Pantry Love.

It's been on my To Do list for quite some time to re-do my pantry labels. Last spring, in what seemed like a fool-proof plan, I spray painted contact paper with chalkboard paint. Unfortunately, the labels didn't hold up very well and as a double whammy they weren't actually erasable. On top of all that, when I tried to remove them, they left gunk on my pretty OXO containers.

I was feeling a little bummed and discouraged and overwhelmed, so I've been living with unattractive labels ever since (strangely, no one else in the family seems to mind). I thought about trying chalkboard labels from Etsy but that seemed complicated because I have to be able to cover the goo from the old labels and since I made them myself, they're all custom sizes. 

I decided to give the Silhouette chalkboard vinyl a try on a whim. I don't own a Silhouette but figured I could cut them with my paper cutter like I did the contact paper ones. And so I ordered a roll months ago, and then it sat and sat and sat. While I sometimes get a reputation for being industrious, I'm actually a tad bit lazy and very afraid of failure.

Until the day my Pick Your Plum impulse buy Washi tape arrived in the mail. Suddenly a plan was coming together. (And really, where has Washi tape been my whole life?! It has no practical purpose other than to be pretty and make one's heart sing. I'm completely smitten.)

This week, in a fit of Gotcha Day Eve nervous energy, I emptied out my pantry and got to work. This vinyl was super easy to work with and so far it's easy to erase and re-position. I can imagine if you owned a Silhouette you could really go to town. The little strip of Washi tape across the top of each label exists purely to make me smile each and every time I open the pantry door.

So that's it. Just a long-winded post to tell you I successfully solved my pantry label problem. And it was easier than expected. And it didn't take long at all. And the results make me really, really happy. Perhaps you have a little project of your own that's been weighing you down too?!?

And while we're on the subject of pantries, I always feel amazing after a good pantry cleaning. It allows me to quickly take inventory of what's already in the house which makes meal planning and grocery shopping easier. It prevents me from having a mini-panic attack each time I open the door to an overwhelming, cluttered space. And it makes me smile to see all those canned goods and baking supplies -- with cute labels -- smiling back at me. (They are smiling, right? Tell me you see it too.)

An ode to my pantry. The end.

School's Out for SUMMER!

THEY DID IT!

1st grade & Pre-K are in the books!

{It seems like this was just yesterday}

Dylan & Mady on Dylan's last day of 1st grade.

In the spirit of celebrating accomplishments, both big and small, 

we spent some time celebrating the end of the school year 

and the beginning of SUMMER this past weekend.

Our school-aged fish.

Friday morning, I put together some goodie bags for some of D & E's friends. 

My goal was to find some cute, useful and fun items for the kids to enjoy.

Bonus goal: not to pick items that mothers around the world secretly despise, i.e. bouncy balls, plastic frogs, 10 pound packs of candy.

I hit my favorite spot - Target! - for some one-stop shopping.

I settled on mini notebooks {for journaling, picture drawing, and adventure recording}, mini markers, water guns, bubbles, and summer-themed fruit snacks.

I packaged them up in clear favor bags and printed off these colorful {free} summertime celebration printables from Amanda's Parties To Go.

I think the kids loved them and I was able to do it all on a budget - 

each bag was roughly $2 out the door. Here's the finished product:

Ta-Da! Summertime goodies!

I'm a big believer in the little things...it doesn't take much to make someone feel special or celebrated - a few kind words or a short note or a small gift.

I've heard it said, "God is in the details."

Here's hoping a little bit of God {love} is in the goodie bags too!

Great job, kiddos, on a job well done!

...and the baby. Current plan: keep her little and not send her to school EVER.

Happy Summer!

Craft Night: Motivate Me May

Since our monthly craft night started several months ago, I have slowly but surely been getting in touch with my inner crafter.

Looking back at past projects, I can see that I am drawn to (over and over...and over again) the same types of crafting mediums: paper, Mod Podge, yarn, fabric (cut into strips only...I don't know how to sew), felt, and hot glue. In short: my crafting game is limited.

I stayed true to my crafting self and came armed to Motivate Me May with fabric, felt, a wreath form, and - wait for it - my hot glue gun. 

Shocking, I know. (Oh, and I brought this yummy Snickers Dip too.)

