Art Kit

One of the hardest things for me is picking out gifts for my boy's friends.  I don't want to be too cheap but I also don't want to spend a fortune.  And I want to get something that the child will enjoy.  

Mr. W is really into drawing lately--it's all he wants to do!  So when he was recently invited to a birthday party we collaborated on a perfect gift . . . an art kit!  

We bought a clear plastic box and filled it will art supplies.  During the fall "back to school" sales I try to stock up on a few things--notebooks, crayons, markers, etc.  So most of this gift we already had on hand!  Here is what we put in our "art kit": a notebook, ruler, water colors, pencils, markers, and crayons.  The great thing is that you can add anything you want!  A few more ideas would be: pompoms, glue/glue stick, googly eyes, construction paper, scissors, or play-doh.  

To make it a little more personal I cut the friend's initial out of contact paper and added it to the box.

Mr. W was thrilled with the gift and said that his friend loved it too.  Score!

Super Hero Puppets

My boys are obsessed with super heroes.  Are yours?

Way back in March for J's 4th birthday I threw together some super hero puppets and a puppet theater.  They were fairly simple (although a bit time consuming) to make and my boys love them!

If you can't tell, I made Superman (who actually has a red cape, not pictured), Batman, Spiderman, and the Joker.

I was informed that they needed some more "bad guys" to fight.  So I'm thinking that more puppets are on the list of gifts to make for Christmas.  I have a great idea for some Star Wars puppets.  We'll see!  I can't wait to see what puppet shows they come up with for me to watch!

Most of my details are free-handed but when I get around to making more I will try to make a simple tutorial if anyone is interested.

Itsy Bitsy Spider

You know all those little spider rings that you get at Halloween time?  The ones you secretly can't wait to throw away as soon as your kids aren't looking?  This little activity will want you keeping them year round.  They're perfect for singing the itsy bitsy spider with you're toddler or preschooler.  All you need is one of those little spider rings and a bendy straw and your child can make their spider climb up the water spout all by themselves.

See . . .

The itsy bitsy climbed up the water spout.

 Down came the rain and washed the spider out.

Out came the sun and dried up all the rain and the itsy bitsy spider climbed up the spout again.

Happy Halloween!

DIY lacing cards

 At the beginning of October our church held its semi-annual General Conference--2 whole days of listening to inspiring and uplifting messages.  I love listening to Conference . . . but with 4 little boys in the house sometimes it's a challenge to actually get to sit and listen.  I try to come up with distractions for the boys that will allow us all to listen.  One of the things I came up with this year was lacing cards.  Mr. J has been bringing home lacing cards from school and loves to do them. 

Honestly, this was such an easy project that I don't know why I didn't think of it before!  First I got online and printed up several pictures of temples.  (I chose temples because I wanted something church related but you could do this for any picture . . . in fact, it might be fun to do pictures of extended family that your kids might not see very often or artwork from your own kids!)  After cutting and laminating them, I took my hole punch and punched holes around the edge.  I wasn't very exact . . . I just eye-balled it.  Then I looked in my ribbon stash for something to use as the lace.  I just tied it onto one corner and viola!  And just like that I had my own personal lacing cards.  I also ended up using some masking tape to tape the end of the ribbon to make lacing a little easier.

My older two boys loved this--and now I stash them in my Sunday bag to bring to church . . . a perfect quiet activity.

Boy/Girl Room

This summer our family moved to a new home.  It was exhausting finding something we loved without getting outbid by someone else, but after six months of searching we finally bought a house.  My husband and I have been busy over the past few months peeling wallpaper, painting, decorating and making this home ours.  We're still far from finished but it's fun to see the changes unfold.

This home was an upgrade from our previous one, but with much debate I decided that once we moved my son and daughter would share a room for the first time (for a variety of reasons).  I almost chickened out, and it took them a while to adjust to sharing, but it has been worth it.

I thought a lot about how I wanted to decorate their room.  I wanted it to be cute without being too girly or boyish.  I've got the beds done but I'm still working on the decorating part.   Here's where we're at so far:

This is how the bed frames started out:

I spied them at a garage sale earlier this year for $5 each.  They're solid wood and I still can't believe I got them for such a great price. I knew they would be perfect for our new boy/girl room.  My husband worked hard to sand them down and paint them for me.

I bought some inexpensive down blankets for the beds and picked up some pillow forms at Ikea to make pillows.  I love pillows!

I was pretty excited to find the matching stripped fabric at JoAnns--one with pink and one with blue.  These are just about the simplest pillows you can make.  I didn't even cut the fabric.  It's one big piece that I sewed into an envelope.  Easy.

The girl bed:

The boy bed:

It's a work in progress, but we're getting there . . .

Check out the boy/girl shared room inspiration over at Tip Junkie too!

Homemade Twix

I came across a recipe for homemade Twix on Pinterest and thought they looked delicious.  You know, it's been years since I've had one.  And oh how I love a good Twix. 

And my daughter . . . she's never, ever had a Twix.  Poor girl, I know.  It's that whole darn peanut allergy thing.  So when I saw this recipe I decided I'd have to try it, and since my daughter loves to bake it was the perfect thing to make together on a quiet afternoon after school.

