Just Jess

What I've been up to

2012-01-02T21:08:00.000-08:00

Dear Blog

2012-01-02T21:06:00.001-08:00

I'm back!!!!!!!

Project #6: Mom, my babies need a bed

2011-07-02T06:23:00.000-07:00

Just sharing this easy idea- a $4 wooden cd crate makes the perfect cradle for small dolls. She painted this all by herself so it makes it even more special (and it now has a permanent place on her bed). Her monkey babies also needed food so we took a little doll bowl, printed a clipart picture of banannas, and used epoxy glue and some yellow stickles to make it look extra special.

Anyone remember the monchhichi's? (the biggest draw of course for a 3-year old baby/ princess obsessed little girl is their 'ba-ba's' are permanently attached to their hand) We've been watching a lot of youtube tv epidodes lately. There were only a few (really bad quality) Monchhichi shows but her auntie passed on an old Sailor Moon plush backpack and now we know all the songs....

Fighting evil by moonlight
Winning love by daylight
Never running from a real fight
She is the one named Sailor Moon!

Project #5: princess frames

2011-06-26T22:43:00.000-07:00

The plan is to repaint girly girl's room pink (of course). I printed our favorite princess pics from Disneyland and bought some $1.50 frames.

Aren't they pretty?

Project #4: our very own dinosaur suitcase

2011-06-26T22:26:00.000-07:00

Yep I am getting very behind on my 52 projects goal- or at least posting them anyways :)

We actually completed this one last month. I stole the original idea for a dinosaur suitcase from this blog. If you want a tutorial check it out!

I had planned on doing this at Christmas but ran out of time but the thrift store suitcase was waiting for us.

We used a hot chocolate container (volcano), 2 boxes from the recycling (caves), and a $6 can of Great Stuff expandable foam.

We prepped the suitcase by painting it brown and once the base was done the kids did all the rest of the grass and lake painting (we were messy a few days in a row!)

The expandable foam was also painted (and to keep it that way we sprayed it with some clear sealant).

The kids also helped with the hot gluing (yes I'm crazy) of the rocks and trees. I started following Teacher Tom's blog and reading more about his projects with hot glue guns and preschoolers. So off to the store we went for some low-temp glue guns.

Most of this stuff we had around the house but we did spend another $10 or so on 'lava' rocks and more trees. So totally cost for this project was about $16.

And of course the best part is it closes together with all the dinos inside!

Project #3- 52 projects

2011-05-15T09:25:00.000-07:00

I am so happy to be part of an amazing online community- some of these women I've known for over 5 years now. Lucky for me when Michaels runs out of the supplies I need (lol) other crazy online crafters are there to support my addiction (thanks Dawn!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Here are the homemade autograph books for the kids. The cool part is I dusted off my Cricut for this one (you know that cutter that I promised my hubby I'd use all the time because I NEEDED it).

I used a pretty inexpensive 4X6 sketch book and to make the books more durable I laminated each cover and glued it to a piece of cereal box. The cool part is that Alladin commented that "someone did a good job on these" while he was signing (yep I was always a fan of his!)

And guess what, they are now FULL of signatures of all the characters we met!

Thanks Pluto, Mickey, Minnie, Pooh bear, Dora, that guy from Pinnochio that we can't remember the name, all the Princesses, etc.. etc.......................

Project #2- 52 Projects

2011-04-23T11:57:00.000-07:00

For our room makeover the little guy found this canvas at Ikea for $35. So we took a picture of it.....

Bought a $5 canvas at Jysk and we painted our own!

Project #1- 52 projects

2011-04-05T21:14:00.000-07:00

And here is the first and an easy one too. Hot glue, cheap headbands, + ribbon and other doo-dads = fabulous headbands for my little girly girl.

Just keep wrapping the ribbon around the headband while burning your fingertips with the hotglue. :)

A perfect way to match to her little outfits. Since we can never find matching socks in this house at least her headband can match.

sharing some of our good ideas

2011-01-09T20:57:00.000-08:00

We've been busy, busy, busy lately (always!) with fun projects so I thought I'd share some of our faves with you. Beware this is a long post, it's been awhile so I guess I'm making up for lost time!

