Cub Scout Mother's Day

I am the den leader of some wolf cub scouts. We worked through our whole book. Instead of doing an elective badge, we made mother's day presents.

Sure the boys *made* them, but it took a few hours out of my week to prepare.

Like painting the jars.

Their tags are either coupons for chores or things they like about their moms. I think this boy could have used a few more sticks, I should have taken a picture of a different one.

 I also made these tags. Although the phrase I saw on pinterest.

House

I should post pictures of my house. No crafts being done, but my house is cleaned spotless everyday. It is on the market, and I think it might be borderline high. We get millions of showing but no offer yet. Lots of good reviews but no offer yet.
I've had 15 showings, in less than 3 weeks.
Whew, I'm tired.

General Conference Packets

Posting for my own reference, hopefully I remember this is 6 months.
Years ago I started a tradition of General Conference packets for my kids, they were all the rage you could find multiples to choose from on pinterest. Now its the same packets there were five years ago, rarely does anyone update them. Most of the stuff I don't mind it not being updated, but I do love an updated version of the apostles.
I found one site that consistently updates apostle lists. Mormon Cartoonist
And then the next site took me a while to find.... LDS.org
Duh, when I realized it, I felt stupid, their Conference Notebook is always updated!

Other than that I usually print off personalized things for each kid. Whether it be coloring pages or word puzzles with churchy themes.

As a note, my children never! fill in their conference notebook, notes or pictures from the Apostles talks, but I like the hope if I keep giving them the opportunity they will one day. I like to hope that day is just around the corner for my oldest.
Even if they ignore the note taking section, they do seem to love their personalized coloring book I give them bi-annually.
Their ultimate favorite conference page is coloring in bingo squares. They don't use candy, I'm sure one year I tried to teach them how to play the game with candy but for them they color it and then ask for a piece when they get a bingo. And of course since their little brothers are too young everyone gets a treat for each persons bingo.

Lastly, I didn't do it this time, but next time I want to print off this packet (The Ultimate General Conference packet 2). She makes the MOST FUN packets.

But Grammy and grandpa are visiting us this weekend, and so my kids don't need millions of coloring activities.

St Patrick's Day Easter Wreath

Having Easter in March use to really put a bee in my bonnet for decorating for holidays, but this year I fully embraced it, since I didn't have an Easter wreath I liked so it was a great opportunity. 

Best part of this is, I have far too much fabric stored so the wreath was FREE to make.

I used these two pins as inspiration.
This is by far my favorite Easter pin ever!

Then we decided to put our house on the market, so I had to take my wreath down... :(

Lightening McQueen Book Bag

Well the almost 2 year old was jealous of the the Sunbeam's Book of Mormon book bag. So a few weeks after the first bag, I make him his own Lightening McQueen Book Bag.

 Needless to say, the almost 2 year old is thrilled beyond belief. He likes it with Lightening McQueen on the outside. I didn't have enough Lightening fabric to make handles in red.

 His barely fits a board book. He feels really awesome walking in to church with his own scripture bag, you can see his swagger in the way he walks when he thinks he is a big boy. Its the way he walks in the grocery store when its only him and me and I let him walk.

The unfortunate thing about his swagger is he walks EVEN slower. He is my slowest walker at this age. He can run fast but he walks slow. I was worried about him in nursery without his older brother with him. They are BFFs and for many months he was very unsure about his class, but boy does he love being the big man on campus. He is the second youngest in nursery, but he is positive he is now in charge. He spent 6 months learning the ropes, and now he is ready.

Book Bag

 In the beginning of the month my 3 year old became a Sunbeam at church so I made him a little book bag for his own Book of Mormon.

 Its been super good for his self confidence at church to have his own Book of Mormon especially in Primary. Plus we read out it at night during family scripture study.

I lined it with Cars Fabric. So technically its reversible, but I assumed he would keep the stripes on the outside. I was right, he gets so angry when his older siblings flip the bag inside out. I think its embarrassing for him.

Pillows Pillows Pillows

I'm always making new slip covers for my pillows aren't I? How do you other people handle your boredom? The best pillow is a new slip cover that cost zero dollars.
If I bought all my pillows I think my husband would ban them from my budget.

We redid our living room floors, and so I needed new pillows.

 I went with traditional pillow covers this time, mostly because they were the texture I wanted and the colors. I don't love the floral but the colors were right!
(You know how magazines and pinterest have their couches filled with pillows, well they do look great that way, but they annoy my husband to the high heavens, for a while I didn't care, then I decided it was his house too.)
My pillows actually weren't free I spent $5 on WAY too much floral fabric for a different craft I never did. Then I spent $1.50 on trim to make my home pillow. At first I wanted to make a "be nice" because I tell my children that all day long, before they go to school, while they are at home with their family, etc etc, but be nice was too many characters.

 I also added a deer to the front of my polka dot pillow. I guess I should have a close up of it... My brain is out to lunch. It never came home from vacation in Spain.

I was hesitant about the deer, because I didn't want it to be christmasy, but I don't think it is, its rustic, and with as much oak as my house has that I'm not replacing, I feel like my house is rustic, since we live so close to the mountains.
(Best part of that picture, I'm always keeping it real, ideally I would have hidden my broken laundry basket full of fleece blankets. Didn't even realize.)

