Becoming Martha

A Walk Down Memory Lane

2012-02-27T20:54:00.001-07:00

Red and aqua has kind of exploded as the uber-popular color combo lately, and everytime I see it, it reminds me of my wedding. We were married over three years ago, when red and aqua was hardly heard of. Everyone thought I was crazy, except my art teacher, who obviously saw the beauty in this palette. There was no pinterest back then, so it was really hard to find inspiration, but it was such a fun process. Since the creative juices have been running dry here lately (I think the constant white powder falling from the sky may have something to do with that), I thought I would go back in time and share some photos with you and some details on how I did everything at our wedding - all for under $5000.

I made our programs in a photo editing program and then printed them. There were four layers, all bound with red cardstock and aqua ribbon. My bridesmaids helped me assemble, and thank heavens they did, because they took FOR-ever! It was worth it though!

Here is my daughters flower girl dress - it was a major score at $50 from an online store!

Wedding dress shopping was a major experience for me - and when I say major, I don't mean good. Our wedding was in December, so I went shopping in May for a dress. I had a total nervous breakdown, tears and all in the dressing room. I was so scarred that I put a down payment on a dress on a rack that I didn't like just to get it over with. Then, I had a change of heart and finally got the nerve to go back in September. Of course by that time, I had no choice but to buy off the rack, but thankfully I lucked out on a dropped waist gown that was brand new, only tried on once, and got it for just under $600!

My shoes were what I considered a splurge - $125 at Town Shoes. I was determined that we all had red shoes though, and I absolutely loved the bow detail on mine. All of the girls had red shoes... aren't they gorgeous?

At the last moment I realized I forgot about the Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue tradition. Here's what we did for the something blue - my bridesmaids all wrote messages for me on the sole of my shoes.

Here are my bridesmaids - I chose white bridesmaids dresses because it seemed to suit the winter wedding, and used aqua in the sashes and red shoes. My daughter was the only one in color, because she is the color of my life! I ordered them from Modern Bridal in Florida, and had them brought up to Canada - we scored an awesome deal at $110 a dress. The same dresses sell here in Canada for over $300.

Here are the guys - the color is in sepia, so you cant see, but their ties are aqua, to match the girls sashes. My husbands is white, to match my dress. The tux rental place didn't have the right tie color, so I found them on Solid Color Neckties for about $14 a piece!

We wanted our ceremony to really look like a winter wonderland, and it was amazing because our church did all of this decorating! We didn't have to do a thing. It looked amazing!

My daughter must have been getting bored :) I am so thankful that my wonderful photography captured the little moments like this.

When we were married, we only had our first daughter, and we had a small commitment ceremony to her as well as part of our ceremony. We gave her a little ring and she helped us light the candles.

Our cake cost us nothing! My husband's grandma made it for us - it was sooo good too. Lemon Pudding cake, my favorite. The big diamonds were from Michaels, and the cake serving set was one we already had at home but never used.

This was a place setting at the head table. We used the vases to put our bouquets in. The diamond confetti and diamond napkin rings were all bought on eBay, and I had rock candy as part of the favours.

We found these napkin covers at Jysk, a store kind of like Ikea. It was part of their Christmas clearout, and we got them for $3 for 12! It was the perfect addition to our damask theme.

This is a guest table. We rented the black table cloths, but the white ones were included with our hall rental, as were the napkins. The damask table runners were made by my husband's grandma, and again, cost us nothing. The only thing we hired a decorator for were the chair covers and head table backdrop. The centerpieces were supposed to be very full carnations that gave an almost ruffled look, but they didn't open all of the way - one of the things that didn't work exactly as planned. But they were a gift from a friend who worked at a floral wholesaler.

The table numbers - wrapped on the bottles of wine.

Our menu cards. My husband and his friends are trained chefs, so they prepared all of the food. It was amazing, and since we had our wedding at the hall where my husband works, we got all of the food and wine at cost. Our final hall rental and food bill for 100 people? $900!

The gift table. I found the three tiered boxes at Winners, stacked them and cut a slit in the top, and decorated them. The S's were spray painted silver and then coated with glitter and hung over the table.

Some pictures of us when we were little and a recent one.

Our seating chart. This was one thing that was made at the last minute - my original idea was supposed to be on foam board and standing on an easel, but my easel broke a few hours before the wedding started and this was total last minute, but it worked.

Custom water bottle labels that I made and my husbands aunt glued on!

Our bouquets - red roses and daisies with crystal picks and white feathers. Because I supplied the ribbon, crystals, and feathers, I only ended up paying $60 for them all.

Here we are, married!

Hope you enjoyed browsing through my total DIY wedding! I wish I had another one to plan now :) Here's one last shot of us as newlyweds!

P.S. Don't forget about the Household Organizer Giveaway - head here to enter. I'm giving away 5 copies once we reach 200 followers!

Sparkly Scented Play dough

2012-02-15T22:01:00.000-07:00

For the Valentine's Day party, I made some playdough for the girls to take home as favours. (I also sent home bakery bags of cupcakes so that they didn't all stay here for me to eat!)

This is the first time I have ever made playdough because I hate, and I mean HATE, the smell of playdough. I hate the fact that the smell stays on your hands and you can smell it for hours. I am not at all a fan. Someone told me you could add kool aid and it will help it smell better. So I thought I would give it a shot. It was actually really easy - and smelled sooo good. I used strawberry kiwi in the light color, and cherry in the darker.

For the packaging, I bought these jars at the Dollar store - $1 for 2. I made the chevron circles in GIMP (a free downloadable photo editing program that is similar to photoshop) and typed the text on top. The font was Sofia, and I had downloaded the background forever ago - you can find them through google or buy them on Etsy. Erin Bradley Designs has a lot of gorgeous ones! I made it the same size as the jar top and printed it on sticker paper.

I also created the front label using the same method. {The background is from a paper package I bought from Young Wanderlust. The birds in the tree is from Jessica Weible and I stuck with the Sofia font. I printed it on sticker paper again and stuck it on.} I layered the light and dark pink colors in the jar, and then tied on a heart shaped cookie cutter that they could use to play with the playdough. The kids went crazy for them!

And you can make some too - Here's the recipe:

Click image to enlarge

Make some tonight and start playing! Your hands will smell wonderful after :)

Valentine's Party

2012-02-11T18:06:00.003-07:00

A while ago, I shared these invitations that I made for my daughters Lovebird themed Valentine's Day Party.

Well, we just finished the party - here's a couple of quick pictures!

A banner that says Amour (my daughter and
her friends are all Francophones). And my
felt wreath from here.

This is a banner made with heart doilies from the Dollar
Store, white hearts on top, and letters cut out on my Cameo.

The homemade play dough for party favours.
It was sparkly and smelled like strawberry
and cherry! Yum! I attached a heart shaped
cookie cutter with ribbon.

This frame was once a hideous, plastic gold frame that I
found at the thrift store for $2. I sprayed painted it Ballet
Slipper Pink (Krylon) and it was ready for a party!

I had six very hungry six year olds nating me down to eat,
and unfortunately, I forgot to check my exposure! But here
is the food table.

The girls table. If you make it bigger, you can
see the cute chevron stickers that I used to
cover the lids. I used chevron paper and
printed it onto sticker paper, then cut and stuck!

I liked the cups better on the table, but C
insisted that they go better on the plates.
Gotta give her something - plus, it WAS her
party... technically.

My cupcake decorating skills need some
work but I love the swirled icing. To create
the effect, smear some gel food coloring
on the inside of your icing bag, then scoop
in your icing. It will come out swirled.

Dipped rice krispies and bananas and nutella
between nilla wafers.

Jello Mousse, Taco cups (in wontons), and
homemade chicken nuggets. The kids went
nuts over the food. I think I will post the
recipes if you are interested :) Great party
food that kids love and is healthy!

I couldn't find mason jar lids with holes to
arrive before the party, so I simply drilled a
hole in the lid of the ones I have. I wrapped
them in lace (a la I Heart Naptime), and placed
a homemade chevron circle sticker on the top.

I made pretty much everything for this party. I created all of the printables myself, using graphics from Jessica Weible and Miss Tiina. Did you know that you can download a free program called GIMP and it works much like photoshop? Its easy to learn, and I made my Amour banner, menu cards, favour stickers, and invitations using it. The baker's twine from Talking Twine and Trim and the paper straws from Pretty Sweet Stuff}.

It was so much fun and I, or I mean my daughter, had a blast!

Thanks for checking out our party - and don't forget to check out our Household Binder Giveaway!

The Big Reveal

2012-02-06T23:03:00.004-07:00

I have been MIA for the past week, but I have a good reason - chicken pox invaded our house! I thought by being vaccinated we were avoiding this childhood nuisance, but in actual fact, the chicken pox vaccine only prevents serious cases of chicken pox and complications from the pox. So instead of being covered head to toe, my little miss C only had spots in a couple of places. It was still the complete opposite of fun however, as all I heard for an entire week was "I REAAAAALLLLLY NEEEEEEEED TO SCRAAAAAATCH!"

Anyway, somehow during this week of my daughter staying home from school, I managed to finish something I have been working on for weeks...

I finished my craft room - or should I say craft closet? It's the walk in closet in our guest room, so it's a bit of both. It measures 5x9, so it's a fair sized space. In case you didn't see my sneak peek a few weeks ago, let's take a look at my "closet" before the reno:

It took a LOT of primer to get rid of that hideous green!

But here it is now... all pretty in a soft grey:

When you walk through my closet doors, this is what you see on the right. I used two Ikea tabletops and legs, which cost $19 for the table top my computer is on, and $9 for the other. The legs were $5 each, times 8 legs ($40). So for $68, I got these two desks/tables for my craft room. Gotta love Ikea!

I ran cork tiles across my desk so I can pin all sorts of inspiration, at a cost of $1 each (Thanks Dollar Store!) I also got my red rhinestone push pins there. My pegboard was a huge labour of love, and later this week I will write a post on how I made it. It was $6.50 at the Home Depot for the pegboard, $5 for the trim, and $2 for the strapping that is framing the back. The paint was left over from our living room.

One detail I absolutely love is my scallop edged garbage can. I think it's actually an umbrella stand but I don't have any umbrellas in my craft room - I do have garbage! I found it on clearance at Winners for $7!

This is the little shelf that sits the the left of my computer desk. I have a couple of the Skurar pots from Ikea which were a steal at $3 a piece - I love how the tops look like lace. One holds scissors and the other holds the adhesives I use the most, like glue dots, glue gun sticks, and white glue. The mug was a gift from one of my students last year, and I love it so much! Since I don't drink coffee, I had the perfect purpose for it. It's filled with my favorite pens - InkJoy by Papermate. Love them, so imagine my joy when I found a huge pack at Costco! The red notepads were all gifts from students as well that were just too pretty to use (I have a notebook obsession, btw). The memo board was originally purchased at Michael's for $3! I love that it holds all of my favorite crazy pics of my kiddos!

I found a jewelry tree at a thrift store and repurposed it to hold some ribbon - it only had room for my basic, straight ribbon that I use most frequently. It will eventually get painted, but for now it is doing a good job just as it is - and it only cost $1.99! The sled is just a Christmas ornament that I still have lying around, since it still is winter and we still can slide :)

Under the shelf, there was a wooden block installed that the old closet rods were supported with. I wanted to keep the option of having a closet again sometime in the future, either for us, or someone who may buy the house after us, so I left them in. Plus, it was a good support for a Bygel rail (also from Ikea). I gotta tell you, the Bygel system is awesome for organizing! The S hooks are also Bygel, and the rail and hooks together cost $5. I am using the hooks to hang my glitter... and for some reason, my stud finder is hanging out under there too. Weird. I also stuck two little battery operated LED lights under there because the shelf sometimes creates a shadow.

To the right side of my computer desk, is my wonderful Christmas gift from my husband - a Silhouette Cameo. I still let out a little happy sigh everytime I see it. Over my Cameo, there is another Bygel rail ($3) and a Bygel basket ($5), which holds my glitter glue and Cameo stuff. The red pail was part of a gift from a student last year (did my students think I was obsessed with red?) and right now it's holding bubble gum - I love bubble gum. I also found a frame that was lying around, stuck in some pics of my babies, and hung it up to fill a little dead space.

Over the rail is a stick on memo board. I found it on clearance at Staples for $3.50, and being a teacher, of course I had whiteboard markers lying around already. I hung another Bygel rail on the top and placed three Bygel containers ($1 each) on that rail. I put my paintbrushes, paint pens, and markers in those, since they seem to be the most popular things for little hands to take. (That and my bubble gum.) The fans were a gift from my sister - each fan has my daughters name in Chinese (I think it's Chinese, how horrible of me!) and C's says Family and Boo's says Tradition. They're upside down to read, but it's the only way they would hang.

If you are standing in the door of my craft ~~room~~ closet, you will be facing my other desk/tabletop, that I use mostly for creating my crafts (the other one gets used more for graphic design, blogging, and Cameo use). I left the top shelf rails in from the closet system for two reasons - One is that we may want to switch back someday, and two, they were insane to get out! And they left massive holes (you can see one because I still haven't patched it! Sorry! I was too eager to share this!) Plus by leaving the top rails, I was able to keep one shelf overhead. On here, I have two red boxes that hold all of my scrapbooking embellishments (which are sorted in page protectors by theme) and baskets with my spray paint. I found these old style wire baskets at a local home decor store and they had a santa tag on them - so I got them on Christmas clearance for $5 each. I love the rusticness of them. (Is rusticness a word?) Behind all of that stuff is my stash of mason jars.

