Andy Warhol Inspired Handprint Art

Awhile ago I got a kid collage frame from my mother. It has a space for some kid made art and another space to fit a 4x6 photo. Well I've had the same art and photo in there since the monster was 2. I'd say 5 years is plenty long enough time to pass before finally changing it out. We made some quick Andy Warhol inspired art out of some tempra paint and leftover poster board from a school project. As he ran laps through the house(because that's what crazy little monsters do when they have too much energy and are being asked to participate) I would stop him every so often to slap another handprint down. This made for a very easy, stress-free project. Just to clarify...after each handprint I would rinse his little hand before sending him on his way to run off some more of that energy.

I love how it turned out and it has been hanging happily on my wall ever since, until it got packed and put into storage this week :(

Oh how I love that little monsters sweet handprints!

xoxo

Personalized Burlap Candleholders

I found some candleholders with coordinates on them for sale and loved them. They felt a little impersonal though and also just one cost almost as much as it cost me to buy all the supplies for mine. I wish I had taken a picture of the ones I found at the store but I just wasn't thinking about it at the time.
I bought the stencils, paint, burlap, and all the glass vases at Hobby Lobby. I looked up the coordinates for each of our birth places on google and then I got busy.

 

I used a Q-tip which turned out to be the perfect size and was a lot easier to control than a stencil brush.

This is what they looked like once the stenciling was done.

I just frayed the edges a bit and used ModPodge to get them on the vases

 

When they are all lit up you lose some of the numbers but that was ok with me, I like the texture of the burlap just fine by itself.

I'm loving the final product and am excited to get them on the mantel at the new house.

I love that they are personal to us and a little quirky.

 

xoxo

 

 

 

 

POD for tomorrow

I have plenty of things to catch up tomorrow which happens to be a very rare off day from BOTH my nursing jobs not the least of which is my little candle holder project. With all my crafty stuff already packed securely away in storage for moving day I want to tackle the projects I didn't already have supplies for. 

Also job number 3 is me becoming a consultant for Thirty-one which I'm hoping will make for a fun giveaway soon, I already have a good idea what it will be I just have to figure out how to do a random giveaway on here...maybe I'll add that to the POD for tomorrow as well. For now though I'm just saying goodnight because I'm going to watch Spartacus with my love.

xoxo

Clearly I've lost my mind

Oh boy have I lost it, in the last few weeks I added not just one but two extra jobs on top of my full time job. Not really so much out of necessity as just trying to get some additional money coming in to put into savings and building some emergency funds. I'm exhausted, right now some of my days are coming in right around 18 hrs worked. It hasn't left me with a whole lot of extra time to come up with and execute any craftiness for sure!

We have accomplished a few things during this whirlwind time of figuring out this new routine. We have started the process of buying our first home and have so far gotten approved, our offer has been accepted and we have had the inspection done. I can already see in my head how I want things to look and I'm so ready for closing I can hardly stand it!

The monster got a haircut!! Oh my poor sweet little mans neglected hair... It was bad and he was starting to resemble a mop. It would have been ok if he didn't split it down the center pushing it to the side so it would be out of his eyes. He is now rocking this much shorter hair cut by my brother in law...

Pretty soon we will be in our new home and getting busy crafting and doing some DIY stuff.

I've already got some candle holders in mind that I might go ahead and do this weekend while I actually have some off days, we'll see :)

xoxo

 



 

DIY lip scrub

I'm always up for small DIY projects to do with things I already have on hand. I was browsing pinterest and came across this

admire my professional screen shot-ing I did there ;)

I went to the site which is here!

It didn't have any measurements though so I just guessed. I ended up using a tbsp. of the brown sugar and 1-1.5 tsp of the honey and olive oil.

I tried stirring it with a spoon and that was really working, it was clumping up and sticking to the spoon. I ditched the spoon and switched to my finger. Once it was all blended I let it sit for a couple minutes and it ended up looking like this

kind of gross looking right but it actually worked really well.

I followed it up with some balm and my lips feel super smooth.

It made my hands really soft too so really I guess this could technically be an anywhere scrub.

Just be gentle with applying it.

 

 

I Love Hands-On Learning

For Valentine's Day we all went on a field trip to with my little monsters school.

We have been there several times but it's always so much fun. Get ready for picture overload...

