Butterfly Stained Glass Craft Tutorial

My children love craft projects and recently my little boy was fascinated by all things related to butterflies...so we decided to make stained glass butterflies to put up in the kitchen windows. We made these just like the stained glass crosses we made back in March--which still are up in the windows and looking beautiful!

First I cut out an outline of a butterfly out of black construction paper and adhered it to clear contact paper--I taped that down (sticky side up!) to the kitchen table so that it wouldn't move while my son worked on his project.

He filled the butterfly with squares of tissue paper. When he was done, I put another black butterfly outline over the top (to hide the tissue paper edges) and then covered the top with another layer of contact paper. At this point the butterfly is sandwiched between the contact paper. Then I trimmed the excess contact paper off and the project was done!

His butterfly is a bright and colorful addition to our window--perfect for summer!

Craft shared at: No Time for Flashcards

Fathers Day Gifts

I think my husband had a good Father's Day--he smiled a lot, at any rate! The children made him (with my help) a handprint tie and they were so proud when he wore it to Mass. They have also insisted that he wear it to work on Monday. I think this will be the first time he has worn a tie to the office! I found the tie idea on The Littlest Crafter and loved it! Basically you just take a white tie and use fabric markers (mine are Crayola brand and I bought them at Michaels) to trace your children's handprints on the tie. Easy-peasy!
We went to Mass in the morning (and brought Father David cookies and Father's Day cards--he loved them!) and then out to lunch. After lunch my husband finally had time to thoroughly look at more of his gift. I had each child fill out an interview form that I printed out from Big D & Me and they had some great answers. Apparently my husband is 9.5 feet tall and is robbing the cradle because he is 4000 years old!

Happy Dada Day (as we say in our house!) to all the fathers out there!

Tulip Fields

As usual in the spring, life is crazy around here. We took a break from the craziness last weekend though and took a trip to visit the beautiful tulip fields.
Luckily the weather cooperated and we had a break in our cold weather and pouring rain--it was actually sunny and in the 50s for a change! We enjoyed the sunshine and the beautiful blooms.
My daughter wore all her tulip gear--including her tulip sunglasses, sweater, and tulip turtle shirt! We've gone to visit the tulips every year since she was four months old and she has always worn tulip themed clothing from Gymboree. I'm going to be sad when she no longer wants to "dress the part" and match the flowers!
No tulip themed clothing for this little guy! He was happy to wear his froggy boots and look at the flowers. He was not so happy about the port-a-potty though--he's still complaining about that experience!
My last picture of the day is my favorite picture--and it is a genuine one. They adore each other and I adore them. (Yes, they do argue--but they really do love each other SO much.)

Wordless Wednesday: Artist at Work

Linking up to Wordless Wednesday at Angry Julie Monday--go check out the neat parking lot she photographed. I've never seen one like it before!

Wordless Wednesday: Junie B Jones

Wordless Wednesday--and this one speaks a thousand words to me!

Linking to: Angry Julie Monday

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day from my little leprechauns!

Last night we had leprechaun pie for dessert and then this morning those dratted leprechauns tinted our milk green! Pesky little things! My five year old was not amused and next year he is determined to set leprechaun traps all over the refrigerator because he is tired of them doing that to his milk every year. Meanwhile my seven year old had to check all over our doors for leprechauns because she realized we have shiny doorknobs and leprechauns like shiny things. Alas she found no leprechauns hiding behind the doors.

subway art from eighteen-twentyfive

Have a great day--I hope the leprechauns don't play too many tricks on you!

Children's Reading Area

old family room and toy closet/play area

Prior to the spring of 2009, I had a very teeny tiny family room to go along with the teeny tiny bedrooms for my children. At a loss for what to do for extra space for my children's toys, I ended up turning a little used closet under the stairs into a toy closet for them.

old family room and toy closet/play area

They loved the space and it was a wonderful way to expand their play area without the expense of building onto our home. Fortunately in the spring of 2009 we were able to bump out the back wall of our family room and kitchen area. We added approximately 270 square feet to our house. Not only did this give us a larger family room, but it also enabled us to seat our entire family of four (plus a couple of guests!) at our kitchen table. This gave me the chance to move all of the toys OUT of the family room and into the room that had been the dining room. Moving the toys in addition to building the addition really made the first floor of our house feel bigger! (We're still stuck with teeny tiny bedrooms though...but at least they don't have many toys in them!)