The tall plastic drawers hold a multitude of craft supplies. The top ones, that are slightly wider, hold all of my scrapbooking paper. I created tags on my Cameo using black adhesive paper, and then stuck them on. The bottom drawers hold a mish mash of craft supplies, like wooden letters, moss, cards, you name it... I tried to organize it all by category somewhat, but sometimes it's hard to categorize it when you have a bit of everything!

Like an outfit, accessories are key to a room, so I couldn't let this space be any exception. I added a few things just for "pretty" value, like my gorgeous frame that has been searching for a perfect home ever since we moved here, and my Canadiana calendar - aren't those penguins adorable? I want it to stay February forever. The vinyl wall decals were at the dollar store, of all places.

If you look to the right at the door, you will see two white pantry style cabinets. I have had these for years, and they just served as extra food storage in our basement when we lived in Alberta. Since we moved here, they weren't really being used well, so I snagged them for the craft room. One is holding office supplies temporarily until the office is finished. Once the office stuff leaves, it will hold my sewing machine and all of my sewing materials.

The other cabinet holds craft supplies, and each cabinet has two big fabric drawers on top of it. These were a score ($2 a piece at the Dollar Store!) and hold albums, frames, and fabric. Inside my craft cabinet, I have four wicker baskets that I have also had for years and wasn't using - they are originally from Ikea but I don't know if they still sell them. They hold my stamps, flowers, adhesives, and paint. I made tags for everything by cutting scrapbook paper out, labelling, "laminating" for durability (and by laminating, I mean covering in packing tape because I don't have a laminator), punching, and then tying with butchers twine. I also have some other smaller baskets and storage containers for (more) ribbon, ink, rhinestones, alphabets, and beads.

Under my tables, I have a set of wire drawers from Ikea, that I got on sale for $15. Right now they are empty, but I think I will keep my Silhouette supplies there when they arrive - things like vinyl, extra mats, etc. It's nice to know that you have room to grow. Also, I stole another fabric drawer from our shoe closet since it wasn't being used and stuck it under my desk. I keep all of my current projects in here - that way I don't have to worry about setting up and cleaning up every time. Right now, it's holding all of my supplies for the Valentine's Day party on Saturday, since that's my project for now.

Well there it is! I just totalled it all up, and it cost $193 to completely turn my horrible, forest green guest room closet into this peaceful, organized, amazing space to create in. Let's take one last look shall we?

P.S. Head on over to our Household Organizer giveaway and enter to win a copy!

Valentine Invites

2012-01-23T22:33:00.000-07:00

It's getting very late here, and I just spent the evening watching some of the Top Chef: Texas episodes that have been building up on my PVR. Before that, however, I did come up with this little baby that I wanted to share with you - Invites for Cecelia's Valentine's Day Party.

Okay, I'm sorry, but is this not the cutest thing ever? I'm not usually one to sing my own praises, but I am so excited about these (is that bad?). I'm going to pick up some pink envelopes tomorrow to finish it all off, and C will be sooo excited to give them to her friends. (Secretly, so will I. I think I am getting more excited than she is!)

I made them in GIMP, and if any of you want to start using graphics more but don't want to pay for photoshop, GIMP is a great program that is a lot like Photoshop and has many of the same functions. It's great for someone like me, who designs things mostly for personal use.

Anyway, like I said, it's late and I must head to bed. Oh and don't worry, none of the details on the invite are real - but I do live on a bird name street, which adds perfectly to our theme :)

Have a great night!

Thank You... for Being A Friend

2012-01-23T22:29:00.002-07:00

It is so great to know that there are little blogs out there like yours who are so caring and supportive and want to help you grow together. Today, Erika over at Bliss Images and Beyond gave Becoming Martha a little award. Thank you so much, Erika, how sweet of you! I will pass on the award and link up some blogs that I love. Feel free to pass it on, but please don't feel obligated! I just wanted to share some love for some great blogs, two out of three of which are local and I believe in sharing local talent :)

Liebster is a German word that means dearest or favorite, and this award is given to blogs that have less than 200 readers but deserve more attention.

The Rules are:

1. Show your thanks to the blogger who gave you the award by linking back to them.2. Reveal your picks for the award and let them know.

3. Post the award on your blog.

4. Bask in the love from the most supportive people on the blogshare-other bloggers.

5. Finally and the best rule of all……….have fun and spread the love!

So without further ado... my top choices are:

Brittany @ BLG Photography - A local photographer who took our Christmas pictures this year. Isn't she super? To think she is only just starting out :)

One she took of my babies!

Caitlin @ Beyond Wonderland Paperie - Another local business/blog owner who makes fabulous paper products, party decor, and much more. Check out her new blog and be sure to tell her I sent you by!

Caitlin made the banner and pom poms
in our holiday family pictures!

Abbey @ The Cards We Drew - Abbey contributes to one of my favorite blogs of all time (You'll have to visit her blog to find out which one!) and her blog is becoming a favorite as well. Check it out!

She shares my LOVE of wreaths!

Aren't they great?! I thought so too :) Thanks for sharing the love with me!

Valentine's Wreath

2012-01-20T19:07:00.001-07:00

Well, even though my craft room isn't totally finished, that hasn't stopped me from working in it! Like I said before, all I need is to install light fixtures and hang a pegboard. I can't wait to show it to you. But anyway, I decided to make a wreath for Valentine's Day - we are having a party here for my daughter and a few of her friends, and I have never done a Valentine's party before, so I am super excited!

I have been seeing so many felt flower wreaths around lately -

Our Best Bites

JoAnn's

Design Sponge

But to be honest, I really hate cutting all of those circles out of felt. I really do! (Does a silhouette cut felt? Life would be so much easier if it did!) My favorite felt flowers are these, and I learned from the wonderful Beckie over at Infarrantly Creative:

Aren't they gorgeous? I find these much easier and less patience draining than cutting a million circles. They are very easy - head over and learn how to make them if you don't know how, she gives an awesome tutorial with lots of variations. Anyway... I planned to make an all red one, but after about 8 flowers, I realized I would run out of red. I made some white, soft grey, and pink to go along with it, and I ended up loving the color combo.

I started with a embroidery hoop which I wrapped with a foam insulation pipe (that's my secret to making them stay round - at 50 cents a pipe tube, and $3 a hoop - which makes two rings, it's still less than $2 and it doesn't sag like just the insulation pipe. The hoop makes it hold it's shape.) I wrapped the form in a muslin type cloth. (My husband is a chef so he brings me home big bolts of what they use for cheesecloth - it's a very tight weaved one though, so I use it all the time for wrapping wreath forms.) Then, I started placing the flowers on - I started with a pattern but then some colors got too close together on the outside and inside, so I mixed it up. To make them stick, I dipped a dress pin in glue and then pinned it through the center of the flower. Voilà! Gorgeous!

And there it is, being modelled on my door. I'm not sure if I will stick with it plain or with the embellishment. Pretty, huh? And best of all, it's pretty easy :)

P.S. Don't forget to head on over and enter my Household Binder Giveaway!

Sneak Peek + A Thank You

2012-01-18T22:25:00.001-07:00

First, let me say a big hello and thank you to all of my new followers- Becoming Martha hit the triple digits today! Wahoo! Thank you so much for following my little life, and it makes me happy to know that you enjoy reading along with my journey. And don't forget to enter our giveaway for a free household organizer!

Now, I told you that my crafts would be a little sparse for a few weeks because we are making a craft room - or shall I say a craft closet. It was the walk in closet that was in our guest bedroom (It's a 5x9.5 foot space) and it was crammed with all sorts of stuff. I wish I took a picture before I cleared it out, but just imagine a closet stocked full of junk. Clothes that were too small for my girls, old winter coats, books, you name it. It took about a week to dig out of that.

The left hand side. These two rods were
once stuffed with clothes, coats, C's dress
up clothes, and who knows what else.

The right hand side. Ahh, yes, more junk.

Nice green, eh? Not! It took two coats of primer and two coats of paint to get it to a soft grey colour. It was my first time using primer, and let me say this - I don't like it at all. It's so stinky and sticky and impossible to get off. But none the less, I would have had to paint 18 coats to get rid of that green, so prime it was.

Like I said, I have never primed before, so I
had no idea how much was enough. The wall
on the left got 3 coats! I was two tired to do
that for every wall though. I got annoyed
and only did two coats on those.

It's not ready for a full reveal yet, so I will save all of the details, which should be coming in less than a week. All I need to do is frame and hang my pegboard, and patch a couple of massive holes that were left when I removed the bottom half of the shelf tracking.

Apparently the last owners had a little trouble getting it in the right spot... there are three sets of holes. The walls were actually in pretty rough shape - holes everywhere! But other than that, it s all ready to go. I still have bare bulb light fixtures, but my husband's schedule is pretty hectic for the next couple of weeks, and I am definitely not waiting until he has time to show you my great space!

For now, here's a little tease of what's to come.

Yep, that's right - Santa (and by Santa, I mean ~~myself~~ my husband) brought me a Silhouette Cameo for Christmas! I just opened it today - I was dying to try it out, but I wanted to wait until it had a proper home to go to. Now my baby has a gorgeous home that's just waiting for a little pegboard... and some patching :) Stay tuned to see the final reveal.

Art for the Living Room

2012-01-11T20:03:00.001-07:00

A long time ago, we put board and batten up in our living room - which was quite the process. After we completed that and put our furniture, curtains, and rug in the room, I think we were mentally exhausted. This was our first big major overhaul. And today, over three months later, I added my first piece of art... and I made it myself. It was the first piece of art I ever made, and I got to tell you, I was so scared. Trust me though, it's totally nothing to be scared of. If you screw it up (as I did do) you just paint over and start again. Easy!

It was Monday morning when I decided to make something for the walls. Boo was asleep, and C was at school, and I needed a naptime project. Since my craft room and supplies are under construction, it had to have a relatively simple and basic supply list. I did a search for wall art to see what I could discover, and I saw the pottery barn number piece that so many people have knocked off. You know it, this one:

I read a couple of tutorials quickly and I thought, hey, I can do that quick and easy. I had a canvas - two actually. I had paint. I had glaze. Voila! I could make art. So I set off on a mission. I typed a bunch of numbers in various sizes (font: Century Schoolbook - I dabbled with a bunch but ultimately this was my fave and I used it for all of them). I cut them out by hand, even though I have a brand new Silhouette Cameo sitting on my floor begging to be opened. (I am waiting for my craft room to be done so that it has a proper home!)

Now here is where I screwed up, even though my screw up may have been a blessing. I tried to glue the numbers on to the canvas. I tried white glue, spray adhesive, glue stick... nothing stuck. I ended up using a ton of glue. My plan was to spray paint over it, and then peel the numbers off and have white canvas showing through which I would glaze. I got one canvas done and glued on, and it took almost all of naptime. I spray painted it, and then started peeling the numbers off. I liked it, but didn't love it, because it looked a lot like a print and I really wanted it to look like a painting with all of the texture. It didn't matter because Boo woke up screaming, and I had to drop it. When I came back, the glue was too hard, and the numbers peeled the paint off. Back to square one. I spray painted the entire thing brown. (I really wish I took pictures of all of this, I didn't think it was going to turn out so nice so I didn't even plan to share it!)

The back up was to use the numbers like stencils and trace them with a white crayon and then paint them white and then glaze them (like shown on aka design's tutorial). This seems like more work, but honestly, with how hard it was to get the glue to stick to the canvas, it was actually easier and quicker. I painted two coats of white with a dab of brown, and then glazed with Martha Stewart Antiquing Glaze mixed with a dab of brown. And here they are:

I liked the sideways look, so I didn't add all of my numbers in straight lines like the PB version. It was weird because as I was painting it, it reminded me of Salvador Dali's painting with the melting clocks for some strange reason. My husband saw me working on it and I said "Do you know where this idea came from?" and I was going to tell him it was Pottery Barn piece and he said "That painting with the melting clocks?"

Here it is in our living room:

I am wondering if I need something more on the sides of it... we have such long, uninterrupted walls. It hard to dress them.

We added a mirror to the other wall right before Christmas, which I showed with Christmas decorations...

This mirror is right in the center of that wall, so I have the same amount of blue space on the other side of the mirror. I am thinking it needs a little something else on the sides, what do you think? Does it look a little bare?

Household Organizer, Part II

2012-01-11T07:32:00.000-07:00

This post was all ready to go last nigh, but then Blogger wouldn't let me publish. Did anyone else have that problem? I couldn't even load some of my favorite blogs, and I had to login 4x for it to work. It kept freezing up. Maybe it was my old junky computer (why haven't I got my Mac yet?). Either way, here it is now.

In my last post, I showed you the first 3 sections of my organizer. Today, you will get to see the last three sections, and also some shots of mine in use. (I wanted to show you more, but unfortunately, a lot of the info is pretty private and I might not want it floating around the blogosphere.)

This section includes:
Daily, Weekly, Monthly, and
Seasonal Chore Lists

This section includes:
Family Information
Medical Log
Babysitter Information

This section includes contact lists for:
School, Work, and Activities
Emergency & Medical
Family Members
Friends
& and a blank customizable contact list

Don't forget that I am giving away 5 of these organizers to some of my lucky followers. Head over to this post to enter.

I also said I would show you some pictures of how my family binder looks in use.

This is my weekly planner. In the divider pocket
for this section, I keep any notes from school
or extracurricular activities about upcoming events.

Here's my weekly meal plan at a glance.
I keep two copies of these in my binder so I
can plan two weeks at a time without erasing.
In the pocket divider, I keep recipes that I want to try.
(Once recipes are tried, if I decide if it's a keeper or not.
If not, it goes in the trash, but if we like it, it gets
written on an index card and placed in my index card
holder that I use to keep all of my recipes in.)

