Sight Words

My oldest daughter is in kindergarten this year and, so, she's learning to read. Instead of going with flashcards for her sight-word practice, I picked up a bag of little wood tiles cut to various sizes (I think it was $2 at Hobby Lobby, for around 200 little tiles) and I write the words onto these little tiles with my trusty sharpie.

Way better than flashcards 'cause A) they're pretty; B) they're more durable; C) she loves moving the words around to make sentences. We keep 'em in an empty peanut butter jar (clear plastic) on the bookshelf.

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Alphabet Wall

I have a large wall in my dining room that needed a little help. I had three large, framed pieces of art (ok--they were framed finger-paints that my kids did a couple years ago, we're THAT fancy, lol). But the space just didn't seem filled.

So I took an idea from one of my favorite blogs and came up with a very BIG, very simple and cheap solution that's PERFECT for any home, but especially perfect for a home with little ones running around. The inspiration in the above blog is MUCH better, but we don't have a saw. . . or anywhere to paint. . . and this is a rental-house, so I don't want to put too many holes in the wall. So this is my cheap-skate version.

Meet my Alphabet Wall. Printed onto pretty scrapbook paper, traced circles using a dinner plate, cut and scotch-taped to the wall.

Such an easy and pleasing way to fill the wall and my older daughter uses it for reference, now that she's started writing.

And our old finger-painted masterpieces have a new, more appropriate home in the girls' bedroom:

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Please Leave us Alone

My neighborhood is flooded with solicitors. At least three days a week someone would knock on our door to ask us about Jesus or talk about lawn-mowing, fence-mending, pest control or selling *whatever* out of the back of a pick-up truck (literally).

Also, my landlord would always send workmen over for various repairs WITHOUT BOTHERING TO NOTIFY ME that an appointment had been made to do so. So I get big dudes on my porch, unannounced, claiming that they need to come in to fix this-or-that. I don't think so.

ALSO, this house is designed very poorly and my front door is not visible from the street, it's tucked away in a corner of my porch.

And, finally, my husband works nights and I'm often alone with my two little girls.

So I don't open the door when people knock. Period.

But my kids are loud and sometimes (although I tell 'em not too) they peek out the windows at the strangers on our porch, which makes it hard to pretend no one's home.

So I put up a sign, even though I was doubtful that it would help, to tell everyone, in essence, "yes, we ARE home, but we are totally ignoring you." I never thought it would work.

But it DID work to an extent I never could have imagined.

I researched "no solicitors" signs and discovered that it's a poorly-kept secret that the houses with "no solicitors" signs are the BEST houses to sell stuff at. People often put those signs up because they HAVE TROUBLE SAYING NO. Savvy salespeople hit those houses harder than others on any street, often coming back two or three times. Not a good choice, people. Throw out your cute "No Solicitors" sign immediately. Also religion does not fall under "soliciting" in the law, so Jesus-peddlers are told to never heed such signs (which aren't legally enforcable when posted at a private residence, anyway. They can only be enforced when posted at a business).

I still get solicitors approaching my house all the time but--miracle of miracles--they see the sign and WALK AWAY. Couldn't believe it when it started happening. Often they leave a business card or flyer on the porch, but most of 'em don't even knock anymore.

When unexpected workmen show up, they read the sign, go back to their trucks and call my land-lady, who then calls me to tell me that she made an appointment on my behalf (she's gotten MUCH better about it, since the workers kept bothering her while standing on my porch waiting to be announced, lol).

Anyway here's the sign I made (printed on paper, glued to a wood plaque, sanded down and sealed against the weather). I super-glued magnets to the back and slammed that baby front-and-center on my front door. LOVE it.

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Kid's Activity Calendar

About a year ago, I designed this wall calendar for my living room's play area. My kids were 4 and 2 at the time and really needed to know what the plan was when they woke up everyday. They can't read yet, so pictures--not words--were definitely the way to go.

This is a rental-house, so I didn't want to put a bunch of holes in the wall (or else I would have mounted all this more prettily on wood backing and used hooks to dangle the activities off of each day). Scotch-tape was the cheap-o, more temporary route I took.

Anyway, every Saturday, after the kids headed off to bed, I'd update their calendar for the coming week, with photos representing various activities, holidays, appointments (storytime, playdate, dentist, birthday party, school, soccer, etc.) and each day I'd just move the blue arrow so they'd know what our itinerary was. Worked AWESOME. They'd climb out of bed and wander into the living room and immediately turn to the calendar to see what the plan was.

And another photo, with a bit more perspective:

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Teacher Block

Sorry for the lack of photos, I'm posting some old projects and didn't think to document 'em any better than this!

