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Tag Archives: Things To Do

Happy Halloween from the Clark Family

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Happy Halloween to your family from ours!  I wanted to share with you a few of the pictures I took of the kids in their Halloween costumes. This year the requests were to be a Ninja and to be Rapunzel.

Last year’s fairy costume that we picked up from Cracker Barrel magically transformed into the perfect Rapunzel dress. After buying a terrible, terrible wig to go with it from the local costume shop, I found myself at the Disney store to pick up the authentic Rapunzel hair that she could play dress-up with all year long. She was so excited when she saw it and was willing to compromise on not having the official Rapunzel dress as long as she could wear a pink sleeved shirt underneath to make it look like the real Rapunzel.

The Ninja outfit I picked up at Walmart for  $12. Of course the only way I could get my son to agree to do pictures with his sister were in full Ninja attack mode.  After we were done with the photos, I couldn’t stop laughing and looking at them. I think my daughter has her mama’s flair for the dramatics. I wonder if I will be watching her on the stage like my parents watched me.

Not to be outdone by our children, my husband and I schemed and dreamed of costumes for months this year.  I don’t mean to gush, but it is moments like this when I look at my husband and think, “How did I get this lucky?” I have been with this man since he was fifteen. Our parents used to drop us off for our dates because neither of us could drive. We were high school sweethearts that really worked out, and I think I know everything a girl could know about him.  Then something like this comes up, and he surprises me.

In case you couldn’t tell from the pictures, we went as Marry Poppins and Bert from my favorite childhood movie.  We both wanted to make sure we got the look right.  The clothes we both already owned. The bow tie I am wearing was his  from our third prom together (I still had it in a box of mementos from our high school days). I tied grosgrain ribbon around my waist and grabbed the umbrella from my husband’s car. We found Ryan’s hat and gloves at Walmart and my hat from a local costume shop.  The broom was an inexpensive broom from Target that he took the stitching apart and spray painted with a $.98 can of spray paint from Walmart.  I got a sprig of daisies to weave into the hat and just took my giant purse that I use daily as my, “carpet bag.” We probably spent about $20 or so on the whole look, but had the best time making these outfits happen.

I did splurge and buy myself a tube of fancy red lipstick. I have always wanted to wear red lipstick, but never felt confident enough to do it.  I am hoping to wear this on a date night or two.  The color is Red Zin from Bare Escentuals and I am really liking it for a little something different.  Maybe this old girl can surprise her husband once in awhile too!

Happy Halloween, everyone! Have a safe and fun night with your family and friends this evening!

Watching Your Pumpkins Grow

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It was another fun day at the Pumpkin Patch this year. Some of us (ahem) may have had more fun than others. I finally have some photographic proof that sometimes I am a fun mom. Just sometimes.

Every year I take a picture of them doing the same pose at the same pumpkin patch so that I can see how big my little pumpkins are getting. Sometimes I forget how different they look from year to year. Seeing it all side by side… well, it makes me happy and makes my heart ache all at the same time. The differences are quite remarkable to me.

Try doing this at your pumpkin patch and see what results you find. Line them all up in a Picnik collage and marvel at how big your kids are getting. Those pumpkins grow so fast, don’t they?

How to Decoupage Pumpkins

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I love to create inexpensive decorations for fall and these easy decoupaged pumpkins are a craft that I have been wanting to try for awhile after spotting this technique in an old issue of Better Homes &  Gardens Magazine. You won’t believe how easy it is to decoupage a pumpkin and since they were so easy to create, I made two to adorn each side of my console table.  Today I wanted to share with you how to create your own decoupaged pumpkin that you can do with your kids or as a fun craft after the kids head to bed.

All supplies for this project were purchased at Walmart and each pumpkin cost approximately $7 to create.

Supplies Needed For This Project

Faux Pumpkin

Modge Podge (or make your own for less)

1 package of paper cocktail napkins (in the party supplies section or in the seasonal section of the store)

Foam brush

Hot Glue Gun & Glue Sticks

Yarn (optional)

Size 5 Double-Pointed Needles (optional)

Twist off the stem on your pumpkin. It should come off pretty easily. Set this aside for later.

Grab your stack of cocktail napkins. When choosing these, I would go for a darker color than this if you don’t want to have to do two layers. Another option would be to spray paint your pumpkin white. I just did two layers of napkins on mine, but you can do whichever works best for you.