1) Our fairy house

The little guy and I worked on this project for babygirl's christmas gift. Well he mainly worked on painting the buckets (for the fairy beans) and popsicle stick siding while I burnt the crap out of my fingers hot gluing moss, colored stones, and butterflies and flowers. We picked up the house from M's for pretty cheap with a coupon and everything else was dollar store finds. Turns out there is also a super cool handmade fairy house in Tinkerbell II (another Christmas gift) which was super cool.

2) Space Shuttle

After putting the final touches on the fairy house the little guy said to me "I can't wait to see what you made me mommy!" Well that sent me in a panic trying to come up with something special for the little guy too (they ended up opening them both on Christmas Eve morning so they'd be a little special, you know before super cool commercial toys were opened). The wine tube was picked up at the dollarstore (do you see a theme here?) I tried spray painting it initially but it was too glossy and wouldn't cover well. I ended up using tin foil and black permnanet marker which worked well (the very top was just a rolled cereal box hot glued on). The control panels were online images and I added some details like bottle caps for a little more fun. And of course we need a place to store the moon rocks too (a small plastic container from dollarstore covered with tinfoil).

3) A Knight Party- It started with a little idea to have some of friends over to make pizzas (which were yummy!) and the new Castle from Santa and empty boxes from Ikea inspired me to help make it an extra special playdate. We spent the night before cutting out different shield shapes out of cardboard. To make them strong I hot glued a second piece of cardboard to the inside. It kept four 5-year olds and one 8 year-old busy for a good 45 minutes- each designed their own battle shield with paints (think lots of gold and silver) and gem stones. Once they were done we hot glued another piece of cardboard for the handle. We gave each kiddo a newspaper sword also made the night before complete with a cool handle. I have to admit it wouldn't work well for me but the hubby came to the rescue. The princess (complete with a cardboard tiara she also created) helped determine the winner(s) as they chopped off limbs in our livingroom.

4) Another fun little 'party' we had over the holidays was an 'ocean' party with my neice and nephew (both 3). We hung blue streamers from the ceiling above the kitchen table and taped a big piece of blue plastic (dollar store rain coat). Then we used glass stones, ocean animals, and playdough to create an ocean. I was amazed that they sat there a good 50 minutes happily playing. After we decorated fish using paper plates and ate lots of swedish fish and goldfish crackers of course. We are going to try to do a few more themed play dates I think. It is good for my inner kindergarten teacher and keeps the kids from screaming and fighting

5) Our Idea Jar-

Our latest project is our idea jar (and come on, so much more fun than a pickle jar). The little guy keeps making comments about it smelling like pickles :)

To make it easier I colored coded the strips with ideas for anytime,weekends, and ones just for them. All the ideas are things (or toys, games, etc..) we already have around the house. It helps them from killing each other while we are stuck in the house for the rest of the winter and also to make our time together after work/ school a little special too. So far it's been a huge hit! The rule is one per day although we went through lots this weekend having been snowed in since Friday! There must be 50 strips in there but here are some of my faves (in case you wanna make your own idea jar, there are also lots of examples online too which is where I originally stole this idea!)

ANYTIME:
Make some 'thumb print' animals
Read a book and draw a picture about it
Draw a picture of your family
Make a craft using items from the recycle bin
Make a rocket from lego
Make a boat from recycled stuff
Make a car using lego wheels
Have a go go crazy bones battle
Build an obstacle course for the mighty beans
Use your moon sand so astronauts can land on a planet
Make dinner using playdough
Build the tallest lego tower that you can
Play hopscotch inside with masking tape
Make a fort under the kitchen table
Use your playdough to make some bugs

WEEKEND:
Go to the library and learn about space
Have a scary movie night- don’t be scared!
Go swimming
Go to a playpark
Cook something special that you pick out yourself
Make your very own book
Make a puppet show for mom and dad- make sure to practice
Make your own pet store using stuffed animals
Build a fort and sleep in it

BABY GIRL
Give your baby a bath
Play with your dress up dolls
Let strawberry shortcake go swimming
Put on the music and have a dance party
Color a picture for mommy
Make a necklace
Have a tea party with your dollies

LITTLE MAN
Go to a cool science website http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/
Play your favorite Wii game
Do a new science experiment
Dissect some aliens today
Make something using popsicle sticks

and the list goes on.....................................

i've created a monster

2010-11-23T08:55:00.000-08:00

a craft monster.

