10 Things: January 2023

Sunday, January 8, 2023

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 I have been doing these 10 Things posts so long that I've decided I need to start adding dates to the titles. For my own sanity and organization, really.



1: Suck It Up glass straw set by Misha Kahn

2: Suspish Inn hoodie from Bailey Sarian

3: Winterset Sherpa Checkboard Jacket from Vans

4: Pink Clay and Turmeric Scalloped Placemats and Napkins from Bed Threads

5: Cicada Seltzer Koozie from Haptic Lab


I've been looking for a good "poppers" DIY for a few years now and this one from Conservamom is just what I wanted.


The Sunnylife line of well-designed games has me drooling.


I've been looking for a container for my Magic cards, and the Squire from Gamegenic is so simple and sleek, but genius in the ways it can be transformed.


Sometimes I just see something that is tiny and fuzzy and cute and I kind of need it. This Snowflake Dragonfly Mini from Slumberkins is one of those things. I think I might just need to start a fuzzy squishy bug collection.


I feel like I'm cheating a little bit for my last link, but I have been super into updating my Instagram lately. There is a ton of stuff on there that you won't find on this blog! You can check it out @hellowildthings!



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2022 Bullet Journal Round Up

Sunday, January 1, 2023

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It has been a while. Like, a long while. When I wrote my last post, I didn't realize I would be taking a year-long break. But my family was in the middle of something life-changingly difficult, and I realized that I just couldn't balance everything. Some things had to be put on the back burner. And that was okay. Because now we've made it out to the other side, and things are good. And then some.


One thing I was able to keep up with, no, NEEDED to keep up with, was my bullet journals. I can't describe the amount of chaos these things help me sort through. And that's just for my own brain, let alone organizing an entire family. I use them for lists, planning, ideas, scheduling, finance tracking... everything.




For the past couple of years, I've kept more than one notebook. One, my Field Notes, goes with me everywhere. It is my base notebook, and I change it out on the first of every month. This thing is my organization hub. Every month gets a calendar and a loose theme, and sometimes a "font" if I'm feeling up to it. I have "weekly meetings" with myself where I create a landing page for the week where I write out our schedule, important things that need to be done, and sometimes a goal. I also keep my lists in this notebook. To-do lists, reading lists, supply lists, lesson plans, etc. It all sounds very organized, but every other page is filled with doodles and ideas and chaos. If I'm really on top of it I'll keep my index in order and it becomes a little guidebook to my life.


The other notebook is where bigger ideas are given space to exist. This is where I do my big monthly header images, like the ones you see above. This notebook is more free-form, and usually just lives at my home. I use it to plan out big projects, often ones that span over a few months. I have found that it's nice to have an over-arching notebook because ideas don't always get transferred between the monthly ones.


I discovered a few new things about my journaling needs this year. You'd think after 5 years I'd have a standard system,  but I've found that my organization needs are always evolving. For example, this year I did a few Instagram-focused projects that used graphics and photos to communicate my ideas. I found that the easiest way for me to visualize and plan this was to actually draw out a grid in my notebook and then write what the posts would be within the grid, with notes to the side (the middle image is the best example). This helped me picture what it would actually look like when published. 


I've already got my first notebook of 2023 ready to go, and I'm interested to see how my journaling will change this year. A lot more social media, because... well you'll see in a second, if you keep reading.



The most exciting news of our year is that our family has accomplished a dream that we have been talking about since before we got married: we are now the proud owners of Sword and Board Game Store. It's in a historic building in our beautiful downtown, and I love it there. It's decorated with the historic nature of the building kept in mind, and it has plenty of space to play the vintage board games we have lying around.  We sell board games, both classic and new, Dungeons and Dragons equipment, Magic the Gathering and other card-collecting games, plus a variety of other table top entertainment stuff. It is a small slice of hobby heaven in our tiny town. You can check it out at our website: swoardandboardhavana.com or follow us on Instagram @swordandboardgamestore


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Ten Things

Monday, January 3, 2022

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I am very into this piece by Ellis Tosama right now. I love the vibrancy of the colors and the unique texture that is a result of the printing method!

This "We're Boring" banner from Fun Cult is where fun and art collide, and I really want it in my house. 

