Boys will be boys?

Having had my first child be a girl I am just really getting to discover the differences between boys and girls. Like having to say please don't climb the 2" overhang on the stairs until you are hanging 6 feet in the air. Or how did you get to be hanging from your wall shelf with nothing under you and it is 5 feet off the ground?
So now I get to say remember don't stand on the windowsill or you might break your arm. The pull of seeing a fire truck I will admit is probably strong but seriously. Stand on a windowsill, that is maybe 4" deep? So one fractured humerus later we have a 3 year old boy in a cast. The next dilemma was what can I dress you in!
So for those that need to know now or will need to know in the future here it is. By the way he has a cast that goes from below shoulder to around the thumb. I have found the fake layered t-shirts are working pretty good as I can cut off the sleeve at the short sleeve seam. This allows his good arm (argh I hate saying that) to be warm and use the short sleeve side to go on first over his bright red cast. The bonus is absolutely no sewing as the fake short sleeve is already hemmed! :-) Take a closer look at the photo at the top for the finished shirt! The white arm si the one with the cast. He wouldn't let us take the sleeve off the cast they put on when we left.
Hope this adds some help to other Moms of boys who love to climb and break arms!

Sorry , ,so sorry

I apologize for the time between posts. I have good reasons though! The good and bad news is we are in the process of hopefully moving! :-) My husband has his own business which is great . .especially since he has been able to work from home for 8 years. His business is growing and he is needed in Nashville TN! So we have a wonderful house for sale in a suburb of Richmond VA.

In addition to being gone most of August, getting kids ready then settled into school, some off and on health issues and preparing a house for sale I have been a little distracted. Our home has been on the market for not quite 30 days and while the interest has been great no offers yet.

So I am soliciting advice on how to cope with two kids, a hubby who is traveling and keep a company afloat, all while trying to sell a house! :-)

If you have lived, or do live in Nashville some local information would be awesome. We are looking at houses sporadically but it is hard to do util we have a contract on our home here.

Here is a picture of my home for 10 years!

We have done some great updating and I will post later on some of our house features I love! But first could use some advice! Here are two areas in the home that I am debating to paint over. I hate to as they were both labors of love but I am realistic that it doesn't appeal to everyone.

The first up is in my family room. We have a large wall over the sofa and couldn't afford a large piece of art or many frames to fill the space at the time. I painted a block of color then highlighted the edge with a freehand detail to bring in the colors in the rest of the house. I have all intentions of conveying the frames with the house so the future owners could put their photos into the frames. But realistically I know not everyone likes these colors. My hubby is voting for putting a sign that says we could paint over it prior to closing. What do you all think?

The second area in question is the dining room. It is one of the first rooms I finished in the house. I stenciled the border (10 step process) but so worth it in my book. Our realtor is afraid potential buyers might think it is a wallpaper border. I haven't wanted or had the heart to paint over it! What is your opnion paint over it or leave it and offer to paint over it upon purchase. (By the way we have all the paint to paint over or have provie the future owners).

Freebie Friday!

Hope this finds everyone doing well and looking forward to the end of summer as much as I am. I will be traveling heavily the next few weeks off and on so it will be hard for me to do many more freebie Fridays until September. I will try but forgive me if I am not able to! :-)

I have two wonderful children who decided to make their earthly debut both in February. This past birthday I had a lot of fun creating their themed birthday invitations using my Storybook software from Creative Memories.

My son's theme was rockets, he LOVES rockets and is in a different colored "rocket" each night as he blasts off to bed. My daughter loves Barbies so of course this was her theme.

I wanted to share these two invitations with you to show you how you can create wonderful invitations at a fraction of the cost on your own. I haven't purchased invitations or cards for years now.

The rocket invitation below was put together by hand but all the pieces were created on my computer or cut out using my Cricut machine (the greatest hubby on earth gave this to me for Christmas!). The Freebie part of this is the rocket image. Believe it or not I created this totally digitally using the storybook software. I just used the shape tools and cut the shapes I knew I wanted. So feel free to download this and use for your little astronaut!

The Barbie Party we had for my 7 year old daughter was so much fun! I planned a ton of games and will create a post regarding this party soon. If you are planning a barbie party for this age group I have the whole thing planned! Below is her invitation. The Freebie part are the three Barbie pictures. I created this line drawing by hand and scanned into my computer then imported into my Storybook software. My daughter and I had a blast digitally changing her dress color, shoes, present colors etc . . . So let your inner diva have fun with these images or share it with your Barbie lover in your family.