Ever since he was super little we've always done crafty stuff. It was always my plan to get him interested in doing projects (preparing for school) and to keep him contained for more than 3 minutes at a time.

But now at 5 he follows me around the house (I can't shake him- seriously I've tried. He even stands outside my door while I'm in the bath) talking non-stop about all his crafty ideas. And he has lots of ideas and talks fast (and the faster he talks the harder he is to understand). He loves making anything (in fact he asked for "science" from Santa). I asked him, what is science? And he said, "you know making stuff and testing stuff".

As I type he's standing next to me holding a chipboard aligator, an acrylic bird, a felt bear sticker, a felt rocket, and a chipboard thing that says 'on cloud 9' and asking me if he can scrapbook.

Like what the heck, (first off where did you find these precious items?). I wanted to get you interested in crafts but NOT scrapbooking. Mommy scrapbooks and doesn't like to share. Can I tell him scrapbooking is only for girls? Just kidding of course.

the way my brain works

2010-11-08T20:28:00.000-08:00

is that I get a project idea in my head and I want to make it happen.

Well unfortunately it's 9:30pm on a Monday night and Wal-Mart isn't open for it's 24 hour christmas shopping yet. It's just me, my big ideas, and this blog (and my husband watching some lame show and everyone else nestled all snug in their beds).

This year I've decided that everyone is going to get a special handmade gift from me (of course they'll get other gifts as well- just in case what I turn out makes it on Craftastrophe- you know 'because handmade isn't always pretty.'

Well I found this post and now I'm on a mission to make a fairy house or 2. I already have a small bottle but I'd also like to do something with salt dough as well. Check this out this one. We are getting the little one Tinkerbell 2 and I've already picked up some of those micro mini Disney fairies. So small that for most 2.5-year olds it's probably a big no-no. But my girl loves all things little and she is really good about her little toys too. I can't wait to see if I can pull this off to give the fairies and littlest pet shops a nice little home.

Still working on ideas for the little man but check out this- wow!

Our Saturday

2010-10-31T09:39:00.000-07:00

I came across this post on Friday night and showed it to my little guy. Of course that started his 'talking-a-million-miles-a-minute-about-his-ideas' thing that he has been doing lately- so cute and proof I am definitely helping nurture his creativity. Well usually cute except when it's 7am on a workday when I'm trying to get ready and he follows me from each room of the house listing all his ideas. Of course I knew what we'd be doing on Saturday and it fit well with the halloween weekend too (not to mention mommy needing to be close to the computer to finish her assignment and presentation).

One can of $7 silver spray paint from Home Depot, 2 boxes, and some printable gauges and dials (thanks clipart!) and viola- 2 homemade robots.

The little one has an extra cute robotic voice "I.. am.. a... robot... I.. am.. a.. robot...."

While we were waiting for the paint to dry we took out the collections of cute Mickey Mouse paint chips we also grabbed (free!) and made some color books. I cut out chipboard pieces for the front and back and used eyelets and ribbons to hold them together. For the little guys book we wrote the names of each color so he can see the spelling of each word (since he thankfully knows all his colors of course)

Nana also surprised us with some cool halloween foam kits for the kids. We tried out best to put them together (@#$$#!!!) and when that didn't work we resorted to gluing the pieces down to construction paper and letting the kids decorate. When we were all finished I cut the leftover pieces into shapes and they spent 45 minutes having a late night Saturday bath before bed building more robots. See this post and prepare to be amazed. We were! So much that we spent Sunday afternoon before trick-or-treating in the bath again with more foam pieces (dug out some foam packs I had picked up from the dollar store). No fancy cutting here- just basic geometric shapes turned robot and alien monsters and obstacle courses.

now I know my ABCs

2010-10-24T21:02:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I have troubles matching my ABC's with the sounds so it's nice to have visual cues to help me out. :) Plus it's a great tool for speech therapy.

