Leopard print nails!

Well, seeing as my last nails only lasted 3 days, I needed to do them again! I have been wanting to try these leopard print nails for awhile, but I have been apprehensive about the white base, and I didn't have enough colours for my liking. Today I figured why not? It's easy enough to remove! I am super happy with how they turned out, and I can't wait to go shopping again with my niece to get more of the design nail polish brushes(she knows the cheap places!). Hope you like them!!

Geometric nail fun

Pinterest has struck again. I needed to redo my nails and I figured I would try something fun rather than just plain colours. I had seen this on Pinterest a while ago but I was lacking the black to try it. It was really easy, just time consuming. Paint a couple coats of the base colours(however many you want to try). Let dry, then add your tape(I used what I got in a French manicure set). Once those are stuck on the paint over your whole nail with black. Once it's dry, carefully peel off the tape and paint with a top coat to make it shiny! Now I just need a better top coat. I am also shaky so I tried cleaning the polish as best I could, so pardon the mess! Hope you like it and possibly gives you some inspiration to try something fun yourself!

Pinterest bath time fun

I, like many MANY others, am obsessed with Pinterest! I don't plan on doing a weekly challenge, as I have a few friends blogging about that so I don't want to copy them or try to " steal their thunder". Plus, I have enough challenges going on right now, but I will blog about the ones I find super fun and super easy! There I tried a couple in one last night for my sons bath time. We did coloured water and glow sticks. I had previously purchased water dye tablets for kids, and already had glow sticks from previous celebrations, so I decided why not combine them and have a super fun bath. We had blue water and I added 7 glow sticks. He was so excited and really loved it when I turned off the lights! It was a really fun and really cheap thing to do for him, and something we will do more often!

Elf on the Shelf ideas

This year one of Santa's famous elves made their way to our house. We prepared Xander by watching the movie and reading the book. But it wasn't until the next morning when he saw that the elf had arrived that he really grasped it. He never got the "behave as the elf will tell Santa everything" concept, but he's 2, so I wasn't expecting him to. I just wanted to get him excited about Christmas. We also have yet to come up with a name for the elf as I want him to name it, and he doesn't get that concept yet either, next year. I wanted to do some fun and creative poses, which but the end of it gets hard trying to top yourself! I got some from other elf idea blog posts, stole ideas from friends(Delia in particular!), but for the most part they were my ideas. Some are plain and simple(forgot to move him and had to scramble last minute), and some I am rather proud of! I also made my mother do it when she had him. So here are pictures of our elf adventures!

Money Savings Challenge

I want to take the summer off and spend as much quality with Xander as I can, since another child is not in the cards. I want him to know that everything we do, we do for him. I want to take as much advantage of him WANTING to spend time with me as I can, since I know, in the not too distant future, I am going to be embarrassing, mean, uncool, and I will cramp his style. In order to accomplish having the summer off we need to save as much money as we can, so I have decided on 2 different money savings strategies.

1. Weekly Saving Challenge - I saw this idea on Facebook this week and thought it could be doable. It was from a blog called Healthy Habit Girl. The gist of it is, every week you save money in $1.00 increasing amounts. Week 1 $1, week 2 $2, and so on and so forth. Seems pretty easy and straight forward. I have kind of already cheated and started with $10 that has been in a jar for a while, never increasing or decreasing. I have written the amounts every week in a calendar that I look at daily so as not to forget. So fingers crossed once we get to the larger amounts it will not be too hard.

2. Money from clothing and toy sales - Since there won't be a number 2 I have started going through all the clothes that no longer fit Xander and have either dropped them off to the local consignment store, or posted them online for sale. I am finding myself very attached to some of the outfits, and I have kept some for a quilt I plan on eventually make with my most favourite ones. Anything that doesn't sell I will donate. It's a hard dream to let go of, but going through the things is making a little easier.

Hopefully I will be able to make enough off the clothes and toys that we won't have to dip into the bank account to pay for activities and outings this summer!

So far we are on point with both, but it is of course only week 1! Keep your fingers crossed!!

Birch Stump Santa's

My mom is ridiculously creative, although she claims that she is not, and that what she can do is following directions on a pattern.   She makes us all Christmas ornaments every year and they are always beautiful.  A few years ago one of the Christmas decorations she made was Santa’s made from birch tree stumps.  I cannot remember where she got the idea, but I love them.  While I was on maternity I had asked my father for some birch stumps as I had every intention of making them as gifts for friends. 2 years later, now that I am on a Christmas craft kick, I have finally started making them.  They are actually really easy, if you have access to the birch stumps, however with the multiple coats and snow paint, they are pretty time consuming.  All it takes is paint(red, black, white, pink), and snow paint, all of which you can purchase at your local craft store.  I like Michael’s and either bring my husband, or go multiple times to make use of their coupons.  Below are the steps to make them!



Supplies required

 

Paint a few layers of white

Add a few layers of red for his hat and mix the white and red to create a light pink for the face

Add snow paint for beard, hair/hat edge, and hat tip

Paint faces and let dry!

 

They are a fabulous addition to the Christmas season decor!

Seat belt pillow - craft of the month

I am sure I am not alone, I hate when I look in the rear view mirror and see my little guys head crooked over so far that it looks really uncomfortable. So I decided to do something about it. I found a pinterest pin about making seat belt pillows to avoid this exact problem, but there was no pattern, so I set about trying to figure out how to make one. Now it had been YEARS since I have used a sewing machine, but my mom got me one at an auction(I think she was hinting at me to do my own mending and hemming). I am pretty happy with the way it turned out. There are a few tweaks that need to be made, but for my first sewing project I am super happy!

I started with a just a rectangular shape for the inner pillow. I decided on 6 inch width by a 22 inch length, I figured that would be long enough. I sew that together and stuffed it with cut up foam stuffing, and I hand stitch the opening at the top with a slip stitch to hide the fact that it was hand sewn.

Next was to tackle the cover. It took me a while to figure out exactly how I wanted it to look. I made a larger rectangle 6.5 inches by 23 inches. I added Velcro to the opening at the bottom so that I could easily remove the pillow for washing. I added 2 tabs with Velcro on one end to attached to the belt on his car seat. The are 3 inches by 5 inches. Then I sewed it up and stuffed it with the pillow!

The first time we were able to use it was on the way home from the Papanack Zoo and it worked like a charm! Looking forward to be able to use it on our trip to Toronto next week!