Christmas gift for my daughter's kindergarten teacher. Mrs. teacher-lady (I'm not going to publish her name) has five rules that the kids recite frequently. So I got a small block of wood (I THINK it was, like, 1.5" square) and printed, cut, glued, sanded one rule on each side of the block with "Mrs. [teacher-lady]'s Rules" on the sixth side. She loved it. And, since I already had all that stuff on-hand, it cost me absolutely nothing. Score.

Inspiration for this was from my favorite "I'm feeling crafty, but have no idea what I want to do" blog. They taught me how to make little blocks of wood be awesome and I ran with it! Check 'em out:

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Fragile Hearts

And, I'm a bit late, but HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

My simple Valentine's decor for my mantle. I'm definitely going to do variations on this theme throughout the year. Doesn't get much more simple (or cheap) to cut paper hearts!  I was GOING to take all the left-overs and scraps and sting 'em together for some garland or to hang from fishing line from the chandelier over our dining room table. But I got sick, or a kid got sick, or SOMEthing got in my way. That's life. Maybe I'll save 'em all for next year!

Anyway, we carried this theme over to kiddie-land. I cut hearts for my 5-year-old and she made valentines for the kids in her class. I wrote "Happy Valentine's Day" (I have awful handwriting, but I wasn't going to waste printer ink on a Kindergarten class who won't even notice) on one heart, "To:" on another and "From:" on a third. Bright Pink, Blue and Green. Then my daughter filled 'em out with the appropriate names in the appropriate places and we glued 'em together. She passed 'em out at her school party (along with a Valentine's pencil so we don't seem so scroogy).

Then we had a romantic dinner of pizza and buffalo wings at a table set with all kinds of romantic nonsense from the dollar store--heart plates, cups, balloons and confetti EVERYwhere. Oh yeah, and my eldest daughter decided to be Batgirl. Sigh.

But the BEST creative-thing about this Valentine's Day? I made the best. drink. ever: Strawberry Crush (that's pop--or "soda" if you're not from Michigan, lol) with a scoop of french vanilla ice cream. That's some good stuff.

Much love to you and all your loves!!

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Reward Center

I picked up this (what IS this, anyway?) mail organizer-thingy at a garage sale a few weeks ago for just $3. It's metal; the black part is chalk-board and it's all magnetic.  It's hanging over the kids' bookshelf in our living room.

I turned it into our new Reward Center to help my kids focus on some particularly irksome habits.

I slid the kids' names into the label-holders and then cut some pretty little rectangles out of scrapbook paper and punched a hole in 'em. I added two glass jars (re-purposed cherry jars, actually)--one for each child, a bathroom cup (mod-podged with old newsprint to make it pretty) and some popsicle sticks. Then I hung a pretty do-hickey with a bunch of rules on it from the magnetic board. Confused?

Here's how it works:

The pretty little cards of paper hang off the middle hook. When I catch a kid being GOOD (this is not a punishment center, after all!), I take a little card and hang it under that child's name. At the end of the week, we see how many cards each kid has. For every card they've earned they get to pick a popsicle stick, which goes into their cherry jar. The popsicle sticks have rewards stamped on them: "massage", "bubble bath", "wagon ride", etc.

During the week, as rewards are redeemed, the popsicle sticks go back into the cup in the middle to be up-for-grabs again at the end of the new week.

It's working GREAT!  What earns rewards in my house? Monkey gets a card if she eats her dinner WITHOUT complaining, whining or getting up & dancing around. Bugger gets a card if she sleeps all night without wetting her pull-up; she can also get a card if she does NOT complain about having to go to school on school-mornings (but that's only happened once, so I'm not holding my breath on this one!).

 

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Mustache Cup

Where, exactly does one put a paper mustache collection? Hmmmmm. . . .

I made mustaches for my daughters (yup) awhile back by tracing mustaches (from mustache templates, wouldn't ya know) onto pretty scrapbook paper, cutting 'em out and hot-gluing 'em onto little craft sticks. My girls LOVE dress-up and a mustache collection just seemed like a must-have all of a sudden.

Come on. . . you want 'em, too. I KNOW you do!

But where to put 'em. . . .? Too fragile to toss into the dress-up bin for sure.

I found these wood candle holders at GoodWill (I think I paid $3 for the pair). One had a tall glass with a half-melted candle inside it, the other was empty. I had to break the glass to get the candle out, then I just ModPodged cute paper to the inside of the candle holder to cover the holes (so stuff doesn't fall out. . . plus the inside is kind of ugly and I doubted my ability to match the paint). It was a bit too tall, so I dropped an empty yogurt cup in to the top and it was a PERFECT fit--hurray.

And: ta-da!  We have a pretty way to display our mustache collection, on top of the book shelf in my living room. It proudly stands next to our wooden dominoes sets and framed kids' art. . . and below my NEXT project: our Reward Center, which I'll post on next!

And the twin of my mustache cup is my MUCH-anticipated bookmark holder. Sits on my brand new (to me) bedroom dresser.

