Summer is Here! ....But my mind is still on school

Today was my son's last day of school. Actually the last day of public school for him. Next year we are homeschooling. This will be an adventure for us. I think we will be successful and let me tell you why:
*I've always supplemented my son's school curriculum with projects and educational activities at home
*My son has the highest grades in his class
*I love to read and love to learn, which I hope to pass this on to my kids
*We're always doing science
*I love arts and crafts
*I love organization and structure
*More than anyone, I love my children, and I want them to be the best they can be and to succeed

I also have some reason's for feeling justified in pulling my kid from the public school system. We have already encountered bullying this year, twice. My son handled it very well and I am proud of him. But it made an impact on me. Kinda woke me up a little. I do feel really lucky that my son had amazing teachers in public school. I know it isn't always that way, but truly these women gave it there all and you could tell their heart was in it. But I can only imagine how hard it is to teach 32 children at once. One teacher vs 32 kids. Not only that, their budgets keep getting cut. In California, kids only have to go to school 175 days out of the year. That's about 35 weeks. In other states it's about 40. Hmmm... That is quite a difference. I do have some personal reasons for being out of the public school system as well, but they are personal and I believe that everything I've stated is enough.

So to make a long story short, we are entering the wonderful and absolutely crazy and overwhelming world of homeschooling :) And I'm SOOOOOO excited to plan my classroom! I can't even tell you how excited I am. I have ideas popping out of my brain all day long. If you don't homeschool, it's ok, who's to say that you can't incorporate some of these ideas into regular family life? There are some pretty cool idea coming up... like how to get a 8'x4' white board for under $30... that's right, budget friendly too :)

With Love,
Becca

Halloween Crafts for Kids

Looking for a cute craft to do with your little ones? How about a Halloween Bat Finger puppet?? Just cut along the outside line and cut out the circles at the base of the bat and your kids can stick their fingers through to make legs for the bat ;) CLICK HERE for the Halloween Finger Puppet Bat Link.

And what is a Halloween Bat without clothes?? Have fun coloring and gluing these on. CLICK HERE for the Halloween Finger Puppet Bat Clothes Link.

My Week...Written Down

As a mom of two young children I am constantly on the go. My days tend to get very busy, very fast and I don't carry my calendar around with me. So I created a weekly to-do list that I've been keeping in my purse. I named it "My Week...Written Down." It's come in really handy these past few weeks. I find that as I am making plans I can pull it out and jot down a note for myself. Anything that makes my life easier and keeps it better organized is something I love. So I wanted to share it all with you! I hope you enjoy! Click here to download and print your own.

With Love,
Becca

Valentine's Day

For my amazing die hard blog readers, you might recognize this picture from last year. In truth, I did not make these cookies this year. This year I'm still trying to decide what to do for Valentine's Day. I have a big wedding coming up the following week so I'm not sure that I'll be doing a lot. My girlfriend gave me a hard time about not making cookies this year, but a girl can only do so much ;)  I really do want to make cookies, but I know I need to focus all creative and mental energy on this wedding. If you'd like to make some sugar cookies and decorate them with royal icing here is the link for my amazingly simple royal icing recipe.

If you are lacking some motivation here are some simple ideas to help your valentine feel the love:

* Make heart shaped pancakes and use red food coloring in the batter to make them pink

*Make some toast and use a cookie cutter heart to remove the center of the toast and add some raspberry jam

* Cut out some construction paper hearts and leave some sweet notes for your loved one all over the house

* Put a coffee shop gift card in your loved one's brief case or on their car dashboard.

Adult Place Cards

Every year in our house we put place cards on the adult table that say "We are grateful for our friends and family." It's our way of saying thanks for coming and we love you guys. This year I was walking down an isle at Target and came across these adorable felt stickers. All I did was print out our little saying on white card stock. Then I took the stickers and stuck them on the sides of the cards. Ta-da! Super simple, super cute. You can take this idea and customize it to whatever you have on hand.

The silver ball place card holders add a touch of elegance and are available through "beau-coup": http://www.beau-coup.com/silver-ball-place-card-holder.htm

Spooky Windows

I've been working like crazy on my daughter's birthday party and I can't wait to show you all I've done. But I have to finish all of it first :) In the mean time I've also finished up my Halloween decorating. I did large window decorations that can be easily seen from the street. I went to a teacher's supply store and purchased 12 foot long black paper that's 2 feet wide. I flipped it on it's back and drew out a picket fence. 

I then drew a cat to go on the picket fence....and some bats in the "sky" above the picket fence. Anyway, you get the idea. You can draw or trace out a spooky scene on the flip side of the black paper. Then you cut out your scene. 

