Preparing for Easter

Easter is right around the corner and I've had my eye on a few crafts and activities. Although there's always a little bit of focus on the shallow, like matching Easter outfits, dying eggs, and getting candy, I think my kids are at a good age to teach the real meaning of Easter, so I'm excited to start a new tradition this year. Some of my findings:

Egg carton flowers, from E is for Explore

Cute envelope bunnies from Martha

This beautiful new take on dyed eggs, from Country Living, using temporary tattoos.

I don't know if I'll have time to get this one done, but that doesn't stop me from looking.

We WILL most definitely be making these edible bangles at our house, from Family Fun. So easy. I already have elastic thread. All we need are the jelly beans!!

I found a few great resources similar to the egg hunt at 'Prepared Not Scared' and I plan on doing something along these lines.

You basically fill 12 plastic eggs, each with a scripture reference and an object to go along with that scripture. You can spread the opening of the eggs out over a twelve day period (maybe opening one up each night before bed), or go on an egg hunt for them on Easter morning, and open all twelve in order. I think this is a really simple way of teaching your children the deeper meaning of Easter, and it will only take about 20 minutes to put it all together. Then you can save them, to bring out every year on Easter!

Keep in mind that, if you want to do it over twelve days, you need to start. . . .yesterday. ; ), so either get the eggs filled today and just play catch up with the first few, or fill them soon and do the Sunday version.

Similar ideas found at Family Volley and Mommy Savers.

Happy Leap Day!

This day only happens once every four years . . . sooooo, I thought I'd try to make it special for my kids.

I looked for ideas (since they don't seem to come naturally to me) and I am totally copying what I saw at raisinglemons. 

I'm making these cute little frog cupcakes today . . . ya know, "leap" day.



But the thing I am most excited about is . . . making a time capsule, filled with letters that my kids write to themselves. 

We will tuck the time capsule away, and open on February 29, 2016. -- (O.K., I just made myself really sad thinking about how old they will be in FOUR years . . . 17, 12, 10, 7, and 4 . . . no more babies :(  

For my little ones, I'm actually going to give them some fill in the blanks . . . since they will probably need some direction.

Here are the blanks that I will have them fill in:

My favorite food . . .

My favorite song . . .

My favorite movie or TV show . . .

My favortive thing to do . . .

My favorite friend(s) . . .

My favorite subject in school . . .

My favorite toy . . .

What I want to be when I grow up . . .

What I think I will be doing in 4 years . . .

A short list of goals I hope to accomplish in the next 4 years . . .

I'm going to write a little something for my baby too, since she will be four when we open the time capsule and sure to feel very left out if she doesn't have a special little letter, all about her.  :)

I'm also going to take pictures of each of them holding their letters so we can see EXACTLY what they looked like on that very day, four years ago.  Should be fun!

Hope you decide to do this too!  I think it will make for a special "leap" day in 2016, when you open up a capsule full of memories!

V-day Treats

For our date this month, Griff and I made Valentine's Day treats!!

They were Delicious, with a capital D.

I thought I'd share links to the recipes, for anyone still looking for something to make on Tuesday.

We made two batches of Martha Stewart's sugar cookies. Man, these were good. I don't know if it's just because I'm dieting (everything suddenly seems so tasty to me) or if they really are that good, but we ate these sooooooo fast, and I maybe had one or two or seven too many. : )

RECIPE at marthastewart.com

PLEEEEEEASE, somebody do the stamps. The whole reason I made these sugar cookies is because I was in love with the whole conversation heart theme, on the site. BUT, my husband wasn't too excited about the $25 price tag on the stamps, so he nixed that idea.

..................................

The other treat we made was these super tasty whoopie pies. We all made ourselves a little sick on them. They're REALLY good. Highly recommended by me.

Besides the fact that they taste so good, they're really pretty too. And, to me, that's half the allure.

Find the recipe at the Polli blog, and serve with a big ol' glass of cold milk.

A few more friend gifts. . .

I just haven't been able to find time for blogging lately, but I thought I'd quickly post a few more of my latest crochet projects.

A neck warmer, made with the crocodile stitch.

Another Chunky Circle Scarf (in 'Bone').

A hat. I semi-made up the pattern and semi-followed this one.

I've also been working on some adorable sock monkey hats for a friend, and a baby cardigan, for a group I joined on Ravelry (an online community for knitters and crocheters). I'll get around to posting them eventually.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Year's celebration! In true New Year fashion, we're trying to get our lives in order. We're working on getting this blog organized and to define our real purpose in continuing. We hope you'll like our changes. Stay tuned!