After moving all of the toys, the toy closet ended up unused for over a year. Actually, it ended up being the place where I shoved all the stuff I needed to donate to charity. Finally I decided to reclaim it as a reading area for my children.
The little pink chair in the doorway is one I found in my old room at my mom's house. I think she bought it at Ikea fifteen years ago! I tossed a pillow on the floor as well as my children's Pillow Pets. (As an aside, I love having a "home" for these Pillow Pets! I'm big on toys having homes.)
I put Golden Books in a basket on the floor and put picture books in the book sling shelf along the back of the closet. The only item I bought for this reading area is the book sling I purchased from Amazon (it is by KidKraft and I paid around $50) but there are different versions at multiple retailers. Just like the rain gutter book shelves I put up in my son's room, I think it is great to have bookshelves that allow children to see book covers.
My children were so excited when I showed them their new reading area! They call it "The Book Nook" and love reading in there. It is a cozy space that they can make as snug as they wish. I love providing different areas for my children to read and this one definitely is proving to be a favorite of theirs.

Linking to Sanctuary Arts at Home's Refresh Your Room

Stained Glass Cross Craft Tutorial

Last week I was looking for a fun craft for both my children and decided to have them make stained glass crosses. We had all the supplies on hand--tissue paper (that I cut into squares), clear contact paper, and black paper (that I cut into two cross outlines per child).
I taped down a section of contact paper (sticky side up!) for each child and put down a cross outline. Each child also received an individual bowl of tissue paper squares. Taping down the contact paper helped keep their projects from moving.
My preschooler went for the random approach for his stained glass cross.
My second grader aimed to cover every exposed area of her cross.
When your child is done with their masterpiece, put the second cross outline on top of the first (to hide the spots where the tissue paper overlapped the first outline). Then put a second sheet of contact paper down--with the sticky side on top of the artwork to seal everything inside. The final step is to trim around the project.

Beautiful!

Visit Lenten Ideas for Kids at Catholic Icing, Someday Crafts, and Weekend Wrap at Tatertots and Jello!

Family Exploring at the Garden

Saturday was a beautiful but chilly day in our area. We took advantage of the break in the weather to enjoy a beautiful 150 acre nature preserve located fifteen minutes from our house.
It is an amazing place. There is an open meadow area, forested areas, manicured gardens, moss gardens, a Japanese garden, a waterfall, a French Chateau style estate home, a reflecting pool...just an amazing, amazing place to visit. All of this and breathtaking waterviews, too. I'm floored to think this once was a private estate.
My two don't really understand the concept of a Japanese meditation garden (I'm a little fuzzy on it myself) but they do know that they are NOT allowed to run through the carefully raked sand!
It was so nice to get out for a nice long walk as a family and do some exploring in a new area. We've been to this garden before, but we haven't really explored it much until today. Now we know we have to keep coming back to watch the changing of the gardens during the upcoming seasons!
They were fascinated by this little waterfall. I can't wait to come back in the spring and see all those rhodies around it in bloom! We did come across some early blooming flowers on our Saturday visit, but not any rhododendrons.
My favorite picture of the day! So fun!

By the way, for you Silhouette fans (like ME!), The DIY Showoff is giving away one! My Repurposed Life also has a Silhouette to giveaway! Head on over to enter...or stay away...far, far away so that I can win! ;)

Rain Gutter Book Shelves

books on the floor...not very pretty or practical!

On Thursday I posted pictures of the twin trundle bed we built for our little boy using plans from Knock Off Wood and in those pictures you could see some new additions to Handsome's wall.

You see, once we added the bed to his room and took out the crib, his already small room seemed to get even smaller than before (I didn't think that was possible!) and his little bookcase no longer fit in his room. This meant his books were on the floor and this was driving me crazy!

My husband really wanted to build some nice wood bookshelves but his project list is very very long and I pretty much was DONE with the books being on the floor. So I convinced my very reluctant husband that putting raingutters inside our house was a good idea. He read the tutorial from Raising Olives and then went to Home Depot for supplies. A few hours later we had two bookshelves on Handsome's walls and no more books on the floor!

Ahh, so much better! There even is room for us to put in some nice wide trimwork instead of that flimsy builder-grade stuff...when we finally get around to that project. Better yet, I don't have to move piles of books when I vacuum!

