"Peas" read me a story!

I keep seeing these "story baskets" on Instagram and thinking I could put one of those together pretty easily. It's basically a smaller version of what I do for my job every day.  So when I realized I had found a few a books that had a common theme and were age appropriate for my little guy (about 9 months) I got really excited. The only problem was the theme I had landed on... peas. I mean, that's a little weird, but I didn't let that stop me, because my motto is "limitation leads to creativity!" Or, you know, it would be. If I adopted a motto.

Whats in my  basket:

LMNO Peas and 123 Peas by Keith Baker

Peas on Earth by Todd H. Doodler

Number Flash Cards

Handmade Pea Pod Noisy Toy

"Peas" in a Bottle

I do realize it's kind of silly to give flash cards to a 9 month old. Right now I'm just using them to help my kid familiarize himself with numbers. But if you are making this basket for a toddler the puffballs and flash cards used together can be a great learning activity. They can either trace the shape with them like I did in the picture or pull out as many "peas" as is shown on the card.

The best part of this whole basket, in my opinion, is that adorable little pea pod toy. As soon as I thought of the concept I knew I had to make one. Each little pea is a different type of noise maker. So one rattles, one squeaks, and the other crinkles. And it was pretty easy to make, too. 

Materials:

1 piece of green felt

a squeaky toy (mine was a $1 dog toy)

some old noisy plastic wrappers

rice (or something that rattles)

plastic bag

tape

thread

scissors

Step 1: Make and cut out a pattern. You'll need a pea pod (kind of a fat crescent moon shape) and a pea (make sure it will fit in the pod when it's all sewn up!).

Step 2: Fold your felt in half, pin, and trace your pattern to make sure you have enough room for everything. You're going to need two pea pods pieces, six pea pieces, and three long thin strips to attach everything together.

Step 3: Cut. Triple check to make sure everything fits before you do. You know the saying "measure twice, cut once?" I always measure like, five times.

Step 4: Make your noise makers.
The squeaker is the most fun, and the easiest. Just tear apart the dog toy until you've found the plastic piece. It should be a circle with a tube sticking out of it.
For the crinkle pea, you want to cut out two or three pieces of your noisy wrappers a little bit smaller than the felt pea pieces you cut.
The rattle is the most complicated. I cut 2 circles out of an old plastic bag, then taped it to make a pocket. Pour rice in about half, then tape it all the way around. You should come out with a kind of flat circular shape that makes noise. Make sure you test to see if any rice comes out when you shake it.

Step 5: Put together the peas! Note: Make sure you pin on the long pieces that will attach the peas to the pod! There needs to be one sewn onto each pea.
For the crinkle pea you can just pin your crinkle layers in between your felt layers and sew around the edge. For the squeaker pea I sewed around the edge until I had about an inch left, then pushed the squeaker inside and sewed it closed. For the rattle I just pinned it (carefully) into the middle and sewed around it.

Step 6: Sew up your pea pod. When you're pinning the pod together, make sure to pin on all three peas. I attached the long strips to the bottom of the pea pod. This isn't necessary, but it makes sure that you don't have to keep chasing down peas. Sew up the big curve first, putting extra stitches where your peas attach. I added a line of stitches across the top of the pod to make everything look complete.

And there you have it! Your pea pod is done, and a great addition to a "Peas read me a story!" story basket. If story baskets aren't your thing, a veggie felt set would also be so cute.

Making the Most of Summer

Guys, I love summer. Love, love, love it. Unfortunately, for the last three years all the sudden it's the last day of summer and I'm hit with the realization that... wait, it can't be over! I haven't done anything SUMMERY yet! Bring back the fireflies! I need those long days and warms nights!

Well, this summer I don't want to let that happen. It's our little guy's first summer, and I want it to be special for all of us. A lot of new sights, sounds, and textures for him, and a lot of classic activities that I'm usually "just too busy" to do for me.

So to help me actively focus on enjoying this summer, I've come up with a "92 Days of Summer Challenge." 92 days where I try to do something each day that takes advantage of my favorite season. And that can be anything from eating a popsicle to playing on the beach. Watching fireflies or going camping. Playing in the garden hose or going on a walk just to get ice cream. You get the idea.

And of course, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to make some cute clip art to use in my bullet journal or an organized place to put all of my "summery activities" ideas. And I'm all for sharing, so If this challenge seems like something you'd be into, or you'd just like to have some cute bugs in your own summer journal, you can download the .pdfs here.

Confetti Banner

It's my unofficial ongoing mission to make life a little more fun. Although, now that I've said that, maybe it is an official mission now? Okay, so in my official quest to make life full of joy, I've stumbled upon an idea that takes something that's already pretty happy - a banner - and amping it up. This isn't your normal banner. This is a banner on steroids. This is Extream Banner. (So... Hulk? Hur hur hur...) This is... party banner. And what could be so magical that it instantly turns anything into a party? Confetti. 

