Sidewalk Painting...

Also known as...

How to keep children from 4-14 busy.

I've seen this all over Pinterest and the Interwebs, so I thought we needed to give it a try.  Afterall, I already had all the supplies on hand and the monkeys were making me crazy - per usual!!!

To make your "paint" use equal amounts cornstarch and water.  Then add food coloring.  We started with 5-6 drops of each color.  

Then, we put our painting pants on and went crazy.  The paint dries to a chalky substance and washes away with water!  Easiest clean up EVER!!

  

(This is my standard when painting or drawing with chalk.  I know - adorable!)

Happy painting, y'all!!

Rulissa

Pretty-ing It Up

Baseball is in full swing around here and I am in need of some new shirts to wear to the games. Our boys changed schools this last year, so I couldn't wear anything with the old team/school/colors. Since I can't afford to buy a bunch all at once, I thought I'd try to work with what I already owned. Upcycling!!! Gotta love it!

I started with the black tank I want to wear and an outgrown orange t- shirt courtesy of monkey boy.

I cut the old t-shirt straight across under the arms.

I then cut 1" strips straight across the shirt (then snip one side to make a loooong strip.) I did this three times because I like things in threes! You can cut as many as you want.

I got to dig out my sewing machine for this next step. Yeah!!! And put a basting stitch right down the center of each strip. Pull the bottom thread to slightly ruffle each strip.

To start each flower, fold the strip in half along your basting stitch, then fold over one end and, using a needle and thread, tack it together. Now, continue wrapping it around and tacking it.

After you finish your flowers, decide what you want to do with them. At first I was going to put them all on my shirt, but as you can see, that didn't happen. I ended up using one of them on this plain black hat. I like how it turned out! I just pinned this flower on so I can change it out when I get the urge. Easy-peasy!!!

When I was sewing the flowers together, Princess asked what I was doing. I told her I was making flowers for my shirt. She waited a couple of seconds, then said, "When you're done pretty-ing up your shirt, will you make me something?" Guess what's next in line for sewing projects?!

Let me know what you think about my "pretty-ed up" baseball attire... I like it, so I'll probably make some more in other colors! How do you pretty up your stuff??

Love you all,

Rulissa

Fun with Fuzzy Sticks

Fuzzy Sticks????

Also known as pipe cleaners!

Princess and I needed a craft project so I headed to our friendly, neighborhood Wally World. After reading this post from There's Just One Mommy, I thought it was time to break out the pipe cleaners and see what we could create!

A wand...

A crown, bracelet and bouquet...

And the other monkeys couldn't go without, so we created "boy" bracelets for them...

Here are some pics of Princess modeling...

(She's a natural!! hahaha!)

So tell me, have you done anything fun or crafty lately??

Love you all!

Rulissa

Faux Sewing

I miss my sewing machine.

It isn't packed yet, but it is "put away". There was a time I just kept it out, but in the process of trying to move, I get nervous dragging out my sewing stuff for fear that would be the time someone would want to come see the house! I have been itching to create something, so I dug through some past ideas and thought to myself... How about faux sewing?

I have this t-shirt dress with spaghetti straps. It really needs a jacket of some sort for me to feel comfortable wearing it. Just so happens, I found this tee on clearance at Wally World and fits the bill nicely, with a teeny tiny alteration.

Here's what I did...

First, I folded the shirt in half and cut right up the front.

Then, following the instructions on the heatbond tape package, I ironed a strip to the inside of each front.

And, voila!  That was all there was to it.  What do you think?

Now, if I am completely honest...this did nothing to curb my sewing itch.  However, it did give me something super cute to wear to church!

(side note:  I think this shirt is a XXL.  I actually wear a M/L, but I really liked the length on the shirt and it was on sale - so that's what I bought!)

I'm linking up with Brassy Apple for Make it Monday...hop on over and see what else she has posted!

Love you all!

Rulissa

Winter Wreath

I needed something to transition my mantle from Christmas to Spring.... at first I thought I would do this project as Valentine's Day wreath, complete with a red felt heart, but the hubster did not like the look of that.  We agreed on the bow.  I think it turned out nice and fits perfectly on my mantle.

