipped in melted butterscotch chips).

I'm not quite ready to share the full picture of my costume, but it required just a little bit of sewing and some creative makeup. Here's my feet at the end of the night:

The girls all had a great time. Here's a group shot... we had Athena, a cop, Old Grannies, Pirate, Punk Zombie, Annabeth Chase from Percy Jackson, Evil Queen, Graveyard Bride, and a Hot Dog! Quite the motley crew.

In other craftiness, I made Paige a pencil case to match her new messenger bag. I didn't have any more of the fabric from the cargo pants I used for her bag, so I just 'recycled' a pair of Blake's outgrown cargo shorts and accented it with the froggie fabric. It zips at the top and has buttonholes to fit into her binder at the bottom.

Blake joined choir this year and had his first performance last week. We may still need to work on this rythm a little bit (chronically off-beat during clapping sequences) but he did great. Center, bottom row... blond hair...

And lastly, I have some sad, sad news to report. It is still unconfirmed, but Lady Gaga herself is believed to be dead after taking a bite from the poisoned apple of Evil Queen Grimhelda. The apple was meant for Snow White, of course, but in a rare moment of opportunity, the Evil Queen realized Gaga herself would make a much more profoud victim (and Snow White wasn't at this party anyway). The following picture could be disturbing to some... please use caution.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Halloween Fun!

2010-10-06T15:23:00.002-05:00

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

Messenger Bag version 2.0

2010-09-23T10:38:00.021-05:00

The week before school started, I made Paige this cute messenger bag (and matching pencil case) from a pair of Goodwill cargo pants and cute, cute owl fabric. Post with more pictures here and here.
It was cute - it was perfect for her first day of school. She was ready! See?

BUT (isn't there always a but?) when I made the bag I based my measurements on a small stack of folders, notebooks, and a small binder. Well.... after that first day of school she comes home with a HUGE zippered Trapper-Keeper type binder that's about 4 inches thick and way bigger than that stack I measured by. The binder fit in her messenger bag, but barely... there was NO room for a water bottle, pencil bag, or much of anything.

So... take 2. Back to Goodwill and I found a dark chocolate brown pair of cargo capris with cute cinch embellishment at the bottoms of the legs and grommets on the pockets. I was hesitant using capris (less fabric) but really liked it so went with it. Paige went with me to the fabric store to pick out the accent fabric. She chose a green frog and lizard print (no idea why!) - not what I would have picked, but it's HER bag so we went with it.

I also decided to orient the bag the other way... portrait instead of landscape. It's a lot roomer and I was able to add a few extras - like a water bottle holder on the outside (so condenstation from her cold bottle doesn't get any of her papers or stuff damp. The button pocket on the front flap was one from the outer side of the leg of the capris. Pic from the front:

Here's another view of the front showing the water bottle holder better. The legs of the capris could be cinched with an elastic cord. I was running out of fabric so had to piece the water bottle holder, but it's a really nice addition. It's roomy to hold either disposable water bottles or any of her reusable ones.

The other cinch cord went along the upper front of the inside. I don't think she ever really uses this one, but it's cute and can help hold in everything. The front flap pocket are the two angle pockets from the upper front of the pants - the zipper was cut out and those two sides sewn together. I used the accent fabric behind that flap pocket.

Here's her big binder inside the bag. There's still lots of room left for a lunch bag, pencil case, etc. What I forgot to get a picture of is the inside of the bag - along the front (under the cinch cord) are the pockets from the rear of the pants. The inside of the bag is lined with the accent fabric except for that front panel. It was the accent fabric on the ouside (behind the flap pocket) and cargo material on the inside with additional inside pockets.

Here's the front cinched up a little:

And one more view of the front showing the flap pocket - you can see stray papers down in there...

And finally, here's the back. This is the other outer leg pocket. I did end up running out of fabric from the cargo capris and did not have enough to do one side of the strap with it. I had to use the froggy fabric for both sides of the strap. Not ideal, but still cute.

However, NOW we're all aware that the pencil case no longer matches... so guess what the next project is?

I'm really happy with how this one turned out. It's a little bigger for her frame, but it was too big of a hassle for her to have to carry her lunch bag or anything else she needed separate as the binder literally filled the other messenger bag very snugly with room for nothing else.

So, now... what do I do with the owl one???

I've posted at the following linky parties! Go visit to see lots of bloggy craftiness :-)

THURSDAY

Strut Your Stuff Thursday at Somewhat Simple, Tranformation Thursday at Shabby Chic Cottage, Show Off Your Stuff at Fireflies and Jellybeans, Get Your Craft On at Life as Lori, Party Time at PonyTails and FishScales, Fabric Fun at Cheap Chic Home, Strut Your Stuff with Somewhat Simple, Weekly Roundup at Seven Thirty Three, Make It Wear It at Train to Crazy, Cheap Thrills at Black Kat's Design

FRIDAY

Frugal Friday at the Shabby Nest, Feature Yourself at Fingerprints on the Fridge, Flaunt It Friday at Chic on a Shoestring, Look at Me at Fun to Craft, Frugalicious Friday at Finding Fabulous, Hodgepodge Friday at Hodgepodge Life, Friday Fun Finds at Kojo Designs, Simply Designing Link Party, Favorite Things Friday, Punkin See Productions Party, Fab Friday at Frugal & Fab Design, Finished for Friday at Lit and Laundry, I'm Lovin' It at TidyMom

What do these three characters have in common?

2010-09-15T10:50:00.007-05:00

This is Ezio Auditore Di Firenze from the video game Assassin's Creed 2:

This is Yukari Takeba from the video game Persona 3:

And THIS is Luna (the cat) in human form from the Sailor Moon book series:

Any guesses? Any idea what these three characters might possibly have in common? Two are from video games and one from a book/TV series (although I'll state my Sailor Moon ignorance here that I don't know if this character was in both the books and the TV show... I know she is in the books.)

Wanna know? Really? You're gonna laugh... hysterically.

I've been asked to make and/or assist in making them as Halloween costumes! For this year!

Oh, I guess that hysterical laughing was coming from me.

Stay tuned!

Ezio is for Blake. Pretty cool costume, really, and something I'm hoping I can make with fabric from around the house and maybe some craft foam made to look like faux leather.

Yukari and Luna are for Erika and a good friend of hers. They're going to be attending an Anime convention (Oni-Con) that's coming to Houston on Halloween weekend. Erika wants to learn how to sew, so is thinking with some basic lessons from me she'll be able to make these two costumes... so we shall see.

Wish me luck... I think.

This isn't even counting any costumes needed for Paige and Dean... not sure if we'll make them though. I might already have enough on my plate.

The Story of a Boy and a Cookie

2010-09-10T09:23:00.010-05:00

The story of a cookie and a boy

With chocolate and sprinkles - oh joy!

He licked with all his might

But would not take a single bite!

(maybe the bottoms got a little dark)

"Mmmmm.... that's pretty good. Lemme lick some more!"

"Hey, Cookie! What'you talkin' 'bout Willis?"

Maximizing tongue surface area...

Rockin' the Chocolate Goatee

Sugar High... or Sugar Delirium?

"Here Momma - wipe my hands"

The End

Paige's Party Update

2010-09-07T09:01:00.012-05:00

I'm way late posting this, but since I posted about it weeks ago I figured I'd better follow up.

