Easter Carrot Box Template

Some of you asked for the template, so here it is! ;)

Rebecca

Easter Carrot Boxes

Aren’t these carrot boxes fun?  I am filling them with Easter goodies like Jelly Beans.

I played around with different tops on them.  Which do you like best?  I thought I’d love the pipe cleaners best.  Then, I tried the regular green ribbon.  Then, out of the corner of my eye I spied the fluffy ribbon!  It’s called fuzzy cord and I got it shopping the after Christmas Clearance…$.10!  Oh yeah!  I had no clue what I’d do with it.  It came with red, but I used that for Valentine’s Day.  The consensus so far is that the fuzzy cord is the favorite.

Oh and PS I hate really dislike Easter grass.  I wouldn’t even use it until a few years ago.  It’s just a mess and unruly, to me!  The things I do for my children….

These are really just Christmas tree boxes upside down (and without the trunks)!  Easy peasy!  That’s a picture of the template that I came up.

I am playing around with some different papers and textures.  I’ll show them to you later.

Rebecca
I am also busy doing Easter crafts with the kids, so keep checking back as I’ll be posting a few fun (new to me) Easter things to do (and at least one oldy but goody)!

I am joining in the fun at the following parties; Somewhat Simple, Treasures For Tots, Keeping It Simple, The DIY Show Off, Between Naps On The Porch, A Soft Place To Land, Today's Creative Blog, My Frugal Family, A Silly Little Sparrow,Making The World Cuter, The Girl Creative, Persimmon Perch, Twice Remembered, Skip To My Lou, Blue Cricket Design, The Trendy Treehouse,  

Don’t Forget Earth Hour Is Tomorrow Night!

Saturday, March 27th at 8:30 PM local time is Earth Hour, so mark your calendars and enjoy this!
Briefly, Earth Hour is a global movement to reduce carbon emissions for one night. One of the best parts of this is just getting people to think about it and what we can do, individually, to save the Earth for our children, and their children.
Switch off your lights and enjoy some family time together. While you are enjoying your family time, don't forget to take pictures and then come back here and share them with our flikr group. We will add ours as well.
When we were kids in UT, the power went out all the time. Every storm it would go out it seemed. Sometimes we would light the fire and sing, sometimes we would play with our flashlights. One time when we had a Monsoon in Arizona, the power went out. So Dad with his amazing voice (he was a radio jockey back in his school days and ladies would come to the station to redeem their prize and be surprised that the deep amazing voice was his) read the Selfish Giant by Oscar Wilde. Anytime after that, when the power would go out, we all requested he read it again. We all would sit around with either lit candles or flashlights and listen intently. There is something about my dad that mesmerizes me. He is an amazing story-teller.

Last year for Earth Hour we turned off all the lights at my parents house and gathered in their family room in a circle in front of my Dad. The grandkids all had flashlights and dad had gotten us some glow necklaces. And he read. When he got to the end of the story, he had to stop a few times and collect himself. Sweet, sweet story. I have added a link below for those of you that are not familiar with The Selfish Giant. As soon as Dad stopped reading it, my then 5 year old right away said how great it was. I'm not sure exactly how much he understood.
We had brought over a constellation book and dad read that. I have a question. Do you pronounce it Cassie-opea or Cassie-O-pea? I say it without any emphasis on the O, but both my dad and my sister say it with an exaggerated emphasis on the O. Anyway... after he read the book, we took it outside held it up to the sky and found quite a few constellations. It was fun. My oldest son can always find Orion.
When we were kids we would go star gazing with dad and the family. Those are some of my fondest memories. He really did bring a broad spectrum of educational experiences to our lives.
Last year's Earth Hour was a fun night and I'm so glad my parents asked us over. I am looking forward to next Saturday, when we do this again. We ended up leaving the power off for much longer than an hour because we were having such a lovely time together.
I'd love to know what your plans are for this year's Earth Hour. Did you turn everything off last year?
The Selfish Giant by Oscar Wilde

1st Annual Lady-Bug Launch

I was looking at my garden the other day and realized that my mint plant had aphids on it!  My husband and I immediately ran out to a garden store to pick up some Lady-Bugs.  I was so excited for this because I remember letting the Lady-Bugs go at a friends house when I was younger and I LOVED it!  Since my son is still too little to appreciate this (he turns one in a week!) we decided to invite all of our in-town nieces and nephews over to join in the fun.  

