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!

Spring Break Fun-Friendship Bracelets

Here's our Friendship Bracelets!!! But back to those in a moment, first...

I'm kind of finding it hard to talk about spring break and Easter when we are in the midst of a snow storm-yep you sure did read that one right, I said SNOWSTORM!

Ahhhh...good old Utah...you never know how late into the year it will snow. It actually snowed the day that we brought my oldest home from the Hospital...he was born in June.

Not to mention that I seem to have picked up a cold...not fun.

(I liked the Springiness of this box of Kleenex...made me smile)

Despite these hurdles, I am resolved that almost nothing will derail my BIG plans and I'm managing to forge ahead with most of my Spring Break goals! (go me!)

Wednesday I did manage to start that new project, and man is it giving me trouble! If I can figure it out though it will be well worth it! I've got my fingers crossed that I can get my head clear enough to tackle this bad boy! I can't reveal what it is (mostly in case I fail...) but I will say it's a hookie project. I did manage to finish up a few other projects however and I'll reveal those in post to come in a little bit.

Thursday a little postponed, but the kids and I did tackle a fun craft project, that I'll share in a bit, I worked on that big project of mine until my medicine head almost exploded... I finally had to just give up and sleep.

Today has been mostly dedicated to family day (hubby's day off), and thinking of Easter craft plans for tomorrow, and mostly working on the living room organization (update to come in a bit).

Thursday, I drug myself off the couch long enough to have some crafty fun with my little monkeys! I decided even if it wasn't Spring outside, I wanted to do a Springy/Summer craft project. I thought of warm sunny days, thought of outside fun, all of which some how in my twisted mind came back around to Friendship Bracelets! Of course! Such an obvious choice!

So here are my little monkeys hovering around the counter, we gathered up all the necessary friendship bracelet making supplies; yarn, string, scissors, needle, beads, a crochet hook (2.25), and happy smiling faces, and got to work.

I decided to do a name bracelet and then a few yarn bracelets. We started out with the name bracelets. I had on hand a package of letter beads from the craft store,
I had them each go through and pick out the letters to spell out their names, and a few heart beads.

I decided that since I'm not really into tying and untying these bracelets on three little arms over and over, that I'd construct them to be kid friendly and easily fastened and removed. To do this I fastened a pony bead to one end and left a loop on the opposite end to fit snugly over the pony bead.

Here's the process:
First, measure the wrist you'll be working with, just so you know how long you need the finished product to be. For my little ones (5,4,and 3) the magic number was 5 inches.
After which you'll want to cut a piece of string, I used crochet thread (#3 in black) for this project. You don't want to cut it too short or it will be too hard to work with. To make it easier for myself I cut it at 18 inches. Now you get out your trusty (2.25) crochet hook, pull up a loop on your string, leave the loop, but pull out your hook,
grab a pony bead, thread it over your loop like so...
Now insert your hook back into the loop between the loop and the pony bead, and continue on to make a chain.

Now this part is really up to you, you'll want to adjust the chain longer or shorter depending on the length on the name you are spelling and how many beads you are using and how long a bracelet you need. For this example, C.A.R.S.O.N and a heart bead, and a 5 in bracelet I chained 5.
After you get your chain where you want it, end the chain like you normally would, but don't cut the string. Switch gears for a second and change your crochet hook for a sewing needle. Thread your hook and this is how you'll string your beads onto the bracelet.
Next you want to pick back up your crochet hook and repeat the process, pull up a loop as close to the beads as possible, and again you'll chain 5 (or the same number you did at the beginning)

When you get to the end and you go to finish it off, you'll want to create a loop and tie off rather than knotting your end.
Keep the loop big enough to fit over the pony bead but small enough to fit on snug so that your bracelet doesn't come unfastened on its own. Make sure your knot holding your loop is tight (square knot works great) and cut the tail as close to the knot as you can
and...
TA DAA!!
and here is a picture of the yarn bracelets we did.
I had them each pick out two colors that they wanted to use (otherwise it'd have been a 20 color creation I'm sure) They are more toward the traditional friendship bracelet, but with a little twist. I would have opted for using crochet thread for these as well and they'd have more of a finished, daintier bracelet but I didn't have any "cool" colors on hand I was told, so we went with yarn, of which I had any color their little hearts desired (of course). They turned out okay, I did two different versions (patterns available here), but I'm still thinking that I'll redo them in crochet thread one of these days.

