In the Mail on Monday

Mail makes me happy, like really really happy. I don't even care if its a bill (ok i try not to cry over spilled milk bills are inevitable so I enjoy the surprise of how much energy we wasted... errr ... enjoyed while leaving lights on:) ) But I looovvveee letters. There is something magical about opening a letter and not knowing what is inside. Earlier this year I was blessed... ok my kids were blessed with getting pen pals. Each of the 3 older kids has two pen pals. Some of our pen pals are amazing, they often write and send fun things, but a couple well... i think they enjoyed the novelty of it and the light has since faded. But that is neither here nor there. This post is to share the fun thing we Mailed On Monday! We mailed our favorite pen pals a snow ball fight!! Yup you read me right, we mailed them a snow ball fight.. because frankly the lack of snow this year has just been depressing. Here is our awesome snowball fight ready to make its voyage across this great country of our:

To make out snowballs we found a pom pom tutorial online and made a larger version of it. (Disclaimer...white yarn is INCREDIBLY hard to photograph so please accept these pictures..)
We used some white yarn and a foot. (laterally see the picture below)


First make sure your foot is clean, the wrap said yard around about 100 times (No feet were harmed in the making of these snow balls but please realize if you wrap the yarn tightly you may loose a toe)

Next remove yard ball from foot. (I do recommend using this opportunity to tickle them until the pee their pants.. because who just hands a mom a free foot and expecting tickling not to ensue?)

Moving on. Cut another piece of string about 6 inches long. Lay foot wrapped yard ball on top to the string.


Tie as tightly as you can creating a mushroom cap effect.

Fallowed by cutting loops around the tie.


Finish it up to trimming up the pom poms... errr.. snowballs.You will see a few pieces that are longer.. and if you are like me they will drive you mad.



Tada!! A pile of snowballs.


Now here you are thinking that was so amazing how in this world could we top that?! Well we can put it in an awesome package and mail it to our pen pals!!
For the container you will need


Pile of snowballs (yarn ones would be best as the real ones would surely melt)
2 plastic water bottles
sharp scissors
and packing tape

Cut the tops off the two water bottles.


Stuff the bottles with snowballs.


Slide the two pieces together and packing tape the middle. Add label and stamps (sometimes we get cranky mail people who don't like us to send fun thing, so we either ask for the manager or just go to another one.)

Tada !!

(Disclaimer 2 and 3... the snowballs will leave little stings around the house, after we sent these ones I realized it might be a big flaw if your baby eats everything off the floor, mine doesn't but to be on the safe side use a jean needle and sew a few times over the mushroom cap part. AND yes I realize my daughter is dressed like a complete creep show.. but to be fair we were on our way to taekwondo and she dressed herself. )

Freakin' FAB Friday!

So love is in the air all over blog land and I cant help but feel like we need some pink and red all over the house! I have also seen some of the CUTEST valentines ever. We did the photo valentines 2 years ago and make some last minute flower sucker ones last year but this year I am totally smitten with these:


By Design Mom
(Pretty much anything she put out im smitten on!)


And I dont know why I cant show you these cute ones but go to Jac o' lyn Murphys page and drool all over your key board

So there I was flipping through all these amazingly cute valentines and decided I ought to look around and see what I have for the kids to make. (And I still think at least one of them are going to make some like those animal ones up there, but with little dinos cause as we were cleaning out dino bins we discovered we have 233 tiny dinos... and yes I really wish I was just exsagrating that number.) but any ways stock on hand I ordered these about 3 years ago for a party, they got here late and I never used them so yes I have 72 Kazoos just sitting in my party box. So I came up with a couple really corny saying and this is what I got:


I just used pink card stock and will get heart stickers instead of having Brooklyn draw them on. I thought I was being cleaver but my lovely 8 year old just rolled his eyes and walked away... whatever I will just pass them out to my friends :)

Re-Doin' it Wednesday- Denim and Lace

I can not believe how many people wrote me such nice comments and emails about my skirt redo last Wednesday! Yeah for having the most blog views I have ever had before... it was really kinda exciting! So with out further ado here is this weeks re-do! From maternity jean to super cute jumper!

