Blackberry Jam

Today I picked blackberries and made freezer jam. I was able to get six pints and one quart of jam with enough berries left over to make blackberry cobbler and still have some berries left for breakfast tomorrow. And that doesn't even include all the berries my daughter and I ate while making the jam. Definitely a good day. I'll be enjoying blackberry jam all winter!

My Stain Fighting Secret Weapon

After spending what felt like an eternity doing laundry yesterday, I have to post about my all-time favorite household product. OxiClean is simply the most miraculous product I've ever used. I do not say miracle lightly, either. With a stain-making champion three-year-old daughter, I've had a lot of nasty stains to get rid of and OxiClean has not let me down. Ketchup, chili, baby poo, year old mystery stains...they are no match for Oxiclean.

There is a trick, though. To get the best results, you must soak the stained item in a tub full of the hottest possible water mixed with a scoop of Oxiclean overnight or for several hours.

Just a little story to prove how awesome Oxiclean is. I bought a pair of khaki pants for my little guy at a yard sale. They cost me ten cents because they had a large rust-colored stain on the front. I washed them and the stain didn't even budge. I used Spray & Wash and still the stain remained. It did take three tries and a lot of scrubbing with a toothbrush, but after soaking them in hot Oxiclean water, they are perfectly clean and stain free!!! Wahoo! And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I love Oxiclean.

Muffin Tin Meals

A week or two ago, Today's Creative Blog did a feature on this blog: http://sycamorestirrings.blogspot.com/. She had the cutest idea to make lunchtime fun...muffin tin meals!!! So I decided to try it today with my three year old. This is a picture of my first try at it...hot dog, bread squares, cheese, frozen peas, sliced pickles, mini Ritz crackers, chocolate chips, and ketchup and BBQ sauce for dipping. It sounds like such a simple little thing, but my daughter absolutely loved it. I surprised her with it and when she saw it, she said, "Oh, YUMMY!" She ate everything. She even announced when she finished a whole cup off and counted how many empty ones she had each time a new one was finished. Wow. A few minutes extra work for me with such a big payoff. We will definitely be doing more muffin tin meals in the future!

Bathroom Mini-Makeover

I've been sick of my bathroom for a long time. My husband is a student and we have been renting for the last five years. We've had the same bathroom stuff for five years too. I'd love to just go out and buy a new shower curtain, matching towels, rug, and accessories, but we're poor college students...I can't justify buying new stuff when the old stuff is still in good shape. So what's a girl to do? Add some accessories!!!

Just a few little projects and I like my bathroom again! Here are the "after" photos.

Project 1: I found a board I had lying around, painted it navy blue, then hand-painted the words (because I can't afford to buy the pre-cut vinyl words). It's not as hard as you would think. I printed the words off my computer onto regular paper. Then I layed the paper over the board and using a ballpoint pen, traced over the outline of the letters. By pushing really hard, the pen left a faint outline on the board. I just filled it in with white paint.

Project 2: These picture frames are from the dollar store. I painted them white and filled each square with scrapbooking goodies from my stash. It's nothing fancy, but it really helps to pull the two colors together and it makes me happy, so that's really all that matters.

Project 3: Wooden Box. This box was kind of plain before. With a little bit of scrapbooking paper, some Mod Podge, a couple buttons, and it has a new look. And it matches the paper I used in the frames.

This isn't a dramatic transformation by any means, but now my bathroom is a much happier place for me to be. And the best part? Because I used what I already had, I spent a grand total of $3 (for the three dollar store frames). Not bad!

Scripture Puppets

Here's a fun little project I made about a year ago. We use these scripture puppets to help my daughter learn the stories from the Bible and Book of Mormon. I made the basic characters--a king, a prophet, an angel, etc. and we use them over and over. Sometimes I even make "props" to go along with specific stories---cardboard trees, cotton ball sheep, etc. She LOVES them and gets so excited to act out the stories.

