Car Seat Catchall

Does the back of your car look like this?

Ours does.  All the time.  Actually it is usually much, much worse and includes such delights as old apple cores, dried out half eaten sandwiches and a sultana or two (hidden in just about every crevice).  Gross, disgusting and embarrassing, especially when said "stuff" falls out in the school parking lot!

Anyway, try as I might I just haven't been able to keep the car tidy and the messier it gets the messier it tends to get - the whole "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" thing.  And whilst the little pockets at the back of the seats are great, they don't tend to hold too much, nor cope with the odd dragon or truck trying to be stuffed in.  And my Dad telling me how much of a pigsty my car is ("I can't believe you girls!  Your houses are immaculate but your cars are disgusting" he has said on way more than one occasion) hasn't helped matters.  So, Dad, this project is for YOU! Even though, of course, you will never read a post in your life or in fact even know what a blog is.

So, what did I decide to do?  Throw out all toys and not allow them in the car again?  Get a two-seater sportscar (ooooo, tempting) in which the kids don't fit?  Ignore it?  If you know me, you would know that is pure crazy talk.  No.  The answer came in the form of the "Car Seat Catchall" (sorry, couldn't think of a clever or cute name).  It's a big 'ol sack with an elasticated opening that has straps at the top and the sides to attach to the back of the seat.  Its sole purpose is to stow away all the toys (the books, the dragons AND the trucks ... the apple cores and sultanas will be dealt with separately) very easily and quickly, keeping the car clutter-free, clean and tidy and just generally a nicer space to be in. It also makes for a much happier, saner and less red-faced Mumma ... who at 40'ish is still trying to please her Dad!!!

 

 

 

The sacks were very simple to make.  I chose fabric from my basket - I was adamant I wasn't going to purchase more.  To personalise the bags, I added the initials of my kids - F & K - mainly just for fun & cuteness!  I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut out the letters but you can easily cut fabric letters by printing a template on paper and then tracing onto your fabric, which I have always done in the past.  I then just folded over my fabric into a rectangle, sewed up the sides, added a casing at the top for the elastic and included straps at the top and at the sides (I added these before sewing up the sides and triple stitched them so they'd hold up to the hefty dragons and trucks).  And that was it.  Very simple, and they were a breeze to attach to the seats.  Basic but functional.

 

 

Grrrr, before.  Ahhh, After

How about you?  Does a messy (read "pigsty") car send you loop-di-loop, or are you able to ignore it and accept it's all part of having sticky little people and all their sticky "stuff" with you 24/7?

DIY Memory Game

How annoying is it when a project or idea starts out really good and then quickly ends up going pear-shaped? Very. Especially when your free time is fleeting.  However, because I'm all about sharing and caring, and the project DID eventually turn out, I will pass it on - "warts 'n all".
 
I love "Project Life". I have been doing it since January this year and I'm a big fan.  If you haven't heard of it and have no idea what I'm talking about, you might want to check it out.  In short, it is a beautiful form of memory keeping that has been made super-simple.  Think scrapbooking but without any glueing, cutting, tools or skill required. Anyway, this isn't actually a post on "PL" but if I have piqued your curiosity and you want to know more, then have a look at Becky Higgins' website.  It's pretty awesome and completely inspiring.
 
So, now for the connection.  While reading Becky's blog one day, I read about a "DIY Memory Game" made with spare Project Life "filler" or "journalling" cards together with family photos.  I loved it.  Immediately.  I knew I was going to recreate it.  I set to work.
 
It was a "relatively" (more about that further down) simple process:

1. Choose your cards/cardstock for the back of the photos
2. Choose your photos. I used very ordinary photos cropped to head & shoulders size
3. Print out your photos in "wallet" size
4. Adhere photo to card
5. Laminate
6. Trim to size
7. Print out instructions if you want them

 

 

And, you're done!  Now you have a beautiful, fun, family-oriented Memory Game with very, very special characters.  We have had a lot of fun with it and our son has improved each time he's played.  Our daughter is still a bit young and would probably eat the cards so I'm hoping they'll stand the test of time and still be intact when she's old enough.
 
Now for what they don't tell you, and where I started to see the "pear" emerge ...

1. Do not glue the photos to your card.  The glue will show through on the card and look ugly.
2. Do not then try and fix the problem by adding an extra layer of cardstock to the back because it will be too thick, won't laminate properly and will look ugly.
3. Do not laminate the cards in an A4 pouch because then you have to cut them up and the layers will most probably separate and look ugly.
4. Do not then try and glue every square millimeter of the separating layers because the glue will ooze out all over the photo, your fingers, your table and make a complete mess.  Learn to live with these little imperfections otherwise you will go insane and things will get ugly.

So, the moral of the story is ...

1. Use double-sided tape between photo and cardstock.
2. Do not have more than two layers.
3. If you want to laminate, use wallet-size laminating pouches and laminate each one separately.

See?  Sharing and caring.
 
How about you? Have you ever started out with a plan and then had to rethink & redo along the way? Perhaps that's half the fun.  Catch you next time ...

Pegs, Paint & Play

This particular little project happened during "a little bit of noise", rather than "a little bit of quiet", just to switch things up a bit! 

