Street-wide Yard Sale

We are having a street-wide Yard Sale THIS Saturday, May 11, from 8 - 2.  You can check out all the details at http://www.yardsalesearch.com/

Derby Horse and Hat

We live in Kentucky, so when the Kentucky Derby rolls around, it's a big deal. It's that time of year and Derby is right around the corner. Last year we babysat the sweet 2 year old that we keep during the week for Derby (her parents went to Derby - how fun!).  So, in the spirit of Derby we made a few projects.  A Derby Horse and a Derby Hat. 

For the horse, I had the girls put their shoes on and stand on a brown piece of construction paper.  I traced around one of their shoes and then had the 4 year old cut hers out and I cut the 2 year old's out. Then we cut out a strip for the neck and two triangles for ears. 

Like the tongue...a sign of a true artist at work, right?  Michael Jordan stuck his tongue out when he dunked the ball, so I take that to mean whatever she sticks her tongue out while doing, she'll do like a pro :)

I had pink yarn (I know, not realistic, but it's "pretty"...and that matters to some little girls), so I wrapped it around our paper towel holder and then cut down the middle to make several at one time little "hairs" for the mane.

After that we glued the ears and neck to the face (foot).  Once the horses were assembled we glued the mane (yarn) to the neck and between the ears.  After that we just glued on eyes and drew nostrils for the nose and our horse was complete. The 2 year old's horse ended up with 4 eyes and some extra colors on it...love the creativity of little ones.

Then we thought we should make a Derby hat to go with our Derby horse. 

For the hat, we cut the middle out of a paper plate (plus a little to get around her head) - this I did with just the 4 year old while the 2 year old napped.  I let her decorate her hat with markers and stickers while I cut different size squares from old magazines.  I chose pages that were brightly colored and in contrasting colors.  Then I had her cut them in flower shapes.  This can be done free hand, or you can fold the squares in half to make a triangle, then in half again into a triangle shape, and then once more - then cut the edge of the triangle and open it up to a flower. Then we glued 3-4 flowers on top of each other largest to smallest to make our finished flower.  These would be cute with a button glued in the center too.

Then we glued the flowers on the hat, punched two holes in the sides and put yarn on it to tie the hat in place.  She saw a picture of the 2 year old's mom with her Derby hat on (which she wore to the side) so she had to wear her hat to the side because "that's how you wear a Derby hat!"

Don't mind the food on her face :)

Let the races begin...

Molly

Valentine's Gift Idea

Last year I saw this on Pinterest and decided I needed to make one for my husband for Valentine's Day.  This is so simple to make.  I bought a picture frame at the Dollar Tree and painted it silver.  Then I printed out the words "I Love You Because..." on grey paper and framed it.  The glass works like a dry erase board, so I just change it up every so often with a dry erase marker.  He LOVES it.  Who doesn't like hearing nice things about their self? 

I've also seen these done with plain scrapbook paper in them and a cute fabric flower or two glued on to make a cute, girly dry erase board for menu planning, scripture of the day, favorite quotes, to do list, etc.  Another idea would be to print a blank calendar and change the month and dates each month.

Wishing you lots of love this Valentine's Day!

Molly

Fabric "Plates"

People have decorated with plates for years, so why not make some fabric "plates" for your walls?  I found this idea on pinterest and thought I'd give it a try for my dining room.  I used some leftover fabric that I had from some shades I made for our kitchen. 

It's so simple.  Just pick up some embroidery hoops at a craft store.  These were about $1.50 each at JoAnn's Fabrics.  Stick your fabric in them and cut around the hoop, tape the extra fabric to the backside and hang up on a nail. Done. Boom!

Pretty sweet aren't they.  I have to get back to the store and buy a few more hoops.  I like them so much that I'm going to add a few to this section and make more for the other side of our dining room mirror. 

Adding a little color to the day!

Molly

Makeover Monday: A Box Turned House



This Monday we decided to makeover a box.  I know houses out of boxes are pretty standard, but I'm pretty happy with the little porch we were able to make for our house.  This was a bathroom vanity box and in it were these nice thick pieces of cardboard with supports in just the right place to make them hold a 90 degree angle very nicely.  We used them to create the roof for the house and porch and then I had saved some of the nice thick rolls that you get when you purchase the fabric that has to be ordered.  

I planned to spend time painting it a pretty pink color with my daughter one afternoon, but before we got to that, she wanted to "decorate" it.  The decoration process turned into a week long, multiple friend project and it was so fun to see all their ideas come to life. I just left the craft supplies out for a week (until they started making their way into other rooms) and let the kids decorate whenever they got the inclination.  8 kids worked on decorating this bad boy and I think it's just fantastic!

We plan to finish the mailbox, number plate, and flower boxes in the near future. 

Getting Crafty!

Molly

Spaghetti and Bean Balls!

As I'm cooking through the Vegetarian Mother's Cookbook I am super impressed with Cathe Olson's knack for creating healthy meals at low cost and I've been surprised by how satisfying and flavorful they are.  Great job Cathe!

In her cookbook, she has a recipe for Bean Balls that can be made as straight bean balls, or she has adaptions for Italian or Swedish style bean balls.  I chose to make them Italian style and serve them up with spaghetti.  They were quick to whip together in the food processor and bake in about 20 minutes while the noodles boil. 

I adapted the recipe slightly because it wasn't turning out the way I thought it should, it could be because I was in a hurry and used a can of beans rather than measuring out precooked beans or it could be that my carrot was too big (it was massive), either way, the mixture seemed too dry and wasn't coming together as I thought it should, so I added an egg as a binder and that worked great. 

Mine flattened out a little on the bottom, but I wasn't going for pretty so it didn't matter to me.  That could have been because I added an egg?

As I simmered and stirred the baked bean balls in the spaghetti sauce some of them fell apart but most stayed whole.  I actually preferred them broken up when eating the spaghetti and will purposely break them up next time to make it more like the ground beef spaghetti I'm used to.

Super delicious and satisfying!

Makeover Mondays: Bi Fold-Shutter Doors Turn Sofa Table

Do you see the Bi-Fold Shutter Door behind the china cabinet?  They were there when we moved in to separate the dining room from the family room.  What you may not notice is that underneath the 70s shades in the family room there is a huge window that, when uncovered, brings in a lot of light and makes the house look so much bigger as you can see out to the back yard when you walk in our front door.  This is one of my favorite features of our house and I certainly didn't want to block it off with bi-fold doors - maybe french doors at some point, but for now I love it just being open. So we had these shutters and I thought surely there is a project we can make with these doors. 

I remembered that Nate Berkus said that if you have the back of a sofa to the part of a room you walk into, you should have a sofa table behind it so that the first thing you see when you enter the room isn't the back of a couch.  Well, not only is my sofa back exposed when you walk in the room, it's the first room when you walk in the front door, so it definitely needed my attention. 

I searched pinterest for projects with shutters and found this fabulous sofa table made out of shutters! Awesome, I'm going to get a sofa table and use the shutters at the same time and spend $0! Love it.  I'm not a woodworker, but my husband and father in law are, so they cut the shutter down to size added a little trim to the bottom and 4 legs added a little paint, and look what we have...

 In the future, I might have a piece of glass cut to sit in the insert where the slats are to make it a completely flat surface, but for now it works great.

Opening Doorways!

Molly