Paige's 10th Birthday party went really well. We started out at the pool - we had drinks, sandwiches, fruit kabobs, chips & salsa, and cupcakes. All 'decorations' were in lime green and turquoise. The baskets for sandwiches and pails for chips and fruit were from the dollar store, and the drink tub was from Party City.

Here are the yummy cupcakes... chocolate rasberry, chocolate chip cookie dough, and apple cinnamon with honey buttercream. Paige requested the apple cinnamon as I'd made them before but the others were new. I think everyone loved the chocolate chip cookie dough - they were delish!

I don't know why... but this picture just cracks me up. I think it's because A) Blake's mouth is full and B) Erika is eyeing him awfully suspiciously...

The kids all had a lot of fun. While we couldn't reserve the pool for exclusive use, there were only about 6 other people when we arrive and 4 left shortly after. It was a lot of fun!

Paige's highlight of the night.... a Jacob Black T-shirt. We won't tell her I'm just a little bit jealous. Yes... I know he's 16 years younger than me, but he sure is nice to look at....

For the decorations back at the house, I did end up making several of the large tissue pom poms... but not as many as I'd planned. I also had streamers around the den where all the girls were sleeping.

They were up WAY too late, but it was a really nice reconnection for them right before school started. Not sure if you can see them, but as a party favor for the girls who came to the sleepover, I made sleep masks from two layers of soft fleece and leftover blackout fabric in the center (as the fleece was still allowing light through). There are a few of them to the left of this picture, right behind Paige.

And just so you know... this is how you can tell who the first one to fall asleep at a sleeover was...

Thanks for checking out Paige's Party! She really had a lot of fun and it was relatively stress free for me! Love it!

Paige's Polka Dot Party!

2010-08-18T10:52:00.005-05:00

So Paige's 10th Birthday (Wow!) is coming up soon and I've been working out the details.

She couldn't really come up with a 'theme' but knew she wanted to invite a few friends (and include her brothers and male cousins) to our local community pool for a Pool Party! We won't have exclusive use, but we can bring in whatever food we want so it should still be fun! She then wanted a few of her besties to come spend the night - SLUMBER PARTY!

Without a real 'theme', I wasn't sure what to do for invitations, but she knew she wanted the 'colors' to be turquoise and lime green. Fun! So just playing around with invitation ideas, I came up with this:

It's bright and colorful and FUN and, best of all, Paige liked it! So I printed and we delivered about 14 of these. The few invited to the slumber party afterward received a small, separate invitation to that as well.

There's not a whole lot of decorating to do at the pool. I picked up some dollar store sand pails that I'll serve some food in (just finger food only - triangle sandwiches, fruit kabobs, chips, drinks and cupcakes) and then we'll have some pool games. I'm hoping to do Pool Noodle Relay Races, Water Tag (tag people with water shooter), and Frozen Shirt contests.

For the Slumber Party afterward, I wanted to do a few decorations at home. My plan is to confine the slumber party to our den. It extends from the kitchen, so they'll have access to more snackage for the evening, but keeps them away from sleeping babies upstairs. It will also prevent any prank-pulling on Blake (I speak from experience).

So I'm planning to make a bunch of these to hang around the ceiling. I already found aqua and lime green tissue paper... I just have to do the legwork.

For the back wall of the den, I'd also like to make a quick paper banner to hang. Something like this, but in Paige's colors:

If I have time and I'm motivated, I may pull out some Christmas lights to hang around the room as well, but we'll see. I'll post more pictures next week of the decorations and the party!

Messenger Bag from a pair of Cargo Pants

2010-08-09T08:22:00.010-05:00

Paige carried a Messenger Bag to school last year and really liked it - preferred it over a backpack. But the adjustable strap would never stay where we put it, so the bag usually ended up down near her knees and I hated that! So in my blog-surfing, I had stumbled upon a couple of different tutorials and patterns:

Inspiration for using cargo pants at Noddlehead here, but I wanted a horizontal vs. vertical configuration and wanted it a little bit bigger than this one.

A few more tutorials here and here I read. I wasn't sure about boxed corners at the bottom vs. a gusset but more reading indicated adding gussets will give it a little more structure.

So Saturday I made a stop at Goodwill for some cargo pants and found a cute pair of ladies Aeropostale pants. The were a little smaller than I was hoping (less fabric) but I just didn't see what I wanted in any mens pants and these had such cute pockets!

Here's the front of the bag. The flap was made from one of the leg side pockets and I ended up having to piece it. There's a part from the lower leg pieced right above the pocket because the side leg pocket was too close to the upper leg pocket to use that piece whole. I used more of that cute owl fabric I made her pencil case out of for the binding, lining and underside of the strap. There are two pockets here - one button pocket and then a zipper pocket right above it.

The other leg of the pants had two button pockets lined up, so I used that section as the back of the bag.

Here's a picture with the front flap opened up. I actually used the 'rear' of the pants to make the front inside pocket. There's one roomy pocket (top edge is the waistband) plus, of course, the additional two button pockets.

And last, here's a peek at the inside. It's fully lined with no exposed seams, topstiched everywhere in pink thread, and I even tried to put a water bottle holder on the inside (in green fabric) but the fit is a little snug after stitching it in, so I need to rework it somehow... or make it just a pen/pencil divider :-)

The gussets and strap were pieced from one lower leg and upper front sections. There was actually very little left over, so it worked out great.

I really enjoyed sewing this and might just have to make me one someday. If you missed it, check out the pencil case I made her last week here - it's out of the same owl fabric and is really cute! I need to rework the inside pocket and re-sew one side of the strap and then I'll try to get a picture with Paige wearing it.

I'm linking this post to the crafty linky parties below. Click through to get lost in blogland looking at all of the cool projects.

It's So Very Creative @ It's So Very Cheri
Make It for Monday @ Cottage Instincts
Just Something I Whipped Up @ The Girl Creative
I Made the World Cuter @ Making the World Cuter

Market Yourself Monday @ Sumo's Sweet Stuff

Made By You Monday @ Skip to My Lou

Pencil Case and RED MONKEY BUTT!

2010-08-06T08:20:00.006-05:00

I wanted to make some special for Paige for starting school. It's not that I don't sew for the other kids, but she's always so excited about the projects and really wants to sew more and learn more herself.

I really like the design of this Gathered Clutch over at Noodlehead. Thanks Anna for the inspiration and the wonderful tutorial. This process for doing the zipper was super easy! I needed it a little longer, though, to fit pencils and markers, and didn't need the internal pockets. So I just pretty much winged it from memory. I put my gathers at the top and bottom because I hadn't printed out the tutorial, but through the center (under the band) would have been easier.

Here's the front:

Paige really was excited about it... she loved the gathers. Heya Momma - I know Shel likes owls too - think she'd like one as a "Back to School" surprise in the mail? If I sent her one, would her sis like one too, but maybe in a black and white fabric with a bold color band? Let me know!

Here's the back - just plain:

And it is fully lined, but no internal pockets or anything.

Paige also discovered months ago a pair of Rockford Red Heel Socks that my Mom sent me (probably) years ago that I'd never done anything with. Once she found them, she just HAD to have a sock monkey. She's been asking me for a while, so this week we finally got around to it. She helped a lot with the stuffing and sewing the buttons for eyes on.

