This is a simple crepe paper rosette wreath that I made last year for my front door for the Valentine’s Day season. I did it a little each night for about a week while I watched tv with my husband. Continue reading “Valentine’s Day Wreath”
Category: craft
Valentine’s Day T-Shirts
Each year around Valentine’s Day I like to make cute shirts with the girls for them to wear on and around Valentine’s Day. Continue reading “Valentine’s Day T-Shirts”
Use What You’ve Got Birdfeeder
Last week the girls were asking to make a bird feeder, remembering back to my young years I thought about the pinecones my mom would let us paint in peanut butter and then roll in birdseed. Well we have no pine cones at our house and I didn’t want to go buy them just for a bird feeder. I’m the “use-what-you’ve-got” type of girl. Continue reading “Use What You’ve Got Birdfeeder”
Christmas Card Keepsake Books
As I was putting away our Christmas decor last week I went through the every year struggle of what to do with the Christmas Cards we got this year. I love them and appreciate that friends and family took the time to send us a card. These sweet cards matter to us, but I’m an anti-clutter type of girl and didn’t have a good way to organize them (quickly) so I could keep them nicely. So usually I keep this years cards in the Christmas decorations box and then the next year I get out the decorations and we reminisce over last years cards getting excited over the upcoming season. Well here it is time to put away our 2011 Christmas stuff, and I see 2010’s cards in the box and can’t bring myself to do the normal, “ok I’ve kept these over a year and I’m not a pack rat” reasoning with myself.
So my solution was to get online and research ideas to reuse or save old Christmas cards. I found lots of great ideas like using the front cover to cut out Christmas tags for next year or making ornaments from the front covers with the kids. Then I came across my favorite one which was to use index card rings to make card books. This made it an organized storage idea plus I could still keep the heartfelt messages from family and friends, I loved it. So, I recently went to Walmart (not my idea of fun) to go through a recent huge clearance section they are having in their garden center. One of the things I found was index card rings! They were on clearance for 75 cents for a package, and I was so excited to find not only what I needed but for half off.
Next I gathered the last two years of cards and stacked them separately and used my 3 hole punch to punch 2 holes in each card that would be equal length apart. Then I used the rings to bind them together. These were easy and quick, probably only took me 15 min start to finish. A great naptime project, and now they are packed away neatly with the Christmas decor.
I plan on putting them out on the coffee table next Christmas season for us to look through and reminisce. I only wish I’d found this idea sooner so I could have kept all the past Christmas cards also…. oh well 2010’s cards are a good year to start with I guess. Thanks for stopping by 🙂 Johanna
Valentine’s Butterflies
I was thinking about wanting to start decorating tomorrow for Valentine’s Day around the house since it will be a month away. I usually like to include the girls by letting them help me create a new decoration each season. This year I had seen a neat butterfly footprint idea on Pinterest. I decided to use that and adjust it a little to personalize it to our home and Valentine’s Day coming up. So here is what we came up with! Enjoy 🙂
Last Minute Teacher Christmas Gifts!
So Yesterday morning the girls left with Eric for Preschool and I thought nothing of it, until Eric showed back up at home after dropping them off instead of heading to the office as usual. He came in and asked if I’d checked the Preschool Calender or if I’d gotten an e-mail from the director about Thursday’s activities. Immediately my mind was trying to figure out what it was I had forgotten, checked my e-mail and saw that I had forgotten they were having Jesus’ birthday party and eat pizza (I’d sent a packed lunch). Next I realized it was their last day of Preschool for the month, and I had forgotten to do something for their teachers for Christmas. OK, double oops. I looked at Eric and knew his day was crazy I’d have to get creative. So after doing morning snack for Noah and putting him down for his morning nap (yep, 19 months and still taking 2 naps! I’m so thankful) I began searching my kitchen.
I’ve seen several cute ideas for ‘smores kits for teacher gifts and I had everything I needed for it.
I went to the drawer with our baggies and realized all of the smaller bags said “Ziploc” all over the front. We had gallon sized bags that are Great Value brand that were plain… but GALLON size!
