sa-weet fix!

I had an ugly problem. One of my kiddos (maybe even my hubby) had knocked a hole in the drywall behind the door in pretty girl's room. You know the deal- fling open the door and bam, a perfect doorknob imprint. Great.

Yuck. Drywall repair is a pain. You can see it has been repaired previously (not well). I hate the thought of putting up those "boing" thingys at the bottom of the door, or those yucky round plastic plate things on the wall. So I came up with this-

Super cheap, super easy. It's like my middle name or something. Oh. Wait. Not like that. You can pick up tons of these wooden jewels at Michael's. Head over to the paint your own wooden stuff section (yep, that is the technical term), you can get unpainted or painted wooden shapes. Animals, airplanes, shapes, flowers, bugs, you name it, you pick it. I think I paid maybe a buck or two for this one, it was already painted. Matches pretty girl's room decor perfectly, covered up the wall boo-boo! Sa-weet fix!

magic wipes box (aka crazy easy craft for toddlers tutorial)

Do you spend every waking second on Pinterest? Um, I totally admit I'm on there every free second I can spare. Granted, with three kiddos and a home to maintain I don't have a ton of free time. I find the most fabulous things on there. Today I made yet another craft I've found. This one is crazy easy. Here's how it goes....

Start with an old, clean, empty wipes box and a pile of scrap fabric.

Cut a little start in your fabric then rip into strips as long as you'd like.

Tie the strips end to end to make one long chain of fabric. You could use a prettier knot or bow or whatever, but I have zero patience and I wanted to finish quickly.

I duct taped one end of the chain to the inside of the bottom of the box. You could glue it or secure it however you want, nobody will ever see this part anyway.

Stuff the chain into the box and feed the other end through the box opening.

Close it so it looks totally normal and hand it off to your always-into-something toddler.

She'll think she's so smart and it'll keep her entertained so Mommy can pin some more pretty things on Pinterest. :)

Thanks for stopping by!



This post is linked up at this party-

easier than easy...

I'm baaack!! I've been crafty but haven't had a free second to post. I seem to have temporarily misplaced my mind along with my cell phone and keys. Baby girl is not only walking but is usually in a dead run and is in some sort of mischief 99% of the time. Big Guy and Tiny Skinny Man went back to school and I'm trying to find a routine that works for us. Anyhoo, I figured I have a second to share a super cute, super quick craft with you. Pillowcases dresses are hot right now and pretty darn easy. This dress is even easier. All you need is two bandannas, some pretty ribbon, and a sewing machine. I found a tutorial here. So these are what I came up with.....

So easy, so cheap, so cute!!!

birthday hoopla help

My computer and blogger are not cooperating so I can't post any pics right now. So I'll send out an S.O.S. of a different sort. Last year we started something I hope to make into a tradition. When Big Guy got off the school bus on his birthday the neighbors and I covered him in silly string. He expects a repeat, but I need to up the ante. Any thoughts???

still here.....

I am here, I promise. I've been home for a couple of weeks, but my soul is on overload. I had to put my 10-year-old diabetic cat to sleep two weeks ago, then a dear friend of mine was killed in a car accident this past weekend. I'm not feeling crafty or perky or anything. Please forgive me, don't forget me, I'll be back very soon, cross my heart.

ttfn

I have 5 followers!!!! Yippee! Okay fine, I have 4 since I am my own follower. I don't count, but you guys do! Now that I have "followers", I feel I must leave a note telling you I'm going on vacation for the rest of the summer. *cricket cricket* AHEM, for those of you that give a hootnanny....I'll be back to the blog world in August. My vacation destination doesn't have internet or reliable cell service. No, it's not a padded room at the loony bin, although I might enjoy that peace and quiet. I'll be in the wonderful mountains of Virginia visiting my family. My hubby will be right here at home working diligently on his honey-do list. Or he dang well better be if he knows what is good for him. :) So Tata for now!!

i. love. coupons.

I'm that annoying person in front of you in the checkout line with 50 coupons that won't scan correctly. It never fails when I'm going on a big couponing day, something will go wrong. It took me 45 minutes to check out at Walgreens yesterday. We had a really bad storm and it had scrambled their computers. Manufacturer coupons were scanning correctly but not their own Walgreens coupons. Usually Walgreens coupons aren't cents off but more of price adjusters. Poor cashier had to void the entire thing and start over, manually overriding each Walgreen coupon. I felt like one of those crazy coupon people, but knowing in my mind I was doing everything by the book and not at all shady. Just normal use of coupons but you second guess yourself. I hit Kmart as well since they were doubling manufacturer's coupons up to 99 cents. A serious couponer's dream! So here is my haul for the day-

Here is what I ended up getting-
4 boxes of cookies (travel size, we are road tripping soon!)
2 containers of raisins
9 rolls of aluminum foil (never expires, cost only 18 cents total!)
4 bottles of body wash
12 small cans of tomato sauce (we make our own pizza sauce with this as a base)
4 rolls of paper towels
2 packs of paper plates
6 hamburger helpers
2 cake mixes (Tiny Skinny Man's birthday is next week)
2 cake frostings
8 cans of chili (I'll share my Superbowl Dip recipe with you in the fall)
12 chocolate bars

total-
67 items
retail cost $98.64
I paid $32.98 after tax :)
66% savings

happy father's day!!!