Here I am just beginning to cut :)

I have pull down black out curtain on those windows so I taped the scenes to that. But if you do not have anything on your windows I suggest taping it (with painters tape) to tissue paper so light can shine through! It'll create a very spooky effect. Although if it is for a kid's room maybe something a bit sturdier such as a sheet or even a large piece of white paper. It's so simple and so fun!

Freak Out Day!

Today has been a crazy day. I woke up and realized I have about a week till my daughter's birthday party. Oh my! And there's so much to do!!! I have to plan a scavenger hunt, bake cookies, decorate cookies, make goody bags that look like Dora and Diego backpacks, figure out what I'm going to do for the cake, plan the menu, buy and create decorations and do all this within a week. ... ... ...um... I'm going to need lots of caffeine... and chocolate... or maybe just some of my espresso bites!

My next big freak out moment today---- My cake was featured on EpiCute. It was my Butterfly and Roses Cake from my bakery... to say the least, I was very proud. If you have a moment click here and give my picture a thumbs up :) Thanks! Lots more freak out moments and crafty updates to come! 

Going Batty

When I think of a spooky Halloween night I think of a cold dark night accented with some screeches of bats flying across the sky. But how do you bring that spooky magical feeling into your own house? And with out adding in anything so scary it'll give your 5 year old nightmares? My answer is more notable cutouts :)

I just love these bat silhouettes hanging down over our kitchen table. I cut the bats out of black cardstock and attatched them to one another with a piece of black string. Then I hung them from the chandelier. I think it's so fun and my kids just love it!  

My scanner has decided to hate me this week so I'm having some trouble creating templates for my crafts. I took a picture of the bat I used on a background of white paper. If you print this bat out it'll give you a good template to trace so you can make your own hanging bats. I'm almost 100% sure that this was originally a Martha Stewart Halloween craft idea, but I think she removed since she's now selling packs of her bats in stores. Well, I'm one of those people who love to look through her magazines for ideas, but I'll never go out and spend 15 dollars when it's a paper cut out. This is so easy to do at home, you have to try it! Notice the "fur" around the head of the bat, a very cute detail!

Dora backpack invitations

My youngest daughter wanted a Dora birthday party this year. She's been very adamant that it's Dora themed. I wanted to bring the fun Dora theme to the invitations in a personalized way. I was a little bit stumped as to how to do that... so I went online. I Googled "Dora party invitations" and a lot of pictures of backpack came up. I also came across a couple handmade backpack invitations and I thought, well... if they can do it... I can too. And so I did! 

The hardest part was coming up with the template. I wanted to print them on purple card stock from home and them just fold the card stock to look like a backpack. 

It took a couple tries but then I came up with a shape I was finally happy with. I ended up printing out a couple copies of the backpack on white paper just to give me the shapes of the eyes and mouth. 

After that it's all about cutting out the mouth, eyes, eyebrows and lots of gluing! I think it turned out pretty cute though! And I've gotten a lot of complements on them from other parents. I think that even though it was a lot of cutting and gluing, it was worth it.

Another special touch I did was cut out strips of purple card stock and glue them to the back of the invitation like backpack straps. 

Here is the finished product :)

CLICK ON THIS PICTURE TO PRINT OUT THIS TEMPLATE

For new crafts, yummy recipes and fun ideas follow me on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FromBeccasHome

Flip - Flop Friday

I know I said my next post would be about pumpkin pie filling, but since I didn't write this next post I figure it's fine :) I thought on my Friday posts I'd take a minute to showcase other awesome blogs. This Friday I've chosen to showcase my sister's blog www.everkelly.com. So here's my first "Flip-Flop Friday" post. Hope you enjoy!

DIY Birch Bulletin Board

Happy Friday, everyone!  Well this week was my first attempt at MWF posting as I sprint towards Fall Quilt Market, and I missed being here every day.  However, I’m getting a lot done so I hope you’ll hang in there with me.  Just 5 weeks to go.

Today I wanted to share a simple, but pretty how to project.  In the class I’m taking, we’re creating lots of mood boards and color stories so I wanted to have a nice place to display my inspirations.  I thought this turned out so well, that you might want to make one too.  I love how the opalescent paint is subtle enough that it won’t compete with what I pin to the board, but still provides something pretty to look at when it’s blank.

First things first — The Materials:

• You could paint directly onto a bulletin board you already own (or wrap it in fabric first), but I made mine from scratch using a left over piece of homasote board from our upholstered headboard project.
• Round up the other materials including: batting, fabric (unbleached cotton muslin), scissors, fabric paint (Versatex screen printing ink in Pearl), painter’s tape, staple gun (and ear plugs!), paint brushes

Let’s get started…

1)  Staple your fabric and batting to the board. Lay your fabric face down on the floor and then layer your batting on top followed by the homasote board.  Pull the fabric as taut as you can as you staple working from the center of each edge towards the corners.  If you’ve ever watched anything on HGTV, you already know how to do this step, but here’s a post where I used the same technique if you need a little more help.  Here’s the board upholstered and ready to go:

2) Mark off your birch trees with blue painter’s tape. Have fun with this step.  Your trees shouldn’t be perfectly straight since they certainly wouldn’t be in the woods.  I made some of the trees a little wider towards the bottom.

