What roses???

I am one of those people who wants the world to slow down a bit. Enjoy the here and now. Stop and smell the roses... even if they are not in season!


  Let me cut to the chase... This new fast past-paced, money hungry world seems to be forcing us to start celebrating holidays and seasons before they even get here. Sometimes we even find ourselves beginning to celebrate one out of turn, such as Christmas.  I just don't picture people in the days of old (insert your own mental picture and era here) putting up their Christmas tree in the middle of November! Sometimes I feel like we treat Thanksgiving Day, as if we are merely obligated to interrupt our Christmas SEASON, by giving it one day a few hours each year, to appear grateful. But! We've even managed to turn THAT into an oxymoron,
  but
        I
           digress.
This whole thought process, started with the inevitable, and infamous...
      "Spring Fever!"
I regret to inform you, that I, like many of you, have been bitten by the bug. Yes. Me. The woman who vowed she would not remove her large chunky snowflake from the front door, until the first of March, at the soonest! (seeing that Spring doesn't even officially start until March 20th)
   I believe it happened last week sometime, as that is when the symptons started to rear their ugly heads. I remember thinking and dwelling on this very epidemic that we speak of right now as I entered the grocery store... wearing FLIP-FLOPS.
  As I strolled the aisles, I kept thinking of all these silly people that keep saying they have "spring fever", in mid-February, and how they are going to be "so disappointed when we will inevitably get snow next week". I for one, was not going to be one of the disappointed. I would
    "enjoy and embrace winter,
          for as long as it is winter!"
Then I hit the frozen foods section, and started scrutinizing the ice cream. Amid the usual stacks of rich, dark, and evil chocolatey and nutty temptations, I saw it...
frozen.
  peach.
    yogurt.
  Out of no where, I heard birds singing, saw flowers bloom, and felt the sun on my back! And that's when I knew it was happening. I had been forced over to "the dark side". I was one of the sillies! I mean, look at me... I'm wearing flip-flops in february!
  As I flipped and flopped to the check-out with my peachy goodness in hand, I still felt a sense of guilt for betraying myself in my endeavors to finish out winter, but I knew it was only a matter of time.
  That time passed quickly, however, as I found myself throwing open the windows at 8am this morning, I had the uncontrollable urge to dismantle the snowflake and remove all things winter from our decor.

Hello dark side. It's good to be here.

Sonic, snot... SURREAL!

This past Thursday, as I checked the weather forecast, I was pleasantly surprised to see sun, with a high of 72 degrees! I did see something about wind, but who ever worries about wind!?!  I then had a perfect vision of the kids and I running and playing at the park with the sun on our faces, and a story book ending with us picnicing on a blanket in the grass.
Beautiful, right?!
I was quickly running out of time to get to the park, however, so I ended up ditching the picnic part and convinced my 3 year old son that eating at Sonic would be the same, because we could still eat outside!
   The park of course is always magical, so let's fast forward to lunch. By the time we got to Sonic, the wind had picked up to "holy cow!" speeds, and the sun was M.I.A.  Melt downs occured after mentioning taking our Sonic cuisine home with us, so we proceeded to eat outside.
   Despite our jackets and hoods, I was freezing, my daughter was bundled in a blanket, and my son had a constant stream of tears and snot that were strictly wind-induced, running down his face, and yet he repeatedly refused to admit it was COLD! The loud giggles and sweet toothy grins from my children, were the only thing that kept me from paying much attention to the ENTIRE TOWN of Fairview, that seemed to have decided to dine at Sonic today. I would be fibbing if I said I didn't notice them all sitting and eating in their warm cars, circled around us and looking on as if they paid to see this!! (Side note: I don't think I knew, until just now, that Sonic was designed to be a dinner theater!!) Whether they thought me to be a terrible mother, forcing my children to eat outdoors in this chilling wind, or just had a good laugh watching me chase our food and garbage over, under and around our table, while the little ones squealed with laughter, I really don't care.
Though our morning did not pan out, as scripted in my vision, it was still perfect. My kids had fun and that's what mattered most to me. <3

My almost 1 year old modeling her new tutu.

Tutu easy

My baby girl is turning 1 next week. Yes... very bittersweet. I am however tickled pink (literally) to throw my very first girly birthday party! But since we are on a budget, I am forced to be crafty.

YAY!

Even though many of my crafts or d.i.y. projects LOOK homemade, I still get a strange sense of pride, just knowing that I DID IT!

So anyway... back to the party!

I have been doing a lot of online window shopping to compare prices on tutus, because I so desperately want my little darling to wear a tutu on her birthday. Don't ask why... I don't know! It's just girly! Well, remember that part about being on a budget?? Yep... there was no way my baby was going to be in a tutu, on the budget I've set, but since I already had the idea, I was determined to find a way!!

