Nursery Song Book

29 days until we move across the country. GA to CA, coast to coast. My husband will be driving the moving truck, and I get to be in the car with both kids. What an adventure! Can you guess what I've been up to this last week??? I've been putting together activities that my kiddos can do in the car (besides watch thousands of movies). We'll be traveling for 7 days. yep. Crazy, I know. Somewhere around 50 hours of drive time. The amount of time stuck in the car with two little people has motivated me to find things that I can make on the cheap, that will give them some stimulation, entertainment, and distraction. I found some great ideas on Pinterest, but this project was one I actually made :)

Introducing the Nursery Song Book! I thought it would be fun for the kids to have a visual of some of their favorite songs that they like to sing over and over again. An added benefit is that it should help Skylee with some subtraction too. Take a look at the pages... (I still need a cover)

"Five Little Speckled Frogs""Five Little Monkeys, Sitting in a Tree""Monkeys Jumping on the Bed""Old MacDonald"

I thought I'd throw a page in there that helps Parker with shapes, colors, and matching.

"Wheels on the Bus"

"Five Little Ducks"

Each page has the characters attached with Velcro. Some of the songs will require adding the characters, and other taking them off as they "jump", "fall", or get "snatched". I knew the time and effort that went into making this would last much longer, and be more useful, than just our car trip. I hope to continue to add pages as time goes on, but for now, this is what we're workin' with :)
This project didn't cost much. I used cardstock I already had, and used Google Images to search for pictures and characters I wanted to print out. I borrowed a laminater from a friend, but had to buy some plastic sheets for $8, and didn't use them all. I used the peel and stick Velcro circles until I ran out, then just cut squares from another little roll I had, which was just a few extra dollars. Also I bought the binding rings for under $2.
When I searched for some of these songs' images, there are options to buy clip-art specific to each song, but I'm too cheap for that ;) If anyone is interested in using the same images I did, let me know and I can send them to you :)

*Brittney*

Linking up to:

Sew Can Do- Craftastic Monday

Halloween Costumes 2011

I know it's only August, but if you're making your own costumes this year like me, you'll want to get an early start, especially if parties start at the beginning of October like last year! I must throw in that we're moving (again) across the country mid October, so you know I'm not completely crazy to start *this* early!
A couple weeks ago I finally made the decision on what we'd all be this year, within my costume-making capabilities. Lucky for my my 4 year old was on board!
Last year was my first experience in making costumes for my kids, and I was really pleased with how they turned out, considering I'm not the most talented in the sewing department. Skylee was a fairy and Parker was an owl.



This year I wanted to keep a theme for our family, this is what we agreed on; Ryan and I will be bakers, Skylee will be a fancy cupcake, and Parker will be a blueberry muffin. Sounds kinda silly, I know, but it looks amazing in my head right now!
I have all the fabric for Skylee's cupcake costume, just need two more things to get it started. I haven't gotten anything for Ryan or Parker's, but since mine consists of a cute apron and possible baker's hat, I thought I'd make it well in advance to get some use out of it ;) Here is how my apron turned outI used the same pattern that I used to make this apron for my Mom. I liked it so much that I wanted one for my own, that will double as my Halloween costume...it gave me a great excuse to make a cute apron!
Have you/your kids talked about Halloween costumes yet? Better yet have you started making any?

*Brittney*

Kids Craft: Ballerina Puppets and Stage

It's a strange day here in our household, only Parker and I are at home...Skylee started her very first day of school. ever. :( All last week we were getting things ready for her to start, which included a special skirt and matching headband made my me. I figure there are only so many years I can get away with these things, so I must take advantage! While I was working away on her skirt, she asked if she could do a craft too. Since I don't have all my craft supplies with me, I had to do something really simple, but she's been loving it and playing with it ever since.

We took a shoe box and turned it into a stage, then I cut out ballerina silhouettes with "leg holes" for her to color and decorate. Since I was working with pink tulle, she put "tutus" on some of her ballerinas , and although she didn't, it would be fun to decorate the stage too!She had a lot of fun, and thought I'd share it for those of you who may have little ones around who want to feel included in your crafting :). It was a great way to keep her busy, creative, and out of my hair ;) This can be modified to be anything or anyone with legs :) The only downside to doing ballerinas was that they couldn't really spin :(

(backstage)
Hope you're all having a great week! I'll be taking advantage of the time I have on my hands to play with Parker and get my house in order!

*Brittney*

I'm HOOKED!

Guess what I did this weekend?!