Unfold the napkin, and then cut it into two long rectangles down the middle where the fold is.

Using your foam brush, spread your Modge Podge on the pumpkin and then cover in one of your paper napkin rectangles.  Apply the napkins very gently and try to smooth out any wrinkles as you go.  No matter what you do, there will be wrinkles and possibly tears because the napkins are so delicate.   I like to think they add a lot of character and texture to the pumpkin though.

Repeat this layer of paper all the way around. Repeat, as needed to cover the pumpkin.

Once the pumpkin is covered in paper to your satisfaction, apply one or two layers of Modge Podge over the entire pumpkin. Allow it to dry for several hours or until the glue has hardened.

Invert your dried pumpkin, and cut a square of napkin  to cover the bottom of the pumpkin. Apply two layers of Modge Podge to the bottom and any missed layers on the bottom of the pumpkin. Let it dry.

You can leave your pumpkin as is and just hot glue the top back on, but I wanted to add one other layer to these pumpkins. I knitted two leaves for each one, out of scrap yarn, to decorate the top of the pumpkin. This is a great time to use any yarn up that your kids claimed was too scratchy or the end of a ball of yarn that you just couldn’t part with.

I used this free knitted leaf pattern (leaf number one) to create these little yarn leafs for the tops of my pumpkin. The picture above shows the back of the leaf, you want the other side of the leaf to show on your pumpkin. Create your leaf stem as long as you like for your pumpkin.

Hot glue the ends of your leaves to the top of your pumpkin. Hot glue underneath the stem, and then secure it to the top of your pumpkin. Hold this all in place for a minute or two to make sure that it is secure.

Enjoy your little pumpkins in a favorite corner of your home, on your kitchen table, or wherever else a pumpkin might look beautiful. I am looking forward to using these all through the fall and I even think this gray and white one might be a perfect one for the winter holidays too!

It matches perfectly with my Yarn Wreath on my door and adds a fun element to my fall decorating.

I am a part of the Walmart Moms program, and Walmart has provided me with compensation for these posts. My participation is voluntary and opinions are always my own.

How to Paint a Kitchen Table: Our Kitchen Table Makeover

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I never dreamed that I would ever paint my kitchen table when we bought it. For ten years though we abused it daily, it survived a brutal move with a terrible moving company, and the polyurethane coating never did look right after it was damaged in route to our house on the day we bought it. The table was loved to pieces, literally, and that is why we had to paint it.

Passing through our kitchen, you might not have noticed the table’s beat-up appearance. From far away or cleverly covered with a tablecloth when it got really embarrassing, the table just didn’t look that bad.

Upon closer inspection though, your eyes are assaulted with the damage that has happened to it. The polyurethane coating was flaking away, the ends were terribly damaged on the table, and a huge gash went right through the center of it that I never thought the table would ever recover from.

We decided that we would stain the table and restore the tabletop with a nice deep and rich color. We bought lots of supplies to stain the table and I couldn’t wait to get started.

For two days I sanded the table to within an inch of its poor little life. The polyurethane coating remained. I bought polyurethane stripper and left it on the table for twenty-four hours. The polyurethane remained. I sanded the table more. The polyurethane remained.

I cried.

I rocked in the fetal position.

I kicked myself for starting a project that I didn’t feel as confident in.

I gave up.

We ate at a sad folding table and chairs for an entire week, only to discover this staining would not happen at my novice level of furniture staining.

At this point, I had nothing to lose.

We decided to paint the kitchen table.

The chairs were in good condition other than a quick reupholster to the tired fabric that had been on them. The table legs also happened to be in decent condition so we made the decision to leave the table legs and chairs in their natural wood color (partly out of laziness and partly because we needed our kitchen table back) which definitely cut down on the work.

I am no expert on painting furniture so I consulted with my best friend who has been painting her furniture recently and the ever amazing and wildly talented Kate, from Centsational Girl, who has this amazing tutorial on how to paint furniture. Between the two of them, I felt a tad more confident than I did before.

Once the table was sanded and wood filled in the spots that were really rough on the table, we applied two coats of the Zinsser Cover Stain Primer over the table. Between each coat, once the tabletop was fully dry, I gave it another good sanding and wiped it clean with a cloth. I had to admit, even with just the primer, the table was already looking better.

