Sparkly New Year Suncatcher

What a perfect way to bring some sunlight and sparkle into the new year! I saw this posted over at Funny Days With Mommy & Maddie this morning, and I immediately knew that this would be a huge hit with the boys (thanks Amanda!).


I started by printing "2011" onto a piece of colored cardstock and cutting out the shapes with my Xacto knife. Be sure to save the center of the 0 for reassembly later. If you don't want to waste time choosing a font and sizing it, I made a template that you can download and print HERE.


I gave each boy a piece of Contac paper, and they meticulously covered it with sparkly sequins and confetti.


top it off with a sprinkling of glitter...


...or, if you're like this guy, a rather generous pile of glitter!

You can attach the sparkled Contac paper directly to your cutout cardstock, but since we ended up with soooo much glitter I opted to sandwich the sparkles between two sheets of Contac paper. I then attached it to the back of the cardstock with double stick tape and used the tape to reattch the center of the zero.

Easy peasy New Years decorations! Happy 2011!

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Peanut Butter Playdough {Recipe}

It's currently 28 degrees outside (brrrr!), so we've decided to spend the day in our jammies, reading books by the fire, building forts, and making peanut butter playdough. The boys were totally excited to try something other than our usual playdough recipe, and they were even more excited when I told them that they could eat it too!

Peanut Butter Playdough Recipe:
1 cup of smooth/creamy peanut butter
2 cups of powdered sugar
1/2 cup honey

Mix all the ingredients together - if it seems a little too dry at first, you can stick it in the microwave for a few seconds to melt the peanut butter a bit. Once you start kneading it and playing with it it will soften up to the perfect consistency :)


"Mom, are you sure I can eat this?" After I assured him that he could, he took a little bite, declared "this is super yummy!" and then he devoured almost his entire pile of playdough lol :)

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Stella's Table Makeover

Finished just in time for Christmas! I will have to dig around my photo files to see if I can find a "before" shot, but this table used to be brown and dark blue distressed with my boys' names on the chairs and a wave pattern border around the tabletop. A few (gazillion) coats of spray paint and a few nights of hand painting and it was transformed into a special coloring spot for my niece. I had hoped to add detail to the tree and a sunshine in the top right corner, but I ran out of time. My hubby said "there's beauty in the simplicity," but I think he was just trying to tell me to hurry the heck up and be finished with it ;)

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Solstice Lanterns {Tutorial}

Today we are celebrating the Winter Solstice, the beginning of winter and the darkest day of the year. We made watercolor Solstice candle lanterns (inspired by Garden Mama), one painted in hues to remind us of the night and wintertime and one painted to invoke thoughts of warm days and sunsets. Both are brightly burning in the center of our nature table today to cast some light on this shortest day of the year, reminding us that each coming new day will bring a bit more sunshine and daylight. We welcome all the fun and adventure that this Winter will bring, but I am already looking forward to those longer brighter days after these gloomy Winter storms pass.

We painted watercolor paper with liquid watercolors - Sutton chose the warm colors of sunsets, and Sawyer picked blues and purple to represent nighttime and darkness.

After the painting were dry, I rubbed them with enough oil to soak through to the back of the paper and left them overnight to dry. I should note here that we ran out of watercolor paper after the first painting that the boys did, so we finished up with textured Bristol which actually took the oil better and became the most luminous and translucent.

I rolled the paintings around mason jars, glued them into a cylinder shape, and left the jars inside to weigh the seams down until the glue was dry.

Light some tealights inside the mason jars, and you will have gorgeous lanterns to illuminate your day. Happy Solstice! May you find warmth and light in these dark Winter days :)

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Quick & Easy: Tie Onesie

Check out Simon's adorable new holiday dress up attire! I whipped this up the other night using this quickie tutorial from Trey & Lucy. I used one of his teeny tiny pairs of baby overalls (that he only had the chance to wear once before he outgrew them!) to make the tie - gotta love repurposing things! I should have sewn much closer to the edge of the applique, but I was holding Simon on my lap while I was sewing and didn't realize how far in I was when I did the first side...then I was in too much of a hurry to rip it all out and start over again, so I just made the other seams match. Oh well. Nobody at the holiday party seemed to notice anyway ;)

Ignore his sad little face, droopy eyes and puddle of baby drool...poor little guy has his first cold :(

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Five Little Snowmen

The tag reads:

These aren't just five snowmen,

As anyone can see.

I made them with my hand,

Which is a part of me.

Now each year when you trim the tree

You can look back and recall

Christmas of 2010

When my hand was just this small!

Love, Sutton

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Faux Gingerbread Houses

We've been super busy around here, and I apologize for not posting holiday crafts and tutorials like I had planned. Seems that life with a newborn doesn't always conform to my schedule of activities ;) Besides, I've been up to my eyeballs in gingerbread, err, graham crackers posing as gingerbread.


Lots and LOTS of graham crackers and royal icing. Royal icing is like magic glue, I swear. I made 15 of these "gingerbread" houses for my boys' school, and I didn't break a single one in transit. Knowing the way my kids get in and out of the car, tossing and jostling and shuffling everything that might get in their way, that is truly amazing! I can't wait to see how they turn out once all the kiddos decorate them.



Graham cracker carnage...with a side of milk chocolate. The very best part of volunteering for the crafty school assignments ♥

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Post-Holiday Refinishing Project

I have wanted to get my hands on these vintage school desks forever, so I was thrilled when I stumbled upon a school estate sale that was selling off all their old desks and tables for an affordable price. We got them for $25 - much less than the usual $75-100 each that seems to be the going price on Craigslist. I've been seriously considering homeschooling next year for kindergarten, so I was even more excited than usual to get these. It gives me great peace of mind knowing that I have a school-like set up now where the kids can sit in their own space and do their work. Now, the all-important question...what color do you think I should paint them? :)


The boys LOVE their new desks, and they're thrilled to have their own workspaces since their little table and chairs have long been outgrown (especially when they both try to sit at it together and do two different tasks!). We're going to repaint the table and chairs set and pass it on to their 2-year-old cousin for Christmas. Hopefully I'll get some pictures of that too, because it's one of the rare occasions that I get to do a girly project :)


Sutton got to work right away on a dice sequencing activity - he's the math and numbers lover in the family.

Sawyer, our engineer and building-minded one, was so excited to have a place to do his puzzles and build with his Legos without getting everything knocked around by his little brother.

I can't wait until the holiday rush is over so I can start refinishing these!

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