Last week's bows

My mom came and fixed my sewing machine. Yep, I am CLUELESS when it comes to that dang machine, but I am learning. Slowly.
I finally tried some bows from this amazing blog with tutorials!

My favorite right now is the ones like #4. The bunching kind, that you sew a loose running stitch on one end, and gather the strings.

Obviously (from lack on posting), my random acts of obsession have NOT been in the crafting arena. My obsessions have been taken over by normal mom duties that I neglect during the school year, and since summer is coming to an end, we are trying to spend as much time together now as we can!

A Hammer He'll Cherish...father's day gifts

We did some very simple, yet darling, father's day crafts today. The kids painted a hammer with acrylic paint, and a clear glaze on top. They also water colored some paper that we modged around a canister, making a little treat canister for their dads.

We also took some pictures of them holding this huge piece of foam board. Then I photoshoped in some text "I Love You Daddy!" I will frame this and add it to the hammer, treat box (filled with treats of course) Happy Father's Day!

Shape Concentration Kid Game

Berkely just turned 2. I know she knows what a star, circle, and heart is. The other shapes are kind of guess work. I cut some shapes out of felt, hand stitched them on some light fabric, sewed some material on the back, and created a little concentration game for us to play. I am hoping this will help a little with shapes.

Some of Berkely's Birthday Decorations

Birthday BannerCovered some tin cans and added some flowers that I revamped from the dollar store. I put these in the middle of each table, with some balloons tied to them. (filled with tissue paper and rocks to weigh the balloons down).

Funfetti Cupcakes for dessert

And I made Shannon come whip me up some yummy frosting (with her mad cake decorating skills).
Layered on the frosting in gigantic swirls.
YUMMY!!

Wrapped a diaper's box and a computer box and created a Cupcake stand.
Made some burlap flowers and material flowers for a picture display. (bad picture quality, sorry)

Painted a 3 by 3 block of wood, drilled some holes in top, added some dowells (all different lengths), and added some material, flowers, button, etc.
Used little clothes pins to clip my Berkely all over it.

Everything ready to go to the park: Cupcake tower, cupcakes, and Berkely's 2 year old picture display.

Rat Trap and Car Papers

1.Rat Trap Wonder:
I know. Rats are grose, so are their traps, but not any more!

Okay, So you get a rat trap. You can also use a mouse trap, it is just smaller, I wanted to go big!

Then you pry off the metal hardware. I took off everything but the spring at first.
Gathered my loot. Paper, paint, ribbon, modge, etc.
Painted the Rat Trap and HATED IT!!! I hated how you could still see the wording. It was ugly.

So, I pryed up the snapping part (be careful!)

Then I found this old gift bag that I had. (you can use any scrapbook paper or material)After that, I simple turned the trap upside down, painted the edges, and modged the gift bag on to the wooden surface.
That's much better!!!!

Added some ribbon and pink rope (from the gift bag).

Then I took my hubby away from basketball for 5 minutes while we clamped down the spring trap part back on to the trap. I don't know how we would have done it without clamps!

Clamped it down tight.

Powered up the staple gun and stapled the spring back on.

I added 3 round magnets to the back, and stuck it to my fridge! Love it. Rat Trap Nasty to Rat Trap Wonder.

You could do bills, coupons, receipts, to do lists, etc. I think bills will do for my first attempt!

#2. Organizing My Car Papers

Found this bad boy for 1 dollar at a thrift store. It is a foldout coupon holder. I knew just where I needed it...... First I had to make it a little bit more pleasing to the eye.

So, I modged, and I cut, and I modged, and I waited.

And I added a little burned edges satin material under the flap, and a satin flower.

I went out to the car to find this mess below:

And made it look a little bit better using my car papers, modge podged, wonder.
Thanks for sharing in my latest obsessions! Have a great day!

Kudos to my k-5 teachers

Julie, Shannon, and I wanted to give something to our team of K-5 teachers. So, I made up a little digi scrap quote that we framed, a KUDOS tag, and added some Kudos bars.Here is the teacher quote we used. Our adminstrator told us this quote at a meeting once, and I thought it was perfect for us to use.

Here is the Kudos tag that I just folded over the ziploc baggie.

We added these necklaces to the gift and called it good. Now we all have matching necklaces! I love my team!