Easter Eggs 2014

I love eggs. From my head down to my legs.

Actually...I am not a big egg-eating fan. But painting and decorating---I love eggs!!!

Each year I paint an egg for each child, so far based on what the kids are digging at the time. (I have to say up front here, that we are all very much still into last year's theme---My Little Pony. Whew! Just had to make sure you all knew. ;-) )

This year I debated between Pokemon and Minecraft---and Pokemon won! I kind of thought Minecraft would be visually unappealing (go figure) and require too much detail (lots of little tiny pixels) for this to remain enjoyable.

Evander chose Victini:

"Victini is the Pokemon that brings victory, and it's said that the trainer with Victini always wins. It generates an endless supply of energy to share." (taken from the Pokemon Essential Handbook that Evander bought with his own money, and waited so patiently for five days for it to arrive via Amazon's two-day shipping!).

Victini is a psychic and fire type Pokemon, so I painted him half purple for psychic and red for fire.  I had no idea until the kids and I watched a Pokemon movie together a few days ago, that this was Evander's favorite!

Emory chose Skitty:

"Skitty will run in circles chasing its own tail. It will look for any excuse to chase moving objects---or Pokemon."

Skitty is a normal-type Pokemon, so I painted he/she/it? a corresponding gray.

Emory loves cats! If you know him, you might be hearing him in your head saying, "Ummmmmmm Gihhhteee!" His classmates know that he loves cats because he is always drawing them. I love that he is known for that.

Marin chose Pikachu:

"This forest-dwelling Pokemon stores electricity in the pouches of its cheeks. From time to time, it will use an electric-type move to charge up a fellow Pikachu that is injured or weak."

Pikachu is an electric-type Pokemon, so I painted it yellow. I really tried to fight painting a Pikachu, because I wasn't thrilled with the idea of painting yellow on yellow. But, it's what Marin wanted, and I think it turned out fine using a light yellow as the base.

On the bottom of each egg, I painted the symbol for each Pokemon's type. Skitty is a normal type, Pikachu an electric type, and Victini is both a psychic and fire type, so he got a half symbol of each.

This morning we still had snow on the ground, but by afternoon it was sunny and the green grass asked me to come back out and photograph eggs. It really did.

For previous year's eggs, click on the links below:
Easter Eggs 2013
Easter Eggs 2012
Easter Eggs 2011 & 2010

Christmas Ornaments with Children's Drawings

I love Christmas ornaments. After seeing a friend's tree recently, I admitted to her that I have an embarrassingly large amount of them.

I love how each ornament seems to capture a moment in time (hey, blog name!), and memories are strongly attached to them.

I love making ornaments, too!  I think that's my bigger problem (if you can call it a problem!) with ornament quantity...I love to create, create, create!

I saw these recently on Pinterest and totally wanted to make some embroidered ornaments of the kids' drawings:

source

I think I will sooooo do this some day, just not this year as I have been busy working on two big surprise fun projects for people for Christmas. :-)

As time was ticking, I saw these at Jo-Ann's:

You better run to Jo-Ann's and grab some for this project before they are gone!  I think they've been marked down 70% this week. They had these flat circles, globes and light bulb-shaped plastic ornaments. So cute to fill with anything that can fit in there!  But drawings...drawings is what I wanted...

Set your compass to 1 3/8" to draw circles that will fit perfectly inside (1 3/8" is the circle's radius).  Cut out the circles. 

Have your kids draw pictures on the circles. You can include two drawings in each ornament. I had to glue the circles together since my kids used markers, and marked really really hard with them, and the markers bled through the paper. Be sure to include your child's name and the year! 

Next, loosely roll your circle paper and shove it down the hole on top of the ornament. Okay...gently shove? Fill with sequins, glitter, and whatever else you might want to use to decorate your ornament on the inside. We also glued and tied a ribbon on the top. :-)

Done!

"A Christmas hydra"

"Christmas trees with their Christmas patterns"

Rudolph!  Of course...a deerie!

These will be so fun to look at year after year.

Is there any coincidence that Emory's is the most shaken up ornament with glitter all over the sides already? No...he already tossed it across the room twice before it made it to the tree! :-P Good thing they are plastic!

Easter Eggs 2013

Each year I paint three eggs for Easter, one for each of my children, and this year's theme was MY LITTLE PONY of course!  Last year, I let each kid decide what they wanted on their egg, but I didn't even ask this year, because I WANTED TO PAINT PONIES!  Ha.

From left to right, your ponies are: Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy and Princess Cadence.

Don't you just love Spring?  :-)  I actually don't mind the cold and snow. I am very blessed to not have to drive to and from work every day. However, I do get tired of everyone being so grumpy about it. Wait...does that make me grumpy about their grumpiness?

Rainbow Dash was my favorite to paint, and I think the one that turned out the best.  I had this one in mind for Emory, since he is strong and athletic like Rainbow Dash.

Both boys say that Fluttershy is their favorite pony because "she is so cute, and she loves animals."  Both boys want to claim the Fluttershy egg.  I have Evander in mind for this one, though, since he is the nature and animal lover.

Marin wanted her favorite pony, Princess Cadence.  This is also what she wants to be for Halloween this year (the kids talk about their next costume and next birthday party theme all year long!). Good luck to me figuring that costume out!

I <3 painting eggs!

Check out previous year's eggs here:
Eggs 2012
Eggs 2011 & 2010

Adieu, 2012!

Yeah, I know we said goodbye to 2012 a week ago...but I'm slow to the blogging world as of late.