Tandem Bike Printable

This picture is on all my other blogs today too. But I did make it so I figured I'd been fair and add it here too.

First off, I know senior LDS missionary couples do not ride tandem bikes. But I thought it was a cute idea. Based off all those other LDS printables for primary kids.
I found the bike from graphic fairy and the background came from one of my favorite flickr pages.

High Altitude Play-Dough in the Bosch

I had strep throat last week, which was awesome, because my daughter's birthday party that included 10 kids was on Saturday and I spent the previous two weeks out of town. So come Friday I still had not planned anything to do at the party at our house. I decided play dough! I thought about buying it, because I always buy it. As far as I can remember I have never made play dough. Although I do know I played with homemade play dough. So I googled it.

Play-Dough in the Bosch.
Thankfully a few people had tips.

Also thankfully I have basic knowledge of cookie dough at 7,000 feet, or my play dough would have been a disaster.
I halfed the recipe because I made 6 different colors.

I poured my dry ingredients in the Bosch and mixed.

• 3 to 4 cups flour
• 1 1/2-2 tablespoons cream of tartar (I eyeballed it)
• 1/2 cup salt

Then I added my wet ingredients and let the Bosch mix for a few minutes

• 1 tablespoon+ canola oil
• 1 1/4 cups hot water 
• Food coloring

The recipe I found said to use the dough hook, next time I think I'll try my cookie paddles. It seems like the paddles would have helped the dye mix.

It was surprisingly easy. I'm not sure why I thought it was surprising that it was easy, because everyone always buys it. My almost 7 year old and 9 and half year old then hand kneaded the dough for over an hour until it was time for dinner.

I think this might be my new snow day activity. Perfect for kids with sensory needs after their snow gear is wet.

I also thought if I'm ever the room mom to older elementary schoolers that we might make handmade play dough for a class party, I think those older kids would love getting their hands kneading. 

Can't go a year without making stockings

I apparently can't make it through the year without making stockings. I didn't want to repeat my Christmas wreath from last year. Plus I just really wanted a gray polka dot and red stocking. (I think my door looks funny with an evergreen wreath since there is only dead vegetation near my front porch.)

I love these skinny stockings. I wish this picture wasn't crooked. 

More Stocking Boards

So last December I never got all my crafts posted. I wanted to, but.... Then by the time I got around to it in February I thought no one really wants to see Christmas, so I posted them for a year in the future.

I already posted these boards, a year and half ago. 

My sister added the holy to this board, and I have to say I love it.

My sister in law made these stockings not me.

Brown Paper Packages Tied up with String

Last year for my husband's family gift exchange we had my sister in law. I personally have no interest in asking someone what they want for christmas. Some years we do ask people what they want and some years they get stuck with my fancy. I also don't have an interest in giving gift cards. So last year I was left to my own devises. I sent my sister in law a whole lot of brown paper packages tied up with string. Almost all were silly, except for the dvd which is one of my favorite movies. I sent things like graham crackers because it was the only table food my baby could eat and so he LOVED them. And things like a frozen t-shirt in honor of my daughter. My favorite was "money in my pocket" since my husband never wants us to buy him a present.

Pottery Barn Not Quite Knock Off

Turns out I never posted my wreath from last year. Postpartum depression is a ------. One day I actually hope to knock off the original. But this wasn't the year.

So here is the post I never posted.

I was sick of my holiday wreath last December. I decided to make something more rustic to go with my drought-ridden dry winter climate. 

My inspiration was this picture from a Pottery Barn catalog. I absolutely love those wreaths. But didn't want to buy new holiday bobbles, I only had one size so I had to improvise.

Pumpkin Bundt Cake

The other day I hosted book group. So I made a bundt cake. It was so soothing. I rarely make bundt cakes, and I'm not sure I've ever made one with frosting. Every other year or so I make pound cake in a bundt cake pan for strawberry shortcake (clearly cake shortcake not biscuit shortcake). 

Back to this cake. I thought it looked delightfully imperfect. It was from a box cake favored for pumpkin. It was actually pretty terrible, I would have much rather eaten spice cake then this pumpkin cake. But the cream cheese frosting was pretty yummy.

I had to add this printable because everyone is always on diets so no one ever eats sweets anymore. If you know me you know I love cake. Actually everyone who attended did have a slice.

P.S. If one more person asks me if I went to book group last month I might scream! I hosted it. So yes I went, and yes I know you didn't show up. The three of us had fun without you. I'm trying not to be offended but when the third person asks the same question, my thick skin is feeling a little like my son's eczema. (Rubbed the wrong way.)

Homemade Birthday Cards

If you are making Christmas presents, you better get started before December. Last year I made my sweet 91 year old grandma birthday cards. 50 to be exact! She sends birthday cards to all her children, spouses, grandchildren, spouses and great grandchildren. I should have added extras since 50 won't even make it through the year...

I think the cards turned out adorable, if I do say so myself. I used a bunch of printables from pinterest, and I won't even try to remember all the sites I printed them off. There were many repeating elements, but they are all at least slightly different the the last. Since they would be sent out to the same families, I didn't want to make 50 of the same card.