I've been re-watching "The Magicians" on Netflix and woooow do I want to live in those sets. I'm drawing a lot of inspiration from the Physical Magic Cottage for a project we are working on right now, probably just to fulfill my "magical maximalism" dream.

As a person who works in a library, I obviously have an appreciation for a good cardigan. But if you show me a funky cardigan? That's when I get really excited. And this checked cardigan from Ascot and Hart is just what I'm talking about.

There is something about a thick sketchbook that is instantly more inspiring. I ordered this big boy from Amazon and it is wonderful. I love the ridiculous number of pages it has, and it lies flat when you open it which is a necessity for a sketchbook. The pages are rather thin, but I like to use it when I need to get an idea out of my brain and onto some paper.

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Thanksgiving Play Trays

Tuesday, November 16, 2021

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One of the many challenges of Thanksgiving is trying to find a way to entertain the kids while the turkey is baking. Sure, there's the TV and their tablets, but even those will only hold their attention for so long. So I'm here to give you some activities you can pull out when your preschooler utters the dreaded phrase: "I'm booored."


I kept supplies limited for this, so hopefully you find you can put these trays together easily and quickly!



Tray One: Lego Recipe Cards

Supplies: Lego Recipe Cards (make your own or scroll to the bottom of this post for the printable .pdf),
2x2 Legos: 2 red, 2 yellow, and 2 blue, and 2x4 Legos: 2 red, 2 yellow, and 2 blue.

While you are baking in the kitchen, your little one can bake on the dining room table! These recipe cards are very simple and have a little bit of wiggle room for creativity. My kid wanted to do every single one! I have included blank cards as well, so they could also create their own recipes.


For some extra fun you can place orders for recipes, or ask your kids to name the dishes they have created. 

If you have more than one player you can have races to see who can finish the most cards in a certain amount of time, or who's recipe can create the taller structure.


Tray Two: Pumpkin Pie Counting Game

Supplies: brown paper, orange paper, scissors, glue, 1 die

To create your pie you will need two circles to trace (I just used two medium plates, one slightly smaller than the other.) Trace the larger circle onto the brown, and the smaller onto the orange. Glue these together. Once the glue is tried cut the pie into SIX pieces (unlike the normal eight.)


To play the game I put a plate out, then your child will roll the die to see how many pieces of pie the person will get. Try to encourage putting the pie back together after every turn. 

You can make the game more complex by having them roll until they serve the whole pie, or by having children take turns rolling to see who will get the most pieces in the end.


Tray Three: Turkey Feather Sensory Tray

Supplies: feathers and play-doh

To start out with I showed Ro a picture of a turkey and encouraged him to make his own fan. After he constructed a pretty cute one I let him stick the feathers in whatever pattern he wanted to.


Eventually leaves got involved, and he created a sculpture that could have doubled as a fine centerpiece for our Thanksgiving meal!


All of these activities had minimal setup and were open-ended enough to be fun while retaining some educational value. I think the turkey feather was our favorite, but how many times do you get to play with feathers and playdoh? Turns out to be a match made in heaven. But then again... those Lego recipies are something we could pull out whenever he wanted to play kitchen...



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My Tiny Room

Monday, October 4, 2021

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Last year I became obsessed with tiny houses. My main inspiration is honey.thistle on Instagram. I had never thought that tiny houses could be so trendy. That they could just be tiny versions of all of the furniture I wish I had. And when I had this realization... well it was something I needed to do. So I found a set of empty rooms online, called my sister and mother, and had a tiny house party.


This was my mood board for the project. I had a few base things I knew I wanted, then I let myself get creative with the rest of it. The lamp is a number one item on my wishlist, but it also over a thousand dollars. Now I have a tiny version that cost me about... 2 dollars?

I can't really give you a step by step of how I made this because I was really flying by the seat of my pants. I see it as more of a piece of art than a DIY.


What I can tell you is how we made our little house craft party work.  I bought these little rooms from Amazon, then I filled the table with a ton of supplies. I'm talking felt, straws, paper clips, foam, scissors, hot glue, popsicle sticks, fabric... it looked like a craft store had exploded on my table. I also did a ton of research (aka I had a pretty full board on Pinterest) of how other people had created their own tiny furniture. I printed out pictures and hung them up for inspiration.


