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Sweet Personalized Photo Valentines

By on Feb 4, 2012 in Crafting, Holidays | 10 comments

This is not a new idea (I’m not that clever), and I have come across a few different versions on Pinterest and just LOVED how they turned out so I decided to make my own. I am THRILLED with the results and the boys had so much fun helping to make them.  They keep asking if it’s time to take them to school yet.  It is really very simple to create a fun, personalized and 3-D “ish” Valentine’s Day card for your kids’ classmates and even family.  Here is how I did mine: Take the kids outside and have them make a fist.  Take a gazillion pictures trying to find a half-way decent one to use (what’s up with five year old’s making silly faces in every.single.picture!?).  I told my boys to pretend them were giving me a sucker so they would hold their hand correctly. After I downloaded the pictures to my computer, I used Photoshop and...

Pinterest Has Taught Me

By on Oct 31, 2011 in Crafting | 10 comments

That I don’t have a creative bone in my body! It took me a long time to finally join Pinterest.  I kept seeing all my friends join and talk about it. ” Blah blah blah…it’s so wonderful!”    I figured it was just going to be another time-suck.  And do you know what? It Is! But, I am having a fabulous time looking and “pinning.”  I have found a lot of inspiration for the holidays and things I want to make for my house.  Here are a few of my favorite finds (so far) that remind me that I am not nearly as creative as I always hope to be. Source: fey-next2heaven.blogspot.com via Rhea on Pinterest   This is a weekly organizer/calendar made with photo frames and written on with dry-erase markers. So much cuter than a regular puppy-dog calendar, don’t you think? Right now we get by without a “family” calender, but I’m sure...

How To: Decorate Easter Eggs with Silk Ties!

By on Apr 19, 2011 in Crafting, Holidays | 16 comments

If you are my friend (and why wouldn’t you be my friend??), then you know I LOVE StumbleUpon.  I learn the coolest stuff and find some of the most amazing websites just clicking that little button in my toolbar.  Sometime over the past year I stumbled upon a tutorial for decorating Easter Eggs using silk ties. I thought, “wow…that’s cool!” Then I wondered, “how come I never come up with creative stuff like that?” Then I bookmarked it so I could come back to the site at Easter time. And I did. It’s actually kinda funny, I am seeing lots of people sharing websites that offer up the same silk tie tutorial.  So it appears to have become quite the trendy thing to do.  And because I only associate myself with other trendy folks, I’ll show you how I did it so you can do it, too.  Did that make sense? click to enlarge and see my fabulous...

How To: Christmas Salt Dough Ornaments

By on Dec 16, 2010 in Crafting, Holidays | 9 comments

I don’t do a lot of crafts with the boys.  I know I should, especially being a home schooler and all, but frankly crafts stress me out.  Three boys insisting on doing it themselves, glitter flying, paint smearing, scissors flailing…you get the idea.  It’s enough to make me drink {more}. I decided that the holidays were a good time to go ahead and bust out the glitter and paint and let them have at it.  We are wicked poor and Christmas is on the thin side this year, so home made ornamental gifts from three little angels boys seemed like a *gasp* good idea. You know what?  It went much better than expected! I was inspired by this post on KatyElliott.com.   She has fabulous step-by-step instructions and examples of some really beautiful snowflakes.  We didn’t do anything quite as elaborate, but ours turned out really cute. Ingredients: 1/2 cup table salt 1/2 cup...

Super Cute Spiders!

By on Oct 20, 2010 in Crafting, Holidays | 4 comments

Ordinarily, “super cute” and “spiders” should not be in the same sentence.  At all.  Spiders are disgusting little critters and I would be perfectly happy if they didn’t exist at all.  But in the spirit of Halloween fun and because I’m a wicked cool mom (don’t laugh) I decided to make some spider decorations with my boys. They turned out super cute! I was actually inspired by our recent trip to Bates Nut Farm.  Bates always has adorable seasonal decorations, I’ve spent a fair amount of money on their Christmas goodies alone.  While we were there,  I was admiring these little spiders.  They were so cute, but holy cow they cost about 10 bucks.  A piece.  I started inspecting them a little closer and really all they were was decorated styrofoam with legs and goodies attached.  I thought “I can totally do this.” And so I did....

Mr. A’s Robot Costume

By on Oct 28, 2008 in Crafting, Holidays | 1 comment

Mr. A wanted to be a Robot for Halloween.  I went searching online and it didn’t look all that hard, so we decided to have a go at it. We had a box of Costco Wipees and decided that it was the perfect size box to make a costume.  Then we just had a few other supplies to gather and we could begin. Items we used to make this costume:  Kirkland brand wipees box, metallic silver spray paint, wire coat hangers, battery powered led lights, old computer parts, a few other gathered items from the old junk drawer, duct tape, hot glue and dryer tubing. We started out by spray painting the box so it would go from this: To this: Some spare computer parts (can you tell we have small kids…look at all those scratches!!) We taped the battery pack for the lights to the inside of the box.  We thought putting it in the center of the back would be the least obtrusive, but it ended up getting...