Mason Jar Globe

I love mason jar projects but I do love mason jar globes. I have been wanting to make this project for quite some time but some how never found the time for it. So when Micheal's had their Pinterest Saturday last month I took my girls and made them.

To make one you need is  a mason jar, a couple of trees or figurine or snow depending on what you want to put in there. Place the objects in the jar and you are done! An easy and perfect project for a five year old.

Glitter Wood Tree

As I had mentioned yesterday in this post we are slowly adding the Christmas touches to the house. Since there is only two weeks until Christmas and I have been busy with trying to finish orders I am not sure if we would be able to decorate for Christmas. That is not stopping us to create a small holiday vignette.

Yesterday I showed you about our countdown to Christmas, today I wanted to share the simple glitter wood tree that I made for our vignette.

I had seen those trees last year and thought that they were really cute but somehow time slipped by me and never got the chance to make one. This year I made a few for my boutique show and after finding out how easy was to make them I decided to make one for myself.

What I love about the trees is the different ways that you can paint them. I chose to put silver glitter on mine. I wish the photo would show you how pretty the glitter is against the wood.

I am guessing by now you are wondering from what and how the tree is made. Right? Well, it all depends on the size of your tree you can chose plywood, common board, cedar, etc. Cut to the size of your choice, paint with the color of your choice  or paint and add glitter, seal and you are done.

Days Until Christmas Countdown

So Christmas is less than two weeks away...How did that happen? Even though I love Christmas a lot, as in it's my favorite holiday, I am yet to fully decorate the house. So until I can (or even if I do) I have set up a little vignette to get us in the mood.

My kids are really into the holidays, but you can tell that Christmas might be their favorite holiday. One of the things that we started with was a countdown to Christmas. My kids love knowing how far away the holiday is. This was an easy project that was done over a a weekend because of drying of drying time.

This project is made out of piece of pine common board that I stained. Then I stenciled the "Days until Christmas" and glued a piece of smaller chalkboard wood to the big board. As a said very easy project.

Easy Photo Frame

We love easy projects and gifts.  This one of the projects that I have said to myself “how didn’t I think of that” it is so easy and made in less than an hour. With the holidays coming it make a perfect gift.

To make one you need a piece of scrap wood, paint or stain (based on your preference), twine, burlap flower, clothes pin, glue. Paint or stain the piece of wood. Once is dry wrap the piece of twice around the wood and secure it. Glue the flower at the corner. Glue the clothes pin toward the top of the frame at the middle. You are done!

Instead of making one yourself and would like to make a set ready for the holidays to give as gift I would to make you one or two. You can always customize it to your liking. You can find it in my shop.

Easy Pumpkin Door Hanging Plaque

So thrilled to be participating in the Hall Harvest Blog Hop with Abby from The Cards we Drew and about 75 other bloggers.

It’s not a secret that I love the wood cutouts at the craft store so I when I saw this wood pumpkin cutout I had to have it.  I have to admit I was never a big fan of monogramming. I mean do you really need to have your pillows, your napkins, your bag, etc stating your initials? Of course with time things are changing I am starting to like the single letter monogramming.

I really wanted to do colors that would stand out on the black door. The perfect colors: orange and light gray with a touch of burlap.

The items needed for the craft:

Mask off the stripes if you are going that route. Do not be afraid to include the kids when doing this. My daughter had a blast.

DONE!

 

An InLinkz Link-up

20 Children’s Books for Fall

One of my daughter’s kindergarten assignments is to read 20 books each month. We already read a book a day with my daughter, but with lots of repeats and with the holidays coming I decided to create a themed list of books for us to be able to explore new books and to make it a little more fun.

I have found some great lists of book on the Internet. You can find some of my pins here that contain some of the lists, but I wanted to gather one that I know would interest my daughter. Plus it makes it easier for us to find books that we know are at the library or friends have them so we do not have to buy too many new ones. One of our traditions I to get our girls a new book of their choice every month.

The list for the month of October is going to be Fall and Halloween themed. Hope you enjoy it and please feel free to share some of your favorite children’s books in the comments.  (I have provided links to each book but I am not affiliated with them, so no I do not get paid if you click on them).

How many seeds in a pumpkin

 Pumpkin Town!

Curious George Apple Harvest

Ten Red Apples

Apples and Pumpkins

Fancy Nancy and the Fall Foliage

Fancy Nancy: Halloween or Bust

Fancy Nancy Apples Gallore

The costume copycat

The Legend of Spookly the Square Pumpkin 

Happy Halloween Curious George

Room on the Broom

Sofia the First Halloween Ball

Black Cat Creeping

It’s the Great pumpkin Charlie Brown

Where is my mummy?

The Little Old lady who wasn’t afraid of Anything

The Spooky Smells of Halloween

Halloween Hustle

Spooky House

Pottery Barn Knock Off Trick or Treat Banner

It is not a secret I love Pottery Barn but sadly I do not love their prices! I understand you pay for quality but even when “on sale” most of their items are overpriced. In some cases it’s pretty easy to knock off their items, for example banners, art work, and certain home décor items.

It was a love at first sight when I saw their “Trick or Treat” burlap banner at the store a month ago. When I saw the price I knew that I would be able to make one myself for the fraction of the cost.  We are trying to become diligent with decorating our front porch and I knew this would be the perfect addition. No rain in Southern California means I can put practically anything outside.

It took me about an hour for the whole project (my favorite kind of projects). Here is what you need:

1/2 to 1 yard of burlap, depending on the size of the flags

Stencil for the flags

Marker/Scissors?Glue Gun or Fabric Glue

Paint

Twine

Since I am a visual person here are the instructions in photos:

 

Here is the comparison:

DIY Giant Chalkboard

Ever since we started working on the playroom, the girls and I have been spending so much time in that room. It feels so good to have furniture and color in a room that previously only had simple beige walls with just a daybed in there. In case you were wondering I am yet to finish that side of the room and show you photos. I am thinking I should be done by Christmas.