Here's how you can make your own ABC box:

1) Steal the original idea from someone else's blog

2) Spend $10.79 (on sale) at Canadian Tire for a box meant to hold nails/ screws

3) Spend another $1.50 for some letter stickers- epoxy them on with Glossy Accents so they don't keep falling off

4) Go digging for what is now being referred to in my house as "small stuff" (most of this we already had although I did spent about $5 at the $ store). Actually we've been talking about this 'small stuff' since last Wednesday- the little guy is coming up with ideas non-stop (yep I'm good) and keeps talking about letters (big mommy point for me!) For some of the harder letters we used clipart because no matter how hard we searched there were no mini YAKs or OSTRICHs to be found in this house :) I'd love to pick up a little laminator so they last a little while longer. We also added some magnetic letters (another $1.50 purchase) but I'd love to find some smaller case alphas to add as well. I tried raiding my scrap stash but it's already been ransacked (evidently I scrap too much). This might help encourage him to use smaller-case when he is writing (he still insists capital letters are the ONLY way to spell his name (even had a long "discussion" with his teacher about it on the first day of K!)

5) Fill boxes!!!

B- bandaid, bucket, butterfly, bat, button, barrel
C- cow, card, crayon, car, cake, cup
W- wheel, whale, worker, window
P- princess, plate, parrot, popsciel, pumpkin, penny, pirate, paperclip, pig
D- dog, donkey, dino, duck, donut

A- alligator, ants, axe, acorn, army guy
L- lizard, ladybug, lego, lion
H- heart, hat, horse, house
R- raft, take, rock, rooster, ring
T- truck, tiger, tree, turtle, tanl

And in case you want to make your own, here's some ideas for the harder ones (= lotas clip art).

E- eraser, earth, elephant, eight, eskimo, envelope, ear
I- icecream, icecube, iceskate, insect, igloo
J- jack, jet, jam, jacket, jaguar
K- key, king, kettle, karate, kiss, kite, kangaroo
N- nail, nailpolish, nest, neckllace
0- orange, octupus, olive, otter, ostrich
Q- queen, question (mark), quarter, quilt, quill
U- umbrella, umpire, unicorn
V- violin, van, vaccum, valentine,
X- xray, xylophone, x-men (lol),
Y- yoyo, yak, yellow, yarn
Z- zoo, zebra, zero, zombie

It's a great tool for the little man and will get lots of use with the little one too. She already sings the song :)

our latest two boxes

2010-10-20T19:45:00.000-07:00

So while 'surfing blogs when I should have been doing something important like cleaning my disaster of a house or doing coursework for that Masters degree that I'm supposed to be working on hard on,' I came across another cool bloggy site- Pink and Green Mama

And of course I decided right then and there that an ocean box was exactly what I needed to make my kids-but instead of just rocks I'll add gallons of water. And wait if I keep their socks on will that equal washing the floors?

Add colored rocks and shells from the good ole Dollarama, one tube of sea animals, the lego boat, a scuba pirate dude from dollarama, the MickeyD's mermaid, a treasure chest that used to have some sort of hard yucky gum, a $7 plastic bin + 2 kids = so much fun.

But what happens when winter comes? It snows of course! Except this kind is way more fun because it's inside. But it's still fluffy and cold and you can shape it, kinda. And it lasts weeks!

Add some penguins, polar bears, a Reindeer and some Husky dogs and we have winter!

Next up- sand. Yes I'm crazy but crazy is the best kind.

Hi blog

2010-10-09T11:59:00.000-07:00

it's been awhile... sorry for neglecting you. I've been busy but I know that's no excuse. I promise to be a better poster and check in on you a little more often.

But that's all for now, still having writer's block :) But this is a start!

things i love

2010-08-01T07:28:00.000-07:00

1. long weekends- especially when they get to start at noon on Friday. The kids & I had a blast at the green shack at the park. I miss the days at as a kid playing with the parks & rec teenager- so fun! Friday we planted stuff and had a water fight, and even learned a new sand tag game that the lil guy didn't quite catch on to (making it extra cute to watch!) We played until lil girl pooped and thus ruined the party (haha- had no diaper bag so we had no choice to go home).

2. chai tea lattes for my Tassimo- yum!!!!!