An example of our freezer inventory. I need to
print a blank page to write all the extras on (we had
a lot of stuff that we don't usually have thanks to Christmas).

An example of our spending tracker. I track
our spending and then put the totals in the budget
consolidation sheet each month. If we end up
overspending, it easily helps me see patterns and
where it is occuring. In the pocket divider for this
section, we keep the recent bills and statements.

This is the personal information section, which
is used for pretty straightforward reasons. In
the pocket divider, I keep art that my daughter
has made that is waiting to be filed, and anything
else that isn't bills or money related but needs keeping.

Oops. That brochure from my hair
dresser should be in the contact divider!

At the back, in the very last divider, I have another
set of small dividers. These do not stick out past the other ones,
and are only big enough to divide paper. I have a small divider
for each room that we are working on in the house, and
this is where I keep plans, measurements, and shopping
lists for each of the rooms. It has done an amazing job of
keeping all of those little pieces of paper off my table!

So there you have it! That's my system for keeping us all organized! Don't forget to enter to win a copy of this organizer for yourself, and check out the first three sections here.

How do you keep it all together?

Giveaway + Household Organizer, Part I

2012-01-09T23:04:00.001-07:00

It's that time of the year again - no, not Christmas, that's gone by... the fun time that follows Christmas - the time of organizing! Okay, so maybe it isn't THAT fun for many of you, but personally I find nothing more relaxing and refreshing than knowing that everything is where it should be. What a great way to start the year!

One thing I noticed when I started blogging was that a lot of people had Home Organization Binders, or Household Notebooks, or House Management Books, or whatever other name you wanted to call them. It is basically like a central command station for the house - finances, meals, calendars, activities, etc. All in one spot. And I knew I needed to get me one of 'dem. So I naturally went where any ~~slightly crazy~~ normal person would go - Pinterest.

I found some great inspiration - and the best was over at I Heart Organizing (Ahhh... so do I!)

She really gave you great examples of the types of things that are important to include in your family binder. After reading her posts, I got to work and created my own house binder.

I created 6 sections: Calendars & Agendas, Meal Planning, Finances, Chores & Cleaning, Family Information, and Contacts. Here is a sneak peek of the first three sections:

This section includes:
Daily Planner, Weekly Planner, and Monthly Planner*

This section includes:
Weekly Meal Plan with Ingredient List
Favourite Meals & Quick Fixes Sheets
Grocery & Freezer Inventory

This section includes:
Monthly Bill Checklist for Year
Account and Policy Information
Budget & Consolidation Sheets
Spending Trackers

I put them in a binder with a clear sleeve, so that I could put a pretty picture in the front. I will show you my actual binder in work tomorrow - my daughter scribbled on it tonight with sharpie, and I have to transfer it to a new binder. (Tip #1: Do not leave sharpies, the household binder, and a 20 month old in the same vicinty.) I printed my pages with text in them, but I found it more useful to just have blank space to write in as things changed. Like for instance, my grocery inventory changes with what is in season, so I found the blank boxes more useful than a set list so that I could easily change it. I put every sheet inside a page protector, and then wrote on them with a marker like this:

Then I just use a baby wipe to wash it off whenever I need to change something or reuse a sheet at the start of a new week. It works awesome! I also used page dividers with pockets on both sides, which are super handy. I keep recipes, newsletters from school, bills, etc, all in the pockets that match up with the corresponding section. I found my dividers at the dollar store, and I was so happy with them because often, when things are in page protectors, they are the same width as the dividers, but these are super wide, so you can use the tabs even if you have dividers.

Tomorrow I will show you my next three sections and show you some pictures of my household binder in use. But, I wanted to show you some of my household organizer so that you could see what you could win. I will be giving away 5 copies of my organizer to my followers once we reach 200 followers. If you would like to enter, comment below. You may enter up to three times.

(1) Follow Becoming Martha and leave a comment saying that you do.
(2) Blog about this giveaway and leave a comment with the blog link.
(3) Place my button somewhere on your page and comment with the link.

You MUST be a Becoming Martha follower/subscriber to win.

The organizer will come in a PDF file, ready for you to print (it is sized on a 8.5x11 inch paper, full bleed).

*The calendar section does not have a monthly planner because I always print the monthly planners at Anything but Perfect - they are simply too cute not to. However, if you win and you would like a monthly planner that coordinates with the rest of the calendar section, I would be happy to make one up for you.

Enjoy, and happy organizing!

What I've Been Up To

2012-01-08T11:11:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted since before the New Year, so I thought I better say HAPPY NEW YEAR! (Even if it is about 8 days late!) That's how I roll... late. As my husband says, If I wasn't late, I probably wouldn't show up at all. Anyway, just before New Years Eve, I started thinking about what to put on my door for a winter wreath. I made the mistake of mentioning this to my husband.

"A winter wreath? What's wrong with the wreath that's on the door now?"

"But that's a Christmas wreath."

"What's the difference between a Christmas wreath and a winter wreath?"

"Well, that one says Merry Christmas. I can't leave that up all winter."

"Then get a pair of scissors and cut that little chaulkboard off and then it doesn't say Merry Christmas anymore."

"But it's red and green. Those are the colours of Christmas."

"Says who? The wreath police?"

"Yes, dear. The wreath police."

He sighed a big heavy sigh, as I took out my crafting supplies and spread them all over our clean dining room table, just hours before we were to host a New Years Eve party. "That's it," he said. "You need a space for all of your crap."

Now I normally would have taken offense to him calling my stuff crap, but the first half of the sentence was too good to be angry. I did need a space for all of my ~~crap~~ stuff. So we agreed to change the walk in closet in the guest bedroom (its about 5x9 feet) into a crafting space for me! Yipee!

That's what I have been doing the past few days - planning, arranging the space, priming, more priming (it was a dark forest green color), and just this morning I finished painting it a soft grey. We are about two hours from any decent shopping, so I have to make sure I know exactly what I need and want and where to get it, and we are driving in next week. I am so excited! However, until then, all of my stuff in in boxes and tucked away so that I know exactly what I have and where it needs to go in when I am ready - so this week will be pretty low for the crafts - never mind the fact that its back to school for my daughter and back to work for my husband tomorrow.... back to swimming lessons and girl guides and making suppers on a deadline and playgroup... I will be so excited to have my crafting space where I can go and relax!

Now, I have something very exciting to tell you... I was featured on the Top 50 of 2011 over at I (Heart) Naptime! They featured my Ice Cream Kit that I made for my neighbours. Thank you so much, Jamielyn! If you haven't checked it out, head on over to her blog - it's amazing!

Til next time... or whenever this craft room gets done...

Feather Boa Wreath, Take Two

2011-12-29T22:37:00.001-07:00

Earlier this year, I showed you a feather boa wreath that I made C's grade 1 teacher for Halloween. My sister mentioned how to switch it up for Christmas, and we debated using red and white, or white and silver, but in the end, I tried an all white one. I thought the white feathers would look "snowy". They so did! I as in love with it, but unfortunately, as mentioned earlier, my husband needed to rid our house of the wreaths that were overtaking our dining room table. So, I sold them to another pretty home, and I hope they are living happily there. But seriously, these are the EASIEST wreaths to make, and I swear they are dirt cheap - you can buy the boas at the dollar store for crying out loud! Anyway, here are to versions that I came up with, honestly, within 5 minutes each.

Outside in the night - don't you love that sparkle?

Inside, hanging on my mirror.

With a snowflake instead. Less
Christmas, more winter.

This is also a great craft to make with kids, because they can totally do it themselves. They could make a pretty pink one for their bedrooms, which is my daughters next project (or so she recently informed me - but she is like her mother... she finds a new project every day!) You may have to help with gluing or pinning, but otherwise, they have complete artistic control... like this one that my daughter made for a fancy friend of the family who teaches at her school -

She has a Hawaiian theme room, and so my daughter just went nuts. The end result was a little crazy, but we all had so much fun doing it. And isn't that what crafting with our kids is all about? Letting go of control and letting them have fun with it, whatever the end result may be.

On another note regarding crafting with kids, our joint effort The Crafty Community (a blog dedicated to crafting with kids) is hosting a giveaway - a free Hobby Lobby giftcard. Make sure you go check it out, and find some great ideas while you're at it!

P.S. I found this article on flax and twine (such a cute blog) - it is all about letting go of that control issue when crafting with kids (not sure about you, but it is totally my biggest issue!) and also some helpful guidelines to make the process more enjoyable for everyone!

Winter and Christmas Wreaths

2011-12-29T22:24:00.000-07:00

Just before Christmas, around the end of November, I had this wreath manic attack. I mean it was a severe case. I started making all these wreaths, and they were all over the place, and I didn't even know what to do with them - I do only have one door. So I did what any reasonable person would do these days - started a facebook group and sold them all. Now I have none left at all! But here are a few pictures of some of the ones I made, just to share with you!

Scallopped Felt Wreath with Bow and Berries

Same wreath. different embellishments

A burlap bubble wreath

A feather wreath

Hope you enjoyed them :) Feel free to message me if you have any questions about any of them or want help making them - I would be super glad to pass along my ~~obsession~~ passion for wreaths!

My Christmas Wreath

2011-12-29T22:15:00.000-07:00

I totally forgot to show you the most important thing in decorating my house for the holidays... our front door wreath! Here she is... even my husband loved it this year, and is usually weary over decorations. (He grew up in a beige house with beige everything, and I think anything that measures higher than 2 on the color scale frightens him.)

It started as one half of an embroidery hoop, which I wrapped pine garland around and then used some decomesh as well. The inside is a berry sprig and an unfinished picture frame, which was painted and filled with adhesive chaulkboard paper. I wrote the message in paint pen though, so it doesn't come off! *Sigh* Soon it will be time to replace her though, and I can't wait to get started on my new "winter" wreath.

A {Late} Merry Christmas

2011-12-28T20:04:00.000-07:00

I have been busy showing you all of the stuff that I made or did for Christmas and I didn't think to show you some of my own Christmas decorations, or even our family's Christmas shoot. So without any further ado and without much talking for this blog (except for photo captions, of course!), I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and best wishes for the New Year!

Merry Christmas!
From The Desjardins
(Photography by BLG Photography)

My two sweetie pies
(Photography by BLG Photography)

C adding an ornament to our tree

S doing the same... or perhaps she is taking
one of, which is highly likely.

Our tree... I am not a master at tree decorating
by any means, but it is full of sentiments!

Some holiday decor.

More holiday decor...

Stockings... the one on the left is my Moms. This was
my second Christmas without her, and I missed her just
as much as ever. xo Mom.

Some wall art made from printables - one I made, one I
bought, and one was a freebie. They are going down my
front entrance stairs. I already had the frames so it was
a pretty inexpensive decoration to add.
I think I will change them out every season.

Hope you enjoyed my mini holiday decor tour and Happy Holidays everyone!

Holiday Baking Review

2011-12-27T19:51:00.000-07:00

Did y'all have a Merry Christmas? We sure did! We finally got some snow, just the evening before Christmas, and it was so pretty. It was perfect white Christmas and a perfect first Christmas in our new home. My youngest daughter is almost 20 months old, so even though it's not technically her first Christmas, it kinda is, since she couldn't do much last Christmas. She was so excited! She grabbed her stocking, found a peanut butter cup, and couldn't believe her eyes. She ripped it open and ate it - paper lining and all. I tried to get the paper back but she would not open her mouth. She was too afraid I would take it away from her. That was my favorite moment of the morning.

Anyway, onto something else that comes hand in hand with the holidays - baking. Now I am no Betty Crocker, that is for sure, so I searched out the internet for recipes to make. You know how some people have that portfolio of things they have made and loved and make all the time? Yeah, I don't have that. There is no recipe that I absolutely love and must make. So this year, I made all brand new recipes and tried them out. Here's a run down of how it went so far:

#1. Layered Peanut Butter Krispie Treats

Review: My husband almost ate the entire pan. He LOVED them. I found them a bit difficult to eat, but they were tasty. I think my peanut butter cups were bigger than the ones in the recipe, because my top two layers kept coming unattached from the bottom two. If I were to make it again, I think I would skip the top layer of krispie treats. The peanut butter ganache layer was amazing though. Definitely worth a try! Remember to keep your layers as thin as possible - I think I made mine a little too thick.

#2. Pretzel Bites

I absolutely LOVE soft pretzels. When I was in university, I briefly dated a guy whose parents ran the pretzel place and I ate them as much as I could. (I think I was sadder about the pretzel train ending than the relationship.) I remember trying all of the dips to see which one I liked best - strawberry cream cheese, cheddar, marinara... marinara ended up being my favorite. I was so excited to try these, and then I hit a wall - we don't have the type of dough listed in the recipe. (That is one of the biggest challenges following American blogs and living in Canada - we really don't have access to half the products you Americans do... especially when you live in a ridiculously small town.) I talked to my mother in law, who IS a Betty Crocker, and she said to use any dough. So I waited until my husband made homemade pizza one night and then I just snagged some of his dough. I followed the rest of her recipe, and it was easy and quick. I ate mine plain with just butter and coarse salt (gotta have the coarse salt!) and they were awesome. I would definitely make them again... and I will... everytime my husband makes pizza.

#3. Skor Cheesecake Cookies

This was another hit. The recipe calls for Snickers, but I don't really like Snickers, so I substituted Skor bars. (I used 2 packs of king sized bars, each of which had 2 bars in it.) I just crushed them into small pieces and then followed the rest of the recipe. I had to use more butter than the recipe called for in order to get my graham crumbs to stick together, but all in all a winner. I also didn't have a muffin top pan, so I just had to use a muffin pan. They came out a little more like individual cheesecakes but tasted every bit as good as they looked. I made them to take to my family Christmas party... they didn't last that long.

