Crafting with the Kiddos ROUND TWO

Hello there!!! It is hot and earthquakey here in SoCal but we're surviving ok. The kids....well, they're still driving each other (& me) crazy. Ha! Anyway, I had some crafting to do for my etsy shop so I decided that it may be easier if the kids have a project to work on too. Honestly, I didn't get too much of my own stuff done but it was fun to get crafty with them. Take a look at our supplies....

$1 unfinished wooden birdhouse from Michael's
$.77 craft paint from Michael's
f-r-e-e paint chips from Lowes.

First the kids painted their birdhouses.....

(Needless to say, I'm glad I put the sheet down on the table)

After that, I cut the paint chips into strips...

Then I gave each strip a nice fringe...

Time to attach the "shingles."

Final (messy) step - GLITTER!

I just dabbed on some tacky glue and let them shake on the sparkles...

We dumped off the excess and our houses were done :)

Hayden's:

Noah's:

And here they are hanging from the tree in the backyard waiting for their new tenants :)

I didn't actually put any birdseed in there (or weed seed as my husband calls it) so they are just a cute backyard decoration swaying in the breeze.

Hooray for Summer & getting crafty/MESSY!

Crafting with the kiddos

Happy Moan-day everyone! This is our first Summer week without any scheduled activities. We had 6 straight weeks of Swim Lessons, and Noah did a 3 week Ocean Camp called Sea Cubs. Now, it's time to veg. Haha. I have to admit, "vegging" with my kids these days isn't exactly relaxing. The boy is 6 and the girl is 3 and they are non stop fighting, bickering, and bugging each other (& me). I decided to do an art project with them to keep them busy and keep myself sane. I pinned this pin the other day so I knew what our art day would be...painting. The pin involved finger painting and we were NOT going to do that. Remember, trying to stay sane. haha! Here's what we did...

1.put painters tape on canvas.

2. draw a shape with a sharpie on the tape (Noah chose a star).

3. Use an exacto knife to cut out the shape (Hayden chose a heart). I had flat board-style canvas for this which worked great. I think the exacto could have cut through a gallery wrapped canvas.

4. Start painting.

We painted outside so our mess would be...outside. lol. We did one color at a time letting it dry for 10 minutes between coats. Noah had fun setting the timer for 10 minutes. I worked on my own crafts and they rode bikes in the yard until it beeped.

(note: The next time we do this, I will only be putting out the colors that I want them to use. They have pretty interesting color combo taste). The peach was not in my original plan.

After all the paint was on, we set the timer for 20 minutes so it could get really dry. Being outside helped with quick dry time and craft paint typically dries fast.

We could have stopped there if we wanted to and just pulled off the tape, but we took it a step further. After it was completely dry, I taped off some stripes and let them fill it in with white (perhaps toning down the funky color scheme a bit).

After that was done, we peeled off the tape and let it dry. Then I let them each pick out a color to fill in their shape. I did this part because...well...precision isn't in the cards for them quite yet ;)

Here are their finished products:

Hayden:

Noah:

My kids absolutely love how they turned out and I think they're pretty cute too! Noah said we should send them to a museum (lol).

My second to last step was to add a D-hook using my glue gun.

Wanna see where they ended up??

Check!!!

Crafting with the kiddos was a great Summer activity and gave us a few much needed fight-free minutes {sigh}.

Happy Summer everyone :)

Roadkill Rescue - Hubby files

Hello all, I hope you are having a nice week so far. I finally, finally tackled a diy project. It-has-been-a-while. haha! This Summer has been a busy one so far so I'm having a hard time keeping it all together. School routine will be here before we know it, so I'm taking advantage of lazy beach days and being a blob :)

Remember back when I showed you the mirror that my hubby found with a "free" sign on it??

As I mentioned previously, I was SUPER shocked when he actually brought a piece of "junk" into the house rather than out. I instantly fell in love with this mirror and knew it had to go somewhere special. I also knew I wanted to paint it.....hmmm....what to do?

First - I had to tape it.

UGH! It was a total pain to tape. Took forever.

Finally!! haha! NO fun.

I decided the guest/kid bathroom would be the best spot for it. It doesn't exactly "go" with the fixtures in there really, but those will all change eventually so I thought I would try it out. Here is a before pic of the boring bathroom.

Not terrible, but definitely not fabulous either. This bathroom doesn't get any natural light at all which is a total bummer. Hopefully the new mirror helps brighten things up a bit in there :)

Here's the after shot for ya :)

I stayed in my comfort zone and went with my go-to favorite color aqua. I like the way it looks with the yellow accents that I already had in there. That awesome wooden sign is from my friend Pamela at PBJStories. She's super talented and I was lucky to win the first giveaway ever on her blog. I was sooooo excited when I found out I won!

The mirror had some old hardware on it and I decided to leave it on there. I want to remember that this was a piece that was used somewhere else in it's past life, and now it lives with us :)

From what I could tell, it looks like it was attached to a dresser.
Along with the light distressing I gave it, there were also some fun chippy patches that I left alone. I wanted to let the mirror show it's age and character a bit.

All in all I think it looks pretty cute in there.

("Hayden - look in the mirror and smile for Mommy.")
fail #1.

fail #2

She's just so cooperative, huh!?

I hope you like this mini makeover/roadkill rescue project. I am still so proud of my sweet husband for dragging it home! He must reeaalllly love me ;)

Have a great day!

Sweeter Sweets

HaPpY weekend everyone!!!
I've been a crafting fool lately and added another new item for my Etsy shop. I had a bunch of felt strips cut after making the fancy felt hair bows so I decided to continue with the fancy felt theme. Introducing the Fancy Schmancy Dessert Flags by OohLalaCo!!!

(Cute packaging is a must for my little shop so I obsessed spent lots of time figuring out the best way to package these little flags. Now they will arrive at their new home safely while looking cute at the same time. Yay!)

Here is a look of them in action....

(What? You don't bring your cupcakes outside in front of your old wood fence to take pictures? Weird).

They're very colorful and fun, and make your sweets taste even sweeter. I promise, try it!! haha! I plan to make some holiday color stories for these little flags too so stay tuned. Working with felt is fun and once I get going, there's no stopping me (and yes, I bought these cupcakes specifically for this photo shoot. My kids were not sad about getting to eat them after).

So, go. Go! GO SHOPPING!!! Haha, j/k of course. Hoping these little flags sell well. If not, I'll just have to throw a cupcake pity party (YUM).

Happy day to you people!