I'm sure you've seen how to do this - it's not rocket science!  But, I'll give you a quick step-by-step anyway...

First, cut out a couple thousand hundred (it just feels like thousands) felt circles.  I used a travel coffee mug as my template.  I actually used close to 250 circles.  (I ended up using about 1 yard of 72 in" felt.)

I purchased a styrofoam wreath and a package of straight pins along with my felt.  

To start, you take a felt circle and fold it in half...

then you fold it in half again...

then you take one of your straight pins and just start pinning!  Push the pin through the point of your felt piece straight into the wreath form.  Then pin the next one right up next to it.  You should "fluff" the pieces as you go to make sure you are getting the fullness you want and not just squished felt.  (You'll notice that my felt and wreath form are both white.  That helps in case part of your wreath peeks through the pieces.  If you are using a different colored felt, I would recommend spray painting the wreath the same color.  It's worth the effort!)

Here it is almost done... I ran out of circles and had to cut some more!

Like I said, it took me awhile to first figure out where to put the wreath and second how to adorn it.  I had an empty spot on my mantle, so I rested it there (just to get it out of the way) and we really liked the look of it.  I then used some wide leopard print ribbon to make a bow and attached it with fishing line.  The great thing is that the bow isn't a permanent part of the wreath and I can change it with the seasons if I so desire!

And that's it!  I'd love to know if any of you attempt this project.  Send me pictures and we'll get them posted!

By the way...if you are a regular reader of this blog, I would love for you to "officially" follow me.  Just click "Follow" up at the top or join this site with Google Friend Connect.  It's the only why I know who even cares what's going on in our little corner of Oklahoma.  And thanks for stopping by!

Love you all!

Rulissa

You Want Me To Do WHAT?!?!

The hubster gets a kick out of me sometimes because I am always trying things I've found on the Internet.  Well...that's what it's for, right?  To share information and make life easier/better/funnier?  So here is my latest trial.  Brace yourself...

I've started washing my face with oil.  (Go ahead and laugh, I'll wait.)
You done?  OK.  Let me tell you why... I was reading here (which is a wonderful blog full of household tips and I highly recommend you hop on over later) and she had some really good arguments about washing your face with oil.

I have extremely dry skin (which gets even worse in the winter).  So I used the "dry skin" mixture.  My eldest (who is traveling at warp speed toward puberty) has very oily skin, so I made him some of the "oily skin" mixture.  This is how it works...

Take your Sunflower Oil and Castor Oil and mix it together according to one of the following recipes.

Dry Skin - 90% Sunflower Oil, 10% Castor Oil
Balanced Skin - 80% Sunflower Oil, 20% Castor Oil
Oily Skin - 70% Sunflower Oil, 30% Castor Oil

Once you get yours mixed up, this is how you use it:

• Massage into skin for about 1 minute.  (It is a great makeup remover - even for your eyes!)
• Wet your wash cloth with very warm water and lay it on your face to "steam" the oil.  
• Once it cools, use it to gently wipe off any excess.

Now, for those of you who still get a blemish every once in a while...I suggest dabbing it with a little Tea Tree Oil.  This is very potent stuff, so a little dab will do ya!

You will see a difference in your skin the very next day - It is that amazing!  (The tween monkey has had a pimple on his forehead for 2 weeks and after two days of this, it is GONE!!!)

Since I had this all mixed up, I needed a way to dispense it that wouldn't cause a mess.  I purchased some plastic pump bottles in the lotion section of Hobby Lobby and used my 40% off coupon so it only cost a little over $3 for both bottles.  I then needed labels, so I headed over to ishareprintables.com which is a wonderful site to get some free stuff.  Check it out - you won't be disappointed!  Once I printed the labels, I used clear packing tape to stick them to the bottles.

If you decide to try out my little miracle cleanser, let me know!

Happy cleaning!  Love you all,

Rulissa

Countdown to Christmas

Wow!  Can you believe that tomorrow is the first day of December?  Me neither!  Where did November go???

I've been thinking of ways to make this month special and not just one big blur of rushing here and running there, one more trip to the mall and...well, you get the idea.  I thought we could do a Countdown to Christmas this year (aka an Advent Calendar).  But instead of chocolates and sweets (which we really don't need!) I thought we could DO something each day leading up to Christmas.

