Book Wreath

Posted By: Kristi

Making this wreath was fun, easy but definitely a bit time consuming. I did get to watch great movies all day in my pajamas while creating it, HUGE plus!

To make one yourself you need:

Stryrofoam in the form of a wreath
Old book that you don't need anymore
Glue gun
Pen
Circle punch


1. With your punch you will need to punch out a ton of your circle shape from your book. I bought a punch that was round with a bit of a design around the edge.

2. Place one of your punched out pieces at the end of your pen and hold it still (this is so your wont burn your fingers with hot glue). Place a good amount of glue at the tip.

3. Place your glued punched out piece on the styrofoam and hold it still for a few seconds. Keep repeating this step until the entire styrofoam wreath is covered. I did not cover the back since you can't see it but you can if you would like.

Some people like wreathes, some people don't. What do you think?


ps. I will be sharing Disneyland details soon!

Toddler Tuesday - DIY Noise Maker

Posted By:  Stephanie

This morning my girl and I went out in our pajamas to play in the rocks and make a noise maker.  You can do this with all kinds of things but we made her noise maker out of a cleaned out peanut butter container and rocks that we found outside.  My girl had a great time picking out the rocks to go in the container, she took a few in and out until she was satisfied.  It was a beautiful morning to take a few minutes to do something different outside.

As you can see above, she thought this was SO much fun.  Once we went inside she was shakin' the rocks like a Polaroid picture, okay not really but she did shake the container and love it.  This is a very simple project that you can repeat with different objects and experiment with the different sounds that come from changing out what is in his/her noise maker.

Have fun shaking things up a bit with a simple project like this one!

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle - Medicine Bottles

Posted By:  Stephanie

Where I live we don't have recycling, I mean, NO recycling.  I think it is just crazy, and it is bugging me, so I decided that I was going to come up with uses for some of the things that we have been throwing away.

I have been going through children's Advil for the past 8 months or so while our girl has been teething.  Of course, we only give it to her when she really needs it, but in that many months we have gone through a few of these little bottles.

First I took off the label, it came off a lot easier then I thought it would.

I chose some paper that I thought would cut out into a strip nice.  A lot of the paper I have has big designs, for such a little bottle I needed something that was going to look nice and be small enough.  I found this paper that was going to be easy to cut because it was already a stripe design.

I cut the paper to fit the bottle.

Next, I made my own mod podge out of water and Elmer's School Glue.  I did about 1 part glue to 2 parts water and mixed well.

Using a paint brush I painted my mod podge onto the back of the paper,

then wrapped it around the bottle.

After I wrapped the paper around the outside I coated that in mod podge too.

I really like the way it turned out.

Next I followed the same process for a pill bottle.

Here is the paper I chose.

The top of this lid is flat unlike the other one, so I decided to cover it with left over paper from the strip I had already cut to cover the bottle.

Tada, it is complete!

I haven't decided for sure yet but I think I'm going to keep diaper rash cream in the smaller bottle.  I don't like carrying tubes of it in my purse because I'm always afraid that it is going to come open and get all over the place, this will solve that problem!

The larger bottle I will use when I travel, or in the car to keep things like, Q-Tips, tweezers, a few earring backs, a couple toothpicks, and a band aid or two for "just in case" moments.

What have you used an old medicine bottle for?

Quinoa

Posted By: Kristi


Thanks to some cool chicks at work, I have been obsessed with quinoa (pronounced KEEN-wah). It is YUMMY and healthy, love it!

Quinoa is gluten free, will help you stay lean and is a good carbohydrate. Finally, a ricey, pasta like carb that you don't have to stay away from! It is hard to tell but it is actually a relative of leafy green vegetables, like spinach.

I buy my quinoa from Costco and it looks like this.

I cook it on the stove following the directions on the package (super easy). To add flavor I cook it with chicken flavoring (Sarah, a friend, gave me this tip..actually she told me about all of this, THANKS). Bullion cubes work too, this is just all Whole Foods had and that is where I needed to pick up some other stuff so I just bought it. I do love it though so I might just stick with it.

