It's super capes!

A friend asked me to make capes for her kids.  She thought it was time to upgrade them from the knotted blanket around their necks.  This is what I came up with after a night at the machine.  Personalized with a B and M.  I don't know that I'll go into the cape making business, but for special requests, it was fun.  My boys didn't seem that interested, they modeled them here, but that was the end of their interest.  For now anyway.

Noodle Marble Run

Pinned it and Did it!

My boys love marbles.  What boys don't?  What kids don't?  For Christmas they got the blocks that you arrange to make a marble run.  It was a little harder to put together then I was expecting.  Even with the 11y helping, they became frustrated.   Then, I saw the noodle run!  I went to the garage and got moving.  I didnt read much on how to cut it, I just started cutting it in half with a knife.  Which turns out to be something to look into first.  When I cut it, it was off center.. oopps.  Perhaps marking with a pen first or something? Anyway, I cut the one half that works in half again.  They love it.  You can see below.  Since this day, they have tried from the couch, to the table, down to the box.  Which I'll note the box is very important.. We had marbles everywhere (the family room has carpet, but it's connected to the kitchen, which is not.. ha.. so fun!)

Since this marble run is the favorite these days.. it was the perfect Home Care Package while we had a short stay in the hospital.  He was in heaven and got his mind off the IV for a bit.

Org pin inpired: http://pinterest.com/pin/88453580151393965/  but there are SO many ideas.  do a search in pinterest for "noodle marble ruen" and go for it!

Be My Valentine

I know it's a bit after Valentine's Day.. but they worked so hard on these and decided on their own.  Everyone was different.  We had a sick little boy in the house that week.. so this went to the back burner.

Pinned it and Did it.

(search pinterest for valentine ideas for any ideas.  there's too many to list.)

We are a crafty household and when I saw the plethora of ideas on Pinterest for Vday, I knew we'd have some fun.  We ended up creating a heart on the computer with words for everyone, and they wrote their to and from on the back.  For the 3y, that's enough work for him anyway.  We did this over 2 weeks time to allow for "I'm tired of doing this".  The 6 and 11y were also charged with cutting and taping theirs out too.

Here's what we came up with (trinkets from Oriental Trading Co.)

 This Valentine was a pin wheel with hearts on it, perfect for the prek kid.  His tag said, "You blow my mind.  Thanks for being a good friend.  Happy Valentine's Day."  He then wrote his name on the back of all of them.  Such a good boy.

 This one is all photos... He did it all himself.

Turns out I didnt take any of the 11y.. She didnt even finish till the 13th!  The boys were done a whole week early.  She did sticky hands that stretch and stick to walls and windows.  

Her heart said "I'm giving you a hand on Valentine's Day".  As it turns out, 5th graders really dont want to do this anymore, it was sad.  She had 6 other students that brought in Valentines.  

Oh my, what does junior high do?  Nothing?  Valentine grams at school?  

or is that in high school...ugh, just stay in grade school!!

Did you make your own?  I was talking to a few moms after school and they were looking for this character and that one.. so I ended up making them too.. they were printed on 11x17 sheets of paper at Staples and there was 10-12 cards per sheet.

Make your own hand sanitizer - alcohol free

Found another pin I had to do right away.  I found it while doing bedtime on my Kindle, ie; waited for the boys to be asleep enough for me to leave.  I charged the Kindle overnight and left it right on the pin so I didnt forget!  As luck would have it, I had an errand to run to the Habitat for Humanity Restore.  I purchased  metal closet doors for the play room (another post coming soon) and as I was leaving, they had a ton of these little bottles in blue.  The are the pop up type.  They also had very large pump type bottle in blue.  I only bought these little ones, as I couldnt think of anything I could do with the large quick enough.  I'm a sucker for a good deal.  These little ones were .10 and brand new.  Just because it's donated to the Restore, doesnt means it's been used!  You should check them out!

