What a Week!

We had the most wonderful week!  We traveled 8 hours to visit some friends (of course, it took us longer than that with 5 littles and a pregnant Mama!).  Some other friends traveled much farther and met us there.

Between the three families, we had 18 children!  It was so much fun getting to see friends that we don't get to see often, and the kids were all so well-behaved and got along so perfectly.

We got back home last night, missing our friends but eager to sleep in our own beds.  Now my 3-year-old son keeps complaining that he has nobody to play with.  It's so hard having only four siblings.  =)

My hubby also learned (and became addicted to) the art of pen turning.

(I see a blog post on this in the near future.  I also see the purchase of a lathe.  Oh, the possibilities...)

Now that I'm no longer packing, preparing, traveling, or visiting friends, I'll be getting back to my crafting! I'm hoping to make Little Love #5's Halloween costume tomorrow.

Stay tuned!

Kid Table Redo

Ok, it's finally time for one of the chalkboard paint projects!!

We had a kids' table and chair set.  You know, the folding kind with the vinyl tops and the matching folding chairs?  Here's a picture of it in the background of another picture I took--that little pink one back there.

Well, those tables are pretty inexpensive.  And they don't hold up very well when they're accidentally left outside on the back deck in the rain.  Especially when the vinyl on top has a couple of small tears.  I didn't get any pictures of it ruined, but the top was absolutely full of water and was a soggy mess.  (The chairs had no tears in the vinyl, so they made it through the rainstorm fine.)

I was about to pitch the whole table, when my wonderful hubby stepped in!  In the blink of an eye, he had the top removed off the frame.  The still-perfect, foldable, metal frame. 

He then got a piece of plywood and sanded it down nice and smooth.

He ran to the hardware store and bought some small brackets and screws.

He cut the wood down to the right size and sanded the edges.

He then primed it, painted one coat of chalkboard paint a few hours later, and did a final coat of chalkboard paint a few days later.

Now we have a nice, new, fun chalkboard table in our classroom!!

I LOVE chalkboard paint!!

Halloween Banner!

We are sooooo in the Halloween mood around our house!  We got all of the decorations out today and had a ton of fun deciding where to put things and turning on the light-up things.  I think the kids' favorite part is putting all the window clings on the windows and mirrors.

I recently saw this awesome homemade Halloween banner at Organize and Decorate Everything.  I simply fell in love with it!  I showed it to my kids who were as excited about it as I was.  So we made our own!

Ours isn't nearly as pretty as the original one that Leanne made.  But interesting things happen when kids ages 8, 6, 4, 3, and 1 are turned loose with markers, paper, and glue.  Of course, Mama helped out the little ones a bit, and I cut most of the triangles out (can you pick out the one my daughter cut out herself?).  Some of them got turned in wonky directions, but they're all fun!

Here's a ghost, some unknown one-year-old creation, and Frankenstein:

A jack-o-lantern, an owl, and a vampire:

Another unidentified one-year-old creation, a candy corn, and a spider:

A mummy, a ghost, and a werewolf:

Another candy corn, another jack-o-lantern, and another vampire (sorry for the blurriness).

I love the ideas the kids came up with!!  It was so much fun and so easy.  What a great way to spend a rainy morning!

Woven Headbands

Can you tell I really love making fun and pretty things for my girls' hair?  And I found out recently that we're going to have our fourth girl soon!!  Yay, more fun, pretty hair stuff!  The boys are getting a bit out-numbered, though...

Anyway, last night my neighbor and friend, Brooke, came over to make some woven headbands with me.

Unfortunately, I can't do a tutorial for you all.  I bought the most awesome instructions from No Bow...No Go!, so I can't post the instructions here.  But you should check out her site.  She has some free tutorials and lots of other great ones.  Her one for woven headbands shows you how to make all sorts of different designs, and her instructions and pictures are beautifully clear.  One of my favorites is the Christmas one.

I also like making holiday-themed ones, like this one for Independence Day.

Halloween is coming up, so I see some really cute ones in the immediate future!  

One of the best things about woven headbands is that you can clip a clippie to the ribbons.  So there are so many cute things you can do with them!