3. going down lbs on the scale without effort- A++. It seems I go up the scale without much effort so this was much better. When I told dh he replied back "I thought you looked like you lost weight." haha nice try buddy. You got your new iphone toy so leave me alone :P

4. scrapbooking! I made a page last night! (and yes I should be doing an online module for school which is why scrapbooking seemed *very* appealing last night! But regardless of why, I remembered that I miss my paper and glue!)

5.Day trips with the family. We're going to a brand-new dinosaur park today where the dinos are lifesize and robotic. I mean how much cooler can you get? (I think I am the most excited). Plus I need to put my dino stamps to use (see #4).

6. etsy! Seriously can this site be any cooler? In the last week I've ordered a cool Superman/Batman cape, 10 blank capes and 10 blank masks for the big superhero party (did I mention the girls get pink and purple?). I need to hook my paypal up to my bank account because this could get dangerous on the ole credit card!

7. conversations with an almost-5 year old:

mommy: I don't want you to turn 5 because then you won't want to sleep in my bed anymore

superhero: I promise to sleep in your bed. Even when I'm an adult.

mommy: I don't believe you.

superhero: I promise I will pee in your bed forever. yeah.

(okay not sounding so cute anymore, forgot about that part. Moms always forgot "that" part- but I won't because it's gotta go on a layout now!).

Look out Fisher Price!

2010-06-20T09:49:00.000-07:00

How cute are these?

from l to r- my little boy (he likes the monster t-shirt), my little girl, me (can you see the resemblence?), not sure, baby girls best friend, not sure

I rediscovered a post on Jenn's blog and thought wow those would be some cute homemade Little People! So off to Michael's we went because of course when I get something in my head I need to make it make it happen, NOW! We found the heads with the faces prepainted (I just did the hair!) and then we found wooden spools that we painted then modge podged with scrap patterned papers (because of course I have more than enough scrap paper to make as many little People as there are people in North America).

The little girl thinks they are very pretty. :P

While we were in the wood section we also found a whole bunch of little wooden blocks in a package for about $3 (= SCORE!). After gluing them into different sized buildings both kiddos had fun painting them up and then I did the final touches. To make it easier I used blank label stickers from the $ store to make the windows and doors. Our town is complete with a pizza place, 7-11, apartment building, houses, police station and school.

A black foam board ($2 at Walmart) and some crayons and voila- our own little city for the lil guys collection of micro cars!!!!

We also bought road sign stickers (Dollarama is our friend) but we still need to pick up toothpicks so we can push them into the foam and make our city roads more authentic (may have to use a pencil and make some potholes too :P) The only thing is missing is a mayor and tax collection.

What did we do this weekend?

2010-06-06T21:36:00.000-07:00

My Family from WiddlyTinks.com

1) Made this family thing- oh the wonderful things to pass time on the world wide web
2) Felt like crap and missed a girls night out :(
3) Made lots and lots of Pixo creations- the little guy really loves these and mommy does too because they are no mess.
4) cleaned
5) cleaned at the preschool (our cleaning night) = slave labour. 1 million toys + dishwasher = shoot me now.
6) scrapbooked a little bit. I need to keep my sanity somehow!
7) played in the water at the park (It really felt like summer!) and had a little picnic with the family
8) tackled Wal-Mart (needed groceries) and won!
9) time for bed because Monday morning is coming quickly nite!

what shall we do today?

2010-05-22T11:37:00.001-07:00

Clean the house? Boring. And too much work. Pass

Scrapbook? All my stuff is too messy. I can't find anything and need to spent a few hours organizing. Too much work. Pass

Go out for the afternoon? The house is too messy so THAT would make me feel guilty. Plus it would be a lot of work to get kids dressed, organized, and ready to go anywhere. Not to mention the stress of being out in public with often whiney or demanding children. Pass

Lay on the couch and play with the kids all long-weekend? Bingo! Last night was movie night and we watched Tooth Fairy and Tinkerbell's Lost Treasure. Tonight will be round two. I love being lazy!

some fun from my last crop!

2010-05-15T09:57:00.001-07:00

Daddy took the kids to the Valley Zoo while I had to work :( But at least I got a cool scrapbook page out of it! Had fun using the collage feature in Picasa- love it and then off to Costco for printing- so easy!

Evan loves to show his bum for the camera. Drives me crazy, yes, but had to capture this moment in time. Afterall, he's bound to outgrow this stage, right? Let's hope so.