Once the primer was dry, I applied two coats of paint to the tabletop. We wanted our tabletop to match our kitchen cabinets so we chose Valspar Blanched Pine (7005-15) for the shade of white we were looking for. Two coats of paint were applied to it. The first coat was applied with a brush and then the second coat, I used a roller and then used a brush to smooth out any roller marks.

I did take Kate’s recommendation and added Floetrol to the paint (as directed on the packaging) which really did seem to help cut down on the mistakes that I usually make when painting. This paint conditioner will definitely be used again when I tackle another painting project.

After the paint was dry, we then applied two heavy coats of polyurethane to the tabletop with an angled brush. We allowed the polyurethane to set on the tabletop for four days with no use. I think this was one of the hardest parts about the process, but we wanted to make sure that the tabletop would really be able to withstand our daily abuse once we brought it inside.

The table legs were reattached, the new-to-me chairs were slid under it. We were in business.

Here is our newly painted kitchen tabletop.  It is not perfect, but we truly did the best we could to improve upon something we already owned.

I am so happy to have a tabletop that I don’t have to cover with a tablecloth. I am just hoping that this will be able to stand up to our daily use, but I will be happy if we can get a couple more years out of this set.

I will tell you a secret.

Every time I see a crumb on it, I start freaking out that paint is chipping.

A major freak out ocurred after the kids dined on pumpkin bread for snack one day.

I am wondering when I will get over that.

Perhaps, never.

For now, my husband is just thankful I am done with this project, I am thankful to have reclaimed the garage, and we are all thankful that we didn’t have to purchase a new set of furniture for this room.

How to Reupholster A Chair

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We have been hard at work on completely redoing our old dining set. My kitchen chairs were in solid condition and didn’t require any painting, but I was tired of the faux leather fabric that I had purchased for the chairs when my kids were little. Today I wanted to share with you just how easy it is to reupholster those chairs and add a little pizzazz to a tired dining set for very little money.

Supplies Needed For This Project

New Fabric (I am using outdoor fabric to help prevent staining from spills. You could also choose a faux leather fabric or any type of fabric and then treat it with Scotch Guard to prevent staining). This fabric should be measured to the width of your chair and then add 4 inches  to each measurement so you have enough fabric to reach around the cushion.  My chair seat was 20×20 so I needed 24×24 for each seat. For all six seats it required 2 yards of fabric total.

Upholstery Staple Gun (available at fabric stores)

Upholstery Staples (heavy-duty)

Needle-nose pliers

Screwdriver

Pinking Shears (or regular sewing scissors)


Invert your chair and use your screwdriver to remove the four screws on the bottom that are securing your cushion to the chair.

If the cushion has fabric stapled on it already, use your needle-nose pliers to remove the old staples and fabric from the cushion. If you only have one layer of fabric, it should be okay, but this chair had two so I had to remove my last round of reupholstering to get back to the base of the chair.

Now it is time to cut your new fabric to replace the old fabric that was on your chair.  This fabric should be measured to the width of your chair and then add 4 inches  to each measurement so you have enough fabric to reach around the cushion.  My chair seat was 20×20 so I needed 24×24 for each seat. For all six seats it required 2 yards of fabric total.

I prefer to cut my fabric with a pair of pinking shears instead of regular scissors because the fabric does not fray with these and I don’t have to mess with trimming and pulling strings on fabric. If you don’t have a pair of these though, you can always use regular shears.

When buying your fabric, be sure to ask if they offer any specials or discounts to customers. I got this fabric at Jo-Ann Fabrics and signed up for their email list while I was at the register. They gave me a coupon that took $16 off of my total fabric purchase so I was able to get fabric for six chairs for $25!

Once you have your fabric cut, it is time to staple. Center your cushion upside down and make sure there is approximately the same amount of fabric on all four sides and then pull the fabric tightly over your cushion and staple it. You are going to want to put your whole body into this one, friends.  Staple all the fabric down along the cushion securely.

Corners can be a tricky terrain, but they don’t have to be. I like to bring the top part down and then fold in the other side of the fabric on top. You can do your corners on your cushion however you like. I think the trick with this one is just to play with it, flip it over and take a peek, and then play with the fabric again until you find a corner you like. Once you figure out how you like your corners, replicate it with the three other corners and then again on your next chair. Trim the excess corner fabric.

