Car - Bus - Truck Themed Bedroom

Just before Sammy turned two, I was busy painting and decorating a new "big boy bedroom" for him.  He got a space-slash-robot bedroom, which left the bug room vacant for baby #2 to move in. Well, it's hard to believe my baby boy is now two already!  And, now that we know just how much he loves cars, trucks, buses, and anything with wheels, we decided to give him his own themed room.

I found an image of an old VW bus online and projected it on the wall to draw the outline, then painted it with acrylics:

I went over the whole thing with some clear poly to protect it.  To an adult the perspective is a little funny since it's not full scale, but from Toby's height it's perfect!

Of course I couldn't stop at just the bus...

I added a street sign on the opposite wall with his name which was really fun.  I also got him a really cool flashing street light that I mounted on the wall.

Here are a couple fun thrift store finds that I added to the room...

Memo board, $2.99 at Goodwill!

Target clock, brand new in the package at Goodwill for $5

We had a really nice wool rug in his room but it was all bug theme.  So, we swapped it out for these cool foam tiles.  Some time when he's older we'll probably get another carpet, but this was a really great and economical floor covering for the time being.  We used two sets to make a large area....

 

The first couple days Toby had a blast disassembling all the circles that Mommy had so diligently coordinated.  But, luckily that didn't last long.  I'm just glad he didn't start biting chunks out of them!  We'll see how long they last!

Fun Friday Finds!

It's been a while since I've posted some Fun Friday Finds! Here are a few for this week!

I love this open/closed necklace!  As a mom who also freelances from home, the lines are so easily blurred between work and family time.   This would be a great way to make it clear what mode I'm in no matter where I am!  ($60, on sale now for $39.99 at Uncommon Goods)

I finally got a case for my iPhone last week, as I was horrified to notice my first tiny chip in the glass on the edge.  I've been saving this one on my Amazon wish list and got it...you can put Legos on the back! I plan to have fun customizing mine for holidays and seasons, but for now I just have a few primary colored pieces stuck to mine.  You can get them in black, clear, and white:

This cupcake bike bell is so yummy!  It would be perfection on my baby blue Electra Townie bike!!  I found it on Pinterest, and the post of course led me on a wild goose chase of broken links and out of stock products.  But, I ended up finding it here on Amazon!

This is another Pinterest find...a fabulous blog post with a full education on blue jeans that will help you avoid the dreaded "long Mom butt!!"

And last but not least...I don't know about you but I've grown tired of digging through my cabinets trying to find a packet of taco seasoning, only to find that I'm out, and then having to go waste more money on a teeny packet of powder.  So, I tried this recipe to make my own big batch of taco seasoning that I now keep in a jar and always have on hand! Buy the spices individually in bulk at Whole Foods and save a TON TON TON of money! Next up, I'm going to try a few onion soup mix recipies...stay tuned!

 Have a fabulous weekend everyone!

Valentines Day Preparations

This idea has been floating all over Pinterest so when I heard that Sammy's preschool class was going to exchange valentines tomorrow, I decided to give it a try!

The finished valentine

They requested that we just write "to my friend" to make it easier to pass them out.  It saved me time and I can't imagine the poor teacher trying to sort out the 256 valentines in a class of 16 preschoolers who can't read the names so that was a great idea all around!

The original photo

I had him hold a pencil for the picture, and then I used Photoshop to remove the pencil and do the rest of the text and layout...

Then I used an X-Acto knife to cut slits on the top and bottom of his fists to slip the sucker in, and used a little piece of clear tape on the back to secure it.

I realize of course that not everybody's mom is a designer with Photoshop.  So here's another way you could do it.  Take a photo with your digital or film camera.  Pick the best one and have a bunch of prints done at your local Walgreens, Target, etc...enough for all your valentines.  Use a knife and slit the photos just like I did...you can write on the backs, and even put some Valentine's stickers on the front!

