Another year...GONE!

 
Wow - hard to believe we're already at the end of 2012! Our holiday season has been filled with fun, and very very busy. Our elf, Elliot, was busy, too, and he got himself into all sorts of fun situations. He was crowned "Mr. North Pole" - complete with tinfoil crown and sash, and surrounded by a throng of Barbies. He zip-lined through the house using a candy cane. He put on a concert, went disco dancing, robbed the tiny people's piggy banks & was caught in the act by Sheriff Woody. He also colored the girls' noses red and put red felt noses on their lovies, went fishing for Swedish fish, drank the syrup through a straw, toilet papered the Christmas tree, replaced all of our stockings with underpants, and did his very best imitation of the Grinch. I didn't post his every move here - I figured there was enough of that happening in blogland...and Elliot had his own Facebook page, which was more than enough to keep up with! It sure was fun, though!

Now that Christmas is over (although the mess remains!) it's time to look forward to the new year. Like last year, I wanted to make a
Resolutions Printable. I put mine up on the wall above my desk so I can see it every day, and it helps me to hold myself accountable. I didn't do too badly with the 2012 list, and I'm hoping I can do even better with 2013!

Here's what the new printable looks like... I hope you like it! One of my gifts this year was a color printer (YIPPEEEE!!!), so I have a feeling there are going to be a whole bunch of new printables coming your way in the new year. :)

 

A Little Bit of Autumn

I love fall, and I especially love {decorating} for fall ~ but in this house that can't happen until Nov. 1st. See, the hubband tends to go just a little overboard for Halloween...and frankly, I don't stand a chance. I guess a pretty pumpkin and straw bale vignette would seem just a bit out of place among the spiders, skeletons, and tombstones....and the fog machine.

The second all of that is put away, I get to put up {my} stuff, and this year I decided that a new wreath was in order.



I started with my favorite flat wreath form and some good old fashioned burlap. I cut it into strips that were approximately 3-4 inches wide, and wrapped each strip around the form once to make sure I was covering as much as the form as possible.



After taking the strip around the form once, I then tied the strip into a knot, pulling as tightly as I could.



Some of the strips were a little on the long side, which made it easier to tie, but didn't end up looking the way I wanted it to, so I ended up trimming the ends. I frayed ends a bit, too, to give it a more rustic look,and also cut some of the ends length-wise to add more shape to the wreath.



I left one section of the wreath a bit flatter as I was going, to leave a space to put on some fake leaves, using my trusty glue gun. I love the pop of color it gives!



It adds a bit of autumn happiness to our front door, and it was super easy and inexpensive to make. Win - Win - {Win}! :)

Go Team USA!!!

Every 4 years, you can pretty much count on me slowly melting into my couch as I watch every second of Olympic coverage available. OK, so maybe that's a bit of a stretch, but I do like to watch as much of it as I can, and the tiny people, apparently, feel the same way. They are {so} excited about the Olympics that my older daughter is wearing only red, white & blue, and both girls have made a banner to hang in our dining room to cheer on Team USA.

Having seen a cute idea for t-shirt making on Pinterest (of course...) I decided to offer them the chance to make their own Olympic t-shirts. They jumped at the chance. It's pretty quick & simple...and very inexpensive, depending on how much you want to pay for a shirt.

First, get some sand paper and fresh crayons. The finer the sand paper, the more solid the design will turn out, so we went with a nice fine paper to make sure everything would show up well. Then I set the girls loose designing their shirts. IMPORTANT: If you're writing words / letters, make sure you write them mirrored so that they will show up correctly when you iron the design onto the shirt. Here are the tiny people, hard at work. They both started over once b/c they weren't happy with their original designs.







Next, you're going to take a piece of cardboard paper (I used the sand paper packaging) and wrap it in aluminum foil. Put it inside the t-shirt before you start to iron.




Place the sandpaper, design side down, onto the shirt. Make sure it's centered!




If you're concerned about your iron, you can put a linen dishcloth or paper towel on top of the sand paper to offer more protection. Hit it with your iron (set on the cotton setting) and Take Your Time. Better to be there too long than not long enough, right? Just keep the iron moving so you don't scorch anything and you'll be in good shape.




