InstaLife August

Here’s a glimpse into our life from August.

 

InstaLife – May

I got this wonderful idea from The Clean Slate.

T-Ball End of Season Party Prep

I can’t believe Jack’s first ever t-ball season is actually over, I feel like it just started!
As team mom, I was in charge of getting trophies and organizing the team party. I had good intentions of getting super cool trophies off a website for decent money, but thanks to school and my hectic life, I was forced to use a local shop (oh darn, right?) since I couldn’t justify the $40 rush processing fee. I went to Western Trophy here in Boise. My mom had used them in the past to get awards made for various PTA events. The coolest thing, I got better trophies than online order, in 5 business days, for $5 less!

As for the team party, we decided to keep it pretty simple, BYOP, bring your own pizza, in the park. Since I have some crazy gene that requires me to go above and beyond, I decided that each team member deserved a goody bag too! After all, they all worked so hard this season.

In each bag, I put a handful of purple tissue paper filler (from way long ago on ISLY), baseball keychain, baseball sticker, baseball activity sheet, a click-clack toy, pin-ball game, a box of crackerjacks, and a pack of grape big league bubble gum.

I made each player a mini-team flag with their name and number on it and attached it to the goody bag. They look so cool behind each child’s trophy.

Jackson approved 🙂

InstaLife – April

Another month living the dream 🙂

Jackson’s Super 5th Birthday Party

Jackson’s Super Friends!!

Super Jackson’s Super Friends

First off, i would like to thank everyone who came to celebrate Jackson’s 5th birthday with us. I can not tell you all enough how grateful we are to have such wonderful friends and family members in our lives. To those who missed it, let these photos and stories be a lesson to you – next year, you won’t want to miss Jackson’s Pirate Adventure.

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I had a lot of inspiration for his super hero themed party from Pinterest.

Dog bed for Harley & Bentley

When my half-brother got married to my now half-sister-in-law, my mom made these great zebra circles to put under the center pieces at their reception. She cut out 21″ circles then stitched red piping around each one. They looked great!
After the wedding, my mom offered to make her a dog bed out of the left over fabric. Two years later, we finally got around to it!
I took two of the table decoration circles, cut a long strip of zebra fabric from a scrap we had, and hand stitched it all together. Mom stuffed it full of foam and batting, then I stitched it shut.
I also made the dogs a little bone out of the same fabric. Sadly, I didn’t have a squeaker to put in it 😦

Renee says that she and the dogs love it!

Friendship EarBuds

I am an Apple junkie. I drag my iPad & iPhone (& my iPod when I had it) with me everywhere I go. I keep 4 sets of headphones- a set in my work bag, my school bag, my purse, and at home – so that I always have a pair handy. All of them are usually tossed in the bag an left to be untangled when needed. But I am do happy to announce that I have found the solution to my tangled cords problem! And it’s simple too!

Remember making friendship bracelets back in grade school for all your BFFLs? Well, this is the same concept, except instead of tying knots around a bunch of strings, you tie them around your headphone cord. GENIUS!

It’s super easy to do & you don’t need any expensive materials. Get some embroidery floss, the kind you would use if you were doing a cross stitch, from your local craft store. I would estimate that one scane will cover a normal set of headphones. You can use more than one color, but it can get a little bulky if you use more than 4 colors. For the headphones pictured above I chose yellow and pink floss.

To start, tie the first color to the top of the headphone cord, just below where it splits into each earbud. Follow the steps below to tie the knots, wrapping the tail of the string with the cord. After 5 knots, cut the tail as close to the knots as possible so that is is hidden.

Start your second color in the same fashion, this time including the first color, the tail of #2, & the cord. Clip the tail after a few knots so it is hidden as well. Repeat this as you start a new color.

To tie the knots, (1) keep the cord & other threads together, pull the bulk of the thread to the left of the cord. (2) Pass the bulk of the thread UNDER the cord forming a triangle shape to the left. (3) The string crosses back over the top of the cord and through the triangle to make the knot. (4) pull the string to tighten the knot, ensuring the cord & other colored threads do not bunch up underneath the knot.
Repeat, counting your knots as you go, and alternating colors to create a pattern.

I also wrapped my power cords in a similar way.

Give it a try! Enjoy!

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

On the day after Thanksgiving, I got to work setting up all the Christmas decorations in my house. My roommate teased me for decorating so early, but Christmas is my favorite holiday and I don’t want to waste a single minute of Christmas.

