Pinterest Strikes Again

Not much has been going on around here during September except school.  I should have been blogging more, but I’m not going to lie… I spend an exorbitant amount of time on Pinterest.  This week I did two fun projects that I found on Pinterest.  The first was an orange burlap wreath.  Hobby Lobby was conveniently OUT of orange burlap when we went to buy it, so this is where we improvised. 

   

This is Karen.  I truly believe we were twins in the Pre-Existence.  We met in January when we were both called to be YCL leaders at Girls Camp.   Over the last few months, we’ve discovered that we have the same birthday, we are both native California girls, we both get our hair cut from the same hairdresser, we both love Mexican food, snowmen, chocolate/mint desserts, Diet Coke from McD’s, wreaths, and Pinterest.   We are both sarcastic and say “Dude” and “Totally” and “Awesome” a lot.  And in the craziest twist of fate ever, our families both moved from California to Arizona in the same week of March 2005!   See?  Twins, I tell you.  She is the sister I never thought I had!  We had so much fun making these wreaths together!  And for those of you who’ve been on Pinterest, FYI… the plumbing tubes from Home Depot don’t make the greatest wreath forms.  That’s what we used and they were indeed cheap, but they are already sagging.  I just saw that a better alternative would be using pool noodles.  Next time, that’s what we are going to use.  Because, yes, there will be another wreath making day.  You can never have enough wreaths, right?Here’s the other project I did.  It’s nothing but canning jars, tissue paper, mod podge and construction paper.  I was finally able to put some use to the 300 canning jars my mother brought to me a couple visits ago.  The kids got involved with this project… that’s how easy it was.  I used real tea lights for this photo, but I think I’m going to buy some battery operated ones so I don’t have to worry about the jars overheating.  I LOVE how cute these turned out!   I have two more kid friendly projects lined up for next week.    If I can get my act together, you might see another Halloween craft here on the blog before the month is over!

What You Can Do with a $5 Candle From Walmart...

We are back from Maui.  We got in Thursday morning.  I have been suffering from Jet Lag... and therefore, have not blogged.  I have several hundred photos to sort through... from my two cameras and the cameras my dad and brother brought.  In the meantime, I wanted to post this before I left, but I didn't get around to it.

We had teacher appreciation week two weeks ago and this is the gift I made for Ian's teacher:

I also made one for a friend who had a birthday that same week. 

I swear I saw or heard about the idea on this blog, but when I went back and searched through the archives, I couldn't find it anywhere... but anyway, the idea stuck with me when I heard about it, and since I own one of those fancy Cricut machines, I used some leftover vinyl I had to test it out.  I am so happy with how they turned out, I think I will be making many more in the future!

Adventures in Tie Dye

This week we tie-dyed pajamas. It was a lot of fun! We bought cheap white tee's at Joann's and some white broad cloth which I spent all day Sunday afternoon sewing into pajama shorts for all the kids... well not Taylor (he's too mature for such things as matching pj's), but I had enough fabric to make me a pair, so I did! (I couldn't have buzzed through this project so quickly without my serger and recent experience making pjs for the YW at Enrichment last month!)

We picked up a tie dye kit at Joann's that had three colors - fuchsia, yellow and turquoise. It always amazes me what you can do with just three colors... Brayden's pjs for example - they turned out lime green because we blended the turquoise and the yellow. This is one project that you just can't screw up!

Megan wanted to go for the "Uncle Jon" look. Years ago we did a tie dye birthday party for Ian and Uncle Jon did the craziest pattern with rubber bands and die but it turned out super cool, so Jon, I hope you are impressed... I think Megan's turned out the best and she didn't care one bit about what it looked like because she remembered how cool yours looked after everyone made fun of you for being "different"!

Ian wanted a "Power Ranger" theme... we did our best to create a yellow "V" in the center of his shirt and he is very happy with how it turned out. He was the most particular about how we rubber banded it all, so I was worried that he would be disappointed with the outcome, but he liked it. Whew!

For Brayden's, I wanted a green/blue Ninja Turtle look. I ended up using an old white tee of his that he stained yellow all down the front spilling top ramen on him. You'd never know this shirt was ruined before, would you?

I'm declaring this project a total success - four sets of light weight summer PJ's for under $30 and the kids haven't taken them off in the last two days! They love them! The only bummer was not being able to do this with our good friends who decided to go to San Diego and play in the cool weather and the ocean instead of tie-dying with us! :)