Muffin Tin Monday - Christmas morning theme

Today's theme was Christmas morning. I made fresh waffles and then cut in 4 and put on a plate to represent a tree. Then the muffin tin was filled with treats to decorate the tree with.
Chocolate chips, almonds, apple sauce with sprinkles, bananas, craisins, mini marshmallows.

This is Lilo's decorated tree.

She was proud of her creation and ate it all.

Isla - on the other hand - ate the chocolate, marshmallows and a few bites of waffle.

Check out other Muffin Tins over here.

How to make a flour shaker

A few weeks back I had a peorgie making day at my place with another family. It was the first time I held a perogie day and, well, we learned a lot. Hopefully next year we will be better organized, and more efficient. But all in all it was fun, tiring and both families were left with at least 12 dozen big perogies.

A couple years ago I joined my friend's family on their perogie day and the one thing they had was a flour shaker for bench flour - it was a Pampered Chef thing. Just before our friends came over I got my husband to make one for us.

All he did was drill some small holes in a top of a mason jar - then fill jar with flour.

Then sprinkle flour when needed. (it's hard to take a picture with one hand of the other hand)

To store the flour when not in use, I just put a second lid on top of the holed one and put the ring back on.

I thought I'd share since I'm sure this will come in handy once we start making holiday cookies.

How to make an advent tree calendar

I saw this super cute idea over at ikat bag to make paper cone trees for an advent calendar.
I had been thinking of making an advent calendar and there are so many fun ideas out there it was hard to decide what to make. I thought this one was really fun.

I found a bunch of green scrapbook paper with different patterns. I traced a big bowl for a circle and then cut the circle in 3 (not an easy thing to figure out and of course when I looked back at the post she used 1/4 circle - much easier) Once I figured it out I traced on the other circles and cut out a few at a time.

I got Lilo to write the numbers 1 to 25 on the triangles since she is loving practicing writing.

Then I gathered a bunch of fun things to decorate with, after a trip to a dollar store I had: jewels, holiday sequins, glittery mini pompoms, glitter glue, stickers, star sequins and big star jewels for the tops of some trees.

While Isla was napping, Lilo and I decorated. Isla did colour one of them when she woke up.

After they were dry I rolled and glued or taped them. This was also a pain. The original made a tab seam allowance to fold over. I tried snipping the tip and folding but anyway I tried it was hard to get them to stay together. So at the end I just used tape on the outside - you can't see it when they are up on the mantel.

So everyday I will put a treat under the tree. So far I've put chocolates, lolly pops and yesterday holiday erasers. I'm also thinking that some days will be activities like, write Santa a letter, make cookies, buy a Christmas tree - so I've decided to not put things under until the day of. Also I don't really trust Lilo not to peak and I don't trust the cats not to jump up and knock them all down.

And yes, we have a tv in our fireplace.

Muffin Tin Monday - counting

So this week was a theme-less week over at Muffin Tin Mom but since my last few weeks I've been doing theme-less ones (I know, I didn't even post them!) I thought I'd do a counting theme.

Super easy: 1 PB&J, 2 pieces of pickles, 3 carrots, 4 crackers (but I think they ended up eating about a dozen or so), 5 grapes, and 6 chocolate chips.

Lilo ate it all, and Isla ate the pickles, crackers and chocolate chips and then came over to me and tried to eat half my soup and a bunch more crackers.

Check out what other people did today.

How to update your window shades

So, it's not a super exciting transformation - but it looks a ton better then it did before! I was getting tired of looking at the dingy, fringed hem on these shades. So I finally just chopped them off.

I measured across the bottom and cut.

Then using a glue gun I applied white webbing to the edge. The ends of the webbing are just folder and glued to the back.

It was also the first time since we moved in that I've actually dusted the shades, so they are a lot less dingy now.

We had these shades in all the rooms at the front of our house, so I fixed the 2 in our bedroom and the 2 in the bathroom. I left the shades in Lilo's room as-is, since I they fringed edge goes with her girly theme. And now that the shades in her room aren't the same as all of the other rooms, they almost look like they were put there on purpose.

Now I need some kind of curtain or valence to add a pop of colour in our bedroom. Our room is entirely white, since we have never been able to settle on a colour to paint it. We HAD to do something with our bedroom immediately upon moving in, since the previous owners had left behind a pink and purple sponge painting experiement gone horribly wrong with a metallic floral boarder. So white it was, and white it has stayed. But at least these new-ish shades have helped clean it up a little more, for now. I also am thinking that I could add another colour ribbon above the white webbing to add some colour/interest.

How to get inspired

So I was feeling blah today and then I got a message from Jessica at Mad in Craft, that she nominated me for a Kreativ Blogger award. It's very cool to know that people that don't know me in real life actually read and like my blog. So thanks so much, you have inspired me to post more often.

