decking the halls

November 8, 201111 Comments

I’m not listening to Christmas music, yet.

That will come the day after Thanksgiving.

However, I am beginning to deck our halls.

I know. It’s not even Thanksgiving yet.

We’re going to visit family the week of Thanksgiving this year.

That is the week that I normally drag the bins down from the attic and get our Christmas on.

We usually go to cut our Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving and decorate it over the weekend.

It will be a little different this year.

We’ll be cutting a tree a week later, and recovering from a week of travel and family activity.

So, I want to have the house decorated so we can fully enjoy the Christmas spirit for as long as possible.

Anyway, I started working on a few of the decorations today.

I got this idea from Pinterest.

Source: rachelsimonsen.typepad.com via Stephany on Pinterest

And, I made lots and lots of paper garland to put on our tree.

I’ve got presents to make, family ornaments to make, and some other fun projects.

See why I could use a craft room?!

Remember that today is the last day to enter {my first} november blog giveaway!

And, stay tuned…you might find some of the above mentioned projects in the December giveaway.

home is…getting my craft on and decking the halls.

*today I am linking up with Today’s Creative Blog and Tatertots and Jello

green with envy

November 7, 20113 Comments

I dream of a place for all of my stuff where I could also have a place to work.

And, leave my mess behind a closed door.

I was able to transform the closet under our stairs into a place to store my craft stuff, but it also houses a bunch of craft stuff for the kids, and various other things.

I peruse Pinterest and countless blogs and am so jealous of the craft spaces that some of those women have.

Do you know what I would be able to accomplish with this?!

Source: theivycottageblog.blogspot.com via Stephany on Pinterest

I would absolutely LOVE this!

Source: sewmanyways.blogspot.com via Stephany on Pinterest

And, I would love do this with our dining room, but then we would’t have anyplace to eat as we do not have a breakfast nook in our kitchen!

Source: tatertotsandjello.com via Stephany on Pinterest

There’s nothing wrong with eating in front of the TV on fold out tray tables every night, right?!

I really still love the idea of a creative cottage out back…replacing the dog runs with a big old shed for all my stuff.

There is one more day to enter to win {my first} november blog giveaway!

And, I am already putting together {my second} giveaway for December…stay tuned!

home is…there’s nothing wrong with dreaming, right?

batman vs. joker

September 19, 20114 Comments

The little guy LOVES Batman.

It all started when he got a huge tub of Matchbox cars from the boys next door. His favorite car, out of hundreds, was a Batmobile. I told him all about who drove the Batmobile and we slowly grew the obsession.

{I have to admit that Batman is my favorite superhero, too. I used to watch “Batman: The Animated Series” after high school in the 1990’s.}

One day this summer the little guy and I did a fun project while the baby girl was napping.

He bought a black and white checkerboard gameboard at a garage sale and kept wanting to play his “new game”. I kept telling him that it didn’t have game pieces and that we would need to make some.

So we did.

Here are the supplies we used:

I had all of these supplies on hand to make glass bead magnets for Christmas gifts when the little guy was a baby.

circle craft punch
flat glass marbles
magnetic sheeting
modge podge
scissors

I found images for Batman and the Joker online and resized them to fit the glass marble (about 1″ x 1″). I printed about 16 per 8-1/2″ x 11″ sheet of paper and cut them out using the circle craft punch.

I also cut circles out of the magnetic sheeting.

I slathered one side of the magnetic sheeting with modge podge…

…placed the Joker or Batman logo on the magnetic sheeting…

…slathered the flat side of the flat marbles with more modge podge…

…and made a magnetic sheeting, logo, flat marble sandwich. I did this 14 times for Batman and 14 times for the Joker.

I placed all of them under a BIG, HEAVY book until the modge podge dried (the next morning).

After the arch enemies had a good nights rest under “The New Hunter’s Encyclopedia” I trimmed the magnetic sheeting that stuck out around the flattened marbles.

I also found a Batman vs. Joker image and modge podged it to the middle of the game board.

And, we play it like Checkers!

Of course, I am always the Joker.