My son had one of his best little girlfriend's over for a play-date so we decided to pool our resources and work on a fun little activity together, which is normally always a hit with kids - keeping their hands and minds busy at the same time.

I had bought some wooden pegs from Spotlight a few weeks ago (I was there looking for supplies to make a "fascinating fascinator", which is a whole different "fascinating" post and one that I will write about soon, but I kept getting strangely distracted) and wasn't sure exactly what I was going to do with them but really just loved the old-fashioned look of them.  Anyway, they sat there for a bit looking all plain and cute and then I decided I would, or we would as it turned out, make a little learning game out of them.

I chose four different paint colours - green, yellow, pink & blue - and set the kids up painting all the pegs. While they painted, I cut up a Huggies nappy box into little rectangles and put a splodge of paint on each one and then wrote the corresponding colour in words, just with a black marker.  See where I'm going with this? A very simple colour recognition game.  The idea of the game is to slip the correct coloured peg onto the correct colour card.  Not only are they learning their colours but the little ones are working on their dexterity by having to slide the peg onto the card.  Beautiful!  As you will see this is way too easy for my 5 year old, as it should be, but I did it with my 19 month old in mind and, well, she needs a bit more practice! 

The supplies.

 

Busy little hands.

 

Beautiful co-operation.

 

In the sun to dry.

 

In action.

 

Bless her, she's trying!

  

Packed away for another day.

This was a great, easy, no-fuss activity to do with the kids and we all enjoyed ourselves - plus the sun was shining, it was warm and we were outside.  I even had a coffee with me ... talk about ticking all the important boxes!

(Oh, BTW, if you like this idea but can't be bothered with the craft aspect of it, or you just want something a little more "mature" and a whole lot more fancy-pants, then Bianca from "A Little Delightful" has made up some beautiful colour cards which are free for you to print and use. I adore her blog and her work.)


A "Striking" Good Bowling Party

I totally loved their little shoes!

We celebrated our son's 5th birthday recently and because we had decided not long after his first birthday not to have big parties for him every year, instead opting for every 2nd or 3rd year, my husband suggested we have a ten-pin bowling party and let our son invite any three friends of his choosing.  That way it would be a small affair with just the four of them but special because they would be doing something a little different to the norm, something interactive and the day wouldn't be lost in the chaos.

What a great idea it turned out to be!  If you're ever looking for a low-maintenance party but high on fun, then bowling really is a good option.  It is an all-inclusive party which means us Mums can sit back, relax and enjoy the moment/s rather than working ourselves into a frenzy, baking like crazy people and organising games & activities requiring military precision.  Yes, the food, decorative touches and the birthday cake were basic but little boys really don't care about that stuff.  They just want to have fun, play and open presents!  Check, check & check.

Although it was all-inclusive and I really didn't "need" to do anything, I wanted to give the boys a little personal something to take home.  I read somewhere about using plastic bowling pins as party favours by cutting off the necks and filling them with lollies, which I thought was perfect - almost.  I didn't like the idea of sending the boys home with so much sugar (boys already have enough energy) so instead I filled them with marbles and included instructions on how to play (just in case their Daddy's were born a bit later than me!).  They also got a "Tom Bowler" (that's the really big marble - for all you Mummy's reading this who may have been born a bit later than me!) which represented the bowling ball.  I really liked the marble option for the whole no-sugar thing but mainly because I wanted the Dad's to go home with their sons and show them how the game was played "back in the day" - bringing back an old-fashioned game that was once a lunch-time tradition in many Australian schools.  I actually think the Dad's were more excited than the kids, which was kinda cool to see. 

The supplies.  Plastic bowling pins and marbles from Big W and bias-binding and cardstock from Spotlight.

I partly cut through the necks so they could be open and closed.

Our almost-5-year-old had fun "plopping" the marbles in.

 

The instructions, which were rolled up inside the pin.

 

The finished product.  I actually made four so that our son could play marbles too!

 

Little mini-pins in the proper big bowling centre :)

So, all in all the party was a success - the boys had heaps of fun together, they learnt something new, they ate cake and they took home something they could share with their family & others.  I loved the way it all turned out. 

 

Our little man, hoping for a strike.

How about you? Any tips, tricks, suggestions or ideas for future low-key kids parties with a difference?

On a Whim

Sometimes "on a whim" projects are the best kind, and this one was no exception, however, it would've been a whole lot smarter if I'd chosen something a little less utilised.  A little tip - do not decide "on a whim" to paint your bed!  Unless of course you are a speed painter, have heaps of time and can paint uninterrupted and can spare more than, oh, an hour at a time to devote to it!

Our bed had bothered me for years.  I liked the overall style, and it was structurally sound being solid timber but it was stained a horrible, cheap-looking orangey colour and the timber had been badly finished off making it rough with raw edges - so rough that rubbing a hand along the frame guaranteed a splinter or two.  I often dreamt of a new bed (I also dreamt of a house in the Hamptons ...) but because new beds are generally very expensive, and in our house there is always something else to be spending our money on, I knew I had to come up with a cheaper creative solution so that I wouldn't cringe every time I walked into our room.  So, what did I decide on?


