Week in Pictures

1. Haley's first candy necklace 2. Riding on Daddy's shoulders 3. A refreshing drink 4. Eating at a fun local restaurant 5. A visit to the ER

It's been quite the week this week...Connor had a trip to the ER recently when he was having a bad night. It was the perfect storm of a double ear infection, oncoming virus, and teething. He's OK, but he gave us quite the scare. Here's to a less eventful weekend :)

Mother's Day (a couple days late)

So I know I'm a couple days late on this, but I just had to share a little about my Mother's Day. It was a nice, relaxing day where my wonderful husband took over all the child-related duties and let me lay in bed watching TV all day. It was wonderful. I even got to take a nap, which may not sound too thrilling to you, but it was one of the highlights of my day!

My very favorite Mother's Day moment happened during our breakfast at IHOP that morning:

(Please don't look at my lack of makeup or hairstyle lol - it was Mother's Day, and I took full advantage of not doing anything that day!) 

Connor had been making a pretty big scene as he sat across the table from me at IHOP (in that first picture, he's smacking my husband on the head with his paper placemat.) We tried toys, food, a bottle, nothing seemed to cheer the boy up. We eventually got worn out, at which point he decided to to climb on top of the table and then crawl across to sit on my lap and cuddle with me. From then on, he was a happy boy (for the most part, he is only 1 1/2 after all :)

Just another reason to be thankful for being the Mama to my 2 wonderful kids :) I hope everyone else had a great Mother's Day too!

Week in Pictures

 1. Daddy gets a Spongebob band aid for his boo boo 2. Connor's Starbuck's obsession (don't worry, it's just a strawberry smoothie :) 3. I actually have actual strawberries growing in my garden! 

4. Ostrich burger 5. Bedtime stories

Yay, it's Friday! After a long, busy weekend I'm definitely ready for the weekend. This week has been pretty interesting. The highlight was when I tried an ostrich burger for the first time - definitely an experience. Not so sure I'll get it again (it has a flavor that you can't seem to compare to anything else), but I'm glad I tried it. My friends tease me that I eat the weirdest things, and it's true. I'm always the one who will pick out the weird looking foods at buffets because I'm curious. That gets me in trouble a lot, but sometimes I discover a new food I really like. Can't say the burger is a new favorite, but at least now I can say I tried ostrich :)

We're still in the process of trying to sell our house, so that's made us very anxious and impatient, but we both continuously remind ourselves that God has a plan, and it's better than ours. 

 

Have a great weekend everyone!

Fabric bolts from cereal boxes

My name is Jen and I have a problem. This is my fabric stash.

Ok, well it's part of my fabric stash. It's a giant mess. Pieces of fabric are everywhere, and I hope you're not expecting me to have everything in alphabetical order by designer, color, and pattern because that's pretty much never happening.

I feel like a crafting failure sometimes when I see pictures of peoples' gorgeous sewing rooms. Everything is in its proper, labeled place, and heaven forbid there be anything in the room that doesn't match the color scheme. There's no mess, no half-finished projects laying on the ground. And definitely no toys scattered on the floor.

I'm convinced these people don't have children. They borrow neighbor kids for photo shoots.

There's a reason I didn't show you the rest of my sewing space. I share it with a bin of toys that belong to my kids, and the bin stays organized for about 5.4 seconds before it looks like a hurricane hit the room. I love having the toys in the room because I can still craft and play with the kids simultaneously, but my pieces of fabric everywhere doesn't help the mess.

But I wanted to do what I can to organize the room because, let's admit it, I can't pin the blame for that messy fabric pile above on my kids. I saw this tip on The Little Green Bean for using foam board to make mini fabric bolts. It's a great idea, but I wanted to use something I had on hand.  Then it came to me - cereal boxes! Cereal is something I eat a LOT of, so why not re-purpose the boxes rather than throwing them away?

First, cut your cereal boxes so you have a pile of just the front and backs of your boxes.

Next, use hot glue around the perimeter of one of the front sides of your panels.

Place the other panel on top of it and voila, instant mini bolt! It may not look like anything special, but just wrap your fabric around that baby, and your stash will stay organized!

Ahhh, much better.

So much better than the messy pile right? Too bad I have 4 times more fabric in the drawers below. I have a lot of cereal to eat.

Note: Since cereal boxes are small, you may need to fold your fabric in half length-wise (possibly more than once) to be able to fit them around your cereal box bolt. 

Check out my sidebar to see where I link up each week!

Mother's Day idea: DIY photo canvas

Mother's Day is coming up this weekend, and I have 0 Mother's Day projects for you. A big, whopping 0. Probably because all I want for Mother's Day is to be served breakfast in bed while I sit around all day watching DVR'd shows and my husband cares for my angelic children and fetches me anything I want.

