Super Readers and the Princess Cheetah

Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays.  Maybe it's because for one day, you can choose to be anything you want.  This year my daughter's school did something a little different to celebrate Halloween.  They wanted to incorporate literature into their Halloween parade.  So, she had to dress as her favorite book character.  Right now, she's really into the Non-fiction animal books and we always end up checking out 20 books about animals each time we visit the library.  Naturally, she wanted to be a cheetah.  Unfortunately for her, she was sick the last part of the week and missed her parade.  She did get to trick or treat and made a 'fierce' princess cheetah.  I made her costume with some cheetah print material, a black turtleneck and some black faux fur.  It was pretty easy, the skirt was an a-line skirt with an elastic waist and I just stitch witched the fur to her turtleneck.  The faux fur was the messiest material I've ever worked with, but that was just stitched to the top of the skirt hem and cuffs of the turtleneck.  She was sick while I was putting her costume together and she requested I make a stuffed cheetah friend for her.  I had never made a toy before, but I gave it my best shot and she loved it.  Total cost of her costume: <$10.

My son love PBS'  "Super Why?" show and for his birthday one of our friends made him a cape.  Every time he wears that cape he tells us he's 'Super Why.' So I knew that he would love to be Super Wyatt for Halloween.  His costume was much easier to make and less time consuming.  Total cost of materials:  <$10.  Shirt was $4 and shorts were $2 both from Target, leggings were $2 from Crazy 8's.  I painted the logo on the shirt and then hemmed the shorts to make them look like super hero bloomers.  We didn't do the eye mask because he hates to have anything around his face like that.  He totally loved it.

I decided that I was going to be Super Wyatt's sidekick, Wonder Red for my costume.  My costume cost about $6 all from the Goodwill store.  My cape was from an over sized shirt I all ready had.  I made a shirt to go around the top of the red shorts using leftovers from the red t-shirt.  I had to dig through my daughter's toy box to find my red wig and then it took about 20 minutes to comb out all the tangles and knots.

Here are a few shots from making costumes to trick or treating.  I didn't do any step by step tutorials on the costumes, I was just trying to finish them in time.  Hope you enjoy them!

CONSTRUCTING a little boy's 2nd birthday...

Well, this post is long over due!  I can't believe it's taken me over two weeks to get this post published.  Two weeks ago, we celebrated my little guy's 2nd birthday!  He is really into construction and tools and anything with wheels, your typical little boy.  I had a few ideas of what to do for his party (Finding Nemo, Pirate Party, and Construction).  I finally settled on doing a construction theme.

To make things a little easy on myself, I went with e-vites this year.  I usually enjoy spending the time to create our own unique invitations, but I didn't want to stress myself out any more than was necessary.  The wording involved 'constructing a party.'

I used authentic construction tape for streamers and decorations along with orange and black streamers (perfect since they're around this time of year for Halloween).  For the kids, I thought it would be fun for them to have their own construction hats (Target $1spot and Dollar Deals $1) with their names on them along with safety vests also personalized with their names (purchased $1 orange plastic table cloth and cut to size, fastened with duct tape).  The hats and vests took most of my time, trying to peel price tags and cut patterns took about 2 hrs from start to finish (completed while the kiddos were asleep).

Food was our typical Filipino/American party food.  For the kids we had pigs in a blanket, dino nuggets, an assortment of fruit/veggies, pasta salad, pancit, and barbecued meats.  The cake was especially easy and fun to make.  I baked it the night before (2 rectangle pans used) and then decorated with chocolate icing, praline ice cream topping, German chocolate marshmallows and a construction vehicle set that doubled as a birthday present.

We played a few games, pinata (what kind of party is it without one), balloon pop, and mini pumpkin painting.  I set up a plain white banner for the kids to draw on and decorate while guests arrived (worked wonders at keeping them busy).

The hats and vests doubled as favors, goodie bags were made with brown lunch bags with each kid's name on it and was filled with candies/goodies from the pinata.  My little guy had a 'birthday shirt' I decorated with some paint and clip art I found online.

Here are a few photos of the day, hope you get some good tips and ideas for your own 'Party under construction!'

Trick or treat, smell my feet...

Today was all things Halloween in our house.  I had a little one home sick from school, she refused to lay on the couch and rest so she helped me decorate for Halloween.  Halloween is probably one of my favorite holidays aside from Christmas.  The costumes, candy and party food are amongst the best of all holidays.  Okay, maybe behind Christmas and Thanksgiving.

This is the first year since we first moved into our house that we got 'decked out' for Halloween.  We've done some decorations here and there throughout the years, but this year we've really outdone ourselves.  I got lots of ideas from pinterest.com, like the pine cone wreath, the 'spooky' mobile, and the bat cutouts for the lampshades.  I found lots of the decorations at Dollar Tree and had stuff from Michael's too.

Pine cone wreath idea from pinterest.com

The kids get a kick out of the 'kaboom witch'

Even Mr. Gnome had to get in on the action

A witch and her spider (thanks Mama Lori for the Halloween soap)

My Target clearance buy, less than $3

One of my faves, a mobile made from black construction paper.
No template available from pinterest.com so free handed instead.

Reminds me of 'Nightmare Before Christmas'

Another pinterest.com idea from Martha Stewart.  Just drew, cut and taped bats
to the inside of our lampshades

Hope you enjoy what we've done and hope it gives you some inspiration to go 'spooky/cute' for your home this Halloween!

Renovation Realities, Part Deux...

It's officially finished!  I met my 2nd timeline of completing the bathroom project before Wednesday (originally I thought I'd have it finished on Sunday, boy was I wrong).  I was finished with the painting this morning while my little guy played in big sis' room.  Today was the fun day, it was the day of minimal painting, replacing yellowed switchplates (I hope they weren't supposed to be white), hanging a beautiful mirror, hanging towel hooks, and moving the bathroom stuff back to their home. 