You can carefully pull up one corner of the sand paper to make sure it's working if you want to. Much easier to set the corner back down and continue ironing than it would be to try to reallign it if you lifted the whole thing.




Here's the not quite as tiny person's finished shirt. She was {thrilled} with how it turned out.




And here are both of the tiny people modeling their new creations.






Another blogger suggests setting the color by tossing the shirt into the dryer for 20 min. I was lazy and didn't do this. We'll see if I regret it. ;) The first time you wash it, was it seperately, and in cold water.

All-in-all, this was a great project for the tiny people to work on. It was fun for them, super easy, and the only thing they needed me for was the ironing. :) I'm sure we'll be doing this project again in the future!

Recording Summer

Summer Vacation is in full swing & for me (for a lot of us, I'm guessing) that means activities, play time, fun day-trips, weekends away, full-on vacations, and the ever-present list of things we {have to} do. With all of that going on, I'm having a hard time finding time (and motivation!) to do some of the projects I'd like to do.

That doesn't mean I've been slacking completely. Though, I'm not gonna lie...it's close.

The project I'm sharing today is one that takes, literally, seconds. Every day this summer, I'm posting a photo on Facebook of what my kids are up to. I started on the first day of summer vacation (which was technically a half-day, as their last day of school let out just after noon) and I haven't missed a day yet. Usually I go with the easiest available method...Instagram. Here are just a few f the photos I've taken over our summer break, so far.












I realized pretty quickly that no one was going to be excited about seeing pictures of the kids swimming in the pool or us out on the boat every.single.day ~ so I took that as a personal challenge to try to get as many different types of activities as I could. Bike rides, trips to the library, getting treats from the ice cream truck, baseball games, fireworks, catching fireflies... These are just a few of the things we've done so far this summer. Next week we'll add a trip to the zoo, and see what other fun new things we can try.

It's a little late to do it now, but think about it for next summer, for sure. Recording something every day keeps you from falling into the trap of doing the same thing all the time, keeps your friends & family up on what you've been up to, and gets you in the habit of recording the moments - even if they seem mundane or boring - that make your life {Your Life}. And, bonus - if you're a scrapbook person, you'll have a lot to work with when summer is over and you have some time again! ;)

Fancy Wooden "Frame" Knock-Off...

I know I can't be the only one who gets a little frustrated with the craft blog / pinterest world. I see so many things I would love to recreate in my own home, but there's always something prohibitive. Either the project would have to be hugely modified to fit into my tiny home...or I'd have to have someone help me because I'm not good enough at sewing or using power tools to do it myself...or I'd have to attempt to justify spending what the hubband would think is a ridiculous amount of money on something that has no function or purpose other than to look pretty. Take this {beautiful} gallery wall from our lovely Jen at Tatertots & Jello. There is nothing about this that I don't absolutely love & adore. Except the cost. Not that these frames are over-priced ~ on the contrary, I believe they're very affordably priced ~ it's just that our budget doesn't currently have room for a wall of frames...+ shipping. (If yours does, you can find these awesome frames here... ) Not that we'd be sunk if I ordered them...but with kids who want to start dance classes, and my hopes of a family vacation this summer, and an upcoming family wedding (YAY!), I can find so many other, "better", uses for that money.


What my budget does have room for is a $3 unfinished wooden plaque from Hobby Lobby. Yep...$3. Get a load of these puppies...


I used one of those, to make this...



I chose the French Oval plaque for my first project. Knowing that I wanted to use it in my daughters' bedroom, I grabbed some craft paint in hot pink while I was there. You might be wondering why I chose craft paint instead of spray paint ~ and the answer is simple...it's less expensive. I sanded the edges of the plaque (I did a half-a$$ed job of it...I'm not gonna lie...) and put on a couple of coats of paint.


After I had the plaque, I realized that I didn't have a photo that I was really excited about using. So a trip to the park with my subjects had to happen. I was lucky and got a great shot of them that I just love. Looking at the photo and the plaque, I decided that the hard edges of a rectangular picture would be a bit harsh against that soft lines of the French Oval plaque ~ so I worked a little photoshop magic. Once I had the photo transformed into an oval, I moved it onto a plain white background, floated it in the center, and ordered an 8x10 print from my lab.