Center your cushion back on your chair and make sure all of the fabric is tucked nicely underneath and on top. Secure your cushion back on with the four screws again.

Now just repeat the same process over and over and over again until all of your chairs are done. I was able to get six chairs reupholstered in one afternoon. It isn’t hard to do and is a great job to tackle while watching your favorite shows.

I am madly in love with this fabric that I chose and can’t believe how much more I love these chairs. They look like brand new and I only spent $25 to shine them up.

Of course, what are new chairs without a new-to-me table? Looking forward to revealing what I have been up to this past week and sharing with you our new kitchen tabletop!

This tabletop has needed attention for eight years now and I am finally doing it.

Procrastination is the name of the game.

I hope I am not the only one with an eight year project that has been bugging her.

What is one home improvement project you have been vowing to do, but just haven’t made time to tackle yet?

Frugal Tips for Throwing a Fabulous Birthday Party On a Budget

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It is hard to believe that my little guy turned nine this year!  When people told me that the years would go by quickly, I did not believe them. It has seemed though that I blinked my eyes and he has grown up. As we do each year, I look forward to celebrating him and wanted to share with you the results of another fun patriotic party that we threw to celebrate Ethan and his awesomeness.

This year’s Walmart Moms challenge was to embrace the 4th of July using supplies from their store and I hope you will love these inexpensive additions that I added to our party this year.

I am lucky to have one child who has a 4th of July party every year and one child who has a Christmas birthday.  I always pick anything that is red for these parties because I know that they will serve double duty for our birthday bashes.

I hate to waste any money on paper products and decided this year I would make an investment into napkins for outdoor party. These bandanas in navy and red were the perfect solution for outdoor entertaining and a steal for just $1. I grabbed these over in the Women’s department by the purses and accessories for women. Honestly, if you have any party theme, they had everything from zebra print, to camouflage, to hot pink designs. I picked up sixteen (a $16 investment)  of these and rolled silverware sets in each one and put them in the glasses for easy grabbing.

Last year, I got these silverware sets for very little money at the wholesale club.  They aren’t the best quality, but they work so wonderfully for occasions like this. Thrift stores also sell silverware and you can often find bags of it very inexpensively. Rolling these into sets made it easier for everyone to grab what they needed and kept the line for the food moving a little quicker. When you are serving a large group, taking an hour to get everything set up like this will really pay off!

Our burger baskets from last year are still going strong and are always a hit at parties. I found these at our local restaurant supply store ($14.99 for 12) and I purchased one package of delicatessen paper ($4.99 for 500 sheets) for my family celebrations. These are not only used for our parties, but for pretty much any cookout our family does.  I couple these with small plates for appetizers or sides that just won’t fit in the baskets and an additional plate for the dessert table. These really have paid for themselves over and over again and I love a nod to anything retro.

Tissue paper pom poms are my new favorite thing to make. I made these in shades of pink for Emily’s Barbie birthday party this year and thought it would be fun to have these on hand for our patriotic parties too.  These cost $1 in tissue paper to make (I grabbed the tissue paper over by the Hallmark displays at our Walmart store) and can all be done in about thirty minutes.

Visit this tutorial to get the scoop on how to make these.  I did the same thing as I did with that tutorial, but cut the corners to a point instead of the rounded, more feminine corners that I did for my daughter’s party. I have packed these away to be brought out for next year’s party or (minus the blue) these could be added for a Valentine’s Day celebration with the addition of one of my pink pom poms from my daughter’s party.

I love a good red, white, and blue theme, but you have to appeal to what your kids desire too. Each year I let my children pick their own cake out of my stack of cookbooks and then I ask them what character they would like to go with for the year. This year, Ethan said he wanted a Bakugan cake. I visited the  toy section of our store and found these little guys for $10 to put on top. Whatever tops the cake, doubles as part of their birthday gift so these little guys were rinsed after their cake debut, and are now performing Bakugan battles in my son’s room.

The cake itself was a melted ice cream cake created from a cake mix and a pint of the birthday boy’s favorite ice cream. Tune in on Monday for that recipe and for the homemade chocolate marshmallow ganache that frosted the top. The Wilton sprinkles were leftover from last year’s party and worked perfectly again to add a little nod to the 4th of July theme.