Here's one last picture of our Friendship Bracelet Creating Fun!

Have a blast creating some of your very own, and feel free to send me pictures of your finished bracelets, I'd love to see them!!

Happy Crafting!

Organization Station-(Phase 1)-Living Room-Clipboard Redo

Fancy Clipboards huh?? Do you like them? Do you want to make some of your own?

Then today is your lucky day because I will show you how!
Yay!!
(I'll give you a moment to catch your breath)...

These ultra fancy clipboards (Dollar Store Special) are playing a small role in Phase I of my "Orgnization Station: Living Room/Office Revamp for my Sanity!" (I'm thinking that's finally the name I've landed on for this Adventure) If you've been following me on my Organizational Adventures then you know what I'm talking about...if not then go here to catch up on all the happenings and be in the "know."

So, if you remember I have dreams...BIG dreams of my office space someday revolving around this beauty.

The hubs has agreed to build it for me, (It's in writing now and out there in the blog world so he's locked in...that was no accident on my part). The hubs works weird and crazy hours and doesn't always have a lot of "spare time," so I have yet to lock in a date for when I'll be seeing this bad boy!

In the meantime, I had to come up with some kind of system to get myself better organized. So here is my current system...
Yes, that is a wall of clipboards...to be fair it's not an entire wall...just a piece of the wall. They are keeping me more organized though. I have one for the store, another for the blog, one of course is dedicated to my work over at Giverslog, and the last one is for my current orders that I'm working on. They work fine, but they are boring to look at, and I spend a lot of time looking at them, so I decided to make them a little more happy!

I got these clipboards at the Dollar Store, for a surprising price of a dollar (awesome price huh?),

after I stripped them of their paperwork I gathered up all my supplies for this project.

Some super cute scrapbook paper (12x12)

Mod Podge, a pencil and a spongy paint brush and I got to work.

You'll want to start off by cutting down your paper to just a little bit bigger than the clipboard.
After that, I put the paper on top of the clipboard and traced out where the clippy part of the board is like so
I cut that part out, so that my paper would slide right around it and have a snugger fit.

Now it's time to Mod Podge!
For this part I am generous with the Mod Podge, cover the clipboard pretty good and thick.
Slide your paper in place and you want to make sure it sticks really good! I use a scraper tool to do this. I actually use the one that came with my Silhouette, but if you don't have anything a credit card works just fine. You want to add firm pressure, but be careful not to rip the paper. I start from the middle and work my way to the edges (helps reduce bubbles). I go over it a few times, make sure to get a good firm seal on the edges. Fair warning this part does get a little messy so have a towel close by.
If your edges are longer you can Mod Podge the back side, glue them down and seal the edges like we did the front side like I did here.
And Voila!
You've got yourself a fancy little clipboard of your own!

At this point it's really a matter of preference whether you want to Mod Podge over the top or not. Some people don't like the way it looks, some do. If you do, it will give it a sheen finish, but you may see the streaks, and there is a possibility bubbling will become an issue especially if you are new to working with Mod Podge. I for this project decided that I wanted a more sheen look so I did go over the top.
When I go over the top I use just a little Mod Podge, I find this way I reduce the bubbling factor. It's kind of a trial and error process to figure out what works best for you.
After you cover the top set it aside to let it dry...it actually dries pretty fast a couple of hours and mine were good to go.
Here they are all finished up and fancy!
Here they are back in their rightful spot on the clipboard wall.
I know that my papers cover them up pretty good, but every now and then when I'm working I catch a little glimpse and they make me smile!

So go give them a try and happy crafting!!