 

pretending to be eaten by the shark

 

nothing cooler than watching the cleaning crew work(he feels this way about cleaning at home too, he prefers to watch rather than clean)

 

showing off those muscles

facing his fear of heights and cycling high above the ground

hanging out in a dog bowl

Shane making faces thru the peg board things

excavating some dino bones

and learning about digestion(this was very interesting to him, mostly because there was lots of learning about farts and poop...ewww)

By the ride home he was all tired out. He snuggled his new snake stuffed animal and dozed off for the majority of the ride.

 

We also found out yesterday that we are getting the house we wanted! Very exciting!! We are currently just waiting for the signed offer to come back from the seller!

 

For some us time and to celebrate finding out about us getting the house we went to see Identity Thief and visited our future home (it's vacant at the moment).

 

Best Valentine's Day EVER!!!

 

 

 



Lots of busy days

So sometime last week I got a second job and I am very happy with it. There are so many things I love about this job and the staff of people they have there. I'm very happy with my decision to start working this job. One downside is while I'm trying to get everything settled with my 2 different work schedules I feel like I haven't been home very much. My projects are all sitting idle and I definitely haven't been cooking. I also am seeing my 2 favorite guys much less. I know this phase is going to be short lived but its hard to be away from my guys so much. I managed to switch some shifts around and so I will be completely off work from both jobs and Shane was able to get off and so we will be spending all of Valentine's Day together as a family. Added bonus...there is a field trip scheduled for tomorrow so we will all be going on the field trip and its to a place we all know well and is a favorite for our family. I'm very excited for this day together :)

I'm also excited to start making lots of St Patricks Day stuff starting Friday! I have no idea what on earth I will be making to decorate with but I'm sure I'll come up with something!

Lots of love

Chalkboard Storage

 

Like most moms I know, I always want more storage and organization. That's where I got the idea for this next project I did. It was more boredom and having things on hand and less about saving money but it worked out well for both.

Every year for Christmas my grandmother bakes a couple hundred dozen cookies and sends them to our family which is scattered all over the U.S. So every year we get some of these little boxes in the mail.

please ignore the inhaler in the background the little monster has had a bit of an asthma situation the past few days

 

Clearly this look is not one that you would want sitting on your counter year round. In an effort to stick with my "reduce,reuse,recycle" mantra that my child drilled into me(they covered recycling at school last year and ever since he has been obsessed with recycling and the fact that some people actually litter?!) I decided to try out re-doing this.

 

Seasoned the whole box which took a minute :)

 

Mod podged some leftover fabric to the inside so it wouldn't be ugly on the inside

 

I had my chalkboard paint left over from my framed chalkboard.

I did my two coats(one vertical,one horizontal) and waited my 24 hours for it to cure and now I have this adorable little chalkboard box to use as storage and I never have to wonder what's inside because as its contents change I have plenty of space to draw myself a cute little label.

 

 

 I'm actually thinking of putting a hole in the back and making it a charging station but I'm not sure I'm ready to commit to that idea just yet so for now it will be holding Xbox controllers and battery packs because we have far too many of those things.

 

Seriously!

Ever have one of those days where nothing goes right? I have...it's today! I don't have high hopes for today, it's only 9am and it feels like nothing is going right :(

Never in my wildest dreams

Never in my wildest dreams did I think that anyone,aside from my family and closest friends, would like my chair but I pinned it anyway and last night I got my first re-pin of my chair and I think I went into a giddy form of shock! I yelled about it to Shane and he laughed at me clearly thinking this was no biggie and I had really just lost my mind but what he didn't get was that for me this was like a huge positive affirmation me. I definitely reveled in the moment. 

Never in my wildest dreams did I think creating a blog for myself as an outlet would have such a positive impact on me. I wanted a place to put down my meal plans and be able to express some creativity and keep track of my family as we grow up together. What I got was something that pushes me everyday to be better at all the different hats I wear. I want to be a better mom and having a place to chronicle exciting moments for your family will make makes me more aware of the exciting moments both big and small and also makes me want to create more.

I can't wait to make some more fun craftiness, yumminess, and memories!

So should anyone read this, thank you for checking out my blog and thank you for the pins on Pinterest. I'm very happy to have you here!

