This Week in Photos (again)

I don’t feel like I accomplished much this past week beyond making the bed every day and keeping up with dishes. I did do a massive amount of laundry mid-week. The boys were out of underwear, so…

Last Sunday was a gorgeous day and I spent part of the afternoon working on the east side of the garage. Years ago I made a small flower bed there, but it’s been sadly neglected. The mulberry tree was cut down last fall, so now I can get in there and put in some new color with flowers. The bleeding heart at the far end is just lovely, and there is lily of the valley all over in there. Also, lots of little trees that are the bane of my existence.  Anyway, this bed is where I’ll be using empty wine bottles. You’ll just have to stay tuned for that!

The boys just cannot keep away from their baby sister, and she loves the attention. Well, most of the time. Silas asked me to snap a pic while he snuggled Layla.

On Monday evening I went outside to grab the stroller and bring it in, and this is what I found on the front porch. I think my heart is going to explode, these boys fill it up so full. Yes, they duct-taped dandelions to the house. They know Grammy likes flowers by the front door.

  

Bradley and Layla are checking out the baby TV channel together. Yes, for a few minutes each morning, she gets to watch TV. Grammy has things to do.

Whenever the boys are here for supper on Tuesdays, we have Mexican food and call it “Taco Tuesday” (thank you, Lego Movie). I asked Silas what we should have this week and he asked for “regleear” (regular) tacos, salad, worms, and butterflies. I did not bat an eye, and he got what he asked for. For the worms, we made “zoodles” using a zucchini and a little gadget I have that looks like a vegetable peeler, but makes long shreds instead. I did a quick sauté with a little olive oil, salt and pepper, and we had our worms. (I made everyone take some. Grampy buried his one zoodle in the bottom of his taco.) For the butterflies, we took some sugar cookie dough from the freezer and Silas made butterfly-shaped cookies for dessert.

 

The weather was perfect all week long, and Jess took the kids to the park each afternoon when she got home from work. Miss Layla has graduated from being strapped in her car sea on the stroller, to sitting in the seat. She loves walking to the park now that she can see all the cool stuff around her!

When I could, I worked on this project. I spent most of Wednesday afternoon cutting out all the little pieces, and now have begun to sew. More on that project as it nears completion. That is my mom’s sewing machine, so I’ve had it 18 years. I have no idea how old it was when I got it, but suffice to say, it has lived a good long life and is about to be retired.

            

So there you go - a small slice of life here on the prairie. Complete with duct taped flowers and worms for supper.

 

This Week in Photos

Some projects begun, but nothing ready to blog about. For fun, I thought I’d share a few photos of the grands taken this past week.

On Monday I awoke with a massive headache that soon had me feeling nauseous, which means migraine. It was a s.l.o.w. morning for me until the meds took effect. Brad-Man was very sweet and helped take care of his sister for me.

He played quietly while Layla had her nap, and took some pics of his Lego creation.

Later that afternoon he and Silas built towers with Duplo blocks. Silas was ecstatic when the tower was so tall they had to get the step stool to add bricks.

Miss Layla got some new fashion accessories. She actually doesn’t mind when we put headbands on her. Not so with the sunglasses. Those were pulled off immediately.

     

Silas was super-excited to go bowling with his preschool class this week. His mama got to join him at the bowling alley, but he told me his favorite part was riding the school bus.

A sneak peek at my current project. I worked on it as I could this week, and made lots of progress today. More to come about this as I get them finished.

Yes, that is The Hulk watching over my pile of felt. Don’t you have large plastic Super Heroes helping you out at home, too?

 

Playing with Paper

Number 4 on my 14 in ‘14 list was to scrapbook/craft each week. There are piles of papers and tools and supplies on top of the dining room buffet so when the urge hits, paper crafting can ensue without too much prep. I’ve made birthday cards for the twin niece/nephew, and gift tags for next Christmas, so something has been happening, just not each week.

On Friday night I dug out several envelopes full of photos and sorted them into piles. On Saturday I spent some time assembling four pages. Yep, just four. Scrapbooking takes me awhile. On Sunday I finished one of those four pages. The other three will be done before the end of the week. Pinky swear.

Here is “the one”:

It’s a little busier than what I usually do, but I got a new Cricut cartridge (Boys Will Be Boys) and I needed to cut out all those bugs!

 

 

This entire page is made from papers and supplies I already had. The bugs each have little eyes glued on, and pop dot scraps under, so they “pop” off the page.

No worries that this will be a scrapping blog. I pretty much relate to that little blue and yellow snail up there when it comes to scrapping speed. LOL.

 

Blah Chalkboard to Fun Cork Board!

A few years ago I became enamored by the homemade chalkboards I saw everywhere on the interwebs, so made one for the kitchen. After trying it in a few different locations, it finally ended up at the end of a set of upper cabinets. The frame was purchased at Goodwill a long time ago, and Greg cut a scrap piece of board to fit. I used spray-on chalkboard paint on the scrap, then put it together.

You can see the flat black frame and black chalkboard – kind of boring, but it worked for me at the time. (This was October 2011, “Every day there comes a time when no matter the question, the answer is “Wine”. Yes. Yes it does.)  At first I changed the quote every few months, then eventually it got left longer and longer, and on Friday I erased the “Star of Wonder, Star of Light” from Christmas. This particular chalkboard had obviously lost its charm for me, and it was time for an update.
In the interest of lightening it up and adding some texture, a little spray paint and a few wine corks changed this board completely. Now I love it!

