Let's Get Homey-Birthday Countdown Blocks

Yay for Birthdays!!!

Birthdays are kind of a big deal around here, at least for me! I love birthdays...even my own (weird thought huh?)

I love making a big deal out of birthdays, especially when it comes to my kids or the hubs. I plan them for months in advance, thoughtfully consider each gift, and I'm pretty sure whether it's my birthday or not I'm the most excited person in the room!

While I love celebrating birthday's and going all out, I am a woman of reason with limits (Did you just hear someone laugh?). As a general rule, like most of you out there I'm sure, we try really hard not to spoil our kids. Don't misunderstand me we still gift, but they're smaller more meaningful gifts, and just 1 or 2. We leave the spoilin' to the grandparents...because who are we kidding really it's their right.

And since our kids are drowning in grandparents, the hubs and I decided last year that we would shift gears when it came to birthdays and focus more on making each birthday a memorable experience.

How you ask?
By jam packing each birthday with FUN of course!

So fast forward to the present...my little man is turning 6, and I'm of course super pumped to stuff this birthday with fun until it pukes (confetti is what I imagine a birthday would puke?) and this is what I created as our helpful family birthday visual aid (because there has to be a visual aid...no doy...yea that just happened)

Our Family Birthday Countdown Blocks!!!
Ta DA!
Are you loving it as much as me?

Here's how these bad boys work:
Okay so to truly make each birthday a CELEBRATION, we've got to really celebrate it. With the countdown blocks we are doing just that...celebrating for an entire week! Yea you read that right...I said a week of birthday...Genius Right?

So what I do is have the birthday boy/girl sit down and think up 8 fun things that they want to do to celebrate (within reason... I'm not flying anyone to Paris here just going mini golfing). This is key to ensuring a memorable birthday celebration! So the 8th event of course is the major event that they actually want to do on their birthday. For us this usually entails an entire day of "whatever you want." Your favorite breakfast, favorite lunch, favorite activity, and favorite dinner and dessert. (Get the drill?)

Each candle holds one event, the biggest candle in the middle holds the Birthday day celebration. A week before the birthday we fill out the candles, and each day the birthday boy/girl picks a candle from the countdown and we do whatever fun activity is listed on the back. Easy Peasy right?

I didn't do it for this birthday, but from now on out I'm thinking we should add a photo journal showcasing photos of each event- you know for memories. Who doesn't love memories?



So, Would you like to make your own Family Birthday Countdown Blocks?

First thing you want to do is to cut, sand, and paint your blocks. My blocks were 3 1/4x3 1/4x10", 3 1/4x3 1/4x7", and 3 1/4x3 1/4x4"
After sanding, paint them up whatever color floats your boat and let dry completely. (I spray painted mine for faster drying and because as we know I am impatient)


Next you'll want to get out your cutsie stock pile of scrapbook paper, find a few sheets you love and that match and cut some pieces to cover the front of your blocks. (I just traced the blocks to find the size and cut a little smaller to show edging)
Mod Podge those suckers on, use a credit card or scrapping tool and start from the middle and go out to the edges to help avoid bubbles. Let dry completely.

Once your blocks are dry, or slightly before if you can't wait like me, you'll want to take the top block and poke 8 holes randomly in the top of the block for the candles (be sure to center 1 hole). I did this with a nail, hammer and my brute strength (seriously do you keep hearing someone laughing?). You'll want to make sure your hole size coincides with the gauge of your wire. Also, poke your holes about 1/4-1/2 of an inch deep.

Take your wire, and wire cutters and cut yourself 7 pieces of about equal length and 1 slightly longer. You'll first have to eyeball how tall you want your candles to stick up, to decide how long to cut your pieces.
For mine, I wanted the candles in total to be about 5-5.5 inches tall. The candles themselves are about 4 inches with the middle candle slightly taller so I cut my wire 2 inches long and 1 about 2.5.
(you have to add a little for the 1/2 inch deepness of the hole and also for the curling of the wire).
Once you have your pieces cut, take your pliers or fingers and curl your wire into a spiral (I just curled twice).
Really just play around with it until you like the look. Keep the spiral fairly tight so that it can hold the candle.

