debor026

This week I saw this collage idea over at Ucreate with Kids (Tutorial and idea from bright eyes + blue eyes ). It seemed like a great weekend project for the kids, especially with the rain today. The kids started with their paintings last night after dinner. With and without the brushes. These are the pictures they created for their collages: And Katelyn's finished work: And Erin's: All of the kids made something really beautiful and were so proud to hang it up. For a full tutorial (and a really cute video of the original artist) take a look at bright eyes + blue eyes . For reference, we used 12 x 12 canvases, I think her's is a little bigger. Linking up at:

What was your worst trip EVER? For some reason this story popped into my head today and now, many years later, I can see how it's a little funny. A little. Do you have a trip like that? So bad at the time but later you can start to at least laugh about how bad? I was living in Oregon and we made a trip to see extended family in Boise (about a 9 hour drive). I was pregnant and cranky and really would have rathered be home. My car had a loose belt and squealed something awful (we had tried the soap trick to shut it up but it never worked very well). I had tried to tighten it myself but it's really a 3-man job in that car and the shop wanted $150 just to do that and nothing else. They told me the worst that was going to happen if I left it the way it was is that it would sound bad. And it did. But sounds bad was cheaper so sounds bad it did. On the way to Boise a deer hit my car (no, not the other way around). We had slowed down when we saw a few deer crossing the road a...

I originally saw this phrase in a picture on Beth's blog (love her blog!) but I'm not sure where the original came from. Any ideas? If I google the phrase it gets a ton of hits from everywhere. Anyway, I loved it and during a few quiet moments yesterday (staining) and today (painting) I finished it right up. I was really bummed that the second line came out a little crooked but my very sweet husband pointed out that since it is "we do second chances" it's a little poetic. So, yeah, I oopsed but I kinda like it that way. Total cost for this project? $0 -The wood is scraps left over from building the boys' headboards (I didn't even cut them down for this, these are the size the scraps were already). -The stain is left over from the coffee table I built last year. -The piece screwed into the back to keep it square is scrap from the new dollhouse floors . -Add a little paint from the craft box and a stencil from the Silhouette machine and done.

The severely beaten dollhouse of my childhood is finally safe for my own kids to play with! The rest of the dollhouse story can be found at Part I Part II How to do the stairs One last glimpse of the derelict that she was: A few little painted details add some fun to the house: I had a lot of fun painting the playroom and added the flower to the floor on a whim. A clock (made from a scrap piece of round cardboard we had lying around) adds to the wall and a chandelier hangs in the 2-story room. The railing is gorilla glued in place and hopefully can stand up to the kids. I added a house number of 1972 for the original year it was built. Finally she has been moved from the hiding place in the back of the garage into a new home to be played with in safety. I added this post to:

Last week we started renovating the sad neglected dollhouse of my childhood. You can see the rest of the before pictures in this post but I have a couple refresher pictures here. Cool but kinda gross, yeah? Now all of the holes are filled in, there has been a lot of sanding, a little priming and now the first coats of paint are on. Kinda hard to tape off the inside of a dollhouse from the outside. Isn't that mess of construction paper and painter's tape pretty? The outside has the main paint color on now. I need to paint the patio and the ground and I'm not sure if I want to add something else out here. Mostly this side will be against a wall in my home so it won't be seen much but... Well, I guess we'll see what happens after I get the inside taken care of. So, below is the basic layout of what I'm doing. I added a banister to a half floor in one room and started the paint job details in a couple other rooms. I need to fix the paint in the living room w...

The most amazing things may also be the smallest.

Have you tried saying "Cheese" and it doesn't work? They stare at you grumpily or give you that fake smile that looks like a grimace? Let me share with you a trick I learned from my mother. Tell them to NOT smile. Really. It goes something like this (speak like you are serious but be smiling a little yourself): Non-smiling child "DON'T you smile!" The child looks surprised "I mean it!" Small smile starts "I see that! Wipe that smile off your face RIGHT NOW!!" Big open grins and belly laughs Keep talking as long as you are taking pictures, with variations on the theme. "Don't you dare" does wonders, too. Since daddy has been doing a lot of business in Seattle he needed to demonstrate how far it is from Reno to Seattle.

I have lived in Reno for 8 years-ish. When I first moved here I heard that there was a zoo and I took my kids out there. It was, um, well it was bad. The poor animals looked sad in little dinky squares with not much natural shade, plants etc. The kids didn't like it and we never went back. Not long after that I heard that there is also a wildlife sanctuary here but after my zoo experience I never went out there to have a look around. That was a mistake! We took all of the kids out to Animal Ark on Saturday and it was wonderful. The viewing areas had a nice view of most of the animals and this big boy came right close up to see us. The animals have nice big spaces to move around in, the big ones are rotated often so they aren't out all day and there is a lot of natural shade and interest in their homes. We were there around the time that they were changing the bears around and the kids really enjoyed watching it. They placed fruits all around for Yogi (yes, the bear) to...

I'm not sure where I first saw the rainbow layer cake but I've now seen it on quite a few blogs. Of course I was dying to try it myself because I was sure the girls would flip for it. I didn't want to make a full six layer cake so I made 6 thinner layers (from a doubled cake recipe that would normally make 4 layers) and it worked very nicely. If you do the same just make sure you keep a close eye on them in the oven because thinner cakes won't need to bake as long. And of course since it was rainbow on the inside we made some rainbows on the outside, too. Can you tell in this picture that it is a tiny bit lopsided? Hmm, yeah. I tried to level them but unfortunately it got away from me a bit, hehe. To continue the tradition of 2 dozen balloons on the kids' birthdays I filled K's bedroom and added a little something to her whiteboard, too.