I think one of the most interesting parts is figuring out what things are created with. Like that little side table is a piece of wood with some paper clips hot glued to the bottom of it. My tiny lamp is sanded dowel rods with a drop of hot glue at the top. This sputnik lamp is skewers hot glued together, and painted gold with hot glue as the bulbs.


Having people over to work on the houses together was so nice, because I don't think it's something I would have focused on if I had been by myself. I will warn you, we were working on our rooms for about 5 hours and all of us had to work alone afterwards to finish them. It was really cool to see the different personalities, though. My mom's was a classic farmhouse vibe, which even included a crocheted black and white rug. My sister, on the other hand, covered her whole back wall with bookshelves and make a ton of tiny eclectic decorations to add, making a truly magical space. I even made a cute little room with Ronan the next week, with rainbow walls and beads for little fairy lights!
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DIY "Sun"glasses Case

Monday, September 13, 2021

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I can't believe this is my first time sharing a sewing pattern on this blog! I have been sewing all of my life, making purses and other small things. Recently I taught a lesson about sewing in my art class and I dreamed up this retro-inspired sunglasses case. I loved it so much that I decided to finish and photograph it to share on here!


 


Supplies:
Felt (Blue and Yellow)
Thread (Blue and Yellow)
Needle
Scissors
Straight Pins
Marker


  

I have included a link to a .pdf pattern I created, but I thought it might be interesting to see how I designed this! First I sketched out my ideas, then I created a mock-up out of construction paper to make sure everything would work. When I was happy with how it looked I took apart my mock-up and used pieces of it as a pattern for the finished piece. Working with felt is easy because I didn't have to make any changes for hems and such!


Step one: Cut out your pattern.
 Download and cut out the pattern (link to .pdf  can be found at the end of this post.) Trace onto your felt using a marker, or pin the pattern directly to the felt. Cut out your pieces.


Step two: Sew on your circle.
You want half of your sun to be on the blue and half of it to be off. Sew around the part attached to the blue, and sew a line along the top of your blue fabric. I left a little bit of a hole so I actually have a secret pocket! 
I chose to also sew around the half of the sun that wasn't attached to anything to give it a more finished look.


Step Three: Sew on your rays!
Arrange the sun rays so they are evenly placed and look how you want them to. Pin them down, then fold the fabric in half to make sure everything looks right. You should be able to fold the sun over like a flap and have the rays look like they are coming out of it. See the picture above for an example of how they should be placed!



Step Five: Sew up your edges!
Fold your blue felt in half and sew a seam on both sides!



I love the way this turned out. It's so sweet and a little funky. It's a perfect container for all of my fun sunglasses!



Click here to download the .pdf pattern!


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Food Truck Book Basket

Tuesday, September 7, 2021

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I first picked food trucks as our book basket theme simply because it was a vehicle type that Ro hadn't obsessed over yet. But as we dove deeper into the books I realized that this theme was a marvelous way to introduce Ronan to a variety of foods from different cultures. Food, where we live, tends to be pizza,  hamburgers,  or hot dogs, so it was fun to read about falafel and shwarma! And the added bonus of everything having wheels kept my kid interested the whole time!


We actually had two activities for this book basket! For the first activity we just had some pretend fun with a Duplo truck we built and some food I printed out. I tried to include both food that was easily recognizable and some new food as well! I had him color the food so I could say "I want the yellow falafel." We took turns ordering and serving the food, and obviously pretending to eat it!


The second activity is something you can buy online! Adam and I are always on the hunt for age-appropriate games for Ronan that are enjoyable for the whole family. I had seen Frankie's Food Truck Fiasco before and considered buying it, so when I put together this basket I decided it was time. This game teaches shape matching and uses tongs to help develop little hand muscles! A round of this game also goes pretty quickly, which is a must-have when you are working with a short attention span! The added bonus of having a board book you can also purchase (or check out from your library!) is so nice. I was able to introduce him to the concepts of the game without forcing him to listen to the instructions!

Now on to my favorite part: books! As always I curated this collection to include the best stories with the yummiest looking food and the most beautiful illustrations. Links for the books are below the pictures!







 

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