Gift jar

Should have posted this one in June when everyone needed teacher gifts! File this one away for next year I guess...

This year we went to the library every Friday for story hour. When the program ended, Miss G definitly needed a gift!

Grabbed a jar (Ikea) and some worms and some Cricut-ing later we had a gift for our favorite story hour leader!!

Dinosaur Party

Ashton recently turned 5 (!) and we decided to have a full-on, friends over birthday party for him. His choice of theme wasn't a big surprise, since he's been into dinos for the past few months now. I used my Cricut to make his invitations

 Since I'm too cheap to buy a specific Cricut cartridge for every project, I combined different shapes (ovals, apostrophes...) to create the dinosaur shape.




And although I imagine up beautifully fabulous birthday cakes, I severely lack the skills to execute them, so this year I kept it really simple:

Two stacked round cakes (I don't have 2 spring forms the same size...) with some dino fossils 'buried' under Oreo crumbs, and dino shaped sprinkles adorning the sides.



My sister found some t-Rex skeleton sand toys, and made a jell-o dinosaur when we were at her place, so I snagged the moulds and made another one for the party.

Ashton's shirt was specially made for the occasion (with freezer paper stencilling cut out with the Cricut - again combining shapes to make the dino) new dino slippers, and a pith helmet to complete the 'look' The guests were also each given a pith helmet when they arrived.

I created a 'dinosaur dig' activity using play sand, white glue, and dollar store dino figures.

If I were to do it again, I'd play around more with the glue to water ratio. The outside dried rock-hard, so I had to break open each brick and the kids dug around inside where the sand was softer.  They had a blast though!

Can't believe my boy is 5! He had lots of fun with his buddies!

Pinspiration

So here's a couple Pintrest project I've done over the past week.  Although my boards are chock full of nifty ideas, most of them will probably never get done, but I had to try my hand at these:

Taking my inspiration from this beauty Ashton and I made this piece for his room.  He thought the process was pretty cool

If I would do it again though, I'd buy a pack of brand new Crayolas instead of raiding the crayon bin and using no-name crayons.  The wax was a little runny, almost greasy, so I let the wax cool a few times and then shot it with the blow dryer again.

I also attempted something just for DH, although Ashton kinda ate them all.  When I saw this link for microwave potato chips I just HAD to try them.  They turned out much better than expected, even though I forgot to PAM the plate the first time...this is the amount you get from one potato:

The only thing I'd do different next time (and I will be doing this again!) would be to pick up some sea salt to season with.  Regular table salt just didn't seem to cut it.

I also made some homemade laundry detergent and fabric softener, both of which I'm rather impressed with.  I added some essential oils (lavender) so I wouldn't miss the store bought scents too much, and the only difference I've noticed is that the clothes are less static-y then they were!  Will definitely be keeping this one up!