Teacher gift

Griff's Christmas gift to his preschool teacher this year, was this adorable snowman. I got the idea from the talented Sarah, of Sarahndipities.

My husband is the one who ended up making it all. Which is good, because he's more artistic than I am. We used a small rolled oats container. He made the top hat out of black paper (the brim is just the lid from the oats). He covered the can in white printer paper, carved a little piece of wood to resemble a carrot, let Griffy paint it orange, drew the basic shape of coal with a black sharpie and had Griff scribble them in. Then he made some holly out of paper and attached a note with some of my yarn that read (like Sarah, of Sarahndipities),

'We 'tissue' a Merry Christmas and a 'Handy' New Year!'

On the inside, we put tissues and hand sanitizer (things she can use in the classroom). When we were buying them at the store, Griffy did NOT like our idea. We finally got him to agree by telling him he could also pick out a candy bar for his teacher. So he picked out the Twix. (We cut a slit in the bottom of the lid, and stuck the Twix bar inside. So there's a little surprise for her in the hat!)

And I actually tested a pattern for Sarah a few days ago, so I had the brimmed hat that I made for that, and stuck it in along with everything else.

When she opens the lid:

After making the snowman with daddy, I think Griff finally understood where we were going with all of this and he LOVES it. He was just a little worried in the store. He wasn't sure we knew what we were doing.

I love how it turned out. Check out Sarahndipities for more inspiration and click on my link (#106)!

Paper Snowflakes

I love the whimsical touch it can add to a home, to have lots of homemade paper snowflakes hanging from the ceiling, but sometimes it's hard to know just how to make them.

I thought I'd share my FAVORITE tutorials:

Last year we used this one, from 'Here's Looking at Me Kid', and made garlands strung in rows, from the ceiling. SO easy, and they turn out beautifully. We went right back to the same tutorial again this year, but tried using parchment paper, cut into squares, and hung them over the table, and over the old window on the bookshelf. I love them even more!

This is the first time we used this tutorial, from 'Kerli and Animals' (which I also mentioned in this post), and I thought it was ALSO very user friendly. You don't even have to start with a square. We used regular printer paper for these (haven't hung these ones yet but I'll post a pic when we do).

I've seen a couple of tutorials out there, that I don't understand, so I hope this helps someone searching for something a bit easier.

Homemade Christmas

I really wanted to add more COLOR to our home this Christmas. Our color scheme is usually red, gold, and creme, but I figured, if we were changing the tree, why not change everything?

Some colorful Christmas pictures that inspired me:

via

via

via

The problem is, it's kind of hard to just change it all on a whim, when you have a limited budget and none of your old decorations match, so I did my best. Over the next few years, we'll be able to accumulate more color. (Knowing me though, I'll probably want to switch to an all white color scheme by then.)

So anyway, I brought some color into our home, by making this ornament garland I saw on Pinterest.

Since I was going to need a lot of ornaments, I bought the cheapest ones I could find, from Wal-Mart. They came in sets of 8, for $2.50. AND I used a few of our old red ones, too.

I would have liked to use ribbon to hang them, but I prefer to keep the spending to a minimum, and I didn't have any ribbon on hand, so I used twine. It shows in a couple of places, which bothers me to no end, but I finally had to settle.

We hung it by our table.

(I decided to just leave the balloons up, from Penelope's birthday. That way, we get a little more use out of them.)

I made the wreath from a tutorial on Good Knits

tiny winter scenes

Every Christmas season, I see these cute little winter scenes in mason jars, and I've always want to make some of my own.

I picked up three bottlebrush trees at Wal-Mart. I soaked them in hot water and bleach for half an hour, like I had seen on YouTube. Nothing happened, so I tried again, with more bleach.

Still nothin'.

Oh well. No white trees for me.

I cleaned them, sprayed them with 'Snow' (I got it at Roberts but I'm pretty sure you can get it at Hobby Lobby and probably any other craft store), and sprinkled them with Martha Stewart glitter.

After they dried, I put some sugar in the bottom of some mason jars, and put the trees in the 'snow'.

I wanted to find a tiny little reindeer to put with one of the trees but never found one. Maybe next year.

I love the simplicity of my little winter scenes. They add a nice touch to our table without being 'too much'.

It's {FINALLY} beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

I feel like we kind of got a later start on decorating than we usually do. We've just been behind this year. We had family in town for Thanksgiving and everything else took a back seat. It took me awhile to get going again. It's starting to look like we're not even going to get Christmas cards out! : (

But the house is looking festive at last, and that makes me happy! We'll start with the tree.

Usually our tree looks like this:

I LOVE it! It's HUGE, and FULL, and BEAUTIFUL!!