She's named her Lacey, has slept with her every night this week, and is now asking for some clothes for her. She was also surprised to see her butt looks just like her face:

All in all, already a pretty producting week. Maybe THIS weekend I'll get that second bench made... I'd also like to start working on some clothing refashions. I'll keep ya posted!

The rest of the weekend projects... and lizard girl

2010-07-27T14:05:00.006-05:00

There were a few more projects from last weekend that I hadn't taken pictures of yet.

When Erika first moved in with us (earlier this year) I really wanted to try to make her room nice and know that we respected her personal space and needs. Of course, I was on a budget, though. Furniture was all Craigslist or from family and I bought THIS bedding set from Wally World.

The sheets that come with the Bed-in-a-Bag sets are not generally the best quality, so we didn't use those on her bed. I can't let good fabric go to waste though. I knew I wanted to use some blackout lining (bought with a coupon) as she gets a lot of sun in her room. My first attempt turned out pretty stiff because of the lining and didn't really hang nice. That was scrapped. Blog-surfing, I saw this tutorial and loved the design - feminine but not overly flowy - and knew that would work perfect.

The sheets had a wavy gray line on white, so I oriented the sections so the lines were horizontal on top and vertical for the bottom. I think they really turned out very nice. I'm sure the turquoise paint is not her first choice, but it's staying unless she wants to do the repainting.

Yes, the wavy lines on the fabric emphasize that my sewing skills are not perfect, but we tend to not look that close :-) The top section is shirred and is just slightly wider than the window and the bottom section (same width as the top BEFORE shirring) just slightly gathers. This was a LOT of sewing (all those shirring lines basted, then gathered, then sewn to the blackout liner) but I'm really happy with them and think they turned out great.

The curtains were in part for her birthday coming up even though I'd been planning them since she moved in. She's starting a college art program in the fall so I'd been watching Craigslist again to get her a nice drafting table for her birthday. Scored a really nice one for $30 but then she needed a chair too. Making the bench freed up a few of our mismatched dining chairs, so one of them got a makeover with spray paint and the cushion recovered. In my book - another successful project.

And then last but not least... Blake's been wanting some kind of chair or stool for his desk in his room. We got bunkbeds a few years ago when I was pregnant with Dean (knew they'd come in handy with 2 boys) and there's a built in desk at one end. Again, super tight budget... so one day driving to work there was a little stool sitting at the curb in the neighborhood. Yes, it was trash day but I'm sure a piece of furniture as fine as this would not be considered trash. I had to rescue it!!!

I took it apart, recovered the top and added lots of extra padding (it was really flat) and used this beautiful fleece that my Momma sent me - Thanks Mom! Red is one of Blake's favorite colors, so I painted the base deep red and the lovely fabric tied in both the red base and his blue walls. Excuse the mess under the desk... he's a boy.

He loved it! Yay! Another success.

And just for laughs.... here's Paige with a lizard she caught... and I guess she's doing a lizard impression?? Love love love those freckles :-)

All of these projects have been great! I find I actually have more energy when I'm trying to keep myself busy and motivated instead of just being a couch potato. I need to figure out the next project... and the next one after that. There's a second bench waiting to be built and then I'd really like to start on a low-cost Master Bedroom makeover. We've done so little with it since we moved in... it's the most neglected room in the house.

Quite a productive weekend...

2010-07-21T14:59:00.008-05:00

I took a few days vacation from work - had a nice long weekend - and got several projects that I've been meaning to do for a while taken care of. There are actually a few other small things finished, but I haven't had a chance to take pictures yet so that will have to wait.

We installed a pet door leading into our garage. We never really had a good place to put the cat litter boxes and we really don't park in the garage very often, so we decided to move the litter boxes out to the garage and install the kitty door. The younger cats are already in and out of it, but we're still working with 14 year old Custer. Dean was pretty fascinated with it as well...

If you haven't heard of Ana White and Knock Off Wood then you need to go check our her site NOW. I believe her inspiration was furniture from places like Pottery Barn and Land of Nod but the prices are insane. She figured she could build it herself and she did just that. She's since posted plans for many woodworking projects, using standard and easily attainable materials, and she's inspired a lot of people (like me) that were intimidated with building anything... to give it a try.

We have a long, narrow kitchen table in the long, narrow breakfast area of our kitchen. It does fit, but it can sometimes be hard to maneuver around especially when people are seated and their chairs are pushed out. Also, when we inherited the table... it only had 2 surviving chairs so we've been dealing with mismatched Craigslist chairs for a while now. We've been wanting benches for the long sides of the table for a while, but I wasn't finding anything within our budget. So, with Ana's plans for Modern Farmhouse Table Benches I made the first of two benches:

I'm pretty happy with it. It's way far from perfect, but I'm proud of it as my first (of hopefully many) furniture project and it will definitely serve it's purpose well. The kids like it and it's very handy to just slide it under the side of the table and get it out of the way.

The other major project was painting our front door. It was stained but had weathered quite a bit, so first we talked about sanding it down and just re-staining it. I'm sure that would have looked nice, but I've always wanted a red front door. Isn't is supposed to bring fortune or prosperity, too?

I'll post the rest of the weekends' projects tomorrow... I made some curtains for my step-daughter's room (she recently moved in with us) as well as painted/recovered two chairs. Oh, and maybe I'll also post some pictures of the other kids. It's not that I take more pictures of Dean, it's just that pictures of Paige and Blake usually look like this:

That's cousin Jayson with her feet. What happened to my sweet little kids?

Domo Arigato, Mr. Destructo...

2010-07-21T14:38:00.009-05:00

It's been way too long since I've posted, I know. We've been busy, though. I have lots of projects to show over the next few days.

The biggest news, though, was that my little man turned TWO! We didn't do anything big... just had cake at home with family. He enjoyed blowing the candles out so much, we did it several times - even on just his piece of cake.

DISCLAMER: You'll notice that in every picture I post of him, he is shirtless. He's going through that independent, 'I've learned I can take my own clothes off' phase. He is often seen running around in just a diaper not 5 minutes after we've gotten him dressed. Yes, he's also discovered he can remove his diaper as well, but thankfully he brings it straight to us so we can throw it away (and get another one on him).

He's such an.... ummmm... trying child. This boy can make more messes and get into more stuff than I've ever dealt with before. Just for a bit, probably 15 minutes, I took pictures of everything he got into:

Digging in the bookshelves in the living room...

Climbing up on tables (after clearing them off, of course)....

Climbing the stairs... the WRONG way....

And even though this was 'destructive' and something he probably should have been told not to do... when I found him sitting in the windowsill, behind the blinds, with our cat Opie... it's just too cute to be upset about.

He's talking really well, but is going through that phase where he gets really upset and frustrated when he's trying to tell us something and we can't understand him. He's also having a VERY hard time with sharing... or having to give up something he wants but we have to take away because it's breakable or doesn't belong to him.

He's definitely a sweetie, though. That smile... those eyes.... I know he can melt my heart.

