From Keyboard boxes to...

Happy Sunday to all!  

Today we have a blissful summer day.  I am sitting in the warm breeze with low humidity and its absolutely wonderful.  Finally a break from the 100+ degree days we have been having and I am going to take full advantage of it!

But while I was stuck in the air conditioning the last few days I did do a fun project!  Here is the pin for my inspiration:  http://pinterest.com/pin/256775616224450475/   When I pinned this I was so excited to do it!  I obtained some clean pizza boxes from our favorite pizza place and then was stumped as to what to do next.  LOL  The boxes used in the pin were different from the ones I had and so honestly I just shoved the boxes and the project to the back of my head.  In the mean time, a fellow freecycler gave me some computer keyboards for another project that I have in mind.  The keyboards actually all came in boxes!  Again the pin came back to me as I looked at these boxes for the last several weeks.

Enough babble :o)  

Here is what I started with:

Six lovely keyboard boxes...

and here is what I made them into!

I am pretty tickled with the way this turned out!

It will fit on my shelf and will be sturdy enough to hold cardstock and papers.

If anyone is interested in the process it took to make this I will be glad to post some pictures and simple instructions of what I did.

Next I will tackle those pizza boxes!

Maybe you should order a pizza today?  

:o)

Bubbles! YAY!

I have yet to meet a little one that doesn't LOVE to blow bubbles.  I know that Little Missy really gets a charge out it.  I don't mind bubbles in the house or outside but the only issue I have is that every time she bends over to pop a bubble while holding the container, she spills them.  That's Ok outside (except the waste part) but inside it's a bit on the messy side.

So here is how I have solved this issue:

I took a wire coat hanger and used the hook to hold the bubbles bending it a bit to fit, cutting open the body of it to make some hangers for the back.  I covered any sharp edges with electrical tape to protect her little fingers. The nice thing is almost every room has some place that I can hook this and this morning while she was playing in her "Poodle" (Little Missy speak for Pool) we hooked it right on the edge and she was able to blow bubbles while taking a dip in COLD water.

How do you keep the bubble spillage down?  Do you have a nifty tip or trick?  

I would love to hear it if you do.

Recycling Station

As I was taking the picture for the memory notes from Daddy, I noticed our recycling station that we have set up in our kitchen.  I say station, but really its a small area next to our garbage can.  We take recycling pretty seriously here and make sure that we recycle as much as possible.  Here is a picture:

The top bag is for cans.  We always rinse them out and take the tabs off.  A friend of mine has the energy to actually take these to the recycling center to turn them in, and I am happy to save them for her! Can you see the pizza box?  That where our cardboard goes.  We always open the ends and flatten it out.  The bottom brown bag is for all that chunky plastic stuff.  I always try to sort it out for our recycle guy, just feels like I am saving him a step in a job that I really appreciate him doing.  Then of course we have the big bins outside that the stuff goes in to.

How do you recycle?

I am always interested to hear how other people do things, share your ideas with us!

Memories for the kiddos

The first on my itty bitty mind is the Little Missy.  I have mentioned before that we are "older" parents.  Little Missy is 3.  I am 46 and Hubby is 54.  He and  I have had many conversations about how to raise this little mid life gem.  We are sticking with some of our ideals from the older girls but we are very conscious about the fact that this little one may not have the memories that the older girls will have when we are gone.  (KNOCK on wood, thats a ways off!)  One of the things that I came up with is this...

This obviously is our coffee counter...we would not function with out our morning coffee!

Hubby is up at 4ish each morning and we have our timer set for the coffee to be ready when he is up and going.  Since he leaves so early in the mornings Little Missy never gets to see him until the evening when he gets home.  That makes for a long long day even tho she talks to him at lunch time almost every day.  So I set up a Daddy note station by the coffee maker for  Daddy to leave notes to his girl.  He's not much of a "writer" and his hand writing at times can be unreadable...but bless his heart he has really taken to this idea!  I put several sizes of post its in a basket with a pen, so that he needn't search for those items.  The giraffe has a clip on the back (up on his head) that he can clip the notes to.  Now Little Missy heads straight for the giraffe each morning for her "dose of Daddy".  It's very sweet, and those notes follow her thru the day.  Eventually I will gather them all up and make a scrap book page for her with them, but for now they are her treasures.