Once the quinoa has finished cooking, I cut up green, red, yellow, orange peppers and cucumbers in very small pieces and add them to the quinoa and mix it all up. Lastly, I add in some feta cheese. 

This is yummy hot but is my absolute favorite the next day at lunch when it is nice and cold. I hope you like it!

Steph and Will

Posted By: Kristi

Since Steph just shared with you a little about her and Will, I thought this would be a good time for me to add a little something.

Steph has been my best friend since I can remember. Like myself, she hasn't always dated the right type of guy for her. I had my doubts that there would ever be a guy that would be good enough in my mind for her.

Then I met Will.

My sister has always been her same bubbly self with Will. She didn't change one bit when he was around. I liked that. She loves to cuddle and he would cuddle her right back.

Will doesn't care that my sister hogs the bed. He is patient when she calls for directions because she never Mapquests anything before leaving the house. He kills spiders for her and he is just as goofy as she is.

They have been together for what seems like forever and he still looks at my sister like she is the only girl that exists.

Not only is Will the perfect spouse for my sister but he is the perfect brother and friend to me. Will is a guy you can count on. He is honest, loving and fun.

Will has always been there for me. He has saved me when my car has broken down, changed the locks on my house when I needed them changed, stayed up late watching movies with me, cheered me on at my kickball games and much much more. Will is not just protective of my sister but he is protective of me. I appreciate this man more than I can say. He is one good guy and we are so lucky to have him as part of our family.

I definitely approve. Steph did a good job choosing a brother for me! ; )

Off To California and Our Story

Posted By:  Stephanie

Good morning!  I can't believe I'm on here at 2:00am...I SHOULD BE SLEEPING!  Will, My Girl and I are leaving in just about an hour to go to California to visit my cousin, his wife and their 5 kids which made me think that I should tell you about when we got married.  We are going to be able to go back to San Francisco which is where we went on our honeymoon so it brings back some great memories.  Although I'm tried and crossing my fingers that our drive goes well with our girl, I'm looking forward to our quick trip to see the fam.

First I’ll start by telling you a little about our relationship and how it grew.  We first started dating March 4^th, 2004 when he asked me if I would be his girlfriend and I told him “sure”.  Will and I had already talked about it a few times but I really wasn’t interested in being in a relationship at that time so I was in no hurry.  He was so sweet and funny because he would tell me when I would say no, “Okay, well just so you know I’m not going to be dating anyone else so I’m just going to keep asking you every once in a while until you say yes”.  I thought that was pretty cute that he actually wanted to date ME that much.  When I finally responded with “sure” he said “What, sure”? I laughed and explained that it was better than “NO”!

Through those years we had our ups and downs, at one point calling things off for about 2 months.  In that time we still talked just about daily and although I wanted to tell myself we weren’t going to end up back together, I knew he was the one I wanted to spend my life with, he was my best friend.  We eventually got back together and everything was amazing from then on.

September 2^nd, 2008 Will proposed to me with the ring that had belonged to his mom.  She passed when he was very young so it was such an honor to receive that ring from him.

 The center part with the diamonds was hers, we added the two bands to the outside so that we could personalize it for us as well.

April 18^th, 2009 we got married at the Acadian Ballroom, it was such a perfect location, perfect day, and brought perfect memories.  We joke and say we want to get married again just because it was such an amazing day and a really fun wedding that went by way to fast!  When people say that on your wedding day you need to take a minute to just breathe, look around and take it all in, it is so true.  Listen to that advice!

April 19^th, 2010 we left Portland, OR to go on our honeymoon in San Francisco, CA.  We went there because we were actually able to go spend a few days with flight for about the same cost it would have been to go to the beach for a few days.  We were trying to save money and I’m so glad we ended up going there.  We had asked our really good friend, who is a family member now above all else, to decide where we were going on our honeymoon and where we were going to stay.  I’m SO HAPPY with how it all turned out.  Thanks again Matty!

 This is the lobby of the hotel.  We had just arrived, put our bags in our room and were immediately enjoying our all you can drink free wine.  YUMMY!

