I Love February

This year I couldn't help it, but I had to do another 14 days of Valentines.  Wanna see?

 

1. A calendar (under each date flap is a little saying, or a Bible verse, or something cute like that)
2. 2 Reese cups
3. 3 little words (used cookie cutters in a cantaloupe to make these for breakfast.  The kids got lots of hearts.  M loved those!)
4. Little bookmarks made using buttons and pennies glued to paperclips
5. 5 cheesy sayings using Star Wars figures holding Star Wars valentines
6. The sixth was maple syrup day.  As such, I made 6 heart pancakes (3 were blueberry and banana, and 3 were banana chocolate chip) for breakfast.  Now I remember why I don't do pancakes for breakfast on a school day.  It takes almost an hour just to cook the whole batch.
7.  I found how to make scratch cards (like lottery tickets) on pinterest and used that to make one with 7 hearts spelling my husbands name.  Under each heart is something I love about him that starts with the letter of his name.  Want to know how?  Print your card, then color the area you want to scratch off with white crayon as much as you can.  Mix 1 part dish soap with two parts acrylic paint and paint over it.  Done.
8.  HEART ATTACK!  I decorated the dining room with hearts.  LOTS of them.  And then we made pizza and I made them into heart shapes.  So much fun.  I think the kids loved this the most.
9.  9 gummy hearts being loaded onto a 'skid steer' by Han Solo Lego (with R2 helping)
10.  I made 10 pieces of fruit into a heart shape.  For breakfast again.
11.  This one was fun... and a lot of work.  I picked 11 songs that had some significance through our dating and married years together.  Basically, each song told a piece of our story, from when we were friends, through to now.  I didn't actually make a mix cd, but I sent him the youtube videos of each song, and listed them on a circular paper cut and put into a cd case.
12.  My favorite of the bunch, a year of dates.  12 bags, each containing one planned out date, for one date per month that is already planned!  Yay!
13.  A print of 1 Corinthians 13.  The love chapter.
14. A gift.  Wanna know what it was?  Two Star Wars figures, haha. 

Valentine's day wasn't without a bunch of fun to be had!  I had some fun with making lunch.  Used beets to color crepes and made it into a fun valentine's meal.  My daughter really wanted to wear her red tights to school, so on Thursday I made a Hello Kitty patch.  She loves them!  I did some marble painting with Bram while she was delivering valentines in school.  My dear husband brought me flowers (I love them!  They are a breath of spring in this cold winter), and made his own little setup with a heart vase, a coupon to get me a buildabear, plus a blind bag pony and a squishy pony, pony stickers, a bunch of Hershey's kisses, a hearts notepad (I ADORE stationary) and a chocolate rose (Funny story, when we were engaged he got me two chocolate roses for Valentines...11 years ago.  I still have them.  Yeah, I'm a bit sentimental like that).  And for supper we had lasagna, garlic bread, salad, all with candles and flowers on the table (the kids LOVED that).

Speaking of Valentines, here are some fun ones we made.

These crayon ones took a bit of work, but the kids helped me sort the crayons and remove all the paper bits before we chopped and melted them into hears.  They were apparently well received.  We only really had enough for the Kindergarten and preschool classes.  And their cousins, of course.

M is loving Valentine's day, too!  She's been making her own drawings for Valentines to give out all through this month, and with each gift I gave my dear husband, she had to give him something alongside it.  Such a sweetheart! 

Oh, and February isn't over yet...

What... I DID give him a CALENDAR for the first day... ;)

I LOVE hearts/Valentine's/February/crafts!  And there are two more fun days coming up this month... Zelda day and my baby's first birthday! 

Happy 2014

2013 is over.  2014 has begun.  How was your year?

December is always a hard month for me.  I love Christmas, but I set my expectations of myself far too high and end up stressing myself out.  I have two major projects that were to be Christmas gifts for my kiddos that never got finished.  The one is almost done, but the final coats of glaze (not really varnish... it doesn't act quite the same) are taking forever to dry (it DOES say slow drying finish... I just didn't realize it needed 24 hours or more.  It is STILL tacky).  The other... my pieces are cut to size, but it isn't assembled, and needs paint/varnish/finishes.  Ah well.  The kids will get gifts later into the year just for no reason, haha.

Does anyone else get the post Christmas blues?  I find Christmas comes so quickly, and passes without me having even realized it was here.  And then... done.  Over.  No more for another 364 days.  And my decorations are still up, even though half the lights have burned out on the tree, and the floor needs attention from the sweets that ended up there and weren't dutifully cleaned up in an instant.  And why mop when I still haven't taken down all the decorations that take up space on the floor?  I suppose I should do that tomorrow... it IS on my to-do list.

But it is fun.  The kids have a great time, and we have been working on learning about how it isn't about recieving presents.  In fact, leading up to Christmas, the kids did chores to earn a little pocket change they could spend on gifts for each other.  Dollarama to the rescue.  And they were so proud to give those gifts that they bought themselves! 