A few of my favorite little monsters

 

From top right, counter clockwise: My monster at 7 years old, my sister's little 18mth old monster, and my best-friend-in-the-whole-wide-world's little monster at 6mths. I know it kind of looks like I'm choking him but I'm really just keeping him upright. this was about 1 week before he started to sit completely on his own. I love these 3 boys more than anything. They make the world go round as far as I'm concerned. This is why we do family night every Friday. I love nothing more than having a fun night doing nothing more than hanging out with the people I love the most! 

My sister and my nephew walked over to our house today, the live about a 5 min walk away if you factor in the toddler pace. On the way over they collected some goodies to give my mother, "Gam", as a prize. That little guy managed to find so many flowers and sticks and rocks! You would not believe the proud little look on his face when he gets to show you all he has collected.

 

Man, I love these kids!!

 



Testing out Mrs. Meyers Clean Day

So the idea of me EVER going to Target and getting just what I went in for is completely never going to happen. I needed a day planner that Would work for me(I've been hunting for this since the beginning of January, I'm strictly pen and paper when it comes to writing and remembering to do things) and snacks for my little monsters class for the month. I almost got out of there with just those things and then I spotted that darn cleaner for 1/2 price and figured I'd check it out. Now I'm considering going back and buying the rest of the clearance bottles! I'm not a huge fan of floral scented anything but the honeysuckle scent didn't seem overpowering in the bottle so I figured it would be ok. While my typical Clorox clean up with bleach sat in the cabinet I quickly cleaned the counters expecting it to be a pretty inadequate cleaner. Well it cleaned surprisingly well and now my whole downstairs smells like fresh honeysuckle. I also walked away without bleached clothes feeling somewhat lightheaded. Now I want to test out some of the other stuff they have and I kinda what something in that lemon verbana scent :)

UPDATE: I have been informed that everyone else doesn't enjoy the scent and in fact finds it nauseating! Oh well I guess I will be donating it to a friend who also likes this scent because I've been outlawed from doing anymore cleaning with it in our house

Meal Plan #2

A little late but better than never...

Tuesday: Baked Chicken and broccoli fritters*

Wednesday: Turkey Tacos and corn

Thursday: work night so... Leftovers

Friday: Family night so...pizza

Saturday: fried chicken tenders and fried pickles

Extra Treat:Toffee Dip and granny smith apples
 

*this is not my recipe and while I would love to give credit where credit is due I did a screen shot of it instead of pinning it because I'm crazy so if this is your recipe I apologize for not scooping up the link when I should have

 

Broccoli Fritters

 

Ingredients:

• 3 cups chopped broccoli(1/4 inch cubes,steamed til tender)
• 1 egg(beaten)
• 1/2 cup flour(can use bread crumbs)
• 1/3 cup parmesan cheese
• 1 small clove garlic
• 1/2 tsp salt
• pinch of red pepper flakes
• 2 tbsp. oil

Instructions:

1. Prepare,combine,and lightly mash ingredients(except oil)
2. Oil pan and put on moderate heat
3. Plop mixture into 3" rounds, lightly flatten with spatula
4. Cook for 1-2 min per side
5. EAT!

P.S. Don't forget to mash them up or they will just end up being fried broccoli

 

 

I can't wait to try these!!!! I also can't wait to see if my little monster will eat them. We will see.

I do realize I will be frying a lot this week which is incredibly unusual in our house(I've only ever fried anything twice), I might have to call my bestie and have her come help me because she is very familiar with frying food. Here's to hoping I don't burn down the kitchen...again :-/

Borax in the Laundry and Bathroom

I have some Borax, and by some I mean a huge box full, left over from my pre-blog experience with making my own dishwasher detergent. In my opinion it was successful but the glasses were a little foggy and no one else in my home liked that so back to Cascade we went. I'm sure I will try it again but until then I had this huge box of borax taking up some much needed space in our laundry closet.

My goal to use this sucker up is to use it for absolutely everything listed on the back of the box. FYI there are a lot of uses listed on the back of the box.

I started with the laundry use which is really just detergent boosting. It says it's a safe alternative to color-safe bleach and after a load or two I'm totally buying into that. My little monster gets inexplicable grass stains on the knees of his jeans pretty much every single day(He also gets tears in the knees, I'm assuming while he's at school he does a lot of crawling around on his knees in the grass because that is the only thing I can come up with for this would happen all the time!!! I'm sure if I asked his teacher she would assure me this was not the case).

