Big Things This Past Weekend

 Big things this past weekend!

We saw Thomas. There he is with Mr. Kyle! Anyone with toddlers you have to do this. It was great. There was a little fare with lots of train related activities. Wooden train tables, train crafts, train blocks, miniature rail roads running, Sir Topenhat was there and we got to ride a REAL train, pulled by Thomas, for 25 minuets. Thanks to  planning ahead and making this day really special we did not have one single toddler meltdown the entire day not even on the way out.

The train hats were a hit with Mr. Kyle. 

The Boo could have cared less about them. He just wanted to hold it. 

The Money Roll was a great hit with the Newly Weds this weekend.  It got its own facebook photobook by the bride and groom. The only gift that did. It's money on a roll what's not to love? =D

I've also been working on the donation to the Angel Heart Children's Shelter. I know I've been saying it for awhile, but now I have pictures to prove I have actually done something! It's not the best fabric combination I have come up with but I think it's cute none the less.

This is a fully lined, preschool/kindergarten sized, ladybug picnic backpack with crayon caddy front pocket. The pattern is from Pattern Play, a cute little shop on Etsy. I made one for Mr. Kyle when he started preschool and it has held up so well. It really is a very well thought out pattern.

The back: complete with adjustable straps

I also made a matching crayon roll, which I think it is super cute
with the little black bias tape over the lip of the pockets

Big floppy bow

Still to come for the charity auction a matching insulated lunch box, reusable sandwich and snack bag and little girl's half apron. I will have tutorials for all of those coming up at the end of the week!

The Money Roll Gift

When it comes to gift giving sometimes you just have to give money, after all giving money is easy for you and the person you are giving it too. But why does money have to be so anti-climatic? Slip a few bills into a card, the person opens it up smiles, says "thank you" and moves on. Boring! Hopefully this little trick will bring a memorable smile to your gift target!

  

The Money Roll

Suplies:

1 Box (this one is from the Dollar Tree)
1 Toilet Paper Roll
Tape, sissors, knife to cut slit, (ignore the straw...)
Money

First get your money in all ones so that you have a lot of bills.

Tape them together on the small side. I alternated green side and black side, so that it looks cool. Or cooler than money already looks.

Get creative! Every couple of dollars or so I put in the faux dollar with well wishes for the newly wedded couple, love quotes, and humorous marriage advice. I used a photo of a dollar bill and just erased the picture in Paint.net to create the faux bill.

Cut your toilet paper tube so that it just fits inside the box.

Take your last dollar on the chain of dollars and tape it too the toilet paper tube. Now, roll it up, and keep rolling, keep rolling, it's going to take a long while.

Please ignore my chipped lime green nail polish!! ;-)








Draw a line a little bit bigger than your dollar and using that knife cut a slit in the top. Double check that the dollars will slide out easily. Place the toilet paper roll with the money rolled around it and put it inside the box.

Take a faux dollar, write "pull here" on it. Cut it so that it is a little bit larger than the hole that way it wont slip down into the box and ruin the surprise. Tape that to the first dollar on the roll. When the faux dollar is pulled it starts the chain of dollars.

At this point I hot glued the lid down so that if it is dropped it wont unroll.

Now wrap that box up and make it look pretty. I got this pretty pink bag in the Target dollar section today.

How to Make a Day Out Special

Days out are always special.  Days at the park, days at the zoo, days site seeing in Austin (the bats are on their way back! I'm excited!) but sometimes you do something extra special. A once in a year outing to some place extra awesome. That is what we are doing this weekend. We are going to go see Thomas the Train for A Day Out with Thomas.

Gift Shops are Expensive: AVOID!

To make this outing extra special for my train enthusiast toddlers (and cheaper for me!) requires a little planning and creativity. First and foremost, I absolutely refuse to buy over priced gift shop items and I can only imagine what kind of mark up an already over priced Thomas toy will have on it and how much The Kyle will want to have one. To solve this problem required some creative shopping. Craig's List is a great place to start! Look at all those ads to find some little train toys in great condition. Amazon.com has some great cheap off brand wooden train toys. Kohl's does not sell the wooden type of Thomas toys but they sell the die cast version and sometimes with sales combined with coupons you can get one for under 4 dollars. You can score a good deal on Ebay if you are vigilant. Or there is Half Price Books, which is where I went. HPB does not sell toys but they do sell DVD's and my HPB had brand new DVD's that come with a wooden Thomas character. Combined with these coupons I got two DVDs and two wooden train toys for 9 bucks.

