Valentine's Crayons

Valentine's Day is over a month away and I'm not a big Valentine's Day fan. I don't have some long, drawn out "got dumped on Valentine's" story. I'm just not crazy about it. In our house it's more like a reminder that pitchers and catchers for the Seattle Mariner's report to spring training. Baseball season baby! Woo hoo!

Anyway, back to Valentine's. I've decided this year I'd like to do things a little different. Less like myself and more like all the lovey dovey's out there. I'm starting by making Valentine's for my little chicks to hand out.

For my preschooler I've decided to make my own version of heart shaped crayons. How Does She? has a great tutorial. Although for these, I don't know that you really need a tutorial, it's all pretty self explanatory. I did enlist some help for this one. These two chicks were great helpers.

All you need are crayons and a mold from the candy aisle at your craft store. I poured our bucket of crayons out on the dining room table and we went to work. Picking every broken crayon out of the bunch and removing the wrapper. Next we separated them by color. I used red, pink, blue, green and purple. Pretty colors that wouldn't melt together to make the color of mud. I picked up a silicon heart mold from Michael's for $6 with a coupon.

Spray the mold with cooking spray and separate your color into the hearts.

Preheat your oven to 250, before you put your mold in the oven place it on a cookie sheet or baking pan. The silicon mold is flexible and you don't want to spill wax all over the inside of your oven. It took about 15 minutes for the crayons to melt in the oven, as soon as they were melted I pulled them out and let the pan cool on a cooling rack for another 15 minutes or so. Once they were hardened they popped right out of the mold. SO cute!

Now all I need to do is come up with a catchy Valentine's phrase and put them all together. I'll show you the finished product when they're... well... finished.

Blessings.

Linking to: Fingerprints on the Fridge, House of Hepworths

Dirty or Clean? That is the Question.

Let me start this post by saying how absolutely wonderful my Tall Man is. He is an incredible help around the house. He helps with cooking, cleaning, laundry, pretty much everything. I couldn't ask for a more amazing man to share my life with.

With that said in the last eight and a half years I have probably heard the question "Are the dishes clean or dirty?" five hundred thousand gazillion times. I can not complain too much because when I hear that question it's because my Tall Man is going to either load or empty the dishwasher. SO sweet!

I never understood why a person couldn't just look in at the dishes and tell if they were clean or dirty. A while back I actually muttered that awful clean or dirty question. Mistake. After asking the question myself I was forced to find a clean/dirty dishwasher magnet. So the search began and this is what I found. A very cute free download over at Carina Gardner Studio.

I downloaded my free copy and printed it out immediately. Then I cut the red sign out and hot glued it to a juice lid. I put a coat of Mod Podge on top to protect it from potential splashes. After that was all dry I hot glued a small button magnet to the back.

And voila!

No more asking if the dishwasher is clean or dirty. That is of course if everyone uses the magnet the way it was intended to be used.

Blessings.

Linking to: Just A Girl, House of Hepworths

Inspiration Binder

I don't know about you but to me getting organized is a wee bit overwhelming. Like you have to be organized to get organized. Do you know what I'm saying? It's that whole "You need to have money to make money" mentality. Lucky for you and me, there are literally hundreds of different organizing blog posts out there. There is hope for us yet!

I have my list of things, places and rooms that need some serious organization but I decided to start with something small. Well, it will be small when I'm done. Every month I receive four magazines. I get them as gifts every year and I love it!! I receive Better Homes & Gardens, Woman's Day, Family Circle and Parents magazines. And don't forget the occasional catalog; Pottery Barn, Ikea, Lowe's Creative Ideas... the list goes on. Each of these magazines and catalogs are great for their own reason but let's be real not everything is great in every one of these magazines and catalogs is great.

When a new magazine or catalog comes in the mail I get so excited. Maybe that's where my little chicks get it from. If you have little ones you know you can't always sit right down and devour each and every page all at one time. I started dog earring my favorite pages as I read. Then once every couple of months I'll go through every bathroom (we're being honest here) and basket to collect the recent issues. I end up with a pile like this on my dining room table.

Next, I flip right to the pages that have been folded down and cut them out. Then I separate the pictures and articles into categories. Bedrooms, Bathroom, kitchen, organization, cleaning outdoor, crafts, holidays, etc.. I have a three ring binder full of page protectors and little sticky note tabs. I haven't purchased the super cute 3M tabs because I have small post it's that work just fine. I just file my inspiration into the appropriate page protectors.

I always save the paint page in Better Homes & Gardens, you know the page.

I also make little notes on the pages. Otherwise I'll forget what the page inspired.

I love it. When there's a change in seasons or a fun holiday approaching I can pull my inspiration binder out and get some great ideas. Now I have this simple, clean binder instead of magazines spread out everywhere collecting dust. It's wonderful!

How do you keep your inspiration organized?

Blessings.

Linking to: House of Hepworths, Just A Girl, House of Grace

Resolutions?

It's officially 2011. A chance for a new beginning, a fresh start, an opportunity to do things differently. I find it so funny that just ten days ago every store had aisle after aisle full of chocolate candies wrapped like this...

And now those festive packages have been replaced with this...

They fatten us up then want us to work it off. And only eleven months later they start fattening us up again. Quite the system.

Resolutions. Did you make any? Have you kept them? I have never made a New Years resolution, so I've never kept them. This year however, I am making one, a very important one. I want to be more intentional about the time I spend in God's word. I want to grow and nurture my relationship with Christ in 2011. I consider this a big resolution for my very first one. So I need to keep myself accountable.

Wish me luck friends. I hope you are staying strong and being successful with your 2011 New Years resolutions.

Blessings.

Happy New Year!

I remember as a child hearing about how time goes so much faster when you're an adult. I'm sure I was complaining about something taking FOR-EV-ER! when I was told that. I wasn't exactly a patient child. Now I realize everyone was right. Time truly does go faster when you're and adult with a family and responsibilities.

I can hardly believe it's already 2011. Since I haven't been blogging for a full year and can't share my top twelve projects I thought I could share my favorite snapshots from 2010 with you. Here we go...

January: Tall Man tried out skeet shooting last winter. These two chicks loved it!

February: My beautiful little niece, LC, was born a few weeks early and

had to be fed from a syringe.

I got to help. Such a proud auntie!

March: Waiting in line for the Rock & Worship Roadshow with some great friends.

April: My beautiful chicks dancing in their Easter dresses.

May: I loved showing my family where I grew up.

June: My precious oldest chick at her ninth birthday party.

July: We had such a busy month, going to the Mariner's game with my Tall Man, brother-in-law and father-in-law was definitely a highlight.

August: My middle chick and her fish.

September: Are you kidding me? This is total kid happiness. An ice cream cone at the county fair.

October: I have to sneak in a picture of me and my Tall Man. I just really like this one.

November: I love the child like excitement in his face as he sleds down the hill.

December: Of course nothing tops having the family together for Christmas.

I hope you all had a happy and healthy 2010. May you have a blessed 2011.

Blessings.