making lately: DIY (non-candy) valentines

Is it just me, or has every holiday turned into Halloween with how much candy gets handed out to kids? Granted, Valentine's Day is also a pretty traditional candy holiday, but with enough sugar in our lives already, I'm all about changing up the classroom handouts to something else. Hendrik and I are still working on this year's - going with cute little owl erasers as the fun gifty and some suitable puns to print on the attached cards (you know - "whooo's your Valentine?" or "owl be your Valentine!"). Meanwhile, here are a couple of similar ideas we've done in the past, which I still love...

Dino Valentines: you can inexpensively get a big pack of dinosaur figurines and affix them with fun washi tape to cards printed with things like "You're dino-mite", "You're tricera-tops", and "You make my heart saur".

 

Wild animal Valentines: along the same lines, with little packs of plastic safari-type animals, there are lots of fun puns to be had: "I'm wild about you" and "Wild thing, you make my heart sing" are my favorites, but you could also do things like "You're grrrrreat" or "Hippo Valentine's Day".

For both of these, Pinterest has tons of free printables if you don't want to make your own design!

making lately: kid art storage solutions

Inspired by Kelsey's recent post about making a photo book of kid art (well, that and a nearly expired free 8x8 photo book code on Shutterfly), I recently finally completed an album of Hendrik art that I'd been meaning to get around to making. Which then made me think of sharing about how I manage all of the kid art and papers that every mom of school-aged kids knows start accumulating from day 1 of preschool.... and could fill your entire house if you don't figure out a process for handling them.

In order to not actually have to keep all of the million papers, but still get to enjoy them and to treasure the good ones (because, let's be honest, there are a lot of throwaway "art" papers that come home), here's my approach:

Have a designated place for (temporary) display

In the playroom we have these giant clips mounted on the wall, and I use them to let Hendrik choose his favorite items to display - but the deal is that we have limited space, so it's time to say goodbye to an older piece if he wants to put up a new one. When we did his big kid room this fall I added a bulletin board by the desk so that he has an additional spot to put his treasured items. The rest he knows we recycle (even if there are occasional times when he gets upset about seeing a "treasure" in the recycling bin - see the final step below...)

Snap photos of your favorites and include them in photo albums

This is where I ascribe to one of Gretchen Rubin's maxims from The Happiness Project: don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. While it might be nice to scan the pieces for the best reproduction of the images, or get out the fancy camera for better quality shots, I remember that the point is (1) to have memories of Hendrik's interests/abilities/creative ideas from different stages of development that we can enjoy looking back on and (2) not have tons of paper clutter, so I just lay the stuff on a white table and quickly snap an iPhone photo before I recycle it. Then, a couple of weeks ago when I decided it was finally time to make the book, I just pulled all of the saved photos off my phone, uploaded to Shutterfly and put together this album (using this kid art themed layout design was perfect for making it cute and quick!). Aside from the art, it was really fun to include snapshots of how he wrote his name at different ages.

Have one storage bin for the ones you really can't part with

I keep one Rubbermaid bin in the basement for memorabilia, so the really special stuff goes in there - but then the key is to clean it out occasionally, like the end of each school year, in order to keep it manageable. Also, sometimes you'll look back and think, that was cute, but I really don't need to keep 12 daycare art projects that the teachers helped him glue together, so then you smile at seeing them once more and then let go of them later.

"Disappear" the rest

Having learned my lesson on this one, I don't toss the stuff in the recycling bin immediately when it comes home from school. First I let Hendrik show me all of his things, then I let them sit on the counter until after bedtime, and then they just disappear before morning... Key here is to not have them be visible when your kid opens the recycling bin to put in his yogurt cup the next morning. Made that mistake with a spelling test earlier this year: "but I worked so hard on that!" (Yeah, okay.) But really, part of the process is setting up an expectation that we can enjoy the process of making the drawings and enjoy looking at them, but we're not going to keep all of them forever. He just understands that by now even if he's not always super thrilled about it - but having the result of the photo album to show him definitely makes it easier, because it's so cool to see everything compiled.

That's my quick rundown, which was greatly inspired from the start by Kelsey's post on managing kid art - and then thanks to her for the updated post about putting together the art album, because Hendrik and I are both thrilled to have his here to page through now.

making lately: wine tasting party decor

To celebrate my grandma's recent 80th birthday, my parents planned a fun wine tasting party for the family... and I appointed myself head of decorations, because with a wine theme and a huge collection of wine corks that I've been saving for years, how could I not?

