What I Did This Weekend…

….Construction Paper Edition!
So I planned on finishing up a sewing tutorial and sharing with you on Friday. My kids had other ideas and then this weekend we spent it making Halloween Decorations, a very special countdown chain, cutting Little Man’s hair and finally deciding what we were going to be for Halloween!
Here are the pictures and a few links to ideas and/or printables!

Little Man helped me cut & glue this free printable banner (it can be personalized!)together and choose where we hung it!

Milk Jug Ghosts (idea found here) I still have to cut a hole in the back and put our white Christmas lights in them but I think they are so cute! I have one more milk jug to add to it later today after lunch ha-ha!













Our countdown chain that stretches alllllll the way across our playroom (the center isn’t pictured) See our little footprint flag in the background? We still love it!



And lastly Little Man has a tricycle that he rides in the house and he kept saying he was ‘waiting for the green light’ while sitting on it so I made him a little traffic light and hung it in a doorway for him to pretend with…he loves it! Simple toys are the BEST!!

Ok that’s it for me today- hopefully tomorrow I’ll be back with a sewing tutorial OR our homemade Halloween costumes!
What are you & your kids going as?? Do you do a 'family theme' or just everyone picks something different?

Have A Happy Day,


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Found, free storage!

I really need to go poking around in my basement more often...maybe this winter when it is freezing down there so there aren't any spiders scurrying around *shudder*. Why do I need to do this? Well I went down to check out the new (free! We received some items for free after Military Man's great grandfather died- we are so lucky!!) chest freezer and because Military Man had to clear a space for it things were all moved around.

I saw this sitting on top of some boxes:

A small black plastic basket. We have an entire basement 75% full of the previous owners stuff (Military Man bought the house from friends and they just left some stuff). A lot of it is broken or old electronics but there are some things that I could reuse or makeover.

So back to the basket- perfectly functional as it was but I was itching to break out this new spray paint I bought months ago. American Accents Satin finish in Aqua!


So I did.

Then I made a cute tag with my Silhouette machine (did you know it's Mac compatible now?!). Little Man isn't reading yet so I thought a picture would be useful for him to know what was supposed to go in there.

I just cut it out with the Silhouette then colored the back of the tag with an orange marker, glued them together and laminated them using my Xyron 9-Inch Creative Station. Then I just tied a ribbon through the holes in both the tag & basket!


So what do you think?

The images I used from the Silhouette store are the following:
toy car: (toy_car_C00344_23067)
tag: (tag_1047) (I couldn't find this in the store so I think it was one that came pre-loaded with the machine?)

Have you found anything fun tucked away in your house lately?

Hope you have a Happy Day,



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Frugal DIY Play Kitchen!

For little Man’s 3rd birthday party I decided that a play kitchen would be a good addition to our playroom! I didn’t have a lot of money to spend (none really) but I still wanted it to be cute! I found a possibility on etsy.com for a cardboard one and bought the PDF. I loved it but it required a lot more materials than I had available at the time. So I looked around and found some materials that I thought would work.
I first saw this end table that I was using as a cable box stand and nothing else. I grabbed that and replaced it with my file cabinet as the cable box holder lol
I knew I needed room for a sink too so I found an old drafting desk that the top ‘lift up’ portion of the desk was damaged on one edge but was long enough on the ‘good’ part to cover the top of the end table and then have overhand for the ‘sink’ portion.
So I had my handsome hubby cut down the desk top to the right size, cut the hole for the pie plate sink and screw it on to the top of the nightstand- lining up the edges. I caulked/used wood filler on the seam where the top of the end table and bottom of the wood came together. Then I taped off the half that overhang with painter’s tape and newspaper and spray painted the entire nightstand/remaining portion of desk top white. It took a couple coats and I didn’t do the back, the inside or the side under the over hang since those wouldn’t be seen. The reason I did this is that I wanted it to have some separation between the  stove/oven side and the kitchen side. It ended up looking like the sink is in a butcher block countertop- love it!