GIRLZ ROCK T-shirts

2010-05-30T10:23:00.009-05:00

So we're taking the Girl Scouts to Sea World for their end-of-the-year celebration. Twelve 10-year olds... are we crazy? They've done such an amazing job selling nuts and cookies last year and this year that not only have we been able to go on lots of cool outings and camping, but we have enough money to go to Sea World for 2 days with the in-park Dining Plan and Quick Queue to jump to the front of ride lines.

It is so much easier, in a group, when we all wear our matching troop shirts. We have silk-screened ones back at the beginning of the year for all of the girls and adults to wear whenever we have outings or events. Those will be great for Sea World... but what about Day 2? We wanted matching shirts for the second day as well but didn't have the budget to silk-screen again. We had to DIY-it!
I ordered solid colored shirts online for just over $3 each. I really wanted to try out using bleach as well, so we started with a large stencil of a guitar and, using a spray bottle, misted a 50/50 water/bleach solution onto the shirts.

I wish we had made multiple stencils as not only did it get a little ragged before we finished 18 shirts, but it took forever to do these one by one and then we still had to wash and dry them before proceeding.

We then had another stencil that said GIRLZ ROCK that overlaid the top of the bleach guitar. We used three different colors of spray fabric paint across that stencil.

They turned out looking pretty cool, I think. I hope the girls like them and they're 'cool homemade' not 'embarrassing homemade'.

To speed things up (again, only 1 stencil and 18 shirts...) we needed to find a way to press the stencil down on the next shirt when the paint on top of the stencil was still wet (we had re-positionable adhesive on the backside of the stencil) we resorted to laying a piece of cling wrap on top of the stencil, rolling it on to the shirt, then peeling the cling wrap off. The stencil stayed stuck to the shirt and we were ready to spray again.

However, then we noticed that the design left on the cling wrap was pretty cool too. So we wanted to see what would happen if we laid that same cling wrap on another shirt, rolled it on to transfer the wet paint and then peeled it off.

We were left with this: I little more messy but still neat!

Once we were able to make 2 shirts for each stencil positioning and spraying... it sped up significantly. We made 18 shirts... 13 kid sized and 5 adult ones. It was a lot of fun and I really hope the girls like them.

So we're heading off to Sea World in about a week and we'll be that large, loud group in the bright shirts... on both days :-)

Blake's 8th Birthday

2010-05-29T07:56:00.012-05:00

Wow! My second child is now eight... how the years scream by, yes?

Simple, small party... just a few friends at one of those "Bounce House" places... we've done one there before.

Couldn't decide what to do for the cake. We didn't really have a 'theme' for the party. So he just decided on a character from one of his favorite video games... SackBoy from Little Big Planet. (those circles at the top are where the candles will go)

Oh no, but it didn't start off this pretty :-)

Baked up a nice marble cake, split and filled it with chocolate buttercream... and then just HAD to take a potty break. Come back to find this:

THE DOG ATE THE CAKE!!!!! Oh my heart just sank. I guess it was better now than after it was frosted, right?

So I put the dog outside and cut out the corner of the cake (is that wrong? Would you have still used the un-eaten part?) I really had no choice... this all happened about 10 in the AM and the party was at 1:00.

And filled it in with a half-a-chocolate-cake-mix-baked-real-quick-in-a-loaf-pan. This corner was not pretty marble... did not have filling... so I was actually hoping we wouldn't have to cut into it at the party.

Everything turned out well... no one was the wiser :-) (until I showed them these pictures anyway).

Dean absolutely LOVED this big slide...

He probably climbed these stairs 30 times:

Blake playing with friends:

It turned into a money birthday, too. I guess maybe 8 year old boys are hard to buy for??? He ended up getting well over $100 in birthday money.

Happy Birthday Bud! Love you!

Guitar Cake

2010-05-29T07:44:00.004-05:00

Had a friend ask me to make the cake for her daughter's birthday... and she wanted a guitar.

I could have just done a sheet cake and laid a frozen buttercream transfer of a guitar on top... I'm familiar with that process. But, no, she really wanted a guitar. I'd never done a 'sculpted' cake before, but was certainly willing to give it a try.

It was SO not perfect but I was actually pleasantly surprised with how well it turned out.

The girls were all supposed to dress like a rock star... I didn't really get a good picture of Paige before the party, but I channeled my inner 80's girl to make her an off the shoulder, side-tie rocker chick shirt. Here she is on the left with her back to the camera...

And here she is with a few friends:

Apparently they all stayed up until 4 AM, woke around 10 AM and had waffles covered with maple syrup, chocolate syrup and whipped cream! She had a blast!

Weekend Progress

2010-04-22T13:37:00.012-05:00

I've been super busy at work all week so have not yet had a chance to post on my weekend progress.

Task ONE - Twin Sheet TeePee tent for Dean: Check!

I'd still like to make some cute flags for the tops of the poles. I also missed the note on the pattern to make sure that the sheet is the same on both sides. You can see above that the left side of the flap opening is the backside of the sheet and it is lighter, but I'm guess Dean doesn't care too much.

He got right in it when he saw it (right after waking up - hence he still has his paci... and he does prop the 'handle' of it up under his nose like that... always) and it's big enough for all 3 kids to squeeze in if the want to... although Paige can't stand up in it.

The kitties play with it too... to the point of skewing all the poles as they try to attack each other - one inside and one outside the tent...

Just hanging out in the teepee...

So... Task TWO - Girl Scout Tablecloth - did not get done. It's in progress and I'll finish it up this weekend. What I did spend several hours on Saturday doing, though, was building something Paige has been wanting to work on since October.

We got two new kittens last October and Paige really wants one of those cat tree climber/scratching posts. If you've ever priced them at Petco or Petsmart, though, the nice sized ones are upwards of $100... much more for multi-level ones. I told her I thought we could build one.

So we found some particle board left out on the curb for trash day at a neighbor's house. It was intact sheets, they were just moving and didn't want to take it I guess. So we started with a box:

We cut a hole in one side and then carpeted the inside before nailing on the top. We got involved and didn't really get too many in-process shots, but here's one:

It's not finished either - we ran out of carpeting and still want to add one more upwards level. But for now, it's got three posts and a hidey box. Total cost was $0 because we already had nails and staples on hand, 2x4's (posts) were leftover from another project, and the carpet scrap was also a curbside find.

The cats have already been on it constantly and play in and around it. Often, there's one on top batting at the one inside the box.

Here's Kitty in the box playing with Opie down below...

I must say, I think Kitty approves. She's saying "Thank You" - see it?

And lastly... a quick ModPodge project. We discovered two landscape canvases in the back of Yvonne's closet when we were cleaning out her room. Paige really needed some art for her room, so we just painted over them in brown paint (same used for the dresser furniture redo several months ago) and then printed letters in cute fonts, cut them from scrapbook paper, and ModPodged them on.

Up close, a few brushstrokes are visible from the previous landscapes, but they're cute and fun and take up some nice space on her wall.

While I didn't accomplish everything I planned, I did have a productive weekend and am pleased with everything we did.

Commitment-phobe?

2010-04-16T10:16:00.007-05:00

Do you think making a formal proclamation of something you want to / plan to accomplish actually commits you to completing said task? I hope I'm not alone as a crafter who has many... many unfinished projects. I have 'parts' for projects I bought and then never did anything with. I have piles of supplies and materials and loads of PLANS! I need to get off my butt and get some stuff DONE!