Our littlest member of the family now has her footprint immortalized in clay as ornaments, just like her older siblings had for their first Christmas.  I just finished (today... a bit late, but they'll be there for next year) my 2012 and 2013 family photo ornaments.  I made them this time.  I bought frame ornaments from 2008-2011, but couldn't find them last year or this year.  Ah well.  I like these ones.  Reusing old packaging is fun (especially when you add sparkles... everything is more fun with sparkles.  And mod podge).

Lately I've been feeling rather lazy.  I know I'm still doing things.  Looking at my scrapbooks, blogs, and my husband's facebook page, I'm doing lots of things, however I feel like I'm not getting anything done.  I know part of the problem is my high expectations of myself.  Another part is the facebook games I'm addicted to (darn that Candy Crush Saga...).  I've stopped 'caring' about many of the things I cared so much about only a year or so ago.  A clean house, up to date finances and bookwork, home cooked meals from scratch... I just don't want to do any of it.  I still do it, of course, but not as diligently.  Our house has dirty floors.  The dishes pile up until I can't bear to look at them anymore.  The meal planning hasn't been done for 6 weeks after having written it out diligently each week for well over 2 years (I finally wrote up a meal plan this week, and we haven't stuck to it at all, haha).  My husband has been making more meals than I care to admit.  And exercise... what is that, again?  My counters are piled high with unfinished projects, all of which I really want to work on but can't seem to get myself in gear to do.  Maybe if I make a list of the unfinished projects somewhere and not start on new ones until they are finished?  Or perhaps I need some kind of reward system.

Rewards.  What on earth would I give myself as a reward?

What would you do as a reward?

Anyway, this year I want to finish things.  I want to finally finish many of those projects I started.  I want to spend more time each day with the kids (and less on Candy Crush).  I want to go to bed earlier than midnight.  I want to feel something... something besides 'everything is useless'.  Because lately, I look at stuff and it is all just useless stuff.  I look at activities and they are all useless.  I look at what I do with my life, and it just seems pointless.  I need to find the point again.  I need to reconnect with God again.  Only He can give my life the meaning that I desire.  Not my kids.  Not my spouse.  Not my endless lists of tasks and projects.  God.

Still... those other things are nice to have, too.  ;)

A Fairy Party

My little girl turned 5 today.

 

We decided to do a fairy party for her birthday.  Through the last number of weeks I've been sewing, buying Dollarama items for decorations, baking, paper crafting, the works.

 

 

 For each girl, a set of wings and a tutu.

 

Total cost... $13 for 6 tutus and 5 sets of wings.  And a lot of sewing. 

So, in addition to the craft (which I have zero pics of... oops), this is what each girl gets.  The invite with the butterfly, and then the matching tutu and wings.

 

 

 

I volunteered to send mini cupcakes to school with M.  She's in kindergarten, can you believe it?  Anyway, they needed 20 for in school, so I made 4 dozen.  And decorated them.  All.  Plus the cake.  That took 3 hours! 

I love how they turned out!

 Here is the craft table, and M's first birthday gift... a Tinkerbell costume!

 

I printed a number of fairy papers for the girls to color, and inside the egg is 6 baggies which contain the materials to make wands, including stickers, gems, foam flowers I cut out, and an envelope with tattoos.   

We used the jolly jumper to hang the tutus and wings.  Just removed the spring.  I think it turned out beautifully. 

 And now... the fairy grotto!  I hid the room from immediate view using a tablecloth as a door.  I love how it all turned out!  It looked like a disaster only 30 minutes earlier!

 

I used the kids play tent and covered it in a shower curtain I already had, then a bunch of my fake flowers.  Blankets and sheets covered the computer and bookshelves. 

The birthday banner! 

The cake and cupcakes!  And the Spritz cookies.  I am addicted to those things! 

The table is my husband's parents.  It is beautiful!  I love it so much, and was so glad they let me borrow it for the party!  The lemonade has berries in ice cubes for cooling!  It ended up turning into pink lemonade as they melted. 

I created a waterfall and fairy pool.  Oh, and those mushrooms?  They light up and change color! 

 

 The waterfall bookcase.

 

 The tea party table setting.  I used some of my china, and my mom borrowed me some of hers.  I loved how this worked out!

 

 Tea time!

 

 Pin the wings on the fairy.

 

 Some other décor.

 

 We forgot to blow out candles... parents were arriving as we were doing the craft (oops... 2 hours wasn't enough time apparently).  So, I never got pics of their fairy wands.  I loved seeing their creativity, though!  Bram joined in on the fun at that point as well.

 

 We had our own little party in the grotto later.  A is 'sitting' on a chair in the spare costume.

 

 Happy Birthday, M!

 

I hope you had a magical birthday! 

 I still can hardly believe that 5 years ago, life changed for us forever... you entered our lives, and I wouldn't change it for the world!

 

 

Here are a few fun shots later that evening.

 Baby A loves the lights!

 

 

Total cost- less than $80 including the present!

 

food - I'll say $10 as all we really needed to buy was berries and pretzels, didn't nearly use them all, and the cost of the rest of the food is negligible.

décor - 5 mushrooms, $2 each.  2 mossy squares $2 each.  Acrylic acorns $2.  Fake plants $5.  Fabric, sheer curtains, tablecloths, streamers (which I didn't have time to use), $7(plus some borrowed). 