This is the only BEFORE photo I have of the glorious orange bed. Me, happily sanding away.

A facelift (no, not for me - although I could certainly use one especially the morning after I've been up half the night with my little Miss) - for the bed! I would paint it - white, like in my dreams.  So, about 2 or 3 months after our daughter was born (during that beautiful, loved-up stage when life is feeling so rosy and special that you think anything is possible and you're capable of marathon feats), I walked into our room, looked at the bed and decided right then and there that it was time.  My husband thought I was kidding but I just KNEW at that very moment I was going to do it - I was passionately determined. Out came the allen key and bit by bit I pulled the thing apart and carried it out to the garage and sanded that baby crazy.  De-orangey'ing it was reward in itself! 

This is how our bedroom looked while the frame was in the garage.  It was very plain and needed a bit of love.

I was feeding my daughter 2-3 hourly at the time so "a little bit of quiet" came infrequently but I just left the bed all set up in the garage and squirrelled away whenever I got a free moment.  It took quite a bit longer than I had originally  judged (in my post-pregnancy, blissful hormonal state) and required a primer plus 3 coats of paint on some parts of the frame (the parts that weren't going to be obviously in view only got 2 coats) and we certainly hadn't planned on sleeping on a mattress for six weeks, but the end result was so completely worth it.  Now not only does it look a hundred times better, there's not a splinter in sight ... kind of a good thing for the marital bed!


Voila!  A new bed! What do you think?  I love it.  And that's my son refusing to let me take a photo without him in it.

Side note:  I sort of knew the bed was going to look good so I gave our room a mini-makeover at the same time, buying new lamps and adding in some cute little Etsy prints from "Tastes Orangey" - which, coincidentally, is nothing like looking "orangey"!

Second Drawer Syndrome

Do any of you have a drawer that looks like this? The dreaded second drawer? The drawer that just refuses to be tamed? Or have I just totally embarrassed myself? What's even more embarrassing, is it's been this way for years ... many years.  Seriously uncool and seriously unorganised making it very hard to find things, a danger to little fingers that like to explore these strange, exotic places and a happy haven for unused utensils - all taking up valuable space.

So, enough was enough.  It was time to call in the big guns.  Drawer separators! So basic, so easy and cheaper than some of the drawer tidy's I came across, plus this way I could control exactly where I wanted them and which way they sat.  I chose to place them horizontally so that anything sharp could be placed at the back - well away from those "little explorers" I mentioned earlier (whose sticky little fingerprints you can totally see all over my drawers!).  They are also spring-loaded so are a perfect snug fit. Happy camper.

And because I am a bit of a sucker for nice paper and "prettifying" things, I decided to take the whole drawer-tidying thing up a notch and line the drawers with some leftover scrapbooking paper I had (I don't actually scrapbook but I can't go past the scrapbooking aisle in Spotlight without buying a few sheets - which is a good thing because then I have a little supply on hand when I get all nerdy on myself!).  I also lined my cutlery drawer with the same paper last year so, well, it had to match, didn't it?!

So, now my boring little drawer looks all tidy and fresh and has been given a bit more life with the added paper and when the paper rips or gets dirty, I'll just replace it with another stash.  The cutlery drawer has been lined for about a year now and is still holding up perfectly plus every time I open it I can't help but think how cute it looks!

The whole mini-project took about 20 minutes and the kids had fun running around with the various "swords" and "wands" that were headed for the bin.  Talk about a super quick fix for something that has bugged me for years.  A little bit of quiet + a tiny amount of organisation = big gratification.

How about you? Have you ever procrastinated on a project only to realise there was a super simple, fast solution?  Here's a "side-by-side" just for fun ...

Little on Project, Big on Love

I am going away for a week with my beautiful Mum & sister for some long over-due R & R (thanks Mum!) and will be leaving my babies at home with their wonderful Dadda ... eek!  I am totally, crazily looking forward to it and have been day-dreaming endlessly about the massage's, the sleep-in's (!!!), the book reading by the pool, the shopping, the uninterrupted night-time sleeping and the pampering, and within days I will be living it first hand - sigh.  BUT, and you totally knew there was a "but" coming, didn't you?  I am nervous and apprehensive about leaving my kids.  In five years, I have been away from my son only a handful of times, and mostly only overnight stays - never 7! My daughter is now 17 months and we haven't been apart at all.  So ... apart from being a blubbering mess when I say good-bye to them, I am going to miss them like crazy, pine for them and no doubt cry for them when I, if I'm brave enough, Skype them (which come to think of it is probably a silly idea - I'll get upset, they'll get upset and, well, that's no fun, is it?). 

Anyway, during "a bit of quiet" today, I decided to print off seven short bedtime stories, one for each night I am away, for my husband to read to them. 

I won't tell them about it - it'll be a nice surprise for them at bedtime.  I have finished each story with a personalised goodnight message so although I won't be there myself, they will each night get a little something from me and I'll hopefully feel a little more relaxed knowing they are heading off to dreamland with a loving message from their Mummy.

So, only a little project today but without doubt, big on LOVE.  Mwah.