I hope you all enjoy these images and if you love to create your own cards feel free to use these to create some cards. My daughter loves to color her own Barbie in and also use some of my scraps of fabric to dress her barbie! She cuts the fabrics out and glues them on with a glue stick!
Have fun & I hope to post more frequently soon!!!

Freebie Friday! (and on time)!! :-)

The winner is Kim! (send me an email with your mailing address & your choice of either the ladybug or the rocket fabric. I will get this shipped out to you, congrats!

Still Time left to win the tic tac toe game of your choice!!! Leave a comment by 12 pm tonight!
Freebie Friday!

So I posted this past Sunday that I would make this worth your while and I hope I have! So as my previous post said about bottle caps I have collected quite a few last summer. I have been trying to think of all the different crafts I can do such as the bottle cap magnets. I have come up with a tic tac toe game for kids (or adults who still think they are kids) that can travel with you. Yes using bottle caps . .wait I know you are asking for kids are you sure? Bottle caps will go right into their mouths . .no they won't!

So here is a peek and information on the giveaway that I try to have (failed completely last week).

For the Give away: Reply to this post by Sunday 12pm and on Monday morning I will announce the winner. The winner will be determined by random generator and must be a US citizen (sorry but I can't afford international shipping! :-) You will have your choice of the Rocket baby fabric or the ladybug & dragon fly fabric.

I will post a separate post regarding how to create this tic tac toe game using bottle caps! Here are more pictures of the game. Oh and this is not intended for kids under 3 as they may try to chew on the game pieces which contain magnets.

Here are pictures of the game and the game pieces. There is a triangular pocket on the left that holds the game pieces and it all rolls up to be easy to put in a bag. The pieces are parts of the fabric laminated with a magnet attached. The game "board" has the bottle caps under each square with padding under the bottle cap so it doesn't rip through the bottom. So no little hands getting to those bottle caps (the caps have all been washed but are safely under the fabric).

Tic Tac Toe Game Instructions

Here is my attempt at documenting how to recreate this game. It had several iterations and I had trouble documenting this while my brain worked it out. To those of you that can do this my hat is off to you. This is far more difficult than I ever thought! :-)

Materials:

Fiberfil (stuffing - that white stuff that you stuff pillows and stuffed animals with.)

9 Bottle caps - washed and dried

10 magnets (make this the pro-magnets or heavy duty ones since they have to go through fabric).

Fabric, you will need two 9 1/2 X 9 1/2" squares. (Use light weight fabric for this as your magnets for your game pieces will need to go through the fabric.

Hot glue gun

>Items for your game pieces

Step one: Cut your square out of your desired fabric using pinking shears. Divide your square into 9, 3" squares (you need about a 1/4" all around for seams). I start by finding the center of the square and then measure from there. You will want to use chalk or pencil for this as you want it to show up. You can make your marked side be the back of the game.

Step two: Using your hot glue gun, place a quarter size portion of glue in the bottle cap (see picture) then place your fiberfill into the cap. You will want to make sure you have enough fiberfill to cover the edges but not too much to make the game too bulky.

Step Three: Place the two squares of fabric on top of each other making sure the marked side is on top. Using your zipper foot (so you can get close to the bottle caps) on your sewing machine sew your first lines to the left and right of the center column of squares. The picture doesn't show it however I recommend making two lines of stitching (see pictures of my freebie Friday post). This allows the game to fold up easier.

Step Four: Place your first bottle cap in the center of the square and then sewing your remaining lines. After the interior lines are sewn you can sew around the perimeter of the square. As you sew place your padded bottle caps into the squares. You will want to make sure that all your bottle caps are facing the right way!

Step Five: Make your game pieces. You can use the bottle cap magnet concept and do Xs and Os. Or as I did laminated fabric pieces, just glue the magnet to the back and you are ready to play. I thought of also using buttons, wood pieces from the craft store etc . . . Use your imagination to create a fun game. My daughter and I have fun with this game and I am always trying to entertain my two kids when we go out to eat.

Enjoy! Oh and I am sorry I don't have instructions to make the wrap to make this game portable. If you are crafty and can sew I know you will have no problems figuring this out. But I do intend plan on opening my Etsy store by the end of the summer and would like to sell these there. Don't want to give away all my secrets! :-)

My apologies!!! Freebie Friday Flop!

Freebie Friday Flop!!!
I apologize to everyone who reads my blog regarding me not posting a freebie Friday item until Sunday August 1st. I had all intentions but Mother Nature took control and wiped out our Electricity and Internet service until late Friday. Then of course kids and visiting family took precedence! (Sorry, I have to confess my blog usually doesn't come before kids)! :-)
So here is my Freebie Friday post much belated with a promise to fulfill my Friday obligation this week (and make it worth your while).