Last year’s star garland was hung (free), a red tablecloth that I have had for about eight years was placed on the table (free), three flags from our party two years ago were nestled in red tissue paper and a glass apothecary jar that I had in our family room (free), and a navy bandana was angled beneath the cake for to add a little bit of color to the display ($1), with the three tissue paper pom poms hung from white ribbon above ($3).

The trifle that I shared with you is a new family favorite and I couldn’t wait to make it. This glass trifle bowl was only $6.97  at the store and will be used over and over again in our house. Everyone must have had the same idea as me because they were all out of these at our store. Thankfully, my girlfriend happened to be at another Walmart when I called, and she snagged one at her store and saved the day for me!  I can’t wait to try other desserts in this and even use this bowl for decorating in our house. Be sure to check out the recipe for the red, white, & blueberry trifle!

Two summers ago we bought one of those atrociously large water slides to put up in our backyard to keep the kids entertained. Bought on clearance towards the end of the summer, it has paid for itself in party entertainment and for days when I just want the kids to entertain themselves.  The past couple of parties the weather has not cooperated with this form of entertainment for our guests, but this year proved to be just the right amount of humidity and sun that we could put this up for lots of slides and fun with our cousins.  I hate putting it up, I hate taking it down…but anything that can keep the kids happy and entertained for hours on end seems like a fantastic idea for a party.

There is nothing catered at this party and I try to mix in a few old favorites with new recipes each year to our party menu. I work hard to make the party planning process as painless as possible. Everything is done in stages during the week so the last day is just a matter of pulling everything together.  The cake is baked and frozen until the big day, all ingredients are chopped in bags and ready to go, the decorations are hung the day before, I try to incorporate one recipe that can be thrown into our slow cooker, and I do my best to make the last day as fun as possible for me too!

A few of the standby recipes we used this year were our Perfectly Pulled Pork Sandwiches, our Pesto Pasta Salad, and our Birthday Party Punch. More recipes will be coming in the next two weeks!

Of course, no party would be complete without the birthday announcement on the door. The kids have really come to love this tradition of hanging our birthday balloon wreath so everyone knows that their special day has arrived. It isn’t a party without a wreath.. at least that is my philosophy. There is nothing that makes me happier than these simple traditions of fun, food, and family.

happy 9th birthday, ethan alexander!

I hope this gives you a few ideas for your own parties and would love to hear how you keep your parties fabulous and frugal!

I am a part of the Walmart Moms program, and Walmart has provided me with compensation for these posts. My participation is voluntary and opinions are always my own.

Father’s Day Gift Basket: A Fun Movie Gift Basket

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It’s no secret that I love my dad like crazy! This week we got the opportunity to celebrate him at a dinner in honor of his 35 years of employment with Bayer. This picture of my sister & I with him is one of my favorites from that evening together.  Sadly,  for us, our brother hit the road to start a fresh new life in New Orleans so one piece of our puzzle was missing in this picture. We are missing him a lot already.

Regardless, this gave me an opportunity to give him his dad’s day gift a little early and shower him with love for all of his hard work our entire lives. I shared with you this week, a power-packed punch of a gift to give your favorite superhero dad. I hope that gave a few of you a fun idea for a quick gift to pull together. Now I wanted to showcase one other cute idea I have for a Father’s Day gift basket that I thought you guys might like.

For your basket, look for a popcorn bucket or tub that you can use to fill it with your movie supplies.  I found this tub at our local dollar store, but you can check near the popcorn aisle or over by the popcorn poppers for another fun tub that you can use for the base for your gift.

Next fill the bottom of your popcorn tub or bucket with a little shredded paper or tissue paper. Someone shipped something to me in a million pounds of this shredded paper so that is why I am such a fan of it for a free filler in our house. Whatever you might have in your wrapping supplies will work beautifully for this project.

Fill your popcorn tub with your dad’s favorite snacks. My dad loves black licorice and movie theater popcorn so we filled his up with those snacks to enjoy while he watches his favorite movies. I spent roughly $5 on snacks, but you can spend however much your own budget allows on the snack portion of this present!

Now comes the fun part. Grab your kids and take a few pictures of them pretending to watch a movie. Use your movie bucket for a prop and snap a few pictures that you can use for your gift.

Upload your photo to Picnik. Under the CREATE tab,  select EFFECTS, then select the BLACK & WHITE option to change your picture to a a black and white image. While still under the CREATE tab, select the option for TEXT. Once you are in text, put in your message for your dad. Make sure not to put your text all of the way to the edge of the photo because it may cut it off when you print it. It is better to get it a little further in to assure that you don’t waste ink, paper, or your time!