I've really been enjoying having a mantel to decorate since moving here a year ago!  Here's our mantel this year for Valentines.  The mini picture frames have each of our faces in them, and I use them as place cards when I set the table for Valentine's day.  The tall glass candle holders I just picked up at Goodwill a few weeks ago.

I wanted some sort of Valentine's wreathe to hang in the house and I had a wire wreath frame that I picked up at a thrift store a while back.  I was excited to find a big bag stuffed with flowers for just $3 in a clearance bin at Michaels:

...I cut the stems shorter with a wire cutter and wrapped them around the frame, filling in the top with some ribbon from my scrap ribbon bin.  Here's how it turned out in the end:

Not too bad.  I'd love to try making a wreathe of felt flowers one of these days.

Today I'm busy with my boys baking sugar cookies, cupcakes, and meringue kisses in preparation for tomorrow's Valentine's day dinner!  More photos to come!

DIY Kids' Art Gallery Wall

Over the past couple weeks I decided to make a little art gallery wall in our home for the kids' art.  I remembered seeing some ideas for organizing and displaying jewelry via framed pieces of cork board, and thought that could work well for the boys' artwork too.

I picked up a few frames from thrift stores, and specifically looked for ones with unique shapes and/or ornate textures.  I probably spent around $15 total on all of these frames.

I took out the glass and spray painted each frame with some cheap, matte black spray paint from the hardware store.  Then I cut pieces of cork to fit each frame (I had a stash of cork squares and old cork boards that I had also purchased from thrift stores in the past), and put a couple coats of white paint on the cork.  I just used some left-over white wall paint from a previous house painting project.  (A little tip, use the glass or the cardboard backer from each frame as your stencil to draw the shape you need to cut out of the cork.)

Once all the paint had dried on both the frames and cork, I re-assembled them (minus the glass) and arranged them on the wall.  It turned out pretty cute, and now I can easily rotate the kids' work on display, and give it a little bit more noble display area than the fridge!

DIY Curious George / Monkey Birthday Party

My baby boy turned two!  Woah, did that time go fast!  He can't get enough bananas and loves monkeys like crazy, so we of course had to give him a Curious George monkey party.  Here's what we did if you're looking for any ideas!

Invitations
I used a Curious George image online and made these invitations.  The inside says "Translation: You are Invited to...etc, etc."

 Decorations
 With a little creativity you can decorate with a theme without spending any money on licensed character party supplies...

Who needs expensive balloons with licensed characters when you have a plain dollar store balloon and a Sharpie? (Okay, it helps to have a mom who can draw too.  But I also put a big "2" on one balloon and his name on another.  You could even decorate them with stickers and let the kids help!

We had these Curious George fruit snacks for the kids, so I cut out the pictures from the boxes and sprinkled them around the buffet as decorative "confetti!"

To mimic the Man with the Yellow Hat, I bought these yellow party hats from Amazon and simply drew a black band around each one with a fat permanent marker.

Activities

Pinata made by Mommy! Paper mache on a balloon! The ears are made of a ring of cardboard from a toilet paper tube cut in half...one half taped on for each ear and then covered with newspaper and paper mache.  I used some old wall paint we had left over to paint it and used a black Sharpie for the black details.

I printed out some of these free coloring sheets from PBS.com for the kids to color.

The Cake
I did a couple versions of cake...one was a banana shaped banana cake with cream cheese frosting.  It turned out really yummy!  But Momma loves chocolate and Mommy birthed the baby on baby's birth day, so Momma also made chocolate cupcakes and got her favorite kind of ice cream.

Here's the banana cake shaped and ready for frosting.  It started as a 9 x 13" rectangular cake. Pretty ugly, huh?! It didn't want to come out of the pan, despite my heavy greasing and flouring job, so it split apart on me.  But, hey, frosting covers a multitude of sins...

I just used a can of cream cheese frosting for this.  First I did this white part.

I added yellow food coloring to the remainder of the frosting to do the rest, then used a black decorating pen for the details.

Here it is all done with some of the monkey cupcakes!  Below you can see the cupcake process...