#4: Chewy Oreo Squares

Another recipe from Picky Palate (the cheesecake recipe was also from the same blog), which I think ended up being my favorite. I loved how super simple (no bake!) it was, and it tasted so good. Oreos, butter, and marshmallows! It's basically a rice krispie square but with crushed oreos in place of the rice krispies. I didn't crush my oreos all the way - I left some chunks. Also, the recipe only makes 9, but I was trying to make them for my family's Christmas party, to replace the cheesecakes that had been devoured, and I didn't read the yield until after I made the recipe. So I made thinner layers and smaller squares - it ended up being a decent sized party square, since you want to try a bit of everything when there is lots. I ended up with 2 dozen squares that were about 1x1.5 inches. Try these with a cold glass of milk. Soooo delicious. Oh, and yeah, these didn't make it to my Christmas party either. This time it was totally my fault though, I think I ate them all.

#5: Cranberry Pistachio Nougat

This recipe ended up being my biggest disappointment. It calls for 1/2 cup of honey, which doesn't seem like a lot, but it totally overwhelmed the nougat, until all you could taste was honey. Now if you like honey, this would be a great recipe to try. My mother in law said it was good, but I hate honey. I can't stand the taste of it. So I didn't eat much at all. I really wanted it to be good, because I loooove nougat almost as much as I love pretzels. But no such luck... however, if you do try this recipe, make sure you have a candy thermometer and a stand mixer - it is too thick for a hand mixer. Also, have everything ready because once that candy reaches temperature, you have to be ready to move - and quick. It isn't hard, it's just fast. Oh, and the original recipe is cherry, I subbed cranberries - only because they were half the price!

#6: Rolo Cookies

I just finished making these ones before I started this entry. And my husband has already ate 4. I had one, and they are tasty, but I think the recipe needed regular sized rolo cups - I used mini ones because they were all I could find in a package. If you are going to use mini cups, I suggest two per cookie. Mine were good, but needed a little more caramel. Now, I don't know if cake mixes are slightly different sizes in the US (things like this happen all the time) but my batter/dough was very sticky and my brand new mixer actually bit the dust mixing it. Maybe my mixer was a lemon, but I don't think I would chance it again. Use a stand mixer if you have one, even though it was probably a bad mixer. My husband said it should not have overheated like that. So who knows?! Also, I found it helpful to have a cup of water to dip my fingers in while I was shaping the cookies - otherwise I found they stuck to my hands and everything else! Now I have to go package them up and hope they last until the New Year's Eve Party.

Also on my baking/cooking list for the New Year's Eve Party...

Crispy Ravioli

Chocolate and Peanut Butter Squares

Wonton Mozzarella Sticks

5 Layer Greek Dip

The Perfect Lemon Bar

and finally...

Garlic Parmesean Pull Apart Bread

I'm also going to make one of my favorite recipes that others have made for me, but I have never tried myself - shrimp wrapped in wonton wrappers, tied with spaghetti, and fried in oil. They are so tasty dipped in sweet chili sauce. I will let you know how I fare out with the rest... in the mean time, do you have any go-to recipes that you always make? I would love to hear about them :)

Teacher Gifts 2011

2011-12-23T20:57:00.002-07:00

This year, I had a bunch of teacher gifts to make. Now that we live in Ontario, and C attends the school where Grandma teaches, we know a LOT of teachers. There was Cecelia's teacher, Rachel, and also Julie (a third grade teacher) who has been a long time friend of the family. And then we can't forget about Grandma. Here are some shots of things we made:

Grandma's wreath
Made with pencil crayons, unfinished wood frame
from Michael's, and adhesive chaulkboard paper.

Julie's wreath.
Now Julie is crazy and wild and loves all things
fancy and glittery. Imagine an older version of
Fancy Nancy. I let C go nuts making this one, and
she choose colored feather boas, rhinestones, and
drink umbrellas. Pretty fancy if you ask me!

Rachel's wreath.
Made with crayons and embroidery hoops.

Rachel's gift wrapped.

Grandma's gift wrapped.

Julie's gift wrapped.

I love creating gifts for teachers - maybe since I am one, but I just think it's such a fabulous way to show your appreciation. The grade 6 teacher at Cecelia's school also got a wreath from me as a gift, thanks to one of her students ordering it for her Christmas gift. Here's here version - similar to the pencil crayon one but with some differences:

Making Gifts for the Neighbours

2011-12-23T20:10:00.002-07:00

A while ago, I was surfing around Pinterest, and I came upon a link for an ice cream/sundae kit. I loved the idea, and pinned it on my "Christmas Inspiration" pinboard. I didn't think too much of it anymore, but a few days ago I started to think what I could make for my neighbour and her family. I wanted it to be something the whole family could enjoy, and that's when I remembered this idea.

I didn't follow the exact thing that the original poster had created, but here is my version...

I went to the Bulk Barn and bought four different types of ice cream/sundae mix-ins (gumballs, peanuts, gummy bears, and smarties). I already had the peanut butter chips, sprinkles, and marshmallows on hand. I bought the waffle bowls and cones at Wal-mart, and I think that was the extent of my costs for this gift. The mason jars I had found at the thrift store a while back for 25 cents each (I bought them all because I love the small size), the tubes came from vanilla beans that I had used and kept the tubes thinking the might be handy, and I used a roll of cellophane basket wrap to wrap the cones and bowls, and then the whole gift. I also put the mix-ins in small snack sized baggies that I had on hand, and used ribbon I had bought during a massive sale at Michaels.

The first thing I did was find a box that was nice and shallow, but still wide. I used the lid for a copy paper box. Then I covered it in pretty green wrapping paper (that I bought that day on clearance for $1.49!)

I created all of the graphics myself, using the Santa Baby kit from Just So Scrappy. (I already purchased the kit a while ago, but I just noticed it's on for $1.50! Can't beat that!) I made the circle graphics included in the kit to the same size as the lid of my mason jar, and then printed them on sticker paper and stuck them on:

To label the sauces in the jars (if you keep reading, maybe I will give you the recipes), I used the tag shapes that were already in the kit and added a small santa image and a bracket design that I downloaded many moons ago and can't remember where, that's how much I have changed it and reused it. I placed two very close together so that when I printed them off, I could fold it backwards to make it double sided. One side had the sauce name, and the other had a little Christmas greeting.

I tied the tags on around the lids with a red or green ribbon, and then filled the jars with the yummy homemade sundae sauce. I made white chocolate vanilla, chocolate peanut butter, and caramel sauces. (The family I was making it for LOVES peanut butter, that's why you will see it a lot in this gift!)

For the mix-ins, I filled a small snack sized ziploc bag for each. (There are 6 people in the family I was making it for, so I made everything in groups of 6 or in groups that were equally divisible by 6... not really for any other particular reason than it made my pattern related OCD brain feel better.) I created baggie toppers using the same kit and bracket, cut them out, and stapled them on.

For the sprinkles, I filled those vanilla bean tubes and then made labels using sticker paper.

Then, all that was left to do was take 6 waffle bowls and 6 sugar cones and wrap them in cellophane and tie with green and red ribbon. I placed that fake snow blanket stuff in the bottom of the box and neatly placed it all inside. Pretty cute and easy, eh?

Now for those recipes... They are pretty easy, and my husband just pulled the chocolate ones out of his head (he is culinary arts trained, I would not have been able to do that!) and the caramel sauce recipe is from Michael Smith. Here they are:

Chocolate Peanut Butter Sauce
1/2 cup cream
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1/4 cup peanut butter

Place chocolate and peanut butter together in a bowl.
Place cream in a small saucepan and place over medium heat.
Remove from heat when small bubbles form, and pour over
chocolate and PB. Stir until smooth.

White Chocolate Vanilla Sauce
1/2 cup cream
8 oz white chocolate
1 tbsp vanilla

Place chocolate and vanilla together in a bowl.
Place cream in a small saucepan and place over medium heat.
Remove from heat when small bubbles form, and pour over
chocolate and vanilla. Stir until smooth.

Caramel Sauce (Michael Smith)
This is the trickiest of the three. The other two are very simple.
For this one, pay attention constantly, and swirl as soon as you
see brown. Also, as soon as it starts to turn dark, pull it off
and place your cream and vanilla in. It is better if it isn't ice cold
so that it isn't such a temperature shock to the hot caramel.

Each of the sauces yields about a cup (the size of my mason jars) and you should let them sit uncovered for about half an hour until they slightly thicken and cool. And there you have it! Easy peasy!

The Adventures of Alfie... Part I

2011-12-13T20:16:00.000-07:00

So we have an Elf on the Shelf this year. We read the book and then my daughter named him Alfie. It was kind of funny because that was the name I had thought of, but never ever said. Anyway, Alfie has been up to a few tricks since he joined our house... nothing too bad of course, but here's a peek.

Alfie... what are you doing in the candy jar?
And where is all the candy?

Alfie checking out the weather...
or maybe my dirty windowsill?

Alfie tried to get a candy shaped ornament...
but it was a fake, and he got trapped in the lantern!

Poor Alfie was parched. We found him in the
refrigerator with a juice box.

Alfie was trying to be helpful by putting C's
toothpaste on for her... but he made a mess!

Alfie! You know no one is supposed to touch the tree!

Alfie's doing acrobatics on Cecelia's window display.

Do you have an Elf? And if so, what tricks has your elf been up to lately?

Copper Wire Ornaments

2011-12-08T20:25:00.001-07:00

Tonight I went to a craft cafe organized by my local Military Family Resource Center (this great organization that helps military families deal with deployment and other issues related to military life). Usually, the craft cafe is a night where we bring our own individual crafts and work on them in the same space, but since it was Christmas, we did a special activity all together. We made copper wire ornaments. It was so awesome!

This is a picture from the magazine article, which you can find here. (Photo from Canadian Living.) You can find a full tutorial and template on their website.

So basically, you just print the template and then lay your wire out on the template, put the beads on, and then squish the wire together a bit. I know that is not very precise, but honestly, you need to play around with it. It's kind of like making pancakes - the first one never turns out. The organizers forgot to tell us to bring a dowel though, which I could see would help make the edges much rounder than mine turned out. Also, the tape on your pliers is important, because without it you get little scratches like I got on mine.

I didn't add ribbon to mine to hang on a tree, because I think I will put them on the gifts that I wrap. It's a pretty quick and easy project once you get the hang of it, and not very expensive. A meter of the copper wire was bought at the hardware store for $3.65 and once you take the plastic coating off and seperate it, that's 7 pieces, and each meter makes three ornaments, so you basically have 21 pieces. The beads were like 100 in a pack for $3. So 20 ornaments for less than $7? Not too bad!

Here is a picture of how mine turned out - again, I think this is one of those times when practice makes perfect, but I think they will be adorable on top of gifts!

What do you think? I want to find more patterns now... off to Pinterest I go :)

Class Bulletin Boards

2011-12-03T20:32:00.001-07:00

I have really been missing my classroom lately. I miss the lil smiles of my kiddos and their energy and enthusiasm... and while I truly do love spending more time home with my girls, I miss my job as well. Anyway, I was looking through some old pictures from last year and I found a bunch of classroom bulletin boards that we had done, and I thought I would share them with you! If any of you are teachers, feel free to grab some ideas! I am sure other teachers and ideas around the web have influenced them as well! I know I saw the countdown one a long time ago somewhere... if you know where, feel free to link it in the comments, because before the days of Pinterest, I had no way of saving these things efficiently :)

Here they are...

This was one of my fall boards. We did a little pumpkin unit, and then the kids all made their own pumpkins (freehand!) and painted them. Then we linked it to our Social Studies unit on being unique, because no two pumpkins are alike either! It was awesome, and covered three subject areas - art, science (plant growth and why some parts are green, etc), and social. Gotta love that!

This of course, was our Christmas board. Our schools name was Johnny Bright School, so "Bright" Wishes was our Christmas theme. I think these kids really got the true meaning of Christmas and showed such a true sense of spirit. When you get older you kind of forget what the real meaning is... spend Christmas with a kindergarten kid, and you will certainly learn about all of the hottest toys, but you will also learn about the innocent belief that all can be right with the world.

This was our monster unit. We did a lot of graphing in our class, and my kids were so awesome at it. They really liked it, and it was always so interactive, like our monster glyphs. The activity came from Deanna Jump, but then I decided to make a cute bulletin board out of them - and what else do you think of when you think of monsters? Monsters under the bed! So I drew out a bed on art paper and colored it (two packs of Mr. Sketch markers later!) and it was so fun in the end!

Our countdown to summer bulletin board. In Canada, we stay in school until the end of June. The kids are exhausted, especially in Kinder, so they loved this. They got a huge kick out of changing the number everyday. It was awesome... but now makes me sad wishing that coutdown never ended!

Anyway, that was my little trip back in time! I would love to see your bulletin boards too - link to your posts if you have any! They were one of my favorite parts of teaching!

Christmas Printable

2011-11-27T21:26:00.002-07:00

Everyone is starting to get in the Christmas spirit around here. Last night, we attended my husband's Christmas party with some friends, and I have most of my Christmas shopping done. We still don't have snow, but that's okay with me! I have been making a bunch of printables lately for Christmas gifts, and I decided to whip up a quick one to share with you - I am sure you have all heard it before, it's from one of my favorite Christmas movies - Elf! (Will Ferrell drives me nuts, but thankfully he is tolerable in this movie, because I love it!)

