Don't Overthink It

There's a lot going on in our lives right now, and I am admittedly poor at balancing life and time and work and blog and baby. It feels like the harder I 'work' at it, the more difficult it all becomes. I just feel a lot of pressure to get everything right, you know?
I mean, I am a perfectionist in a loose sense of the word. I am far from clean and organized and Type A personality, but I need a solid plan in place. Time and day structure and life plan-- I need to know and have a clear sense of whats going on in my life... and I just don't have that right now. Everything is just kind of hanging out with no clear timeframe or beginning or end and it feels terrifying and difficult to carry on. And yet, if you don't carry on as normal, everything falls apart.
And even if I am falling apart, it is important to keep up an appearance of 'normal' or even-- better than normal-- fantastic! And perfect! I don't want ya'll to see my messy. 
This is unrealistic.

So I think God has been working on me lately, to teach me patience and 'letting go' even though I am desperately trying to hold on to my time frame and make plans to the letter and figure everything out and appear fantastic. This is a hard one for me.
Even with-- okay especially with-- Sam. I just want his childhood to be so much fun. So nurturing and educational, and awesome. I have been dreaming up these amazing schemes and plans and activities that are tactile and intuitive and brain developing and healthy... and I get these amazing plans and activites all prepared, I sit my baby boy down to them-- and he cries in frustration.

And I cry in frustration, because what the heck kid? This stuff is awesome! And I plunk down a bucket of water and he squeals with delight and plays quietly for an hour, while I sigh in frustration.

What am I doing wrong here? What in the world is wrong with my plans? My activities?
Why do my ideas and plans and schedules make everyone frustrated and screamy? Because, on paper, they look great, they look perfect! And when someone asks you what you did to be a fantastic mom today, who wants to say, oh, my kid played with a bucket of water. 
But he was happy. Without my grandiose plans. And everything worked out, and nothing fell apart. And I guess I just need to learn to let go of some of those plans and just let the good happen without me having to control it and overthink it.
Which goes for all areas of my life. I need to learn not to overthink every detail. Not to stress because things aren't going as planned-- or because there is no plan. There are good things in the unplanned spaces. Sacred things in letting go. Perfect things in spontaneous moments-- perfect things like this pure joy giggle from my baby boy, happily playing with a bucket of water.

DIY Mother's Day Mugs

(I know, 3 posts in a weeks time, I'm a crazy woman!)

Soooo... are you all ready for Mother's Day? Or are you (like me) still running around getting things together? Well, here is ONE MORE gift that doesn't suck that you can definitely throw together at the last minute. Get to it. You've got 4.5 days.
(Side note: Sam's Grandmas, would you kindly avert your eyes until after the 12th? Thanksamillion)

I needed a gift for Sam to give to his Grandmas. This one includes baby finger prints... but really could be anything you want it to. Take this idea, personalize it, spin it however you want.
Both of the Grandmas are tea fanatics. Hot or cold-- but mostly hot. They always are toting around their mugs or hot tea sipping away. So I thought a personalized mug to sip their tea out of would be fantastic. I did a little searching on pinterest for some help. I found this handprint mug, and I said YES! and I found this wine glass which made me laugh, and I thought well, you can sip wine, you can sip tea-- whatever your vice is, I think it works.

I happened to have a couple white ceramic mugs laying around because we recently got some new dishes, and each place setting came with a mug. Even though we wanted place settings for 12 I didn't feel like I would ever need mugs for 12... so we kept about half of them, and put the other half in storage. But when I thought of this project, I went ooh free!!!
If you don't have plain ceramic mugs laying around... you can get these at the dollar store very inexpensively.
The only other thing you need is enamel paint. I used FolkArt Enamel in Burnt Umber and Foliage, purchased at craft supply store for about $2 each.

 

I started trying to free-hand my lettering with a tiny paintbrush... and I just don't have a steady enough hand. So I wiped that attempt off and went for plan B: a stencil. I got out my silhouette machine and quickly make a vinyl stencil for my letters. the stencil is a leeeeeetle finicky to  get it to lay correctly on a curved surface, but I fiddled with it a little and got it good enough.

Then I just dabbed my paint over the stencil-- waited about a minute for it to dray a smidge, then dabbed on a second coat. I peeled the stencil off while it was still wet... there were a few places where it had bled a bit, but that cleaned up fairly easily with a cotton swab, or if it has already dried too much, you can use an exacto knife to carefully scrape away the unwanted paint.

