New Curtains

While I was painting my oldest son's room, I realized that it is not the only room that needs a little more attention in the home decor department.  The other two rooms could use a little love, too.  Both the other kids' rooms are green (not avocado).  My daughter started with a green/pink interior.  I love the green and pink, but the curtains that I originally made for her room left a lot to be desired.  I had this great idea of using sheer pink curtains, but the fabric was terrible to work with and they didn't come out very great.  I've left them in the room, even though I hated them, while I've worked on tons of other things in the house.  Now that my little girl is a little bigger, she doesn't really like pink anymore, either.   So - new look needed!  We are now going with a turquoise and green look and I'm starting with the curtains that are desperately in need of help. (Sorry about the daytime pictures. Didn't realize how hard taking pictures of curtains is.  I need to try again at night)

These are the curtains before:

These are the new curtains:

Here is a little close up of the fabrics I used:

There will be new elements in the room eventually to reflect the change better, but this is a good start and a good inspiration to help the rest of the room.  I can tell you, though, that I'm not really going to be happy with this room until we can take out the crib and get a bunk bed.  This room has way too much furniture.

Patriotic Pinwheels

I saw a really good tutorial for these on Funky Vintage Lovely.
The only thing that I was really bummed about is that I couldn't find any pretty double-sided paper like she did.  I have really got to find a good scrapbook store in my area.

Anyways, I really like how they turned out.  They are pretty and add some fun texture on my wall, too.

"X Marks The Spot" French Braids

We were headed to the pool and I wanted a hairdo that would keep good in the water so I had a little fun with some french braids. Instead of just doing them straight down the back of her head, I made them criss cross.

It was perfect and it kept her hair out of her face the whole time we swam.

Last Room in My House

Since we've moved in a couple of years ago, we have painted just about every room in the house - until now.  I officially completed painting the very last room. Some of the rooms in this house were painted with only one coat and you could see every single brush stroke.  Others were just painted with unattractive colors.  Case in point:

They painted this lovely avocado green in the window sills, on the door frames, everything.  Needless to say, not my favorite, not what I wanted to work with. (This was the same color that my bathroom was before I painted it, too.  They painted it on the vanity, doors and ceiling in there.  wow!)
Anyways, this is my oldest son's room slash my craft room.  He's so nice to share his closet with me.  We originally were thinking about doing an orange - we both love orange - but as I was searching for inspiration rooms online, I found another cool alternative. 

The color is called shark gray.  Then we finished with "Coffee Whip" orange for a cool zig zag stripe around the room.  It was my first time taping off and trying to paint like this. It turned out well, though.  I've been seeing so many projects with chevron stripes lately and I really like how the blueish gray and orange compliment each other.  Next on the list for this room makeover are new curtains and matching bedspread to go with the orange accents.

Monster Book Mark

My wonderful sister-in-law, Stephanie, sent me this idea. I adore these little monster book marks.  They are simple and fun.  I cut out the papers and let my kids each assemble one.  Perfect for our summer reading!

Make your own by following the pattern at I Could Make That!

Scrapbooking Faves

I've been catching up on my scrapbooking again.  Here are a few of my favorites so far.

I noticed that the further behind I get, the more I use simpler designs.  At the same time, the simple designs are sometimes the best! I can tell you one thing, though, I am totally loving the Silhouette for my scrapbooking.

Father's Day!

We had a fabulous Father's Day this year.  We had lots of fabulous little surprises for Dad (and they were all fairly inexpensive!)
The night before Father's Day, we cleaned up Dad's bedroom and left this on his pillow: 

We found the printable at Seven Thirty Three.  We filled it out with all of Daddy's favorite foods for breakfast and let him choose what he wanted.
The kids each made him a card (or 3 or 4) and we bought him his favorite candy bar.  And used a printable label to put over the candy from The Idea Room.  She has free printables for multiple sizes of candy like this:

Then we got his favorite kind of soda - Henry Wienhard's Root Beer and used this printable label from Oopsey Daisy. 

Thank you Tatertots and Jello for posting all of these wonderful ideas!

He got all the special meals of the day that we knew he loved and also made him some of his favorite peanut butter cookies.

