Baking Soda and Vinegar Fun!

After seeing this fun idea on Pinterest from Preschool Alphabet, we heading to the pantry to find some baking soda and vinegar. I filled up a broiler pan with baking soda, then put vinegar in 4 paper cups and added different color food coloring to each.

Then I had the girls take turns picking a color and using the dropper to put it on the baking soda! They LOVED this activity.

Molly loved trying to make volcano paths and mixing the colors.

Nora took it very seriously, and was so sad when we ran out of baking soda!
Quick, easy fun!!!

Harry Potter Obsessed!

Since you all know we are fans of Harry Potter... I just couldn't resist whipping up this shirt for Nora. :)

I used the Silhouette I won (I know, I was SO lucky!) to cut "Muggle Born" in the Harry Potter font, and then cut it on heat transfer paper and ironed it on a black shirt.

Perfect attire for when the girls play with Randal's Potter Puppet Pals.

Easter Printable!

With Easter this coming Sunday, we've been doing a lot to teach our girls about the true meaning of Easter and why we celebrate this week. So when I saw this great printable of the song "I Know That my Redeemer Lives," from A Little Tipsy, I was excited to add it to our decorations.

I printed mine on cardstock and then cut it our and glued it to a pink backing, and then glued it onto a springish 12x12 scrapbook page and put it in my 12x12 frame I use for my family rules.

Pillow Beds!

For Christmas this year I made Pillow Beds for my niece and nephew, and for my girls! They were a BIG hit, my girls use them everyday, and it's the choice spot in the house to watch a movie. I used this amazing tutorial from No Rest for the Creative.

There were so many cute fabrics to choose, so I loaded up all my JoAnns, Fields and Hobby Lobby coupons and headed out fabric shopping. I picked cute owls for Nora, and Molly picked cats. My nephew got camo and niece butterflies.

One of my favorite parts is that the back is made like a pillow sham, so I can easily take the pillows out to wash the case, and replace pillows when needed.

Nora is seriously, cozy!!!

Twine Letters!

A few weeks ago, we made these fun
twine letters at a craft night with friends!

We picked up cardboard letters at Hobby Lobby, and then basically just wrapped them in twine, hot gluing every so often on the back of the letter to make sure the twine stays in place. (we all know I love any craft that uses hot glue) This was a fun simple craft, other than the corners and turns which were a bit tricky. :)

Painted Wood Sign!

After falling in love with the idea for this sign over on Pinterest, I looked everywhere for one to hang in our bedroom. Since they were all way more than I was willing to pay, I got to work planning my own version.

It was so quick and easy, I don't even have pics to show the progress. Basically, I picked up a thin square pine board at Lowes for $4, and cut it down a little to make it the size I wanted and rectangle. I used black acrylic paint to paint the board. I thought about stenciling the letters on, but wanted the painted look, so I ended up just tracing my own letters on and then painting them with a good old paint brush and offwhite paint by hand. I was going to put a clear top coat on to protect it, but since I'm not to worried about it getting worn, and I was in a hurry, I skipped that step. :)

I LOVE how it turned out, it is exactly what I was picturing in my head. I'm still considering distressing the edges a little bit. What do you think?

Ta Da! Here is my finished wall art for less that $5. Not perfect by any means, but perfect for us!

DIY Scratch Off Cards!

Today I made a few of these DIY scratch off tickets to try them out, and make sure I knew what I was doing. We are planning on making these at MLife, thinking it would be so fun for when kids are bored this Summer to get to scratch off a card and find a fun activity to do! I used this tutorial from ArtMind.

I made a winter one as a test, and love it so much, I am going to make a bunch of them tomorrow so we can use them this Winter. Here are a few of the activities I am putting on our Winter cards:
-Go Sledding
-Build a Snowman
-Snow Inside
-Bake Cookies
-Build a Blanket Fort
-Living Room "Movie Theater"
-Frozen Bubbles

-Paint

Vinyl Signs!

Today at our Church's MLife group we made these great vinyl signs! It was such a fun craft, that I bought an extra set to take home and let Molly make. She had the best time painting the 2x12 board with pink paint. Then her favorite part was rubbing the vinyl letters on with a popsicle stick.

She was thrilled to get to paint and do this whole craft by herself. She was SO proud to put it on the dresser in her room and show her dad the second he got home. :)

Recycled Wrapping!

After making this TP roll wreath last year, I am always looking for places to use these fun TP roll flowers. Here is my take on recycled wrapping. It's a present wrapped in a paper grocery bag, (my trick to make the paper look nice since it's so thick, is to use double sided tape so you don't have big chucks of tape on the outside) then I wrapped a strip of burlap and ribbon around the top, (also secured with double sided tape) and then just used clear thread to tie the TP roll flower on top, and added a label. I think it is super cute, green, and thrifty.