What do you do to make memories for your kiddos?  I would love to hear!

Happy 4th of July Everyone!

Looks like it will be a HOT 4th here!  Just barely 8am and so muggy and sticky that its hard to breathe! 

Should still be a fun day tho, I picked up some fun activities for the Little Missy.  Her first year with sparklers and pop its, snapits and streamers!  Should be a fun if not NOISY day here.  Throw in some grilled meat and veggies, the pool and sprinkler and we have a lovely relaxing holiday here.   

But for this morning I had several things on my mind and thought that I would share them with you, maybe even spark a bit of conversation here.  :o)  I originally was going to make this one post but decided that several smaller ones would be better.  So watch for that coming up today.  

I hope that you all have a blessed and safe holiday.  Drink LOTS of water and Thank God above and our Soldiers for the many blessings we will all enjoy today.

Peace and love...spread it with a smile today.

A Quickie... :D

Ok fine....quick as in fast, or...ok quick as in not a LONG post!  Sheesh, where was your mind at?
LOL forgive me, its blazing hot here and my brain is nearly fried.  None the less tho I wanted to make a post about what we did today!

On Pinterst...(You had to know that was coming!)  I saw a post about how to make butter in a baby food jar and we just had to try it.  Here is the link so that you can try for yourself if you wish.
http://pinterest.com/pin/256775616224910336/

A couple notes:  Make sure that as you are shaking you keep checking your jars.  We did have one jar that cracked at the bottom.  Just something to be cautious of, no one likes eating glass shards!   After getting our butter done we made one jar honey butter and the other garlic/parsley.  Both were heaven!  I had read on another post like this that they put in a dash of salt (and used nickels rather than marbles).  I was going to do that and then forgot, I didnt miss it tho since our flavorings were pretty awesome.  It was a great way to show Little Missy how a liquid can turn into a solid and it was just plain fun and yummy!

So if you are looking for a fun something that doesnt take forever give it a try and then eat the fruits or in this case the "butter" of your labor.

With that, I am off to eat more butter...I hear it calling my name.  Before I go here is a thought to ponder.

"A society is defined not only by what it creates, but by what it refuses to destroy."

— John Sawhill

To rain or not to rain...that is the question!

Our morning here started well before 6 am...much to my disappointment.  Since we were up and moving so very early (and the coffee kicked in pretty fast) I decided today was the day to tackle a project I have put off for several years.  I was given one of those glider rockers about 10 years ago.  When I got it, it was not in great shape, but we put it on the front porch and there it has set since then.  Ok so I am slow...already noted!   Since we have had such dry hot weather I felt I was safe in attacking this right were the glider sits.  This bad boy is heavy and I didn't have THAT much energy. I was sanding the wood by 7 and painting by 9:30.  Woohoo gettin stuff done~!  When all the sudden someone has turned off the sun!  What the heck?  I turn around and the clouds were moving in.  They were incredible looking, so I grabbed a tarp to cover the swing (uggg) my camera (borrowed from Sissy really need to get one of my own someday) and a fresh cup of coffee and then sat on the porch steps to watch these clouds roll in.  Normally I wouldn't think to post this but the last picture that I took was kinda spooky eerie and I had to have witness!  LOL So here we go from the top...dont mind the yellow dry looking grass...we NEED rain!

Hmmm...this last picture.

Am I the only one that see's an eye?

After all of those clouds...thunder that rattled the windows...we received about 3 drops of rain.  So disappointing!  Hopefully some more storms will kick up this afternoon...fingers crossed.  I am not looking at any more clouds today tho lol that last one has me weirded out!