So, here on the 'internets'... for anyone who's reading... I'm going to commit to 2 (count them, TWO) projects this weekend!!! Do you think that means I'll really get them done?

Blogland is absolutely SO inspiring. It's almost dangerous for me to make the rounds of the crafty linky parties because I start mentally making those plans... maybe even start assembling materials at home.. for that NEXT project... the one that never comes.

So I saw the TWIN SHEET TEEPEE at Obsessively Stitching and fell in love!

It's the perfect project for my little guy and it sounds really easy to make. I picked up the PVC last night on my way home... already have a twin flat sheet I can use... so that is PROJECT #1 for the weekend.

For project #2... there's a little history to tell...

Our Girl Scout Troop does "Cookie Booths" every year in February and March. We stand out in front of grocery stores and the like peddling those yummy-can-only-get-once-a-year boxes of goodness. We have several tables that we use for these booths and they are functional but plain. I really have been planning (see?) for the last few years to make some tablecloths for them. It will make them more eye-catching, I think. I've just never gotten around to it.

But now, it's almost National Lemonade Day!!! The girls have decided to run a Lemonade Stand on Sunday, May 2nd so maybe this is just the right motivation to get one tablecloth made.

I have yards and yards of khaki twill (I used it behind the glass of my memo board) that I could use - cost: FREE! I had a 'brainstorm' moment a couple of weeks ago to put our troop number on there in the same 'style' as in on their uniform:

See those numbers on the left - green rectangles with white letters? I thought that would be cute across the front of the tablecloth so I've already picked up several sheets of dark green and white felt. As another 'decoration' on it, I was thinking of putting random 'extra' badges and patches along the bottom. We sometimes get extra patches from events or duplicates so I have quite a stash.

So my goal for this weekend is to get JUST the tablecloth made. Here is my 'mock up' vision I put together this morning:

Next weekend I'd like to figure out how to rig some sort of PVC frame to the table and make a slip on banner to go above the table. I can make different banners for different events..... but that is a project for another weekend. As are tablecloths for the other 2 tables we use at Cookie Booths.... hahaha

Happy Weekend everyone! I'll check back in on Monday and update you with pictures of what I get accomplished :-)

Easter Pictures

2010-04-12T07:45:00.020-05:00

Can a 21-month old help dye Easter eggs? Well... we gave it a try.

Got one colored... let him help dip it and remove it. Then.... this...

Which led to this...

And then this... (so at least it wasn't a total loss)

And the smile makes it all worthwhile...

Paige and Blake shared in the fun....

Oh, just ignore the scythe on the floor in the background of that picture...

We baked traditional Easter Egg Bread... but didn't have time to manhandle it into a lovely braided wreath.

Our annual tradition - a Bunny Cake. I made several of these in my youth and have made one with the kids each year for several years now.

We headed over to Kim's where Paige enjoyed some obese-guinea-pig bonding time.

We had a wonderful dinner (yum!) and then the 'guys' headed to the school playground to hide 14 dozen eggs for the kids to hunt! Yikes! We had 6 kids hunting, though, so that's just over 2 dozen per kiddo. Paige and Blake waiting patiently...

To make it 'fair' (doesn't it HAVE to be with kids?) we were lucky enough to find bulk packages of eggs with SIX different colors. So we just assigned each kid their own color to find. That way, I could also make sure Dean's eggs had fruit snacks instead of all the candy in them ;-)

Blake (below) - has this boy forgotten how to smile? Is this typical 7-year-old boy behavior? I do not have a single picture of him where he's just looking normal... smiling at the camera.

Hunting...

And once all the eggs were found... some playing as well...

Oh please ignore the snot running and the black... um... I don't know... smudge on the nose. He was playing and having fun and that's all that counts, right?

Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter with family and friends!

Family 'Memo' Board

2010-03-23T10:06:00.010-05:00

Now that Mark is home during the day, he's been doing the grocery shopping. Usually that means he calls me while I'm at work once he's already AT the grocery store and asks me what we need. I do most of the cooking and meal planning, so I generally know best what we need. However, I don't usually remember EVERYTHING we need when he calls and needs an answer ASAP. We always end up forgetting several items.

So he's been saying we need a whiteboard for a while. It would be a handy place to jot down those grocery items we need as we all become aware of them. I just didn't want a plain white 'eyesore' stuck on the fridge.

Now there are chalkboards ALL over blogland... I know. Trust me, I know. I've drooled over gorgeous chalk 'walls', jars or canisters with chalkboard 'labels', etc. But... we don't like chalkboards. We don't like the sound of chalk on the boards, we don't like the dust... it's out of the question.

I did see, though, where several bloggers have made dry-erase calendars using this same method and that's where the inspiration started. I don't need a calendar (we already have one hanging elsewhere in the kitchen we use for jotting down schedules and appointments). I DO get very tired of "What's for dinner?" as soon as I walk in the door from work, though... and Mark and I DO often miss each other (he's out the door to class as soon as I walk in from work) so I thought we could have a 'reminders' section as well.

Here's what I came up with:

I couldn't take a 'head on' picture as our window is opposite this door and there was too much glare and reflection.

I started out with a Goodwill find. It was $6.99 but I stopped by on "30% off any 1 non-clothing item" day so got it for even less. All I really cared about was the size, the glass, and a decent frame.

I didn't take a whole lot of 'in process' shots, but here's what I did.

Take apart picture - clean glass and give frame a nice fresh coat of gloss paint
Measure area and plan out grids
Print text 'reverse' on computer
Using a large ruler, draw out boxes on BACK of glass using permament marker *stray lines clean up easy - scrape with a toothpick*
Tape reverse text on FRONT of glass and trace on the back using permanent marker so it will show through the front oriented correctly
Draw lines to write on if desired
Cover cardboard sized to fit (I got lucky at there was a piece of foamcore board already behind the picture) with fabric or paper of your choice
Mount glass with permanent marker writing on the INSIDE, then covered board into frame

So this way the permanent marker text is on the inside and can not be erased (unless I ever want to redo it and then I can clean it off with glass cleaner). We can then use dry erase markers on the front to fill in everything as needed.

I don't have a lot of wall space in the kitchen, so I mounted it with Command picture hanging strips to my pantry door.

After a few hours, I realized there was NO WAY the dry erase markers were going to stay in the area of the board, so I covered a small box (leftover Conversation Hearts box from Valentine's)with coordinating fabric (ModPodge) and hot-glued it to the lower right of the board to hold the markers:

Haha - that picture is from last week... right before St. Patrick's Day. See Wednesday's dinner? Tried to be a little traditional and get the kids to try something new... we had corned beef with potatoes, carrots and cabbage, irish soda bread, and a grasshopper cake for dessert.

It's so not perfect... some of the text came out darker than other areas, the writing lines aren't all straight, but it will definitely work for now. This could easily be done using vinyl for the letters and lines, but I don't have a lovely Cricut and don't see one in my future. I had to use what I have available.

The best part? Waking up to this in the morning (I usually leave in the AM before they're awake, so Paige added this last night before she went to bed)

That was taken last night. The kids are 'on top' of updating the board and erase a dinner after we've eaten. So all we have now is tonight and the next few nights meals planned. Mark will go grocery shopping agian on Wednesday or Thursday and we'll plan out the next week then.