I just love this picture I took- isn't she lovely? I made her :)

Off to due some cleaning around the house!

Now that I'm done school

2010-04-22T19:52:00.001-07:00

until September I have a list of projects I'd like to try over the summer. No I'll leave out the renos we SHOULD be doing and the fact cleaning my oven is a project in itself. Actually it's unlikely I will do any of THOSE projects because 1) I'm kind of lazy 2) I'd rather attempt (key word) something crafty 4) play is more fun than work

So here goes my list, in no particular order.

1) make a purse thingy (yes that's what it's called- check out this post and might as well check out the whole cool blog while you are at it)

2) Make some itty bitty cupcakes just because they are itty bitty

3) I bought 50 of these babies and then didn't even try to make one! (yes there's a bit of a pattern here)

4) take scrabble tiles and make jewelry! Seriously want to try this: and make purdy ones like this

5) I saw this project a while ago and I still *love love love* it. It's something I'd do and put away until baby girl is bigger. It reminds me of the cardboard houses my mom made us girls when we were little...

6) I bought a quilt pattern last month on an impulse "I-have-a-1/2 hour-to-spare-before-going-back-to-work-and-the-only-store-close-by-is-a-place-called-quilters-dream". The problem is I can't sew but I don't something like that should stop me from living out the dream ;) I'm thinking pinks and blacks and baby doll size to start

7) scrapbook

8) scrapbook

9) scrapbook

10) Drink a lot at the camp site while reading my books in the hot hot hot sun while relaxing on my lawnchair :)

2010-04-07T19:47:00.000-07:00

king of the castle

2010-02-20T20:16:00.001-08:00

haha! He *really* gets into it.

How long do kids play dress-up? sixteen-seventeen? ;) Because I really love this stage.

Happy love day!

2010-02-15T09:28:00.000-08:00

Used 4 of the 5 prompts this time for the new Mission to Create - turquoise, cardboard, 5+ hearts, lace (used some pretty paper doilies). Yep that's number 0010 and I've done them all!

We had a romantic day yesterday- flowers and chocolate delivered to the house (awww!), heart pancakes by daddy (well not really but I stamped them with a heart cookie cutter!). Then we had the most romantic evening out- at Chuck E Cheese! Complete with a huge line-up just to get in (even tried to bribe them with buying new toys to get out of it but they were having none of it). The words of my nephew says it all "it's like a casino- for kids!"

These were the pictures from the sketch machine last night. And of course I had to scrap them right away.

A little frustrating with big girl last night. She was giving major attitude (and it doesn't help that we were getting lots of smiles because she is so cute when she is dramatic). See?

Valentine's Day

2010-02-10T20:47:00.000-08:00

The little guy REALLY wanted to bring a treat for his class so we made these tonight. I'm so happy they turned out so sweet. The papers are double-sided so there is another pretty pattern on the reverse.

1 bag of "better for you" organic suckers (to make THOSE parents happy ;))
green pipecleaners
bee stickers
glue
treat bags & ribbon
heart punch!

I love that he wanted to buy boy AND girl Valentines (we also did pink flowers for the girls and blue for the boys). He even knew exactly which girl needed which princess card too (and got quite upset when I mixed him up) and did most of the writing himself.

I can't wait to do his first Valentine's page! (My plan is to steal all his lil cards once he's cast them aside a few days from now) ;) Does this mean I have issues?

Scrap happy

2010-02-07T09:59:00.000-08:00

Another Mission complete for Mission to Create!

I used the fab sketch, book print (how fun and it's Valentine's paper too!) and the flowers.

And for JennC's challenge on skrapnchat- thanks Stacy for all the supplies for this one!

another mission

2010-01-13T15:25:00.000-08:00

For mission to create completed! I used 3 of the 5 prompts this time: paint (as inking), stitching (on picture and journaling spots), and a curved title.

INVEST

2010-01-04T23:14:00.000-08:00

Is my word for the year. Why? Because everyone else is doing it and I'm a follower like that :)

Why the word invest? This will be a year to invest in ourselves and our family- the obvious stuff like saving money for a new home and the less obvious like investing in school (2nd class starts next week!) and our children (good quality family time!)