You can see my lettering is not perfect, but I felt like it looked good enough. Again, if you have a steady hand and good penmenship, you could free hand the lettering and it would likely be much much faster. I waited for the lettering to completely dry before adding the baby handprints on the side. It took my husband and I wrangling the toddler to make the handprint happen, and even still it was chaos, and somehow the dog ended up covered in paint-- so i don't have pics of that part. But... grab a small hand, paint on a thin coat of paint, press straight down and pull straight up, and wait for your hand print to dry. Try to block out the screams of childhood trauma from your *willing assistant. (*and by 'willing', I mean a toddler horrified that his hand is dirty and he is being held down, and hates craft time with mommy even more than he hates naptime.) Oh, I also freehanded the little heart on the 'tea bag'.

To cure the enamel paint (make it permanant) the bottle says you can let it air dry for 21 days (um, right, because you planned ahead and have 21 days to sit on this project) OR you can let it air dry for 1 hour, bake it for 30 minutes and let it cool. Um, I'll take door number 2 please. So here are my mugs sitting in the oven (please don't judge my dirty gross oven). As per the instructions, I placed them in a cold oven, turned it on to 350 degrees, once it had heated I set my timer for 30 mins, and when it went off, I turned the oven off to let them cool. I came back a couple hours later and everything was cooled and looked great!

 And there you have it! These will be stuffed with some tea, tied with a ribbon, and should be in the mail today on the way to Sam's Grandmas for Mother's day. I hope they love them, I think they turned out cute.
This was another pretty inexpensive gift-- you know me, gifting on the cheap! I only paid about $5 for the paint. If you didn't have mugs, you might be in the project more like $8-10, but still that's only $4 or $5 dollars for a nice personal mug, with leftover supplies (paint) for more projects.

So that's it! I hope you have been inspired to make something handmade for your mama or grandmother, or any special women in your life this mother's day! If you didn't see my other gift ideas (with tutorials!) check them out here and here.

DIY Garden stepping stone

Today I have what I think is another great Mother's day gift idea, especially for those of you who have little ones. I am desperate to preserve the tiny little feet and hands-- already he is getting so big and those little pink baby toes are walking big-boy dirty toes and I can hardly bear it!
I made these for the grandmas last year (so excuse the date...) but I think they really loved them, and they are a sweet sentimental gift for the gardener or outdoorsy ladies in your life. (Because outdoorsy to me means sipping lemonade on patios, or my parent's golf course quality green lawn in the backyard.)

(See? Golf course beautiful)

Anyway, this was pretty simple to create, but here's a step by step because I love you:

You are going to need:
some concrete (I bought a bucket of QuickCrete at Homedepot for $7),
Plastic plant water drip trays (98 cents at home depot) (or you could probably use old pie tins)
Concrete Letter Stamps (I got these from amazon, but you could also look at craft stores or home depot, especially this time of year, for around $10 or less)
Mosaic tiles (or this sheet of bathroom mosaic, purchased at home depot for about $5)
Spoon or stir stick, bucket to mix stuff in, plastic sheeting and towels to protect your surface and clean up.

This is one of those projects where you will want to have everything ready to go before you start... because once that concrete gets wet, it goes fast!

Start by mixing your concrete per the instructions on the package. It may mix it a little thick, I actually added a little more water so it way smooth and spreadable... like creamy peanut butter. (Adding more water will increase your drying time, just FYI)

Next, scoop your concrete into your mold. I used 2 sizes of trays, an 8" and a 10". The 8" was perfect for a baby size foot... but any bigger you will want a bigger size (they sell 10" and 12" trays as well if you are doing an older child). Smooth the concrete out as best you can, and tap it a few times so it is nice and flat accross the top.
(See how there is kinda some water pooling around the edges there? Thats what happens if you add tooooooo much water. But never fear, it's fixable. After you have scooped, smoothed and tapped, take a paper towel and gently lay it accross the top of the concrete. It should suck the excess right up. Don't press or pat or wipe... just let it do it's thing and carefully peel it off the top)

Next press in your tiles. Work quickly-- give em' a good shove down into the concrete though so it will really grab on, if you just gently place them, they won't stick well. If the concrete is smeary on the tiles, it's okay, it will wipe off with water later. These little square tiles were easiest for me to work with... but if you have actual mosiac tile, or broken pottery, or those little flat marble things, or left over tile pieces from another project... all those would be great. Get creative, rock what ya got.

