Making Playdough

So for fun over Christmas break, we made a big batch of playdough. This recipe does make a lot, but it was nice to have a large batch for my kiddos. So you could cut it down if you want a smaller batch. This was all from one batch:
Ingredients:

• 5 cups water
• 5 cups flour
• 2 1/2 cups salt
• 3 Tablespoons cream of tartar
• 10 Tablespoons vegetable oil
• Food coloring

Instructions:

Mix water, salt, cream of tartar, and food coloring. Cook on medium-low heat, stirring regularly until mixture is hot. Add oil. Stir in flour a cup at a time, stirring in between each addition. Mix until playdough pulls away from pan and is no longer sticky (pinch it between your fingers to test). Dump dough on counter, let cool a bit, then knead.

We keep our playdough in a freezer bag at room temperature. This recipe makes a lot and lasts for several months!

**If you want different colors, like we did, you will want to wait to add the food coloring until the end, then knead it in.

Temple Picture

So I made this in the Fall for Super Saturday, but I got busy and didn't get it posted. It looks great above my piano.

Spreading Christmas Cheer

We tried to think of some fun ways to spread a little extra cheer this year. This was my favorite:Kyla drew pictures and made cards to delver to our local hospital. She wrote Merry Christmas in each of them. She really enjoyed making all of these.

We also made cards for the postman and left him a treat in the mailbox. The kids were super thrilled when the postman left a Christmas card for us the next day. And now we know what his name is :)

My kids also really enjoyed taking treats to friends and neighbors. I ended up making more than I had planned because they kept wanting to go. We kept the treats small and just hit more houses and made it fun. Kyla wanted to sing to everyone and Nathan was sure to say Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone.

Hand Soap Gifts

This was a small gift I made for a few people.I have the printable here: (prints on an 8 by 10)

Candied Coin Rolls

I Santa used Martha Stewart's idea to make these Candy Coins for the kids stockings:
They love putting coins in their piggy banks, so this is a perfect stocking stuffer. (Ironically, they will also be getting chocolate coins in their stockings)

Merry Christmas from Your Peeps Gifts

I saw this cute idea on Pinterest just in time to make it for my Mia Maid girls:

I have the best advisor!! I showed her the idea and she did all the shopping for me, so it was super easy!! (Thanks, Nicole!)

(It would also be cute for VT) The idea comes from Bloom Designs. You can get personalized tags from her....I just made my own using her basic design 'cause I wanted to hurry and get them done and delivered :)

So I've never tried this, but I saved my file as a jpeg so it could be printed from my blog. (so if you try to print it before I do, you'll have to let me know if it works) I got 4 tags on an 8x10 and printed on cardstock:

Snowman on the Fridge...redo

So this year we did the snowman on the fridge again, but instead of using paper, I made the face out of felt and the scarf out of fabric. (Paper scarfs don't hold up too well with several little kids dribbling water down the fridge when they fill their cups)

Weekly Planner

I also decided to get our family more organized with a weekly calendar. This came as a one piece frame at Michaels. I got it on sale for around $13. Then I added the vinyl to the glass. It also has changeable papers, so here is Christmas:

Menu Board

In an attempt to get more organized, I made this fun Menu Board. I found a tall frame at Michaels for around $5. I used vinyl on the glass and a dry erase marker to update our weekly menu. I like that I can change out the papers to match the season...here it is in Christmas:

Christmas Printable

I love how you can find nice printables to fill in around the home. I found this one on pinterest and printed it off ZsaZsaBellagio. I printed it on red cardstock and really liked the look.

Warm Santa Hats

I had fun making these winter Santa hats for my kids. They were super excited to wear them! I made them up as I went along....and was happy with the results:
They wore them this weekend while we went out doing some of our Christmas fun:

Felt Tree for the Kids

The kids have been having fun moving all the ornaments around on their own tree...and I don't mind a bit. It's actually fun for me to see the different changes. I might make a few more ornaments. I used some spray adhesive to stick it to the wall. The felt ornaments stick really well to the felt tree.

This Year's Letter to Santa

I found this cute letter to Santa on family fun's website. Fun way for the kids to start off our Christmas celebrations...next year because then I found this cute one and decided to use it this year...printable on Tip Junkie. Made for some cute letters to Santa this year hanging on our wall for Santa.

I won!!

So every once in a while I enter contests on blogs and was excited this week to find out that I won a Christmas cd from MyLittleGems!! If you haven't seen her blog, Sharla has a fun blog with crafts and recipes. She has a fun schedule of posts:

Monday: Weekend Projects

Tuesday: Kid's Crafts/Activities

Wednesday: Organizing/Decorating

Thursday: Crafts & Projects & Tutorials

Friday:Reviews/Round-up/Give-a-ways

Sat/Sun: Recipes & Sweet Treats

Her link is under my "Inspiration" category. If you want to see what cd I won, you'll have to go look at her blog :)

Can't wait to get it in the mail and let you know how I like it!