A sanding block was used to distress the frame a few hours after painting, letting some of that black underneath peek out. With the black paint it was difficult to see the floral design, but the white paint actually accentuates that pretty feature.
Flat glass marbles, white thumbtacks, and hot glue all came together to make the pretty push pins. Right now they hold photos of nieces and nephews, but I anticipate this board will fill up with additional fun stuff all too quickly.
I have a Pinterest board just for wine cork crafts if you’d like to take a look at some other ways to use them. (I do save all the corks from the wine we open here, but it takes quite a long time to accumulate the quantities needed for some of these projects. Corks can be purchased online – I got some from a vendor on Etsy – and sometimes a family member will give me a few they’ve acquired. If you have any extras you need to get rid of, please feel free to send them my way.)

If you’ve done something fun with wine corks, I’d love to hear about them!

I'm linking up to The Creative HomeAcre Blog Hop - go see the fun things people are doing!

Keeping Kids Busy

We all know that toddlers/preschoolers and teenagers have much in common, not the least of which is that if you don’t keep them busy doing something constructive, they’re going to find something to do, and it may not always be the best choice. I have evidence of this in the playroom right now – yesterday when I was busy with my little nephew (almost 7 months old), the grandboys and my 3 year-old niece were in the playroom having what sounded like a wonderful time. The laughter should have been a warning to me. That much fun means trouble… Oh, and I’m sure it was lots of fun to color on the walls, the mirror, and the carpet! Argh.

The boys weren’t here today, but I still have the niece to keep busy, so we made cardboard “gingerbread” houses. The original blog post about these and the template can be found here. I keep most of the cardboard from food boxes to recycle, and while we don’t eat much cold cereal, I did have two boxes in the recycling stash, as well as one from granola bars that was a good size.

 

After printing and cutting out the template, I traced it onto the inside of the boxes and cut it out. It was easier to fold on the fold-lines when I scored them, so I got out the scoring board. Gotta say, that was a good use of my birthday gift card, I use it all the time.

I folded the lines, then hot glued the whole thing together. The template does not include a roof, but the side panel of the cereal box is the right width for that. I gave mine a bit of an overhang, and also added gingerbread trim by cutting a strip with decorative scissors and gluing on the front at the roofline.

By now the niece was getting pretty excited to decorate this little house. We finished construction, added the scratchy side of Velcro to strategic spots on the house, then sorted through my box of felt pieces to cut some decorations. She was especially enamored with the idea of using pompoms, and I happened to have a few, so we got those out as well.

While she played with decorating, I cut out and glued together three more houses. She’ll take hers and another for her sister, and I’ll have two here for the grandboys. I think they’ll enjoy playing with them, especially since the crayons will be “grounded” for awhile…

Leftovers Into Place Cards

Our Thanksgiving tables were not set with crystal, china, nor fancy linens. Rather, just a basic table cloth, stoneware, and the paper napkins left from the wedding (I did pull out the plastic flatware and replace with real). One fun thing that did make the table this year, though, were the place cards made from leftover wedding craft stuff. They, too, were basic and so simple to throw together.

Just a 5” square of brown kraft paper leftover from invitation-making, scored and folded in half, then a small rectangle of burlap and another small rectangle of kraft paper sewn on. I did have to use double-stick tape on both the burlap and the top piece of kraft paper to hold them in place for sewing, but wasn’t concerned about everything being too straight. Just a short straight stitch around the perimeter secured each piece. Rubber alphabet stamps were used to put the name on each one.

When my elementary school-aged niece and nephews arrived, I enlisted their help with finishing the table setting and they decided where each person should sit. They enjoyed being able to contribute, and put the place cards in the center of each dinner plate.

I really like little touches like place cards on the table even though we all know and like each other and have no problem choosing our own seats.

 

Post-Thanksgiving…

My husband, the Great DIY-Guy, ordered a little part for my laptop, then watched a few YouTube videos, disassembled, reassembled, and I’m back to computing with my own machine. Yea!

So, even though Thanksgiving has come and gone, there are a couple of things I want to show you over the next few days. The first of these being the fun turkey t-shirts I put together for the grandboys.

The t-shirts came from the local W Mart. I like to pick up a few different colors in the boys’ sizes each season, then I keep them at my house for those days a change of clothes is needed. (They’re just under $4 each, which I don’t think is too expensive, but if I found blank tees at a garage sale for less, I’d pick those up instead…)

The turkey body and feathers are fabric that I cut using my Cricut, after designing the shapes on the computer. To cut fabric using the machine, you need to use an iron-on adhesive like Wonder Under or Heat ‘N Bond. You adhere it to your fabric using a hot iron, then before peeling off the paper, run the fabric through the cutter. The beak and wattle were hand-cut out of the leftover scraps.

I arranged the pieces, then ironed them on the shirts. (Wash and dry the shirts first, but don’t use any kind of softener or dryer sheet.) After the fabric was secure, I sewed around each piece. That didn’t really have enough “weight” for the design, so I went back and zigzagged atop the stitching. I am not a prize-winning seamstress, so my appliqué looks homemade. I just tell myself that’s part of the charm of the shirts and what makes them a keepsake. :)

The boys looked so cute when they arrived here for lunch yesterday, dressed in khaki pants and their turkey tees. They wouldn’t pose for a photo (there were other kids here and they needed to go play!), but Jess managed to corral them for a second and got someone to snap a quick pic. Here are my two favorite turkeys and their mama:

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving celebration with both sides of the family. I love that we can all gather together and not worry about “his” side and “her” side. We feasted and watched football, the kids played indoors and outdoors, and my MIL even got some Christmas shopping done online. My two little turkeys went home exhausted, but that meant an early bedtime for them, something their mama and daddy were thankful for, I’m sure. LOL.