I think this was the perfect birthday gift!

Since we weren't doing a huge party for Mr. Man's 50th birthday, I decided to do a scrapbook for his birthday with pages made by all his friends and family because I thought that would be a good memento of his birthday!

In January I sent out a letter to everyone asking them to help me make a scrapbook for him. I included a piece of scrapbook paper and a return envelope. I addressed the envelope to come back to my office so he wouldn't see any of them. For some people I sent an email instead of regular mail (both to help keep the costs down and in some cases it was because I simply did not have a mailing address for certain people). I asked them to email me something and then I printed them out and put them on a scrapbook page.

As they started coming back I really liked how everyone's personality and style showed on the page they created and the stories written. The emailed stories reflected individuality too. It was really cool! I had some people write him a letter about what their friendship meant to them. I had some people do a scrapbook page with pictures and journaling. I had some write a birthday wish for him. Some people wrote their favorite memory of him. Some people emailed me pictures and others didn't but it all came out SO cool! Not one page was alike and I really loved that. Some were extravagent and others were more simple, but that is what made the book extra awesome! I loved it and so did he!!! It was all so neat! I loved reading what people wrote and looking at the pictures. I had the hardest time keeping it a secret - but I did and so did the kids! We would spend a few minutes here and there working on it when Mr. Man would leave the house to run errands or whatever. One kid would stand guard watching for him to pull down the street (or in some cases, I would) and then we would quickly hide everything.

When we gave him the book he actually teared up. I told him it was a group effort present! He read and re-read all the pages several times.

Here are just a few of the pages, I haven't counted to see the total number of pages we ended up with, but as you can see in the picture at the top of this post, the book was busting at the seams!

Our Valentine Project - Pink Flamingos

Lefty saw these cute little flamingo valentines in a magazine and he wanted to make them for his class. We made some modifications to the original instructions and we also added some candy.

First we gathered our supplies (to make one flamingo you will need the following):
*glue (we used Elmer's school glue)
*scissors
*1/2 of 1 pink pipe cleaners for the head and neck (the puffy stem kind... I can't remember what the package called them)
*pink card stock
*1 pipe cleaner for the legs (we wanted to use pink but the store was out so we did black)
*2-3 pink feathers (we bought a large bag of pink ones for about $2)
*small googly eye
*black marker
*glue dot or double sided tape (to attach the candy)
*1 piece of heart shaped chocolate candy (ours are Nestle Crunch and Butterfingers)


Then we all started crafting together. The kids did well making these, they are fairly easy but the dry time was the hardest on them.

Here is Lady Bug sketching out her design (hee hee... we already knew what we were going to do but she said she wanted an example to follow!)

First cut out 2 hearts from the pink cardstock for the body of the flamingo. I drew one on a piece of cardboard (a piece of a cereal box actually) and then we traced it onto the cardstock.

Secondly, cut one pink fuzzy pipe cleaner in two. Shape one half into an "S" shape for the head and neck (the other half will be used for another flamingo).

Glue the "S" shape onto the left side of the heart.

Now cut one black pipe cleaner in half and glue both those onto the bottom of the heart and bend to make legs. **NOTE: I tried bending them before gluing them on, but I inevitably needed to reshape them after they were glued.












Glue a couple pink feathers to the right side of the heart .

Then, glue the 2nd pink heart on top of the 1st heart.

Using scraps of cardstock cut a beak shape. None of our beaks were the same shape or size but ultimately they looked good. I folded the paper and cut a beak shape, I felt like the fold helped hold the beak onto the pipe cleaner a little bit better.

Using the black marker color in the end of the beak and glue it to the end of the flamingo's head. Also you will need to glue on your googly eye - you can do it at this point or at the end. Either way, we did it both ways!

At this point we let everything dry and in some cases had to stick a book on top so that the paper wouldn't curl.

After everything had dried, we wrote our Valentine message, leaving room to attach a piece of candy. We wrote "Happy Valentine's Day!" on the front and then did the "To" and "From" on the backside.

I used a glue dot to attach a piece of heart shaped chocolate candy to the front and they seemed to hold up pretty well.

I am linking up to A Soft Place To Land for DIY Day!

Thank you notes

I grew up writing thank you notes to everyone who ever gave us anything or did anything for us. I have been SO bad at making my kids do this...BUT this year I am going to try harder to teach them to be thankful - which I know they are already, but they need to let the giver know how thankful they are.

We are working on our Christmas thank you notes now and hopefully I can get them done before Spirit's birthday hits and we have to start those too! (Since his birthday is tomorrow, I am guessing I am in deep doo-doo!) NOW, I understand why I have been so bad at getting thank you's out, we are hardly done with Christmas thank you's and have to start thinking of Spirit's birthday thank you's!