Thanksgiving shelf

So this is how my black shelf looks for Thanksgiving:

Harvest Blocks

Another cute idea my sister found was these Harvest blocks...so we got together and made them last month. I put them out with my Thanksgiving decor:

2x4 Turkey

My sister found this cute idea for a turkey at Ucreate, so we got together and made them this summer....now it's cute on my shelf for Thanksgiving.Kyla made one, too:

Pumpkin Bowling

I did a game for my daughter's first grade class Halloween party: Halloween Bowling.
It worked really well and they had a lot of fun. (Yes, that is a real pumpkin)

Halloween Nails

We've had some fun painting Halloween nails, too. Here are some we did this year:

Sidewalk Chalk Costumes

We had a fun time Friday decorating our sidewalks for Halloween....we also did a few "costumes" to try on for fun.
My kids really likes having their bodies traced on the driveway:Kyla drew this: Our kids in costumes...witch, spiderman, superman, and batman...and they are holding their orange pumpkin buckets :)
Good Halloween Fun for our Family and super easy on the budget :)

Sucker Ghost Garland

My kids really liked our Ghost Garland last year and wanted to make another one for this year. So I learned from last year's....the weight of the suckers will pull all the ghosts to the center unless you tie knots in the strings to keep the ghosts from sliding on the string so this year the garland looks much better!!

My Dining Room Shelf for Halloween

I wanted this shelf in my dining room for a really long time...and last Christmas my parents made it for me :) LOVE it!! So, this is how I decorated it for Halloween:

Batman Costume

So this costume started as a bat, but the other 2 boys chose to be spiderman and superman...two costumes that we already had in the dress up bin, so they made it easy on me! So...I decided to do some quick changes to make Josh's costume a super hero to match the boys....hence Batman! (and on a tighter budget this year, this costume only cost around $3..sweet!)

He was not super thrilled with having his picture taken that night, but here's a quick peak at his costume:
And just in case your wondering about the other two super heros:

All ready for Trick or Treating...they are so excited!!

Witch Costume

Halloween costumes are ready at my house!!! This year Kyla wanted to be a "cute" witch, not a "scary" one. She chose pink and black for her colors. We made the tulle skirt using a black ribbon, 4 yards of pink tulle and one roll of black tulle. We used her black dance leotard and added a little pink tulle to the neckline to tie it together. We also put a strip of pink tulle on the hat to make it match. She simply "had to have" a broom, so we painted a dowel black and put pink tulle on the end. Then we finished it off with her black leggings and black shoes. Super easy and fairy inexpensive. She loves it! That's what really matters :)Thanks, Dad, for letting the kids come pick pumpkins!!!

Mix and Match a Monster

I found these cute little monsters on family fun last year and printed them out, but it took me a while to get them done, so they'll have plenty of time this Halloween season to use them now.
I put them in file folders with velcro to keep them together and thought that would make them more fun to move parts around.

Gone Batty

I saw this idea on Crap I've Made and I really wanted some bats for my house, but I debated vinyl. Then on clearance after Halloween last year, (LOVE Target!) I found these wall decals and knew they would work perfectly!! So here is my chandelier this Halloween:

Refrigerator Ghost

So I saw this idea on pinterest...it comes from Jean's Crafty Corner. We did a snowman on our fridge last winter and the kids loved it, so I knew they would really like this for Halloween:

I used black felt and some spray on adhesive to stick it on the fridge. (We just used paper for the snowman last winter and this winter we will be using felt and spray adhesive instead).

Here Lives...

I saw this saying at a craft show last fall and wanted it for my house. With the help of my awesome parents, I now have a sign hanging by my door with this saying:

Our Garden...

This year we finally established a garden space. We put in 2 large garden boxes with a drip system. We wanted to see how well it all worked before completing our garden space, but now we are hoping to add more garden boxes and grow even more next year.
Tomatoes:
Zucchini:Corn:Jade Green Beans:

Raspberries:
Mini Pumpkins: (We planted 4 seeds in the beginning of June and 3 grew. We got LOTS of little pumpkins to decorate with this fall!)
Carrots:
My herbs: I grew green onions, basil and parsley all from seed. They did great!! (My chives come back every year).
We also grew onions and peppers that didn't do very well this year, but we tried. My kids were so excited to grow our own garden and we'll add more next year...