On to the Candles...for this part we need the services of our handy dandy Silhouette Machine. So bust that bad boy out!

I first visited the Silhouette Store and found myself some lovely birthday candles, and for this particular project we used the print and cut feature. I colored in my candles to my liking,

INSERT PIC OF PRINT SCREEN OF CANDLES

printed and then cut out each candle and...
Voila!

At this point I had my little man fill out each candle with his chosen activities...

Here's the activities my little man choose:
1. Photo Shoot for 6 year pics (that one was mine)
2. Bouncy House
3. Day @ the Park
4. X-Box Kinect Day
5. Library
6. Wii Day
7. Bake Cookies
8. The big one: Chocolate Chip Muffins for Breakfast, Grilled Cheese for Lunch, Rumbi for Dinner (Hawaii Noodles as we call them around here), Fun Day @ the Family Fun Center (mini golf, bouncy house, bowling...), and Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cheesecake for Dessert.

Next, add each candle to the wire spirals and adorned them to the top of the cake.

For a final touch I cut out some vinyl lettering and there you have it.

All ready to make those birthday's something special to remember!

If you're lucky like me, all your hard work will pay off with your little one telling you as you tuck him in that final night "This was the best birthday EVER!"
(You better believe that brought on the waterworks!!)

Happy Crafting!

Silhouette Adventures-Soccer Mom

It's official! I am a SOCCER MOM!

With 3 of my 4 little monkeys playing soccer this Spring I am fully engulfed in the soccer mom way of life! I am pretty much living out of my car at this point (at least Tuesdays & Thursdays), and for the most part I'm LOVING it! If I could only find a way to equip my car with a fridge stocked with cherry cokes I'd be in heaven!!
I come from a soccer loving, soccer playing, soccer watching family, and I've been waiting for this day since my first baby was born!! There was a time growing up when I think almost all 5 of my siblings and I were playing soccer at the same time (give or take one or two)...my Momma was the ultimate Soccer Mom...she's forever my HERO! We LIVED at the soccer fields and I don't know how she did it with all the practices and games...I'm saying she's amazing!

I decided that since I'm full out embracing the "Soccer Mom" thing because who are we kidding it's AWESOME that it was time to properly outfit the minivan...aka the green monster as the true Soccer Mobile that it is!

So, naturally I busted out the Silhouette and my vinyl and got to work!

The Silhouette store being one of the awesomest places ever of course already had a soccer ball shape with the words Soccer Mom, which I slightly tweaked to fit my fancy and I ended up with this bad boy.
And because that wasn't enough to fit my crafty mood I went back to the Silhouette store and found myself some awesome stick people decals (which I've been coveting on other people's cars...too cute!) and check us out as a happy, soccer stick figure family!
Ha ha...LOVING IT!

So here's the Green Monster Before:
And here's the Soccer Mobile After:
An improvement I'd say!
Thoughts??
I got these bad boys on the van today just as we were heading out to soccer, so ya you better believe we got to the games in style!

Silhouette Adventures-Easter Basket Fun

Despite the snow, or the rain, or the cold temps, it's SPRING and Easter is fast approaching! I saw this super fun twist on the Easter basket, and decided I'd give it a try. Besides I was just itching for a reason to play with my Silhouette!

So here's what the amazing Kierste over at Brown Paper Packages created, that I LOVED!
However as I mentioned she is amazing, and sadly as I dragged myself from Target to Target (yea like that was a sacrifice) it quickly became apparent that I was not the only one in Love with this idea. I hit a total of 3 Targets only to find that each was sold out of these pails.
Oh no, correction each store had one lonely pail left on the shelf which would have been fine if they weren't all the same color and if that color wasn't Pink.

I was feeling a bit defeated until I decided to stroll down the Easter isle to pick up my Easter candy (and not procrastinate for once), and I stumbled on these little beauties!
How cute are these pails??
I actually think I like these a tad better, though they cost slightly more, besides I found I was really digging the fun designs and lively Spring colors of these pails!

Aslo, they are a little bigger which is good for the Easter gifts I have in mind for this year. I don't load up their baskets, but I do like to think out of the box and pick gifts that are a little different. More educational or hands on for example. I like to go for things that aren't just stuff. They have enough stuff.
(Ha, don't get me wrong I do throw in some goodies here and there).