Now it's footprint time... grab your willing and cooperative 1 year old (riiiiiiiiiight) and squish those tootsies straight down in the middle of the wet concrete mold. (full disclosure: the print pictured above was attempt #32-- or something close to that number. If the first one--or first 31-- doesn't look like you want it, scrape, spread, smooth over the area and try again. Easy peasy.) If the concrete is getting too solid, try dribbling a little water over the top and carefully scraping, spreading and smoothing unitl it's a workable consitancy. Even still, try to work fast, it's only forgiving for the first 10 minutes or so.

Have yourstamps  ready. I chose to put my son's name and the year. But you could certainly put an I love you, or an inspirational quote, or whatever you like.

I started at the middle of my word to make sure it was centered, and pretty straight forward here with the stamps-- press them in, pull straight up and out. If there are lines from the edges of the stamps, smooth them out with your finger.

And there you have it! Now you just need to set it somewhere it can sit undisturbed for 48 hours. It will feel/look dry after about an hour, but you need to leave it alone for 48 so it completely dries and cures.

Still drying here, this is after like, 12 hours. The finish of the concrete looks a little wonky at this point, but it evened out. After everything is all dry, they should pop easily out of the plastic molds, and it's really for your garden:

Or your Golf course lawn:

These turned out to be great gifts for the grandmas, they loved them! I made one for myself as well... and someday if I have a backyard, or a garden, or a small spattering of grassiness to call my own (fingers crossed!!!) it's so going down there! Cute little baby Sam foot. It just makes me smile.
This project is a simdge more expensive than the last I showed you, because you will likely have to purchase most of the supplies. It's not hard to come by-- just not stuff you might have on hand. You could be in it $25 for supplies, but that was enough to make 4 stepping stones, which brings the price per stone to $6.25 which ain't to shabby for a personal and handmade gift that grandmas and mama alike will love... and it's better than a macaroni necklace. Right?
I hope some of you whip some of these stones up for Mother's Day this year, you still have time! And of course if you do... let me know about it, and/or share photos in the flickr pool. Thanks!

Recipe Keepsakes

Here's a project a created a few months ago for my dad... but I think it's a lovely and totally charming keepsake that would make a great Mother's Day gift (you have 12 days, by the way...) so I am sharing it with you now.
I actually started this back in December, because it was meant to be a Christmas present, but didn't quite happen.
I think every family has a few recipes that are unique to them... or unique to a certian person in their family. My Dad makes famous cinnamon rolls and a killer apple pie. No one can do it quite like him-- his recipe is unique and delicious and just... his. Same thing with my Grandma's cream puffs. No one made cream puffs like grandma. It was one of her specials. I got thinking about these special recipes and how I would love to make some recipe art for my kitchen, and how much my parents would love having some keepsake recipe art in their kitchen.
I did a little searching and drew some inspiration from HERE (which if you weren't set on creating your own, I would totally recommend, because the work in this shop is adorable), and HERE and set out to create my own. 

I created this using Adobe Photoshop Elements, and using the help of the following tutorials from How to Nest for Less, Sweet C's Designs, and Nest of Posies. If you don't have photoshop, here is a great tutorial about how to create printables using a free site like Picmonkey, it's from I am Momma, Hear me Roar.
After creating my recipe printable (which took a lot of time, trial and error, and tweaking. Self-taught/blog taught graphic artist here!) I looked into buying some nice frames to gift them... but frames are stupid expensive, and still didn't create exactly the look I wanted. So I decided I wanted to mount mine on wood for a little different style.
Here's how that went down:

I took my files to FedEx Office and had them make some nice color prints for me. This cost less than a dollar. (you might also notice that I changed my chalkboard to green... it matched the decor in my parent's kitchen a little better that way)

I went to Home Depot and had two boards cut to 8x10". Then I brought them home and sanded all the edges really well, and stained them with some stain I already had on hand. I also picked up some picture hangers while I was there. Cost for the boards, cuts, and picture hanging hardware was around $5. These were stained several days before... and had completely dried and cured by the time I was working with them. (You notice I didn't entirely stain that top side? It's going to be covered, doesn't matter.)

Next I trimmed the paper prints down to size, I wanted just a very small border of the wood showing around the edges. I laid it on top to make sure it fit and I was happy... I'm happy! Lets move on...

I used a paint brush to put a very very thin layer of Mod Podge (which I already had on hand) on the board, then centered the best I could, starting at the top, applied my paper as smoothly as possible.

I worked in small sections, but very quickly and carefully, as the stuff dries pretty fast and you really only get one shot to get it right. That makes it sound super complicated-- it's not. Just be careful.