I have always wanted to have a giant chalkboard but felt intimidated by this project (not sure why).  So one day on one of our random Home Depot shopping trip we decided to just go with it and make one.

After I posted about the playroom progress I had a couple of people approach me on how we made the giant chalkboard. Well, it is very easy and inexpensive! The whole project costs us less than $100.

 

Here is what you need:

* a sheet on MDF, the smooth surface is the best for the chalkboard paint

* 2 - 4”x8’ pine boards , one board to be put in half

* chalkboard paint

* wood glue and nails

* paint or stain for the frame of the chalkboard

The How to:

1. My MDF board was 8’1” x 4’1”. I didn’t find that out until this until later. So measure and decide if you want the board to be  flushed with the frame or a little longer.

2. Paint the MDF with the chalkboard paint. This will take about three to four coats. Please read the instructions on the paint can.

3. Paint/Stain the pine boards.

4.  After you have waited the allotted time put wood glue on the pine board and the glue it onto the MDF. Then nail in the nails. Mine are spaced 12” apart.

5. Mount it on the wall. I used French Cleat for mine.

You are done! An easy weekend project!

If you do make one please share your photos with me. I would love to see them!

Easy Leaf Artwork

It is not a secret that fall comes to Southern California a lot later than the other states, but the heat has been very unbearable in the past few weeks. As I had mentioned a couple of days ago I am in the process of gathering and making items for my fall mantle. I have already done the rag banner and I am now adding an easy leaf artwork to the mix.

When I received my polka star stencil from Royal Studio’s for the playroom,  I also received a small leaf stencil that I knew I wanted to use. As I had mentioned before I love their stencils but you can always print a left onto a paper and trace it onto the wood or get a similar stencil from the craft store.

For this project I used a scrap wood that I had from home. The size of the piece is 7.5” x 7.5”.  I used some of my fall inspired colors for the sign and of course you can use colors that inspire you too. Below are the instructions.

Fall Rag Banner

 

You might remember my patriotic rag banner, if not you can see it here. For the past year I have been really loving the rag banner. It just gives that texture and added character to the mantle or the party table or even a room decoration, depending on where you use it.  I am in the process of decorating my mantle for fall before switching it to Halloween in a couple of weeks, and decided to do another rag banner.

As I had said before what I love most about this project is that I can have it done in less than an hour. It’s a project that can be done while watching TV at night, watching the kids play, heck, they can even help you. 

The instructions are easy: 1) Gather your fabric of choosing. 2) Cut it into strips in the width desired. 3) Fold the fabric strips and loop into the twine 4) Repeat with all the fabric strips in the pattern, fullness, and length of the banner desired.  You are done!

 

Back to School Breakfast

Today I wanted to share with you our simple “Back to School” Breakfast that I whipped up last school year for my daughter and was featured at Everyday Party Magazine. With a new baby and the whole school thing being new to me, I had no idea what’s to expected when my daughter started preschool.

This was a simple breakfast that I set up for my daughter's first day of school. This was her official first day of preschool and I wanted to do something special for her. Of course sometimes we remember things or wanting to do something special for our kids or a significant other at the last minute.

It was the evening before her first day of preschool. I knew that she would be excited and nervous at the same time so I decided that I wanted to make her morning extra special. After searching Pinterest for ideas I realized that I would have to rely on items that I have already and free printables. 

I knew that I will not have time to make warm breakfast in the morning so I decided to cook chocolate muffins the night before. In the morning I set the muffins on a cake stand on top of two books to elevate the stand holding the muffins. I placed her favorite yogurt in a whisky glass (classy, I know) and her chocolate milk in a clear bottle for a better visual. The cupcake toppers are part of a pack of free "Back to School" printables I found of Pinterest. The two prints "Back to School" and " You are Braver than you Believe..." I created and printed the night before. As a place mat I used Michael's scrapbooking paper, left over from a different project.

In all fairness to set up this special breakfast cost me nothing, but the excitement seen on my daughter's face that morning was priceless.

 

             

 

           

“Back to School” supply cake

Hold up, where did summer go? I can’t believe that there are kids who are going back to school already. Luckily we still have one more month before my daughter goes to school. That of course is not going to stop me from starting to post about back to school.

I am delighted to be part of Emily from The Benson Street 45 days of Back to School ideas. Around this time last year I remember seeing someone on Instagram doing a cake like this but since my daughter was in preschool, I didn’t put too much thought into it. Fast forward a year, Madison is starting kindergarten in the fall. We live in a small community with its own elementary school and I thought it would be fun to present her teacher with a supply cake.

 

Supplies:

1  cake plate

2 nesting boxes

9 Crayola crayons boxes

9  glue tubes

1 box of pencils

1 box of tissue

ribbon of choice

a small chalkboard

glue

1. Gather all of your supplies! Put the bigger nesting box on the cake plate. I put a dab of glue between the nesting box and the cake dolly to hold them together but not too much to not be able to remove it later. 

2. Start assembling the Crayola boxes around the nesting box. I did not glue the Crayola boxes to the nesting box, just held them up until I was able to put the ribbon around. Then stick the glue stick in between the Crayola boxes.

3. Now it’s time to make the second tier of the cake! Once again I put a dab of glue between the boxes to keep them in place. Stack the glue around the box and tie with a ribbon.

4. Place the tissue paper on top and pencils behind the glue. You are done!

Note: You can make this custom to your likings. You can add other tubes of glue, notebooks, hand sanitizer, maybe use paper towels for the middle rather than nesting boxes. everything is possible.