Here's the lowdown on holding a wine tasting party:

Decor: wine corks are perfect, of course! I put out the cork star burst that I made ages ago, and made some numbers out of a bunch more corks + a hot glue gun. Also picked some particularly fun looking corks to serve as label holders (just cut a slit in the top) for our various cheese varieties. Then I found plates, napkins, and bags with gold polka dots that fit the cork theme perfectly.

Food: it's not all that hard to come up with a menu for a wine tasting party, because... cheese! We cut up a variety and put out a big spread with crackers, grapes, salami and marcona almonds. Added bonus is that it's interesting to see how different wines taste when paired with different types of cheese.

Wines/tasting process: My dad organized a set of rieslings for us to try, which we hid in bags after pouring them so that people could taste and form opinions without being biased by the label. We grouped the various pours together and spread them through the dining area and porch so that people could move around to various stations. And to turn it into a real activity, I created a scorecard where everyone could fill out their own rating of the taste, a word to describe it (which was fun to have everyone read off at the end, things like "tennis ball" and "petrol"), and a stab at what region it might have come from. A couple of top picks? The late harvest riesling from Chateau Grand Traverse (yeah, Michigan wines!) and Kung Fu Girl. Doing a similar blind setup with different varietals would also be a lot of fun, to see if people could differentiate merlot from cab sauv, etc.

Oh, and for the one under-21 present, I did a "blind" tasting by putting milk, water, grapefruit juice, and chocolate milk into sippy cups. Hendrik loved filling out his own, and he guessed all correctly except the juice (he thought maybe it was lemonade, but I kind of tricked him because he'd not had that type of juice before). He also cracked me up by rating the chocolate milk and water a 5 on his scale, while regular milk and grapefruit juice only got a 4.

Overall, a great way to celebrate a great lady! And a great use of all those corks I had been saving for seemingly no reason for several years...

pin to present: painted driftwood

Trying to think of a little craft project that we could do with some aunts and cousins and grandmas at our extended family cottage last week, I scrolled through my Pinterest board and happened upon a photo of some painted driftwood that I saved ages ago... and how perfect is that for a crafternoon at a lakefront cottage.

So Hendrik and I went for a walk along the beach with a bucket and collected a bunch of driftwood pieces, and then we pulled out our supply of acrylic paints and paintbrushes, and everyone got busy.

Such an easy little project with endless possibilities - and it works for the 5-year-old and 75-year-old among you, and everyone in between! Hendrik was very pleased with the long stick that he found himself on our beach walk.

pin to present: giant tissue paper flowers

Last week's tissue paper flower garland was fun and festive and all, but this week's is even better. If you're looking for something really fun and festive for a party, these giant tissue paper flowers seriously pack a punch.

While they're equally as inexpensive to make as the garland (tissue paper can be had for real cheap at Target or even a dollar store) they are a way better bang for your buck both in terms of time commitment (seriously about 3 minutes apiece) and especially in terms of impact.

They're so huge and fun! Perfect for the baby fiesta that I co-hosted last weekend - almost as excited about how these + the rest of the decor came together as I am for the sweet baby girl making her way into the world soon... This type of tissue flower is all over Pinterest but you can see the super easy to follow one I did here - and then give these a try for your next festive event for sure.

pin to present: tissue paper flower garland

I feel like it's been a little while since I've gotten good and crafty - so it's fun to have a baby shower this weekend as an excuse to track down some DIY decorations on Pinterest. I thought this tissue paper flower garland was just the right amount of festive for a baby fiesta (it is Cinco de Mayo this weekend, after all).

It's quick and easy, and I feel like this is a pretty forgiving project - the little flower burst shape of these means they don't have to look perfect, so if you have any imperfections in the cutting or the assembling of the tissue paper flowers, it's not very noticeable, and it makes for some instant festivity.

Check out the tutorial here if you want to try it too!

pin to present: easy Easter eggs

Decorating eggs is a fun tradition this time of year - but who wants to fuss with messy dyes, especially when there are spill-prone kids around? Thank you, Pinterest, for this idea: washi tape decorated eggs.

