What to do with sea shell/rock collection

Whenever we go on trips to a lake or beach, we collect sea shells and rocks and bring them home. We've added quite a few to our collection over the years as I have had a hard time throwing them away. So I finally decided to do something with them instead of let them sit in the basement. I got this idea from a magazine I was looking through at a doctor appointment (you never know when you're going to get some inspiration!) You paint a frame white, cover the cardboard with fabric, then hot glue gun your shells/rocks onto it, leaving the glass out. Pretty easy right? The one I saw had glued a single star fish on top of light blue fabric. Very simple and cute. Our guest room/nursery was in need of something on the walls, so this did the job and brings back some fun memories.



Doing this project gave me another idea that would be fun to do with the kids in the future. Save a shell/rock from each of our vacations to a lake or beach and glue that onto some kind of board. Then have the kids write underneath the shell, when and where they found it. Could be a fun collection to have. Just an idea..

Bread making day

Yesterday afternoon was dedicated to making our bread for the month. I took advantage of Joe taking a nap and John being at school and had Daniel all to myself in the kitchen. I normally make it with all 3 boys so they can each get their little fingers into it, but yesterday thinking about the cleanup that comes with that shied me away. I also decided to take a break from the normal wheat bread and made 5 beautiful loaves of WHITE BREAD. I have a recipe that is to die for! Makes the moistest, yummiest, melt-in-your-mouth bread you can imagine. Read on for the recipe...

Toddler bed quilt

We recently kicked Joe out of the nursery and moved him in with his older brothers in preparation for the baby (8 weeks and 6 days to go! But who's counting?) We set up the toddler bed next to the bunks, and I decided to give my hand a try at quilt making. Here's the final outcome in all its glory. It's made from scraps of the bunk down comforter covers, some fabric I used years ago to make pj's for Pete and John, some old pajamas of mine, and some of Pete's and Dan's old jeans. This was my first quilt, and I really didn't know what I was doing, but I'll tell you what I did anyway: First I cut all the fabric into 6" squares, laid them all out in the pattern I wanted, sewed them in strips, then sewed those strips together. Then I bought flannel fabric for the bottom side and batting for the inside and taped each layer, one on top of the other, to our basement floor, making sure to get all of the wrinkles out (a method my friend Alison told me about so you don't have to use a quilting frame... works well on smaller quilts.) Then I pinned the layers together every 6-8 inches, took off all the tape, tied floss in every corner of each square, then finally sewed bias tape around the entire quilt. Done. I worked on this over the course of a few weeks, an hour or so at a time, so it didn't seem quite so overwhelming. Consider it a success! Not the last quilt I'll be making.

Growth Chart

I've been wanting some kind of a growth chart to keep track of how much the kids are growing each year. It's been on my mental list of things to do for quite some time. So I lucked out when my sister drew my name for Christmas and made this for me! I love how simple it is and how portable it is. She gave it to me rolled up in a cute little cylinder-shaped container with permanent markers to track the kids' growth. I had each of the kids pick out the color of marker they wanted, and that's what we'll use to measure them each year. She made it using vinyl and stick-on vinyl for the letters and tick marks, then used modge podge to ensure the vinyl didn't come off. Love it. Thanks Brittney!

New Year Organization: the kitchen pantry

We bought these can organizers years ago, and they have been well worth the money. The racks rotate the oldest can to the front/bottom, and they make it so easy to find what you're looking for and to know exactly how many you have. At the beginning of this new year we set some money aside for food storage, and one of the first things we did was buy enough cans to refill these racks. So now as long as I keep them full I can feel rest assured that we at least have 80 cans or so of food in our pantry in case there were an emergency. Not an entire 3-month supply, but a good start!

Holiday Pillowcases

My mom made these for all the grandkids a couple years ago, and my boys have absolutely loved them. We recently switched out the Christmas pillowcases for the Valentines ones, and it has made them that much more excited for the coming holiday. And I love the embroidered names... with the 3 boys now sleeping in the same room, we can actually keep track of who's pillow is who's!

Valentine's Wreath

With February right around the corner, I thought I'd share this Valentine's wreath I made last year. It only took about 5 hours to make (blah! I really hate spending that much time on a single project, but now that all is said and done, I guess I can say it was worth it). I made the felt flowers using this tutorial, then glued them all onto a styrofoam wreath. Pretty simple? Yes, it was. Making all those darn flowers just takes forever, so if you're going to attempt this project, make sure you have a few good movies to watch!