Apparently dusk is the best time to release Lady-Bugs as they don't like to fly as much at night, and so they will stay in your garden/yard to eat all your pests.  Unfortunately, this time of day made picture taking quite difficult!  

We decided to make a night out of it and started off crafting until everyone arrived, then we had dinner and finally it was time to Launch those Lady-Bugs!

The nieces and nephews had a great time.  It was fun letting the Lady-Bugs crawl up our arms but not any higher than that!  And surprisingly the girls were less afraid of these little critters than the boys were.  Who would have guessed?!

All in all, the Lady-Bug Launch was a success!  And we can't wait to do it again next year!

Oh, and YES, we are thankful to be living in AZ right now and to be experiencing spring, but for a good majority of everyone else, this would be perfect to do later on when Spring really gets underway!

Erika,
I am so glad you were able to find lady bugs.  My mint has bugs too (but they look different than aphids).  My mini roses have some aphids.  Alas my garden center does not have lady bugs yet.  I had to settle for spraying mine with water with a touch of dish soap mixed in.  Works great but not quite as fun as lady bugs.  It is also a very cool lesson for the kids.
Katrina

Rebecca here:  Erika, thanks for inviting us to do this, it was such a great idea and so much fun!  We loved the Ladybug Launch!  Yup, my girls aren't afraid because we do this every year in our garden (in fact they are begging me to buy the praying mantis eggs...but I just can't do it...that gives me the heebie jeebies!).  What a fun lesson to see hands on.  I can't wait to do this in our garden (thankfully we don't need the ladybugs yet).  An interesting tidbit is that the ladybugs will stay around as long as there are bugs for them to eat.  So if the ladybugs are gone, your "bad" bugs should be, too!  Yay green gardening!

Duct Tape Marshmallow Shooter/Ammo Belt

I am so sorry that it has taken me so long to finally get this tutorial up.  February crawled by with my family getting the flu just after my son’s party and then one cold after another all month long.  I have no idea what happened with March!  Other than I have been playing catch up and doing this and that at my boys’ school.  Anyway, enough with the excuses, it is time to get this tut on!  We also managed to make it to the Renaissance festival with Rebecca and the rest of the family.  It was fun watching all the cousins sword fight with their new wooden swords (thanks Papa).  By the way this kind of belt would work well for holding a sword as well. ;)
You might remember back in February I had an awesome Lego Agents party for my 8 year old.  One of the favors was a duct tape belt to hold their shooters and an ammo canister.  GO HERE TO SEE PART ONE OF THE PARTY.  GO HERE TO SEE PART TWO OF THE PARTY WITH THE BELTS  I promised a reader that I would post a tutorial.
First you want to measure around the child’s waist.  Make sure it fits a little loose and over laps about 3 inches in the back.  This is something you want to try to make ahead of time.  If you are unsure of how big the party guests are then you can make up a bunch of belts in various lengths.  The day of the party you can trim them down and add the Velcro closures.

This step is fairly simple.  Just fold up the bottom edge.  It can be a little tricky when doing this with a long belt.  Start at one end and fold over about 5 inches at a time.  This will be the finished width of the belt so don’t fold over too much.  About a half inch or so.

For this step I highly recommend that you leave the second layer of tape on the roll and unroll as you need more.  You will be lining up the bottom edge with the folded edge of the first piece of tape.  By unrolling the tape as you go you will have less trouble with the tape sticking where you don’t want it to.

Now flip it over and fold down the top edge.  This is your belt.

This is the tab or strap (whatever you want to call it) that will hold the shooter on one side and another for the ammo canister (film canister) on the other side.  Eye ball the length you need to go around the canister or shooter plus the width of the Velcro.  You can always trim it down if you need to.  Fold over the tape on itself (this is the part that will go around the shooter. 
If you were going to make this for a sword, I would just fold the tape in half at this point.  Make it long enough so that the sword will slip through plus extra on both sides to tape down.  Then trim it to the width of the belt.  Use a piece of tape on either side as I did in step 7.  I would suggest laying your sword between the belt and the strap to make sure you have left enough room to get the sword in and out of the belt.

