What was I thinking?!

In two days we're going to have a lovely time at the beach.  Guess what I did today.  Pack? No.  Clean my house so we can come home and just relax?  Hahahahahaha...no.  Noooo, I decided to start a project!  A project that involves spackle and caulk and paint and rewiring electrical thingies.  Oh, and spray painting about a million and one picture frames.  Which of course, that project within the project right there involves taking frames apart and cleaning glass and which glass did this frame go with again?  

Clearly, my brain has been abducted by aliens.  I just don't know why they couldn't abduct the mess, too.

The Happy Yellow Spoon

My friend Becky has been writing adorable stories about sad, abused, inanimate objects that become loved and cherished and well cared for.  I love Becky's stories.  So I thought I'd take a stab at writing my own inanimate object story.  Except mine would have a twist.  It would be a riches to rags story.  Now, after many hours minutes of crafting my tale, I present to you:

The Happy Yellow Spoon

Once upon a time a women's ministry director gave a mama a happy yellow spoon.  The mama liked the yellow spoon and she knew just what to use it for.  It would become a lock for her printer cabinet so that the mischievous baby would be foiled in his attempts to create more messes.

The happy yellow spoon rested happily in the cabinet door handles, guarding the electronics and files and printer paper from the mischievous baby.  It was a good life.  And the mama loved the happy little spoon because the mama always liked using objects in quirky ways and a spoon lock was most definitely quirky.

But, alas! The mischievous baby grew into a mischievous toddler who soon figured out how to remove the happy yellow spoon from his post.  The mama disciplined the mischievous toddler and the mischievous toddler learned to leave the cabinet alone.  And just like that the yellow spoon became superfluous.

And so the mama removed her quirky door lock and placed him in the drawer with all the other spoons and spatulas.  The happy yellow spoon was doomed to drown in sauces and become stained by tomatoes and onions and have his happy yellow head singed in skillets of scrambled eggs.

The End

And if you didn't feel like reading all that nonsense, here's a visual illustration of my spoon's life.  You're welcome.

Linen Closet Organization

I'm not typically a bathroom snoop in other people's houses.  I usually just do my business and move on.  But I do love seeing how other people organize their stuff and if people invite me to see inside their closets and cabinets, I'm always interested.  So I thought I'd share how I organized the closet in our main bathroom.

Here's the full view, almost.  I couldn't get the very top shelf in but

you can see part of it in the picture below.

We have all our meds up high where the kids can't reach. 

 I also keep our toilet scrubber up there because otherwise Miles will use it as a sword.  

A few months ago I was looking at this make-up organizer at Storables.  

But the Thrifty McFrugal in me just couldn't justify paying $29.95 for it.  

Last week I saw the exact organizer (it still had the Storables tag on it) sitting 

on the shelf at my favorite thrift store.  It cost $1.50.

And here it is on the next shelf down.  I put it through the dishwasher and it came out looking brand new.

Also on this shelf is my hair stuff and things I want the kids to be able to reach.  At least the older kids. Because that way they can fetch things for me.  Because that is the whole reason I had kids, so they can bring me stuff.  I should have named one of them Fetchy McBring-me-that. The plunger is here for the same "Miles will use it as a sword" reason.

I'm really happy with my new organizer.  It's so nice to be able to see all that I have at a glance.
I have a mirror hanging on a hook to the left of the closet so that this whole shelf works as a kind of
hair and make-up/mom get ready station.

We go through a lot of washcloths in a week with all the wiping of boys' faces that we have to do.

I recently bought 24 new ones from Target (8 for $3.99) and now they live

 in this storage bin so the kids can grab them all by themselves.

And finally, at the very bottom we have the potty chair and the scale.

Both ready to slide out at any moment.  And yes, I really do hate that toilet paper.

So there you have it!   A little tour of our bathroom closet.  Now you don't even have to snoop!
But if you already have, I forgive you, Snoopy Von Peeperson.

Howard Ow-hide

Translation:  Shower Outside

Miles was fascinated by the sprinkler and it only took a little encouragement from me 

for him to walk right into the glorious jets of water.

The big boys came out and showed him how to do get his hair wet.

I love this face.

