activity cubes

I saw this idea from a child blog I follow and they are also all over Pinterst, of course. I have very active kids. They are constantly moving, playing, teasing each other, and being kids. They are also really good at pushing each other's buttons, including my own. This art of button-pushing would usually end up with one or both crying and one or both in their rooms for a time-out. But timeouts weren't working. I saw these activity cubes and inspiration struck! 

What if these helped my kids get a long better? What if I could use these instead of timeouts? Doesn't that sound wonderful? 

Epic fail. Fail. Fail. Fail. 

My kids love these dice so much that they love playing with them, but they cannot seem to grasp the concept of sharing and end up fighting over the dice. I tried to referee and got smacked in the head with a corner of one of the die.

My version of this activity cube is as follows:

I used two dice instead of just one. This way the number dice tells how many of the activity they need to do. My activities included:

Flap like a bird.

Spin in a circle.

Run from the front door to the back door.

P.E. (This one has more detail to it that I'll explain in a bit).

Dance Party!

Hop on one foot.

There were so many activities that sounded fun to me, so I cheated and made the P.E. have 6 additional activities. They include:

1. wall sit

2. somersaults

3. jump

4. sit ups

5. push ups

6. jumping jacks

So, the number dice tells the kids which sub-activity they do and how many/long they do that activity. It has been so much fun watching my 5 year-old do these activities. The jumping jacks and push ups are my favorite to watch! 

So, this obviously isn't taking the place of timeouts but this is a fun thing that my kids like doing. What do you do for those "timeout" times?

Pinterest Project: button art

I'm still trying to put together my bedroom. Right now we have blank walls with pictures leaning up agains them. I saw a Pinterest project where they made a Christmas tree out of buttons. It looked so quaint and fun. I've been rolling the idea of button art around my head and this is what I came up with:

1. Find a font that you love and print it off. Tape it to a window with lots of light behind it. 

 2. Find the material you want to use for your canvas. I used canvas! Tape the material on top of the paper with your font, making sure to center it where you want it. Also, make sure the ink you use won't show up when you're done gluing buttons, or make sure the buttons cover all the ink.

3. I laid out the buttons before I started gluing. This taught me two things. 1) I didn't love the modge podge of random buttons I pulled out of my bag, I definitely needed a color palette. 2)the middle of the "L" needed to be open, not filled in. Thank goodness I didn't glue them down the first time!

4. The final product.

This little button art is going to paired with another Pinterest project that I'm almost finished with. It is pallet art with my favorite love song from Mulon Rouge: All You Need is Love. Anyhoo ... check back soon to see that finished project!

double trouble

I love Pinterest! Love. Love. Love. However, I do not like have my boards brimming full and me never doing any of the projects, so I am constantly deleting and updating my Pinterest boards. 

Here is a project I recently finished for Halloween (I know. I know. Summer isn't all the way over yet.)

You can check out my inspiration website here.

• I painted all the blocks their base colors and then painted on most of their accessories like Frankenstein's scar, the pumpkin's mouth, and the witches black bottom. 
• I used large google eyes for all of them for uniformity (trust me, the pumpkin looked weird and out of place with triangle eyes). 
• My hubby drilled holes and screwed in bolts. 
• I used jute for the witch's hair, glued a ribbon around her middle, and used a button for her buckle. 
• The mummy is wrapped in tule. I wanted to use gauze, but ever the pragmatic one, my hubby thought that was an expensive choice. My tule was ultra thin and about 4 inches thin. I twisted the tule to double up the thickness and wrapped it kind of tight. So now you can see that it is, in fact, a mummy with its texture and my cleverness. 

What holiday(s) do you like to decorate for?

dirty clothes

When I joined Dressing Your Truth, I found out that a few colors do not work with my energy type, a.k.a. black, navy, gray, and white. I kind of jumped the gun and got rid of A LOT of clothes. 

BIG MISTAKE! HUGE!!

About one week--7 days--after I shipped off my clothes, I found out about bleaching and tea dying. Now, all those clothes that I thought I HAD to give away, I am repurposing them and using them in my wardrobe again!

Want to know how to dirty your clothes? Well, here you go.

1. Gather your supplies: 

My jean jacket, jeans, white shirts, white skirt, 

and pink striped shirt all ready for their bath.

My jumbo box of tea bags. 