3) Cut small triangle shapes to create lines on the birch trees. I found that slightly irregular shapes looked a little bit better, and I tried to cut the triangles smaller for the skinnier trees.  Other than that, there are no rules on this step.  Just keep adding triangles and lines until you like the arrangement.

4) Paint. Before you paint each tree, take a moment to run your finger over each piece of tape to make sure it is adhered tightly to the board.  Grab a sponge brush and paint each of the tree sections smoothing out your brush strokes as you go.

5) Remove tape and marvel at your lovely inspiration board.   (Picture at the top).  If you’re wondering how long I waited before removing the tape, I gave it a minute or so.  The screen printing ink is very thick so it won’t run anywhere.

How will you hang it? There is a flush-mount hanger-fastener at the bottom of this post that would work perfectly. We found the fasteners at a boutique hardware store.  (For some reason, I can never find them at big box stores like Home Depot.)

Let me know if you’re going to try this one!  Hope you have a wonderful weekend.  I think I’m going to be playing around with my new inspiration board and hopefully spending some time outside with the camera.  Take care, Kelly

Filed under House & Home, I Made This, Inspiration, Tutorials & Downloads.Tagged with birch tree, DIY bulletin board, homasote bulletin board tutorial, inspiration board.

By Kelly

September 24, 2010

More notable cut-outs

Mice....

Real mice make me go "eeek!" But there's something about these mouse cutouts that I love. Maybe it's the fact that I think they are kinda cute and they are not real... I'm definitely not fond of the real kind.

I put my mice around my fireplace tiles so it looks like they're scampering up to their hole.

I'm thinking of adding some more mice to the top shelves of my fireplace.... it seems a bit bare to me. What do you think??

I think I have some more tracing and cutting to do! If you'd like to do this craft you should try it! It's so simple! Click here for the Martha Stewart template. Then trace your template on black paper or black card stock. Remember my painters tape tip, it works great for the mice too! When you go to store your adorable mice for next Halloween separate them with wax paper and store in a manila envelope to prevent bending. Enjoy!!

Halloween is in the air.... or rather on my walls!

I love, love, love Halloween. I'm basically a holiday nut if I'm being honest. But I think I'm so obsessed with Halloween because it's the first of the big 3 holidays in my book... ya know... Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Those are the 3 holidays that I go all out! I just couldn't restrain myself this past weekend and I took the decorations out. Some of the first decorations to come out were the hand made ones. Last year I spent a lot of time cutting paper.... and I must say I think it was worth it. I cut bats out of card stock last year and I taped them to my walls. This is what they look like:

....And yes, that is a handmade "Happy Halloween" banner. I'll show you how I made it in a later post. And of course I had to make a hanging bat. We named him Henry. I'm not sure why but he's special since he hangs up side down. This year he's by our back door curtains.... he moves every year :)

To be honest, these bats took some time to cut out. But once they're done I really think they are worth it. I think it's an easy and affordable decoration too! I highly suggest you give it a try. All you need is some black card stock, scissors and tape. To get the bats to stick to my satin wall paint I had to use painters tape (aka the blue tape at your local hardware store).... and a lot of it. But it comes off really easily without damaging the walls! I got this idea from the Martha Stewart magazine. And I give this one 2 thumbs up! Martha Stewart used to have the bat templates available online, but she recently removed these since she's now selling packs of the pre-made bat cave silhouettes. The easiest way to make this at home would be to search online for a bat silhouette, find one you like, print it out, and trace the outline onto card stock. I hope you find this little craft as fun as I did. 

A New Course....

Recently my bakery (www.beccasbluebakery.blogspot.com) has been very busy. I found myself up till 2am multiple nights in a row to get cakes done. I was very proud of what I did but I found it very hard to keep up with the demand while still being a wife and mom. I also had another blog that I'd post on periodically (www.beccastopsyturvytales.blogspot.com). I realized that the posts that I really enjoyed were the ones where I was showing how to make a craft or a recipe. Those were my thoughts in creating this blog...

I'm going to be showing you the crafts I do to make my house a home....and I'll be showing you how to do them too. I'm also going to be showing you tips and tricks to get your baked goods to look like mine. I love sharing these tips with my friends and I'm really excited to be showing you how to do them too. I hope you enjoy this new blog!