Just snip the strap so that you can fold over the exposed tape.

Cut another piece of duct tape and wrap it around the taped end of the strap to help it hold the weight of the shooter.

Trip the edges of the strap to match the width of the belt.

A little not about the Velcro.  I had bought some “Scotts” brand hook and loop with permanent adhesive on the back.  I found that it didn’t stick to the duct tape as well as the “Velcro” brand adhesive backed Velcro that I used in the first two I made for my son.  There was at least one belt that I ended up using staples to keep the Scotts from coming off again.  Just make sure the staple ends are on the Velcro side of the belt so the kids don’t get scratched.
The Scotts brand is in the photo above and the Velcro brand is in the picture below.  For some reason the loop portion of the Velcro comes in dots and the hook portion comes in a strip from the same package.

Here is the closure in the back with about 2-3 inches of Velcro overlap.  This worked out well because when you add the weight of the shooters to the belt it will weigh it down quite a bit.  Some of the kids needed us to adjust their belts a little tighter.  Also this will allow for them to wear these over other layers of clothing depending on the time of year. 
Katrina

Technorati Tags: duct tape,belt,marshmallow shooters,holder,tutorial

Renaissance Festival Take 2

Our family just got back from the Renaissance Festival.  We go every year and I showed these headbands to you last year.  Here in Arizona the Renaissance Festival is a huge deal!  I have actually gone twice this year and could still go back if my wallet could handle it! 
One of the best aspects of this, for me, is that the vendors mostly sell handmade wares.  The magic wands are beautiful (my daughter walked away with a replica of Hermione’s wand…oh yes she did-thank you Papa)!  The things they do with ostrich eggs, or leather, or wood, or glass, or jewelry, or fabric, or wax are breathtaking.  It’s real craftsmanship.  Even better is that they make it right there in front of you (most of them).  You can watch glass blowing right next to the guy making leather shoes, who is right next to the guy making wax sculptures.  I really love that stuff.  It makes me feel that every penny that I spend is worth it!

Our renaissance festival is really huge and runs for 2 months a year.  They have wonderful jousting shows in a huge arena where you cheer on whichever Knight that you are sitting in their “area”.  This show is complete with the Royal Court presiding over it, with the Royal Court’s band playing.  Quite a show!
 
You are lucky that I toned down the amount of pictures of the village houses!  They are so cool.  Here is just a peak at these structures that each shop is housed in.  There is so much detail in each of them.  One house has a giant tree person growing out of it.  Another castle has an enormous, unending tube slide running around and through it.  These get better and better each year, and the structures of our Renaissance Festival, alone, makes it worth visiting each year!
 
There are too many unique, funny, or amazing shows to ever see them all.  This guy with the fire whips is a must see, as are the bird shows, and the mud men.  It depends on if you want to be amazed, entertained, or to laugh.
 
The food.  This deserves it’s own post.  Many years ago the food really was not that great, but now it is a huge part of what makes it worth seeing.  You know the kind, mongo sized Turkey legs, mouth watering bread bowls filled with soups, and Huge.chocolate covered.strawberries.  I’ll let that one set in a minute. 
Yum, right?
Oh, yes it is.  If strawberries aren’t your passion there are chocolate covered raspberries, bananas, and even cheesecakes!  Swoon.  Even worse is that they entice you with free samples…which they offer to your children to really seal the deal!
 
My children always want to be dressed up in costume for this.  This year we made Knight’s pinnies.  They are so quick and easy and were a huge hit with my kids.  You should check out a craft I made at last year’s Renaissance Festival.  It was these headbands.  In the post I not only show how to make the cute headbands, but even explain how to make that curling ribbon you see above.
 
I love making things for the Renaissance Festival especially because my children really get into and it makes it more fun for me.

Are there festivals or activities around you that your family goes to every year?  What fun things do you make for them or at them?

