Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving! Wishing you and your family a wonderful holiday.

Ghost Decoration

I usually try and do one craft a week with the little ones. I had an old pillowcase cut it in three equal pieces, with one of the pieces I cut that one in half. My nephew took one of the bigger pieces as the main part of the ghosts body and took one of the smaller pieces and formed it into a ball to use as the ghosts head. Then he wrapped the bigger piece around the smaller one and I connected it with a zip tie. With my help we made a face on the ghost. This was a cute project that made two ghosts out of one old pillowcase. Now if you have an old sheet you can create a giant ghost for your front yard.

Fall Home Maintenance Checklist

I know we all have things we do as seasons come and go, such as cleaning out closets, or cleaning windows, however your home and garden need a little love to and by doing this you are making sure things are working and ready for fall.  Best of all, this checkup is free and you can do it one weekend as a family, the little ones will enjoy helping prepare your home for fall.

 

Check out the fall home maintenance checklist here

 



So wherever you live, this wonderful chart from Martha Stewart will make your life a lot easier.  I love Martha Stewart’s ideas; many of them are simple enough for children and exciting for adults. 

Welcome Fall: Fall Wall Decoration

Fall is such a beautiful time of year and the first day of fall is a perfect day to create a fun project that you can hang up in your home or office to welcome fall.

I had a simple blank rectangle piece of wood with a black wire that was already attached to it. I purchased it at my local dollar store and just removed the wire before the kids began painting it.

I placed a selection of fall paint colors out so the kids could choose which colors they wanted to use. I helped my nephew paint a tree trunk in the middle of the wood and then along with a paint brush and their index finger they created leaves on the trunk of the tree and my niece used the paint brush to add grass near the trunk. It's a cute project for kids of any age. To complete the project I wrote the family name on the front of the decoration.

Happy fall.

Summer Craft Project & Happy Birthday

Once a week I do a craft project with my nephew and niece, while my niece was a little too young for this project my nephew was really into it.

It is my wife's birthday today and I thought a macaroni necklace would be a fun lacing and pattern project for him.

I let him pick out the dry noodles he wanted to use and he picked two colors of food coloring. My nephew picked 10 noodles and placed 5 into two separate zip lock bags. Then I poured a little rubbing alcohol into each bag and about 5 drops of food color. Make sure the noodles are covered in the rubbing alcohol and food color mixture. We let it sit about 15 minutes, the longer it sits, the darker the colors will be. I drained the liquid into the sink and placed the wet noodles on paper towels to dry. To make sure they were dry, we let them sit for 1 hour.

I then let my nephew pick out the string he wanted to use, out of everything I had (yarn, ribbon and string), and he picked a really nice ribbon.

So this is his final creation, a beautiful pink and purple necklace for his aunt's birthday.

And a BIG HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my beautiful wife.

Last Minute Father's Day Card Project

Father's Day is tomorrow and here is a unique way for the kids to make their dad, grandpa or any special man in their life a special card. I wanted to do something special with my niece and nephew for their dad. A card is nice, but i wanted something a little different. I made salt dough (the kids helped to mix the dough), and they made hand print impressions into the dough. We cooked it and waited about two hours for it to cool. I painted the entire thing white and then let the kids select a paint color to color the imprint of their hand. This is such a cool and unique gift for dad. Since the back of the hand print is flat, use a marker to write a special greeting to that special person from the child. If the child is too young to write, like my niece and nephew I let them color on paper and when they were done, I used the sheets they colored as wrapping paper for their greetings.

Great project to do with the kids today, and one that dad will love.

Finished painted project

Salt Dough Recipe

Heat oven to 225 Degrees

1. Make the salt dough recipe (recipe at bottom of this post). Mix the dough with your hands, it will not be sticky, just knead until smooth.

2. Roll the dough out on wax paper. With a heart cookie cutter cut out heart shapes. I let my niece and nephew make little imprints with their fingers, kids can also write their name in the dough with a toothpick. And then poke a hole near the top with a straw.

3. Place the hearts on a cookie sheet and place into the oven. They should cook for about 50-60 minutes. Once hard they are done.

4. Let cool for at least an hour. Kids can paint them, and even add some glitter if they want. After they have dried, tie a piece of ribbon or yarn through the top for a homemade Valentine's Day decoration.