Theresa found this great butterfly paint chip wreath over at My Sister's Suitcase, and we borrowed some inspiration from there. I have also had my eye on this spring chalkboard wreath at Destination Craft since I first saw it a couple of months ago.

For the felt flowers, we followed this tutorial at Craft Snob and this one at Mrs. Priss (we preferred the latter for the rolling method - rolling the flower starting from the inside first rather than the outside).

Materials used: one large straw craft wreath form, 1/2 yard fabric, three 1/8 yard pieces of different color felt (the kind you buy off the bolt), and loads and loads of glue sticks. 

My total at Hobby Lobby came in just under $9. (I already had the hot glue sticks, and the black hanging ribbon was an afterthought so that's not included in the total).

For nicely illustrated tutorials, click up above on the links I mentioned. For the quick and dirty run-down, here's what I did: 

I started by cutting my 1/2 yard of fabric into 1 1/2-2 inch wide strips using a rotary mat and cutter.

Because my wreath was wrapped in plastic, I decided against using hot glue to hold the fabric on. I started wrapping strip by strip, holding it in place with my other hand as I went. Each time around, I overlapped roughly half of the strip before it. When I started a new strip, I made sure I started in the back so any loose ends wouldn't show on the front.

At the very end, I secured the last strip with a pin in the back. I did go back at the point and hot glue any fabric corners I had sticking out, making sure I was gluing fabric to fabric and not to plastic.

For the flowers, I cut various lengths of long, 4-5 inch wide strips of felt. The longer your piece of felt, the bigger your flower will turn out. The aqua flowers are from an entire length of felt off the bolt (I'm assuming 36 inches). The yellow ones were roughly half the length, and the grey ones were a third.

I folded the entire strip of felt in half and started hot gluing the edges together (NOT the crease). After that, I took a good pair of sewing scissors and cut little notches all the way down the length of the felt, stopping short of cutting all the way through to where I had hot glued.

Then I began rolling my strip up, starting with the center of my flower and working out. I held the base with one hand, and rolled/wrapped with the other. I hot glued at the base of the flower every now and then to hold it in place. At the very end, I cut a circle out of felt and glued it to the back of the flower to finish it off.

I used long pins to stick my flowers into my wreath which allowed me to move them around a bit until I had arranged them just right.

I originally pictured myself hanging this wreath on our front door (we have a dark green door and I wanted something springy that would pop), but when I got home I realized it looked cute next to this chalkboard we have hanging near our side door. 

Motivate Me May did it's job...I started the night with little to no crafting motivation and I ended up with a project that I enjoyed creating and love displaying.

Fabric. Felt. Flowers. Food. Friends. My kind of night.

{P.S. If you're local, the chalkboard was created by this talented lady.}

Linking Up:

Craft Night: Accomplish It April

{Printable from Funky Polkadot Giraffe...more colors available}

We dubbed April's craft night Accomplish It April {pinboard}, and looking back on last night, I think the main things we accomplished were wine drinking and chocolate cake eating. {Happy birthday, Rachel!}

We did leave with a few takeaways - Kara worked on owl art, Lisa crafted a new necklace, Tami sewed fabric door jammers, Theresa created some flowers for her new launch {a complete "friend love" post coming soon}, and KMac and I laughed our way through some yarn pom pom flower making.

The fact that I barely paused to snap any pictures means I was very busy snipping yarn and stuffing my face with Amy's flourless chocolate cake.

{Pinspiration from My Simple Home Life}
Please excuse the lack of finish work. 
I still need to hot glue my poms on & trim my wire stems.

There are a zillion and one yarn pom pom tutorials out there {including here, here, and here} and it's fairly fool proof - although I had a couple poms end up in the reject pile, so what does that tell you about my crafting IQ?

Two tips: 
1) Make sure you tie your extra piece of yarn around the outside of your yarn ball* - not the inside, like I was doing at first.
*I would take a picture for you to illustrate but I am much too lazy.
2) Keep the faith that your little yarn poof will eventually take shape. It might look a little wonky at first but put on your hairdresser hat and keep trimming until it looks round and fluffy.

A perfect spot for some spring-y, yarn-y poms.

Post pom-ing, I also did a little shopping courtesy of Kara's Rylee's Collection hair accessory stash for three little baby girls of college pals (Go Hope!). Ayla Grace entered the world this week, and the other two little ones are due towards the end of May.