That's all.

Just kidding, while I know my husband is going to let me relax as much as possible, I realize that I have 2 kids under the age of 4 whose main goal in life is to destroy everything of value, and that means both parents are on Child Watch 24/7. 15 minutes of silence means that somebody probably found the Closet of Forbidden Toys (yes we have one of those) and is currently decorating the hallway with markers. In fact, just 5 minutes ago as I was writing this post I caught my son sucking on the rubber tip from one our door stops. On the plus side, he's probably immune to most sicknesses with all the stuff he's put in his mouth.
 
Even though I'm off the hook, I still wanted to make something for my Mom and Mother-in-Law for Mother's Day. Luckily, Pinterest came through for me again with this awesome idea for a DIY canvas at Sarah's Never Ending Projects. Her brilliant tutorial teaches you how you can make your own photo canvas using your printer, tissue paper and Mod Podge - perfect for Mother's Day.

I got out my supplies while the kids were running around the house like maniacs and whipped this baby out under 30 minutes (minus drying time.)

 

I used an 8x10 canvas, which left enough room to overlap the canvas on the side with the tissue paper so it looks more like the real deal. I'm super happy with the project, it really looks like I bought it online - minus the couple of spots I rubbed the tissue paper off accidentally. The colors came out a little funky, but that was my printer's fault. I probably should have played with the color a little more before printing. Oh, and if you're wondering why I didn't make one of BOTH of my kids, it's because my son can't sit still for 1 minute so I can get a decent picture of him.

So Mom or MIL if you're reading this, I didn't get you breakfast in bed, but I did get you a picture of one of my angelic children minus the destruction. And if any of your are looking for a great project for Mother's Day, I definitely suggest making a DIY Canvas. I'll be making many more of these for my house once I can get Connor to sit still one of these days.

Week in Pictures

1. a trip to the car wash 2. sushi with friends 3. amazing cupcakes with the BEST peanut butter frosting 4. decorating with sidewalk chalk 5. trying a new beer (I think I'll stick to the original thanks)

Happy Friday everyone! This week, I've done a lot of eating (if you couldn't tell from the picture above :) I got to have sushi TWICE this week, which is a really rare treat. A friend of mine introduced me to squid salad a few years ago and ever since then, I just have to have one each time I go to get sushi. I can't get enough of the stuff. In fact, when I was pregnant and on bed rest with Connor, I craved it so much that my friend brought some to the hospital for me. The idea of squid salad may sound a little weird but try it. Trust me.

I also tried some amazing cupcakes with mile high-frosting that tastes exactly like my mother-in-law's peanut butter fudge. And luckily, it's right across the street from my house. Which is dangerous. One of these days I'll write up a post for the peanut butter fudge. I am not a fan of fudge usually, but this stuff is life changing.

Aside from that, we've had a pretty routine week with a trip to the carwash (which both kids thought was pretty terrifying) and decorating the sidewalk with sidewalk chalk. We're still trying to sell our house, so fingers crossed for that!

Hope your week has been great (and full of yummy food) too!

Photo layout c/o Katrina of Pugly Pixel

Wooden bead necklace

I'm always on the lookout for easy projects that I can do with supplies I have on hand. You know, the kind that you can do in between dinner when you have a toddler attached to your leg and a 3-year-old begging to watch Barbie Mermaid Tale for the 30th time that day? Yup, that was me yesterday.

Recently, I've been finding a lot of really great new blogs that I keep adding to my ever-expanding list. Like I need another blog to read. Sometimes I wish blog stalking was a vocation, but then I think about how if that happened, I would probably live solely off of coffee and NutriGrain bars while my body slowly became one with my computer chair. Probably not the best way to go.

While doing my usual blog reading, I came across this awesome tutorial for a simple beaded necklace from Fine and Feathered that fit my criteria exactly. I love the simplicity of it, so I decided to make one for myself.

Oh, and did I mention that it involves only wooden beads and suede cord? I felt like I was at craft camp. Except for at my house. And macaroni art wasn't involved.

I followed her basic idea for how to make the necklace, but I used different beads and made the necklace in one piece rather than making a separate loop with the beads. What do you think? I'm really loving it. I'm really into the whole southwestern kick right now, and I feel like this necklace will be the perfect accessory for my outfits that fit that theme.

I'm kicking myself for throwing away the giant bag of wooden beads I tossed several years ago. When I was 18, I had this elaborate plan to make a bead curtain in my room (and yes, I realize that we're no longer in the 70's, I don't know what I was thinking.) Now I'm just wishing I had more wooden beads to make several hundred more bead necklaces.