Lego Box of Awesome

I honestly think I could hear my mom's heart breaking, despite the two time zones and 2,500 miles that separate us.

She was on the phone discussing upcoming Christmas gifts with our 9 year old and I only had to hear her answer, to know the question ..

"No, Gramma. I don't even like princesses OR Disney Princesses.  I like cars and guns and legos and robots and helicopters ...."

That answer, in and of itself, pretty much sums up our girls and our lives.

They're as happy as can be - living life as little, redneck tomboys.
It's nice, because I actually prefer them to be rough n' tumble versus frilly n' froofy.

Fast forward to Valentine's day .. 

our fourth grader had a fabulous idea for this year's Valentine's box.
She wanted to connect a few boxes to create a huge, three-part Tyrannosaurus Rex; complete with giant head, tiny arms and a tail.. :)

Cute.

ambitious and elaborate, but still cute.
I really did love her idea, but I knew it wouldn't be within the classroom guidelines.  So, I decided to innocently peruse pinterest for another idea that maybe, just by chance she'd like.

Within a minute or four, I'd stumbled upon the original lego box of awesome.  (ok, that might not be the actual title of the original post that inspired us.  sue me.)

I showed her the idea and she got so excited about making this, instead - that I actually thought maybe she had forgotten about the T-rex. 

until ..

"One day, mom, when I'm a grown-up and don't have a teacher to tell me how big my Valentine's box is; I'm going to build a HUGE T-Rex and you'll have to stick your hand in his mouth to give me my Valentine's card."

she smiled and laughed as she walked away to gather materials.

I didn't have a chance or the heart to tell her we don't build Valentine's boxes, as adults.

Then, I figured she already has to grow up too fast in this world.
So,  I'll save that, for another time. ;)

I also found it ironic she should mention robots in her answer to my mom;
considering her last years' Valentine's box .. lol - my kids RULE! <3 :)

supplies for our Valentine's Lego box of Awesome
a box, box-cutter, spray paint and six 'dixie cups'

I commissioned the local, hot handy man to cut holes into the box - about the same width as the middle of the cup. 

we also placed some tape onto the box, holding the cup up from underneath .. just in case.

we taped the top of the box shut, sprayed on a couple coats of paint

voila !

don't forget to be awesome ..

I'm most definitely classified as a fan of awesome.
I guess anyone prefers awesome to mediocre, so that ^^ is a redundant statement.
I can also admit that maybe ... just maybe I use the A word a little too much.
It's o.k. if you're judging me as you read this ...
I'm awesome enough to forgive your judgmental ways ;)

some of my favorite awesome things ..

my awesome family & friends
awesome books I refuse to can't put down.
awesome food from my awesome husband
awesome weather with more sunshine than pollen
awesome 27 lb. kitty foot warmers
awesome squirrels worth stalking from my kitchen window
awesome orbee eating ladybugs
                          and
awesome lego girls on awesome cork boats ... ?

Ok. I'll admit the last four sound a little weird when I read them back. 
LoL, but in my opinion - they're made of awesome and I brought pictures as proof!

This is our cross-eyed ''little'' kitty
despite being the youngest - he's the biggest kitty we own
I would hope he's the biggest, considering he is 27 pounds

he's been deemed 'the world's best foot warmer'

---

After her feet were sufficiently toasty she wanted to make mini cork sailboats.
[ corks, hot glue, foam craft sheets (for sail), & skewers ]
I didn't drink all that wine, I promise we ordered the corks from Etsy ;)

 Nobody is ever going to be able to convince me that this little lego lady
and her awesome one-piece swimming suit weren't made for this corkboat :)

---

For Christmas, she got a remote control ladybug that eats orbeez
Nugget is NOT a fan.
LoL he kept very slowly 'chasing' it down the hall

---

this is my new buddy - 'squirrel'
he comes to 'say hi' after I feed the finches

he stands off 'in the distance' .. staring .. waiting for me to go inside
only then will he come down his 'hill' to feast on seeds / nuts

---

So, in honor of the 'word of the day' - I made an awesome print. ;)
(in case I have to hold your hand and draw a picture for you - the word is awesome.)

 click here for the full-size Printable version of "Don't forget to be AWESOME."

I put it into a frame on our fire place and I just LOVE IT :)

So, don't forget to be awesome AND even more importantly, I think - don't forget to recognize the awesome that surrounds you.  It's everywhere !! :)

don't eat the multi-colored snow ...