But this year we wanted something different. With a curious little one year old running around, we didn't want the big tree falling on her and we didn't want her to break the ornaments. We came to the conclusion that we needed a smaller, more sparse, simply decorated, Christmas tree! It's funny how you get so used to the 'norm'. I almost felt nervous going to the tree lot to look at SMALL trees! Like I wanted to make sure we were doing the right thing. It's just a tree, I know, but I wanted it to feel like Christmas and it usually DOES. . . .with our BIG tree. So I got a little nervous.

But when we got this gem home, we all fell in love with our humble little tree. It's just cute. Not overbearing.

Hubba built a little table for it to sit on, and I got some new, cheaper ornaments in the next few days, while he was at work.

I used this tutorial for the snowflakes. (If you're going to make these, DON'T FORGET her note in the beginning of the pattern! The dc are actually sc!! I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong at first.)

I also got some tinsel garlands and a few small ornaments from Wal-Mart. I added some candy canes and my 'peace sign', and she was complete.

The boys have told me on numerous occasions, that this is the BEST tree and that it's so much prettier than any we've ever had. You can imagine, from what I told you before, (about my self-esteem hinging on my children's acceptance), that I was beaming after hearing that. They were so excited to show daddy the decorated tree, when he came home from work in the morning.

This cotton ball Christmas window is something I saw on pinterest and LOVED the idea of 'snow' around my tree, so we strung up some cotton balls and craft pom poms from the ceiling with thread. I LOVE!!

tomorrow: tiny Christmas scenes, an ornament garland, and a crocheted wreath

lately. . . .

We celebrated one year with our little girly.

working on a crocheted wreath, but I ran out of yarn.

We're changing it up this year with a small, sparse tree, so I'm changing up the ornaments, too. I'm working on some crocheted snowflakes.

more to come. . . .

Le Case de Cousin Paul

I love these light strands from Le Case de Cousin Paul (found via Oh Happy Day). Would they not be perfect for virtually ANY holiday/party? Green, red, pink, white for Christmas (or even blues)- black, greys, and white for Halloween- browns, orange, cream for Fall. So pretty! Sadly, they're only in Europe but I still like to look at pictures like these, just for inspiration. Maybe you could make something similar with a strand of lights and a tutorial like THIS ONE, from Reese Dixon.

Happy Fourth!!

The Fourth of July Weekend has been lots of fun! The boys went to see some big hot air balloons with their daddy on Saturday, we all went to a parade this morning, and had a barbecue afterwards, with some friends and family.

{tutorial for paper pinwheel cupcake toppers, from The Long Thread}

{tutorial for dot banner, from Talkin' Chow, Playin' House}

PROUD to be an AMERICAN!

Easter Crafts

My little Jack-a-doo LOVES to do crafts! I guess that's part of being a 4 year old. We've been trying out some Easter crafts lately and I want to share some of our faves!

Egg Creatures from Make and Takes:

We found the idea for these cute little guys on Make and Takes. We made more bunnies, chicks, and a carrot, but I can't find them anywhere. I think little Add probably took them to nap time with her. The kids (2 and 4) REALLY loved this one! They couldn't do much of it themselves, but they told me what they were making and where to put things, so it was still their creation. The orange egg in the picture was made by Jack. He worked the pipe cleaners all by himself. He tells me its a carrot! The blue Mommy Alien is my personal favorite. Can you see her earrings?

You can go to Make and Takes for the instructions, but what I did is grabbed any crafting supply I thought I might need and got to work. We used plastic eggs (obviously), foam craft paper, pipe cleaners, wiggly eyes, jewels, a permanent marker, a hot glue gun, and our imaginations. We're going to set these out tomorrow in hopes that the Easter bunny will fill them with candy and hide them for us to find!

Water Color Eggs from my friend:

We did this today while Addie was sleeping. I printed off some egg shapes and we colored designs in the eggs with a white crayon. Then we colored over the egg with watercolors and the designs magically appear! Jack didn't really get it until I painted an egg and "I 'heart' Jack" appeared. Then he got really excited and said, "This is so DANG cool! This is SO dang cool!." He didn't always push hard enough with the crayon, and his pictures didn't always appear, but he loves to paint so it all worked out!

Little Chick from Kaboose:

I just saw a picture of this in Google Images and we made up our own, but for the purpose of the blog I decided to dig a little deeper and found the instructions on Kaboose. We made ours with foam craft paper. We cut out an egg shape for the body, traced our hands for the wings, and made up our own shapes for the legs and beak. Jack did most of this himself. I drew the shapes and he cut them out and glued them on. He was very proud of his creation.

This picture is a little sneak peek at tomorrow's post...Easter dresses for the girls!!

See you then!