During the Christmas gift opening I tried to capture the kids opening and showing off their gifts and then the days following I took pictures of them wearing the clothes or playing with the gifts. Then I printed them out using my color printer in 4x6, instead of cutting it down to size I just left it on the full page (i didn't use glossy photo paper, just a higher quality white paper) and had the kids write their thank you on the bottom.


BELOW is a picture of Spirit writing his thank you's (this was taken while he was writing the 1st thank you, the smile wasn't as big by the 6th thank you note because his friends were outside playing and I made him sit at the table to write these!)

[Unfortunately no pictures of the actual thank
you notes, my camera is sick and I
don't know what is wrong with it.
Sometimes it won't take the pictures,
sometimes they are blurry and sometimes
it flashes but then won't store the picture! :-(
So, I tried to get a picture of these thank you notes
and not one would turn out... sorry!]

New Year, new me??

Eh, not so much.

I am not dieting. I am not exercising any more than I did in 2009. I am not trying to be more organized or any of that. But, one thing I started that is new to me this year is along with my regular journaling, I am trying to keep a "Family Memory Book" also for 2010. I want to document all the things we do as a family and then put it together in a binder or a book at the end of the year. I was inspired by this article and decided I could easily do that. I made up some pages on the computer and stuck them in my 3-ring binder I use for my journal. I printed off calendar pages that I can jot down our events. Then I also made a "Daily Happenings" page and there I can put in the date of the important events and mark down what we did, who was there with us, etc. Then I also did a Summary page and at the end of the month I will go in and sum up/ highlight what happened each month and my feelings about how the month came together.

I am hoping that if I can do this for several years that we will enjoy reading these over the years. I think it might be interesting to look back and see what we did, who was there, how often we may have gone to a special place, etc.

Remembering 2009

I can't believe we are approaching 2010. Seems like yesterday we were panicking over Y2k!

Some wonderful things happened in 2009, although January, February and March were fairly quiet (we had some birthdays and an anniversary in there, but nothing so grand I need to recap it!) BUT...

In April, Lefty received a City Scholar Award. That was a proud moment for all of us!

In May, my sister and her family came to visit. We had lots of fun with them!

In June, another sister came to visit me and we had great times with her too! She left the sweetest present for me!

For my birthday in July, sweet little ol' Spirit took me to lunch with his own money (well most of his own money...)

In August we took a 4,300 mile road trip. It was a ton of fun!

September was "sick month" in our house. I got sick. Then Lefty. Pretty soon Spirit caught it. It was horrible and I seriously was bleaching like a mad fool!

October was a great month for building forts out of leaves!

Two of my favorite blog posts from November are this one about Lady Bug and this one about the teacher gift.

December was filled with parties, Disney on Ice, baking, and crafting. But a momentous event happened also! Phew! That was a big one conquered! And let us not forget the horrible root canal I had!

*Crafting part 1 - Snowglobe soaps
*Crafting part 2 - Personalized Totebag
*Crafting part 3 - Silhouette Ornaments
*Crafting part 4 - 4-pack carrier candy holder
*Crafting part 5 - Family Yahtzee
*Crafting part 6 - Handmade Coasters
*Crafting part 7 - Stocking stuffer

I hope you all had a great 2009 and I wish everyone the best for 2010.

Our handmade Christmas gifts - Part 7

I know Christmas has come and gone, but here is a little thing I made for the kids stockings and I didn't get it done and photographed in time to post before Christmas!

Part 7 in the handmade Christmas postings is a personalized activity book.

I wanted to buy them an activity book for their stocking, but before I bought it I had a night where I couldn't sleep so I got on the computer. I decided with all the websites with downloads and the printable color and activity pages I could easily make each kid a customized coloring/activity book.

I printed off the pages and then I covered them in a scrapbook paper cover. I just two-hole punched the tops and tied string to hold the pages together, but I am sure there are a million other clever and pretty ways to attach all the pages together.

Here are some of the websites I really liked for printing pages from:

Crayola

Activity Village

Patterns for coloring - mosiacs

These Alphabet coloring pages are wonderfully detailed from this website I also printed some mazes and a few more coloring pages

ABC Teach has great crosswords and other printable activity sheets

TLS Books has tons of options for worksheets and coloring pages

This site has tons of coloring pages

Our handmade Christmas gifts - Part 6

In this part 6 of our handmade Christmas gift postings, I will be showcasing these coasters using tiles bought from Lowe's and then a couple different things to top it off. I got the idea from here.