 This is his formula:

Alcohol-Free Homemade Hand Sanitizer

• Start with a recycled hand sanitizer bottle or liquid soap bottle, or similar.. like I did :)
• Add 1 Tablespoon of aloe vera gel
• 10 drops each of the essential oils.  I used orange and lemon, and lavender.  And I used Melalueca tea tree oil in all of them for a cleaning & healing agent, just a few drops..a little goes a long way.  (a mix I've also seen: lemon, cinnamon, eucalyptus and clove bud)   
• Top off the bottle with water and shake it up. Put onto hands and massage into hands for 5-10 seconds.  It's water based so it's not going to try like an alcohol one does.

 I created a simple label and used packing tape to put them on the bottles.

 The boys helped and had fun counting the drops and shaking them up.  Total time for this project was about 30 min for the 7 bottles (one is hiding)

Have fun!  Smell nice, and be clean...

org pin: http://pinterest.com/pin/552394710514493626/

together forever - pin it and did it

Here's another idea I got from Pinterest.  The dates are; day you met (or first date), engaged, and married.  So simple and a conversation piece when people come in the house now too..  Love it!

org pinner: http://pinterest.com/pin/70157706666364222/

here's another one similar that I plan to make too: http://pinterest.com/pin/70157706666815475/

water bottle & gloves and mitten storage

pinned it and did it!

I needed something to organize our water bottle situation.  I tried baskets and putting on a shelf and all that did was make a big mess.  This is in the hallway to the basement stairs and is working SO nicely so far.

So when I bought the one shoe rack, knowing I'd do the water bottles,  I bought two.  I knew I'd find another use for it.  And this is what I did with it.  Our mud room is kinda small (bad planning when we did the addition, for sure) and we have glove, mitten, and hat overload.  Again, the basket technique only worked so far.  We still use them (you can see a red bin on the left, its Rays bin that holds his jackets so he can put away himself.)  Hopefully, we can use for summer shoes when the season changes!  But then again, we use the front door in the summer, and back door (mud room) in the winter.  Who knows.  Maybe this will stay the way it is year round, we just wont do anything with it for months at a time :)

waterbottle pin: http://pinterest.com/pin/70157706667238277/

org pin inpired: http://pinterest.com/pin/286119382546906790/

Sew Great!

This was my holiday setup.

I'm so excited about this new venture, I had some photos I took while in my assembly line process over the holiday.  I thought I'd share them too.  I've been working out of the kitchen so I can still be with the kids during the day, and at night I dont disurb anyone sleeping in the kitchen either.  I package them up and send them out.  My desk has actually been cleaned up since this photo too, this is embarrassing   How quick things get over loaded!
I am trying to figure out a new way to work.  When I have to stop "working" everything goes into a few set boxes I have setup for this until I can work on them again.  But I'm not ready to move into the office (yes, we actually have one not being used) because it's so far away from the living space that everyone is in.  Now, I can feed the boys during the day, break it out again after dinner.. never leaving anyone, or their needs :)  A mothers work is never done.

This photo is included because I just love it.  The pink pops on the black and I have done a few of these, and so glad that girls want to be a Wild Kratt too!

link to my ebay listings...

full set, just the disc set1, set2, set3, set4, paperdolls

and you can always search on Wild Kratts creature power for more.

I'm working on set5 now!  Hopefully the creature pods are next.

get the lunch pals up and out

We have a lot of lunch pals.  Don't you?  I don't know what a lot is.  Maybe we're just like everyone else.. but one thing is for sure, our kitchen is tiny and I'm trying every which way to make the most of our space.  So, I put 3m hooks up high in the this non traffic corner to get them off the floor of the pantry.

Grape Tree - pinned it and did it.

Pinned it and did it

With the help of my friend Laura.. we had a grape Christmas tree for our holiday party!  We used the grapes to make a Grinch too.. another pinterest find.  Fun Fun!

(interest pic of Grinch grape)

THEN.. we had caprisuns for drinks, because we can Terracycle and earn money for the school.  If you dont already, start collecting!!  There's a list of things we get money for; chip bags, candy wrappers, to name a few!  Earn money for the stuff you buy already vs adding more garbage to the dump!

org tree pin: http://pinterest.com/pin/259379259760444025/
org grinch pin: http://pinterest.com/pin/151222499959636229/