I let the kiddos pick out their pails, and vinyl color choice just to give it that little extra personalization touch.
With pails in hand, I gathered up all my vinyl and got to work.
I found a cute font and some fun Easter shapes, after about half an hour of work here's my finished Easter Pails!
Of course a butterfly for Bean.

A little Easter Chick for my chick magnet Landon.

An Easter bunny for my little Momma.

And a fun egg for Carson.

In the pics the names are a little harder to read but, all in all I think they turned out pretty cute,and most importantly they did get the kiddo seal of approval.

Now I'm just having a hard time getting them to leave the pails alone until Easter...I think I'm going to have to hide them early...

Here's the before once again...just in case you forgot (because I'm so looong winded)

and here's the after...

So I'm curious, what kinds of Easter gifts does the Easter bunny typically leave at your house??

Silhouette Adventures-Cocoa Mug Revamp

Do you like my Sweet Hot Cocoa Mug?
Here's the story on my Mug Revamp:

I'm taking a brief hiatus from organizing, to do something a little crafty...I need every now and then to stop and just take a minute to create. It's my outlet...my stress reliever

although massages are good too

First I have to say that I LOVE LOVE LOVE Target (are you with me?)

My daughter has dance class on Wednesday's to which parents are not allowed to stay and watch except for the first class of the month (I never knew dance classes were SO strict), which is not good for me since it's in the next town over and thus too far for me to go home and come back. There is however a Target down the street which is the closest target to me, so yea I don't get to go as often as I would like, which is both good and bad. I naturally put two and two together and decided that Wednesday would from here on out be my Target Day!!! I have had to cut it down to every other Wednesday though because I kept buying things instead of just looking, but in my defense, it's hard not to.
Can I just say that I love looking through the dollar bins...sometimes I don't find much, just little toys for the kids, but every now and then I find the coolest things. Like this cocoa travel mug for example.

Not only does it have this awesome pink band around the center to keep your fingers from getting burned, or the mug from slipping right through your hands, but it's otherwise a completely blank canvas for me to create upon! And so I shall!

I thought this would be the perfect project to kick off my Silhouette Adventures.

The Silhouette Machine is a fairly new tool for me, I just got it this Christmas as a gift. I was a Cricket girl, but lost my Cricket when we were robbed this summer, which is a story for another time. The important thing to note is that I am new to the Silhouette, have not had much practice with it and all that it can do, (which is a lot,) and my "adventures" are just that, adventures into figuring out what the Silhouette can do, and how I get it to do them.

I decided the best route here was to use my Silhouette to cut out some super cute vinyl shapes to prettify my mug! The mug is not dishwasher safe, and can only be hand washed so careful washing is the key here.

One of the reasons that I decided to go with the Silhouette rather than get anther Cricket was the ability of the Silhouette to be free of cartridges. The Silhouette has a vast library of images that you can browse and buy (for a dollar or less usually), but you can also use images that you already have on your computer or that you create yourself. With Cricket cartridges at $80 a pop this was a very appealing factor to me. I hit the Silhouette Store and found some pretty sweet images for my mug, and I got to work cutting them out with black vinyl.

I cut out my vinyl, made sure my mug was dust free and ready to go, and got to it. Here's what my newly prettified mug looks like now

I wanted to carry the design all the way to the top of the mug but with all the edges it started becoming a bit difficult, still it's an improvement I would say. I used a tougher vinyl than the normal just because I knew my mug would get wet, so we'll see how it holds up. For the time being though it looks a lot prettier, it makes me happy and all I need now is some delicious gourmet hot cocoa to warm me up while I work. Where is my favorite place to shop for delicious gourmet hot cocoa you ask? Well of course it's the Ticket Kitchen! If you haven't checked out this shop then you should...it's fantastic and I'm not just saying that because she's my boss...it really is fantastic!


Just a thought you could get any travel mug and do this same thing to it and it would make a pretty cool gift for the coffee lover, or hot cocoa addict in your life. Just a thought!

Happy Crafting!