Doesn't the shelf next to his bed look cute? Having the covers facing out is so practical and I love the length of the shelf--it lets me display lots of books for him to peruse.
This is what my babies started doing about fifteen seconds after they saw the new bookshelves!

I linked to Inspiration Friday!

Moon and Star Boy Bedroom Featured

My son's moon and stars bedroom just was featured on The Shopping Mama. If you aren't subscribed to Kate's blog, you really should be--it is full of great shopping information as well as other good info for mamas. Head on over and take a look!

Knock Off Wood Twin Trundle Bed

Last spring we started the process of building Handsome a bed. My husband and I decided to tackle the Farmhouse Twin bed from Ana White at Knock Off Wood. Then we decided to follow the extra steps in her plans to turn it into a trundle.
Building it was a long, long process, mostly because I'm a big chicken with power tools, so most of the actual building fell on my husband's shoulders and he could only work on it on the weekends. I did the finishing work, but he did the building (with some help from his pint-size helpers).
Our little guy was SO excited to finally get to try out his big boy bed! Unfortunately the grownups weren't quite so happy. You see, once we finally got the bed assembled up in his room, we realized that we should have selected a different bed as this is not an ideal bed for a small child whose bed needs to be up against a wall because, um, well, it doesn't exactly GO up against the wall. Our son could (and DID!) fit his entire body between the bed and the wall!
In this picture I have one pillow between the bed and the wall, but that is because I actually made his bed to take these pictures. You can see that the trim on the top of the bed plus the bed posts themselves make it impossible to put the mattress portion of the bed flush against the wall. Ugh. I really wish I had figured that out BEFORE we built the bed! Whoops!
At any rate, it looks pretty...especially when I make the bed! And, if you are wondering, his quilt is from Pottery Barn Kids and the sheets are from good ol' Target.

Come back later for info on the rain gutter bookshelves!

Linked to Show and Share at Just a Girl

Valentines Lollipops

My sweet boy has been dealing (or not dealing, as the case may be) with reflux since birth and for the last two+ weeks he has been having an especially bad time of it. Needless to say, he has not been up for crafting and definitely NOT up for making seventeen valentines for his preschool classmates.

Never fear, little man, mama to the rescue!

(the real valentines obviously have his name instead of a distorted bright red heart )

Didn't they turn out SO cute? Ahhh, I love them! And, most importantly, so does he! He was SO excited to deliver them to his classmates (and to himself!) yesterday at preschool--delivering these was about the only thing that made him even want to GO to preschool yesterday.

I'm pretty sure Alissa at 24-7-365 was the first blogger to post this idea, although now you can find the idea all over the place...but I think she was the original source...maybe! I did what she did except I used a razor blade to cut slits for the lollipop (instead of scissors) and I used mini Tootsie Pops because I think the smaller lollipops look cuter on the picture...plus I had them leftover from Halloween so they were free! But they really do look cute and they don't weight the picture down as much as the big lollipops do.

We're back!

We spent the past week at the coast--so nice to have time to spend as a family! We had good weather for a couple of days and then it was cold, rainy, and breezy for the rest of the time. Oh well, we still had fun!
We saw gorgeous sunsets from our balcony the first two nights--after that it was too cloudy.
One of my favorite pictures from our trip. My baby and his dada. Love them. Lots.
This was our first time being there (we've gone to the same place for the past five years!) for the town's Kite Festival. Gorgeous huge colorful kites!!
I took lots of pictures of my loves...but no pictures of me where taken until midway through the week when I requested some photographic evidence that I was on the vacation too!
So, here is my proof! Me with my babies on an indoor carousel...I'm going to be sad when my little boy doesn't need me to hold him on the horse (well, rabbit in this case!) any more.
Oh and we ate ice cream. And we had ice cream for lunch. Twice. Totally unheard of in our family but definitely something we'll be doing again. Breaking "the rules" is fun sometimes!
On one of our last days the weather cleared enough for us to go explore a new beach. Yes my children are wearing winter coats (and bare feet!) on the beach. It was COLD!
Those giant rocks in the previous picture are COVERED in big barnacles and oysters...and we found starfish too!
Sea anemones!
And of course we had to take the requisite towel picture. They love this, for some strange reason!
This picture is from our last evening. The rays of sun piercing the stormy clouds...well, it was just breathtaking. My picture does not do it justice. It was one of those God moments.