 

Anyway, extra use for Borax #1=success

 

Also, I know Borax in it's undiluted state is poison but Clorox is also poison and I always use both of these products in their respective diluted states. I'm not concerned about him getting Borax poison because I add it to my laundry, I've done the research and I'm pretty confident in the safety of it when diluted(I did that research prior to putting it on our dishes)

Borax in the Bathroom, not as easy use as in the laundry where you just dump it in, but it is effective.
I followed the directions on the back for the toilet and it is now sparkling and the bathroom doesn't have that boy bathroom scent *ewww* anymore.
Extra use for Borax #2=another success

Overall a productive day :)

As of today I am no longer a laundry hobo! Woohoo!!! Not that we got my precious front loading washer up and running again but as we were moving things to storage we found that we had the old washer just sitting in there. In my defense I have not visited our storage space in about 9 months other than to pay the bill. So we moved out the pretty(unusable) washer and brought back the dinosaur. But that old washer works and that is enough for me at this point. Now I'm blasting through getting caught up on the laundry which I'm much more willing to do now that I'm not lugging it back and forth from my sisters house.

For lunch we did some grilling! Yummo! We did burgers and hotdogs and grilled some potatoes which just happen to be my new favorite thing to have grilled.

Those are the cutest grill masters EVER!

 

I thoroughly enjoyed lunch and then laid down because this ear infection is killing the entire right side of my face. My little monster gets these fairly often( the Dr. says it's because of his respiratory stuff) and never skips a beat. As a matter of fact, he doesn't even notice them. We have been in the Dr.'s office before and found out he has horrendous double ear infections and when the doc asks if he has any pain in his ears he always shrugs and says no and he never runs a fever! At the moment I feel like a wimp because I would be willing to give my ear away to make it stop hurting.

 

Now it's off to do more laundry and then it is time for the Super Bowl!!!!

Also, just because I think my kid is hilarious and sometimes a bit weird in his logic, we are apparently rooting for the 49ers because Park dislikes ravens(?!) When we decided to follow pro football this year instead of just college football we had a long family discussion of which team we were going to be rooting for. It went something like asking Parker what he thought of the teams mascot and him saying whether or not he found it good or not. The we came to the Baltimore Ravens and got a very emphatic "Absolutly not the Ravens, I really don't like ravens"...um,ok..."Parker, why don't you like ravens"..."Um have you seen those things, they are really creepy and have creepy eyes, no ravens mom, pick a different team"...ok buddy no ravens haha!

 

 

Chalkboard Magnets

Found a quick and easy tutorial for making chalkboard magnets here! while I was waiting on my menu chalkboard to dry. I figured I would knock out a couple magnets while I already had everything out. I love them already and I can't wait for my monster's little notes and some sweet scribbles from my sister's little monster.

Framed Chalkboard Menu Re-purpose

 After making the chair yesterday I was still feeling a little crafty and since I had the paint out anyway I grabbed a picture frame that I had laying around. I've been trying to figure out how I wanted to use this picture frame for awhile now. It was in my sons nursery and now that my little monster is older he has informed he doesn't want "pictures for baby rooms" in his room anymore.

After two coats of my homemade chalkboard paint I did a little distressing and that's when its started feeling like it needed to become a frame for a chalkboard. It still didn't wow me though and felt like it needed something more so I went searching through blogs looking for how to make fabric rosettes. In all honesty it's taken rosettes a little while to grow on me but I think I'm finally loving them.

So this is what the frame ended up looking like...

 

I wish I could remember which blog had the tutorial that taught me how to make these rosettes. I know I tried making them using about 5 tutorials before finding one that I could work with. I made five rosettes(if you could even call them that!) that had to be scrapped because they were rough looking.

This is how my rosettes ended up looking...

 

The pictures a little fuzzy, one of these days I'm gonna either buy a new camera or get what ever is wrong with mine fixed.

 

So I went to Hobby Lobby and got some brush on type chalk paint and some wood and just followed the instructions on the bottle. And now we have this...

 

and I just have to try to be patient enough to let it sit 24 hours before using it. I'm going to try very hard but I'm just not a very patient person.

 

I am loving how it turned out and can't wait to get this home buying process done so I can use it in my new kitchen.

 

*UPDATE* I used a sheet of balsa wood because I'm cheap thrifty and it has held up just fine. After I put the thin little sheet of wood in I put the piece of glass in behind it to stabilize it a bit. I was worried the balsa wood would soak up water when I tried to wipe it off but it didn't.