Rebecca
Ps Thank you to my whole family.  It was so nice that everyone made it.  My kids had so much fun running around with all the cousins.  And of course thanks to Papa for spoiling the children with all their fantastic purchases.  They have continued playing with them all night.  I foresee these being toys they will cherish!

Cookie Cutter 101

 
I learned how to make cookie cutters, just in time to make myself a cute shamrock cookie cutter for St. Patrick’s Day! 

Seriously this copper cookie cutter is so beautiful!

I showed you, in my last post, many things I used this for and gave you a list of many more things you can use cookie cutters for, other than the usual cookies!
Now I’ll show you how to make your own cookie cutters:

Supplies needed are:
Roll of copper*, pliers, shears, printed design, eyelets, crop-a-dile II, measuring tape, tape

Use a tape measure to figure the length of copper needed (the circumference of your design), by measuring around your printed design.

When you are using this copper roll you should pull the copper from the inside of the roll so that it does not unravel.

Cut the desired length using metal shears.

You want to start and stop your design on the longest straight section of your design.  This is because where you join the copper together it will be where you stop and start and you want it to be the easiest to fit the crop-a-dile into.
 
Use your needlenose pliers or pliers to start bending your copper strip.  It bends pretty easily, especially for how strong the finished cookie cutter is and how well it holds it’s shape.

Please do not tease me for my manly hands.  I swear the camera adds not just 10 pounds, but also masculinety to a person! ;)  Actually that was my handy helper being a hand model for me.  Some tutorials are too hard to take pictures of by myself!

If you use needlenose pliers take into account that the nose part of these pliers is a diagonal edge and not a straight (perpendicular) one, so hold your needlenose pliers at an angle to make sure the bend you are making is straight (perpendicular to your long edge of copper).  Otherwise your cookie cutter will not be flat when you set it down.

As you make your bends line them up with your pattern to make sure you are staying accurate.
  
Continue bending all the way around your design.  I used objects that had curves the same size that I needed, to wrap the copper around for ensuring a smooth curve when necessary.
(How was that for a run on sentence?)

Once you have made your shape with your copper, secure it with a piece of tape.  This will hold adequately.
I like to finish things off the whole way so I used my crop-a-dile to attach eyelets to secure the ends of the copper together. 
 
I went through one layer of the copper at a time when punching the holes out.  Then, I attached my two eyelets.  Though in this case I am told they should be called rivets because this is metal we are working with and because of how we are using them.   If you finish your cookie cutter off this way you are going old school like good ol’ “rosie the riveter”.  This would be the skills you would need to build an airplane (the riveting part).

 
Now, tell me how cute this shamrock cookie cutter is!  I have so many more ideas for more cookie cutter shapes now! 
Rebecca

*I know I will be asked where to get the roll of copper from.  I ordered it online from Basic Copper.  This copper is made for making cookie cutters.  Basic Copper's website says, "Both sides of the copper strip have been lightly treated so that the edge will be smooth against your hand when pressing the cookie cutter into the dough, but still sharp enough to cut the dough easily. Having both sides treated allows you to use the cutter in either direction to make the most out of your dough."  So don't just use any kind of copper for this.  Basic Copper is offering my viewers a 10% discount on your order of cookie cutter copper with them!  How nice is that?  Just use the code, 10offrw!  


I am joining in the fun at the following parties; Somewhat Simple, Treasures For Tots, Keeping It Simple, The DIY Show Off, Between Naps On The Porch, A Soft Place To Land, Today's Creative Blog, My Frugal Family, A Silly Little Sparrow, 

St Patrick’s Day Foods and Fun

I love St Patrick’s Day.  Any reason to celebrate is a great thing, in my book.  My Mom always instilled this in us.  For St Patrick’s Day she always makes our whole meal green.  My Dad would get disgusted by green mashed potatoes (I think some of the new spouses may also be wigged out by this tradition of green foods in our family).  However, I love it so much that I now do this with my own family. We do get quite elaborate (we’re having a delicious green layered jello, lots of green veggies, green chocolate covered pretzel shamrocks, and many other green foods), but you can go quick and easy and still have that wow factor.
So, I thought I would share a few quick and easy ways to make some fun St Patrick’s Day Foods, using just one tool! 
I am going to show you how a shamrock shaped cookie cutter is all you need to make every day lunch, dinner, and dessert into St. Patrick’s Day Foods. 
I’m not showing breakfast because we always have Lucky Charms for breakfast on St. Patrick’s Day!  Oh it’s so yummy.  It was my favorite cereal growing up.  I only buy it once a year and this is it!   (Oh but don’t forget to also use the Lucky Charms for an activity).