I might as well go on and tell you a little more about our story, although this was just about the fact that we are going back to San Francisco during our trip to our family in San Jose, CA.

After we got married we immediately started not preventing pregnancy.  We didn’t want to really “try” but we didn’t want to prevent it from happening.  October 14^th, 2009 we found out we were going to have a baby!  I had taken a test I happened to have in the bathroom, not expecting a result other than negative.  My period had been very unpredictable and I had no reason to believe I was pregnant.  I’m not sure why I took the test that day, but as I grabbed it from the counter before I walked out, not really giving it much of a glance I saw something I hadn’t seen before…TWO LINES!  I took it to Will who was still sleeping before work and made him read it; sure enough it said I was pregnant.  I then took another test at the lab later on to make sure, yep, still pregnant.  WOW that was a crazy feeling!

June 13^th, 2010 we went in to be induced.  My midwife was predicting that she was going to be over 10 lbs if we waited until due date which was a week away, and wanting to prevent c-section we went in to induce early.  June 14^th, 2010 our girl was born at 11:15am at 9lbs 6oz.  What a magical day!

This is our girl's first week home.

So overall, I’m married to my best friend who I’ve been with going on 8 years, married 2 years, we have an amazing daughter together and we couldn’t be happier!

Crayon Art

 Posted By: Kristi

 
WARNING: This post is about to have a TON of pictures, I can't help it...I LOVE the colors!

I have been seeing crayon art all over the web and of course, I had to give it a try! I decided that Little Lou needed some crayon art for her new big girl room that my sister and Will plan to move her into soon.

I already had the canvas at home (random, I know) and while I was at the grocery store tonight I picked up two boxes of crayons. I chose the colors I liked (doubling the ones that I really liked by using the other box) and hot glued them to the top of the canvas.

Next I went outside, just in case this got messy. I turned my hairdryer on high and watched the crayons melt and run down the canvas (I kept the canvas upright while doing this).

The crayons get shiny and shortly after begin to melt.

It doesn't take long and you are done!

 

Aren't all the colors together pretty? = )

You also could take off all the crayon wrappers if you would prefer. It looks really cool that way. I kept them on since this is for a child's room and I thought it was cute. I am guessing you could also tape down the crayons so that you could remove them altogether at the end. There are tons of possibilities, that is the fun part!



We are linking up here  and here today.

Toddler Tuesday - Hand and Foot Print Art

Posted By:  Stephanie

Hello and HAPPY TUESDAY!

I feel like today is going to be a great productive day.  Yesterday I got a TON of laundry done and I even stole my husbands laundry that he has been neglecting (yes, he actually wants to do his own laundry) so I felt very accomplished.  Our washer and dryer which used to belong to Will's grandma finally died on us.  It was a horrible piece of crap but we didn't have money to replace it so I just threw out the laundry that came out of the dryer melted or burnt on occasion and tried to keep a smile on my face.  Lucky us just inherited my in-laws washer and dryer because they took advantage of the Friends and Family sale at Sears and got a new set for themselves!!!  I feel like the luckiest person and I'm having so much fun doing laundry.  I know, sounds crazy but I tell ya, when you've been working with what I had, this feels like a privilege!  The set we were using at an actual on/off switch, that's how old it was.

Today I hope to get more cleaning done.  I will get back to you on how that goes, along with a picture of the pile of boxes I hope to break down and send out the door that are taking over my laundry/craft room.

Back to the main reason of this post, it's Toddler Tuesday!  I just love hand and foot print art so I wanted to share a few ideas of my own, as well as a group of ideas that I found on Pinterest.  These are quick, fun projects that you can keep your toddler engaged long enough for and they are so much fun to display.  You can have fun letting them rub their hands together and feeling the paint on their hands too, that is if they aren't funny about having gooey stuff on their hands!

My Girl's Art:

This is supposed to be a snowflake, next time we will do something

similar but make it a sun because that's really what it looks like.  Oh well, still cute.

Ideas Found on Pinterest:

Do you have some cute ideas on your blog for hand and foot print art?  If so, please leave a comment with a link so we can all check them out and get more ideas!