I made the print in red (my favorite) and white (if you want to be economical with the ink). You should be able to upload it to a photo printing store as well and have them print it to save on ink. Just click on the photo and save - it is sized to 8x10. All I ask is that you are a follower of my blog before you download. If there are any problems or the quality is reduced, leave a comment with your email and I will send you a copy :) Thanks so much for taking the time to follow me!

Crafts for Kids and A $0 Project

2011-11-22T21:15:00.001-07:00

Have you ever had one of those weeks... where everything just seems to be all over the place? That has been my past week. My baby was miserably sick, my daughter had report cards and parent teacher interviews, my husband was away on a tasking, and I lost my wedding ring down the drain! It has been crazy! Thankfully though, my husband will be back in a few days, my baby's fever had gone down and only a small cough remains, and we eventually rescued my ring from the drain (although it was no small feat). Now I am ready to settle down and do some crafting.

Before I tell you about a very quick project I did with my oldest daughter this week, I have to tell you about this new venture that is happening. For any of you who have children or work with children, you are going to want to be a part of this. The Crafty Community is a new group blog that provides you with great ideas for kids crafts. It currently has 18 authors and growing, made up of teachers and crafters. This is just getting off the ground, but it is going to be HUGE! As soon as we get our designs ironed out, there will be a button on my sidebar, but for now, head over and become a follower. You will be glad you did!

Now, onto our quick craft that we did this week. If we were going to do anything in the week we had, it had to be quick, so trust me it was uber quick! Whenever we go to the home reno store (which we tend to do MUCH more now that we own a home), C loves to pick out 8 million paint chips. I am not lying. 8 million. Just stacks and piles of them. Then she plans out imaginary rooms and matches colors. Secretly I am very proud that she has an understanding of color theory at 6, because I wish I could just hang out and play with paint chips all day. They are pretty spectacular, and the endless possibilities really give me shivers.

Well, all these paint chips were building up, so finally one day we had to do something with them. As we played with them, and lined them up and organized them, the ones with 5 colors on a strip started looking like a calendar to me. I needed a new calendar to go on my wall that I could write on and erase easily, because it was driving me nuts getting out my home organization binder over and over to check things. I hauled this old frame out of the basement, which we had previously put tissue paper art in but never did hang...

(See that pretty reflection there? That's our new light fixture that we just put up in our dining room! So happy... the old one looked like this...

Shudder.)

Anyway back to the frame. It doesn't have to be exact, that's what's great about this craft, you can use what you have around. I would estimate that my frame is about 14-15 inches long and 7-8 inches tall. I started laying out my rainbow (ROYGBIV remember!) paint chips and seeing where everything would go, and then I just added double sided tape to the mat and stuck them down. (If your frame doesn't have a mat, you can use cardstock.)

On the back, I taped them together as well, simply because it sometimes buckled in the middle and you could see a gap.

Then, I cut little flower shaped punches out of a white paint chip and glued them in the top left corner of each square. I also added some bigger paint chips in neutral shades on the side, which acted as a section for meal planning, to do list, and daily cleaning checklist.

Put the mat back in the frame, and there you have it. Total cost: $0. Total time: 15 minutes at most. I write on mine with a wet erase marker - I find the dry erase markers wipe off too easily. However I do write my daily cleaning checklist in wet erase (it stays the same everyday) and check it off with dry erase, since I check it off and erase it everyday.

And, my kitchen/dining room has not got a paint job yet - remember when I talked to you back in my board and batten post about the horrible "buttercream" walls? This is what I mean. I hate beige, especially yellowish beige. Oh well, at least my rainbow calendar looks nice for now! Once I get a new kitchen I will redo it in my kitchen tones.

How about you? Have you made any $0 crafts lately? Or do you too secretly get shivers when you see ALL the colors available at the paint counter? I would love to know that I am not alone!

Fanciful Tulle Wreaths

2011-11-12T20:32:00.002-07:00

I am planning to make a gift for three of the teachers at C's school for Christmas this year. One is a crayon wreath for her classroom teacher, one is a special gift that I can't say here because it's for my mother in law (who teaches in the classroom next to me daughter) and there is a slight chance she will read this. The last is for the other teacher in that little corner with C's class, who is a good friend of my mother in law and always brings the girls gifts. Mme J is the only one who C says is as fancy as her, so we wanted to make her a gift that meets her fancy factor.

We were seeing some tulle or tutu wreaths around and decided that was pretty fancy. (It was between that or a feather boa wreath, but we had already made a feather wreath for C's class for Halloween.) We went to Fabricland, and got 2m of white tulle, 1m of grey tulle (I wanted silver but they did not have any so I will show you how I handled that later), and 1/2m of red tulle. It cost $2.50 a meter, but with a membership, it was 25% off, so it was not a pricey project!

I started by cutting all of my pieces into 6"x3" rectangles. I should say they were all somewhere around 6"x3". Tulle is not the easiest thing to cut straight, especially when you are impatient like me and want to cut 8 layers at once. It really didn't matter in the end, and maybe even gave it more shape and texture. So if you are making one, don't be too picky on your cuts.

I decided to use an embroidery hoop as my base, mainly because I had some halves leftover from my crayon wreath (which used just the insides of two different size hoops). I also wanted the thin inside ring. If you google or do a pinterest search for tulle wreaths you will see some have very thin inside rings (done on hoops) and some have a thicker ring (done on a styrofoam ring type base).

I looped two pieces at one time. I started with two white, and then went one white and one grey, with the white over the grey so it was lighter (because I couldn't get silver as I mentioned above).

The trickiest thing to remember (which isn't that tricky once you get going) is to make sure you loop them the same way each time. Otherwise, you will end up with this...

Not so good. I knew I wanted my pattern to be mostly white and silver with some red, so my pattern went white-silver-white-red-white-silver, and repeat.

I didn't use nearly all of the tulle, but I was glad I had bought extra just in case - there is nothing worse than running out half way through a project. I think I used about 1.5 meters of white, 1/2 meter silver, and 1/4 meter red.

As for the embellishments, we are not quite sure what we will do yet. I think we will make a fancy J monogram with some rhinestones. Then, I found this Christmas wooden sign at the dollar store, and when I put it on the wreath, it looked great!

I'm still not sure if I will leave it there of put on a fancy J (so it isn't exclusively a Christmas item) but that's still up in the air. What do you think, Christmas wreath or year round?

Art for C's Room... Inspired by Selena Gomez!

2011-11-07T20:58:00.002-07:00

When I get around to it (because remember, I told you that I am bad at actually following through with finishing touches), I want to install a little art display section in C's room. She is MAD about all things arts and craft related. Not sure where that came from... I found several ideas (you know where) and I think this one is my favorite:

Except now I just need to get to an Ikea to buy those curtain wires. I also thought it would be nice to put a shelf above the wire and put some framed pictures on it. I debated for a long time about what to put there. I was going to make some word art that neatly tied into the art theme, like "Every child is an artist" (Picasso), or "I know a girl, she puts the colour inside my world" (John Mayer), or something along those lines. Then, as you know, we went to the Selena Gomez concert last week. Now, say what you will about Selena Gomez, but I think "Who Says" has a great message. As someone who really struggled with self esteem issues as I child, I really do not want my daughters to wander down that path. C and I had a little chat about what that song really meant, and she said "It means that no one can tell you that you aren't pretty or that you don't belong or that you aren't good enough. You have to believe that you are and believe that you can be good at whatever you put your mind too, and that when someone tells you to quit, you ignore them and listen to your heart". I think that's pretty fantastic for a six year old. So, I made this art to remind her of that everyday... and with a little reference to her Selena Gomez obsession, she is madly in love with these pieces!

Here are the three pictures as they will sit on the shelf/hang on the wall right above the shelf (not fully decided on that one yet):

Here are some close up's of each three... please note that these pictures were in perfect 8x10 scale when they were uploaded to Walmart, who proceeded to crop them - off center at that! I think I may cut off everything outside of the outside purple edge and center it on a white piece of paper so that the borders are even.

Oh and in case you are wondering, these were made in a photoediting program (a combination of Picasa for the gradient background, Picnik for the borders, and GIMP - or Photoshop - for the layers such as text, images, and background) and the graphics came from Miss Tiina's kit Dress Up Days. The font is Everytime I Miss You.

Remembrance Day Wreath

2011-11-05T21:57:00.001-06:00

If you have Pinterest, you will know that the number one pin (I am sure of this!) is that you can make a wreath out of pipe insulation foam. I made one a few days ago for Halloween that was made out of 1/2" pipe insulator, and I also made this guy:

(Excuse my photos as I still experiment with my new camera!)

It turned out, but it was looking a little slim. So, I went back to the hardware store and bought some 3/4" pipe insulating foam. Now this stuff was MUCH harder to form into a circle. I thought I had a pretty good circle, and I wrapped it in white yarn for a poppy wreath, but when I came back the next day, I found this:

Now in case you didn't know, I taught kindergarten last year, and I can guarantee you that this is not a circle. It is almost like a squished up pentagon. Not going to work... so I did some research (yes, okay, I did it on Pinterest) and found I was not the only one with this issue. I tried the only suggested solution that I could with my wreath already wrapped. I cut a slit in the yarn where the foam was taped together...

...and I got an old wire hanger that thankfully missed garbage day (I will no longer curse the dry cleaners for giving me wire hangers that scratch on the rod) and straighten it out as much as you can. Then, insert it in the hollow part of the foam, like this:

Then, retape, retie, and reshape your wreath. That's a lot of re- words. It is still not absolutely perfect, but let's be honest here... no one comes to visit me except my mother in law. The closest anyone else is going to get to this is driving by the road, and my house is pretty far off the road. It was not worth unwrapping and wrapping a styrofoam wreath for. (For future reference: I will never wrap a piece of pipe insulation in yarn again. A yarn wreath needs to be perfect. I will stick to using the foam insulators for things that are going to be well covered, like the feather wreaths and such.) I think if one my kindergarten students drew me this as a circle, I would accept it:

Now it was onto the poppies. Remembrance Day is really big here. I know it should and perhaps be big everywhere, but this whole town is practically built on the military. Every single house we looked at while purchasing a house was owned by a military member. Everyone is, or is very close to, someone who stands for our freedom. So I definitely wanted to show my support by having a special wreath to honor our fallen soldiers.

I made some felt poppies out of red felt. Super easy peasy - cut four red circles, fold them in quarters, and glue them onto a smaller red back. Place dabs of glue on any spots that are "sticking up" too much for your liking. Then, cut a small grey felt circle and place it in the middle of your poppy (I couldn't find black). Voila! Instant poppies! (Okay, not INSTANT... but 10 minute poppies are still pretty good!)

I also made little notches in the middle of the top layer so it looked more like a poppy. Just as I was about to glue these suckers to that horrid white yarn wrapped wreath, I thought - I might need another horrid white yarn wreath someday, and I am N-O-T, not (as Clementine would say) wrapping another one. That's when I pulled out the thing I used most as a teacher (well, second only to post its)....

VELCRO! I thought perhaps can take the poppies off and replace them with some other embellishment sometime if I need to. So I stuck one side on the poppy (I glue gunned it on) and one side on the wreath (it didn't need glue, I couldn't get it off without the glue anyway).

One, two, three poppies on, and here she is hanging on my front door. It is very simple but I did not want to be too flashy, since it is a solemn occasion.

P.S. And in case you are still wondering who Clementine is... you need to find yourself to a children's library and read about the most delightful and creative little girl, who I am in love with, even though she is a fictional character.

My First Attempt at Cake Pops

2011-11-03T20:40:00.002-06:00

Here's something else that I am sure you have all seen... cake pops. They seem to be all the rage right now. Like remember when cupcakes exploded a few years back? Well, now the big thing in the "cake" world is cake pops. At least that's my Trend Commentary.

My first encounter with the infamous cake pop was last week at the Selena Gomez concert. I stopped by Starbucks to grab a white chocolate mocha to keep me awake on the drive home (plus, we do not have a Second Cup or Starbucks, so any excuse was good enough for me!) and Starbucks has little cakepops. We grabbed a birthday cake flavour, and OH YUM! It was so good. Here they are:

Don't they look ah-MAZ-ing? They totally were. Ever since, my C has been driving me nuts asking if we could make cake pops. Now, I didn't want to just have a whole batch of cake pops lying around, especially with all the Halloween junk, so I made her wait for a special occasion. Her teacher's birthday is on the weekend, so finally I agreed to make them.

I only had a marble cake mix, so I made one small chocolate cake and one small vanilla cake. The method is very easy - Bake cake (any cake). Cool cake. Crumble cake. Mix icing with cake (about 1 can per cake mix, but add it one scoop at a time so it isn't too much). Roll cake into balls. Freeze (for about 2 hours). Dip stick in chocolate and stick into the ball, then dip into coating of your choice. Freeze again. Simple right? (For a more detailed set of instructions visit Bakerella.)

Well, much like my amateur attempt at board and batten, my cake pop attempt was not without mistakes and regrets, which I will share with you so you don't do the same as me. First I will show you the finished product:

I coated my chocolate cake balls with white chocolate moulding wafers (the Belgian ones!), yellow candy melts, and peanut butter chips (see note below about this one!) My white cake mix was coated with orange candy melts and milk chocolate chips (also see note about the milk chocolate). Bakerella says they should be smooth but I ~~like the rustic, not quite perfect look~~ couldn't get them perfect and said screw it. I think they look pretty cute, honestly. And my husband has eaten three, so they can't be too bad!