Hello, 2013!

Here is a roundup of things I did in 2012:

I painted rooms:

I painted things:

I painted shirts:

And made some stuff:

I sewed more aprons!

And I sewed lots of other things:

And somehow, I finished three quilts:

It was probably more fun for me than for you to look back on my 2012 creative endeavors. :-P I like seeing it all in one place!  I really consider this my practice time in preparation to sell things in an Etsy store or something.

Maybe 2013 is the year to get that going...

Jack-O'-Latern Jars

Did you know "jack-o'-lantern" had an apostrophe after the "o?" Hmmmmm...I did not realize this until this day. :-P

This is a fun (and easy!) little thing the boys and I did the other night with tissue paper and olive jars.  I just *knew* those olive jars I was saving would come in handy. ;-) And, since Marin and I eat lots and lots of olives...pretty sure there will be many more jars to come!  Baby food jars would work great, too...but, sadly I dumped my stash a lonnnnng time ago. :-(

Start by cutting orange tissue paper into various small pieces:

Then, Mod Podge away!  It's best to apply the Mod Podge on the jar, not the tissue paper. :-) The boys tended to get some holes in the tissue paper because they were heavy with their brush...but I think that just adds to each jar's character.

After you've Mod Podged your pieces to cover the jar, apply a thick coat of Mod Podge over the whole thing.

Hmmm...looks more like a mummy to me.

Once dry, cut some shapes for your jack-o'-lantern face. We used the Cricut with vinyl, but normal cardstock and scissors would work fine, too!

You can cover your jar lid with fabric by cutting a circle slightly bigger than the lid, and then cutting slits around the circle. Apply Mod Podge to the top of the lid and set down onto the fabric. Press fabric around the lid. 

So easy and so fun!  I remember making a Christmas jar at school with tissue paper when I was in kindergarten. My mom still puts it out each year. :-P

Curb Trash to Play Kitchen Treasure #2

This beauty was a pick from the curb right next door to me! :-) It was an old desk and when I spotted it late one night, I knew it would be Play Kitchen #2. I rounded up the boys to help me carry it to our garage.

(Click here to check out the first play kitchen I did, made from an old entertainment center: Curb Trash to Play Kitchen Treasure This blog post remains my most viewed post. Can you believe I did that *before* I was on Pinterest? :-P)

This desk was perfect (sadly, I forgot to take a before picture).  The first play kitchen I did, which we still use in our home, fell apart a bit when Nick plopped it down in our yard (though it was easily repaired!). I also had to rearrange some of the wood on it. But this one...this one! We only cut about 18 inches off the bottom, cut a couple inches off the oven door, and a hole for the sink.

The sink is a stainless steel bowl. The faucet, is a wooden letter "J" from JoAnn's painted silver (silver paint = grrrrrr. It does not stick very well). And the faucet knobs and stove/oven knobs are wooden candlestick holders.

I've had a hard time convincing the boys that we cannot keep this one and that I did this one specifically to sell! :-P They want TWO play kitchens, of course.

These are really fun to put together. My husband does not think it's fun that his garage becomes my workshop. :-P

Sooooo...Play Kitchen #2 is for sale!  It measures about 4' x 2' and is about 43" high.

If you are interested in buying it for $60, leave me a comment on this blog post. If you are unable to leave a comment inside the blog, please leave a comment where I shared the link on Facebook. I will do a random number drawing if there is more than one person interested in purchasing it.

Oh, and make sure you're local to me. I hope someone wants it! :-P
Update - play kitchen is sold to the first neighbor who knocked on my door! Ha

Glittered Acorn Wreath

My friends think I'm nuts. And I feel squirrley like an acorn-hoarder. :-P

Acorns!

When we went camping a few weekends ago, the boys and I started collecting acorns. They were huge and beautiful, and well...if you're *my* son, apparently you can't resist collecting them. My mom and dad's oak trees are producing bountifully this year so we collected some more...and I was bound and determined to actually DO something with them instead of letting them sit in a plastic grocery bag for a few years.

Some of these dandies were HUGE!  Love it.

I've collected so many now, I've become picky. Only choosing the BIG ones...or just the caps....

Caps!  Are you on acorn-picture overload, yet?

...Because...with a little styrofoam, paint, Mod Podge and glitter...look how pretty those acorn caps turn out!

You can make a wreath, too.

Here is what you need: Styrofoam wreath, brown paint, acorn caps, hot glue gun, Mod Podge or glue (optional), glitter (optional) and ribbon. 

Step 1 - Paint your Styrofoam wreath brown. You don't need perfect coverage since it will mostly be covered.

Step 2 - Start pressing the acorn caps into the wreath. Some of them would stay just fine without glue, but it is best to just go ahead and hot glue every single one. :-)

Continue, continue, continue!...

...until you have the whole wreath covered. I went as far down with the caps on the inside and outside of the wreath as I could go without disturbing the wreath's ability to lay flat. Did you know that wreaths have abilities? Ha.

Step 4 - Glitter, baby! Apply Mod Podge or glue just to the top edges of the acorn caps and sprinkle away. Small children are helpful in this endeavor.

I debated whether to add glitter or not. I think the wreath is very pretty and natural-looking without it and could be finished off beautifully with some flowers, grass, and ribbon...but I went for glitter!

Step 5 - Add a ribbon hanger and bow, and wish you still lived with your mother so she could tie a pretty bow for you.

I can't decide if I like the wreath better hanging on the door, or inside the house. :-)