And, the little guy is Batman.

home is…game time.

*today I am linking up with Today’s Creative Blog…

play outside every day

August 16, 20114 Comments

As you know we have been working on making our yard kid and family friendly this summer.

Our backyard was a clean slate as far as kids toys and activities were concerned. Up until this summer we got by with a few riding toys, a hose, some balls, and the dog water buckets.

This summer it changed.

I saw it coming last summer and had a plan in place. I knew what I wanted to do, but also knew I couldn’t get it done by myself.

You can see the progress of the plan here, here, here and here.

We have some professionals coming in a few weeks to finish the job, and I will post an update when they are done. I think it will take until next summer to really see how things turn out, but we are happy with the progress.

Our latest addition was an easy one that came from an idea I saw on Pinterest.

As I told you in this post, we don’t have a chalk friendly sidewalk or driveway at our house, so I have had to come up with other ideas.

So, along with the sandwich board chalkboard, I also made a large 4′ x 4′ chalkboard that we hung up on the fence.

I bought a precut 4′ x 4′ piece of plywood, primed it, and painted it with chalkboard paint. Ryan hung it up on the fence with screws (we also added some extra blocking with a 1′ x 4′ where he attached it to the fence).

All we had to do was add chalk.

I think I will also hang some of the buckets of chalk like I did with the sandwich board.

It adds some fun to the backyard and is definitely nicer to look at than the fence. I also think we will be able to use it for some fun photo opportunities in the backyard!

home is…family friendly backyards!

*I am linking up with Today’s Creative Blog…

drills, crib parts, and chalk…oh my!

August 6, 20117 Comments

We finally have summer here in the Pacific Northwest and some of the projects that we have had planned for our backyard are finally getting done.

I went out last week to add some features to the playhouse and found out that our drill had bitten the dust, so I had to wait for Ryan to decide which drill he wanted to replace it with and the kids and I worked on a “drill-less” water wall project instead.

Ryan came home with a drill the other night and due to the fact that I was working on another project (someone is getting a room redesign that I will blog about soon) I did not get to use the drill until this morning.

The sidewalk and driveway at our house are an aggregate and do not get along well with sidewalk chalk, so I have had to come up with other ideas for using the chalk…one of which was our deck that was in desperate need of refinishing (that is now done) and our fence. While both were fine alternatives for the short term, I needed a long term solution to our dilemma.

I used more recalled crib parts to make an outdoor sandwich board style chalkboard!

Here is a crude tutorial on how I did it…really, the photos are very fuzzy, sorry!

First, I bought pre-cut pieces of plywood at Home Depot, primed them, and painted them with chalkboard paint. Of course, I don’t have any photos of that process, but it’s pretty simple.

Here are the crib parts that I used…they are the small ends of the crib (the large ends were given away as a headboard and footboard for a full size bed as they were still safe to be used that way).

Next, I lined the sides up next to each other and added hinges that I found in the door hardware aisle at Home Depot.

After that I added chain to the side to keep them from opening up all the way while the kids are drawing on the boards.

Then, I screwed the painted plywood to the crib panels.

See, you can see the texture of our driveway…not chalk friendly at all.

Also, do you notice my husband filling water balloons?! He was preparing for a water balloon battle with the boys next door that should happen later today.

So, pretty easy and I feel good about my reuse of the recalled crib parts!

I also added “s” hooks to the chain to hang some cute buckets I had sitting around to hold the chalk!

I have another chalkboard project that I will blog about in the next little while…stay tuned!

home is…mommies who can use power tools!

*linking up with Today’s Creative Blog…

{rose hair clips} take two

July 14, 201112 Comments

In February I wrote a post about some hair clips that I made for a baby shower gift.

Recently I made another (easier) version of them!

First, I found rolls of ribbon in the dollar section at Target.

The hair clips are from Michaels. If I were to do this project again I would try to find the smaller clips at a beauty supply store.

If anybody has any tips on where I can find them in the Portland area please let me know!

I used this tutorial from Jones Design Company to create the ribbon covered hair clips. These are super cute by themselves, but I wanted to embellish some of them even more.