The Best in Bubbles

My two-year-old daughter is currently obsessed with bubbles. The last few weeks have been so frustrating on the bubble front. Have you ever tried generic or Dollar Store bubble solution? It's terrible stuff.

With all the time we've logged blowing bubbles, I'm here with two quick tips:

Don't skimp on the bubble solution. Around here, we're particularly partial to Super Miracle Bubbles. I picked up this 128 oz bottle at Toys R Us. Originally $5.99, I had a coupon, and I expect it will last us through the summer, even at the rate we blow bubbles (read: daily).

Get a good bubble wand. At least for Mom. I like the wands that are more like pipes. My favorite came in a Super Miracle Bubbles Bubble Bonanza that I picked up at the end of last summer. I can hear you thinking, "A grown woman has a favorite bubble wand?" Yep! I can blow an almost endless stream of bubbles without getting light-headed. It's a total win. And the set comes with trays for dipping wands, so the littles aren't contaminating the whole bottle with dirt from the yard (in my experience, dirty solution = bad bubbles).

Any one else had a bubble obsessed toddler, or is that just a given? What other bubble wisdom do you have?

Happy Halloween!

via

We hope you have a fantastic and safe Halloween!

Let us recommend the Family Halloween station on Pandora for the soundtrack for today. Great for an afternoon dance party or blasting while you hand out candy to those little trick-or-treaters. And if you're lucky like me, your husband will try to teach your 18 month old the dance to Thriller and she'll get so excited every time it comes on. Now that's a happy Halloween!

Tape Measure Snappy Bag Tutorial

This summer I was invited to a "Favorite Things" party. I wasn't lucky enough to come home with a snappy bag, but the seed was planted and they have become my go-to sewing project ever since.

I love that they're quick, useful and I can use up some scraps to make them. The tape measure inside snaps itself straight, making for a self-closing bag. No more loose change, toys or chapstick floating around your purse!

Let's get started:

Cut two pieces of fabric, identical sizes. A good starting point is 7" x 9". I've done bigger and smaller, too.

Stack them, right sides together.

Stitch around the outside edge, leaving an unsewn opening, about 1.5". Before turning the bag right-side out, clip those corners to help those corners turn to a nice point.

Turn the bag right-side out through the opening. Then push the corners out (I use my bone folder) to get sharp corners.

Press seams open and flat.

Fold inside edge (of short end) over tape measure to measure width.

My tape measure was 1.5". Pin edge down, and mark opposite edge the same.

Sew both edges to create a channel for tape measure.

Fold bag in half, wrong sides together. Stitch just ONE length of bag closed. (I chose to stitch the side with my turning opening first, to make sure I caught that.)

After sewing the first side, measure the length of tape measure needed, accounting for seam allowance. Bend tape to length and crease. The easiest way to cut to length is to snap the tape in half with a pair of pliers (second time raiding the tool box for this project!).

Cut two lengths.

Round off the edges of the tape measure (with a pair of BAD scissors, not your sewing scissors!!) and cover the sharp edges with tape. Electrical tape works really well, but I'd raided the tool box too many times and we were out. Packing tape works well, too. You just want to cover those edges so they don't cut through your fabric.

 

Slide tape measure into channels, making sure the concave side is facing the lining, or inside, of your bag.  

  

Push the tape as far away from opening, pin and sew closed.

Almost done!

 

Pinch off bottom corners to square them off, making the bottom of the bag boxy. You will have a pointy triangle. Mark both corners and sew across.

After sewing both corners, clip the excess fabric.

You can zig-zag stitch that raw edge, but I've never had a problem leaving it as is.

Turn the bag right-side out (working the tape measure can be a little tricky, but just make it bend for you to flip it out), push out corners and enjoy!

Halloween iPhone Wallpapers

How about a little Halloween decorating for your phone?

 Boo!

 Witch

Simply download the one you want, save the image you want to your camera roll, and select it as your phone wallpaper through your settings.

Happy Halloween!

Trash Talking Onesie

 Pinned It: Taking pins and using them!

Last week I saw this burp cloth via Pinterest just as the husband was walking in the door after work. I loved it so much and I knew the perfect candidate for one of his own.

Not only is he a spitter, but his dad is a superfan. Maybe not a paint-his-body-blue-and-stand-out-in-subzero-temperatures superfan, but still a superfan.
The very next day I came up with this version:

The hardest part was deciding which opponent to feature, but since our Aggies are playing Utah tonight it had to be the Utes. But there's probably a Cougar one in his future too!

I cut it out using my Silhouette. And using the freezer paper method, I stenciled it onto a onesie for the little guy.

 

Go Aggies!

Find me on Pinterest.

CTR Tile Necklaces

I'm currently working with the 8-9 year old girls in our church. To celebrate their birthdays we made these tile CTR necklaces as gifts. They are simple, fairly inexpensive, and I think they turned out pretty cute. The girls are very excited to receive them!

To make I ordered the supplies from Earth and Moon Craft kits and followed this tutorial by Brooke. I designed the little CTR shields using digital scrapbook paper from Crystal Wilkerson.

You can download my 7/8" CTR shields to make your own! Simply print them off, cut, and glue to the back of the glass tiles! My supplies were left over from another project, but I just checked and you can order supplies for 100 necklaces for $75 (that's for everything including shipping!). Making each necklace only 75¢! If you don't need that many I suggest splitting an order with friends.

Basement Refresh

Object: Spend as little $ as possible.


I'm so excited to share our basement with you! After 10 months of nothing on the walls I used Deid and Chris's visit as motivation to change that. Nothing like a deadline to get things accomplished! We had worked hard to brighten up this part of the house. It started out like this:

For reals. Scary city.

We textured and painted over the paneling, but after it was done I wasn't in love with my paint choice (Valspar Azure Snow). I was going for a bluish-grey, but it felt a little baby boy-ish to me once it was on the walls. Honestly, there was no way I was going to repaint and it was either a happy accident, or just wasn't a bad pick to begin with. Cause it turned out looking good in the end with the pops of color on it.
 
I had planned to make a large gallery wall on the end, and painted all of my black frames white to use. Only after they were painted did I realize a gallery wall wasn't going to work. But I did have a lot of white frames to work with. So we hung 2 shelves we had kicking around from our apartment days and I pulled pieces from the depths of the craft room to create this:

And I love how bright and cheery it turned out! The little room on the right is the toy room, and the toys naturally overflow into this part of the house. I guess we could call this the play room. And these colors are very conducive to play, but I think it still looks like adults could hang out here too.


I don't know what it says about me that I had most of this stuff tucked away (although I did print off a couple of the prints here at home) but it was so fun to be able to decorate with what I already had. There are benefits to never throwing things away.

Sources:

Family Subway Art, by me

I Love Us

Pink frame Poppy Seed Projects

Framed Silhouettes, by me

What I Love About My Home

Good Day for a Walk

We Can Do Hard Things, by me

She Art, by me

Bird from the dollar store and painted pink

Chalkboard tray, a gift from my mom

Sources:

Art in the pink frame was the back of a card 

Paper mache pig from Michael's and painted green

S from Poppy Seed Projects

Love is Spoken Here

Picture of Old Main, by me

Stars are from Pier 1, received as a gift years ago

I did pick up 2 frames at the thrift store for a dollar each, bringing my total for this wall to $2!

We still need to add more pillows to the day bed and work on the other end of the room, but for now I'm declaring this space a success!