Things you need:
* 4x4 white tiles bought a Lowe's or Home Depot
* Clear acrylic sealer
* cocktail size napkins with a design of your choice
* cork for the backing
* ribbon to tie up the coasters

Here are the ones we made. The kids helped me glue and seal them. It didn't take long at all to make them.

Our dollar store decorating

I received this very large bouquet of flowers a year or two ago and the vase was too gorgeous to throw out when I tossed out the flowers. Last year at Christmas I dumped some ball-style ornaments in there and used it as a centerpiece. This year I was going to do pine cones and a pillar candle, but didn't get that far before Mr. Man came home with a bunch of dollar store ornaments. We literally dumped them in the vase and called it a day!



I think it looks pretty good!

Our handmade Christmas gifts - Part 5

Part 5 of our handmade Christmas gifts is Family Yahtzee. Click here to see an awesome tutorial on this.

This was a more time consuming craft then the others I did this year, but well worth it in the end. I used smaller wooden blocks for the dice than she did in the tutorial. I think next time I would go bigger, more like hers. Mine are 1x1 inch that I found at the craft store in a package of 16 wooden pieces for $2.

There is a lot of dry time in between coats. I would do a little then go start something else (like laundry or dinner) and wouldn't pick up again until later or even the next day.

This is a picture of the box I used. I bought a cardboard box that is meant to look like a book. Then I painted it white and covered the front and back with scrapbook paper.

I think it came out really cute! I hope the family that gets this likes it! My kids want to make one for us too! They were actually playing with this game and really got a kick out of it!


When I took the pictures I was letting the top dry before I added a "label" that read "Family Yahtzee" -- then I went on and wrapped the present before I had a chance to take a picture of my label. Shoot. So you don't get to see the end result. Sometimes I wonder where I left my brain!

Our handmade Christmas gifts - Part 4

Part 4 in this handmade Christmas gift showcase is another really cool neighbor gift. Repurposing a 4-pack Starbucks Frappachino with the cardboard carrier. I have made these before as birthday gifts, but this year I made one for a neighbor and one for a teacher's assistant at Lady Bug's school.

I got the idea here awhile back.

Here is where I posted about the one I made for my friend's birthday.

Below is a picture of one of the ones we made this year. Lady Bug helped me do this. It is so simple and everyone just loves these!

Our handmade Christmas - Part 3

Part 3 in the handmade Christmas is these silhouette ornaments. These are made by the kids, with very little supervision from me. Once I gave them the instructions, they whipped these out and had a blast making them. We made several of these ornaments to give as gifts.

Items needed for this:
- Wooden plaques (I found a 4 pack for $1 at the craft store and it already had a pre-drilled hole in the top. I wanted to get oval shaped ones but couldn't find the right size I wanted. These rectangle ones are about 2 1/2" wide and 4" long)
- paint for the sides of the plaque
- ribbon for hanging
- scrapbook paper
- your silhouette pictures

I probably did this the hard way, but here is what I did:

I took the kids pictures from the side. After I downloaded the pictures on the computer. I used the graphics editor and used the selection tool and cropped the edges of the profile. I deleted the background. Then I printed this and used scissors to cut it out. I made sure to cut the flyaways and the little fuzzy hairs so they show up (Spirit was cracking up at all the flyaways that Lefty had until I pointed out he had a few of his own!!) Anyway, then I traced it onto black paper and cut it out again.



I made some in a frame for my room (5x7 frames), but for these ornaments I used the small plaque. I looked at getting photo ornaments, but they were quite costly.

So, first I printed a version of The Christmas Story using a fancy font. I printed it out and we cut it the same size as the rectangle plaque I am using. I had the kids add a small amount of modge podge to the rectangle and place the verse on top. Then we added a little bit more modge podge over the whole thing.

When that was fully dried, we put a tiny bit of modge podge on the back of the silhouette and carefully placed it in the center of the rectangle on top of the Christmas story. Then carefully covered the whole thing with more modge podge.


After that is fully dried, we took some Christmas scrap book paper and cut it to fit the back side of the ornament You could use paint, but I had some scrapbook paper so I decided to use that on the back. Again, using modge podge to attach it.

After that had dried overnight, we attached a ribbon hanger and the kids wrote their names and the date on the back. I forgot to take a picture of the back. I thought I did, but I can't seem to find the picture and unfortunately all these that we made for people have been sent off, given away or already wrapped up. But the scrapbook paper on the back is red and says Merry Christmas all over it.

BELOW IS A PICTURE OF THE ONES HANGING IN MY ROOM. I WANT TO GET SOME RIBBON TO ACTUALLY HANG THESE FROM, BUT HERE IS THE WAY THEY ARE HANGING NOW.

