Valentine's Mantle

I love to decorate for Christmas, but I can't say that I do a lot of other seasonal decorating.

Between cooking, cleaning, teaching, and all those other mama things, I just don't have the time, energy, or money to make the house festive all year long.

Or, so I thought.

Then I stumbled upon some super cute seasonal subway art downloads.

If you're looking for something quick, easy, and inexpensive- here's a project for you!

I started with this really yucky $4 frame from Goodwill.

I took it apart, cleaned it, and spray painted it white.

Then added this sweet, free download from 1825.

(I printed it out as a 16X20 at Sam's for $6).So, for $10 and about an hour of my time, our house has some Valentine's decor- for the first time in a long, long time!

Now, I'm off to shop the house for some other red items and decorate a little more!

(I also had this free download printed for later in the year. It's stored behind the Valentine's print, so I can just swap them out and use the same frame.)

Day 181~ How to Really Love a Child

So, it's 11:50 PM.

I've just gotten home from a night with some of my homeschool mama friends.

And I'm either high on caffeine or shopping!

Not sure which one!

Because normally I wouldn't post such yucky, no-natural-light pics!But I tell you what, I am in love!

And I just had to share!

So, please forgive the picture quality!

I saw this print before Christmas.

It spoke to my heart!

It was the only thing I asked for.

But they sold out before Superman could make it back to the store to buy it.

When I walked in tonight and it was there, I gripped it in my hands until my knuckles turned white!

I was taking it home with me tonight no matter what!

And I did!

P.S.~ A LOT is TWO words, not one!

Day 91~

Our girls' weekend is just a few days away.

This time we're going to try our hand at felting.

Last time I learned to sew, and we made aprons.

The crafts are always fun, but nothing is quite as wonderful as the time with my girlfriends!

Day 77~

Finally got around to boxing up these baby gifts to put in the mail today!

I had great pictures to post a tutorial on making the burp cloths, but they are locked away in my fatal error reading Dell. :(

Hopefully soon I'll be able to get to those pics!

If so, I'll post the tutorial.

They were pretty easy to make, and I'm just a novice!In other big news, our household has a new edition...Every child news to experience sea monkeys, right?We shall see!!!

Ornament Wreath

Now that this present has been given, I can finally post it!

I love the little jingle bells...Of course the inspiration was from Eddie Ross, here.I tried the bows two different ways. But, still couldn't figure out how to make a really pretty one. Guess it's a good thing I have boys and not girls! Bows just aren't my thing!

Merry Christmas to all!

Halloween-ish at Our House

I usually don't decorate for Halloween!
It seems like too much work, when all I really want to do is pull it all down and put up Christmas decorations on the first day of November.
Superman has always thought I was crazy to want Christmas decorations up so early! But, I just LOVE the Christmas season!
And, I think I've rubbed off on him!

Here's my usual idea of decorating for Halloween:

(Thank you very much, Krispy Kreme!)

This year I bowed to the peer pressure (from my children & Superman) and did a little bit of decorating.

After seeing these all over the blogosphere, I had to make a few for us!

We started with these: (each one was $1 or less!)

And some of this:

This would be a good place to add that had I just bought the little bottle up front, the Martha Stewart glow-in-the-dark glitter, that would have been plenty for all three of my boys! It was their FAVORITE part!!!

However, I honestly planned to make all of them myself!

That is, until SUPERMAN decided he was going to help me get my Martha on!Then the littlest joy joined me!Then the oldest joy! So now, we have a little of this:and this:and this:

and this:

But if you look closely, you'll see that Superman has been decorating, too...

Lord, help me!

Etsy Shop

Well, I finally got around to opening my Etsy shop!
You can find me here.
There is also a link on my sidebar.

I'll be adding more throughout the week.
The journals are so much fun!
They make great stocking stuffers!

T-shirt Fun

I celebrated another birthday this week!
I packed us up and headed to my parents for the weekend.
And came home with this...THANKS MOM!!!
And since taking her out of the box last night, I've been in sewing heaven!

Last night I made a pocketbook.

Today I made a shirt for Wyatt:

It was simple!
I started with a pair of his swim trunks that were headed to Goodwill. Then I found the font and size of "W" that I thought would look nice on one of his old t-shirts. I literally held a piece of paper up to the screen and traced the letter. What a great make-shift light box!I cut out the traced pattern from paper.
Then, used the pattern to cut out a camouflage "W" from the swim trunks.
Finally, I pinned the camouflage "W" to the front of his t-shirt and used my favorite stitch of all- ZIGZAG- to put it on!

His response was, "It ACTUALLY looks pretty good Mom!"

To which I said, "You're welcome, son!"

Great Day

There are some homeschooling days when I think to myself, "What am I doing?"

But every once in awhile we have days when I am reassured that Superman and I made the right decision to homeschool.

We had one of those days this week (and of course, I documented it for the blog!)

I looked down, and this was my view:
The littlest joy prefers to do his math with me at his side. It's not that he needs much of my help, he just prefers the attention. So, I've found that I can sit with my crocheting and work along side him. It makes both of us happy!

In between math problems and crochet stitches, we chatted about our week, the kitties, upcoming holidays, and just whatever else came up.

It was wonderful!

Then I looked up and saw this:The food on the hutch reminded me to start working on dinner.

So I did.

Then, I came back to this:As math continued to drag on a bit, I came up with a quick game.

We decided to race and see who could finish first. Would it be Wyatt finishing his next page in math? Would it be me finishing re-booting the laundry?

He beat me! What a victory for us both!

Next challenge... would Wyatt finish the rest of his schoolwork first? Or would I finish crocheting my dishcloth first?
He beat me again!

But in the long run, I was the winner!

Housework and schoolwork were finished throughout the day, dinner was prepared, Christmas presents were being completed, and happy hearts were created!
What a wonderful day!

Patchwork Apron ~ Girls Weekend

After the stress of this month, it was so wonderful to escape to the mountains for a weekend of fun with a few of my girlfriends! We ate, shopped, crafted, and made plans for this to be an annual trip! Next time we'll be loading up even more people for the trip! I'm so excited!!!

I'll eventually get more pictures from the weekend uploaded, but for now, I had to share one of the group crafts we made!

Chele got the inspiration here. But, of course, we adapted it and made it our own.

Each of us were responsible for bring fabric that we either loved or thought it represented our personalities.

These were my fabrics:

The goal was to make a patchwork friendship apron that represented the 4 of us! I must admit that I really couldn't visualize the final product until it was almost finished. I was scared that it would be hideous! I'm so happy to say that I was WRONG!!!

You can sort of see the four different piles of fabric that represented each of us.I was terrified I was going to make a mess with mine! I'm a sewing novice! I had no clue how to make it all come together! I nominated myself as the designated ironer until I felt a little more confident in my skills. Thank goodness I was with 3 sewing divas! They were such wonderful teachers! The apron turned out better than I ever imagined!We tracked down one of the local policemen to serve as our photographer!I think we were the highlight of his day!