2. Get your clothes wet.

3. Steep your tea. I didn't know what steeping was (I'm not a tea drinker) and had to look it up. You boil water and put your tea bags into the boiling water. I boiled 15 cups of water and added 30ish bags of tea and boiled them for 5 minutes. 

4. Fill your tub (or large pot or tupperware or other LARGE container) with warm water and the tea. **Make sure that the water is and stays warm/hot the entire time and that clothes can move freely. 

5. Add clothes. Leave them in tea bath until desired darkness is achieved. **Make sure if you have clothes in pot on stove that you simmer the entire time and STIR them!

My jeans didn't really change colors but I LOVE LOVE LOVE how my whites turned out. They're dirty looking and NOT white! Perfect for me. 

once there was a snowman

As promised, I have a new felt pattern in my Etsy shop. This time it is a felt board pattern, kind of like the paper dolls you can change out clothes and such, but mine is a snowman. I guess it could be the Arizona summer beating down on me, but I needed a little winter/Christmas cheer.

Shopping Diva

Pirate ... arr, matey!

Rock Star

Traditional Snoman

Wizard

If you do decide you want to buy my patterns and make your own snowman army, snap a couple of pictures and email them to me. I'd love to see your creativity and post them on my Facebook page.

crafts: dress & blocks bag

I've been trying to find clothes for Jovi that aren't the typical pink, purple, red color pallet for baby girls. I had a shirt that wasn't doing my body justice, so I made a skirt for Jovi! Also, notice the blocks bag in the corner of the picture. Yep. I made that too!

Shirt Skirt

Seriously, the EASIEST sewing project out there. I got my inspiration here. All I did was cut off the top part of the shirt and added an elastic. I ended up making her another skirt out of a pillow case in a similar fashion.

Blocks Bag

We bought Corban these blocks when he was 2. The bag finally split its seem just a couple of weeks ago after we tried to stuff it with more blocks we got from a friend. I knew I wanted/needed a bag for those blocks or I would have them all over my house all of the time. So, I pieced together a ginormous bag from random canvas pieces I already had. I even repurposed the zipper from the original bag! I'm just that amazing.

crafts: jewelry

I scored a HUGE bag of beads and jewelry making supplies from a lady in my community for $20!!

I added hooks to my jewelry frame and hung it up in my bathroom, out of reach of my 1 year-old. This is all the bracelets, ear rings, and necklaces I've made so far. I've got a few more bags of beads left, but I'm losing interest and need a different craft to start.

craft: flag pallet

I started this project back in Utah before we moved to Arizona, 6 months ago. I found old pallets (I think there was 2 of them) and had my hubby tear them apart. That was incredibly hard! I've heard that if you get the wood a little damp it's not quite so hard to pry the boards loose. Where was that little gem the first time. Dangit. Next time.

I bought spray paint when we moved into our rental and stored the paint for about 6 months before I painted the entire board white. Never. Never. Never buy the cheap spray paint. Not worth it. AT ALL. I didn't have any painters tape, so I improvised. I used duct tape and made stripes.

I had some vinyl stars from a friend back in Utah, but I only had her cut out 5 stars. Five?! Who does that? I cut out more stores out of paper. Glued them to the board and sealed them. The vinyl is coming off already, so I need to figure something else out. Sheesh.

My hubby had a VERY HARD time that the stripes weren't even and there weren't as many stripes as the real flag. He also didn't like that there wasn't 50 stars and that mine were different sizes. I'm super excited to display this and my wreath for the month of July!

craft: TP art

I saw this on Pinterest. I thought it could be pretty cool and started my own collection of TP rolls. I even moved a bag of TP tubes to Arizona when we moved! I started a show on Netflix and started gluing all the cut up TP tubes together.

I glued all the pieces I had cut up and it happened to fit the wall I wanted to put in on--happy mistake! So, after everything was dry and re-glued (my 1 year-old got a hold of it and ripped a couple lines apart) I took it outside and spray painted to look like this:

I didn't really love it. I think I need to paint it a different color. For now, it's resting peacefully in my garage.

counting sheep decor

About a year ago one of my sisters and I were commiserating about a sister in law's etsy shop that is doing pretty well. My sister and I decided that we needed to think of something we were good at and start our own etsy shop. We literally spent an entire Sunday brainstorming ideas and couldn't think of ONE THING we were good at! Maybe we were being too modest. Yeah right!

