Wood Puzzle Fridge Magnets Tutorial

 A few years ago Old Navy had a whole series of Charley Harper themed toys and clothing that I snatched up being the Harper fan that I am. One of our favorites is a wooden animal puzzle. It got played with A LOT and a few pieces became victims of teething babies. Since I still loved those pieces instead of throwing the whole thing away I kept the good pieces and decided to turn them into fridge magnets! Here's a quick tutorial of how I did so, it's so easy!

What you will need:
Puzzle Pieces
Magnetic Sheeting
Scissors
Pen or pencil

Trace around the puzzle pieces on the magnetic sheeting.

Cut out your tracing from the magnetic sheeting.

Peel off the self stick paper and stick the magnet to the back of the magnet.

Be careful to line up all the curves and whatnot. Press the sheeting firmly against the back of the wooden puzzle piece.

And tah-dah! You have a new cute magnet!

I'll be keeping an eye out in thrift stores and garage sales for vintage wooden puzzles now, these make such stylish magnets!

Be blessed.

Shaving Cream Paint

 This past week was spring break, and while the weather was nice for most of it, the evenings are still pretty chilly around the time I'm trying to make dinner while my boys simultaneously lose the ability to play independently and resort to standing in our hallway of a kitchen asking repeatedly when dinner will be ready and screaming. I'm not a good multitasker when it comes to slicing vegetables and listening to my kids whining so I started implementing an early bath time, that included shaving cream paint.

I just got some cheap shaving cream and dyed it with food coloring. It provides enough entertainment that I can get a bit of a respite from the whining and the bath calms them down enough that they'll veg out a bit afterwards, giving me enough time to get dinner made.

Sometimes painting your brother is more fun than painting the walls.

Some messy good clean fun! This little activity comes together so quickly that we've started doing this on an almost daily basis.

Be blessed.

Outdoor Chalk Paint

 Oh, TV, I really do rely on you to babysit and entertain my kids, entirely too often, I know, but you're always available and thanks to Netflix, you have a variety of shows to entertain my children with. However, the weather is warming up and honestly, my reliance on you has become pretty inexusable, and my kids have been hanging out with you entirely too much. For some reason after a few hours with you, TV, my kids are cranky and whiney and have that mysterious odor my parents used to tell us to go outside to blow off of us as in, "get outside and blow the stink off ya," which I have found myself uttering to my own children. So, TV, we've come to this, my kids just have to spend less time with you, don't get me wrong, I will probably still need you when I'm trying to make dinner, or if I've worked a late night shift and need to catch a snooze while you entertain my 4 year old for an hour, or if I have to finish up some homework, but our 5 hour stints together with my kids seriously have to end.

With the weather warming up I've been trying to get my kids, and myself, outside more often. We are moving to the city in the next few months so in addition to just plain spending time outside, we're also trying to suck in as much outdoor time in our beautiful lakeside neighborhood in the woods before we make the major transition to become city dwellers. Sometimes we go on walks are just mess around in the yard.

Sometimes my 4 year old has trouble finding something to do outside and that's when I pull out the Pinterest inspired projects. Last week it was outdoor chalk paint. Equal parts water and cornstarch with just a few drops of food coloring.

To get Gabe going I painted a heart, then he had the idea to paint a house for the heart. When all was said and done he created a whole philosophy around his chalk paint drawing. "Mom when you stand in the heart you will be loved." Adorable.

The chalk paint dries really cool, it has this smooth enamel like texture that crumbles if you press it or step on it. It rained a few days later and the paint melted away leaving a clean patio.

All it really cost was a trip to the dollar store to get cheap muffin tins for the paint, as I am not lending my bake ware for outside fun, as much as I love my children I know it will get destroyed.

Be blessed.

Easter Egg Maternity Top

 I've been in a bit of a sewing rut. What with moving, and packing and going back to school and baking tasty treats for the Bistro and chasing around THE most active toddler you have ever seen, (I get exclamations from strangers all the time as I run past them chasing Forrest about how "fast" or "busy" he is.) I am one busy lady, so as much as I'd love to just sit down at my machine and MAKE something, I've been short on energy and time lately. So I was really excited when my friend called me up to ask me to make her an Easter maternity top with an Easter Egg on the belly. It was just the right kind of project for me to slip into my schedule, and I was pretty much immediately inspired by the idea.

I got a nice comfy long T-shirt from Target and appliqued an egg on the belly, and decorated the egg with various trims. I admit, I was a bit wary about the pom poms but I liked it and I figured if she didn't she could just snip the pom poms off. She actually loved the pom poms and it suits the event she's wearing it to on Sunday.

Please forgive my boxy dress form for not modeling the accuracy of an actual adorable pregnant woman wearing this irresistibly cute and clever maternity shirt. It was all I had on short notice, I actually dropped this shirt off with my friend as she and her husband were packing a uhaul to move to San Fransisco. She quickly tried it on over her clothes and it looked WAY cuter on her than on my dress form stuffed with batting to make a little belly. I know my next pregnancy wardrobe will include an Easter egg shirt if I happen to have a belly on Easter.