Next I took off the tape/newspaper and placed the pie plate in the hole. It has a lip and we measured the bottom of the plate (which is a bit smaller than the rim) so it fits in tight and the lip keeps it from falling all the way through.
I traced a saucer four times onto the ‘stove’ side of the kitchen and filled in the circles with black acrylic paint. Handsome Hubby drilled some small holes and fitted them with these little metal pegs I found laying around and that’s what we used to hold the ‘oven’ knobs on with. The knobs do come off but I didn’t want to glue them because I wanted them to be able to spin. I wrote the ‘temperature’ & ‘on’ ‘off’ with a thin line Sharpie.

Then hubby measured and cut plywood to fill the front of the end table for an oven door and he cut a ‘window’ in the middle for the oven window. I spray painted that white and we attached it to the kitchen with hinges at the bottom, magnetic tape to hold it closed and upright and a handle to pull it open with.  The ‘window’ of the oven is covered from the inside with a sheet of transparency film and it is just taped on using packing tape (so it’s clear and blends in). I might hot glue it on later but for now it works!
 

After that we just screwed the handles through the overhand/old desk top part of the kitchen for faucet handles and used Gorilla Glue to attach the wooden J (I painted it sliver first) upside down to look like a faucet. I would have loved to do a screw up through the bottom of the over hang into the bottom of the J but when we tried it started to split the J- so glue only was what worked for us!

I used sticky backed Velcro on the edge of the over hang and sewed the matching Velcro (using sew on Velcro obviously lol) to the bandanas to make a sink ‘skirt/curtain’
And that was that! I had everything but the hinges, handles, J and knobs on hand. The oven ‘knobs’ were free and the rest was all $1-$5 each.

 


So here are the materials you would need to make your own. I have linked to similar or the same products where ever it was possible!

Materials: End Table(I used one similar to this- only mine had two shelves)    
Pie Plate with rim (but no handles) (mine came in a pack of 2 and was similar to this)
wooden or paper mache letter “J” (mine is wooden- this link is for paper mache because I couldn’t find the right ‘font’ of J that looked like a faucet)
Kitchen or Bath Replacement Faucet Handles (mine are similar but couldn’t find them online)
Acrylic Black Paint
Metallic Spray Paint -Silver
Satin White Spray Paint
Replacement Oven Knobs (mine are actually from an old Helicopter)
Plywood (got mine at my local Lowe’s)
Sharpie Fine Point Permanent Markers
Wood to form ‘countertop’ (the same width as your end table from front to back and then about twice as long-mine came from the top of an old desk that part of the wood was warped. We cut off the bad part and used the good part)
Solid Color Bandanas - (Whatever Color you want)(mine are leftover bandanas from the Pirate Birthday party!)
Small Hinges (you’ll need at least two to attach the oven door with)
Magnetic tape (you can get this at Wal-mart or a craft store also)
Kitchen Cabinet Handle (this is similar to the one I used but I would have loved to use this kitchen cabinet long handle because it is longer-more like an oven handle)
Velcro (both sticky backed & sew-on)
Transparency Films
Packing Tape
Gorilla Glue
Screws

I hope you all find some interesting materials to make your own play kitchen! Just know that you CAN do it without spending a fortune on those wooden play kitchens they sell!
In fact, I’m not the only one who has made their own play kitchen.

Have a Happy Day,

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A neat little Giveaway!

So since Hubby & I are still toying with the idea of homeschooling (well he's toying, I'm sold haha) I follow/subscribe to many homeschooling blogs & LOVE them. Well today one of my favorites posted about a giveaway & in all honesty one of the ways to get an entry is to blog about it. BUT I will say I'm blogging about it to give all YOU the chance to enter too!

I really like what is being given away: they are 'feelings' dolls/toys by this company called Kimochis. Go check them out & see what all the fuss is about. But really they are an amazing idea that combines toddlers love of stuffed animals with their confusion about how to express their feelings. Smart!

Ok so go HERE & enter yourself if you want!

Happy Labor Day!