Easter Activities

I absolutely love the Easter season.  Mostly because it is all about new life.  I love the flowers starting to bloom, I love the warmer temps, I love the bright springy colors, and I love the joy that envelopes everyone.

But I do not love the dreaded week of Spring Break.  Especially if it happens to be a rainy week and I have 3 little boys just itching to go out and jump in muddy puddles!  So I always try to have a back-up plan.  This year I have prepared myself with Usborne's book "50 Easter Things to Make and Do".  You can check it out here. 

One of the first activities we will be doing is a Bunny Box. 

We always leave goodies out for Santa, why not the Easter Bunny?  I'm still working out what to leave for the Easter Bunny... I'm thinking that chocolate covered strawberries disguised as carrots would be a good choice (a Pinterest idea, of course)!

Challenge Yourself

I think that should be my motto this year, if I was into that sort of thing. 
Here is a summary of what I have challenged myself with so far:

1. start and keep up a blog (as you can see, I am fairly successful at that so far)

2. create more projects using material (my stuffies have been my main fabric project - see my 1st one here)

3. start digital scrapbooking (I have been on a roll with digital layouts recently)

4. enter more scrapbooking challenges from multiple sites: here are two challenges I have completed this week

"Stretch"

and the sketch from Twisted Sketches

 

 "Blue"

 and the sketch from Scrapbook Challenges

Oh yeah, and I also am being "challenged" by having to move again in 7 months!!! Keeping a house clean with 3 little boys is the biggest challenge of all!

What are some of your challenges this year?

It's a Digital World

I find myself singing "livin in a digital world, and I am a digital girl" to the tune of Madonna's "Material Girl". 

Why? So glad you asked.  It is mainly because I have finally thrown myself into digital scrapbooking.  And I actually kinda like it.  Now it will never replace my paper scrapbooks - those are a completely different way for me to record different memories.  I find that the digital pages allow me to capture the tiny not-so-significant moments that my larger scrapbooks miss.  And I don't ever plan on turning them into physical book either.  They are purely a creative outlet for me. 

Here are a few of the pages I have done so far:

All of these digital elements were free!  I want to give credit to all of the wonderful designers and send them a big thank you for sharing their work - it is very generous of them.  Swing by and check out their work!
Sahlin Studios
Britt-ish Designs
Shabby Princess

A Boy and his Monster

You don't see very many stuffed monsters for sale in the toy stores.  They tend to come as hard plastic action figures.  But every little boy deserves his own monster that he can cuddle up with at night or during a scary movie.  I posted earlier with a picture of the monster my own son designed, that I promptly made into a stuffie. 

Well here is another monster created by another little boy!

and the drawing it was created from

I have to say that I wish I had more hours in the day to work on these.  I really do love the way that they come out.  And I love the way they make all these little boys light up with joy!

Weekend Projects

With the nice weather comes home improvement projects.  And the best ones are the ones that can be completed in one weekend! 

Here is the project that we tackled this weekend (it only took us 7 months to get around to doing it!).

A nice new laundry / mud room floor!



Pinterest Snob

I admit it... I am a Pinterest snob!  Please do not be offended; it is nothing personal.  I realize that I have very little time to craft, so I only pin things that I truly believe that I will someday make or use.  That also means that I do not "follow" boards that contain things I will never use (it takes way too much time for me to look through tons of pins that I know I will not use).  So it is a rare occurance that I will actually follow a person completely.  So my friends, please do not be offended if I stop following one of your boards!!!

And for those of you not familiar with Pinterest:
To Unfollow someone's boards, simply click on their name.  When their page opens, you click the button below the boards that you no longer wish to see pins from.  You can easily return and re-follow those boards at a later date by doing the exact same thing.

And if you would like to check out what I am pinning: click the logo on the left sidebar (I will not be offended if you do not "follow" me)!