Thanks for looking! Hope this inspires someone to tweak an idea they've seen so it WORKS for them!

I've linked this to:

DIY Day @ A Soft Place to Land
Talented Tuesday @ My Frugal Family
Toot Your Horn Tuesday @ A Silly Little Sparrow
Get Your Craft On @ Today's Creative Blog
Feature Yourself Friday @ Fingerprints on the Fridge
I'm a Createive Cat @ Poppies at Play
Hodgepodge Friday @ It's a Hodgepodge Life
Spring has Sprung @ It's FUN to Craft
What I Made This Week @ Simply Designing
Craft Concontion @ That's So Cuegly

Craftiness Abounds!

2010-02-22T07:45:00.009-06:00

Finally had a little bit of crafting time over the last week and hoping for even more this coming week.

Inspiration here for this little sewing-table-side ironing board. I don't guess it's big enough to iron clothes on, but who does that anyway? It's perfect for pressing open seams, etc. without having to get up from my sewing table.

I used two layers of insulbright thermal batting which I duct taped :0 to the tabletop and then cut my fabric a few inches larger than the top and sewed a casing for elastic around the edges. Super cute and in a fabric that will coordinate nicely with an upcoming, larger-scale project...

Following this tutorial, I made a "Coffee Cozy" for a coworker from the same and a coordinating fabric. I didn't have a cup with me when I made it, so I just followed the tutorial. I used one layer of the same insulbright batting for this.

Now that I can put it on a cup, though, I think I'll make the next one with two buttons and elastic loops to keep it closed a little better. I also think it could be a little longer because scooting it up much higher on the cup opens the overlap edges some. I might tweak this one, but it's really cute!

I've linked this to:

The Twice Remembered Cottage's Make Your Monday

Cottage Instincts Make it for Monday

Kickin' it old school...

2010-02-15T09:13:00.007-06:00

Remember Shrinky Dinks? Man, I think I'd forgotten about them, but they really are pretty cool. Here's how it all started....

My daughter's Girl Scout troop are first-year Juniors. For those not 'in the know' - Junior level is 4th & 5th grade and is the first level they can earn a big award. For Juniors, the Bronze Award is the highest award they can earn. Basically, there are several 'prerequisites' they have to work through and then they complete a 'big' project - something that benefits their community somehow and takes about 15 hours to complete.

We're only in our first year as Juniors, so we won't be working on the final project until next year but we needed to go ahead and pick a 'theme' because a lot of the pre-work has to relate to our final theme. We talked about general themes where girls their age could really make a difference... whether it be the homeless, the hungry, animals, children, elderly, etc. These girls, though, are all about animals... so that's the direction we're heading.

Over the next few months, we'll start on that pre-work, but we'll also start checking out some local agencies that we might be able to help with our project. In our area, we've got an excellent SPCA, the Humane Society, Texas Wildlife Rehabilitation Coalition, CAP, Special Pals, and several rescue agencies (shout out to Lone Star Boxer Rescue, where we got our doggies). Feel that linky love? Check 'em out!

Wow - I sure know how to make a short story long, right?

Anyway, we're starting with the SPCA. We'll take a tour, of course, but they also offer a patch project for scouts. As part of that project, we discuss seveal aspects of responsible pet ownership. At our meeting on Wednesday, we discussed the different ways of pet identification - tags, tattoos, and microchips. The girls also threw out spraypaint, but they're just kooky like that.

As a fun go-along activity, we brought out the Shrinky-Dink (paper? plastic? what the heck is that stuff?) and some tag shaped templates (heart, circle, bone, etc.) The girls traced, wrote and colored and then I took them home and shrunk them. They turned out really cool, very cute, and I would LOVE to show you... but I just don't have the time to graphically edit out all of the addresses and phone numbers they included on their tags, like good pet owners. Is it odd that all 12 of our scouts' families have pets?

But just for you... so you can experience the magic... here are some before, during, and after photos of some fun Shrinky Dinks my kiddos made over the weekend. These are photo'd on a standard size sheet of paper so you can grasp the shrinkage.

Run to Hobby Lobby, grab some of this stuff... and start making things. No idea what we'll do with most of them, but it's pure fun!

Here's the before. Paige made the kitty (she cut off one leg), Blake made the chicken (????) and their friend made the ghost.

Here's the during... I pulled them out of the oven to get a picture of the funky way they curl up in process. This is about 90 seconds into the baking... they don't take long. A little longer in the oven and they really do flatten back out.

Here's the 'after' with a close up shot following. So cute!!

Happy Valentine's Day

2010-02-15T08:22:00.006-06:00

We had a very nice Valentine's Day at home. I've always cooked a 'fun' Halloween dinner, and sometimes a 'themed' April Fool's Day dinner, but I've never really done a special meal for Valentine's Day. I knew the kids would really get a kick out of it, so I did this year.

The centerpiece was just a chip-n-dip bowl filled with candy. Their cards were around it. The drink of choice was pink milk with heart shaped marshmallows.

I cooked up some heart-shaped pancakes on the griddle. After the first batch (trial and error) they got much easier and started looking good.

Simple breakfast... pancakes and sausage... but they did love the special touches. Even Erika thought it was cute and not corny :-)

The rest of the day was pretty nice. The weather warmed way up... like into the low 70's, so Paige, Blake and I took Dean down to their school playground. Of course, I forgot my camera, but Dean had oodles of fun going down slides while Paige and Blake played hide and seek around the area. Dean's such a little daredevil too... it was about his 4th slide down that he flipped onto his tummy half way down and soon learned it was much more fun that way.

I received a very nice card from the hubs... and some cutesy slippers since he noticed I'm always complaining of cold feet.

Hope everyone had a love-ly Valentine's Day surrounded by family.

Cutie Patootie

2010-02-06T06:21:00.002-06:00

Have some weekend projects I'll be posting about on Monday, but here's a video of Dean from December.

Think like a blogger...

2010-01-22T19:11:00.004-06:00

So I'm obviously SO not good at this. Not only am I not good at blogging (how sporadically can I update and still be considered a blogger?) but I do things everyday but don't "THINK" like a blogger yet. I don't think... "Ooh, I'm about to make some homemade laundry soap... I should take pictures of the steps so I can post about it..." and I should (cause it was pretty neat!)

Time to start thinking like a blogger, right? I'm gonna play catch up for a bit, I guess.

Here are a few more 'Snuggies' I made just before Christmas. These were actually a paying gig :-)

Dean thought they were nice and soft...

And here's Paige modeling one for me. It's nice a roomy to allow to be tucked up under those chilly footsies.

About that homemade laundry soap... I've read about it online for years, and this year is going to be seriously testing my frugality, me thinks. Hubby was laid off last year and the job market stinks so bad we figured further academic endeavors are the way to go. So he's watching the kiddos during the day and taking evening and weekend classes. We're stretching the budget fo' sure.

I used a recipe found online... but have no lovely photos of the process. How about I promise to take pictures of the next batch... in a few months? Then I'll be able to let you know how well it's working too.

Eggplant.... is the new purple?