You can choose from a variety of fonts and colors. The font I choose for these images was Budmo Jiggler. I loved this font because it looked a little like a movie theater sign with one’s name in lights. Add a fun movie message, as we did here. You can do all of this with a free membership to Picnik.

Save your image once you have finished it. If you have a photo printer, you can print these out at home. I printed mine on 4×6 Kodak paper with my photo printer. Attach this image to the front of your movie tub.

To include in our movie tub, we added a gift card for two month’s of Netflix for only $15.98. With our five dollars in snacks, this gift is just a little  over twenty dollars, but is worth two month’s of fun! We tied the gift card with this photo that we also printed on 4×6 paper and finished it all with a little red ribbon.

This quick and easy gift is ready to go and can be pulled together in just a few minutes!  I hope this gift will offer a little more inspiration to your Father’s Day gift ideas and we wish all of our dads out there a very Happy Father’s Day from us!

We happen to have a pretty amazing dad in our midst that we are looking forward to showering with love this year! I feel so incredibly blessed that our children have such an awesome father and am a lucky girl myself!

Happy Father’s Day, Dads!

100 days of summer: homemade ice cream fun & tortilla pizzas

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Our summer has technically just begun this week. Last week I got my last week of solo time with my little girl. It is hard to believe that she will be off to kindergarten next year. My heart aches a lot over that. She truly is my best little buddy and we lived it up this week with Chinese food (with chopsticks, of course), fancy haircuts, and lots of fun in the sun with our friends.  I am so excited to have both the kids home and as I shared last week, we will be documenting our summer through mobile uploading fun and sharing what projects we are working on.

We had a celebration dinner to celebrate the start of our summer together!  We love our pizza night and decided to try the tortilla pizzas featured on Living Locurto courtesy of Tidy Mom, for a fun dinner treat. These were so easy to pull together and I loved that everyone could have their own toppings on these. I have a different pizza in mind than the rest of the family and mine was oozing with fresh mozzarella, spinach, and mushrooms. These were crisp and delicious! Everyone really seemed to like them and it was a great way to keep the kitchen cool in the sweltering heat that we have been having here.

We made not one, but two different kinds of ice cream this week. I can’t say that purchasing an ice cream maker will be good for my figure, but the kids are loving it and I am loving experimenting with a new food.  We made a cake batter ice cream from Annie’s Eats that was the absolute favorite of everyone in our family. It really did taste just like cake batter. It was rich and way better than any vanilla ice cream.

We also tried a dreamy creamy strawberry ice cream that was also from Annie’s Eats. That tasted just like a piece of strawberry cheesecake. The sour cream added so much flavor and it was a great way to use some berries that I found on sale at the supermarket.

I think we have our summer off to a fantastic start. I am looking forward to sharing more on our summer adventures and am all stocked up on craft supplies for a few projects next week!

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Stumped for ideas this summer? Have no fear! I have you covered this year with our 100 Days of Summer Pinterest Board.  There are 100 ideas for crafting, eating, and creating with your children of all ages.  We promise to keep it carefree on Tuesdays and share what we tackle through our mobile uploads and you can even follow our adventures in real time through Instagram or on Twitter (my name is momadvice).

Our family is on the move and we want you to be on the move too.

Do something cool together this week.

Your kids will love you for it.

What did you do this week from your summer list?

Father’s Day Gift Basket: A Power Pack for Your Super-Dad!

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Where would we be without wonderful fathers in our life?  Father’s Day gifts are always a challenge for me because I want something that shows our dads how special they are to us, but I can’t always think of the best way to show how much we love them.  This year I decided to make two gift baskets for our dads that are a breeze to pull together, are personalized to each of our dads, and happen to be awfully affordable.

This month’s DIY challenge for Walmart was to create a Father’s Day gift using items purchased from the store.  Head on over to your store to pick up the supplies for these fun gift baskets for your dads. I promise you that these gifts will be a big hit.

For our first Father’s Day gift, we have a sporty dad in our life. Ryan’s dad is passionate about biking and spends a lot of time clocking the miles on his bike. We thought we would make a power pack for our favorite superhero dad with snacks and drinks that he can take on the road with him.