Freebie Cleaning Tip!

I can't claim ownership of this and will warn you that you will hate me after reading the next sentence. My wonderful kindred spirit house keeper (yes I have a house keeper, we eat lunch with her every other Tuesday and anxiously await her arrival) . .told me about a great natural way to keep my stainless steel dishwasher finger print and smudge free for at least a couple of days.

Here is the before picture of my grubby stainless steel dishwasher, now when I went to take this picture I was very pleased to realize it wasn't all that bad, not good for my demonstration but oh well I will NOT complain!

So to clean the dishwasher and keep finger prints from showing immediately, mix 4 tablespoons of olive oil to 1 cup of water. This ratio works for me but feel free to experiment. Oh and I used the extra virgin olive oil I cook with. I put this in a $1.00 spray bottle I purchased from target and use it only about 2XS a week. Very easy and simple. The only other note I have is to shake the bottle a bit before spraying as obviously oil and water don't mix!

Below is the "after" picture!

Hope this is helpful, the tip made me love my wonderful house keeper even more!

Happy Sunday!

Mudroom Redo

I am going to apologize first, This is the wordiest post I have EVER done! Sorry about that but I thought maybe some of you could benefit from my quest for the best storage!!
I have been trying for years to renovate our mudroom. I took better before pictures but can't find them now! bummed! It has gone through many phases and storage ideas. I tried a table that was meant for the kitchen that was bar height to be used to pay bills etc. .. . We ended up using this as a dumping ground. An in-expensive bench found at Lowes ended up have shoes piled in front of it instead of in it. When we renovated our Attic I had an estimate done for built in cabinets and the estimate came back at almost $4000! Really!!! I thought truly I can come up with something that will work for under that!
Well it took me 3 years and it is finally done! Here are two pictures and I will try my best to describe everything. I searched so long to pull everything together and truly one trip to Ikea and another to Target and we are set!
Here is what I purchase and the approximate price:
Ikea Aspelund 3 door Wardrobe $199
2 small chests from Ikea for His & Her shoes, $39/each
2 baskets from Ikea $16.99
From Target, Barrel Planter for $19.99, 3 plastic drawer organizers $6.99/each, 3M Hooks (4 pkgs) 2.99/each, Post It organizers 2 pkgs for total of $12.00
Thirty OneSquare Utility Totes $24.50 each

Now math is so not my strong point but I believe this adds up to around $460. So for less than $500 and a lot of sweat (and blood). I managed to do the mudroom and have great storage and looks to boot! :-) I will have to confess, we did barter out the painting with a friend. We exchanged a 1 year old love seat for his painting services. It was so worth it! I did however thanks to many of you blogging about it do the wainscoting all by myself. It isn't the most perfect job but I am very impressed with the outcome.

Here is a picture of the wardrobe from Ikea!

This room was very hard to take a picture of the whole thing! Along the one wall as you can see, I have the Ikea wardrobe, baskets as mentioned on top for storage, and on either side of the ward robe I have "his" and "her" chests that my kids can sit on if needed and store the adult shoes. The art of the "Big girl panties" I posted before hangs on my side and on the other side is my hubby's art. He is the CTO of his own company so yes I am married to a geek (and love him deeply for it)! I got the idea for the art on another blog that has the "Be Calm and Carry On" link to it. The message board is on the left hand side of the room and it came from my Grandfather's farm window. When I got it the glass was already out if it and I tacked a white erase board on the back and hung it. It keeps phone numbers handy.

The photos below are from the inside of the wardrobe. I tried to maximize as much storage of out this 3 door wardrobe as I could! It has a hanging bar up top behind the two far left doors (one of which is mirrored!). Inside this I have an area for my kids shoes (the thirty one organizers with their names on it) and the pink and blue bins are for mittens/hats. On the inside of these doors I laminated a page with the days of the week, put it on a clipboard and hung this on a 3m hook. I am making one for each child and hope this will help them remember assignments and other activities. Behind the 3rd door of the wardrobe there are shelves, my husband & I each have a storage tote from Thirty One that holds our mail, gloves other "crap":-) The middle and bottom shelf I have put our file with the bills extra paper for our printer that we have downstairs, and used the 3M hooks to hang scissors, keys etc . . On the inside of the third door I found these great pockets from Post It. I was going to make and hang fabric pockets but these were already made and at a total of $12, it was a good bargain. I have one for coupons, another for menus and another for hubby's mail.