Our handmade Christmas gifts - Part 2

Part 2 of the handmade Christmas gift showcase is a totebag for Lady Bug's teachers. Lady Bug is in Pre-K and learning to write. So I had her take a pencil and write on a totebag (I helped her decide what to write!) Then she and I sat together and embroidered it. We just did a basic back stitch with embroidery thread. She got a real kick out of making this.

We completed this in two evenings. The first night after dinner she wrote on it and we started sewing it. Then we completed it the next night. So again, this was an easy craft and not too expensive. The totebag was only $3 at the craft store. If our time and budget allows I will put in some school supplies in the bag before we wrap it up for the teacher.

Our handmade Christmas gifts - Part 1

This year we are doing a mixture of handmade gifts and store-bought gifts. I wanted to start showing off what we have been doing.

Part 1 of our handmade Christmas gifts:

Snowglobe soaps. Click here for the instructions I used.

These are so cute. So fun. And so easy to make. The kids helped me make them and we did two batches in about an hour.

I found some deer in the dollhouse section of the craft store. I also used some fun buttons. I didn't do a very good job placing the items on my first batch and they were hard to see. But I learned and the next batch came out much better!

These little gifts would make great stocking stuffers because they are the size of an ice cube. We are giving these to nieces, nephews and our neighbor kid friends.


Very cute and I highly recommend the craft.

**I took this picture before I wrapped them up. I plan to wrap them in cellophane and tie a ribbon around it.**

Helping a hard working teacher out - WFMW tip

I am not a teacher, nor have I ever been , but I am close to some people whose occupation is teaching in the public schools. So I know from talking to them that they work hard and put in lots of hours that we (as parents) don't know about, especially during parent/teacher conference times. They sometimes are pulled away from their families during conferences and sometimes until late into the evenings for these conferences.

So this year I decided to make each teacher a little "Dinner in a basket" gift. I picked up a few baskets at the thrift store. Then I prepared some homemade chili, stuck in some crackers, a couple apples, a few biscuits (just from a can), Mr. Man made some salsa that we packaged up and I stuck in a jar of homemade pumpkin butter. I attached a note that said "With the stress of parent/teacher conferences, please enjoy dinner on us tonight! Thank you for all your hard work!"


The kids and I enjoyed packing these up and then Mr. Man helped the boys deliver them to the school Monday morning when he dropped the kids off. The boys were so excited to give them to the teachers. I immediately got a note back from Lefty's teacher saying "Thank you! Dinner is just what I needed this week! Things are going to be so crazy with conferences. Thanks again!"


Click here for more Works for Me Wednesday tips and ideas.

Please don't forget my Rachel Ray cookware giveaway - click here to enter.

Making your lists

I am participating in another Works For Me Wednesday tip sharing hosted by We Are THAT Family. Click here for all the wonderful holiday tips being shared.

What works for me is to have a Holiday Notebook. It starts with Thanksgiving planning and runs through Christmas planning. I have used spiral notebooks before, but the last 3 years I have used a small 1" binder.

In January I print off these pages and then I put them in the notebook. As I come across ideas for handmade gifts, or recipes I might want to try out during the holidays then I print them off (or rip out of magazines), 3-hole punch them and stick them in my notebook. I start adding in names in July to our list of who we need to make or buy gifts for (adding in teachers, new co-workers, new babies in the family, etc) and then I can start, little by little, making things or buying things as we can afford to.





This is what works for me!

Re-purposing a stained t-shirt

I'm sure my kids are the only ones that stain their shirts.... yes? no?

So, whether or not you have a stained shirt to work with or not, here is a cute, fun way that I have found to "hide" the stains so the child can still wear the shirt. However, this only works on little girls, I have yet to figure out what design would work for a boy. Any ideas??

First I took the shirt, you can see in this first picture some blue ink stains I couldn't get out.



Then I penciled in a circle in the middle to create the middle of the flower. I then penciled in some petals for the flower (sorry for the bad picture, I am not good at picture taking anyway, but pencil marks on a pink shirt were hard to capture!) Then I cut out the petals (and also cut out the ink stains!).


I have her wear the shirt with a long sleeve underneath. When I first made these my husband said he was afraid I wouldn't be able to wash them. I can assure you I have washed them and they come out just fine. I haven't had them ravel or anything.


The white shirt has 3 smaller flowers (that don't have a circle in the center) and then I put an "L" in the center (for Lady Bug). The pink shirt just has one big flower. With the white one I have had her wear a white shirt underneath, a black one, a purple one, so it really mixes up the outfit a bit. I love it!

I am pleased with these because she is still able to wear the shirt and the stains are gone (or almost anyway!)


Click here for more DIY tips. Click here for more Works For Me Wednesday tips.