The thing that takes these banners to the next level is that not only do they have a background of colorful awesomeness, they also are shakeable. I think that they look cute hanging, but they're definitely small enough to attach to a card and send to someone who deserves some joy.

Supplies:

Contact Paper

Confetti (or bits of colorful paper)

Ruler

Scissors

String

Writing Utensils or Paint

Step One: Cut out a square and dump confetti all over it. Make sure your square is about an inch bigger than you want your banner to be on all sides. After you dump on your confetti, try brushing some off. It looks more impressive when you can see through to the other side. This is the only chance you'll get to arrange your confetti to look the way you want, so take advantage of it!

Step Two: Cover up your confetti with another piece of contact paper. This second sheet should be roughly the same size as the first, but it doesn't have to be exact. You are making a sheet of confetti paper, so you want the sticky sides of the contact paper to touch, and the smooth sides to be on the outside. Once you've put the two pieces together, use a flat edge to smooth out the bumps, wrinkles, and air pockets.

Step Three: Trim your banner to the size you want. I think it looks best when the confetti goes all the way to the edge, so don't be afraid to cut through some of it.

Step Four: Fold your banner in half and cut an angle that starts at the edge and goes up towards the fold. Then flatten it back out and smooth out the crease.

Step five: Cut two more sheets of contact paper, one a little bit larger than your banner, and the other more than double the size of your banner.

Step six: Trace your banner onto the smaller of the two sheets and cut it out.

Step seven: Peel both of your sheets off of their backing, then place the banner shaped sheet you just cut out into the middle of the large sheet, sticky side touching sticky side. Place your confetti-filled banner directly on top of the smaller banner sheet.

Step eight: Cut around your banner, roughly creating the shape in the picture above.

Step nine: Wrap the sticky side of your freshly cut sheet around the confetti-filled banner, folding in the two lower triangle corners first, and then the two big wings on the side. This should create a pocket.

Step ten: Use an extra contact sheet back to cover up the upper flap. This allows you to put more confetti into the pocket you created without it sticking where you don't want it to.

Step eleven: Fill up your pocket! I usually added enough confetti to fill it up about 1/3 of the way.

Step twelve: Peel off the contact paper backing and close it up. I added my string before I closed it, just running it along the seam. It worked well.

Step thirteen: Add your message. I loved the way the white contrasted with the colors, but the black looks good too. I'd like to see what someone could do with a paint pen.

I know you could do this with a sewing machine, but since this project would be hanging I was trying to come up with a way to keep the confetti from falling to the bottom. I think contact paper was a good (and easy!) solution.

Who in your life deserves a confetti banner?

Easter Baskets for Babies

One of the strange things about having a child is all the sudden you have, like, 200% more responsibility on holidays. Where it used to be that we just had to coordinate when to show up where, all the sudden I find myself creating detailed schedules of where we will be when he needs to feed, sleep, and be changed. On top of that, some holidays (Easter being one of them) require forethought and a little bit of work ahead of time if I want to continue in the traditions that my parents did with me (and yeah, this is one of those moments where I appreciate my mom and her ability to do this with not only one, but THREE kids.) So right now I'm realizing that I have a week to get an Easter basket ready, but I have it covered and will hopefully be able to help you, too, all thanks to Amazon Prime.

Keep in mind that my kid is only five months old, so these baskets are geared towards babies. I had a lot of fun putting them together with themes in mind, and hopefully, everything in there is something that will be used often.

For the Vintage Inspired Bunny Basket:

1- Bunny Bonnet Hat - $8

2 - Pat the Bunny by Dorothy Kunhardt - $8

(Note- I got this for my baby's basket and the $8 book is quite small)

3 - The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown - $6

4 -  Marshmallow by Clare Turlay Newberry - $7

5 -  Angel Dear Bunny Mint Blankie (13"x13") - $13

6 - Mary Meyer Bunny Lovey - $17

7 -  Bunny Ear Basket - $38 for 5

or

Bunny Ear Bag - $8

For the Mod Bunny Basket: 

1 - Bunny Swaddle - $12

2 - Black Bunny Hat - $9

3 - Wooden Egg Rattles - $9

5- God's Animals by Erin Balzer - $7

6 - Thank You God! by Kim Mitzo Thompson - $6

7 - Square Bunny Storage Bin - $14

For the Textures Basket:

1 - Palm Swaddle - $13

2 - Bearington Baby Lamb Rattle - $8

3 - Donkey Lovey - $13

4 - Lamb Crochet Hat - $11

5 - Little Lamb's Bible - $19

6 - Wooden Teether Sticks - $10

7 - Open Top Basket - $14

Those baskets do total to quite a bit, so I picked and chose what things I wanted to put into my little guy's first Easter basket. That's why I tried to find amazing items for each and every part. I hope this points you in the direction of some memorable baskets!!