Easter grass - bought ages ago for dirt cheap (I think it was 10cents/bag... I had 6). <$1

Banner - used what I had 

Fairies - had them already.

craft - $3 (with lots of leftover supplies)

kids costumes - $13

invites - used stuff I had on hand, and the boxes those mushrooms came in.  Free.

M's costume and birthday gift - $25

 

 

A Fairy Birthday

Well, my daughter is turning 5 in about 2 weeks.  She decided (with a lot of prompting from me) on a fairy party.  I had so much fun with the invitations, and I have so many ideas for the party, too!  I hope I can make many of them come to fruition.

 

First, my main idea was to make the invites different... say, a fairy in a jar.  Since I was wary of giving glass jars to little 5 year old girls, I decided to use a clear plastic box instead.  And lucky me, I happened to have 5 of them!  I got to work making a poem for the invite, and worked on making butterfly hairclips.

 

I love how they turned out!

 

 There are 6... the birthday girl needs one of course, and hers is a little fancier than the others with a layer of special tissue paper overtop, and more gems on the wings.  I also picked a color that will complement her Tinkerbell costume that we bought for her for the occasion.  It's the same color as the flower on the skirt.

The other butterflies are very similar

 I painted a bobby pin with nail polish (some sparkly blue, others pink) and then cut out a paper butterfly using my Beautiful Butterflies Bigz die in each of the five colors that we also have as wings for the girls (they will 'become' fairies upon arriving).  The butterfly in their hair determines their wing color.  I cut a plastic butterfly from toy packaging for the backing so as to give them more structure and to prevent sparkles from getting in their hair.  And ease of use.  I mod podged sparkles all over these things after running the paper butterfly through the 'lacy brocade' embossing folder, and before adhering it to the plastic butterfly.  Slip on the bobby pin, add gems, and voila!  Sparkly butterfly.

I almost wanted to name them! 

 I made each of them a little fairy home.  The background of their 'home' is the invite itself.  You can see it from the back of the box and read it quite well.  Inside each 'home' is a daisy and an 'acorn lamp' I made using a paper clip, a cut disk from my trees, and an acrylic acorn from a bag of them I found at the dollar store (I couldn't resist them, they were so cute!).

 I love how they turned out!  Made one for my daughter too, of course.  It became Tinkerbell's lamp so 'she can work on her projects'.  I made one for me, too... cause they're cute... and I want one... and I made them, so there!

Here is the invite itself.  I wrote up the poem in little time.  Pretty proud of it, too... haha.  I thought poems work well for fairy tales, so why not?

All pretty in their boxes, awaiting their trip to each girl's home.  :)

Gah, why don't I have just one more of those boxes!  I am so tempted to buy another glowing mushroom so I can have another box for my daughter's butterfly home, haha.  Oh, and the grass?  Got that in a gift one Easter, years ago.  I save too many things.  Came in useful though, didn't it?  ;)

Now to solidify in my mind exactly what I will do to make the banner, the food signs, the 'seek and find' note...

This is too much fun!  I love having little girls!

Oh, and for fun, here is a pic of my baby looking at those glowing mushrooms I mentioned earlier...

Can you tell I got them for the party?  Yeah?  Thought so... too cute to pass up.  There is only 5 colors though... if I get a sixth, I'll need to double up a color...

Using what I've got! Crafts are fun!

I mentioned on a previous post about how I've been doing yardwork and such using the things I have already.  Well, one such thing was that I really wanted to get brick to put around the house to separate my dirt 'garden' area from the grass.  I found rocks in the area near the field and used them as a border instead!  Free!

 

And yesterday I finished up another little project.  I wanted to build little fairy 'houses' in the circle of trees we have.  I took some of the dead branches from the stuff I pulled out of the tree circle area and chopped them into discs and made this!

 there is a cute little path and some stools and table.

 I used twigs to make a 'doorframe' with 'steps' leading up to it.

 M wanted a firepit too, so we made one with some little stones.

 This one tree has lots of steps up into three areas.

 A different angle.

 And this is on a tree completely separate from that area... by our swings, actually.

 

Then, today I also made some cute pendants of sorts with some #6 recyclable plastic (mine is from the top of those containers you get already cooked rotisserie chicken in).  It works like shrinky dink plastic!  Did some with the kiddos, and made myself a set of earrings for later.  Need some jump rings of sorts though.

I think they turned out rather cute!  The kids had fun doing this, and I have lots left for doing more projects later on.  I look forward to it!

I got information for this project here at Rust and Sunshine, and here on Instructibles..

If you want to make stuff with this plastic, what I found worked was to draw on the plastic with black sharpie, then color on the other side so it didn't smudge the black.  Punch a hole and cut the pieces the way you want them because it will get thick as it shrinks.  It won't shrink uniformly either (the Mario charm did pretty good, but the others not so much).  These started off as 3-4inches high, and ended up about a third of the size.  Any bumps or text disappears as well with shrinking. 

To shrink, bake in a 250-350F oven.  Watch it as it shrinks and curls, settling flat after a minute or so.  It doesn't take long at all.

Have fun!