Here's the complete rundown of the bathroom renovation.  Would I do it again?  Definitely.  Hope you enjoy the transformation as much as I do!  I am completely in love with our new hall bathroom.  Very reminiscent of 'craftsman' style or something you'd find in an older home (my dream is to own a beautiful, charming old house).

Before - hallway shot

Before - vanity side

Before - long wall side

1st step - remove all hardware and spackle/sand

2nd step - contact papered mirror and removed

Laid out wood strips for visual - then realized I needed to cut 5 inches to
get the height I wanted with the molding/trim

Almost finished with this wall

My beautiful new light fixture, $34 at Home Depot, with
freshly painted white walls

After - hallway shot, the shower curtain rod will be
much higher soon.  I'm just afraid to ruin the paint!

After - hallway shot of vanity side

My craigslist mirror find $30, I had to spray paint it white

View of the long wall with the new towel hooks

Another view of the long wall through the mirror

I did everything myself from the measuring, cutting of wood, electrical (scary, I know), painting, hanging of mirror and hooks.  There was never a time when I thought I wouldn't be able to do this.  I had a vision of what I wanted this project to turn out and I'm happy to say that it's exactly what I hoped for.  So ladies, don't think that you can't, because I did and look at this beautiful bathroom!  I told my husband I loved it so much I wanted to sleep in the bathroom tonight.  My 4 year old also thinks it's wonderful.  It's her 'perfect princess bathroom.'  Every little princess needs a princess bathroom right?

Renovation realities...

I love to watch the DIY network, my favorite show is 'Renovation Realities.'  It makes me laugh to see how people can go completely into a huge renovation project with really no idea of what needs to be done, how to do it, or how much it's going to cost or length of time to complete.

Well, I have officially changed my feelings about those people.  I did my homework and had everything mapped out, I just hadn't factored in 'kid time.'  Yesterday I started my own 'Renovation Reality' and I really thought it would only take me a weekend to complete our hall bath.  Boy was I wrong!  The hardest part of the whole darn thing was taking off the baseboards.  The builders that made our house were not messing around with their nails.  They were about 8 inches long and I had hoped to save the baseboards to reuse, but sad to say they weren't saved.

I'm also having an issue with paint bubbling in one spot.  I peeled it and then spackled and sanded and then repainted, but now it's bubbling in another spot close to the first.  Can you say FRUSTRATION?  Ah well, I'll leave that for one of the last things I fix when it's all finished.

My to do list for the next few days:  install new light fixture (been putting that off for fear of electrocution), paint and install mirror, miter cut a few more boards to finish the wall and baseboard, install new switch plates, patch and paint. 

I really hope to be finished by Wednesday at the latest.  I'd really love to start on Halloween costumes soon!

As they say on 'Renovation Realities,' episode TO BE CONTINUED!



Finished the 1st coat of paint on the lower walls tonight



A little sneak peek...

So, my ottoman project has been put on the back burner because I'm super excited to finish our hall bathroom (aka 'The kids' bath').  Yesterday, I removed everything from the walls and spackled .  The bathroom is in a shambles, but still usable.
Here are a few pictures of what it looked like before I started everything. Not too shabby, but not exactly 'perfect.' It's in the original shape from when we bought our house and we haven't changed anything about it. Later on down the road we'll replace the vanity, but it's not in my budget right now.





Before




Paint choices, we're going with the one on the left - Perfectly Teal




Craig's list find - $30, spray painting black or white



What I envision our walls to look like when finished
(courtesy of http://inmyownstyle.com/2011/07/bathroom-remodel-update.html)

That picture frame cost how much?

Labor Day weekend, we were lucky enough to have our kid's pictures taken by my sister in law's brother.  He recently started his photography business and was in town for the holiday.  We went to the Hampton Roads Soccer Complex a few miles from our house and let the kids do their thing.
The weather was perfect for pictures, a little overcast.  We let them run wild kicking the soccer balls, playing chase, digging in the sand pit, playing dress up, riding in the wagon and then ending everything with some lollipops.  The results were AMAZING! 

When Garry sent me the pictures, I had such a hard time choosing 3 or 4, so I had 10 photos printed.  10 photos usually means 10 frames and that = mega bucks.  I remembered my favorite 'bargain shops' (aka Goodwill Store and Habitat Store) had picture frames.  It didn't matter that I didn't like the color or the artwork in the frame, the idea was to find shapes and silhouettes I liked since I was going to spray paint them anyway.  I scored 7 frames for less than $10, I'm still on the hunt for 3 more.

I was a little scared of painting the frames since I'd never done it before, but heck, if I can refinish side tables and dressers and desks, surely I can redo a few little frames.  I can now see why people get addicted to spray painting stuff.  It's fun and easy and cheap!  So I lightly sanded and sprayed all the frames on newspaper out in the yard.  A few hours of dry time and they were ready for pictures! I just had to add some hanger clips to the back and cut some paper for the matting.

4 frames from Goodwill - $6



Sand the frames lightly to remove the shine



Spray them lightly and evenly



Measure where you want the hanger



The finished product, excuse the bean bags



I didn't hang them level on purpose for the sheer fact that I didn't have a level on hand and I like the look of having the frames grow 'organically.' There is a little tweaking and straightening needed, but I'm very pleased with the final outcome.

Total cost breakdown: FRAMES 10 for $12, PICTURE HANGERS 2 for $2.50, SPRAY PAINT 1 for $5, PICTURES 10 for $14.  Project total less than $35.