Happy Easter!

Bullet Journaling: 1 Year of Experiance

Okay, so I can honestly say this has BY FAR been the most effective journaling/to do/brain organization method I've ever used. It's hard for me to keep anything up for longer than two weeks, so the fact that I was able to maintain this for over a YEAR really means something.

Bullet Journaling (officially) is a concept developed by a guy named Ryder Carroll as a way to catalog his thoughts and keep on top of his tasks. It's a system of symbols and lists that makes it easy to see what you need to do at a glance.  If you want the best explanation you can possibly get about bullet journals, check out the website bulletjournal.com.

Bullet journals basically need two things to make them function... an index and a key. Honestly I only use the index regularly. It's not even a revolutionary idea, but it has kinda changed my life. Or at least my list making habits. At the start of the notebook, you keep a couple of pages blank for your index. Then, as you add lists, you write the page number and the topic in your index.

After your index pages, you just dive into putting pretty much whatever you want into your journal. I usually have a few standard things that I include in every journal: a list of short-term goals and long-term goals, a monthly calendar to keep track of appointments, a habit tracker, and, most importantly, my daily log.

The daily log is where the key comes in. It's a hybrid of a to-do list, a day planner, and a journal, where you list off random thoughts and use bullet points to organize what kind of thought it is. So, I use just a dot for a task, and mark it off with an x when I complete it. Then any thought or event I want to remember I just use a dash for. Sometimes I make my key a little more complicated, but I always end up coming back to dashes because I can't remember the rest of the symbols, haha.
I was worried about how my bullet journal and daily log would work once I became a parent, but man is it handy to have around! I am able to write down all the little adorable (and not so adorable) things that happen so I can come back to them when I fill out calendars, baby books, etc. In fact, if you look in the collage below, the "holy poop!!" entry was the day I found out I was pregnant. :D I used it to religiously to track our feeding schedule when we were still getting the hang of that. Right now I have a page dedicated to what new foods we are trying and when, and I have another one that's our babsitting/day care schedule. I'd be lost without it, I swear.

There are a lot of other pages that I don't put in every volume but I loved having. Playlists are always great because I feel like music can take you back to a certain feeling so easily. Book lists are obviously something I support. One month I did a graphic novel list that I still go back to when I'm looking for suggestions. I folded up pages and taped them into the book to expand on ideas more than once, and last year I did my "inktober" drawings on sticky notes that I taped to the back page of my journal. I think random little pages like that are what take my journal from being just a planner to something more unique and game-changing.

Do I like bullet journaling? You could say that. Or you could say I love it, and it's become so routine to me it's like breathing, and without it I might die... but if you said that I'd call you dramatic, so let's just go with "I really like it." It's great for my forgetful self because I can look back on what I did last week. It's great for my unorganized self because it's an ongoing to do list that I keep in my pocket. It's great for my creative self because I'm constantly playing with fonts and layouts. And it's great for my office supply addiction because I now have a place to put all of the cute post its I buy. But maybe it's also not so great for my office supply addiction because now I have a reason to buy more. So that's it's one drawback... it makes you want to buy more sticky notes. If you can call that a drawback.

So if you want to create a bullet journal, and you're willing to risk feeding your office supply addiction, I say go for it. All you really need is a notebook and something to write with. 

Here are some links to get you started:

bulletjournal.com - This is the end all be all guide to bullet journaling.

Field Notes - This is where I get all my notebooks. Obviously, you can use whatever kind of book you want... actually, this would probably be easier with a bigger notebook. I just am obsessed with the Field Notes brand and all of their amazing designs. Also, their books are durable, fit in your pocket, and come with grid paper. See why they're my favorite?

Bullseye's Playground at Target - The place that affordably feeds my office supply addiction. 

Pinterest Board - Just a collection of cute ideas. There are so many creative people out there!

Go forth and journal!

DIY Shoelace Valentines

These Valentines are a cute, practical, affordable DIY that your kids can help you make! They were actually born with the idea of using the Proclaimers song "I'm gonna be" (oh, I would walk 500 miles... yeah, good luck getting that out of your head now.) and evolved from there.

Supplies:

Heavy paper (I used watercolor paper but a heavy cardstock would work)

Shoelaces

Paint

Markers

Paintbrush, Scissors, Tape

Step one: Cut your cardstock. Really, this can be whatever size works best for your paper, as long as it turns out to be an "I" shape. I cut mine to 3x4" with the divets a half inch in, and an inch from the bottom and the top.

Step two: Paint your cards. I painted simple layers of strips, using acrylics that I watered down to get the different colors. While one side dries you might want to move on to the next step, then come back and do the other side.