Our last kind act of the day was creating him a "WE LOVE DAD" masterpiece on the driveway.  I knew he'd have to stay after church for at least a little while, so we took advantage of our time and filled the whole driveway with chalk.

He was really very grateful for all the little things we did to make his day great.  We love our Daddy so much, I'm so glad we were able to make a special day for him.  He is my love, my best friend and the best Daddy to my kids a girl could ever ask for.  LOVE YOU, JARED!!!!

French Braid and Twist

We got to have a girls night while the boys were at a fathers and sons campout.   We painted our toenails, watched princess movies, had milkshakes and made beautiful hair.  I actually really love doing hair, but my tender-headed daughter is very resistant to the pain of it all.  Lately she's been a little more open to the idea, so we've tried a couple of fun hairdo's.  I have always known how to braid, french braid, fish braid, german braid, but I found Shaunell's Hair Blog and she has opened my eyes to new fun ways to use my braiding skills.  I used this one

the other day and forgot to take a picture.  Then I used this one for our princess night.

Mine isn't as perfect as hers but now that I can practice more (hopefully) I will get better.  Fine hair is so hard to get perfect.

Build a Castle

Our Summer project for today was to build a castle.  My Big H has been totally into castles lately.  Asking me questions, like, "What are stronger - round turrets or square turrets?" " How far can a catapult throw a rock?"  Of course, I have no idea what the answers to these questions are, so we went to the library and got a couple of books. One of them had really elaborate designs of cardboard castles.  My building skills were not quite up to par for the ones in the book, but I promised him we'd make one this summer.

  Here is what we got.  We used the brown paper to cover pringles cans, lemonade cans, a caprisun box and a regular box.  Everyone got to decorate their own side and their own turret.

I'm also proud of my little drawbridge. I got creative with some toothpicks, string and bottlecaps.  It winds up and everything.

I used hot glue to hold it all together.  Now its a guess to see how long our little creation lasts.

Summer Garden

Anyone who knows me knows that I have a terrible time with gardening. I kill at least half of what I grow every time.  That doesn't mean that I won't keep trying, though.

I was considering doing vegetables in pots (like I did last year) but once I added up all the cost of pots and stuff, I gave in to the harder option. This little patch used to be grass, so I dug up the grass, watered the dirt so that it was soft enough to churn up a little, and spent a few hours tilling up the dirt in my little plot.  My back ached, but it was worth it in the long run, I hope.  We're trying to grow peas (which I later learned grow best in early spring or fall, not summer), bell peppers, tomatoes, a squash and a zucchini.  If my peas don't come up, I may change them out for green beans.  We'll see what happens.

Anyways, my new goal is to try to have this little garden going year-round.  Growing different things that are in season at different times.  I also have room to expand if I need to.  Wish me luck, I'll need it.

Freeze Dance

I was not smart enough to get pictures, but we played Freeze Dance (as part of the summer fun bag).  I even got some fun alternate rules online

Alternate Rule #1 - Pillows : have the kids bring out their pillows and when the music stops, they have to sit down on the pillow

Alternate Rule #2 - Solo Dance : Call out one child's name and have them do a solo dance until the music stops.  Then you call out another child's name

Alternate Rule #3 -Body Part Down : When you stop the music, you call out a body part and they have to touch it to the floor.  (Elbow Down, Knees Down, Ears Down).  The kids had a lot of fun with this one.

Summer Fun Bag

It's been all of 2 weeks that we've been out of school and, of course, the kids are getting bored already. I've seen this idea on several blogs (that have made way more elaborate and cute little bags) and decided it would be fun.

 I filled it full of little strips of paper with ideas of things to do.  Everything ranging from going to the park, playing board games, going to the beach, making crafts, doing science experiments, etc.  Each day, in the morning, we pick one out and we do it that afternoon.  Just remember that whatever you put in the bag, you have to be willing to do without a lot of notice.

On the first day, we drew this one:

So I pulled out a big roll of paper that I have and had the kids color me some murals.

It was a great hit and kept them busy for a good hour or so.

Watermelon Waffles

Saw this idea on Random Thoughts of a Supermom.  Thought it would be a fun summer idea to pass along.