First up is my Son’s favorite lunch, Cheese Quesadillas.
 
I melted the cheese in the microwave, then cut them using my oversized shamrock cookie cutter. 
Then, I finished cooking these on my skillet because we like them crunchy and if I tried to cut them after this step, they would fall apart. (At least I think they would)
Another easy lunch would be a shamrock sandwich.  Meat or cheese platter would be cute in shamrock shapes.  Of course if you had a mini cookie cutter you could cut out most of your fruits in shamrocks too.
 
For dinner, how about Pizza?  Yum-O.  I cheated on this and made it with premade pizza dough.

Dessert…my favorite!
How about actually using your cookie cutter for cookies?
I’ve actually baked these cookies up already and will be leaving the frosting for my children to do.  I have the frosting already tinted green and the sprinkles are ready to go!
  
There is another fun part to my cookie cutter menu.  I made that cookie cutter myself.  No kidding.  Come back Thursday and I will show you how easy this is to do.  Now I can make any shaped foods that I want! 
Other uses for cookie cutters;
Pancakes, Eggs, stencil for cakes or other desserts, shapes to trace for coloring and other craft projects, hang as decorations, playdough, melted crayons, stamps, soap, polymer clay and so much more.
What projects/Foods have you used cookie cutters on? 

Rebecca

PS Don’t forget to set your traps tonight!  At our house we always find green glitter trails left by the Leprechauns.  Our traps get quite elaborate and my kids each make their own now.  However, we have yet to catch a Leprechaun, though last year the Leprechaun’s hat got caught in the trap and my daughter still has it.  We heard from my Nephews that leaving potatoes helps to lure the Leprechauns in.  We’ve tried that and we can attest that Leprechaun’s do love potatoes, as we had tiny nibbles in ours, the next morning.
And don’t forget to watch out for those Leprechauns’ as they can be quite naughty and leave some destruction throughout your house. ;)

We're joining the fun at the following parties; A Soft Place To Land, , My Frugal Family, Sumo's Sweet Stuff,

Make Two Different Kinds of Leprechauns

Make this adorable Leprechaun out of material!  Anjeanette shows you the details of this cute guy!  I love that his legs dangle right off of the wall hanging!

The same pattern was used for this Leprechaun (scroll down in the linked post to find this guy) that Anjeanette made out of Paper.  She laminated him and added details like eyelet arms and yarn legs for movement!

On the back is a sweet poem!
   

Rebecca

We are linking to the following linky parties; The Girl Creative, Persimmon Perch,

Something Pretty-Giving A Little Extra Love

My daughter had a Daddy Daughter Dance.  She chose to wear her pretty white dress with the two different shades of pink polka dots.  She looked adorable.  She timidly asked if she could wear a pair of my dangly earrings.

I told her that she could and her eyes lit up!  The day before the dance I told her that I had a surprise for her for her Daddy Daughter Dance, but I wouldn’t tell her what it was until the day of the dance.

I whipped up this pink/pink circle jewelry to go with her dress.  She got not only dangly earrings that matched perfectly, but two bangle bracelets and a necklace to boot!
She was so delighted that I did this for her.  I was so delighted that she cared!  It’s the little things sometimes that mean the most.  We both thought she looked so pretty, she because of her jewelry, me because of who she is!

Rebecca

We are joining the fun by linking up to the following parties; Making The World Cuter, The Girl Creative, Persimmon Perch, Twice Remembered, Skip To My Lou, Keeping It Simple, A Soft Place To Land, My Frugal Family,  Sumo's Sweet Stuff, Trendy Treehouse,