Yep, as usual I'm late. Better late than never? Maybe I'm reeeeally early for next Father's Day....yes that's it! Anyhoo....my handsome husband woke up to this-

I love, love, love the pictures that Tonya at A Moment In Time Photography did, they turned out beautifully!! The kiddos weren't terribly cooperative, she was so patient! The boys made the "DAD ROCKS" paperweight. I found the tutorial for that here, super easy!

The jar you see is filled with Reese's Pieces. "Big Guy" wrote the label- "We love you to pieces." :)

I traced the kids hands and stacked them on construction paper to cover a Valentine's Day Scrabble box. The bottom of the inside is a heart shaped Scrabble board so we picked out letters to spell each kid's name and attached them with booger glue. What is booger glue? I'll pretend you didn't ask that. I honestly have no idea of it's proper name but it's like a gelatin-y thin glue that you can stick and unstick, kind of like gel clings. Sorry, got sidetracked there. Carry on. Inside the box was this-

and these (filled in of course)-

I found those here. Some of the answers from my kids were pretty funny. My six-year-old "Big Guy" says his Dad weighs 99 pounds "because that's a lot", my three-year-old "Tiny Skinny Man" says it makes Dad happy when he drinks water. I dunno, weirdos.

out of necessity

Yeah, I love being crafty. I have to admit it usually comes out of necessity. Three kids, three cats (one with diabetes), a toad, a house, two cars, and husband and me on one income? It means I have to figure out a solution on the cheap!

So here was the scenario- where is the stinking remote control??? I often wonder if it grew legs. It has no dedicated home, just somewhere high enough so the one-year-old "pretty girl" can't reach it but low enough that six-year-old "big guy" and three-year-old "tiny skinny man" can reach it.

Enter my Mommy brain. What do I have? This-

Sweet, I can turn it into this-

Here is how I did it. I started with a long skinny box and cut it to the desired height. I ripped (yes, literally) a page from an old atlas and mod podged it to the box. Then I hand stamped "CLICK" onto a washer and tied it to the box with cotton twine. I attached it to the wall next to the recliner (at perfect height) using two nails. Easy peasy.



http://www.lovemiabow.com/

let's save some money or something

I'm always looking for ways to save money. I'll try most anything once. I found a great tutorial for making your own baby wipes here. I couldn't figure out what to put them in since I hate to buy new things when I know darn good and well I can repurpose something else. I'm looking all around my house when, duh, it dawns on me. I have tons of these hanging around:

I break out the Modge Podge, some leftover fabric and ribbon from the nursery makeover and tada!

coolest. dad. ever.

This Dad has got to be the most hysterical guy to be around! Have you heard about him? He & his wife thought it would be nice to wave at the bus as their son set off for his sophomore year of high school. It embarrassed the poor kid to death. So the next day Dad upped the ante and everyday thereafter until the last day of school. Check out his blog with daily pictures, ahahahaha!

http://waveatthebus.blogspot.com/

I thought I was the coolest Mom ever when the neighbors and I did this to my son for his 6th birthday-

Here is "Big Guy" getting off the bus proudly wearing his 6th birthday crown from school-

He has no idea we are about to do this to him-

The entire bus watched and he thought it was the most awesome birthday!

lovemiabow.com

nursery makeover

Another late post...the nursery makeover. We were on the fence as to whether this house was for us....to buy or not to buy....that was the question. We had a nine month old baby boy, we were renting a duplex that we were quickly outgrowing, we were ready to spread our wings and fly. We saw tons of houses (pretty sure we toured Freddy Krueger's), nothing jumped at us (except that frog in the one with the wet basement). We found our home when we saw the 2nd bedroom had an airplane theme, it was a sign. Airplanes were the theme for our life (that's a story for another day). I knew before we even got pregnant the first time our nursery would be airplane themed. And so it was. Then we found the house with the airplane bedroom. SOLD.

Fast forward 5 years...two boys had been in that airplane nursery and we were expecting baby #3. I said from day one it would be a girl. No one believed me since I thought boy #2 was a girl too, heehee. But, our oldest son agreed with me from day one. We were right :). The second I found out we were having a girl I was decorating in my mind. I wanted super girly. I wanted frill and foo foo and lace. I wanted pink and fluff and tulle and roses. My poor husband.

So that wonderful airplane room had to be *gasp* painted. Pink. I made covers for the rocking chair, a cornice, tie backs for the curtains, a lampshade, a bolster pillow. My husband and our neighbor laid new carpet, painted the room pink and white, added a chair rail, replaced the closet doors and considered strangling a bossy pregnant lady (at least I'm pretty sure they wanted to by the look on their faces).

It turned out so beautiful. Here is the before with some spackle-

Here is the after in all its glorious pink-ness-

The canopy over the crib was a pottery barn knockoff made by a friend of mine, love it!!

supah simple

I love boxes and containers of any sort really, and maps, I loooove maps. You see where I'm headed?? Maybe not, but here is where I started-



Here is what I came up with after a map & jute treatment on a simple cardboard box-


If I had been braver at the time I'd have used Mod Podge. Now I love that stuff! It was just intimidating. I may redo the boxes....:)