Actually, you could totally eat the colored snow in our yard; but I wouldn't suggest it. 

I know the last post I made about the snow was kinda sorta whining about it; but we did have some fun with the white stuff.

There's always the obvious snow play : sledding, snowball fights and snow angels.

Today, we added snow paintin' to the mix .. water bottles with water + food coloring.

 You just know there's hours and hours of fun and/or mischief to be had. ;)

I even got to write my name in the snow ...
why should the boys get to have all the fun ?!?! LOL

 

I don't know what compelled me - but I made this printable.

the picture is from one of our camping trips this year

we all need to remember there IS good as well as BE the good

click here for the downloadable FULL SIZE image

valentine's robot of love

I'm so relieved to see that my anxiety and picky eating habits aren't the only traits of mine the girls have picked up .. they're our crafty little monkeys and it makes me smile.

I was hoping to search through Pinterest for Valentine's box ideas with the third grader; but she made it clear early on that she had her own idea and there was no changing her mind.  Clearly, she also inherited my stubborn and independent ways.

she painted the body / arms / legs  'aluminum' 

her dad cut slits into the side and she attached the cardboard 'arms'
they had the ability to move up & down as well as back and forth -

"so he can go 'beep boop beep.'" = she explains

of course .. there was a moment she tried to run from my camera ...

but she knows .. resistance is futile!!
smile, my crafty little robot! :) 

I know it's late .. but nobody ever accused me of being punctual  ..  

I hope everyone had a happy Valentine's:) 

our marbled Christmas ornaments

The nail polish marbling technique turned out amazing, I adore all that is Christmas (except the music), and I'm addicted to craftin'; this was a no-brainer.

During Christmas I can't find time to tie my shoes or paint my nails; let alone keep up with journaling every day.  In other words - we did these 6 weeks ago and I never got around to posting it. :)

Also, I didn't take pictures of the process .. so we'll be using our imaginations, today & this tutorial.


Instead of the shot glasses used to marble my finger nails; we used salad bowls to dip our ornaments into the room temperature water.

if I do say so myself .. they look marbleous. ;) hehe

she dipped the bottom, then the top - so the marble went all the way around.

we used red and white polish, to emulate a candy cane

the gift .. that almost wasn't

I won't even pretend that I don't use any 'gifting' situation as an excuse to craft.
new house ? crafty gift.
new baby ? crafty gift.
of course holidays, birthdays, etc .. crafty gifts.
I think you get it ...

A co-worker/friend was having the birthday party for her soon-to-be 3 year old. She invited my girls and I to come join in the fun.

Let me just say that this toddler is the cutest little girl with the roundest of cheeks and an absolutely intoxicating giggle. Who could say no to a party in honor of her special day?

I knew that I wanted to make 'word art' like this or this or this .. but with her name to personalize it. I decided I would use one of the canvases that I had leftover from shmelty crayola fun.

I'll try not to dwell on the first part of this project, too long -since obviously from the title; it was a complete fail.

I adhered some sticker vinyl letters onto the white canvas, spelling her daughter's name across it. Then, I taped off some clean lines with painters tape & painted with acrylic paint.

I couldn't paint the canvas all at once, due to tape covering parts of a few sections. So, I let the first few sections dry thoroughly - then peeled it off.

I'm glad I didn't get past the first part ... because if I invested a ton of time in completing the project; then it went bad .... I hate sure don't like that ! lol

I'm not sure if it was the texture of the canvas or the paint .. or what - but the lines that were revealed under the tape > were anything but the clean, defined lines I was looking for..
*frown face*






Then, as if the splotchy edges weren't enough; when I pulled the painters tape up off the silver section ... total disaster. I literally LoL'd .. like a crazy woman. lol

It was time to go to bed, only to return 'tomorrow' .. right back at the drawing board.

But, before I bent this canvas in half and started it on fire ... I decided to cover it with black paint - to reuse another day. *high fives self for not being destruct-o*

letters of love .. and yarn

I won't lie - since the holidays are over I'm seriously craving projects. For the last 2 months, there's been an endless array of keepsakes, decorations, & baked deliciousness to occupy my stubby little hands.

Lately after work, I've found myself more than once searching through my pinboards for projects.

Let me just mention one of the few flaws of Pinterest .. addiction ! lol

You start to pin EvEryThinG you see & your 'I want to do this' list suddenly becomes massive. Before you know it you have 500 1000 2500 4025 pins .. :/

then ... all the crafty things start to look alike - aahhhhh !!