Here are the jeans I started with. A size M maternity jeans that THANK YOU LORD i will never have to wear again. I would have passed them on but there was a hole in the crotch because the denim was stretch and i was way to big to be squeezing them on :) (I was going to use that other piece of fabric to pleat around the bottom but I got scared) not pictured was the pillow case I took the lace trim off of, but that's where it came from

I cut the legs off the pants (I considered re-making the top part into maternity Daisey dukes but quickly decided no one would want to see that :) )
There are two seams in a pair of jeans. I pictured this jumped with the big seam out

So I folded the legs inside out and cut up the seam so I ended up with two wide pieces of denim with the good seam in the middle.
I wanted to use the bottom hems (cuffs? i dont know what they are called but the bottom part you always step on ) so I matched the two bottoms and pinned them together while I did the rest of the pattern.
I took a tank top that fit my daughter and had nice openings and traced it
then I cut it out (notice I made a 3 inch deep neck line... but I wish it would have been lower)
then I serged all the edges and I really like the way it looked. (this is my first time using my new serger, and while it did was it was suppose to do i wasnt that impressed to I will have to work on learning more on it)
I put the two pieces right side together and sewed the top shoulders together
(she was saying EWWWW i dont want to wear baby belly pants lol attitude:)
then I laid it out on the table and pinned on the lace trim. I decided I wanted it on top of the seam I serged.
then I top stitched it on.

Next I flipped the pieces right sides together and serged the sides together. TaDa a jumper!!


but I didn't stop there I fished it off with more lace trim on the bottom. Im not a fa of pinning (I mean the literal pinning not the Pinterest kind .. cause I love that:) ) So I just matched it up to the hem/cuff/seam as I went and made it pretty on the bottom!



Isn't she pretty!! I want to put some fabric flowers on there too but decided that was from another day!


I bragged about my self here:

My kids are creative

My kids are cute... and super super annoying... they can nag and nag and nag until I think I might start pealing the paint off the walls... but sometimes these crazy annoyances do end up doing some pretty cool things. After spending the day bugging me to get in the craft box, I gave in and this is what little miss fancy pants came up with!!

She found some animal stickers and made a zoo! No prompting at all!

I was annoyed at first because I thought there she goes just randomly sticking stickers to paper and wasting both (wow sometimes I think Im really not as good as a parent as I should be..) but then WOW she had a plan and it was a great plan. She decided she should send it to her pen pal so we worked out a letter for him and she was on her way! (PS go see her pen pals moms blog.. she is awesome and creative and the fun kinda mom I wish I was more often)

But leave it to Brooklyn to take an idea and run with it... and run she did..
here is her Pet Shop (she saw me blogging this and "said next time tell me you are going to use my pictures, I will do my finger nails and color lots better, tell them my hands were tired from all my time out writing" ahahhahahaaa she is such a nerdo! I really love that spunky ball of nerdiness!)


and here is another letter for her other buddy... she loves transformers!

Sewed it on Sunday! Easy dino mittens

It doesn't snow here like it use to when I was little... this year not even a trace, hardly even a frost BOOOOO!! Yup im one of those annoying people who L-O-V-E-S snow!! It makes the world so quite and it smells so so so yummy. To this day if they think it might snow I can not sleep I get that excited (Although im the same way with carnival rides and good sales:) ) But just because there isn't any snow doesn't mean we all cant rock out with some cool mittens! I think I saw a pair like this on Pinterest... but then again what isn't on Pinterest? Either way I remembered when I was reading Danger the 3 little kittens that lost there mittens.. and I thought fat boy needs some mittens and since he spends most this time stalking around the house growling at people I figured dino mittens for sure!


Here is what you need..
Scrap fleece... enough for 4 hands
more scraps for embellishments
tiny elastic


Make dad hold baby and force him to let you trace his hand... he will give you this look but keep going despite his feelings :) (yes that is blue sharpie on his face..)



cut out your print 4 times (for this I only did one time tracing cut out on a fold then flipped it and cut out the other way on the fold)


Next make some embellishments to fit whatever kinda critter your making (note: im having Brooklyn make kitten mittens and Colton make shark ones in the morning)


Place inside with right sides facing together.

Pin and sew around.


Next measure baby's wrist... again despite his feelings go ahead and do it.. baby's can be so judge mental sometimes. I used the same amount of elastic as his wrist.


Pin end of elastic and PULL as you sew... not to much but enough to go all the way around your glove (Note: im a self taught sewing which means this might not be technically right but its what I did and it worked:) )


Fold inside right and try to get baby to put them on... after refusing convince your 7 year old to put them on and make them eat said baby... he will be making his size dinos tomorrow after school.



Make fun of baby for hating every thing you try to put on him then give him some egg nog for being a good sport.


Ta Da dino mittens, made from scraps so no real loss if you kittens loose their mittens!