Each one of these envelopes has a "to do" for our family. I think we will have so much fun doing these. A list of all of them (we repeated some) is at the end of this post.

Now - the kids don't know what we will be doing each day, so that's a surprise, but I kind of planned according to the day of the week when I was putting them up. That way we won't have movie night on the same night as church or make candy on the same night as basketball practice. (I have to keep some of my sanity!)  Any way - what is your favorite thing to do during the holidays? Do you countdown to Christmas as well?

Make Paper Snowflakes

Drink Hot Chocolate & Watch a Christmas Movie 

Say “Merry Christmas” instead of “Hello”

Make Christmas Crafts

Make Christmas Candy

Make outside “ornament”

Read a Christmas Book

Sing Christmas Carols

Hang Ornaments

Make Popcorn Balls

Go See Christmas Lights in Your Jammies

Read a Christmas Book

Make a gift for someone special

Donate your change to the Salvation Army

Write Letters to Santa

Drink Hot Chocolate and Watch a Christmas Movie

Get Egg Nog Ice Cream

Make Chex Mix & Puppy Chow

Make Christmas Candy

Take Treats to neighbors

Make Christmas Cookies

Read a Christmas Book

Go see more Christmas Lights

Watch a Christmas Movie, Leave Santa Snacks 

    & Read “Night Before Christmas”

Love you all!

Rulissa

Crafty Weekends

I LOVE crafts!  I'm really not the craftiest person...I come up with ideas, do them and think they are great, but then I see what others have done and mine pales in comparison.  I know!  I have to quit comparing!!!  Maybe I'll show you some of my crafts later...

I was feeling crafty today and have some possible Christmas presents that needed to be attempted (it is the middle of November, you know!)  So I sat down with all my stuff and realized I was missing Mod Podge.

Now, I know I have some, but we are in the process of packing things up. (Our house is for sale so I de-cluttered a few months back.  This must have been one of the things I packed.)  If you use Mod Podge, you know that it is not cheap.  The above 8 oz. bottle runs about $8.  And, since Christmas is right around the corner, I would rather spend my moo-lah on fun stuff and not this!  So...one quick Google search later and I had more than enough recipes for homemade mod podge.  This is what I came up with...

It works just as well as the real thing, but costs soooo much less.  I bought a 12 pack of the glue for $4 and used a 40% off coupon from Hobby Lobby so that made it $2.40 or $0.20/bottle.  The container cost me $2.50.  So I got 12 oz of homemade mod podge for less than $3.00.  I don't know about you, but that makes me smile!

Happy crafting ya'll!!

Rulissa

Thankfulness

As Thanksgiving draws ever closer, (can you believe it's only 19 days away?!) we are asked more and more - What are you thankful for?

I was thinking of this last night...that reminds me of the song from White Christmas where Rosemary Clooney couldn't sleep and Bing Crosby sang to her, "Count Your Blessings Instead of Sheep," but I digress... What am I thankful for?  Cute shoes?  New TV?  Friends?  Love?  Chocolate?

 I narrowed it down to the Top 3: 

1.  Jesus and His sacrifice.  Without this, I wouldn't have Hope...hope for eternal life, hope for my future.  Hope is good, let me tell you!

2.  My husband.  He is amazing!  He works hard and doesn't complain, smiles and tells me he loves me when I do something crazy like start a blog, leads our home according to scriptures and is the best dad ever!!!

3.  My kids.  The Three Monkeys bring so much joy to our lives.  They bring more than their share of craziness, too.  But even through the yelling and fighting, you can still feel their love for each other.  I hope they never lose that.


I know - pretty unoriginal, right?  But  this is my life and I'm so happy to have it and I am thankful for it everyday!

So - Along this line of thinking, I found this Thanksgiving craft on The Complete Guide to Imperfect Homemaking and I am totalling doing it this year!  It's a garland for the mantle that even the kids and hubby can get into.  Take strips of paper and have people write on them what they are thankful for this year.  Then you can display for all to see.  I love, love, love this idea!!

And remember friends - I'm thankful for you, too!

Love you all,

Rulissa