[live] back to it

You'll have to forgive the time lapse.  It's been spring and honestly, I've been outside with my hands in the dirt instead of on a keyboard.

So what's been going on?  It's been busy.  We've moved our camper to a new campground, converted the kids play yard to a raised bed garden and have been trying to keep up with all the happenings of school, church and scouts.  But mostly, we've been enjoying the beautiful weather.  Unfortunately spring seems to be behind us, so bye bye cool weather (and my lettuce) and hello heat.  Happy Summer!

[make] love bugs

Lauren at Goody-Goody designed this adorable Bitty Bug Pincushion and shared it so I had to try a few.

I love the idea of using all circles and folding them to get the wings and head. It's also a great way to use up some of my extra fabric from my recent heart production.  My bitty bugs didn't come out as perfect as Lauren's and I chose to go antenna-less and use brads for eyes.

They are still very cute and will make perfect little love bugs to give to my little ones today.  Happy Valentine's Day to you and your family too!

[make] flowers pinned

I should avoid Michael's clearance section.  I know this.  But I didn't and found these felt and fabric flowers intended for scrapbooking.  At less than $2 for the 2-pack, I couldn't resist.  I don't scrapbook but I was sure I would find a use for them.

Enter hair accessories for the twins.  The orange flowers were perfect and they had built in bling!  I just covered a hair clip with coordinating ribbon and glued them on.  Done.

The grey ones were a little more difficult.  I REALLY liked the grey felt roses so I decided a pin back may be more appropriate.  You see, that way I could wear them too.  Same went for the white roses.  They feel like frosted glass.  The girls wouldn't want those anyway, right?

I worked really hard and deconstructed the trios of black roses.  Okay, I just cut them apart since they were sewn onto tulle and switched them up into two pins and two hair bows. Again, a ribbon covered clip or a circle pin back and hot glue.

A few more little pink roses and yes, just glued them to a covered clip.  So cute.

So, for a $10 investment  and about 30 minutes of my time, I ended up with some unique accessories for the girls and some pretty little pins for me, ummm.... the girls. 

[make] bows come in pairs too

I need two of them.  I'm getting a little better about using coordinating items rather than the exact same thing, but when it comes to hair bows.  I need at least two of them.  I mean what if they want to wear pig tails?  What if they both want to wear pig tails?  Okay, so I need four of them.

Since apparently my car and the twin's room eats hair bows, time to make more.

I like to use grosgrain ribbon, heat seal the cut ends and wire them together tuxedo style.  A little hot glue on the clip finishes them off and makes them durable enough for my ruffians.

Some are layered, some aren't, but all in all it seems to be a good batch.

And just in case you were wondering, there are in fact at least two if not four of each style.  Pig tails after all. 

[learn] jello is fun

We colored jewels, traced the Letter J, and made jellyfish from paper bowls.

Jack ran off with JuJu the Jellyfish before we could get actual photos.  Our results weren't as pretty as Michelle's and we used crayons instead of watercolors.   But what did the kids take away from the Letter J lesson?  Jello is fun.

We used Iowa Girl Eat's idea and made jello shots.  Don't be alarmed, no alcohol was involved in the making of this photo. The little cups are a lot of fun though, the berries add a bit more nutrition, and the lids - oh so nice for storing.

[learn] jellyfish and jewels

We had lots of ideas for the Letter J.  There are a lot of important people in our lives that name starts with J: Jack, JuJu and June to mention a few!  But in the end, we went with something a little easier to craft around, jellyfish and jewels.

Our materials for this time around:

All the worksheets can be found on education.com and the idea sources on the Twinbop pinboard.  Now to start on the Letter J.

[make] heart warming

Pinterest strikes again.  So how cute are these hearts by Brett Bara from Design Sponge?  So cute, I pinned my own pin.

The pattern is super simple and easy to use. I followed Brett's tutorial except for two tiny changes.  I didn't do the stitching at the top of the pocket fold, just ironed - lazy wins again.

Since lazy had its say, let's let cheap, uh... thrifty come into play.  My husband enlisted me for corn hole bags at Christmas and we just happen to have 46 pounds of the 50 pounds of deer corn left. Polyfil can get expensive, the corn was free.