Now, the few challenges I ran into... First of all, peanut butter chips do not melt like chocolate chips. After doing a google search, I added some full fat milk and a little butter (cream would work too if you had it) and it was much smoother. It does not have the coverage though that the candy melts did - it was slightly see through. Next, the milk chocolate - I think maybe because it was chocolate chips and not moulding wafers that perhaps it was heavier? Is that possible? Because I had a lot of trouble with the milk chocolate. The balls would get stuck in the chocolate, or they would slide down the stick like this:

This didn't happen with any of the other coatings. So I am totally blaming it on the chips being heavy. Lastly, keep your cake balls in the freezer as you dip them in the coatings and just take them out a couple at a time. The cake thaws quickly.

To package them up for C's teacher, I stuck a styrofoam block in the base of a paper bag. I stuck in one cake pop of each flavour. Then, I decided to add a bit of pizazz to the bag...

Isn't he cute? I can't take full credit for that, I saw the picture on Pinterest. Under the flap of his eyebrows, I wrote the cake flavours, and also my daughter wrote Happy Birthday and signed her name - packaging and a card all in one!

Have you tried cake pops yet? How did it go?

Hanging Wallflowers

2011-11-02T20:07:00.001-06:00

I wanted to call this post Hanging Wallflowers for the OCD inclined... but I decided to be nice instead - to myself included.

I am sure you have seen Umbra's wallflowers around by now. They are pretty popular. (Sidenote: Made by someone from Ottawa! Go Ottawa!) They look like these, in case you have been hiding underground for the past few years:

My daughter purchased a set of these in pink with her very own birthday money to decorate her new room. I had researched how to put them up, and apparently, the first editions of this product came with small magnets in the flowers that attached to a nail that went in the wall. The new versions do not. Mine came with sticky pads and nails that snapped into the flowers themselves. So I obviously choose the pads.

Now, there is no "right way" to hang these but I knew from looking at all the pictures the internet has, I liked a spaced out, whispy sort of non-pattern. However, a non-pattern is just as hard to create as a pattern. My first step was to put sticky tack on the flowers and stick them up so I could rearrange as I saw fit. Yeh... big mistake. The flowers didn't stay up, the sticky tack got stuck in the grooves, and it was a mess.

I tried to use the faint reminants of sticky tack to place my flowers with the sticky pads. These pads lasted maybe a day, and they were falling all over the place. Back to the drawing board. Finally, I had a Despicable Me moment... you know the one.. LIGHTBULB!

I took a long sheet of easel paper and created a sheet the same size as the area I wanted to cover on the wall. I put it on the wall and left a piece of tape on the wall so I would know where to put the paper back when I was done.

Please try to ignore the bad picture - my camera sucks (just got a new one this week!) and my daughter has a crystally chandelier that creates all sorts of weird shadows. Not ideal for picture taking, but it is fancy!

Next, I seperated the flowers by size - there are five sizes in the box. I started placing them around my paper, moving them as I saw fit:

Then it was just a matter of placing them all...

...until it looked like this. Now, to get it on the wall... this took a few moments of thinking, because if I took them out and put the paper on the wall as I had originally intended, I wouldn't know which flower size went where. So, I got a pen, circled each correct hole (since at this point, there were a lot of incorrect holes) and wrote the size inside the circle (XS, S, M, L, XL).

Then it was time to put it on the wall. I "lined" it up with the tape on the wall (it somehow moved!) and then started pinning the flowers back into their correct hole.

The last step was to tear the paper down from behind the pins. I found the safest way to do this was to take one flower off the head, ripe around it, reattach the flower, and move on to the next one. That way flowers aren't popping off and you aren't confused about where they belong.

And here is the final result... it sort of ended up being a paisley sort of a swirl. C loves it, and since it's her room, I guess that's what matters!

Now I just need to finish the rest of her artwork so I can reveal her room :o)

Selena Gomez!!!

2011-11-01T18:55:00.000-06:00

So this is sort of off topic but I had to share this with you... I got my daughter a Halloween surprise - tickets to see Selena Gomez! I didn't tell her until the night before the concert, because I knew all I would hear all day, everyday, would be "Is it time to see Selena Gomez yet?" So I held out, even though I really wanted to tell her.

She had to guess in order to find out what it was. I gave her one clue on the drive home from school... I told her it was tickets. She was totally convinced it was tickets to a movie (because for a 6 year old, that IS a big deal!) When she got home, her Halloween card was waiting for her with another clue inside -

And here she is opening it and figuring out the clue...

She was excited, but I don't think it really hit her until the next day. She was very giddy! We played hooky from school for the day and went to the city early to buy some new shoes and a new outfit for the concert (which was ~~a waste of time~~ wonderful, since she got to the concert and begged for a ridiculously overpriced concert tee which she wore over the said new outfit anyway). Then we had supper at Moxie's, a fave of mine from when I was living in Alberta. Here is my lil C, trying to be calm because we were in a "fancy" restaurant.

There were so many concert goers in the restaurant, it was crazy. They automatically assumed we were going, which C loved. Her and one waiter had a big talk about Justin Bieber (for those of you not up on your teeny bopper pop culture, he is Selena Gomez's boyfriend). Then it was time for the show!

Thats my lil C with Justin and Selena. And here she is, the one we were dying to see...

So no, we didn't have the best seats in the house, but by the time I was able to figure out if we could go or not, it was about all that was left. In the middle of the concert, she stopped and told a story about her very first concert and how she had to sit waaayyy in the back and Cecelia just about freaked, because it was her first concert and she had to sit waaaayyy in the back too!

We had so much fun together, it was an awesome day together... and we were so tired when we finally got home at midnight... so tired that my C fell down the next day and scraped her face out on the pavement and lost her first tooth! I asked her if it was worth it... she said it was :o)

My Latest Obsession - Wreaths!

2011-10-26T11:50:00.001-06:00

As mentioned in a previous post, I am a total Pinterest junkie. I am addicted to it. It's worse than facebook ever was. And now, I often use it instead of google. If I want to find anything to do with crafts, hair, recipes, style, home decor, etc, I always do a pinterest search before doing a google search. During this time, I have come to develop a complete obsession with a certain element of decor - wreaths! Holy Hannah! I am totally in love. I have a whole pinterest board, and if you find any cool ones and you follow me on Pinterest, pleeeease tag me!

Anyway, I decided to make a quick wreath for my front door the other day, since it is soon Halloween and all. I saw this little tip on Pinterest that pipe insulation could be taped together to use a wreath form. This was a great tidbit for me, because I live in a small town and it is very close to impossible to find styrofoam wreath forms. Only one place sells them, and they are always out. So I stopped by my local hardware store and picked some up. Get this - they were 59 cents each, but the store had a coupon for 50 cents off when you bought three. When I got to the cash, they rang in as 30 cents, and I still had my coupon, so I got three for 40 cents! INSANE!

They totally worked. In case you don't know what I am talking about, this is what pipe insulation looks like:

Pull the ends together and use duct tape to secure.

Now I couldn't find our duct tape, so I used my husbands gun tape. Doesn't matter, it will all be covered up anyway. Also, don't worry if it isn't perfectly round. You can form it to make a circle. You won't notice any little imperfections anyway once it is covered. I found these feather boas at Dollarama in halloween colors. (Dollarama is the Canadian version of Dollar Tree, I think. Don't quote me, but I think.)

I bought two of each, since I wasn't sure how much it would take. (I ended up using about 1.5 of the black ones and 2 orange ones.) I started by pinning the ends of the boas (find the rope underneath all of the feathers and stick a dress pin in it) to the foam.

With all the fluff from the feathers, you will never see the pins anyway, but I did pin on the back and tried to use a similar color to the feathers. Then it was just a matter of wrapping the boas around the wreath. I tried to go in a stripe pattern, so that I had an equal distribution of orange and black. It worked well and was easy. When I ran out of one boa, I would just pin the end and then pin a new one on and start wrapping again. So easy, and I swear, it took less than 5 minutes. Honest!

Then I added a little spider guy that I found at Dollarama as well:

He sat in the middle of my wreath. I didn't even need to glue him. He sits very well there. My mother in law saw the wreath and loved it, so I ended up making one for her, and also one for the other grade 1 teacher (my daughters class), so my mother in law got the spider, and C's class got this cool cat I found when I returned to Dollarama for more supplies:

I also made a spider one for my door, and he is hanging out in the breeze. It has been very windy and rainy here and these have held up really well... take a peek:

My sister said it gave her the heebie jeebies, which is exactly what Halloween decor is supposed to do right? I think he's pretty cute, and for under 14$ (that's Canadian) for TWO wreaths and less than 5 minutes, how can you go wrong? My husbands grandma fell in love with it so much that she is already getting started on a Christmas one :)

Have you made or seen any cool wreaths lately? Let me know, I am dying to see!!!

The First Big Reno - Living Room

2011-10-26T11:00:00.001-06:00

When we moved into our new home, it was technically fine to live in. You could say it was a turn key house. However, let's be honest, who wants to move into another persons house and just live there? Eventually, you need to make it your own. Plus, the "buttercream" walls were getting on my nerves. I am NOT a beige person... why should I live in a beige house?

The first "semi-reno" that we did was C's room. She is our six year old who was just dying for her own fancy room - no more princesses or fairies, she wanted a FANCY room. And fancy it is... but I am not going to tell you about that today because I don't quite have the finishing touches done. And sorry, but I have to digress here fo a second - does that happen to anyone else? You do all the real work of redoing a room and buckle down and get it done, and then when it comes to the finishing touches, it just never happens? Well, that's me. Art work is in desperate need of hanging in our house.

Back to the topic at hand... the living room. Here is a picture of our living room when we moved in (well, plus our furniture, which we will also discuss later):

Pretty bland, eh? See what I mean by the buttercream walls? How dull! It was time to do something. I always loved wainscotting, but honestly wasn't in the mood to slap down all that money. I debated beadboard for a while, which my husband was on board with because it seemed like less work. Finally, I settled on board and batten (which hubby wasn't so on board with). Now there are lots of tutorials out there in blogland about how to do B&B and this is not going to be one of them, because I will be honest with you and myself, I am not in a position to be telling anyone how to do anything when it comes to power tools. However, what I will tell you is about the challenges that I found while doing this project. When I researched this, everyone seemed so happy about their very easy b&b project. I thought I was in for a walk in the park. I ran into so many challenges and I looked for solutions and help, and couldn't find any... so in case this happens to anyone else, here is what I experienced.

We worked with mdf, because it seemed like less work (it was preprimed) and the price was right. Our room is about 12x14, with one wall being a big picture window, and one wall being a railing to the stairs for the foyer. So really, we only had 2.5 walls to work with. We bought 1x8 for the top and decided not to do a little shelf because I knew my children would be hanging off it if I did. The vertical strips were 1x3. The guy at Home Depot recommended Liquid Nails, which gave me a sinking feeling in my stomach but I went along with him. I also bought some nails just in case. The Home Depot guys cut the 1x3 boards to 3' in length, since that's how tall I wanted my B&B. Then, we went off to my husband's grandparents to borrow their mitre saw (which we needed to angle the bottom of our boards into our existing baseboards, because ripping them up was not an option.)

I mentioned getting the saw because I have to tell you this hilarious story. We had called Grandpapa the night before to see if he had a mitre saw we could borrow. "Of course," he assured us. "Come on over!" So we did, and what did he hand us? This little hand saw looking thing that sits in a plastic box that moves to create the angle. WHAT?! "I built the whole garage with that saw." Oh dear! This would not work!

So our reno was set back by a day, and we borrowed Steph's dad saw the next day. We discovered that the hone depot guys hadn't cut our boards perfectly and we had to recut a bunch of them. We also discovered challenge number one, and probably the biggest challenge of our reno - our walls were not straight. Now I am not talking slightly crooked, they were obscenely wobbly.

It took us a long time to get that piece of 1x8 up there. It was also 12 feet long, which made it extremely heavy. We tried liquid nails, and just as I anticipated, it was a sinking failure. The board would not hold at all. We moved to Plan B - nails. Well, in the crooked spaces, nails wouldn't work. We finally got big screws and put them on... we would figure out how to cover them up later.

Now if you have NEVER done any sort of handiwork or home reno, like us, you will need to know this - studs are not a couple of inches wide! They are less than an inch wide. So you cannot "nail" in the general area of a stud and hit it. You need to know exactly where that sucker starts and ends. We did not know this. This is how our board looked once it was up:

Pretty roughed up, right? Yeh. We quit after this board and went to bed. Yes, you heard that right, getting this board up took us the whole day. Tips to cut down on this time: premark your studs (beginning and ending), and make sure you have the right hardware. Also, be prepared to spend a long time levelling. It may also help to cut the board into smaller pieces so it is easier to hold while you are doing the work. You can also line it up with your studs, because our second challenge was that our board ended where there was no stud. Back to the hardware store to get these screw things that looked like they had wings to put on the end of the board. The wings stay inside the drywall and the screw cannot pull out.

The next day we were ready to tackle the project again... after all, our ONE board was stuck on with Liquid Nails... there was no turning back. We put the horizontal boards up on the other two walls, which was a cinch - perfectly straight walls. The vertical boards went up MUCH easier that the horizontal one, maybe because we were more aware of potential problems. We spaced them about 16 inches apart, because our studs were 16 inches apart. Easy peasy. It really was. We had to slightly vary our spacing when we came to an outlet, but it wasn't a big deal.