So with that in mind, I created my new 'bored' board for stuff I can ''''easily'''' create with stuff around the house and if I am lucky enough to have some free time.
the """"quotations"""" imply that I am using those annoying finger quotes - just fyi ;)

I looked through bunches tons waaayyy too many pins and found this. I figured it looked fun/simple/cheap, so I decided to give it a go.

I have tons of yarn and more cardboard from Christmas than I know what to do with - thanks to another 'flaw' of pinterest. Not wanting to throw AnYtHInG away .. just in case.

ok .. enough rantin' and ravin' - onto the craft !

I just know my husband has to be tired of hearing me say "... it looked so simple."

This particular craft wasn't hard - it was just a lot more time consuming than it appeared. I wish I could say this was the first time such a misconception was born ...

Not only am I an audacious 'I can get that done in no time' crafter .. I'm an 'I don't need instructions for that - let's just do it!' crafter ... >_<

I have a vast knowledge of the craft that I gathered from the 4 seconds of looking at the picture; I figured it was 5 pretty simple steps.

• print out large letter
• trace onto cardboard
• cut out of cardboard
• wrap in yarn
• glue gun on the backside for stability

easy peasy ...

The girls had friends over for the night, so it was a perfect time for me to get to crafting. With my high tech accoutrement lined out before me - I was ready to go :)

I decided the easiest way to 'trace' the letter onto the cardboard, would be to create the polar opposite of a stencil.

I cut the letters out
applied 2way tape to the back
then, adhered the letter to the cardboard

This next step could have been done with pencils or crayons, just as easily .. but this seemed fast and more accurate. I also feared if I tried to 'color over' the letter cutout, I would bend and fold the paper - thus leading to a funky letter.

No.. my ocd won't let me do such things.

So .. I spray painted it I enlisted the help of my wonderful husband to paint them :)

It was a ridiculous 17 degrees outside .. he's such a gentleman!!

After he, so graciously, spray painted over the letters for me -I peeled the paper off the cardboard & revealed a perfect outline of the letters. *beaming proud face*

personalized dry erase message boards

Our local thrift stores stock in lack of picture frames can 100% be blamed on Pinterest.

I had recently stock piled almost 2 dozen different size frames.
But, since creating the picture wall, making Christmas gifts and this latest project - I am down to one.
ONE picture frame !!!
ahhhh !!
*breathes*

I'll get to the thrift store, tomorrow
... onto the craft !

I had seen 'i love you because' versions of this over & over & over ...

but this is what I did with mine ..
I found a scrapbook paper and a font that matched each girls style.
printed "_______ is awesome because ....."
cut & fit paper into frame
hung on wall with dry erase marker & wait for shenanigans ! :)

love for teacher

 

Third grade has, so far, been a year of change. Since kindergarten our daughter has consistently shared a classroom with her 'very besties.' Much to her disappointment, she was not placed with her close inner circle when it came time to assign classrooms this year. In fact - she got placed with a, shall I say, less-than-compassionate teacher.

Long story short - an anonymous donor afforded our small school enough money for 1 extra 3rd grade teacher. When it came time to reassign 5 kids from each class .. we made it clear we would love (with a capital L) for her to be able to change. we did a happy dance when she did :)

She's had nothing but straight A's and nice things to say about her teacher .. I'm so glad. I remember third grade being such a 'transition' for our oldest. Cursive and multiplication and all that .. *phew*

Anyway .. /end rambling :)) She was very excited to make her teacher a gift for the upcoming holiday.

of course .. finding myself pinspired - "we" chose to make her our own style of one of these types of 'picture frame jewelry displays.'

I thought it would be as simple as discard the glass - cut & glue together a piece of cardboard - glue on a layer of cork board - cover with fabric - then attach screws in hooks, ribbons, embellishments.. etc. done. hehehe .. no.

First .. it didn't really need the cork. It needs wood in order to really secure the hooks for necklaces.

Second .. it didn't fit the 'hanging back' after I glued all the pieces in. (it worked this time, though - because she got to sign a little Merry Christmas on the back, with her name/school year, etc. ... the teach can figure out how to hang it :P )

Third .. there was going to be NO hand-screwing of hooks into the frame. There was just too much pressed wood .. :/ ouch.

Fourth .. trying to eyeball a straight line, while screwing into cork .. isn't a good idea.

Despite the hurdles .. we managed to get 'er done.