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Display in Play Area

I needed something to fill a wall in the half of my living room that's our designated "play area." I really wanted to display photos and my kids' artwork in a tasteful kind of way, that didn't involved putting tons of holes in the wall (since this is a rental house)!

I had thought about buying a pegboard to hang items on, but felt that pegboard is more conducive to holding chunky items instead of small pieces of paper--drawings & photos.

I had thought about putting up a bulletin board, but thought that had more of a "college dorm" feel, which I don't oppose, but it's not what I'm looking for in the main living space of my house. Plus pointy tacks and playrooms don't mix well.

In our old home, I had an official toy room. To display the kids' artwork in there I simply strung a piece of twine along one wall, tied to some simple wood screws up high on the wall. Very simple, kind of folksy and "clean" feeling.  I decided I wanted the same thing here, but I didn't have a long(ish) wall to string a line along--everything in the room is broken up by doorways or windows.

So I created the below display. I had to buy the wood--although most people probably have stuff like this laying around their garage/basement (cost me about $6), but everything else I already had on-hand: white paint, eye screws, twine and clothespins.  Easy-peasy and a GREAT focal point for the play-area. What do you think? It's got a pottery-barn look at a dumpster-diving price.

This'll make a great (and easily-changeable) holiday display, too. Think: holiday cards! 

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A Few of My Favorite Things

I'm not a big fan of clutter. I try to keep my nick-knack collection to a bare minimum. But I do have a few awesome pieces that make me smile. Today was a nice day, so I took some photos of the weird things I like. Here are a couple of 'em.

This is the gnome that lives in the tree in our backyard. Actually, the gnome usually sits on my kitchen windowsill, keeping me company while I do the dishes. However, every now and then he likes to sit, brooding, by his own front door. . . .

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And this is my tiny hutch (garage sale find), where I keep all kinds of very tiny, important things. Like lost monopoly game pieces ('cause they're about all that'll fit into those drawers). The hutch usually sits on my mantel where my itty-bitty giraffe print can keep watch over our daily activities. He's the only peeping tom that makes me smile.

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Marketing AND Decorating FTW!

Made some wood block ornaments for the stay-at-home moms group I run (SAHM's Club). Look, I managed to make a cute do-hickey that incorporated the group logo. Rock on. They turned out pretty well, but damn, I think I may have given myself carpal-tunnel syndrome sanding 'em down! The blocks are about 1.25" square.

Side 1: Group Logo
Side 2: Pink
Side 3: "SAHM I AM"
Side 4: Blue
Bottom & Top: Orange

Going to try to make photo blocks next (after I forget how much it sucks to make these).

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Spooky Thumbs

Lacking inspiration for something new to post, I've decided to post something old.

For Halloween this year--my favorite holiday--I had my girls help me make these cool thumbprint decorations for my mantle:

I chose two creepy scrapbook papers and had 'em each put one thumbprint on both pages. I added the details of the bats and spiders with my skinny Sharpie and stamped on the words with my alphabet stamps. Then I simply Mod-podged 'em onto small blocks of wood. Ta-da!

I promised these to my mother so she can display them in her house for years to come.

Also, my pumpkins in the back are those plastic pumpkins that are so popular now. I just drew on them with my trusty sharpie ('cause paint and I are NOT friends).

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Thanks and Christmas

Every year for Thanksgiving, I set a little decorative bowl out next to some pretty scraps of paper and I encourage everyone in the family to write what they're thankful for. The bowl collects all our thanks (of course, I write out my kids'--very amusing--entries for them. . . last year someone was thankful for underwear).

I read through them at Thanksgiving dinner (which is never turkey, by the way, none of us are fans), and then. . . what? What should I do with all those precious scraps of thanks? The first year I copied the list into a journal, but I want something more novel to do with them.

Thanks to a blog I enjoy, Tatertots and Jello, I now have the PERFECT solution.  They did a post awhile back about a Christmas gift for newlyweds. And I'm totally stealing the idea.

This year I will put all our little, colorful scraps of thanks into a clear glass (or maybe plastic is more appropriate for now. . .) ornament to hang on the Christmas tree year after year. Of course, I'll paint the year on the ornament and every year we'll add a new ornament with new thanks, just shake it up and see what we appreciated most that year. Our scraps are tiny, so it'll look like a colorful little snowglobe (although I love the curls in the "Tatertots" post). Maybe I'll even post a picture to share with you all!

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Literary Art

I love this stuff. I think you should, too. I could probably recreate this to some extent, but I'll likely never make the attempt. I like the Alice in Wonderland one--wish they had more classic children's literature pages. I'm thinking Peter Pan, Tarzan and The Wizard of Oz would look awesome on the wall in any toy room or framed and standing on a bookcase among tattered copies of the books themselves.

Check out the shop at Etsy.

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