Archive for the ‘Crafts & Celebrations’ Category

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Back-to-School Close to My Heart Pin: DIY Fabric Flowers

Tuesday, August 2nd, 2011

This is the true story of two girls. One girl had a strong will and was a perfectionist. The other girl had a strong will and was a perfectionist. These two girls had a hard time coexisting together. One girl had to become a little softer with her heart and learn to let the little stuff go. The other girl turned four and just became a tad more laid back and a little easier for her mother to deal with.

Suddenly, these two became not only mother & daughter, but fabulous friends. They went on outings together, sang in the car wherever they went, watched girlie movies on Netflix,  and had many Chinese & haircut dates together. They did everything together and learned to love each other even more than before.

Now my best friend is leaving me for kindergarten.

Please don’t ask me about it.

I will cry.

This craft is an idea born from my own bittersweet sadness about my Emily leaving me for school. I wanted to create a little something for her that would remind her that mommy was always with her and was always thinking about her no matter where she was.  This is my Close to My Heart pin and I am sharing this craft idea with you today for the back-to-school season!

Head to your local Walmart and visit the craft supplies section of the store and you will find fabric quarters available for purchase for $1.27 each. You will also need one sheet of red felt for this project for the base of your fabric flower for a mere $.20!  If you are creating a pin for attaching the fabric flower to clothing, look in the jewelry section for 1 1/2″ bar pins with an adhesive backing. If you want to clip the fabric flower in your daughter’s hair, you can also find metal barrettes, hair clips, or even headbands in the jewelry section or by the ribbon to attach these simple flowers to.

If you don’t have a glue gun and glue sticks, be sure to pick those up as well.

You will need to cut nine circles out of your fabric. I used a large circle punch and created my template out of scrap card stock. You could also just trace a lid to a canning jar, if you don’t have a circle punch handy.

Grab your red felt and cut a heart out for the base of your flower. I just folded it in half and cut it just like I used to do my hearts for my Valentine’s.  This is the sentimental part of this pin for your sweet child, but if you just want to do a felt circle, you can do that as well!

Let’s make some flower petals. Fold your circle in half as shown.

Fold up one side of the circle that has been folded in half.

Fold up the other half of the halved circle and have it meet with the other side to form a petal.

It should look like this swirly thing on top.

Now hot glue the seam just a tiny bit together where the petal is gathered and then hot glue the end of the petal to the felt heart. Repeat this with all four ends of the heart. In the spaces left, fill in with three or four more petals. At the end, you will have one hole in the center to put in one or two petals that you have left. To get more visuals on this, I have created a vlog below where you can watch the petals being applied in action.

Once it is all filled in, it will look like this. You can leave it plain like this or you can add a cute button in the center by just smashing down the petals and hot gluing a button in the center. I think it looks pretty both ways!

On the back of your fabric flower, you can attach either a pin (for pinning to their jacket or backpack) or a metal barrette to pull back their hair. We did a few each way so that we could accessorize those uniforms and glam up her backpack too.

I hope she knows how much I love her while she is off to school and be reminded of my love when she looks at her pin. I hope you can give this easy craft a try and that it can serve as a reminder to your daughter how special she is to you.

I love you, Emily!

What special traditions have you created for the back-to-school season in your house? I would love to hear your ideas! Be sure to check out my vlog below for a step-by-step tutorial on how to make these easy pins!

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.

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Posted in DIY | 49 Comments »

Frugal Tips for Throwing a Fabulous Birthday Party On a Budget

Tuesday, July 12th, 2011

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.

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Posted in Celebrations | 14 Comments »

100 days of summer: homemade fudgesicles & key lime ice cream

Tuesday, June 28th, 2011

It was another fun week of summer fun at the Clark house, although we didn’t get to many of our planned activities this week. The kids finished up their last week of swim lessons and we did a fun pirate-themed VBS at our church. Our children are so blessed to have such a fun church and VBS was stellar this year with tons of crafts and activities for the kids to do. We collapsed every night after swim lessons and a jam-packed evening of VBS activities.

I managed to squeeze in a Father’s Day date with my hubby, two birthday parties, a trip to a bounce house, attended a musical, had a slurpee celebration for finishing our swim lessons, two days at the pool, and one ice cream excursion. No wonder we didn’t have time for crafting this week!

For a fun Friday night treat this week, I made homemade fudgesicles for a fun way to finish off our pizza night together. These fudgesicles, from Smitten Kitchen,  were so creamy, rich, and delicious made with such a seemingly small amount of cocoa and chocolate chips, that you really can’t believe how rich the flavor is.  I doubled the recipe, but quickly realized that I did not need to double this for the amount of popsicle holders that we had. This makes a ton of popsicles and we still have another tray in the freezer for another weeknight treat.  My husband said they were just as good as the store-bought variety and I loved them even more.