No matter where your once-in-a-year-outing is to if you are in the habit of buying gift shop toys (or breaking down when your kids beg and ask nicely -----> me!) then save yourself some $$$ and buy an appropriate gift a head of time.Wrap it up and make is special. Give it to them in the car that way there isn't too much fuss when it's time to go home.

Get into the Fun!

Trains are a lot of fun and to make this experience even more exciting for my little dudes customized conductor hats! These hats came from the Target dollar section! I simply sewed the boys' first initials to the hat, a little fusible interface and a zig-zag stitch. Remember those 5-minuet pirate costumes I made a while back? I took the due rags and now they are scarfs for my little train conductors! Add train whistles that we already had and now we have little conductor outfits! Perfect for riding the Thomas train.

 

Plan! Plan! Plan!

Make sure you have enough time to get where you are going, you know where you are going and you know the parking situation. I was born directionally challenged. 95% of the time I have no idea where I am headed or which direction I am going. I have learned to print out the map the night before and stick it in the diaper bag right there and then. There is nothing worse than trying to print out a map while the kids are clambering to go. Pack that bag the night before, pack that lunch the night before, that way you are ready to bolt when the time comes.

Make sure those little ones have had a good meal before you leave the house. Something high in protein low in sugar content. This will keep their little attitudes happier and therefore YOU happier! Because kids are kids, bring a snack and something to drink so you don't want to get suckered into buying the more expensive food at the event and waiting in line with hungry young ones.

That is how I keep my sanity and my money safe with two toddlers under 3 and still have some fun.  =D

Making Crayons

Crayons are fun to make! Crayons are easy to make! Fun shaped crayons are a thousand more times fun to draw with than regular crayons and when they have swirly awesome colors they are ever more fun! 

Supplies: Crayons and a Mold 

The mold I used is from Ikea for 2 dollars.

Take all those little itty bitty crayon bits from the bottom of the crayon box or de-paper big crayons and break them into small pieces. Let your little helpers put all those small bits into the molds.

Put some foil down (or use a cheap pan that you don't mind if it gets ruined because you are all out of foil....) to save your oven from crayon goo!! Pre-heat the oven to 250 and let those crayons cook for about 10 to 15 minuets.

Once all the crayons are melted down pull those bad boys out of the oven and let them chill. At this point I left the crayons to cool down and took the boys out to eat and run out more Spring Break/No-Longer-Sick Energy.

Once we returned to the Castle we popped those fishy crayons right out of the mold and broke their little fishy tails right off!

On a second try I ran the mold under some hot water 

and then the fish crayons (tails and all) popped right out. 

 

And look how cute they are!

I'm already seeing the potential for the Littlest Boo's birthday party: Digger Shaped Crayons! And look molds! 

Oh, yes, those broken fish? I saved them! I put them back into the mold and made a second batch of crayons. Their tails reattached perfectly. =)

Beware though, any mold you do use will be forever a crayon mold as the crayon will stick to it's sides.

 

Lunch Fun

I remember being little and visiting my Great Gram. She always had fun stuff for us to do. Giant bubbles, hills to roll down, salamanders under the sump pump and lunch was almost always cookie cutter lunch meats and cheeses but to my brothers and I that was the coolest lunch on the planet. My little guys barely got to know her before she passed and never experienced the lunch shapes but in honor of the memory of those fun times I bust out of cookie cutters and get those creative juices flowing. It’s a great way to sneak some veggies into kids or get picky children (like my oldest) to try something new. Give it a whirl and see what you can come up with! Here are some of my creations:

Bologna fish body with cheddar cheese accents. String cheese anemones. Strawberry crab. Carrot rocks. Goldfish crackers and string cheese cut in circles for bubbles.

 

String cheese stalks, cheddar cheese sun, spinach leaf, alfalfa sprout sprouts, salami flowers and carrots as the ground.

  

Bologna train with cheddar and string cheese accents. Quesadilla for the ground, carrot for the track. Apple for the smoke and rocks.