I don't know how long after that one Sunday, but I eventually came up with an idea! I designed children's art and opened Counting Sheep Decor. Here are two examples of my art:

I offer animals ranging from farm animals, to safari animals, to insects, and miscellaneous animals. I've spent a lot of time researching prices and logistics of how I would/could sell these prints. My successful SIL told me a lot about etsy and everything scared me! 

What if I spent all this start-up money and no body bought anything?

So I came up with another idea: finger puppet patterns. I based the patterns off of my art and made an ebook of 16 patterns, which you can purchase through the link on the side. 

I just recently made this blog public and no longer needed my Counting Sheep Decor blog to sell these patterns. One day soon, hopefully, I'll open an esty shop and sell my children's art! I'll keep you posted.

cheap doesn't always mean good

Never. Ever. Ever buy cheap spray paint. There are things that I'll buy that the no-name brand is fine. But never, never, never buy cheap spray paint! I can't say that enough.

I'm making a project inspired from Pinterest that requires red, white, and blue paint. So, me being on a student-budget, I opted for the cheap, less than $2 spray paint, thinking I had fooled the system and was pulling a fast one. Oh, boy. The ENTIRE can of white paint barely covered the surface one time! The nozzle was so hard to press down that my arm gave up and my finger popped up like a timer in a turkey. I had to use my other hand to hold down the finger of my original hand!

I'm happy to say that I have successfully painted the white and blue parts and now am moving on to the red. Pictures as soon as I complete my project.

happy heart day

Having a house is sure good to my crafting obsession. Now I have places to store said crafts and places to hang said crafts. 

I have never been a HUGE fan of Valentine's Day. It could be because I've always been a tad socially awkward and never had a boyfriend to celebrate the holiday with, but I'm also not big into flowers, or chocolates, or stuffed animals.

What do you do for Valentine's day?

craft: nut wreath preview

I've been on a wreath kick lately. I have made A LOT of wreaths. And to the dismay to my husband, I made most of them before we moved to Arizona. "Wife. Why did you make so many wreaths for us to pack and move?"

After we moved into our house, one of said wreaths became disfigured. I followed the advice of a pin and used a pool noodle to make a nut wreath. I totally love the idea of a pool noodle as a wreath form because:

1) they're cheap

2) they're cheap

Unfortunately, the nuts I used were too heavy for the form and bent it completely out of shape. True to myself, I instantly gave up on that project and threw it away. Again to my husband's dismay, he wondered why I didn't try bending the form back in place. I did try a whole 5 minutes and when it instantly didn't bend back into place I threw it out.

Fast forward to today. I made my whole family walk up to a local park and collect an ice cream gallon bucket full of these nuts. I have no idea what they are, but they're cool and will make a fantastic wreath. This time, I'll get a heavier form. 

craft: clothespin wreath

This was a Pinterst find that I absolutely fell in love with.

I used to live by my parents who had an AMAZING craft room. My mom had kept a box full of old clothespins from back in the day when she actually hung her laundry out on a clothesline. I grabbed half of what she had and I still had left overs! I also had a bunch of little crafty pins that I used around the inside.

I attached all the clothespins and found out that they did not want to stay where I wanted them; they were slipping and a sliding all over the place. Grrr. So, I pulled out my handy-dandy (did I mention I have 2 kids that watch a lot of public television?) glue gun and glued all of those suckers exactly where I wanted them to go. And wouldn't you know that one of them STILL hangs there limply.

This little craft has yet to be hung on the wall in my laundry/office. Joe is a bit of a perfectionist, and I, well, am not. I've hung pictures in the past by guestimating where the picture looks best as I hold it a few inches away from my face. I then guestimate again where the hooks are and hammer away. I only realize AFTER I try to hang it up that it is not, in fact, the place I wanted it and start the whole process over again. At my worst, I've put 3 nail holes in the wall for one picture. Needless to say, I'm not allowed to hang pictures any more.

iSPY

I'm putting together a travel book/bag for my kids. I did a small I Spy bag for Corban a while back, but he never really was interested in it. I decided I needed to make the window bigger so he could see what was inside it. And I did just that. I then decided that I would take a picture of what was inside and write the word beneath it. And I did just that. Here is what the card looks like. 

When I'm feeling really ambitious I'll take a picture of my travel bag and all the games/activities inside.

happy birthday

Isn't this the cutest birthday wreath? One wreath and five bags of balloons later ... viola! Cute cute cute.