The Monkey Cupcakes:

I found the idea on Pinterest of course!  But, I made a couple of my own tweaks with the faces.

Here's what you need to for the cupcakes (minus the actual cake).  I tried this thing I saw on Pinterest and just added a can of Coke to a box of chocolate cake mix and they were yummy!

Chop a little bit of the side off of the mini Nilla Wafers for the ears.

Face parts ready to go on the frosted cupcakes

Use a regular Nilla wafer for the nose/mouth and the smaller ones for the ears.

Here's my tweak: I used upside-down white chocolate chips.

Then add the details with the black icing tube.  I decided to make mine a little more fun with some different expressions!

Finished monkeys!

The Menu
We did a baked potato bar which turned out great.  I tried another great Pinterest idea and baked the potatoes in my Crock pot.  I know it takes way longer, but I loved it...one less thing for me to worry about right before or during the party!  We put out lots of yummy toppings.  I baked a pan full of bacon in the AM and made bacon bits, then we also had a bowl of shredded cheese, diced ham, sour cream, green onions, regular onions, and of course butter!

Of course there were plenty of bananas all over the place, and a bowl of Curious George fruit snacks!

We also had chips & dip, carrots & dip, clementines, etc.  It was a great menu for a group, and everything could be done ahead of time which is always a must for parties!

I think the party went great...this cute smile says it all!
 

Here are some links to our past birthday parties if you're looking for other ideas:
Robot / Space Birthday Party
Circus Birthday Party
Thomas the Train Birthday Party 
Monster Truck Birthday Party

Making "Ice Gems" With The Boys

It's finally starting to feel like winter around here, which means more time spent in the house with the boys.  I've been taking advantage of my Pinterest board full of ideas to do with my boys, and we decided to make these cool ice gems this week! (Thank you to my friend Cindy who pinned these!)

I won't post every detail since the original tutorial already does a great job with that!  But here are a few photos of ours...

Adding food coloring to the balloons - I think I did 2 or 3 drops.

You do really need to stretch the opening over the faucet for them to fill up.  Learned that the hard way before I read that detail!

The boys thought these were pretty cool! 

I didn't quite trust them to fill a balloon full of dye but they loved holding, poking, and squishing them and helping me carry them outside to freeze!

We lined them up on the deck, right outside the sliding glass door so the boys could watch them freeze.  I put them in a shallow cardboard box which worked great!

After two days Sammy just couldn't wait to unwrap them!

Here they are lined up on the rocks leading to the front door!  So pretty!

This one actually had black food coloring.  Turned out kinda neat!

Toby peeking out the window at the pretty "gems!"

The colors actually turned out really quite uniform in comparison to the tutorial.  Too bad the balloon broke on the red one before it froze all the way...we would have had a whole rainbow!  And what perfect timing...we unwrapped these on the day of little Toby's 2nd birthday party and they were really fun decorations to have outside as our family walked to the front door!

Thrift Store Re-Use Idea: Plant Clipping Containers

If you're a plant person who takes small clippings from your thriving plants to turn into new plants, here's a little idea for you. 

I used to put my clippings in old jars and cups by a window, and they never really looked great.  But, lately I've been picking up pretty glass candle holders from the thrift store and using those instead, which makes the clippings look even prettier than potted plants while I wait for their roots to grow.

One of my favorite spots in our new house is this little window box right above the kitchen sink.  It's a perfect spot for plants and delicate things to keep them out of the kids' reach.  Plus, being in Minnesota in January, it's really nice to be able to look up while doing dishes and see green plants and colorful glass, rather than the usual brown and white.

A couple hanging candle holders from the thrift store, hung  with little screw-in hooks in the window box "ceiling"

I love this little blue one that hangs on it's own stand

Colorful glass bottles work great too, especially for this straight bamboo!

There are so many cool options for your clippings if you think outside of the box!  How about some pretty vases, or even wine glasses?  So next time you're in the thrift store or at a garage sale, if you're a plant person, be sure to peruse the glass and candle holder aisles...the possibilities are endless!