The Giving Tree

The begining of November is a time for gratitude.  It is a time we remember what we have been blessed with.  It is also a time for giving because of all that we have been given.  That is why the first Monday night in November we read the story The Giving Tree.  Its a cute little book that reminds us to give of all we have and love.  

After we read the book we think of ways that we can give to our family.  Each leaf on the tree represents something we can do for someone else.  Throughout the month we take the leaves off of the tree and do the kind deed.  They are simple things like make a bed for someone in the family, dance with your sister, read to the baby, and so on.  The kids look forward to doing it and it adds a little bit more love and kindness into the home.

Mustache Mania

When I have playgroup at my house I am always trying to think up a cute craft.

This can get tricky with 8 kids over.

I wanted to incorporate autumn along with something fun.

Then I remembered all the cute mustaches I have been seeing lately

and realized two leafs that looked alike would make a mustache.

Supplies

2 leafs
1 Popsicle stick
1 piece of green paper (fit two leafs)
hot glue gun
glue

Place the leafs on the paper

Glue the leafs in place with the tips touching

keep rubbing down the parts that lift up

After the glue is dry cut out around the leafs

(Adult only part) Hot glue the stick to the back.

Let the silliness begin

They loved their mustaches.  Especially the girls.  The boys did as well but wanted nothing to do with pics.

I hope you have fun making this with your kids.

Turning my hubby's shirt into Mine!!!

My husband cheers for my rival

yes

You heard me, the {shhhh} "Other team"

So, when he was in a golf tourney and won a UTAH t-shirt you can guess how thrilled he was

He got home and tossed it to me and said "I don't want this ugly shirt...here."

I have been wearing the boxy mens shirt as a cleaning shirt for quite some time.

I decided it was high time that I wear it as a cute girl shirt

especially since the BIG Game is tomorrow

GO UTES!

You will need:

Pins

Fabric sissors

Sewing machine

chalk

A woman's cut shirt

A:  Mens boxy shirt

B:  Lay the woman's shirt over the top and line it up in the top center

C:  See how your shirt doesn't even go past the shoulders

D:  Draw your chalk outline around the sleeve line.  I put pins in on the seem of the white shirt so that when I put the sleeve back I could see where to draw the line.

E:  This is what your chalk outline should look like.

F:  Put pins all along the chalk line.  Cut out the shirt.

G:  YOUR SHIRT SHOULD LOOK LIKE THIS

Now for the sleeves.

H:  I used the piece of the sleeve that I cut off 

I:  Chalk around the other part of the sleeve.  Again I pinned the white shirt on the seem to have a line to draw with the chalk.  Make sure you are starting from the top wear the fabric folds.  This way you have one piece when you open it up.

J:  The sleeve should resemble this. 

K:  I cut off the collar and took the front down a bit to make it a more "girlie" shirt. (I of course forgot to take a pic of this step)  See the final pic for the ides. 

The sleeves should look somewhat like this when placed on the shirt.

You can now un-pin the shirt and turn it inside out.

L:  Pin the sleeve to the shirt.  This is tricky  I had to pin it twice because i pinned it so the stitching would show the first time.  Before you sew anything turn it right side out and this will help you determine if it is right.

I sewed the sleeves on first.  Once the sleeves were on I sewed the straight line down the sides. 

It literally took one hours to do.

So easy and so much cuter than before

Not so boxy men's shirt anymore

This was a little rushed so if you have any questions just leave a comment and I will try to answer it to the best of my abilities.

If you make this I would love to see it so send me a blog link or email me.

Enjoy

And one last thing

GO UTES!!!

Charades in Reverse

Looking for a FUN game to play with the family?

If you want to see your family play together and be totally goofy here is your FREE fun night.

Tonight we played Charades in Reverse.

yes, in reverse

don't worry this is easy to understand.

We switched things up tonight by having everyone act out the clue, while only one person guesses.

We simply put a bunch of words in a hat and pulled them out and did three at a time.  Then we would switch to another person to guess.  You could do as many as you could in a set time limit with teams.  Everyone has to act out the word(s) without discussing it.

The words we used:

hopping

silly

totem pole

leap frog

tug-of-war

Hannah Montana (for my daughter)

baseball pitcher

coughing

pudding face (our fav commercial)

running

grumpy

goal

Grinch (for our other daughter)

The list could go on and on.

Make it personable for your family.

The person guessing had to switch out and let someone else guess after they got 3 right.

Or you could play in teams and do a time limit.

Our family liked to do it all together. 

We have young kids that is why our words were easy.

Except no one knew what a totem pole was.  (I may need to do school at home.)

We had a ton of fun.

After we went through our list the kids then acted out the title of their favorite shows. (Normal charades)

Go and try this with your kids.  

It truly was a blast.

SUBWAY ART {HALLOWEEN}

Who doesn't love subway art.

Here is a Halloween one just for you.

Since I don't know how to get you the download just right click on the pic.

If this doesn't work shoot me an email and I will email the jpg to you.

16X20

11X14

{Personalized} Wall Art

I love anything that has my kids names on it. Again we all know that I LOVE PBK. A little to much maybe. But I HATE their prices. So when I see something this cute I have to make it. It was $89 on PBK. I paid $8 for the canvas and if we want to get technical I paid a $1 per color for the acrylic paint. But I already had the paint so that doesn't count :)

What I learned was canvas is very forgiving.  If I messed up I could just wipe it off if it wasn't dry.  It was very easy to do and in a little kids room your art work can look like you yourself is a little kid.  :)

Step One:  Dampen the canvas with a wet rung out rag.

Step Two:  Paint your base color.  I loved baby blue as you can see.

You paint this on the entire canvas.

Step Three:  Allow the canvas to dry completely.

Step Four:  Paint your pattern.  Again if it isn't what you want you can wipe it way with a rag.

Step 5:  Anytime you paint over another color allow the base color to dry completely.  

Step Five:  Hang that cute thing up.

I love my sons baseball shirt. I can't throw it out even though he has out grown it.

Hints:  Light colors are more forgiving. 

Draw your picture first on paper.
Be creative.
Think of drawing you did when you were little.  Do something like that.

If you are going for a whimsical look do swirls with your paint brush.  Even use the tip of your wet rag.

Enjoy it.  Your kids will love having something from you on their wall.

I can almost smell it in the air...

I can't wait to fill this cute calendar up with fun Halloween goodness.

My cute friend and I made these after seeing them on this awesome blog.

It was so much fun to make.

Restless Risa is way to awesome.  

I had to make mine a nine day calendar to keep the cost down.

I used my cricket and sticky felt for the numbers.

The pockets are filled with things we love (and do anyways)

I know the Monday night before Halloween we will go to the pumpkin patch so that was in that day.

I like to make sugar cookies so I put a cookie cutter in that spot.

There were glow sticks on Halloween night.

Pencils and erasers

etc..

Make sure that everything is Halloween themed.  This adds to the fun.

I got ribbon to tie it with.

The bags had Halloween on them.

The kids will love this.