It was the perfect way to cool off on a hot evening.

Toby didn't like getting his head wet.

The artsy shot.  I like how you can still read the word "happy" through the sprinkles.

Water Baby

Miles is my only water baby.  Noah has finally started liking showers and Toby will tolerate baths but they both still hate getting their heads wet and hair washing is the worst.  But Miles loves it all and will happily stand/dance under a shower spray until the water runs cold.  In fact, while the other boys sometimes cry about having to take a shower or bath, Miles will cry when it's time to get out.  At 20 months of age, Miles' vocabulary is multiplying by the hour and he's found new ways to express his love of water.

Wahr is water.
Bash is bath.
Plash is splash.
Po is pour.
Washit is washcloth.
Soapah is soap.

And now my favorite.  Howard is shower.  Tonight when I turned the shower off and attempted to wrap Miles in a towel he grabbed the handrail in the shower and started screaming, "No!  Want more howard! Pwease, Howard!"


I'm so thankful I didn't drop him: all my laughter plus his writhing, slippery baby body made for a pretty treacherous moment.  But don't worry.  I promised Miles he could have more Howard tomorrow.

Handmade Harry Potter Wands

Noah was invited to a Harry Potter themed birthday party and to help him get ready for it we watched the first Harry Potter movie. It was fun and strange to see the actors as little kids again. And Harry's first experience in Ollivanders gave me a great idea for something to bring to the party. We made wands!

And to add to the experience we also made wand boxes.  Here's Mr. Ollivander's spidery handwriting.

These red boxes were a thrift store find and I designed the labels after looking at a few similar labels online.

Below is a closeup of the label.  I'm gonna go with the story that Ollivanders has updated their logo several times in the last thousand years.

But I'm sure you want to see the actual wands, don't you?

They are made out of incredibly special, difficult to find materials.

Paper, hot glue, and spray paint.

We just rolled the paper into tight cones.  Then filled the tubes with hot glue.

After they were dry we drizzled more hot glue on the outside.

And finally we spray painted them with a mixture of whatever spray paint we had in the shed.

This was a fast and super easy project.  

It wouldn't take much time at all to whip a few of these up for your own Hogwarts party.

I'd love to know if you make your own wands.  Send me a picture!

Catching Up

Remember my goal of making one new design for every month? Well, I have been keeping up on it. I just haven't been keeping up on posting them. So here's a little catch up post showing off the designs for June and July.

June   

Rosie Posie Necklace

This little beauty sold right away at the Old Fashioned Festival so I didn't get a chance to take more photos of  it alone or on a model.  But I have plans to make a bunch more for a couple Christmas bazaars I'll be participating in.  Each necklace costs just $15 and the color choices are limitless!  Let me know if you'd like to custom order one.

July

Unnamed Earrings

 This is actually a design that I've been tweaking since last Christmas.  I still don't know if I'm totally satisfied with it.  I'd like to try it making it with a heavier gauge wire.  They are supposed to be leaves with a pearl or crystal dangling in the center but I'm still working on getting them to hang just right.  However, lots of people have said they like these as-is and I do admit that they are very sweet with their half-heart curlicues.

Here's a lovely shot taken by my friend Becky.  I love how the earrings are framed and how the background fades into soft blurriness.  I am not sure what to call these earrings.  If you have any ideas, please share!  If I choose a name you suggest, I'll give you a little surprise from my shop!

I need to make a date with my amazing model photographer, Molly, to get some shots of my newest pieces (including some from the Old Fashioned Festival that I'll show you later this month for August's reveal) on models.  Then I plan to add a bunch of new stuff to my etsy shop.  But if you saw something you liked in any of the OFF pictures just let me know and I can give you more details on it.

In other news, Miles (20 months) has been potty training himself!  I take zero credit for this amazing event.  I'm convinced he just wants to be like his big brothers.  He's sat on the potty 9 times in the past 3 days and has gone every single time.  I put him in underwear for the first time today and he kept them dry for about three hours but then we had to go grocery shopping so I put him back in a diaper.  The possibility of being a diaper free house soon has got me all giddy!

Don't forget to tell me what you think those pearl and leaf earrings should be called!