Ingredients:

Shortbread layer

• 1 cup (2 sticks) salted butter, at room temperature
• 1 cup confectioners' sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  
• 2 cups all-purpose flour

Caramel layer

• 2 cups caramel, cut into small chunks
• 3 tablespoons heavy cream

Chocolate layer

• 3 cups chopped milk chocolate or dark chocolate, melted
• 1 tablespoon vegetable shortening (optional)

1) FOR THE CRUST: Preheat your oven to 300°F. Spray a 9" x 13" pan lightly with cooking spray, or line with parchment, and set aside. 

2) In a medium-sized bowl, beat together the butter, sugar and vanilla. Add the flour. At first the mixture may seem dry, but will come together as you continue to beat at medium speed. 

3) Take the dough (it will be somewhat stiff) and press it evenly into the pan. Lightly flouring your fingertips will help with any sticking. 

4) Prick the crust all over with a fork. The holes will allow steam to escape and the crust will bake evenly with fewer bubbles. 

5) Bake the crust until it's lightly golden brown on top and the edges are deeper golden brown, about 35 to 45 minutes. Remove from the oven and immediately run a knife around the edges to loosen the crust. Set it aside to cool completely.

6) FOR THE CARAMEL LAYER: Melt the caramel and cream over low heat in a small saucepan. Pour the caramel over the cooled crust and set in the refrigerator for 30 minutes to chill and firm up. 

7) FOR THE CHOCOLATE LAYER: Melt the milk or dark chocolate slowly in a double boiler or over very low heat. If it seems very thick, add a tablespoon of shortening to thin it. Pour evenly over the chilled caramel layer and spread to cover all of the caramel. Return to the fridge until the chocolate is well set. Cut into 2" x 2" squares to serve. It's best to store these bars in the refrigerator.

8) These bars can also be cut and dipped in milk chocolate to resemble Twix bars (but I'm in to simplicity and opted for the chocolate layer on top). After the caramel layer has chilled firm, cut down the length of the pan, splitting the bars into two long, narrow bars. Then cut each long strip into "fingers". Dip the chilled bars into melted chocolate and place on parchment paper to set for several hours.

Yum!  

I'll be making these again . . .

Scrappy Silhouettes

I made some silhouettes of my boys a while back and have had several people ask me how I did it.  I figured it was about time I made a tutorial on it. 

Silhouettes seem to be all the rage these days.  I had wanted to make some for my boys' room but wanted them to be a little bit fun at the same time.  First let me tell you, I am sure there is some tech-savvy way to do this . . . but you're not going to find those instructions here.  I'm all about simple and this was the simplest way I could think of to do this project.  I recently re-did the silhouettes (because I needed one for baby H) and I'll give you my step-by-step.

First, you'll want to take a profile picture of your subject.  It doesn't have to be a great picture.  I took mine on my ipod (because I couldn't find my camera!) before church one Sunday.  (I had to take them before church because the boys' hair was actually combed!) 

See?  Not a great picture in the bunch . . . but that's okay!

Next, after you download your picture, you'll copy and paste it into Word.  This is where it gets tricky.  You'll want to crop your photo so it's just their head and re-size it to your liking. (To do this you'll right-click on the photo, go down to "size", and then you'll see "crop from". . . just start cropping until you get it right around the head) I tried to make all the pictures about the same size since I was putting them next to each other. (To re-size you'll stretch the photo from the corners.)  Once you have the sizing just right you'll bring them up on some cardstock.  Here's what I got:

It's okay if the pictures aren't clear . . . all you really need is the outline.

Now you'll get to cutting.  I use my cutter bee scissors . . . they are perfect for getting little details--like J's long eyelashes.

Next I wanted to paint them.  This is where you can get creative . . . you can paint them any color you want.  I chose a neutral brown.

Since I flipped my silhouettes to the white side I just did one quick coat of paint.

Lastly, I looked through my mound of scrapbook papers and decided what I wanted to mount these on.  Glue them on with a little glue stick, frame in a cute cheap frame, and voila!  You have yourself some new decor!

Back to School Mini Survival Kit

It seems like just about everyone in the country has started school but us. Out here school doesn't start until tomorrow. I know, it's late.

I'm a leader for our church's 8-11 year old girls group and to gear them up for school we made mini school survival kits last week for them to keep in their backpacks.

To make them, I picked up these Q-tip packs I found at the dollar store. (Can't find cute little cotton swab packs like this? What about a travel soap bar container?)

With the Q-tips taken out they make the perfect little case, just right for filling up with goodies to stick in your backpack.

One kit includes:

2 wet wipes

2 mints

1 hair elastic

1 card for listing emergency information

Several band-aids

Pocket tissues (which were slightly too big to fit in, but we included them anyways)

All nice and snug in a compact little case.

Now we're all ready for back to school.

Interested in assembling your own?

You can print your own labels by clicking on the links below.

First aid kit cover

Emergency information card

First aid kit labels (For Avery labels size 8252)