I like it!

My newest mission

2010-01-02T13:55:00.001-08:00

0007 for Mission To Create is finished. :)

I used 3 prompts: red, strip journaling, and stamping (love these magnetic stamps from MM! Especially knowing I only paid $5 for them at the last garage sale)

And I am proud to say I broke out the new sewing machine (from 2 Christmases ago!) and here are my very first stitches! I can feel a new addiction coming on. I am trying to decide on a first project- maybe boxer shorts for the boys and a tote bag for baby girl.

a couple of los

2009-12-30T10:20:00.003-08:00

from my sweet days off (pink eye, hacking cough and all!). It's back to the grind tomorrow.

The first lo is for 0006 at Mission to Create. I used felt (went out to buy flocking for it too- because I'm dedicated like that!), polka dots, black pen, label stickers (i think these count). I also used all the colors but it really small doses so I'm not sure if that counts.

And finally- a first merry 2009 lo!

I love that Christmas can stay all year if you scrapbook! HO HO HO!

Little girls are so much fun

2009-12-27T19:54:00.000-08:00

Had to do some rearranging with all the new Christmas stuff so I thought I'd take some pictures (to scrapbook of course!). Had to fit in baby girl's new cottage tent and store (never did quite fit the store but that's okay). Everything was 40% off which is why we ended up with so much!!! She has the smallest room ever and I don't think we can fit one more of anything which is good because I don't plan on buying anything else for a long, long, long time. I'll have to remind her nana of that though. It's hard to be the first baby girl in 21 years! The cottage actually isn't too bad because it folds into the "house" or the sides stack into each other. We set up the store just outside the door- kinda makes sense. haha

Kitchen fun! When we were cleaning I passed her the silverware and told her to put it away (i.e. in the drawer) and she threw the whole pile in the sink. I guess she cleans like I do! haha!

Shopping!!!! Thanks nana for the awesome store.

Hi I'm 21 mons and my nana has already bought me a huge doll house.

The best part of the house is the door! It's magnetic too- super cool.

This is what the tent looks like if you put them together. And it makes a good hiding place too- we wanted to change her bum earlier and she disappeared and we found her hiding out in here.

I plan on doing the same thing with the "big boy's" room tomorrow and will take some pics. But let's face it- nothing in there is minature and pink and oh so cute!!!! There are no pink aprons, oven mitts, mini brooms, my little ponys, or cabbage patch dollies.

But it is pretty cute when he has a temper tantrum about going to bed and that insists on finding his "cheeky monkey" to go to bed with.

I had time to play!

2009-12-06T09:24:00.001-08:00

It took me a while but I've been wanting to get these challenges for Mission to Create done for weeks. Finally finished my paper (woh ho! can you say relief????) and got time to play this weekend!

Challenge #4:
I used 3 of the 5: Children's book title, a creature (how cute is that BG caterpillar?), and mini alphas (stickers!) These little id cards are from Chuck E Cheese- so fun! The baby wanted the cards but when it was time to wait to take the picture she didn't want to cooperate She'd cry because she wanted to get down to look in the slot to see if it was out yet haha. So that's why we ended up with so many and so many with her lil miserable faces. Of course I stole them all right away for the scrapbook :)

Challenge #5: I used 3 of the 5 prompts: stick pin, journaling cards, and a handmade flower! Just a quick one but I've wanted to get this pic in the book for awhile.

i should be...

2009-11-26T20:41:00.000-08:00

writing my paper. I only need 20 pages of critical reflection and have less than a week left to do it. And my grad school acceptance depends on it.

i should also be cleaning my house. It's a real mess and I mean *real* mess. Some things are growing in here (and I don't mean the kids!)

But instead I'm doing important stuff like harvesting my potato crops in Farmville, updating my blog (that no one reads), and finding cool stuff on etsy and kiiji just because it's fun and not because I need to buy anything else for this too full house.

I need a procrastination intervention!

Challenge #3 and more

2009-11-15T11:32:00.001-08:00

It was a productive weekend. Homemade lip balms,scrapbooking, and well- everything except my 20 page paper.

Here is my third challenge for Mission to Create. I used 3 of the 5 prompts this time: 1) Sketch 2) Pink 3) buttons. I'm so glad I got these sweet photos scrapped!