Honestly, I didn't even want to fuss with egg boiling or emptying, so I picked up this little pack of wooden eggs in the dollar section at Target. Then just pulled some rolls of tape from my stash and went to work cutting strips and shapes. Hendrik got in on the action (his look more like a wad of tape stuck on an egg, but he had fun), and there was no mess to clean up in the end. Score! Plus the beauty of washi tape is that it peels off so easily, we could change these up next year. Or even next week, if we need more indoor activities with the April showers...

Got any other kid-friendly and easy egg decorating ideas for us?

pin to present: wreath repeat

Because we are nearing the actual arrival of SPRING, GLORIOUS SPRING (and in the meantime, approaching spring break, glorious spring break!), it feels like a good time to bring back one of my very favorite Pinterest-inspired projects ever: this tulip wreath.

And it's going to be even better this year, because this year my front door is a gorgeous turquoise. Love it.

And last I saw, the mini tulip bushes I got from Michaels last year to make this wreath are on sale for $2 each (you need about 10 of them) - so get yourself there, and make your own ring of beauty for spring!

pin to present: paper plate projects

When you end up with 5 snow days and 2 winter break days within about 3 weeks, that's a lot of "bonus" mom time... we started with cookie baking/decorating when we were running low on enthusiasm for the normal Legos and books, and then we moved on to Pinterest-inspired crafts!

I had this huge stack of standard white paper plates leftover from something, so Hendrik and I just scrolled through Pinterest's ideas for "paper plate art" and came up with quite a few fun options - but these llamas from Handmade Charlotte were just the cutest things, which made them the winner choice for both of us for our crafternoon session.

All you need is some paper plates, scissors, and glue, and you can quickly assemble several of these guys, ready for painting. It provided just the right level of entertainment and novelty for our last day of winter break, but I've saved a few more options (below) to my board in case of future snow days (please, no! but then again, I realize this is Michigan).

 rainbow | painted flowers | heart sewing

pin to present: painted heart cookies

In last week's polar vortex school shutdown madness (schools here were off 6 days in a row, with the combination of snow and cold!), we were of course looking for some entertainment to pass the time... Baking is always a winner of an activity with my kid, but thanks to this watercolor cookie decorating idea I pinned ages ago, we had a fun new twist to keep us from going stir-crazy.

Bonus of doing this type of cookie on a snow day is that it's a three-fer activity: making cookie dough (I recommend this recipe!), cutting out cookies, and then the frosting/painting. I did my usual simple (but soooo delicious) frosting of powdered sugar + a splash of milk and then I piped on an outline using a squeeze bottle, and then filled in the outline (that helps it have nice edges and not go running off the cookie). Once the frosting was set, it was time for the fun part!

We used leftover painting supplies from Hendrik's birthday arty party to mix water + a couple of drops of food coloring in the various wells of our palette, and a pack of brand-new inexpensive paintbrushes to paint on some season-appropriate sweetness. Wouldn't a little package of these make great gifts for Valentine's Day? I think we'll have to bring some to the various people that helped out with childcare while I was traveling for work and there were still snow days happening...


Sharing on The Blended Blog.

pin to present: art cart

Even before I started watching the Marie Kondo Netflix series, I was in a tidying up mode, brought on by Christmas... particularly in our playroom, where several new Lego sets and more needed a new home. Making room for those involved some weeding out of "little kid" toys, but then I also assessed the drawers full of haphazardly arranged art supplies - and decided I needed to turn to Pinterest for inspiration for a more elegant solution. Enter the art cart!

I was going to go with an inexpensive white cart that is a lot like the inspiration photo, but then Target.com's helpful "recommendations" feature showed me this bigger library-style cart, and I fell in love at first sight. More storage space, and such a fun color.

We have a lot of built-in storage in this room, so we already had the wire baskets, glass jars, and utensil caddy for storing these supplies, but they were kept on various shelves and inside cupboards that were out of Hendrik's reach. Now all of the supplies are out and in sight, which makes for a festively colorful display - plus, when we can immediately see what we have, Hendrik is more inspired to create with it, and he can access it all on his own as well. The first day we had it arranged on the cart, he right away pulled out some glue and pompoms and made a fun collage. All around, we love it!

I linked some similar storage solutions above that are working well for us - glass jars are great for various crafty things like pompoms or acrylic paints, a caddy holds all of our markers and scissors and such, and wire baskets hold other miscellaneous supplies like stickers, pipe cleaners and so on (separated in individual ziplocs), along with a separate one for paper, coloring books, and workbooks.