Bologna lion with cheddar cheese accents, carrots for hay, string cheese cut into circles for rocks, celery stalk with peanut butter for the tree trunk, snap pea palm ferns and a dab of ranch for the moon.

DIY: Free Over the Edge Planters

I had a problem! My problem was my Littlest Boo was killing my pepper pants. That 2 and a half foot tall menace to all that is green and growing would march right up to those poor green pepper pants and yank them out by the roots laughing all the while! Pepper plant stalks lined the ground behind him. I’m surprised Al Gore did not show up to stop the environmental injustice at the hands of my toddler boy. Though he never touched the tomatoes… was he in cahoots with them? Was this an alliance to do away with the peppers? No one can say for sure but I, Mom, was able to save the 3 remaining plants and it didn’t cost a penny!

It’s ingenious, it’s so simple and you probably have the things you need already! 

Supplies:

1 plastic plant pot with lip

1 wire coat hanger

(and dirt and seeds or plants…)

Undo the coat hanger so that you have one long wire. Bend the wire around the plant pot, just under the lip. Once the wire looks something like this: 

 take the pot and wire and place over the edge. 

 

Bend the wire over the top of your railing and loop it around the spokes. This will keep the pot from slipping down railing toward the ground.   

And there you have it your done! And Little Boos can no longer reach those plants!

Tips to make this project even cheaper: 

Use plastic pots from the dollar store. That’s where I bought mine at!

Crayon Roll

My Kyle got invited to his first birthday party! That means mom (ie: me) either has to go out and buy some overpriced toy or create something from an already large fabric stash. With gas prices the way they are right now I’m making the gifts. 

There are a lot of crayon roll tutorials out there. A LOT! Well, let me add to it with one of my own.

Supplies:

3 pieces of fabric cut 13 x 5

1 piece fusible webbing 13 x 5

1 piece of ribbon cut 24 inches

This pattern uses a ¼ inch seam allowance.

Level: Beginner

Pick the fabric you want the pocket attached too and iron the fusible webbing to the wrong side of it

.

Fold your pocket fabric in half hot dog wise (that’s long ways for all you over 4 year olds) and iron flat.

Pin the pocket fabric to the fabric with the webbing so that the sides and bottom raw edges are touching. Your pocket fold should be on the top. 

Starting 1 ¼ inches from the side sew a line. Remember to back stitch at the top to secure the thread! Sew a line every inch until you have 11 lines.

Next fold the ribbon in half and pin it right in the middle of one side of the pocket fabric piece. Take the last poor unused piece of fabric and place it on top of the pocket piece, right sides together. Make sure you pin the ribbon out of the way! Sew along the edge leaving a 3 inch gap at the bottom for turning. Clip the corners and turn it right side out. Iron flat.

Sew along the edge of the crayon roll as close to the edge as you can and you’re done!

Now admire your work. 

Look at that cute crayon roll with all the rainbow coloring crayons in it. Just ready to go! These are great for little ones starting school, travelling, or gifts like this little crayon roll is to become! 

And look at the cuteness all rolled up with its big floppy bow!

Party Under Construction

In just a mere 116 days my Littlest Boo will have his 2^nd birthday party! I know I’m planning 4 months early but I love my babies’ birthdays. They were a special day for me too; it is when I met these little monsters munchkins. Anyway…

Little Boo recently has been into diggers and bulldozers and dump trucks and graters and any other large orange construction machine that is currently digging up our street in an attempted to cause my children to scream “TRUCKS!!” at the top of their lungs every time we drive anywhere. Yep, that is their main objective I’m sure of it. Thus for his 2nd we are throwing an Under Construction Party.

Today while at Target shopping I browsed the dollar section, as always, and found some perfect little goodies for Boo’s party, that’s in 116 days. 

Plastic diggers and cement mixers perfect for playing in sand.

Construction themed window gels that gave me ideas beyond mere window gellin'. 

(stay tuned!)

The most cute little metal pails!  I’m not sure what I’m going to do with them but how could I just pass them up?

I also remembered stashed away I have this fabulous fabric full of loaders, diggers and trucks and that if I’m going to make anything 116 days probably isn’t enough time…