So unwilling to make a gallon size ‘smores kit for each teacher I folded it in half thinking it would make a much better size. Then I saw my food sealer and wondered if it would seal cheap plastic bags like I had. Prepared to fail I cut the bag in half top to bottom and placed the cut side on the heat sealer and pressed start. It actually worked! I was amazed and thrilled I had an easy solution to my problem of needing a cute smaller bag without words all over it.
Next I filled it with graham cracker squares and a Hershey bar and some marshmallows.
Then I got some scrapbook paper that looked cute and cut it to a size that I could fold over the top of the bag and staple to it.
I wrote the word ‘SMORE in big letters and then filled it in with a white paint pen. Next I used some alphabet stamps to stamp the words “we need” above the word ‘smore and then stamped the words “great teachers like you” under the word ‘smore.
Then on the back I stamped “Love, Katie” and “Love, Bella” on each girl’s gift.
OK so there it is, a simple quick teacher gift that took about 30 min. and was very very last minute! Thanks for stopping by 🙂
Johanna
Wax Paper Mini Leaves
This is the first year I’ve done wax paper leaves with my girls, but I did it growing up with my mom and decided it was time to give it a try with my 3 and 4 year olds.
First we took old crayons in shades of turned leaves (yellow, brown, red, green and orange is what we used).
Next we put a long sheet of wax paper on the table and used a grater to shave the crayons onto the wax paper.
Then we put the wax paper with the shavings onto an ironing board on the floor with a towel on it.
Then we covered the wax paper and crayon shavings with another piece of wax paper and then paper towels.
Then we ironed it (without steam).
The wax will come off onto the paper towels some.
When all the crayon wax is melted let it cool.
Next we took some fall mini leaf cookie cutters I had and traced them onto the wax paper and cut them out.
We taped them to our back glass slider doors for fun fall decor!
I had a blast doing these with my kids, thanks for stopping by 🙂
Johanna
Relax Bottle/Time Out Timer
Sooooo… I have a three-year-old little girl who is full of drama. Probably not the only one in history, but one of my current dilemmas. When time out time comes for bad behaviour I find myself with a little girl on the bottom step screaming, kicking walls and not able to even calm down enough to learn her lesson. This was getting worse and worse until I told my husband, “there has to be a better way, I’m going to research this.” So I went online and read other mom’s advice, dr’s advice, psychologist’s advice, etc. Nothing was really working. Finally I saw something called a mind jar. This was a mason jar filled with water, clear gel glue and ultra fine glitter. You shake it and the glitter settles slowly as you watch you relax. The original ones I saw were to teach children to meditate (not my goal). I loved the idea of getting Bella to focus on something else and relax. Then I saw on Pinterest that some moms were using it as a timer for time out also. Genius! So I didn’t have to watch the clock or set a timer, and it would calm my Bella. Well, I did not like that it was a glass jar (she is three, and who gives a three-year-old glass?).
So I found a water bottle (Smart water was the brand) that was totally smooth and not too big around for little hands to hold.
I removed the label with goo gone (it was very sticky under that label)
Next I filled each bottle with about 3/4 (* edit 5-3-12, I used hot water so that the glue “melted” better… room temp or cold will cause it to stay separate) water, an entire bottle of glitter glue and a small tube of ultra fine glitter. I kept playing with the mixture until the glitter settled at about 5 min. I added more clear gel glue to make it go slower or more water to make it settle faster. Then I had my sweet husband (who knows when I handle glue I tend to glue body parts together accidentally) to super glue the lids on. Another thing I didn’t like about the mind jars I saw, the mason jars were not glued shut and knowing my kids they would just open them and spill or drink them (glue and glitter… not something I want my kids drinking). Here are the finished jars.
Here is one settled and one in the beginning stages of settling…
Here is one of the bottle half settled at 2 1/2 minutes and the other totally settled. Sorry they are purple and pink, those are my girl’s favorite colors (right now) but you can make them with any color glitter. I’m sure blue, purple or green ones would be really cute too.
Here are some of the products I used to make them.
Now time out in my house looks more like this….. and I love it
While making these Eric and I were amazed at how relaxing they are even to us! I think I want one, can I go to time out please? 🙂
*****UPDATE***** If you like this project you will LOVE the glow in the dark version Stars and Toothbrushes found here!
Thanks for stopping by!
Johanna
My Crazy Blessed Life! 