Once it is carefully centered and in place with all the mod podge underneath... use a credit card (or your HyVee fuel saver card!) to carefully carefully smooth out bumps, bubbles, and wrinkles.

Once everything is all smoothed out and adheared, get out your modpodge and brush once more and put a thin coat accross the entire top of the board. Mod podge will dry clear, so don't stress if it obscures your artwork while it's still wet. Also, it will give a bit of texture to the art, so make sure your brush strokes all go the same way, and that you don't have finger prints or something in the mod podge... unless thats the look you are going for, I guess.
I will appear to be dry within like 15 minutes... but resist the urge to touch it for a few hours. Let it sit overnight undisturbed to fully cure and harden up.
The next day, install the picture frame hanger hardware stuff to the back (didn't take a pic of this part... sorry!) And you are all done! Yay!

You have lovely keepsake recipe plaques to display in your kitchen or give to someone you love-- or even to remember someone you love. I thought they were really lovely, unique, sentimental kind of art. This project cost me around $6 to create-- which is a pretty cheap gift, I think, but still packs a sentimental punch. If you didn't have things like the stain and mod podge on hand, you might be invested more like $15, but even still-- not bad for nice artwork gift.

I loved them on my kitchen shelf next to Grandma's teapot, and I love them hanging as a pair in my parent's kitchen. My parents were delighted with the gift and proudly hung them immediately.
Maybe you have some family recipes you'd love to create a keepsake out of? Maybe thie would be the perfect gift for your Mother or Grandma this mother's day? Or maybe you just came here to steal the prominately displayed secret apple pie recipe of my father's? Well, I cannot blame you if you did, it's icredible. I can only caution you now that you have this powerful secret to use your powers for good, my friend, not evil.

DIY Baby Swing gets all famous

Oh my gosh, you guys! I can't believe how much you all love this baby swing. Well, I mean, I love it too... but the online response (WHOA Pinterest) has been overwhelming!
Also, I was recently contacted but Amanda at Smart, Blonde, and Crafty, who wanted to build one for the spring issue of her online crafty magazine, how cool is that? If you want to see her version, you can check it out here: http://www.smartblondeandcrafty.com/diy-baby-swing/

The whole site is really interesting with a ton of ideas, and the online magazine is definitely worth a 'flip through' as well. So check it out!
I'll try to get back in the swing of things (heh heh, see what I did there?) soon with some DIY gifts... and maybe some Mother's day ideas. Recently my time has been a little consumed by a different sort of rather large project that I hope to be able to share some good news on soon. We'll see. Cross your fingers for us!

To see my original baby swing post, go here.
To see the updated post, go here.
To share pictures of your swing that you made, go here.

Ain't easy being green.

Poor Kermie. What a rough plight.
Fortunately... you don't have to suffer the same. With that upcoming green holiday and the interwebs at your disposal, you've got about every idea imaginable at at your fingertips making it (wait for it...) easy for you to be green.
Okay. Done being corny.
We don't get crazy into every little holiday, but with St. Patrick's day coming up I thought it was a great time to share one of our favorite breakfast treats around here.
Green Smoothies!

What's that? You don't struggle to get enough healthy, leafy greens in yourself and your family? Well then, I guess you can stop reading. This post is not for you. (And I am rolling my eyes in your general direction-- healthy over achiever. No one likes people like that, you know?)
I do struggle... also it's hard to convince my toddler to chow down on some spinach, no matter how I try to convince him of it's health and Pop-eye benefits. But he enjoys sluuuuurrrping down a smoothie in the morning.
I know the green smoothie thing is not a new craze by any means, and I probably don't make mine healthy-to-the-max like some people do... but I feel like even a little green is a big win where it would otherwise not be consumed. So here are my fav recipes.

Pineapple Mango Greenie
1 cup fresh baby spinach
1/2 cup cucumber pieces
1/2 cup pineapple pieces (fresh or frozen)
1/2 cup mango pieces (fresh or frozen)
1/2 cup greek yogurt
1 cup orange (or mango, or pineapple if you have it!) juice
Stick it all in your blender and blend. Make sure you have enough liquid to cover all your fruit/veggies... you can add water if you need to.

Yummy and adding green to our diets. Win win. Sam took a sip and said "Mmmmmmm!" which is his new trick-- he also said that about a cheerio he found in the couch cushion-- but don't let that taint your opinion. It really was delicious.

I also use THIS GREEN SMOOTHIE RECIPE I got from my friend Danielle, over a year ago. It's very similar... just with berries. Plus she adds flax seed because she is so smart and always thinking a step ahead to fill her family with healthy stuff. Over achiever.
And I'm like a half achiever.
But I consumed a cup of leafy greens for breakfast today... sooo... beat that, toaster waffles!