Proving that I will gain a million pounds over the summer, I made this key lime ice cream from goodLife{eats}, guest posted by Jamie from My Baking Addiction and let me tell you,… it is perhaps one of the best bowls of homemade ice cream I have ever eaten. I decided to play with the recipe a little and used fat-free sweetened condensed milk, the zest from a lime, and regular lime juice since key lime juice proves to not be plentiful in my Midwestern store.  I find my father-in-law is the kind of guy that I want to work really hard to impress and I think our dinner, this dessert, and my present this year offered a triple wow factor that I will never be able to replicate again!

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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 tackle this week from your summer list?

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Posted in Kids Crafts | 11 Comments »

100 days of summer: root beer icees, corn syrup painting, & tortilla bowls

Tuesday, June 21st, 2011

It was another busy week for our family. The kids started swim lessons this week and I have a feeling that the time and effort we are putting into this summer’s swim classes is really going to pay off this time.  We tried to work in a few fun activities this week including a fun fire pit night roasting s’mores over the fire, our favorite Jazzy Sunday routine with homemade whole wheat waffles topped with blueberry syrup, and lots of time spent working on the yard and playing outside.

I also implemented a chore chart for the kids and allowance program. I will let you guys know how that works out after we have been doing it for awhile.  Surprisingly, the kids are quite enthusiastic about this and money is proving to be a powerful motivator in our house.

From our 100 days of summer activity list, we tackled two fun food items and one craft idea this week.

This week we tried our hands at corn syrup painting that was featured on eighteen25 as a fun activity for the kids to do together. I mixed up a tray of paints and dug up some paint brushes and foam brushes for the kids to use to make their pictures. They each drew out their pictures in black crayon and then we painted them with the paints. The colors were beautiful and vibrant using ingredients right from our pantry.

The kids loved doing these paintings and I covered all of the paints up with plastic wrap and have put them away for a rainy day activity to keep them busy. It seems we are getting a lot of rain here in Indiana, so I am sure we will have these paints used up in no time at all.

I loved the idea of creating Coke Icees that was featured on Bake at 350 for a fun summer treat. We happened to be serving my favorite pulled pork sandwiches and the recipe calls for only 12 ounces of root beer. Instead of making root beer floats, I put four cans worth of root beer into my ice cream maker and let that churn for twenty minutes until it was nice and slushy.  We all loved these and I can’t wait to make them again with other types of soda. These were a big hit at our house so I highly recommend that activity.

Finally, we tried making baked taco bowls for our taco night this week courtesy of Annie’s Eats. I didn’t realize until I started making the bowls that I had the wrong size of tortilla. It was too late to hit the store so they were truly taco bowls rather than bite-sized taco treats. Regardless, the kids absolutely loved these and my husband & I both agreed that these were a fun addition to our taco night. I will have to give these another try with the right tortillas.

It seems that the hour is never too early to begin thinking up more daring things to do together. Emily brushed up on her daring activities in her robe and with her morning slice of toast. We couldn’t be more excited to tackle fun this summer if we tried.

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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 tackle from your summer list this week?

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Posted in Kids Crafts | 18 Comments »

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

Thursday, June 16th, 2011

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!

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Posted in Gifts | 4 Comments »

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

Tuesday, June 14th, 2011

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?

Tags: , ,
Posted in Kids Crafts | 19 Comments »

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

Monday, June 13th, 2011

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.

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Posted in Gifts | 8 Comments »

100 Days of Summer: Inspiration for Your Summer Break

Tuesday, June 7th, 2011

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?

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Posted in Kids Crafts | 35 Comments »

Oh, Baby: Sweet Knitted Baby Hats

Tuesday, May 17th, 2011
Photo Credit: Nancy Lary Studios

Baby hats are my latest knitted obsession since they are so easy to create and to give. I admit, I used to lovingly knit baby blanket after baby blanket for my friends. Those, unfortunately, require a lot of sweet love and endless amounts of free time. I decided I wanted gifts that could be knit in a couple evenings worth of television shows and that their mommies could actually use instead of storing them away. Hats really seem to fit the bill and their are endless patterns for adorable baby patterns out there.

Once you get the hang of knitting in the round, baby hats are a piece of cake! I will share with you my new favorite patterns and a few tools that can help you achieve baby hat success when knitting!  I usually try to highlight only free patterns, but these were a few that I did pay for. I do promise that the patterns are well-written and are the type that can be  made over and over again for gifts. I hope that this post will still inspire and give you a fun new gift to knit for a special little one in your life.