I LEARNED HOW TO CROCHET!!!! Yay me :)

Ok, so I'm obviously just a beginner, but I've got the single stitch, and double stitch DOWN! AND...I can do a circle, so I figured if could do those things, then why not make a little beanie? And a baby doll blanket? I just finished those, and the beanie needed a flower... and thanks to YouTube, I learned how to make one. Here's how it turned out!
One thing is for sure about crocheting, it is time consuming! That's the only downside I've found in my 4 day journey so far ;) I love how I can take it anywhere and and do it at anytime. I can't tell you how excited I will be when I can make all those super cute beanies for kids you see around, I'm determined to get good at this. This will be PERFECT for me when I'm pregnant and can't get off the couch. Maybe it will give me the sense I'm actually doing something?

If I were smart, I would have asked my very talented Grandma to teach me years ago...instead I teased my sisters who she taught some of the basics to. Teenagers are stupid sometimes. I do hope she'll teach me more when I move back to California.
I have to give a huge thank you to my friend, and crochet teacher Jennifer Gossett. She just opened a facebook page here go check out her amazing skills. Maybe one day I'll be able to make some of that cute stuff!

Just like the title of this post, I'm totally hooked. I love crocheting! This is one thing I can be super proud of myself, before Sunday I had never even picked up a crochet needle, I can't wait to make beautiful things.

*Brittney*

Chalkboard Desk

I found this great little student desk at Goodwill last week, and for $5 I couldn't pass it up. It obviously needed a makeover, it was worn and had the name "CHRIS" and numbers 1-10 painted in primary colors. For one,I don't have a kid named Chris, and second, it was ugly. Perfect project! I forgot to take a real "before" picture, this is after I gave it a nice new coat of white spray paint. I decided to go white because one day I know I'll want it a color when I get to decorate a play room, but until then it's going to be a clean, indecisive white :)

After I put the white on it was pretty boring, so after a little brainstorming, and blog hopping, and knew it was my chance to finally try out chalkboard paint! Lucky for me, Walmart sells chalkboard paint (since that's the only store in this town) coupled with a box of colored chalk for 74 cents this is a big hit with my kids! I put on 3 light coats, making sure the paint was fully dry in between each coat. I bust out my blow dryer for some help because I'm the most impatient painter ever! Worked great though...


I've been looking for a good little quote to put on the back of the chair using my Silhouette with some colored vinyl. Haven't found one yet, and I left my Silhouette cutting mats in CA!!! So that part may have to wait a couple more months til we go back... I'm so mad at myself!
Hope you all had a great weekend :) Happy Monday!

*Brittney*

Buffet Makeover

I had an extended stay in California with my family, and just got back to Georgia a couple weeks ago. I was able to help my Mom with a couple projects she has wanted to do, and my Grandmother's old buffet was one of them. My Mom has had this buffet for a really long time, so long that on the inside of one of the doors, was my name in pencil that I had written when I was little. Little enough to not even know how to write my name :)I guess this project was meant for me! Of course, first step was to sand it down:Then I did spray paint coat of primer, and put the antique white finish on we wanted. After a couple coats of that, we sanded the edges to give it that distressed look:
Sanding on this project was tedious since it was really detailed, but it added so much character that it was well worth the time. To warm it up, give it a little bit more dimension, and give it a nice seal, we put a glaze on top. We used a mixture of clear glaze and wood stain, I thought it was easy to work with and really liked how it turned out! Simply spread it on, and with an old t-shirt wipe off what you don't want. It's easy to play around with the glaze to get a feel for what you like. If you wipe off too much, just apply more, and if you want less, keep wiping :)
The glaze can take a long time to dry in all the crevasses, but you could always take a blow dryer to speed up that process! When it was done, this is what our project looked like:Here's close-up of one of the doors, you can see how pretty it is :)
Isn't she pretty?! I love how it turned out, one day I plan on stealing it for my house ;)

I conquered a major refinishing furniture fear with this project...distressing! I was so nervous that I would sand the edges too much or too little, or even if the sanding would be in the right spots. Putting glaze on was new to me too, but I learned that you really can't mess it up! I can't wait to distress one of my own pieces! Thanks Mom for your help, and trusting me enough to refinish a sentimental piece!

*Brittney*

linking up to:

Train Cake

(Parker and Seth)

My little Parker had his second birthday, along with his cousin who is only 3 days older, who also loves all things trains. My sister and I thought it would be fun to dress them up (aren't they CUTE!!!) and make a little train cake. We decided on making cake-pop like box cars following a Thomas engine on a little wooden track. We made the chocolate box cars then used white chocolate chips, mixed with food coloring, for the frosting. On top we used gummy bears and M&Ms, and gummy Live Savers for the wheels. The vision was much better in my head then how it actually turned out, but the important thing was the little guys though it was great!
*Brittney*