2010-01-05T09:37:00.006-06:00

No before pictures of this one... but it was formerly my mother-in-law's bathroom painted a soft mauvey-pink with a gauzy white shower curtain. It was pretty... but my 7 year old son wasn't too happy with it being 'his' bathroom now.

I wanted something that was bright and colorful since it's now the 'kids' bathroom, but it's also a guest bathroom so I didn't want to go with a traditional 'kid' theme like monkeys or fish...

I found the shower curtain months ago online and thought it fit the bill. Lots of nice colors and a fun print. I had lots of options for wall color, but had always wanted to try a 'darker' color - go for the bold, right? So I considered many of the options... would love to do red but Paige doesn't really like red... Blake loves orange but it's a pretty pumpkin-y tone in the curtain and I wasn't sure if I'd like that. The deep aqua blue is gorgeous, but we already have 2 tourquise bedrooms upstairs and I wanted something different.

So in looking at paint chips I decided to try the deep purple... eggplant! It's a small bathroom so it was hard getting pictures, but this one shows the wall color against the curtain:

I wanted to bring in as many of the colors as possible, so went with 2 different colored rugs for the floor:And because my kids just aren't the best at hanging their wet towels over the towel bar to dry, I replaced the bar with bright red hooks "locker room" style that I think will be easier for them.

I still need to accessorize... find some kind of baskets or boxes that will fit in the cubbies of the shelves for storage. Not shown, I also painted the light fixture red as well :-)

The kids seem pretty happy with it... as am I.

Christmas Gifts for little boys...

2009-11-15T10:55:00.004-06:00

I saw this idea linked on One Pretty Thing and thought it would be perfect to add to my 'Handmade Christmas' list. I have two little boys - sons of my bestest friend - on my list. They're 2 and 4. The 'car' one is for the 2 year old and I'm going to attempt a 'train' theme on for the 4 year old.

The tutorial is here - it's very straightforward, though. The pockets at the bottom hold cars, the 'road' flips up for play and down over the cars to be rolled up for travel. Perfect for waits at the Doctor's office, going to Grandma's house, etc. I hope they love them!

Here is it rolled up and tied, It has about 4 cars in it so it's pretty bumpy :-)

And here it is opened up. The road flips up and is perfect for a little playtime with the cars.

Child-sized 'Snuggie' for Paige

2009-11-10T08:37:00.005-06:00

Everytime that silly informercial comes on, Paige and Blake both say they want one. Now, both can be cold-natured and love snuggling up with blankets, so they actually might really use it.

However, I fear the 'one size fits all' mentality would be a bit harder to maneuver for a 7 year old. Plus, there's no cool patterns available. So using a variety of sources and patterns I found online, I made this one for Paige:

Here's a closeup of the top. The colors are just her style and it's sized nice and roomy for her.

Fleece doesn't fray, so there's no need to finish all edges, but I ran a small hem around the entire perimeter to give it a more finished look.

This is the fleece I'll be using to make Blake's 'Snuggie'. Lessons learned on the first - I think I'll reduce the space across the chest (between the sleeves) and a little bit of the sleeve length for his.

I hope they like them - and actually use them! Now to put them away to hide until Christmas :-)

Rainbow Cake

2009-11-09T13:54:00.004-06:00

Have you seen this? I know it's been all over blogland, but I guess I'm late coming to the party.

Omnomicon's Rainbow Cake

Once I showed it to Paige, she loved the bright colors and was anxious to try it. We used our own cake and frosting recipes, but followed the same 'method'.

Here it is 'in process':

She decided she wanted a Panda Bear cake, so I did the best I could on short notice. It's not near as elaborate as others I've made in the past, but she wasn't having a 'real' party anyway, so we made do. It was actually pretty neat - the plain black and white cake on the outside exploded with color once cut.

Excuse the messy photos - note to self: wipe crumbs and frosting from plate when taking blog photos... oh, and clean clutter off surrounding table...

It was yummy!

Baby Shower Goodies

2009-11-09T13:41:00.007-06:00

I went to a lovely Baby Shower yesterday for the mom of one of my Girl Scouts. It was a lot of fun - it's been a while since I've been to a shower.

So, with dear hubby laid off from work, I needed to be as frugal as possible. I found some cute patterns online HERE and HERE and made some bib and bootie sets. The booties would have been cute with a coordinating embellished onesie as well, but the mom-to-be mentioned that she had lots of clothes already.

This first set is made from repurposed 'fabric' I had around the house. The backside of the bib and the outside sole of the booties are denim from old jeans. The khaki fabric was once a pair of cargo maternity pants, and the aqua stripe was a cute button-down shirt my son never wore and has outgrown.

This set was just a cute baby flannel that my momma passed on to me - so soft!

And then this one - it's cute on both sides. The doggy flannel came from my Mom and I had the red flannel from another project. This was my daughter's favorite set.

Oh, and the surprise of the shower... ever seen the relay game involving plungers, toilet paper rolls, and no hands? Way too much fun - I haven't laughed that hard in a long, long time.

Another Furniture Re-Do

2009-09-10T09:37:00.002-05:00

We were planning to move Paige into my recently-vacated Mother-in-Law's bedroom. We cleared out the room and painted it the same Vienna Turquoise that was in her existing room. She would move to this room (bigger closet and she loves the window seat) and we'd get Dean settled into her old room. Well... one major 'mistake' on her part later and she no longer gets the priviledge of changing rooms. She can stay where she is and we'll move Dean into this room.

During all of this, we discovered that both her large desk and large dresser will not fit well into the layout of this room - there's one small wall between the door and the closet and neither her bed, dresser or desk would fit there - meaning all three of those large items would have to crowd onto one side of the room.

I was on the hunt for a more narrow dresser and found this one on Craigslist:

It wasn't very pretty, but I liked the 'girly' lines to the top edge and the legs. So I removed the hardware, sanded and painted a nice chocolate brown (so hip with the turquoise these days!) I headed out after the painting was all done to get new hardware (just planned to use the existing holes) only to discover that the old hardware was a very non-standard size (2" hole spacing). I could not find any new handles at all to fit. Mark suggested I fill and sand the existing holes, but that would mean repainting AGAIN and I just wasn't up for that.

So I picked up some flat wooden plaques from the craft store, painted the edges brown and ModPodged some pretty decorative paper to them and used those to cover up the holes. Drilled some new holes and found some knobs I already had from an old dresser (just needed to spray paint them) and it was done!

So it's up in the new room (now Dean's room) and isn't very masculine... but maybe Paige will inherit it some day...

I've linked this over at The Shabby Nest's Frugal Friday Linky Party and The Shabby Chic Cottage's Trasformation Thursday! Go check out some of the amazing projects!

Birthdays

2009-09-10T09:19:00.000-05:00

We just had Paige's Birthday a few weeks ago. I was looking back over several years worth of pictures and love the chronicle of time the birthday pictures show. I also love LOVE love making their cakes. I thought about, at one time, selling cakes; but the 'right' way to do it involves having your home kitchen inspected and certified 'commercial' before you can get a license to sell. Way too much trouble... so I just do it for fun.

Some years I really went all out with the cake, matching favors and goody bags, etc. Some years there just wasn't time.

I know we should be looking at Paige, but somehow I'm missing her 3rd and 7th BDay pics and need to find them before I post hers.