When/if I do this again, I'll be going with separate frames for each type of jewelry. It would be a cool feature on a wall to line up three 5x7 matching background frames - one for long stem earrings, one for backed earrings, and one with nothing but big hooks for necklaces. :) I smell another prrrooojeecctt ! :P But for now .. here's the one I've been rambling about.

• we removed/ discarded the glass
  
• cut out an identical piece of cardboard as well as cork to fit the frame
• hot glued fabric to cover the front
• hot glued the hanging ribbon, to the back
• hot glued the entire piece into the frame
• screwed a (not so straight) line of hooks along bottom
• screwed in hooks with wire attached between, up top
• high five the kid .... then mentally scrutinize all the things I'd do better, next time
• done ! :P

shmelty melty crayola fun

One of the very first things that made me screech with excitement while Pinteresting; was all the melted crayon art. When I called over and showed my tiny humans the examples .. there was a squeal of equal or greater excitement. :)

An attractive feature of this craft was the simplicity. Don't get me wrong - I'm down for a challenge; but I'm one who also enjoys the easy peasy stuff from time to time, too.

If you skim through this video it'll be simple.

cool picture of the night award goes to ^__^

The first thing we did was paint our canvases with dark acrylic. White just seemed like such a boring background for the fun color project. The little one and I went with black - while the hubby chose a dark purple.

After we let it dry, we figured out the arrangement we wanted our crayons to be, on the canvas. LoL 'let it dry' sounds so patient ... we totally used my hair dryer. ;)

the pine cones are coming! the pine cones are coming!

No matter which way you walk up - you cannot miss the 40 foot white pine that towers over our home. Outside of the annoying roof scraping in a windstorm & loudly dropping pine cones; it's kinda pretty.

I've forever been fond of pine cones and their little 'bug apartment layers.' (that's what I thought when I was 6..) They're neat, complex little bits of proof that nature is pretty damned majestic.

When it's time to clean up ... the pine cones are annoying.
When it's time to craft .. the pine cones are made of awesome sauce. :)

In line with my simple/budget friendly Christmas theme - I decided to make use of the little buggers. Despite the 30 degree weather - we slapped on coats, gloves & hats to brave the cold and gather our 'supplies.' ( By "we" .. I mean everyone minus the teenager. She was on a really good chapter and couldn't be bothered. *insert semi-eye roll here* )

After we grabbed what I thought to be sufficient pine cones; we laid down newspaper on the back deck & spread the cones out to be 'Christmasified!'

"Let's paint!"

we'd like to buy a vowel ..

It's Thanksgiving and we're at Wal-mart ... the only place open in town. *insert terrified face, here.*

I'd already managed to elbow my way through tons of rowdy teens and pushy seniors. Ignored the yowling babies and acted like people weren't already lining up for midnight sales .. but they were.

Each person who disregarded my children, as they pushed rudely by them to save a few dollars; was met with a loud "EXCUUUUSE US!" and an appropriate crusty look.

My brain was already frazzled with the stress and all the other details that are involved with any trip to 'the city.' It's our 5th trip to the evil department store empire in 36 hours.

By the time we got to the crafty section; I'd have paid to be anywhere but under the blue-glow fluorescent lights of that God forsaken place.

In a split second decision, I grabbed our initials and got the Hell out of dodge.

we each designed and decorated our own letter, of course.

So .. even though this wasn't the initial idea I had (har har) ... I really like 'em. :))

our 'thankful wreath' craft

The first name I could think of for this craft was 'a wreath of that which we are thankful.' lol, even just typing that out, it's a LOT to say. So, I shortened it to 'the thankful wreath.'

I found this cute project a day after the death of my one and only crafty thanksgiving decor. It looked simple enough and like tons of fun .. it did NOT miss it's mark.

I saw a few different tips online for how to make the 'skeleton' to the wreath, if you will; from a wire hanger. While it didn't seem all too complicated .. I kinda cheated. I went to our favorite local thrift store and found a homemade wreath, there. I carefully removed the pieces of jolly decor and stashed them away in my 'use these crafty bits for later' box.

I tightly wrapped twine around the wire and hot glued it every so often .. very scientific. :)

I wrapped the twine for 2 reasons; I wanted it to cover the ugly hanger plus I liked the brown as part of the Autumnal theme. In the end, I discovered it was a crooked circle ... but I find it charmingly imperfect. :)

As I was wrapping the twine, the family mixed up a plethora of 'fall-ish' paint colors for the clothes pins.