Lemonade Makin' Mama Giveaway

Hey everyone! Just wanted to let you know that Sasha from Lemonade Makin' Mama is hosting a give away with goodies from some really beautiful,talented women!

I have been following Sasha for a while now on Instagram, and I check into her blog every so often. She has beautiful words, a lovely home, and has the most amazing Etsy Shop EVER! (It reopens on February 5th! so mark it on your calendars!)


So head on over to Lemonade Makin' Mama to enter :)

Creative Play

How do I put this...My kids watch too much TV. They play while watching, or take off and play with each other and then take a break and watch a show, but the TV is almost always on in the back ground.

I'm not the perfect mom who has dinner ready, the floors swept, and I certainly don't always have them playing something they can learn from. But sometimes, I do pretty good. Like today. Today we built a house.

I brought out all our craft sticks, a glue gun, a cardboard surface from the recycle bin, and we got to work.

I started the base, and I controlled the glue gun (obviously because glue guns are hot hot hot, and my kids are small small small!)

From there, I made exactly what Mr.Sensitive told me to make.
"Make a ladder Mamma!"
"We need a roof here!"
"This stick has to go here"

He also sang the theme song from Bob the Builder the whole time (see what I mean by too much TV?)

Then my kiddo got artsy and made a clothes pin sculpture on the very top. 

After he said we were done building, I got him some paint so he could make it his own.

I use recycled lids from plastic containers as paint trays. Acryclic paint washes right off of the plastic with hot water.

Right now, he has his transformers inside the stick house and it's their hide out, and he's been playing quietly for a good hour...which doesn't happen often.

He has a million little toys he can use to play with his new house, and there's a lot of room to build onto it in the future.

Happy Crafting!

Mini 'Pallet' Valentines Display

I have been looking for something to do with my giant bag of popcicle sticks. Seriously..I have a million wooden sticks and have no idea what to do with them.
Then yesterday, I was walking home from the park with the family, and someone had a bunch of pallets in their yard. I decided to make a 'mini pallet' with the sticks and paint it for valentines!

Polka dot Valentines 'mini pallet'

You Will Need:
-Glue Gun and Glue Sticks
-Popcicle Sticks (about 13ish of'em)
-Paint (I used white and red acrylic)
-Paint Brush
-Nail File
- Gold Polka Dots (not pictured)

Line up two popcicle sticks, and start gluing the rest of the sticks across them like the picture.

When your done it should look like the picture above. (I trimmed off the little nubs on the bottom,but it's not a must)

next your going to paint your 'pallet' whatever color you want! I realllly love this antique white.

Ta Da! all painted and dried!

If you don't want a distressed look, skip this part. If you love the distressed look, then take a nail file, and file away until you get the look you're going for.

Paint a heart

 
I added some gold polka dots because who doesn't love gold polka dots?!

And last, I found a tutorial the other day for making an easel out of paper straws over at Wants and Wishes

Happy Crafting Lovlies!

Our New Neighbor

Yesterday we decided to go run some errands, and stopped in at our local Staples store.
Every time we go in there, Dru goes to look at electronics, and I head straight for the Martha Stewart office supplies. To my absolute surprise, they had a lot of things on clearance! Plus another 20% off the clearance price! I scored some dry erase stickers, chalkboard labels, and some book plates. I should have got more...and will probably go back. 

I have also finally got my cousins baby care packaged ready to send! I procrastinate a little bit...but I had some fun decorating the wrapping with some washi tape as you can see.

And now, onto the most exciting thing that has happened! Yesterday we had some new neighbors move in! and they are the fuzziest most cute little things in the world!

Don't you just want to squeeze it and love it!!??
There are two rabbits who live in our yard, and they let you sit beside them and watch them without worry.
It has been really hard not to run outside and start offering them carrots,because they are wild animals after all, and to mess with nature is never a good thing, so we just watch, and appreciate their company.

This house has been absolutely wonderful when is comes to wild animals. We have a bear that visits the blackberry bush out back (NOTE: our back yard is very large, and the bear is very neat to watch, but we never get close and always stay on the deck), and we have our friendly deer (two females, their children, and some times if we are lucky, HUGE bucks!), and then some raccoons from time to time. The only bad experience we've had with animals were a few rats getting into the house, but that's been fixed!

Anyway I'm going to go enjoy our little furry friends company some more!

Mr.Sensitive

This is Mr.Sensitive.
A three year old with a passion for Power Rangers, golfing, painting, and cuddling.
He hates vacuum cleaners, going to bed, and when his sister pulls his hair.

He was my first born, and saved my life. I honestly think I would be on the streets somewhere if it wasn't for him coming into our lives.
He was a kicker in my belly,and always had hiccups.
He scared us at birth because he wasn't breathing, and then a lung collapsed, but he bounced right back.

He is soft spoken, polite,and says the sweetest things like "Mommy, I love you forever and always". (Melts the heart right!?)

The other night, he woke up crying, so I came up stairs and snuggled up next to him. I watched him fall back asleep, and I watched him sleep for a little bit longer...just because.

He was my glass baby...in the sense that he was my first born and I was scared of breaking him. I was extra gentle changing him, woke up to check on him countless times at night, when he got even the smallest booboo, I was rushing straight to emergency to make sure he was all right. I read all the parenting books, joined forums, and had all the things I thought I needed to prepare for a baby.

Anyway, here, on my blog, he will be known as Mr.Sensitive, and his sister will be known as Trouble. because those are words that describe their personalities perfectly.haha

Valentine Potion

Just a quick idea that I promised to show you, and it's probably the easiest thing in the world to do.
Basically, find a fancy bottle, fill it with red or pink liquid of some sort, pop a tag on it, and you've got yourself a 'love potion'!

The decanter I used was a gift from my sister. She had made candy cane vodka, and used a bunch of these dollar store decanters to hand out as gifts. Last week when I was thrift shopping I found a whole shelf FULL of decanters! They were 50 cents each! I didn't buy them because my hubby already thinks I'm a hoarder as it is.

Anyway, after the vodka was gone, I rinsed out the decanter, and filled it with apple cranberry tea. Our house is a house of tea drinkers. Both my littles drink herbal teas, and I'd rather them drink tea than sugar filled pop because they had a whole lot of sugar over Christmas holidays- But You could easily make your 'potion' from a mix of kool-aid and sprite or fruit juice.

you can learn to make gift tags here
I am trying to find time to make a tutorial for the paper rose, and the tutorial for the crochet flowers can be found here

Enjoy!

Quick Packaging Idea I found

I just wanted to quickly share this awesome packaging idea I found from Sew Chatty !
She used it to package her adorable boot cuffs, but I used it to package the slippers I just made! So simple, and so cute!