And here's 2 more from my crop night on Friday...

I just love the Walmart parking lot shot. I'm so glad I insisted on bringing the camera even though hubby thought I had lost my marbles. Of course I've lost my marbles!

It's Christmas over here!

2009-11-14T23:47:00.000-08:00

The best part too- the homemade stuff!

I finally finished my Karen Foster advent calendar for the kiddos. Not nearly as fancy smancy as some of the ones I've seen but I know they will love this thing(especially when they realize it will be full of lil things for them). I love starting new traditions with my kids. I wonder what I can put in it when they are 21 and 24? [insert rolling eyes smiley]

You can't tell from the pic but there are A LOT of stickles on there. I <3 stickles! Need to still figure out what I can put in it for baby that she won't want to swallow and choke to death on. But for the boys I picked up micro cars- they don't make Micro Machines anymore so the good santa that I am I searched kijiji, drove to the other side of the city, and picked up a $4 lil bucket full! Santa is really liking kijiji this year (and no santa is not 100% sure how to spell it ;)

I've also been making Christmas presents.Here is something I'm really proud of.....

My first batch of lip balms (vanilla)! Aren't they soo cool? The recipe (flavoring, beeswax, sweet almond oil, cocoa butter, coconut oil, vitamen E oil) was super easy too- I will definitely be making more (okay I am going to make a dozen orange creamsicle before bed!) I also picked up a digital kitchen scale to try my hand at soap (lye)- stay tuned to see if/ when I manage to burn myself or others in the family. :P It'll be the Christmas everyone remembers because their skin was red and raw from their new soap.

dinosaur island!

2009-10-29T15:25:00.000-07:00

Okay I have to post this project from last weeekend because well, it's the coolest thing we have ever done and it so deserves it's own blog post. In fact it was so cool and amazing that, at the end of the day before bed, my little guy SOBBED in my arms when it to be taken apart.

Yes kids sobbing shouldn't be a happy thing but it made it all worth it.

It started with this post from a crazy, amazing mom who is now on my blog stalking list.

And here's what we did.

First we used recylables including a pizza box with a pyrex dish cut into it and lots of tin foil (I ended hot gluing some of the boxes and tinfoil together to help make it a solid unit)

And a million (emphasis on a million) homemade playdough batches later and it became this:

It took us a couple days to prepare for this project- making the playdough, finding everything we needed. I had the little guy SO into it. One night we went "rock hunting" around the neighborhood to find all the best rocks. We found the ants and spiders at the dollar store (perfect timing with Halloween!) We used every lego plant, bush, snake, and shark we could find. The ferns and plants were another sweet dollar store find that were easily cut to the right height.

The lake was a big hit, especially with the baby, and the blue food color made it that much cooler. It got pretty slimey at the end of the day but I was impressed everything stayed together pretty well. If it wasn't in the middle of my diningroom table and if I wasn't worried about water damage I would have left it a few days even though it was drying out to let them have more play out of it.

Did I mention LOTS of homemade playdough batches?

And the coolest part yet that made the boys FREAK

Daddy got in on the fun too :) Daddys pretty cool, but not as cool as mommy.

messy messy fun

2009-10-28T17:57:00.000-07:00

Okay here is my mission #2 for Mission to Create. I used 4 of the 5 prompts only this time because I didn't have any cork but now I need some- does that count? I used green, purple, and orange/ halloween/ stamping/ wallet sized pic. This was super fun to throw together while watching Dexter! lol

We got *really* messy today painting pumpkins. Here is my favorite artsy (yeah right, I do try though) shot. I love the little feet.

more scrappy

2009-10-26T20:01:00.000-07:00

I found some older pics that I hadn't scrapped yet (amazing I know). Awww look how lil she is!

I'm back!!!!

2009-10-12T21:25:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile since I deleted my blog but I'm back! It'll probably take some time to personalize everything but that's part of the fun right?

So to start it off here's a new lo for a great new challenge site- Mission to Create (and isn't something scrap happy always a good thing to start a blog off with?) http://missiontocreate.blogspot.com/

I used all 4 items: challenge sketch, stickles (chipboard circles), 6 word title, & 3 different pp manufacturers!