On a different note, I finally started 2 projects with the chalkboard paint, but you have a to wait a few days before you can write on it.  So those posts will hopefully be ready later this week!

What have you been working on lately?

Quick Tip #3 -- Cleaning your Microwave

Ok, I know I haven't done much crafting this week.  But it's been a crazy week!  I promise I'll have a craft post on Monday!!

Anyway, back to your microwave.  I don't know about you, but my microwave tends to get all yucky.  I don't even understand how it gets so yucky so quickly!  I won't even show a before picture.  But I learned a quick and easy way to get all of those yucks out, without using any kind of nasty cleaners or chemicals.

First, get a glass container with 3-4 cups of water.

Put it in the microwave and run it for five minutes.

When the microwave finishes, don't open it.  Let it sit undisturbed for another five minutes.  The water will steam up the inside of the microwave, loosening any hard, dried yucks inside.  You then simply wipe the microwave out with a sponge, rag, or paper towels.  If there are any stubborn spots, simply dip your scrubber into the hot water (careful not to burn yourself) and continue to scrub it.  It'll come right off.

You'll be left with a nice, sparkly clean microwave!

I've heard of people adding lemon juice or vinegar to the water, but I've never found that necessary.  Plain water works every time!  Now, go scrub out your microwave (you know it needs it), and let me know how well this method worked for you!

And he calls ME gross?!?!?

Ok, so we went shopping tonight, and I came home hungry (of course, I'm in my second trimester, so I'm always hungry).  I wanted a yummy late-evening snack.  I picked up some mac-and-cheese and tuna fish while at the store.  This is NOT normal fare in our house.  We don't buy much of anything in a box.  But the craving came over me, and I couldn't resist.

So, health detriments aside, you have Kraft Mac-n-cheese.  Can you say YUM?!?  Make it up and mix in a can of chunk light tuna.  Can you say SUPER YUM?!?!?  

But my hubby--who lacks the finer things in life, like decent tastebuds--says that I'm gross.  I finally convinced him to taste it once, and he did admit at that moment that it wasn't too bad.  He won't admit that now.  But he dares to call ME gross for eating something so delicious!!

Now, this is the man who is the king of all grossness when it comes to grabbing a snack.  He also came home from the store hungry.  Want to know what he grabbed for his late-evening snack?

That's right.  What you see there, folks, are some frozen sweet potato fries (also not normal fare in this house--he dug them out from the back of the freezer somewhere).  But did you catch that?  FROZEN!!  Not as in, "He pulled out some frozen sweet potato fries so that he could bake and eat them."  No, frozen as in, "HE'S EATING THEM FROZEN!!!!"  He also eats frozen hot dogs.

I love my Mr. Man with all of my being, but he sure is gross.

Upcoming Projects

I have so many projects in the air, I don't know where to start!

My Mr. Man decided to go through his closet and cull out the clothes he doesn't wear anymore.  So now I have this wonderful pile of nice t-shirts, men's shirts, and even wool sweaters!

Oh, the ideas going through my mind are so numerous!  Wool diaper covers for the new baby (we found out it's going to be another girl!  So we'll have 4 girls and 2 boys.  Lots of estrogen in the house.), dresses for the girls, boxers for the boys, latex-free pants and dresses for Little Love #5...

Speaking of latex and LL#5, I need to get her Halloween costume made.  We have tons of hand-me-down costumes from older cousins, but have you ever seen a store-bought costume with no elastic?  Nope.  So I'm making hers.  Here's the fleece for it.  I bet you can guess what she's going to be?  Tutorial coming soon...

I also finally bought some chalkboard paint!  I have one awesome idea in mind to do with it (tutorial on that coming later this week), but I'll still have a lot left over.  So I'm eyeing all sorts of things in my house, but haven't had anything jump out at me screaming that it just NEEDS to be painted with chalkboard paint!

I also have some Halloween hair clips to make right away, school to teach to my kids, and I need to make time to get outside in the glorious fall weather!!  So lots of fun things coming up, stay tuned!

In the meantime, if you all had a full can of chalkboard paint, what would you do with it?