Start with a basket or tub. I found this party tub over with the outdoor supplies for $4.57. This is a deep tub and  will be perfect for on the patio after dad is done using it for his gift.

On the bottom of the tub, put a layer of newspaper to fill out the tub. We don’t want to waste our budget on fillers for the basket and this is a great way to make the basket look fuller for less.

Now that we have filled out the bottom, you can add cute shredded paper, tissue paper, or anything else you might have in your wrapping supplies. Fill it out just enough that it looks full and hides the newspaper bottom.

Now it is time to fill it with power foods. I got Powerade and power protein bars for our dad. Feel free to add your own spin on the power foods. In my opinion, coffee and chocolate are power foods that would fit very nicely into this theme. Explore the grocery aisles for your own dad’s favorite power foods.

Next I had my kids pose for pictures in their superhero capes. Feel free to make your own spin on this though. You could also have your children do strong man poses or lift weights, put on a sweatband and leg warmers, whatever you think says power. Your dads will really get a kick out of this.

Upload your photo to Picnik. Under the CREATE tab,  select EFFECTS, then select the LOCOMO-ISH option to change your picture to a a brighter image. Use the scale to slide down the color on it so it looks bright and fun, but not flourescent. While still under the CREATE tab, select the option for TEXT. Once you are in text, put in your message for your dad. Make sure not to put your text all of the way to the edge of the photo because it may cut it off when you print it. It is better to get it a little further in to assure that you don’t waste ink, paper, or your time!

You can choose from a variety of fonts and colors. The font I choose for these images was Lexographer. You can do all of this with a free membership to Picnik.

Save your image once you have finished it. If you have a photo printer, you can print these out at home. I printed mine on 4×6 Kodak paper with my photo printer. If you don’t have a photo printer, Walmart offers one hour prints. The cards themselves are almost as awesome as what is inside your baskets.

Tape this image to the front of your party tub. I also stuck another picture on the other side of the tub of my daughter with her extremely scary power pose.

If you would like, you can include a small denominator gift card in your basket for some power tunes for the iPod or even a powerful book that dad could read.  I tied this with ribbon and attached it with this superhero card to let him know that this gift was for additional power.

This is a gift that I know your dad would love and the kids will have a blast creating it with you! I will be back tomorrow with one more quick gift basket idea and I hope that this will give a few of you a little last minute inspiration!

What gifts do you have up your sleeve for you dads this year? What gift has been the biggest hit? I would love to hear your ideas!

I am a part of the Walmart Moms program, and Walmart has provided me with compensation for these posts. My participation is voluntary and opinions are always my own.

100 Days of Summer: Inspiration for Your Summer Break

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There will be no cries of boredom in our house this summer because I am prepared this year. I have come up with 100 activities to do this summer and I am sharing my list of 100 activities to do with you through Pinterest. We have everything from hot air balloon making, to Netflix origami, to breakfast in bed, to making individual pizzas on the grill, to making the world’s largest bubbles, to creating your very own water park. The possibilities are endless and the majority of the activities cost next to nothing to create.

I am not a crafty parent. I can be crafty on my own, but not always the craftiest with my kids. I really, really try, but I find that crafting with my kids is a challenge. I want to overcome that challenge this summer and be the cool mom for once. Many times I find myself at my computer typing these ideas for others, but not trying any ideas myself.

This summer is going to be different.

Instead of just coming up with ideas for our readers, I am looking forward to actually tackling our summer list.  I still will be sharing a weekly recipe, our apron full of giveaways, and our notebook of inspiration. I won’t ever quit you, MomAdvice friends!

On Tuesdays though, I will be sharing what we are working on from our summer list through mobile pictures and quick notes on what fun activities we are doing at our house. I am hoping it will be an inspiration to you to get out and enjoy the summer with your children. I can’t say we will tackle a hundred activities, but I will be awfully proud if we do one cool activity a week. You can catch me on Instagram, fellow iPhone users, where I am documenting our summer with my new phone. My name is momadvice.

I hope you will enjoy our laid-back inspiration this summer!  I want to enjoy every moment I have with these two kids- my time with them feels fleeting and precious.

Next school year, I will have whole days to type away.

This summer, I am loving my mom job all day with them.

What are your favorite summer activities? How do you get inspired for summer fun? And, hey, what do you think of our summer list?