Now for the hard work. ;) I cut out the picture, then covered the plaque with an even coat of ModPodge. Then I carefully placed the photo in the center of the plaque, and gently worked out the air bubbles under the picture. Now...I'm notorious for getting all excited at this point and rushing through the next steps because I just can't wait to see how it's going to turn out. Let me tell you ~ that is one surefire way to get wrinkles and ickiness on your picture. So I had to work reallllllly hard to walk away and let it be for a while.



After the first coat of ModPodge had dried, I came back and put another coat over the whole thing...picture and all. If you're wondering why, there are a couple of reasons. First, I'm using gloss / lustre MP, rather than the flat variety. There's no real reason for that decision ~ it's just what I have and I'm not buying new when I have some left. If I just did the frame, the frame & the photo wouldn't match in sheen, and I wanted them to match. Also, MP gives a bit of protection for the photo itself.



I let it dry overnight, and then today, while the girls were at school, I mounted it on the wall in their room using command strips. (LOVE those things!)



Here it is with a bit of context.






I have every intention of doing this again, probably a few times. I'd like to add a couple of these to the gallery wall in my craft room, and I'm kind of {loving} the idea of this kind of frame for a seasonal holiday pic of the tiny people.

So...the plaque was $3 ~ the print was $1.50 ~ the paint was around $1 (and I have plenty left over). I had sponge brushes & ModPodge already. So we're looking at a grand total of right around $5.50. Yeah, I think my budget can handle that. ;)

You Don't Wanna Miss This!

If you do the whole digital scrapbooking / hybrid crafting thing, you know how great freebies are. Even better when the freebie comes in the form of a {huge} and spectacular collaboration kit! That's what I'm here to tell you about. Head on over to Design House Digital & hop on their blog train! This blog train isn't one of those obnoxious ones where you have to download a chunk from each blog & it takes forever, and you end up getting at least one link that doesn't work so you end up with an incomplete kit. Oh, no.  They did this {smart}. You pick up one letter at each blog, and those letters together are your coupon code to pick up the kit for free! Soooo much easier. Check out the rest of their freebies while you're visiting ~ they've got some great ones!!! Enjoy!

 

A Quick Pitch

Hey, all! I'm participating in the 2012 American Cancer Society Relay for Life! I'm so excited about it - not just because we've got a great team and it's such an amazing cause, but because it gives me an opportunity to fight back against a disease that has had such a huge impact on my life. I was only 7 when my dad died from lung cancer, and since then I've also lost an aunt, a cousin, a great-uncle, and far too many friends and loved ones - and watched as many more have bravely battled and won. I'm ready to fight back!

I'm working hard to reach my fundraising goals, and one way I'm doing that is by selling digital art. Below are links to just a few examples of some of the projects I've done in the past. Family dates, maybe a favorite saying or song lyric, or a line from a movie...inspiration can come from anywhere - and it's for a great cause! If you see something you like, and would like me to create something similar for you, just give me a shout! You can e-mail me at sonotdonnareed@yahoo.com


http://sonotdonnareed.blogspot.com/2012/01/different.html
http://sonotdonnareed.blogspot.com/2011/12/gift-of-date-night.html
http://sonotdonnareed.blogspot.com/2011/12/christmas-cheer_05.html
http://sonotdonnareed.blogspot.com/2011/08/more-than-words.html
http://sonotdonnareed.blogspot.com/2011/08/days-to-remember.html
http://sonotdonnareed.blogspot.com/2011/07/happily-ever-after.html

Or, if you'd like to help out with a good old-fashioned donation, you can follow this link to donate directly to my team! THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!!!

Gone to the Dogs

Those of you who have pets will likely agree that, while we do know that our pets are animals, they are still considered to be members of our {family}. Our family includes 2 dogs ~ Molly, an 11 1/2-year-old chocolate lab who is a stubborn, and incredibly affectionate, trouble-maker...and Sam, a 6-year-old yellow lab (we got him from a rescue group when he was 2) who is my protective shadow, and tolerant of tiny people who like to do things to him...like make him wear hats.