Favorite Kids Christmas Crafts/Ideas Recap

Here are some of our favorite kid ideas and crafts
from past Christmas posts.

Handmade Nativity Set

Christmas Light Fingerprint Bags

Popsicle Stick Sleds

Handprint and Footprint Reindeer

Bow Wreath Craft

Favorite Christmas Crafts Recap

Here are a few of the most popular past Christmas craft posts from my blog, the Reindeer Rootbeer/Beer I made last year have exploded all over Pinterest! I am SO flattered and glad people love this fun, easy craft! (Clink on the links or pictures below for the original posts.)

Reindeer Rootbeer / Beer

Candy Cane Mittens

Personalized Bags

Ornament Wreath

For more of the fun projects we've done the past few years, check out my old Christmas posts HERE. And come back tomorrow for some of my favorite kids Christmas crafts from last year. :)

Candy Jars!

It's a little hard to see from the picture, but since I had out my glass etching stuff the other day, I had to etch these fun candy jars. :) I used cheap little jars from Hobby Lobby and etched C-A-N-D-Y on the fronts. I figured I can change the candy each season and keep using them. I'm thinking I can use red and green M&Ms for Christmas.

The letters look much darker in real life, but in this picture I think you can see the glass etching a little better. (Yup, Randal is going to start hiding the glass again, he's worried I may etch everything, it is SO addicting.)
This fun idea was inspired from Random Thoughts of a Supermom. Check out her fun jars! :)

ISPY Jar!

I finally found a jar (in my basement stash of IKEA jars) to make up an ISPY game for Molly. I got this idea from Meet the Dubiens after seeing her idea on Pinterest.

And, of course I had to glass etch I-SPY onto the bottle. (yes, I still have my glass etching addiction, my husband was nervous when he saw me get the Armour Etch back out) ;)

Here are the random things we added to our jar. I printed a copy of this picture, laminated it, and added a ring to the corner so I could hook it to the metal on the top of the jar. I filled the jar with white rice, and then hot glued the top on for extra assurance it wouldn't open. Molly's favorite thing to search for are the letter beads to spell her name! :)

Happy Birthday Miss Molly!!!

Happy 4th Birthday to our amazing Molly!!!
I feel so blessed to be her mom, and so grateful for the miracle that helped her to reach 4!

I quick made this shirt for her to wear this morning, the same way I made these.
I just used pink flower fabric, Steam-A-Seam, and a white t-shirt. :)

She has felt very special today, and even got to pass out a birthday treat at school! Now we are heading to a birthday dinner of her choice with just mom and dad, she picked Chinese buffet, smart girl! :)

Crayon Wreath!

To go along with our "Back to School" decorations, I made this fun crayon wreath!
I got this fun idea from Katie at A Listmaker's Life. :)

I got a foam wreath form from the dollar store and hot glued a green ribbon around it, then I just hot glued crayons onto the front, and used push pins to put a ribbon hanger on!

Wax Crayon Craft!

With preschool starting next week (we are a little bit of a later start over here) for Molly, we are starting our back to school crafts to get ready for Monday!

We saw this fun craft over at Funny Days A to Z, and had to give it a try. First we hot glued crayons to the top of a white canvas.

Then we used a blow-dryer on the hot setting to start heating up the crayons.

Molly loved helping with this part, she was SO excited for them to start melting!

Here is what they looked like when they started melting! SO cool, but messy. I'm glad at the last minute I decided it would be a good idea to do this on the deck!

Once the crayons were heated up and started melting, the canvas filled up pretty fast.

Here is Molly's finished masterpiece, ours may not win any awards for looks, but it sure was fun!

Googly Eye Fun!

Molly asks to do a craft everyday, (don't know who she gets this from, lol) some days we have big, time consuming crafts, and others I need something super quick and easy... That is were this fun craft idea from Frugal Family Fun Blog (one of my absolute favorite blogs) was perfect!

We looked through magazines and picked out some fun pictures to cut and glue to a piece of cardstock. Then Molly added peel and stick googly eyes to the pictures to make them fun!

Seriously funny!!! (If you notice in the top picture, she even turned two into silly monsters, lol, that girl cracks me up!)

Paint Chip Color Match!

We made this fun color matching game out of paint chip cards and a binder ring! I found this fun idea over at Frugal Family Fun Blog back in May, and actually made one that day. :) I keep it in the diaper bag, and when Molly is getting tired or bored at the park, or running errands, I get it out and it's instant entertainment!

She uses the hole in each card, to hold over different objects and try to match the colors! So much fun, and challenging! Here she was matching brown leaves at the park. Molly had a great time running around trying to match all the colors, and Nora loved following her!