Step three: Paint hearts on your shoelaces. Hearts can be VERY simple when they are this small. I just painted one line at an angle (there is half of a heart on the lace above) then painted a line angling the opposite way on the other side. As long as the bottoms touch and the tops don't, it will look like a heart.
If you're going to paint black laces as well, you'll probably have to put down a white base then paint your pink (or whatever color you pick) on top.

Step four: Write your messages. If freehanding makes you nervous, trying writing it out in pencil then tracing it with markers.

Some message options:

You make my heart race!

Valentine, I shoe do think you are great.

Valentine, I like shoe! (eeeh)

You are my sole mate.

We make a great pair.

I'm head over heels for you.

I would walk 500 miles and I would walk 500 more... 

Step five: Tape the middle of the laces down on the back of the card, then each section around separately, being sure to leave enough to tie a bow on top! And that's it, you're done! Now those shoe are cute!

DIY Letter Wreath

This wreath is inspired by the scene in Harry Potter where the letters are flying through the air at the Dursley's house. It's such a whimsical scene, but also so heartwarming to watch a little boy realize someone cares for him so much. There's something about the warm fuzzy feeling I get from Harry Potter that matches up with how I feel about Christmas, so I feel like this is a perfect DIY for this season.

Supplies:

envelopes, a floral foam wreath, floral wire, Model Magic

scissors, duct tape, paint, paint brush, wire cutters

For this project you will be making around 30 envelopes, half of them with the front facing front (addresses) and half of them back facing front (wax seals).

Step one: Your "wax seals" will take a little while to dry so it's best to make them first. I chose Model Magic for this step because it dries fairly quickly and the end result is incredibly lightweight. To create the seals, I rolled out a disk of white Model Magic about a nickel wide then squished it with a spray bottle cap. To make the center I used three pieces of a thin strip of dough to form an H and lightly pushed it into the center. 
For my small wreath I used around 15 seals.

Step two:  Time to address your envelopes! You will be addressing half of the envelopes you have (I made 15). I tried to remain authentic to the movie, but it would be so cute to use your child's name instead! If handwriting these envelopes intimidates you, there are ways to simplify it. The first line is the biggest, and the rest are smaller. If you are feeling brave, the H and the P are a little fancier than the rest of the letters. 
Honestly, as long as you get the format of name, specific location (i.e. "cupboard under the stairs"), and then the normal address underneath, it will look great! Once all the envelopes are on the wreath, no one will notice if you've made a small mistake. Believe me, I made plenty.

Step three: Paint your seals! To get the perfect shade of dark red I used a combination of a very small amount of black and a much larger amount of red paint. It took a few layers to get the color right. Make sure to use a glossy acrylic as your final layer to achieve the wax seal look.

Step four: Get your wire ready. For the size of envelopes and wreath I had I cut 30 roughly 3-inch strips. They don't have to be any specific length, so you don't have to bother measuring if you don't want to. 

Step four: Time to finish your stack of envelopes. You'll be hot gluing your seals to the back of the remaining envelopes. Seal the envelope, then dab some hot glue onto your "wax" seal. Place it in the center of the flap, and let dry.

Step five: To prepare your envelopes to be attached to your wreath, you will need to tape a wire to the back of the envelope (which on the seal envelopes will actually be the front.) I used about an inch of duct tape in the center of the floral wire to attach it, then bent up the sides. We are trying to create two points for the envelope to attach to wreath. This will give us more stability and control over the angle of the letters. 
I think it's better to leave a few of the envelopes without wires at this stage so you can specifically place the wires where you need them while you're constructing the project.

Step six: This is by far the most daunting step, but it's not as hard as it seems. First, set out a rough design of where you want the envelopes to go. A few things to keep in mind: you want your envelopes to be a little chaotic, it will make the wreath look fuller. To do this, make sure you are placing them at different angles and even putting some upside-down. Also, remember to alternate envelopes with seals and envelopes with addresses, it will help guide the eye around the wreath when someone looks at it. When you are happy with the layout, all you have to do is push the floral wire into the foam one by one. As you can see, the back will look a little ugly. 
Don't be afraid to add and take away as you go! I even found a few bare spots after I had hung the wreath, so I took it down and added a couple of envelopes.

Step seven: Wrap some floral wire around your foam to give your wreath something to hang on. And you're done!

I'm very happy with how this project turned out. It was much cheaper than a real wreath would be, and I can keep it to hang up for years to come. I love that it's a subtle nod to one of my favorite books, but it would be just as beautiful if it was done with another theme. Love letters could be so cute, and a travel and air mail theme would be gorgeous.

If you were drawn here by the Harry Potter fan in you, 

be sure to check out my Monster Book Snacks!