As with the other members of our family, I like having photos of our dogs (including Belle, our first yellow lab) displayed in our home ~ but it had never occurred to me to do anything other than photos until I stumbled upon this link on Pinterest.

I knew I wanted to make my own version, and this is what I ended up with...






There are, sadly, no pictures of the paw-printing part of the process. I'm pretty sure you can figure out why... 2 dogs, 1 human, a windy-ish day....yeah. I'll give the best description I can!
To get this....





You will need:
A paper plate
A paint brush
Paint
Paper Towel or a Junk Towel
Cardstock
A dog! ;)

Step 1 - Get your dog/s & all of your supplies set up outside. Unless you're desperate for an excuse to get new flooring.

Step 2 - Pour a little bit of paint onto your paper plate and use the paint brush to spread it around. Make sure you've got enough paint spread on the plate to cover your dog's whole paw.

Step 3 - Put the plate on the ground and guide his/her foot into the paint. Press gently on your dog's paw to make sure you're getting paint on all of the pads.

Step 4 - Lift your dog's paw, slide the plate out, and slide the paper into place. Make sure you position the paper so that the paw print will be where you want it to be. Gently press your dog's paw onto the cardstock. You may find that there is too much paint on his/her paw, making the print come out messier than you want. If that's the case, go ahead and try again on a fresh piece of cardstock. Sometimes, the second print comes out better than the first. Keeping this in mind, you may want to use a paper towel to blot some of the paint off of your dog's paw before putting it onto the paper.

Step 5 - Using an icky towel or a paper towel, gently wipe off your dog's paw to remove any left-over paint. (I also filled a shallow dish with warm water and dipped their paws in, just to make sure they were clean before they came into the house.)

Next, I used some $3 frames from Meijer. They came with plain white mats, but I wanted something with a bit more personality. Not wanting to make a bunch of stops at different stores, I decided to hit the gift-wrap aisle and see what I could find. After a lot of debate (I wanted coordinating colors, but not matching, and nothing printed b/c it would be too busy, and it had to be CHEAP) I settled on a pack of multi-colored tissue paper.

I laid the mat down on the paper and cut around the outside. Then I taped the paper down onto the back of the mat, like I would if I were wrapping a gift.





Next, I poked a hole in the center of the tissue paper, and cut slits all the way to each of the corners.





I wrapped those around, too, trimming off any excess. This is what the back of the mat looked like when I was finished.





Next, I trimmed the cardstock down so that the paw would be placed where I wanted it to be in the frame. When I was happy with that, I busted out a Sharpie (so high tech) and wrote the dogs' names underneath their paw prints. I would know which one belonged to which dog, but I wanted other people to know, too.





Finally, I popped them into their frames, knocked a couple of nails into the wall, and hung them! :) So bright, cheerful, and happy. And now that I'm seeing them on the gallery wall in my craft room, I'm debating about doing something fun to some of the other mats, too.





I have to say, I absolutely adore the end result. Are there random black paw prints on my driveway? Yes....yes, there are. But I'm okay with that. And I can tell you, I'll be doing this project with every dog we have from here on out. I hope you will be, too!

Unwanted "Follower"???

If it's happened to me, I'm sure it's happened to others. You log onto your blog to see if there are any new comments, etc. and you see that you have a new follower! YIPPPEEEE!!! But wait. You then look at the picture of that new follower and you see something completely inppropriate. I mean, I'm sorry...but I don't need to see a photograph or your body parts (or, more likely, a photo you've stolen of someone else's body parts) among the smiling faces of my {real} followers, thankyouverymuch.

If you find yourself in this situation, here is a link to a site that will walk you through the quick & easy process of getting rid of these....people. ;) I hope it helps someone!

Top O' the Mornin'

It's March...which brings along so many things that I love. Baseball pre-season games start playing on the car radio, March Madness basketball begins, and I get to celebrate the teeny tiny part of my genetic make-up that hails from Ireland. ;)

Last year I whipped up a quick little St. Patrick's Day printable, which you can find here...

This year I decided to throw together a quick & easy little project.

As you can see, it's mostly orange. You might be wondering why I went that route. Well, the Irish flag is green, white & orange - and traditionally, the green is symbolic of Catholicism, and the orange is symbolic of Protestantism. I'm a Protestant (Lutheran), so I like the orange!