My Favorite Wall

This may seem strange but I have a favorite wall in my home.  I love everything about it.  I love the color.  I love that it is split by a chair rail. I love how the white crown molding pops.  And I absolutely love my shadow box & picture arrangement.  It is my little artsy touch in a tradtional room. 

I took a pic of this wall because it is one of the things I will miss about my current house.  We just moved here 7 months ago, and we are already moving on.  This is one of the things that I want to take with me.

I'm a Gem...again!

Wowsers!  I was chosen as one of Scrapbook Challenges Gallery Gems once again.  I needed this bit of good news after the week I have had.  You can check out my layout and the others on their blog here. 

The layout chosen was one of my very favorite from last weekend's crop at Sauder's Historic Village.  There's a few reasons it stands out to me:
1. I used bright colors - I have come to accept that I am not a pastel kind of person.
2. I used multiple embellishments - brads, flowers, and buttons (my favorite)
3. I had only one photo to focus on - I usually cannot decide on what photo I want to use to tell my story and end up clutter the layout with a ton; but my son's expression in this one photo says it all

Now, to be fair, this awesome layout was not of my own making.  I was totally inspired by a layout titled "Adore" over at the Studio Jullene blog.  I get inspiration from a lot of places, and I always try to share when I actually remember where it comes from!  So a big THANK YOU to Jullene!!!

Super Hero - Super Fast

I admit it - this is a blast from my past.  But since I did not have a blog back in 2007, I feel justified in posting this now.  Plus: I remembered this only because the boys were playing with the cape last night - it have lasted 4 1/2 years and still looks like new!

RJ wanted a super hero birthday party for his 3rd birthday.  I decided it would be fun if every little boy got his own cape at the party!  But, I was not about to sew that many capes, especially when I did not know the exact number of guests coming (let's face it, not every body is great at RSVPing).  And, having boys, I fully understand the attraction of pulling on another person's cape in order to capture them - that is why I refuse to buy things that tie around their necks.  So here is what I created:

It is a simple rectangle of fabric and a long piece of quarter inch wide elastic.  I used fusible hem tape, instead of sewing) for the top of the cape (where the elastic slides through) so it can be cinched for smaller shoulders.  I did have to stitch the two ends of the elastic part way down from the top of the cape - this created the arm holes (no neck ties required).  I chose material that would not fray so I would not have to worry about hemming the bottom or sides. 

I had a few prepared ahead of time, but we made more as more boys showed up to party - no problem.  Super Fast Super Hero Capes for everyone! 

Happy Birthday Dr Seuss

Okay, I know I am a little late with my ode to Seuss blog posting... but I was away for the weekend!

First the backstory to my blog post:
My oldest son and his friend decided to dress alike for their school's "Twin Day."  No big deal usually, but my child loves to be elaborate and went through a list of imaginative characters that they could be (which all would have resulted in tons of work for dear old me).  So I suggested Thing 1 and Thing 2 so they both could wear red t-shirts and we could keep things simple for me and the other mother.  Well, as it turned out, his friend had a Thing 1 t-shirt.  Great - I had to make a Thing 2 t-shirt; not too bad of a project (one night and only a couple of dollars).

And then it snowed.  Twin Day was post-poned for a week.  And what was the new date?  You guessed it, Dr Seuss' birthday.  So suddenly the t-shirts were just not enough.  So we decided to create a simple hat to wear to take the place of the Things' blue hair.  These were super-simple and came out incredibly cute!!!

I cut the center out of 2 paper plates and tied half of a feather boa to each plate (using embrodery floss that matched).  Instant Thing hair!  and the best part is that they could remove it and put it away if it became distracting to the class (which you all know it did).

42 Pages in 24 Hours

It was a marathon scrapbooking weekend for me at Sauder's in Archbold, OH.  I had a great time with friends being creative and sharing supplies.  Here is one of the 42 pages that I completed on Saturday!

The best part: when I got home and unpacked my boys asked to sit with me to see what I had done!  That is why I scrapbook; to share the memories with them again and again.