To start, this is the family tree. I scored this 6 foot artificial tree on Craigslist last year for $35!

I know most you reading this are aware of the fact that I am only 5 feet tall, but I would just like to say that being 5 feet tall and trying to wrap a christmas tree with lights is a big challenge. BUT NOT THIS YEAR! I read last Christmas, after I had spent too many hours wrapping the tree, of an easier way to light a tree, and it has nothing to do with spinning the tree in circles. Alright, on the directions. Imagine that your christmas tree is a cone, easy enough. Divide your cone into vertical sections making imaginary triangular sections from the top of the tree and widening to the bottom branches. I chose to mentally divide my tree into thirds since I had 3 strands of lights. Starting at the top of the tree, hide the end of the light strand in the branches and string the lights from side to side, working your way down to the bottom branches, covering the first imaginary section. When you get to the bottom of your tree, connect the second strand of lights to the first, hide the plugs deep inside the branches, and work your way back up the next vertical segment of your tree, winding the lights from side to side. Repeat until all of your lights are hanging on the tree. plug them in and adjust the strands to create an even disbursement of lights.

Winter Wreath

Thanks to Pinterest, I have a new obsession with wreaths and front door decor. If you follow me on Pinterest, you may have noticed quite a few wreaths being pinned to my holiday decor board. I don’t want to be know as the Crazy Wreath lady so instead of making 25 different wreaths, I borrowed elements from my favorite winter wreaths to create my own.

Here’s what I did to make this sparkly winter inspired wreath:

I bought a 14″ foam wreath form from Hobby Lobby and made t-shirt yarn in grey. (tutorial for t-shirt yarn coming soon!)

I wrapped the entire wreath in t-shirt yarn to cover the yucky styrofoam. I thought about spray painting the wreath silver but the wrapped yarn added some serious texture to the wreath.

Next, I wrapped the wreath loosely with silver glitter tulle. As I wrapped, I twisted the spool to add a small amount of volume.

To make the decoration, I hot-glued a bunch of white feathers to one section of the wreath. On top of the feathers, I layered 8 small strips of white and silver tulle then glued the snowflake ornament on top.

Looking at the unfinished wreath, it lacked color. I tied a blue ribbon bow to the snowflake ornament.

Next, I glued large plastic jewels all over the tulle, and little jewels to the blue ribbon for emphasis.

Finally, I added grey and blue ribbon to hang the wreath from. I glued the ribbon on the backside of the wreath so it could be hidden from view.

Celebrating CRAFTmas!

That’s right, Craftmas, not Christmas!

I will be counting down to Christmas with handmade crafts! I would do a full 25 days with 25 crafts, but I am a full time student 8 classes away from a bachelor degree so finals take precedence over crafts for the majority of the month.

Instead, I will post about the christmas decorations I have up in my house. Some tutorials will be provided, some silly stories, and most importantly pictures! Enjoy!

On the first day of Craftmas my blogger made for me… A Winterized Money Tree!

Stick Tree 2010

When my sister and I lived together, she was never as excited as I was when it came to decorating the house. Last year she was particularly spiteful regarding the 3 Christmas trees I had put up in the living room, so naturally, I assumed that her griping stemmed from her wanting her very own tree. When I offered to get her a tree of her own, she declined, saying something along the lines of “Bah Hum Bug.”

Needless to say, I made my sister a tree that fit her Christmas spirit, and satisfied my passive aggressive side. I gathered sticks from the yard and shoved them into one of her vases filled with rice. Since rice is not sparkly, and in my house all Christmas decorations must have some degree of sparkle, I added decorative diamonds on top of the rice and wrapped the branches with a ribbon in her favorite holiday color, grey.

It was well received and as the holiday drew nearer, the tree became more decorated. We added sparkly stick things and white holly berries and a few ornaments here and there. Those tags hanging down had things we were grateful for written on them. The stick tree, though originally meant to be a stab at my sister for not being as gung-ho about the holly-jolly-hollidays, has survived in our house for an entire year now. Every holiday, the stick tree gets a little decor to match.

Stick Tree 2011

This year, Jes lives 900 miles away, and has absolutley no control over how much sparkle I add to her stick tree. Muwahaha! I’ll admit, it’s pretty dang busy, but it looks so cool sitting in my entry way. I love the character it adds to the hallway, and that it reminds me of my sister.