I started out with this lovely little $2 wooden plaque...

I gave it a couple of coats of white craft paint...

I had picked out some pretty orange cardstock, which I cut to fit inside the plaque. I used some Mod Podge to adhere it to the wood...

I picked up some pretty green and white scrapbooking paper, which I cut into a shamrock using my Silhouette. And, again with the Mod Podge. ;)

It's a happy little St. Patrick's Day greeting, right inside our front door...

Another quick & easy project...which seems to be all I have time for these days! I've got more up my sleeve that should be coming soon. Stay tuned!!!

Mmmmm....bacon...

I don't know about you all, but whenever we're invited to any kind of "bring a dish to pass" gathering, I'm at a loss. Sweet? Savory? A dip of some kind? I never know what to do. We had such an event last weekend, and I struggled for well over a week trying to figure out what to bring. Finally, I did what any logical person would do...I turned to Pinterest, and picked something from my food board. Oh, come on...you know you'd do the same thing! ;)

In the end, I decided to make what is known to many as "Crack Bread". It doesn't disappoint...


(Photo from Plain Chicken blog)

You can find the recipe at the Plain Chicken blog by following this link... http://www.plainchicken.com/2011/07/cheddar-bacon-ranch-pulls.html

Since our party took place on the first Friday of Lent, and our hostess is a vegetarian, I made one loaf with bacon & one without. Both turned out ah-mazing. If you haven't pinned this one yet, PIN IT...and then be sure you follow through. Totally worth it!

Look It Up!

I might be a little too excited about the project I made today... (Mom, you might want to avert your eyes...)





It all started with this old dictionary I've had sitting around my house for years.





You see, I'm a dork...meaning I love me some Scrabble. My mom picked up this massive unabridged dictionary when it was being discarded from a library, and she brought it up to my house so that we could get really seriously serious on game night. This baby was published in 1967. I love her. Her pages are slightly discolored, and she smells like the library, and, well, she's just so pretty. Which is why doing this project brought me a little bit of pain. But not enough pain to stop me. ;)

I'd been contemplating a project. I thought I'd do something for Valentine's Day, but I wasn't happy with using a definition of love, or romance, or marriage, etc. Partly because the definitions were located in funky places on the pages in this particular edition ~ and partly because, if I'm going to rip a page out of a book I want to display it for more than a few weeks a year. So I started searching for other words I could use instead. Family? Home? Create? Hmmm... And then, I thought I'd just check something out on a whim....and lookie here...





Yep, that would be our last name. Not only in the dictionary, but as the last entry on the page, earning it the spot of honor in the upper right hand corner. Awwwww, yeah. ;)

I started out by carefully cutting the page out of the dictionary using an exactoknife type thingy.





After much debate about whether or not to age the paper, how to display it, and worries of lots of icky results from Mod Podge being used on really thin paper, I decided to go a more classic route. I picked up a big (and ridiculously inexpensive) frame from Meijer ($6).





That center part, with the picture on it, was perforated ~ so all I had to do was pop it out, leaving the black mat around the outside. I considered leaving it in place, but figured that, with the thin paper, the color would show through. The dictionary page was smaller than the opening left in the center of the frame, so I used some cardstock I had on hand to cover the opening. I just laid it in place and attached it to the mat using double-sided tape.





Once that was in place I centered the dictionary page, then carefully placed the "P" that I had cut out using my Silhouette. The placement of the letter was carefully calculated to be centered side to side, and to cover the "slang" definition of the word "peter". Mmmmmhmmmm...





Since the el-cheapo frame was a front-loader, all I had to do next was pop the glass back in place, and it was done!

Now, I'm not suggesting ripping up dictionaries all willy-nilly...nor do I think it would be good to go into a library and steal a page...but if you happen to find a dictionary at a garage sale, thrift store, or library book sale, snatch it up! You never know what word you might find that speaks to you.

And, I have to add, there is a lot of really super cool stuff in the back of this dictionary. Maps of...everywhere. Lists of landmarks, highest mountain peaks, tallest waterfalls, colleges and universities...tons and tons of stuff. So don't be surprised if she makes another appearance for more projects down the road!