Happy Easter everyone! Be blessed.
(Also, to be clear I am not pregnant. This was made for a friend, you know how rumors start!)

Some 2012 Loose Ends Awaiting Tying

Happy New Year, Folks! Oh my word was this holiday season busy. It was ALMOST our family's busiest yet, except for that time a few years ago we were moving and buying a house and all that jazz. This year included a 16 hour drive to Yuma, AZ to visit my grandparents and allow them to get to know my little boys a bit better, Christmas family dinner at our house, my husband leaving his job of almost 6 years to start a new career, his first day of which is today and lots of parties and get together's. This may be the first year that I am relieved the holiday season is over. Phew! But, boy, was it a blast or what?

Because we were in a whirlwind of crazy I am STILL catching up on some Christmas to do's. These packages are awaiting mailing. (We had a really big snow and haven't made it down the hill to the post office in quite some time.) I still have to finish making at least 3 Christmas presents for my friends but have been putting it off during my free time because my craft room looks like this:

Oh yes, folks, I am being brave and showing you what a disaster my studio is at the moment. Hold me accountable! Make sure I clean it! I may be purging some fabric soon too since I have run out of places to put it. Emphasis on the word "may", I am a big fabric hoarder so it is hard for me to part with little pieces of cloth that I adore. A move may be in our future in the next year or so though so it is imperative that I get it under control!

Since listing our house is a possibility I plan on fixing this little problem this month as well. When we got our new fridge we didn't account for the doors being higher than the fridge itself so we had to remove our cabinet doors in order to still access the cabinet above our fridge. I have been meaning to make a curtain for that cabinet for 3 months, it is high time I get that simple little project done.

Among other things I still want to make a family photo book of 2012, and finish two blankets/quilts and organize my beading crap, the list could be endless.

So those are just a few of my loose ends, I've shown you mine, now you show me yours! What do you still need to wrap up?

Be blessed.

Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Winner

Wow! I am seriously humbled by the response I got on my little thrown together post. I was so touched by how much you all loved my necklace I seriously wish I could give you all one! I actually have a pretty fancy schmancy giveaway in the works that I arranged with one of my friends who works for a certain local company that has agreed to sponsor a giveaway on my blog. Hint hint hinty hint hint. (Check back next week for THAT giveaway)

Now onto the winner! Random.org picked number 49! Maureen Hayes who said this:

Maureen HayesDecember 3, 2012 9:59 PM

Oh my goodness, if I can only win one giveaway, I pray this is it! I have seen similar types of items and have always wanted one, even would love to learn how to make these! I am a voracious reader so this is so appropriate for me. I would honestly love any color, but I guess I would chose a brown leather or pink and I prefer silver chains to gold, but would be happy with anything!

As an aside, I understood what you meant about the power outage, and if it is short lived it is okay, but having just come through Hurricane Sandy and having gone 13 days with no power, I am here to tell ya, it gets old quick. We were freezing, had no way to store food and going out of our minds trying to get information with no tv, Internet, etc. . . I am glad yours only lasted a day.

Thank you again for the generous giveaway, I am so excited to be following your blog. The best part of all of this is finding new people and blogs that connect with and I feel that with yours.

Merry Christmas!

Looks like your prayers have been answered, Maureen! Congrats!

And for all you who didn't win you can buy one of my necklaces and get FREE shipping on domestic orders until next Friday from my etsy shop by entering the code IDIDNTWIN at checkout. (Yeah, I have a sense of humor!)

Be blessed!

Giveaway Day! Book Necklace

GIVEAWAY NOW CLOSED

So here's the deal, I had a seriously sweet post planned for today, I was going to take beautiful well-lit pictures of my latest necklaces and write this really elegant post about who I am as an Artist with a capital 'A' and what I really love about making and blah blah blah. But early yesterday morning our power went out due to an epically dark storm. The rivers around here are literally RAGING. We had torrents of water running down our driveway. We were without power for almost 24 hours. The light was not so great for ANY pictures.

But we had a fantastic day just being with our family. I love those power outage days because they really force us to just BE with each other. We made shadow animals on the walls with flashlights, we couldn't grind our coffee so I ran to the store in the middle of the day to get bottled syrupy Starbucks coffee, we tended our fire, we called PG&E hourly because seriously, we live in the middle of nowhere so when the Internet is out we are really isolated, we ran around with our goofy kids, we just hung out together (and even took naps!). As cheesy and cliche as this all sounds it is absolutely true, power outage days are a blessing. So we really experienced that blessing yesterday and my Giveaway Day post today is just thrown together. Life happens, and I can't always polish it all up for the blog!

So I am giving away a custom made leather bound book necklace. I have ALMOST every color to make them out of, (including a pearlescent pink!) so for the giveaway if you would just leave a comment telling me what color of book you would want if you win, (red, blue, green, teal, pink, brown, black, yellow, metallic gold, etc), and if you would want a gold or silver toned chain.

Giveaway nitty gritty: Sorry to international friends, I will only be shipping to the U.S. this time! Giveaway will be open until December 7, 2012 at 5pm PST. After leaving a comment check out all the other giveaways up today, you will be discovering some seriously creative people today!

Be blessed.

GIVEAWAY NOW CLOSED