After all of my research on tutus, I discovered LOTS of people making their own no-sew versions, and selling them on Etsy, Ebay, and other online venues, and I thought to myself...

"If they can do it, so can I!"

I began tulle shopping, and discovered why everyone and their dog is making these tutus... tulle is incredibly cheap! (I would like to say sorry to all of my friends out their who are trying to make a living off of tutus... I'm quite sure yours are worth the asking price and much more polished and finished than my own.)

I quickly bought 2 lovely shades of pink, 6 inch wide, spools of tulle. Altogether with the shipping and handling, it was a whopping $6!!! My budget was loving me!

I originally bought ribbon to tie it onto, but before I opened it, I thought really hard about any way I could simplify the steps, and of course... try to use something I already have. I LOVE it when I can repurpose something I already have!

Too save time trying to measure my squirmy little red-head's waist, and trying to figure out the length needed to create and fasten the ribbon or elastic, I grabbed a stained pair of elastic waisted pants that were way to short for her now, and simply cut the waist band off, leaving me with an easy on-and-off, perfect fitting waistband.

I then cut 1 ft sections of the darker "rose" colored tulle, and 18 inch sections of the lighter pink. Why? Because I like to complicate an already simple thing. :)

I started a pattern as I knotted them around the band. I would tie on 2 of the shorter rose pieces with the knots centered on the outside of the band, then 1 of the longer light pink ones, with the knot going straight down on the bottom edge of the band. This way the shorter darker ones create a puffier tutu around the waist, while the light pink falls beneath in more of a skirt like tutu.

Some of you may like it more simple, and can use just one of the techniques, to acheive whatever affect you are looking for.

But I am more than satisfied with my end result for the purpose and price that I was aiming for.

I used:

-2 shades of tulle

-old elastic waistband from some cotton pants

Rockas!

Easy-peasy!

We did a quick one today. My son calls them "rockas" (maracas). We washed out our yogurt cups from lunch, and filled about a 1/3 of the way with popcorn (unpopped of course). I hot-glued cardboard tops on them, that we traced and cut beforehand from a recycled cracker box, and then hot-glued plastic knives left over from my son's birthday party. This took us less than 15 min, and both kids played with them right up until bedtime!

Great entertainment, but our version didn't involve my son too much in the production phase.

I suggest...
If you have any of the clear plastic Gerber baby food containers, to use them. You can be much more creative with the contents of the shakers, with things like colored beads, dried beans, glitter, rice or painted pasta. Then your little one will feel he or she has put their own signature on it, and he or she can see the fruits of their labor. Plus you would already have a lid to glue on and wouldn't have to trace, and cut one out.


We used:
-yogurt cups
-popcorn
-cardboard
-hot glue
-plastic knives

You could also try:
-rice, beans or beads
-plastic baby food containers, or clear fruit cup containers
-popsicle sticks

Cuttin' up at lunch!

It's okay to play with your food! Well, maybe just sometimes... :)

Today I got creative with my son's balogna and cheese, and thought it was too cute not to share.

I know! I know what you are thinking...

"Jill... it's not even October yet!"

I really am aware of that. I am just on this pumpkin kick right now... even my coffee creamer is pumpkin! But I promise to try hard to get my fall fix in other ways for a while. Okay?

Then again... if I do them all now, I just might inspire some of you for your own craft-filled October!

Decking out the porch light!

Okay... so I will admit... I'm pretty proud of us on this one. It turned out so much better than I had expected!


So here is the story behind it...

My son has been asking to carve a pumpkin. We all know that if we were to have carved his pumpkin, mid-September, it would have been a rotted, nasty mess before Halloween arrived. So I knew our next craft would have a pumpkin worked in somehow.



The plan started out as just a painted cardboard jack-o-lantern, with orange tissue paper on the back. Then I thought we could light it, by making it a light cover for our porch light, and measured accordingly and attached it, using only pipe cleaners and 2 beads. (Let me mention here that the scary face was HIS idea)








But...

Since that took NO time at all, and he wanted to keep painting, I squashed one toilet paper tube and one paper towel tube, and cut them up. We then painted all 26 "leaves" and I tied them together with string and beads and tied them onto the light as well.







And VOILA!




We are both so proud of our front porch. :) He now insists on going out each night, to admire his handy work.






We used:
-cardboard (I used the back flap of an old notebook)
-red, yellow, green, and black paint
-string
-beads
-toilet paper and paper towel tubes
-orange tissue paper
-pipe cleaners

Tip:
Instead of orange tissue paper, you can flatten a coffee filter and paint it with water colors, and let dry.