It wasn't so easy when it came to doing the other walls. To our disdain, exterior walls have a different spacing than interior walls. Our studs were now 24 inches apart. We came to a head with challenge number three - my husband wanted to keep the spacing the same as the other wall, I wanted to keep putting them in studs, because I knew that was easier and more secure. I finally relented and agreed to space them the same. I think that might have been a mistake. It was so hard to get them to stick to the wall! We had to use liquid nails and then try to nail them in on top of that. I found myself slightly altering the spacing so I would maybe hit a stud here and there to make my life easier. Let's just say the spacing is ALL over the place on this wall. If you were to do this, my recommendation would be to find the center of your wall, and your studs, and work your way out from there. By starting in the center, you will avoid one of our biggest regrets about this project. See if you can spot it:

Yes, the left corner has a huge gap and the right corner is tight to the wall. But, I knew my bookcase was going in front of the right corner, so I tried not to worry about it.

After the loooong installation process, it is time to caulk. And caulk. And caulk. It really is an endless process. Caulk the top of the rail. Top the bottom of the rail. Top every single edge where the board touches the wall or another board. Caulk every nail or screw hole. But do you know what? The caulk restored my belief in this project. It started to hide every single blemish. After caulking, I painted the top part of my wall (a CIL color called Bear Run) and then painted the B&B (another CIL color called White Tracks). The one interior wall actually runs all the wall in my hallway, so I had to paint it a different color, because I didn't want blue hallways. I chose Hiking Trail by CIL, because it was a nice grey-brown color.

See, what wobbly wall? The caulking really is a miracle worker! It hides everything! Also, the white paint blends everything together so seamlessly. You can't notice the different widths or anything (unless you are looking for them, which our guests thankfully do not).

Here is the finished project (minus finishing touches like art and lamps, as was previously discussed):

All in all, I am thankful we did this, and I love the semi-finished room, but honestly, if you aren't familiar with power tools or home reno's, it isn't quite as easy as everyone makes it out to be. It is totally doable, because honestly, if I can do it, anyone can, but be ready to put in the time and make lots of trips to the hardware for advice. I must have called my dad in Newfoundland about 52 times throughout the project for advice and opinions. But now I have made the mistakes and encountered the challenges, so hopefully this will help you be more successful! Good luck, and if you ever decide to do B&B, I am no expert but I would definitely answer any questions about our experience :)

Oh and total cost for the B&B, paint not included: $72! How awesome is that?!

I Swear I'll Be Better!

2011-10-25T20:47:00.000-06:00

Well, now it has been a very long time since I posted on my blog. Life has been a big, big, very long roller coaster ride for the past few months, and while I would have loved to have the time to blog and craft, it just wasn't doable. Anyone who is a teacher knows what May and June looks like, and anyone who is a military wife knows what posting season looks like, and anyone who is a mother knows what... well... everyday life looks like. So take the three, combine them together, and you get my life for the past few months. We moved half way across the country, bought a new house (which of course made me want to craft and create even more), and started a whole new life. It is just now in these past few weeks that I have got back to doing some things that I enjoy.

Our house and new home are super. It isn't perfect, but that's okay, neither am I. We love our quiet neighbourhood (no through traffic - woohoo!), our huge backyard with all the trees (although at this time of year its more a curse), and almost everything about life in Ontario. We still haven't made friends yet, but hopefully with time, we will find some people who can hold a candle to the wonderful people we called friends in Alberta.

My blog got a makeover, which I did to inspire me to return to what I love doing... and it worked. That, along with Pinterest! Seriously, how did I not have this before?! Although, it may be a good thing that I didn't because my students may not have gotten report cards. Follow me if you would like - click here.

Anyway, this was just a little note to let you know that I am definitely back, and soon you will get to see me re-do my whole house... on a total shoestring budget. Wish me luck, and thanks for sticking around!

Long Time, No See...

2011-04-09T22:46:00.001-06:00

I have been completely neglecting my blog lately. Things have just been nonstop around here. My husband is away on a training exercise, my baby boo is walking (which means she can get into even MORE now), both girls birthdays are coming up really soon, and school is just insane. It's like we bounce from concert to report card to conference to open house and all the way back around again. It's the last semester so it's do or die time, get all in and get all done and get it all done well. PHEW! Needless to say, there hasn't been time to craft!

One thing I did get in was related to the girls party - at this point, any craft things that I do need to be party planning related. I tried my hand at some graphic design type things! These were made with papers by Wendy Page and the absolutely adorable Oh so Cute Jungle Graphic Collection from Miss Tiina (my favorite digital artist!) I was soooo happy when I had finished them - they are much better quality but I couldn't figure out how to properly downsize them to put on blogger - so this is the result. I am in loooooove!

Cupcake Wrappers

Cupcake Toppers

My husband totally rained on my parade when he said "It's a good thing she will remember it!" Thanks husband - but I will remember it, and that is all that matters!

Party Planning, Stage 1

2011-02-25T06:40:00.001-07:00

My blog entries are becoming few and far apart this month. Things have just been so chaotic - I was sick, my daughters were sick, report cards go out in a few weeks, which means its parent teacher interviews in a couple of weeks... and so the list goes on. The crafting time has been extremely limited.

I did get a start on my daughters birthday parties though. I am still hmm-ing and ahh-ing over my youngest daughters - it is after all her first, and I have to come up with a great idea. I am now stuck between two. My oldest daughter, however, has had her party theme picked out pretty much since her last party I think. We are having an art party for her. I made a few inspiration boards, if you want to check them out. This is the first time I ever made an inspiration board - I just learned how to use a photo editing program and taught myself how to make cute little cupcake toppers too! Anyway, hope you enjoy the inspiration boards!

The Decor Board

The Food Board

Most pictures came from One Charming Party and The TomKat Studio.

Magazine Holders

2011-02-10T20:48:00.004-07:00

I am starting to really hate clutter in my house. I mean, I always hated clutter, but lately things that never seemed cluttered now are overwhelming, and seem to make me claustrophobic. My friend says its because I feel like my life is cluttered and this is how it manifests itself... but thats a whole seperate psychoanalytical thing...

So anyway, my bookshelves have been driving me crazy lately, as have everything else. There was just paper and books and nothing matched and it was all over the place and it was frustrating. So, I went to Ikea and picked up these:

These were only $2 for 5 at Ikea, and they are just unfinished cardboard, so they are easy to snaz up. (Is that how you spell snaz? It looks weird.)

Anyway, then I grabbed this black and white damask and polka dot paper that I found on clearance at Michaels for like 49 cents, which I adore... I bought all they had and now I am so sad that I won't be able to buy anymore.

I modpodged it onto the holders, and then added some ribbon around the edges.

For the tags, I cut out small circles and glued them onto the opposite paper with glue dots. I added a small strip of adhesive white board paper (dollar store!) so that I know what is in each folder. If it changes, I just have to wipe the tag off and write a new label. I love it!

Here they are in their new home. However I realized I need more!! I need one more to fill up this shelf just perfectly. They are a little on the black and white side, and I wanted to add color, but we plan to move this summer and I am trying not to add too many colors without knowing what our new house will be like. Maybe once we move I can add some bright colored tags or add another layer of colored ribbon.

I am so much happier with my bookshelves now!

Being Thankful

2011-02-06T21:42:00.002-07:00

In our constant desire to "give our daughter what we didn't have", I often stop and wonder if we are actually doing a disservice to her. She is a very kind and sweet girl, but sometimes, she can act very spoiled and unappreciative. We are trying to cut back on what we buy her, and we have discussed how she is lucky to have so much. This year, for her birthday, instead of showering her with gifts, she knows that she is only getting one gift from us. She is still astonished by this, and I sometimes wonder how I myself am going to stick to that, but that's the way it is going to be. We are buying two gifts and she can pick one for herself and one she will donate to a child in need. We are hoping this will help teach her graciousness and appreciation.

On our journey towards being thankful, I came up with this thankfulness board. I know it sounds a little Thanksgiving-ish, but giving thanks should be a daily routine, not a once a year one. I made this chart so that Cecelia, me, and Daddy could display what we were each thankful for that day and make sure we let each other know. (The words are all individual magnets, so each day we can move them around and choose a new thing to be thankful for.)

It was a pretty easy project, but it took a while to get everything perfect. I started out with a boring frame - it was an ugly pine-ish color, so I painted a solid brown with an espresso acrylic paint. Then, I cut a piece of sheet metal the same size as the glass. I modpodged pretty paper onto the sheet metal (I used a sheet from Sweet Blooms by ColorBok) and then put the frame back together. I tucked the glass behind the metal just in case I ever wanted to use it as a frame again.

Then, I created the text in Word. I just put each word in a text box and made a thick border for each in coordinating colors. For the things we are thankful for, I added pictures since Cecelia can't read all of the words yet. I printed it, cut it out (how I wish I had a silhouette to do that for me!), stuck it to adhesive magnet paper, and then cut it out again... and here's what you are left with after you finish all of that and add a little embellishing:

My camera really sucks (time for a new one!) so the pictures don't do it justice. It is really beautiful and I think it will help us remember to take time and be thankful each and every day.

A Valentine's Frame

2011-01-26T15:27:00.001-07:00

This little frame started as a plain unfinished frame from Michaels. All I did to change it was modpodge on some scrapbook paper, glue on some ribbon with hot glue, and then attach my little valentine's embellishment that I found at Michael's. There is a picture of my girls in there because my sister is single and her nieces and nephews are probably the biggest love in her life right now :)

The edges turned out a little rough, and I think they have taught me a lesson - just because everything CAN be bought at the dollar store, it doesn't mean everything SHOULD be bought at the dollar store. My exacto knife is a piece of crap, and I have to admit that my husband is right... sometimes you should just shell out the money to guarantee you will get a good product... oh well. Lesson learned.

My First Feature!

2011-01-25T14:40:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Courtney over at A Diamond in the Stuff - she featured my ballerina birthday bash on her weekly features. It's my first feature :o)

Around the Clock Bridal Shower

2011-01-22T22:48:00.002-07:00

When my brother got engaged, I wanted to throw the wedding shower for his bride to be. I had never thrown a shower before, so it was fun to plan. I went with a classic theme - Around the Clock. My sister helped make invitations that were a bride and her bouquet had clock hands on it indicating what time each guest was to bring a gift for. The rest of the shower was based on this theme. The cake and cupcakes I made were decorated with their wedding date (9:04) in time format. Then the food was based around different times of the day - we had two breakfast dishes (8 am), two lunch dishes (noon), two dinner dishes (5 pm) and two dessert dishes. The menu cards were designed with clocks in the background, and they were printed and placed in frames. Also, there is a picture of my gift to her - a towel cake full of bath items for her time to relax at 8 pm.

Enjoy!

The cake - and I just realized I took the picture upside down!

Monogram and time cupcakes

Breakfast dishes - mini quiche florentine and stuffed french toast

Lunch - trio of dips and grilled breads, shrimp salad rolls; Dinner - Crab rangoon
in wonton cups, phyllo chicken with spinach and feta

Berry Meringue Parfaits for dessert and the punch...
and the towel cake

My wonderful sister in law cutting her cake.

Valentine Wreath

2011-01-22T22:09:00.002-07:00

I have seen the yarn covered wreaths all over blog-land for a while now, and wanted to try one. Finally, I bought a styrofoam wreath at Michaels (with a 50% off coupon!) and started wrapping it yarn. Here's a word of advice if you are making one - the yarn wrapping takes a lot longer than I expected!

There isn't really much of a process to this project - wrap your wreath form with yarn and decorate as desired. I liked that it was styrofoam, because I always have difficulty hanging wreaths on the front of my door because a wreath holder doesn't sit flat. However, I hammered a nail into my door and then stuck my styrofoam right into it.

I handmade all of the flowers, and it was the first time I tried making these different types of flowers. A little more embellishments and it was ready to go. It's a cute little piece!

Tissue Paper Art

2011-01-21T21:22:00.002-07:00

While doing some arts and crafts with my daughter, we decided to tear and cut up some tissue paper and make pictures. (I always keep all the tissue paper she gets in her birthday and Christmas gifts for purposes such as these.) I love the colors and look of tissue paper, so I decided to make some flowers out of tissue paper. Then, I remembered an old frame that I had bought years ago (5 years ago to be exact) that was still sitting under my bed and not being used. I whipped up three flower pictures to go in the frame and voila - instant art for her room!

The middle picture has some clouds, but they are hard to see.... and the bottom picture is of the disaster that was left after we finished. Of course, it was bedtime, and Cecelia had to rush off to bed, leaving me to clean up the mess! *Sign* Such is the life of a mother!

A Sister Gift

2011-01-19T20:44:00.002-07:00

My sister has been helping us out a bit now that my husband is back at work. We both need to leave for work before my daughter's school bus comes, so on his early days, my sister comes over and stays with Cecelia until the bus comes. This is a big sacrifice for her, since she really loves her sleep!

She just moved into a new apartment, so I am going to try to make her a few things. She has already put in her order for a clipboard, but this past week has been insanly busy - between work and having a very sick baby, I haven't had a chance to think about crafting... Okay, that's a lie. I totally thought about it. I just couldn't do anything about it. But I did have a few quick minutes that I could throw together this simple little gift for her - it's a hanger for her bathrobe or purse or necklaces - whatever she wishes. It was quick and easy, and hopefully life will lighten up soon and I can make her clipboard!

A Ballerina Birthday

2011-01-14T22:17:00.004-07:00

There was a point in time when my career ambitions were to be a party planner. I am so detailed orientated that it would be such a natural fit. However, along came kids and life, and the necessity to have a real, concrete job with a steady paycheque. I love teaching, but whenever a special event comes along that needs planning... I am all over it! I planned every perfect detail of our wedding (and did the whole thing for under $5000), and have thrown several showers. Now, I am starting to plan parties for my two daughters - Stella Boo is one in May and Cecelia turns (gasp) six in June. And no, it is not too early to start planning. It is never too early to plan, I say!