If you are a knitter, I would love for you to be my friend on Ravelry. My username is momadvice and I try to keep my little notebook updated with the current projects.


Photo Credit: Nancy Lary Studios

cherry tomato hat (in red) & sprout hat (in green)

Pattern: Greenleaf Baby Hat by Evelyn Uyemura (available for $1.00 as a Ravelry Download- join Ravelry.com to access the pattern)

Needle Size: US 8 (I purchased this set of 12″ circulars for these hats)

Yarn: Naturally Caron Country (Claret) & Caron Simply Soft in Dark Sage for stem. The green hat is done only in Caron Simply Soft in Dark Sage

Notes: If you are looking for a great beginner pattern for making hats then this is the perfect pattern for you. This simple roll brim hat is simply knit in the round until you get to the top and then you create a basic i-cord to create the stem of the flower.  An easy set of increases and then decreases creates the leaf at the tip of the hat.

I did the roll brim pattern and made the i-cord about a 1/2” longer than the pattern specified. I also knit this hat on size 8 needles (for a 0-6 month size versus the newborn size).

This pattern could be knit into a variety of cute fruits and vegetables or in a solid color as I did for the second hat pictured above. Fall hats could be created into pumpkins, red and green would look adorable for a Christmas baby, and I can’t wait to try other fun additions to this adorable pattern.

The beautiful model in these photos is my sweet friend Andrea’s beautiful baby girl, Evey. She was so kind to let me share her photos on the blog. I could not have asked for a prettier model to model them!

Photo Credit: Nancy Lary Studios

brunhilde hat

Pattern: Viking Girl Hat by Sara Fama; Pattern is $7.50, but you can use a coupon code (“Ravelry10”) to receive 10% off the pattern. Pattern kits can also be ordered with the yarn used in the pattern, but I was able to find similar colors of yarn at our local craft shop.  The pattern included the pattern for the boy hat as well as the hat in different sizes.

Needle Size: US 6 (I purchased this set of 12″ circulars for these hats)

Yarn: (Charcoal), Loops & Threads Charisma (Yellow), Hobby Lobby I Love This Cotton! (Ivory)

Notes: Ever since I learned how to knit, I have been dying to make this hat. This has literally been bookmarked for over a year, in hopes that one day I would feel brave enough to knit it. A baby shower gift was the perfect opportunity to splurge on the pattern and give it a try. I can’t begin to tell you how much pride I had making this hat.

This hat really taught me a lot of new techniques, but the piecing of it was a little tedious. Beginning knitters will need to know how to knit bobbles (brief description is available in the pattern), create i-cords, knit on dpn’s, and knit in the round. Luckily, YouTube offers great video tutorials on these techniques to make creating this a little easier.

I made the Brunhilde pattern, but once I made the little wings for the hat, I did not think they looked like a Viking hat. It may have been to the stretch and give of the cotton yarn, but they just did not stand to attention like I had hoped. I opted to make the boy version of the horns and liked them much better. These were whip stitched in the same cream color).

The braids were really fun to knit and are knitted in three separate i-cords (attached by two rows of knitting at the top). I finished them with tightly knotted yarn and then grosgrain hot pink ribbon bows from my craft suppplies.

There is a lot of freedom with this pattern and it was written well, with a lot of comedic style and fun mixed into it. I am really proud of how this hat turned out and still can’t believe I actually made it!

purple pom pom hat & pom pom gray baby bear hat

Pattern: Pompom Bear by Amanda Keeys; I purchased this Baby Beanies Book to get the pattern. This is one of only three knitting books I own- I promise, it was a worthy investment if you are looking for easy hats to knit for baby gifts.  I have already knitted four hats from it and plan to knit many more patterns in this one.

Needle Size: US 8 (I purchased this set of 12″ circulars for these hats)

Yarn: Caron Simply Soft in Heather Gray (for the boy version) & Naturally Caron Country in Dark Purple (for the girl version)

Notes: This hat is so fun to knit and is as cute as could be. In fact, each time I make this hat, I get an order request from another friend who wants one for her own little one. The hat has an easy ribbed edge and then is made into a garter stitch from there by just alternating rows of knitting and purling in the round.

It really is the most perfect hat for a beginning knitter because you don’t have to ever decrease this hat or use double-pointed needles to finish it. It is made even easier with a three needle bind off….which has changed my knitting world. I will link to a tutorial on this to help explain it, but if there is ever an opportunity for a three needle bind off in any of my projects, I am doing this. I used the circulars as though they were two straight needles and then used a DPN to knit them together and then bind of the stitches.

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If you are just beginning the world of hats, these are the three things that really helped me have success getting comfortable with double-pointed needles and knitting in the round.