And... one other little green thing we did to 'celebrate' St.P's day.
I am assuming you have gathered from these posts that I am a little into nail art these days. So when I saw this on pinterest, I knew I needed to put together a cute little gift for my Mani-Buddy, Amy Lee! (Ooh! Shameless plug: Amy started a nail blog. You should check it out. fancyside.blogspot.com)

I definitely had to get myself some of this awesome sparkly green-ness. I was wearing it earlier this week and I love the deep emerald shimmer.

...but we also went to go see the new OZ movie this weekend (it was cute, but probably a little intense for kiddos...?) and this polish made me feel very 'wicked witch'. Which I kind of loved. Dark and green and magical. (The color is Revlon:Rain Forest)

So there you have it. Not much of a celebration for St.P's around here, but enjoying the day's favored color. What kind of green things have you been doing? Been eating (drinking?) your veggies? Painting your nails? Indulging in fantasies of witches and wonder and the emerald city?

Pink and Sandy

Oh my goodness! It's time for snow to be gone. I am not even kidding.
The cold and the snow have kept us stuck inside the house for a couple weeks now, and we are starting to get sick of the house and sick of our toys and sick of each other. (Besides the fact that we were all sick for a while. sigh) 
So yesterday I was sitting there trying to get Sam interested in some trucks that he was like, SO over, and I al of a sudden thought about the bag of play sand I had sitting in my basement (left over from this project like... 4 years ago), and thought that might be just the thing to liven our afternoon and refresh our bored little pickle.
So I grabbed a shallow tub, the bag of sand, a large plastic table cloth, and a couple toys. We didn't have much in the way of sand toys, but you don't need much, do you?

We'd been playing with cotton balls in his dump truck (we play with cotton balls a lot. Good, cheap, easy to clean up sensory fun) so those, along with his trucks made it to the sand box.
This was the first time Sam had ever played in the sand and he was mesmerized just plunging his hands in and wigging his fingers around in it. He never got much into driving his trucks through the sand...

But I did get out the stacking measuring cups, and he LOVED digging with those.
I bet you are dying to know if my one year old could control his compulsion to put handfuls of this funny new substance in his mouth???

Nope. He couldn't. He sampled two handfuls before deciding it wasn't yummy. Which you are probably thinking I should be more upset about. But here's my thought. The kid is going to sample sand at some point in his life. I'd rather it be relatively 'clean' sand in a tub in my kitchen than at a park that stray cats are pooping in, am I right? So he came to his own conclusions (Sand is not tasty) and he survived (no noticeable physical repercussions to the small amount of ingested sand). So we got that childhood milestone out of the way. Yay eating sand.
When he got bored scooping up sand and cotton balls with the measuring cups, I got a water spray bottle and wet down the sand a little and we built sand castles...

(I grabbed a leftover paper straw from his birthday party to make it look legit... Sam liked poking that in the sand too.) I showed him how the sand sticks together when it's wet. He liked spraying it with the bottle too, because the water would bead on the surface, then soak in. We talked about how different it feels. I tried to come up with different adjectives to describe it for him. Think, Mama think!
Wet/dry, cool, grainy, firm, squooshy, sticky, pink, bright, colorful, sandy (duh), smooth, bumpy/hilly, pliable, gritty... Not Tasty. haha

When he was starting to get bored with the water and building things, I just picked him up and plopped him down in the tub of sand. It's funny how a different perspective (sitting IN and not BESIDE the sand) made the same object so much more interesting!

Look at those happy little toes kicking around in the sand! Love it.

When he was finally done playing (we got about 30 minutes of sand play before he was tired of it-- impressive attention span for my little pickle!) we stood him up on the plastic table cloth and brushed the sand from his clothes. Then I put him in his seat, and I was able to fold the table cloth so all the sand fell to the middle, then funneled it back into the tub, put the lid on, and put it all away for another afternoon of play.  Relatively easy clean up for what could have been a huge crazy mess.
Okay, yes, I still had to sweep up some pick sand from the kitchen floor, but it wasn't horrible. I really really think he had fun.
I think next time we play sand I might make it a discovery box for him... burying small toys in the sand for him to find. Or mixing in pasta shapes? (wheels, bowties, etc) There is no limit to the interesting things we can bury and play with in the sand. Anyway, we had a fun.
What are you doing to bust the indoor blues with your kiddos? Any other ideas to keep a wiggly toddler busy?