As I start thinking of themes for their parties, I was thinking of Cecelia's Ballerina Bash that we had for her fourth birthday (she kind of got the shaft on her fifth birthday since I was too busy being pregnant and having her little sister to plan her an extravagant party). I decided to upload some pics so you can see some of the details in case someone is looking for inspiration for their little ballerinas. I get so many super ideas from everyone else's blog, so why not share the love?

Check out the pics from her super party below. Everyone had a blast! I also had a lot of help from some great people in my life, so I can't take all the credit! I did the designing and the planning, they just had the talents to complement my vision perfectly and I am so lucky to have them!

Enjoy!

The invitation that my sister and I designed - I created the idea,
she made it a reality.

Party favors - Tutus, tiaras, ballet slippers, and a custom CD
of ballet music. My husband's grandma sewed all the tutus for each girl.

The welcome sign on the gift table

A centerpiece

Food table decor - I found ballet pics online and just printed them B&W

My ballerina princess

We rented a dance hall, hired a dance student to teach a lesson,
and voila - instant ballet party... ok, maybe not instant...

Cecelia's cake - made by our awesome friend Nicole.

Some pink and fancy ballet inspired food

The tutu cupcake tower. All of the food had tags that were
decorated with ballerina silhouettes.

I am in Love!

2011-01-13T15:54:00.001-07:00

I discovered this site about a week ago on someone else's craft blog. I downloaded an image and then closed the window without saving the site. I was crushed. I couldn't find the blog I had linked through or the name of this site. Today, after hours of searching, I found it again! The site is http://www.welovetoillustrate.com

Here are my favorite two projects from their site:

January 2011 Calendars - Just a taste of the selection

and their book labels:

Are these not the most adorable things? I want to print them all on sticker paper and stick them all over my daughter's books. Check out their site- it's too cute not to!

Easy Grocery Shopping!

2011-01-12T20:49:00.006-07:00

We grocery shop every two weeks (or we try to) and everytime, it is the same painful process. Meal plan for the week. Write a list of ingredients we need (which always seems to be the same list over and over). Check the cupboards to see if we have any of the ingredients on that list. Cross off what we have. Go shopping. Get to the dairy section and realize we forgot something in the produce section. Walk all the way back across the giant grocery store with two crying kids in tow. Grab what we forgot and walk all the way back. Think of something that wasn't on the list that we passed... and so it goes. You know the drill.

I have been experimenting with ways to make this easier for a while now. I started categorizing my food and putting it into columns a while ago (produce, pantry, dairy, etc.) It worked okay, but it still seemed like I was wasting time every time writing the same list over and over again... milk, eggs, bread, green onion, apples... So I came up with this plan - a typed list that has all the ingredients we usually use and some blank spaces for extra things we need that we don't buy on a regular basis. This worked but still left the issue of checking for everything on the list to see if we were out or not.

Well now I finally have a great system, with a little idea from Michael Smith. Rather than check the list before he goes to the store, he keeps it posted in his pantry, and as he runs out of something on the list, he checks it off. Now when it's time to go to the grocery store, your list is pretty much ready with a little bit of tweaking for those special ingredients. I also added a column for notes and a space to write your meals for the week in case you need a refresher while at the store. Click the Scribd link below to get a copy.

A quick screenshot

Weekly Grocery Checklist

I made this file in Word, so you can download it and change it to meet your grocery shopping needs. Hope you all enjoy! Now there is just one problem left to solve... the two crying children... any ideas?

Week One Down... Week Two Coming Fast

2011-01-09T19:32:00.002-07:00

We survived the first week with my husband back to work and Stella in daycare. She did really good with it - probably better than my husband did going back to work. She cried a little, but not too much, and she seems to be doing well. I leave work as early as possible to get her picked up, and she is so excited to see me when I show up.

The planning worked well - except for the fact that I was so tired some days that I didn't want to make anything. When I worked before Christmas, my husband was on parental leave so he always got up with the baby in the night. However, now that we are both working, that's become a shared responsibility, and it was a little bit of a rude awakening for me.

On this week's menu, we have:

Monday - Tuna noodle casserole (Not exactly light on

the waistline but it's one of my daughter's favorites)

Tuesday - Steak tacos

Wednesday - Sticky Glazed Chicken "Nuggets" with Roasted Potato

Thursday - Chinese Pork Tenderloin

Friday - Peanut Chicken Stirfry

Saturday - Cauliflower Soup and Tuna Melts

Sunday - Roast Beef, Mashed Poatato, and Veg

All super quick and easy... which is essential during the week! I really need to use my slow cooker more, but I just have horrible visions of things going wrong when I am not around to supervise and check!

Crafty Storage

2011-01-06T21:24:00.002-07:00

I subscribed to the Scrpbooks Etc. newsletter a while back. I have scrapped for about 15 years now, back before it was all the rage, but with kids, the time is just never there for such a large project. I have album after album full of pictures of the girls, scrapbook paper, and embellishments that I bought to create the albums, and just never had the time. Maybe someday...

Anyway, back to the Scrapbooks Etc newsletter. My favorite part of the newsletter is when they offer storage solutions. I am a freak about organization - I am not a clean freak, I am a neat freak. There's a big difference there. I like things to be in their place (however, my husband and two daughters seem to disagree with this logic.) So when I get the newsletter, I always jump to the storage links to see what kind of genius ideas there are in this issue. I don't have a craft room right now, but it is on my wishlist for our next house, and for now, I save all the pictures and dream of the day when my craft spplies can come out of hiding in the storage closet. Here are some of my favorites that I thought I would share:

This is a paper towel holder with fishing tackle boxes.
On the wall, some magnetic tins are stuck to a pizza sheet!
I love the design on the pizza sheet. So cute!

A small apothecary box for embellishments -
remove the knob, modpodge paper, and voila!

Wine racks to hold rolls of paper

Attach pencil holders to a shelf for tool
and marker storage.

This is one of those corner shower cubbies!

Repurpose a nut and bolt stoarge unit.

Hang a row of hooks and place pails
on them for easy storage.

Take advantage of unused space by attaching
small jars to the underneath of shelves and cabinets
with professional grade velcro.

Guess what this stamp holder is? A heating vent!

A wire basket is a great storage solution for stamps.

One of my favorites - pegboard inside a premade
frame or moulding. Perfect!

Aren't they great ideas? Now you have no reason not to get organized... well, unless you're like me, and have no room for it all yet. I can't wait to get my craft room and use all of these super ideas!!!

My Teacher Clipboard

2011-01-05T17:40:00.002-07:00

Even though I only work mornings, I usually end up staying until mid to late afternoon completing work and doing planning. Story of a teacher's life, right? Well, after a discussion with my principal, I have realized I may soon burn out, and should cut back my time spent at school and spend time doing something else. (Hence this crafting/homemaking journey.) I left right after lunch today, for the reasons listed above, in addition to Stella. It was her first day at daycare today and I was so eager to pick her up and spend time with her. She did okay for her first day, but she was definately eager to see me as well.

Stella didn't nap at daycare, so I didn't actually get to spend time with her. She ended up sleeping all afternoon. So I took the opportunity to do some crafting - first on the list was the clipboards that I first saw over at A Diamond in the Stuff. One thing I realized today was that I needed to develop patience if I was going to be doing this crafting stuff. I am just so eager to get it done in my brief time of freedom that I can't wait for paint and glue to dry, when really I ought to. Here's how it turned out... There are two pictues of the front, and one of the back.

Front of the clipboard

Closeup of the birdy!

The back

All in all, I love the way it turned out. Fitting the paper around the clippy part of the clipboard was the most complicated part, but in the end, I found a solution. I am glad I made one for myself before tackling the project as gifts for the other Kinder teachers. What do you think? I can't wait to use it in class tomorrow!!!

Menu Planning

2011-01-03T22:05:00.005-07:00

The last 8 months have been pretty wonderful for me, as far as organization of the homefront was concerned. My husband was on parental leave after our baby daughter was born, and he always had supper ready when I came home from work. However, now, it's time for him to go back to work too and for Stella Boo to head off to daycare (and that is a whole other topic, of which I will not cry about right now). He works shift work, and won't be home until 7 or 8 many evenings, so that leaves me with both girls to prepare supper once I get home from work. Now this is something that requires planning! After much planning with regards to our two New Years Resolutions (to save money and lose weight), I finally came up with the following (reasonably) waist cinching and wallet cinching recipes for the week:

Monday: Salmon and Potato Cakes with Boccocini and Greens Salad

Tuesday: Flank Steak Fajitas

Wednesday: Chicken Paprika Stew with Pierogies

Thursday: Pork Tenderloin Souvlaki Pitas

Friday: Sweet and Sour Pork with Rice

Saturday: Homemade Pizza

Sunday: Mama's Chili

This should be an interesting week. My husband and I have never both worked at the same time, as I only graduated from my education degree two years ago and he has been away training and deployed to Afghanistan during those two years.

Next up: I bought three clipboards today to complete this project by Courtney over at A Diamond in the Stuff. I am going to make one for myself and one for each of my other two Kindergarten teacher buddies. I can't wait to see how they turn out, and go check out the blog. She has some super stuff!

Magnetic Chore Board

2010-12-31T15:15:00.001-07:00

When I saw this Magnetic Chore Board craft by Lil Luna, I knew I had to try to create one for Cecelia. Mine is a little different, but still the same concept. If I were to do it again, I think I would choose a bolder color scheme and a less patterned paper, but it is still nice the way it is. I made it pastels to match Cecelia's room, but hopefully her next color scheme will be brighter so I can make a new one :)

Also, since it is one of the first times I worked with fabric, I tried modpodging the letter stickers on since I didn't have vinyl to work with. It made the fabric stick to the sheet metal underneath, creating a little dark spot around the letters. Next time, I will try a different method of sticking them on.

I may embellish it a little more, perhaps add her name or a little glitter on the centre of the flowers to add some more bling, but I am leaving it for now until I am certain what I want to do. It looks nice the way it is, I just think it's missing something. I'm sure someday it will hit me what it is.

My Spin on the "I'm Bored" Jar

2010-12-31T14:52:00.001-07:00

I have seen the "I'm Bored" Jars all over the place now, and thought about making one. My daughter, however, isn't often bored, but I find that the time we spend together is often doing what's easiest or most convenient, and not always quality time. Like I often tell her to grab a coloring book or watch a movie, simply because I am busy with supper or the baby. Before I know it, the evening is over, and it's time for bed. So I changed the "I'm Bored" Jar to a "Let's Have a Hoot" Jar.

The "Let's Have a Hoot" Jar has a purpose for us - everyday, when my daughter gets home from school, she gets to pick one popsicle stick out of the jar. Each popsicle stick has a different activity printed on it that we can do together. We have to choose if it would be better to do before supper or after, and then we both make a commitment to do the activity together. This way we are both committed to a variety of activities during the week, and we are committed to spending quality time with each other.

The jar was pretty easy to make, but it was much more time consuming then I expected. I cut out each owl for the stick, then glued them on each side so there was an owl on each side of the stick. They were too small to laminate, but I knew they would get destroyed if they weren't. So I placed them all face down on packing tape and placed taping pack around the back. Then I had to cut them out again. We came up with twenty activities that Cecelia likes to do, and wrote them on the bottom of the sticks. Then I decorated the outside of the jar (an old baby food jar) with some scrapbook paper, modpodge, and ribbon. My daughter is so excited about picking one everyday!

Pumpkin and Gnocchi - Together! Yum!

2010-12-28T21:48:00.003-07:00

Today, I decided to give my husband a day off and cook supper. He was busy again, watching the Junior Hockey Game, so I planned and executed supper. In our house, my husband does the cooking. He is the one who went to Culinary School, and he is the one who makes food taste delicious for a living, so the kitchen is usually his domain. Honestly... like most men drool over power tools - my husband drools over kitchen aid appliances. But today it was my turn.

I was flipping through Canadian Living and I found the following recipe: Pumpkin Gnocchi. I had some pumpin puree left from when my daughter and mother in law made a pumpkin roll for dessert last week, so it was a great chance to use them up. Here's a picture of how the gnocchi looks:

I am in love with pumpkin and I am in love with gnocchi, so what could be better than the two of them together? It was pretty easy to make - I only had to ask my husband a question or two. It gets a little tricky when you have to know exactly how sticky the dough should be and when to add more flour, but after that, it's a breeze. I made it with parsley-garlic crusted pork tenderloin and a salad of baby greens, pomegranate seeds, walnuts (they were carmelized with brown sugar and balsamic vinegar - they were SOOO good), and crumbled goat cheese. It was a good meal overall, and my husband was glad to have had a night away from the kitchen. Check out the link and try it out. You may think it's easier to just buy gnocchi from the store, but believe me, storebought gnocchi doesn't even hold a flame to homemade!

An Earring Holder for C

2010-12-26T19:51:00.006-07:00

Well, the World Junior Hockey Championships started today, and it is a Christmas tradition of my husbands to watch this tournament... as much as it drives me nuts. This year, instead of sitting around bored, I decided to make some crafts instead. I went to Michael's for their Boxing Day Sale, and to my surprise, it was very quiet there. I got tons of ribbon, unfinished frames, paint, and some more storage boxes. It was all on sale and then it was an extra 25% off!

I decided to turn a plain unfinished frame into an earring holder, for my oldest daughter, Cecelia. (I meant to take pictures along the way, but I completely forgot!) Here's how it turned out:

It was super simple - all I needed was coordinating paint, scrapbook paper, ribbon, and embellishments... and lots of modpodge and hot glue! Plastic canvas makes the center, which holds the earrings. Cecelia just loved it, and so do I!