The happy result is that you can heat these little babies up.  Twenty seconds in the microwave and these sweet hearts become warm and perfect for putting in your pockets on a cold day.  They fit right in the palm of your hand. Oh and I went kind of crazy making them, after all I had plenty of corn.

Packaged up two by two with a clever little saying and ready for warm Valentine treats.  What's that saying about the mother of invention?

[live] mud corner

We live in a 1960's brick ranch with split floor plan which can be challenging.  Imagine a long rectangle split down the middle, living spaces on one side of stairs leading down to an unfinished basement, bedrooms on the other.  The entrance we use is our "side door" that leads directly into a narrow galley style kitchen from the carport.  Naturally everything, purses, book bags, keys, coats, laptops, end up on the kitchen counter.  We are constantly looking for keys, cell phones, homework assignments.

My previous solutions of hooks on the backs of doors, folders in cabinets, the idea of actually walking it into a bedroom, have been ignored by my family.  My dreams of a mud room are just that, dreams.  We just don't have the space.

Then I moved my husbands great grandmother's glass pie cabinet into the living room and presto, a corner.  A mud corner.

Before, a corner of sorts between the bathroom and our bedroom on one end of the hallway. Now, a handy dandy area that we need to be a tad bit more organized.

I started with an Expedit Shelving Unit in black ($39.99).  I love the cubbie style and that it's super sturdy.  Then I added two Nasum Baskets ($14.99 each) for our "shoe boxes".  I installed two hook racks ($1.99 each) that I picked up a few years back. Then for a little fun added a framed Malma Mirror ($2.99).  All from Ikea for a grand total of $76.94 not including tax.

The kids have always kicked off their shoes as soon as they come in the door (if they don't do it in the car).  Now they have shoe boxes.  The twins have one and Jack has the other.  This kids are GREAT at putting their shoes in there and now in the mornings, we know exactly where we can find their school shoes. I have a place to hang my purse, my keys and a shelf for my laptop and tote bag. Stephen uses his side for his brief case and laptop.  Of course during Christmas, it got hijacked with poinsettias, pine cones, and soft fuzzy throws.

All in all, it is working perfectly and although I still dream of a mud room, a mud corner is a great start.

[celebrate] merry christmas

Merry Christmas from our family to yours

and Happy New Year, too!

[celebrate] holiday house party

Our annual gingerbread-less house decorating party went great.  The decorating is the fun part, so we skip the mixing, cutting, baking and trying to get large pieces of gingerbread not to crack and end in disaster.  I use cardboard.  But not just any cardboard mind you, pouch juice cardboard.

My Jack renamed Capri-Suns pouch juices.  Our household goes through A LOT of pouch juice especially during the holidays when we are traveling a bunch.  The boxes that hold all of this pouch juice just happens to be a perfect size for a little house.  

1.  First open up then end flaps and side flap and flatten out the box.
2.  Using a case knife or craft knife cut the box in half so that you have two long rectangles.  You will cut through the side flap.  The end flaps that you generally open the box with will run along the top or bottom of your long rectangles.  
3.  Turn the rectangles inside out so that the printed part is on the inside and hot glue it at the long side flap that you opened up to get it flat in the first place.
4.  I used a large brownie box opened up and cut on the folds to make my roof.  You can use any cardboard of similar weight to your pouch juice box.  I just measured the end flaps (now the top) of the pouch juice square, cut the brownie box to size on either side of a fold and presto, roof.
5.  Now glue on the roof.  The side flaps are super helpful when it comes to gluing the roof in place.
6.  All that is left was to set the house on a square cake base and you are  ready for graham crackers, short bread cookies and lots and lots of candy.

The pouch juice boxes were recycled along with my brownie box and the cardboard cake bases were 4 for $2.50 at Hobby Lobby.  In years past I've used recycled cardboard for those too, but I love that they are nice a white.  Once you get the cutting done, assembly is a snap with some hot glue.  And you don't have to worry about these falling to pieces once the kids get to decorating.  

These were our finished products.  We may not end up winning any contests but I don't think anyone had more fun decorating them than we did.  

Caution:  Huge amounts of candy make it extremely difficult to get a picture of children sitting still.  Note Baby A is the only one remotely in focus thanks to the fact she is still only drinking milk.