So, Blake's 1st Birthday was just family and a small baseball-decorated smash cake for him. No digital pics - maybe I'll scan them in soon. His 2nd Birthday was the first 'big' one with friends. It was a firetruck theme.

Blake's 3rd Birthday was at Chuck E. Cheese's and was all about Spongebob Squarepants.

Blake's 4th Birthday was just a small 'party' at his daycare - but they didn't allow home-baked goods so it had to be a store-bough Dinosaur cake that year.

Blake's 5th Birthday was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - I forgot to get a head-on picture of the cake though.

His 6th Birthday was at Pump-It-Up (bounce houses and obstacle courses) and had a Star Wars theme. The boy loves him some TOYS on his cake :-)

And his 7th Birthday. I'll be honest here - I was 7 months pregnant and really just 'phoned in' this cake. The party was on a Friday night and I'd worked all day and just really didn't have time to decorate it like I wanted to. The party was a 'Night at the Museum' theme as I took him and his friends to see the 2nd movie and then have a sleepover. The cake just has two little toys from the movie and uses one of the lines "Dum Dum - Give me Gum Gum". Blake didn't seem to mind.

It's so neat to see how he's grown and changed over the years. He's a real sweetheart and will still cuddle with me almost anytime I ask. He's got a real sensitive side to him although he can be a real tough guy when his friends are around.

Furniture Makeover

2009-09-08T10:21:00.000-05:00

I know I previewed that cute little cabinet a few weeks back and have yet to show the 'after'. I'm not completely happy with it and am still putting some thought into it.

So, here's another more recent project.

I bought two of these simple chairs on Craigslist super cheap ($5 each) - didn't really know yet what I wanted to do with them and they're just not as comfortable as I was hoping... but for $5 I'm sure we can find some use for them.

So this is the first one. I'm horrible at this - I hate sanding. So I go the 'quick and dirty' route and hope it holds up. I simply wiped this down with a wet rag, primed and spray painted. No repairs or sanding at all on the frame. So... it's far from perfect but it is cute.

For the seat, I removed all of the cane (?) and was left with an outer wooden frame. I stapled a quick woven 4-strap upholstery webbing base, added padding, and stapled fabric over the whole thing. I wished I'd used more padding and may redo it, but I'll have to buy more staples first :-)

The fabric, batting and paint I already had on hand. I did buy the upholstery webbing but still have some leftover. Total cost - under $10.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

So this is what happens...

2009-09-08T10:14:00.000-05:00

when you leave your camera unattended....

It always makes me laugh when I download all the pics from my camera (I'm lazy and don't do it as often as I should) and I find some pictures I know *I* didn't take. Paige got her own digital camera for Christmas last year, but the kiddos always seem to find my camera if I leave it laying around instead of putting it on my desk like I should.

So a couple weeks ago I was painting the third bedroom for Paige to move in there. Since then, there's been some misbehavior and she is now NOT going to move in there...but I'll save that for another post.

I had just recovered the window seat custion in a fuzzy turquoise fabric and the room was pretty empty otherwise - wonderful play time, right? So first there's this... I believe this is Blake in a... um... pillowcase?

THEN I see this one... first question is...

Is that a 'gang sign' of some sort? Where did Blake get that from and does he think it's cool?

Then... I notice Paige's face (I'll hold here for your laughter :-)

Classic. Maybe I should leave my camera laying around more often, eh?

I can't think about that right now. If I do, I'll go crazy. I'll think about that tomorrow.

2009-08-21T14:56:00.000-05:00

Ever had your A/C unit go out... in August... in Houston...? It's pretty much just miserable. Doing our best to get through this, but it will likely be several more days before we figure it all out.

I'll play catch-up and post these pictures of Dean's first haircut. The first two are the front and back 'BEFORE' pictures. Notice those cute little curlies at the back? Adorable, I know, but he was looking a little scraggly and I was worried that trimming up over his eyes and around his ears while preserving those curls would border on mullet-town. Just had to do it!

I'm so glad it was my AMAZING sister-in-law who was able to give him his first haircut.

THANK YOU Aunt Wendy for the new cool 'do.

~Carri

Poor Baby!

2009-08-14T12:58:00.001-05:00

See this sweet boy?

He just turned 1 last month and, for his life up to now, has been relatively healthy. But a few weeks ago, he got sick... fever for days and... um.... diaper issues. He got a horrible, awful, painful diaper rash. The fever lasted over a week and we finally got a diagnosis of Hand, Foot & Mouth disease. The symptoms paled in comparison to the side effects. It was the first time he'd had a BAD diaper rash.

And I mean BAD!!!

So... what's a Momma to do? Me? I whip up some 'homemade diaper cream'! Yep - it was a 'recipe' shared on a ParentsPlace message board when my daughter was little - so that was over 8 years ago. It's still the best thing I've ever used to clear up that rash super fast. I mean, within half a day the pain seemed to be gone (no more tears at diaper change time) and the redness was significantly reduced. Let me share...

1 part original Desitin (not Creamy, generally 4 oz. - accept no substitute)

1 part Maalox (generic is ok, flavor is irrelevant :-)

1 part Eucerin Cream (not lotion, generic ok here too)

Mix together. Sometimes it takes a while to incoporate the liquid (Maalox) into the creams, but it'll get there. Slather on GENEROUSLY at every diaper change and you'll be AMAZED at how quikly it works. I know the Maalox helps to neutralize the acid from the 'upset stomach issues', the Eucerin soothes, and the Desitin protects.

So on his Birthday, this sweet boy was feeling much better:

Cabinet makeover

2009-08-13T10:55:00.000-05:00

Okay, here's where we'll start.

Do you 'do' Craigslist? Never have before (too many seedy stories) but started checking out the 'for sale' section just for my little area of town. I was looking for some dining room chairs to go with the 'new to me' table my sis-in-law gave us. But then I saw this cute little cabinet... perfect for in my downstairs bathroom.

Get this - it was only $10. But the color was all wrong. I love the 'shabby chic' look, but didn't like the orangey-wood showing through on this.

So it's in process - the results will be posted in a few days.

Welcome to my blog!

2009-08-13T10:33:00.000-05:00

How did I miss out on such amazing blogs for so long? Really, when I first heard about people reading blogs I thought it was just mindless meandering thoughts... accounts of boring daily lives. I guess I 'discovered' blogs when someone sent me a link to Pioneer Woman's Cinnamon Rolls - I LOVED the step-by-step photos and spent days reading through ALL of her recipes. If you haven't tried any yet - do it now! Then I discovered her Confessions and was hooked!

Then... I saw people linking to THEIR blogs in her comments section. And most of THOSE blogs had links to OTHER blogs THEY enjoy. I found blogs about cooking frugal family meals, baking, crafts, family life, sewing, home businesses, decorating, and even cutesy girly hairdos. There are just NOT enough hours in the day! Really!

So... so... well... I like to cook... I often make frugal family meals... and I adore baking (just ask my thighs)... and I've always enjoyed sewing and lots of other crafts... and who wouldn't want to read about my family... and I should have a blog!

Welcome. Enjoy. Come along on this journey with me. I can't wait to become a part of an amazing community and to share my everything with others. ~Carri