In the end, I call this month's social hour craft night another rousing success (good food, great friends, and a dash of hands on-fun...how can you lose??)  

And now I'm off to starting pinning and plotting for May's creative soiree.

{Linking up}

Craft Night: Make It For 'em March

Gina's felty creations!

We recently finished up another addition of Craft Night. This month's theme was Make It For Them March. We were encouraged by our lovely hostess, KMac, to work on a project for someone else.

Lisa's super cute framed hair clip holder.

Most of us chose our kiddos, and there was a lovely variety of crafting goodness gathered around the table including felt flowers, upcycled bracelets from old ties, a pillowcase dress, reusable snack bags, tissue box beautification, framed hair clip holders, and upcycled headband holders from oatmeal cans.

Bonus: I think this counts as upcycling!

There was also a friend working on a digital vacation scrapbook, someone catching up on her crocheting, a new mama of three getting ready for her kiddos' upcoming birthday parties, and T got a lesson on her new (!) sewing machine (shout out to Cousin Kristin!)

Hard at work and only a teensy bit staged.

I happened to have two empty oatmeal containers (how often does that happen?), and I've had my eye on this tutorial from Plucky Momo for a while. This wasn't my most inspired craft night, but in the end I went home with something functional, pretty, and I daresay upcycled (otherwise known as #13 on my Year 32 list).

For my Ella Bella...

Emilie @ Plucky Momo did a great job outlining a supply list and all the steps in her tutorial (note: this is an easy sort of craft). The only thing I did different was that I Mod Podged the paper to the outside of the can (watch out for bubbles!) because I thought that would give it a little more of a finish and protect it from grimy little hands.

...and my Madelyn Mae.

If you are love with the the satin & tulle puff headpands (like I obviously am), you can find them here {regular} and here {petite}.

insta.life {leap list, part II}

My apologies if you're not into the Instagram-ing thing, but right now, it seems to be the easiest way for me to catch the daily details. We are in the beginning stages of camera shopping (our first SLR might be on the horizon!) and then perhaps I will be excited to snap pictures with something other than my iPhone.

Until then..hang tight.

Here is the second half of my {mini} leap list, first mentioned about 2 1/2 weeks ago (first half here). I was hoping to have all nine items done by Leap Day and I came pretty darn close. Eight of the nine were completed in time, and I just finished up #9 today.

First up:

Mady's Pinterest-inspired, Ikea-hack, spice racks turned bookshelves.

I love this new little reading nook 

(it's in the corner of her room beneath two windows). 

Great light, comfy pillows, and toddler-appropriate reading material.

What's not to love?

Next up: conquering a new picture wall for Mady.
This Expedit shelf is new too, and it would have looked better staged if my two-year-old assistant hadn't walked off with the cute toy that usually resides in cubby #1.
I'm a recovering perfectionist, however, so I'm letting it go.

Again, like with Ella's collage wall, the frames were all re-purposed, the printables were free {owl, birds, love, child of God}, 

the tree is from Hobby Lobby, 

the newborn photo is courtesy of the fabulous Mindy Leigh, 

and the 'M' was handmade with love by yours truly.

It's a work in progress, but finished is better than perfect.

My {actual} Leap Day project was this bucket of cute, girly fabric-wrapped balls (first attempted here). I love how they bring an extra pop of color and personality into the room.

Truthfully, it seemed like a lot of effort at the time for a five-year-old's room, but it only took me a couple of hours to whip them up and after taking a step back, I realize that I do really love them. 

Also, being the mom to little girls is an honor and a privilege, and I'm going to take full advantage of my right to do frivolous, pink (!) things on their behalf.

Lastly, here is the final member of my {mini} leap list.

D & E are at the age where we need to start teaching them a little bit more about money and how to handle it. I was looking for a simple way to help them be more intentional about their spending habits. I first spotted this idea at Lil Light O' Mine. 

I found this DIY version (dollar store jars!) and went to work. 

I made more homemade chalkboard labels and Mod Podged strips of paper to pretty them up.

* * * * *

Long story short, this has been quite the spurt of crafting for me. The key (for me) has been to pick simple crafts with lots of meaning. It's been extra fun doing projects for the kids because they are eating it up.

Time to rest up. Craft Night {Make It For Them March} is right around the corner!

{Linking up}

 How To Nest For Less