3 Things That Helped Me With Making Wee Baby Hats

1.Bamboo 12″ circulars– Here is the honest truth. If you are super coordinated with double pointed needles, you can skip buying these and knit the wee baby hats in the round. I have found that knitting baby hats in the round was more of a challenge than I expected, and my mother-in-law recommended purchasing 12″ circulars so the hats do not have to be started on the DPN’s. These were a lifesaver and I will always use these for starting my hats. They do require a bit of coordination since they are shorter & smaller than your normal circulars, but they are worth the effort.  I applied my Swagbucks towards Amazon gift cards to help reduce the cost on these.

2. Bamboo 9″ Double Pointed Needles– Again, these are an off-brand needle and they were extremely rough so they held my stitches really well. As a beginner on these, these rough double pointed needles were key for me to get the hang of it without dropping stitches. It was a lot cheaper to buy these as a set and I did apply my Swagbucks towards the Amazon gift cards so I didn’t have to dip in my pocket to pay for them. You could go with a different length on these, but I opted for these 9″ ones and they still work great for the baby hats as well as the adult hats I knit.

3. A Good Ring Marker- I was using the kind that you just slipped over the needles and was finding that I was losing my starting stitch marker for knitting in the round. Look for ones that will slip onto the yarn and put that at the beginning of my round. It will really help you not lose your pace and keep you on track with your knitting.

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Disclosure: The links to books and supplies are affiliate links and are provided so you can locate what you need quickly and easily. Feel free to order a book, but we encourage utilizing the library system and buying me some yarn instead.  Wouldn’t that just be so much more lovely?

What craft projects have you been working on? Feel free to share any links to what you are working on and be sure to friend me on Ravelry if you happen to be a knitter too! Access all of our craft fun on MomAdvice by visiting our Craft Section. Happy crafting, friends!

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Posted in Knitting | 9 Comments »

Sweet & Simple Mother’s Day Gift

Tuesday, May 10th, 2011

I hope everyone had a wonderful Mother’s Day. We really celebrated simply this year and it was still just as perfect. This year I decided to drop the Mother’s Day gifts the day before Mother’s Day so I could really enjoy a day to myself too this year. I don’t know about you, but there is nothing like a fresh bouquet of flowers bought just for me. I know our moms love them just as much so I headed over to the store to pick up a pretty  bouquet for each of them.

Supermarket bouquets can sometimes not feel as special as the fancy florist so I love to add my own little touches to the bouquets to make them a little more special. You can find rolls of tulle over in the craft section of your superstores or in the wedding section of large craft stores. Cut off a long strip of it to tie an elegant bow on your bouquet.

This bouquet was wrapped in pink and I thought this bow matched it perfectly.  Sometimes the smaller bouquets are wrapped in plain plastic. I love to fill the plastic out with colored tissue paper on the outside or have the floral department wrap the flowers for me.  Don’t forget to take those price tag stickers off the outside. After all, don’t we prefer if people don’t know how cheap we really are?

We made little personalized cards that we printed on 4×6 photo paper. I slipped these between the plastic layers and I am sure the little cards were saved as refrigerator mementos, as all personalized cards are. Just like the teacher cards that I made last week, start by uploading your photo to Picnik. Under the CREATE tab,  select EFFECTS, then select the BLACK & WHITE option to change your picture to a black & white image. While still under the CREATE tab, select the option for TEXT. Once you are in text, put in your message for your mother. 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!  The font I choose for these images was Pupcat. You can do all of this with a free membership to Picnik.

We also framed our favorite picture from Easter and then tied it with another tulle bow. I found inexpensive frames for each of our grandmas and I printed out the photos on my photo printer. We knew these would be a real hit with our grandmas. After all, what kind of grandmas would we have if she didn’t love our pictures?

Then we shocked them with our elegant flower deliveries. I don’t know who enjoyed that part more.

Happy Mother’s Day to our moms. We love you both!

I had a fantastic Mother’s Day. We went to church, I mixed up the waffle batter, then climbed back into my bed to be served. The kids loved serving breakfast to me in my bed and were very professional about checking on me often to see if anything else might be needed. I finished a library book, climbed out of bed for a half price frappe at Starbucks, and then climbed back in bed for the rest of the day. I got lots of hugs, kisses, storytelling, and tickles in with my children. I did not cook anything all day. I did not do one chore. I did not move from my bed hardly at all. It was perfect. It cost $2.22 for the whole day. It was just what I needed.


What did you do for Mother’s Day? Tell me what you did to celebrate YOUR day and Mother’s Day for your family & friends?


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Posted in Celebrations, Family | 7 Comments »

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