Butterfly Art Project

Here is a fun project to do with kids of any age, but really the young kids love this one. It's so simple you only need a few items:

• Clothespin for each child
• Washable markers
• Coffee filter, one for each child
• Magnets, one for each butterfly
• Glue

Kids can get creative with this and there really is no way to mess this project up. Give each child a plain coffee filter and let them color it with the markers. They can add as may colors as they want and the entire coffee filter does not even need to be colored. When the coffee filter is how they would like it take it to a sink and wet it with a little water. The water will make the markers run and in turn give the coffee filter a beautiful color. Lay the coffee filter out to dry on some paper towels. When it is dry attach the coffee filter to the top of the clothespin, and attach with glue (hot glue works best). After that has dried let the kids draw some eyes onto the butterfly. Then if you would like glue a magnet to the bottom of the butterfly. This is such a great project for any child; it would even work for a project at a kid’s birthday party.

Simple, fun and creative.

Happy Birthday

14 years ago today my wife gave birth to our beautiful daughter Julia. Where does the time go? We made a really beautiful cake today for her and got a little creative with decorating it. Not bad for a box of cake mix and frosting. Happy Birthday Julia, we love you.

Mom & Dad Visit

My parents finally visited us this week from California, and it was such a nice visit. They got really lucky, since just a few days before they arrived we had temp's in the mid 80's, and then once they were here our temp's dropped to the 60's.

My dad, wife and my mom.  Feb. 2012

My dad, me and my mom

My dad, my wife Michelle and me

 

Valentine's Day Craft

The first of February is this week, so why not start a Valentine's Day craft project with the kids. This is also a great project for teachers to do with students in their class. If you are a teacher, just bake the hearts ahead of time at home.

Heat oven to 225 Degrees

1. Make the salt dough recipe (recipe at bottom of this post). Mix the dough with your hands, it will not be sticky, just knead until smooth.

2. Roll the dough out on wax paper. With a heart cookie cutter cut out heart shapes. I let my niece and nephew make little imprints with their fingers, kids can also write their name in the dough with a toothpick. And then poke a hole near the top with a straw.

3. Place the hearts on a cookie sheet and place into the oven. They should cook for about 50-60 minutes. Once hard they are done.

4. Let cool for at least an hour. Kids can paint them, and even add some glitter if they want. After they have dried, tie a piece of ribbon or yarn through the top for a homemade Valentine's Day decoration.

Fun for kids of any age.

Salt Dough Recipe

1 cup of fine salt
1 cup of flour
1/2 cup of water (may add more)

Around The World In One Minute

I love this video. This guy shot one second of video for every place he visited and edited this short 1 minute video. Very cool.

2011 A Winning Year

We live on a very tight budget, and in late 2010 I really started using Twitter. And slowly started winning contests. Well my wife got really into contests as well, and 2011 proved to be a great year because of it.

We won some great prizes including a Macbook Pro, Various store gift cards, A Christmas Tree & Turkey, A beautiful hotel stay, A gift pack from ING Direct, A DVD, A coffee maker, and wonderful toys for kids

that were given as gifts this holiday season, even $100 from Jenny Jones Blog. And so much more. My daughter has started to enter contests as well and now she is winning. It's really true, you can't win unless you enter. So make 2012 a winning year and enter some contests. Not only is it free to enter, it also takes very little time. If you don't already have a Twitter account, sign up for one. It's easy and you can follow your favorite companies and stores for contests and free offers they have.

My Career Outlook For 2012 Looks Promising

Yahoo posted a great link today to welcome the New Year. And after reading mine, I had to post it. Here is the link if you want to check out yours. Happy New Year!

Year 2012 Career

You're in stellar standing in 2012, especially during the first half of the year. You'll definitely feel like the 'It' sign, with Mars and Jupiter doing your bidding. Your creativity is off the charts with the action planet, Mars, running an extended six-month stint in your sector of self-expression. Mars will be retrograde during the first quarter, which could create the illusion that not much is moving forward - and yet you've never felt more creative and inspired. Trust that all your inner preparation will meet with great rewards and forward motion.

Neptune had been causing some confusion about your professional identity over the past few years, but now that it will be leaving your career sector for good in February, clarity - if not a major epiphany - is coming. Write everything down, because breakthrough ideas will come like flashes of lightning and will be as easily forgotten as fast as they come. It's time to translate all the gifts of inspired creativity and vision that Neptune brought you over the past several years into flourishing future plans. The tragedy would be to keep all of these gifts locked up as mere potential.

When the big eclipse points hit your money and talent sector this summer, you'll see another huge wave of changes unfolding over the latter half of 2012. And since you can be the most stubborn of all signs when it comes to embracing the new, you may actually welcome this colossal cosmic push. There is no going back, Taurus - you're destined for bigger and more glamorous things (with many of them likely involving extensive travel). La Dolce Vita, baby!