Okay, rule time:
~thank the person who nominated me for the award
~copy the logo and place it on my blog
~link to the person who nominated me
~list 7 things people may not know about me
~nominate 7 creative bloggers
~post their links
~leave a comment on each

7 Creative Bloggers

1. Filth Wizardry - super fun and neat craft project to do with your kids.
2. ikat bag - I just found this blog and love it. Great kids crafts and sewing projects. She has inspired me to get back to basics and make some pattern blocks and stop using commercial patterns that don't work like you want them to anyways.
3. Make It and Love It - Super cute craft projects for kids and adorable kids clothes.
4. Scrumdily-do! - great photos and fun projects.
5. The Activity Mom - just as the name states - great activities for your kids.
6. The Idea Room - this is just a beautiful blog. Her photos are amazing. Filled with tons of great crafts, recipes and tips.
7. Mad in Crafts - I know it's the person that nominated me but her blog is one of my favs. Lots of great thrifty ideas for the home.

7 things you may not know about me.

1. I'm a victim of the recession. My company did a bunch of restructuring just as I was returning from maternity leave - so when my position had been eliminated. I've enjoyed having more time off with my girls but now am itchy to get back into things but it's a tough time.
2. I've been sewing my whole life. I got my first real sewing machine when I was in grade 4 and have been sewing every since. I graduated high school with a vocational diploma in Fashion Technology and then went and got a BAA in Fashion Design.
3. I've tried too many crafts to name them all, I have a hard time sticking to anything.
4. I wish I could sew and craft all day - and maybe check out blogs :)
5. I have the 2 most beautiful girls in the world - seriously I think they are cuter than your kids :)
6. I have a hard time spending money on things, especially if I think I could make it.
7. I hate cleaning, my place is a mess and I hate it. I don't understand those people that don't have clutter and junk piles.

How to make princess hands

This was a project inspired by Mister Maker, BBC show that airs on Treehouse. He was making scary monster hands to surprise your friends with. After he showed how to make them he showed other options, included a queen hand. Lilo thought we should make pretty princess hands and not monsters since she didn't want to scare anyone. And since I had been saving some of my old rubber gloves it was easy.

First I stuffed the fingers with stuffing. Mister Maker actually stuffed the whole hand and put an old wooden spoon in the hand and tied the bottom closed. Then used a sock to put over your arm and to hold the spoon. Since I didn't have any old wooden spoons, we just put them on our hands and since the fingers were stuffed it worked on her small hand.

Then I cut out some nails out of craft foam and then we glued a bunch of stars and some flowers from a broken lei. We also added some stickers. I also had some white fun fur that I thought we could add a queen type cuff but Lilo didn't want it.

So, voila - beautiful princess hands.

But the monster hands were fun, they had furry knuckles and a few moles.

How to make a magnet board for the car or home

I made 2 magnet boards for my daughters for our road trips that we took this summer. It's super simple it's just a cookie sheet. You can use old ones or I picked this one up at Dollarama. Just double check to make sure magnets will stick since some aren't made from the right kind of metal.
Then I just covered with mac-tac (also from the dollar store). It fit perfectly on the kids laps in the car under their arm rests of the car seat. The mac-tac can be used as a dry erase board so you can bring dry erase markers and a cloth to wipe. Also bring magnet toys or letters. I made these plush coloured magnets for Isla since I was afraid of the magnets falling out of the plastic ones if (when) she chewed on them.

I got this fabric from a friend that is printed squares of colours. So I just had a layer of the printed fabric, a layer of white felt and a backing layer. I glued on a small magnet (dollar store) to the back of the felt layer and sewed around. I used fray check on the edges so they wouldn't fall apart.

Lilo liked the board for colouring books and Isla just liked the sound of things banging on it. Either way they were enjoyed and could be tucked easily away when they weren't being used.

This pretty one I made for one of the Pay-It-Forward people. I sent off 2 of the 4 gift, don't worry the other 2 will happen at soonish.

How to make Play Dough

I've seen a lot of recipes for play dough but after seeing this on Craftzine I thought I'd try it. They have a great printable recipe.

All you need to make it is 1cup flour, 1/2 cup salt, 2 tablespoons of cream of tartar, 1 cup water, 1 tablespoon of oil. Mix together and put over med-low heat. The recipe over at Craftzine said to mix over heat for 10 mins but I'm not sure if my heat was too high or what but it took only minutes for it to come together.
Then take it off the heat and separate into balls to dye different colours. It's hot so be careful. I just put a few drops of colouring in and mixed it around. My sister-in-law said when she made it she put the hot dough in ziplocks to work the colour in. This way it's not as hot and you don't get dye all over your hands.
I realized the hard way that you don't leave the dye in arms reach of your toddler. She added a few more drops of green to the dough and counter (thankfully our counter is green) So I got a bunch of dye on my hands trying to quickly clean it.

I only had a few colours of liquid dye around so we had 4 colours - Lilo took off with the pink. Not sure if the gel dye would work - might try next time.

Just store in an airtight container or ziplock and it lasts just like play dough. I made it a few weeks ago and it's still soft. I also like that it doesn't have the chemically smell that play dough sometimes does.