They were really simple to make: I just traced the basic shape onto two pieces of craft felt and sewed them together along the outside edges. (Make sure they are big enough that dad can fit his hands in the holes too.) Then I used skin-colored felt to make the heads and decorated them with little embellishments I had lying around. The puppets have googley eyes, but just a warning---all kids I've ever met like to pick googley eyes off of things. GRR!! I'd never add googley eyes to anything I make ever again if I didn't think they were so stinkin' cute!

Anyway, the sky is the limit with this project. You could make all sorts of characters from the scriptures, or you could go a different direction and make animal puppets, storybook characters, puppets that look like each member of your family...so many fun options!

Magnetic Paint

I've had a lot of people ask me questions about the paint I used to make my magnetic quiet book. So I thought I'd post a picture of the can so everyone knows what it is and what it looks like. I found it at Michael's in the paint section. At mine, it was hidden on the bottom shelf. I actually had to ask a sales associate if they carried magnetic paint. She happily pointed me right to it.

The paint itself is dark grey and really thick. It needs to be stirred about every sixty seconds to keep the lead from separating. I used a foam brush to apply the paint to the backs of any pages where I wanted things to stick. It was tricky to keep the pages from wrinkling, but laminating helped smooth any lumpy parts out.

Hopefully that takes the mystery out of this mystery paint!

Matching Skirts for a Wedding

In one week my brother-in-law is getting married. Everyone has been busy with wedding preparations. The bride chose black and white as her wedding colors, so we purchased this polka dot fabric for a project, then decided to go with something else. What do you do with six yards of extra fabric? Make matching skirts for all the granddaughters, of course!!! Needless to say, I've been sewing up a storm the last few days. The pattern was relatively easy, although my mom said hemming the flounce edged skirt would be quite a task (and she was right---hemming on the bias is a nightmare!). I can't wait to see all those little girls together in their matching skirts. They'll be so cute!

Magnetic Quiet Book Part III

Here are a few more pages from the magnetic quiet book. Admittedly, I haven't finished the pioneer page...I still need to make game pieces. But you get the idea from the picture. The child rolls the dice and moves their piece along the game board, following the directions printed on each square. You can click on the picture to see close ups of the different squares. The winner is the first to make it to the homestead at the end.


On the second page, the child sorts through a stack of foods to decide which ones are good for the body and which are bad. Good foods get put on the dinner plate, and bad foods go in the garbage can. I used actual photographs for the foods, so they're realistic looking. The left side of the page shows how I keep track of all the little pieces. Throughout the book, I have these pocket pages. To make them, I glued a regular envelope onto the cardstock and laminated them with the flap closed. Then I traced around the envelope flap with an Exacto knife to make them open up. Easy trick I learned from school teachers. If I were to do it again, I would reinforce the envelope with cardstock to make it sturdier.

Info on magnetic paint here.

More magnetic quiet book pages here and here.

Polka Dot Pineapple

Okay, I just HAD to share this blog I stumbled upon today. Arlette is the author of Polka Dot Pineapple http://mousechirpy-polkadotpineapple.blogspot.com/ and makes fabulous things that are so cheerful and fun! I was drooling over the million-and-one ways she uses yo-yos! This photo is just a little taste of what you'll find on her blog. Isn't this little bouquet the cutest thing ever!?! I am totally making one for my little girl's room. Now I am imagining all the delightful yo-yo possibilities....quilts, hairbows, banners, scrapbook embellishments, clothing accents. I can't wait to get back home, dig out my fabric scraps and start making things!

Magnetic Quiet Book Pages Part II

I thought I'd add a few more pictures from the quiet book I made for my daughter. As always, feel free to ask any questions you may have, but remember...creativity/right-brained thinking is my specialty. Explaining clearly/left-brained thinking is not. :)

First up is the "Build-A-Snowman" page. Each piece is moveable and the kids can build the snowman however they want. I plan to make female accessories too...a flowered hat, scarf, purse...fun stuff like that.

On the second page, kids get to sort a stack of picture cards into 'hot' and 'cold' piles. I drew and colored the little pictures, but you could easily print clipart pictures instead. The striped squares are pockets to store the cards in. You could make many different variations on this page using any opposites...light/dark, black/white, big/little, etc.

More magnetic quiet book pages here and here.

Info on magnetic paint here.