DIY Playdough

Well, this is actually the 4th activity we have done this week, but only the 2nd activity that I could make a post on. Monday was our 1st activity of the summer where we printed, colored, and cut out our own jigsaw puzzles. Tuesday we went to our local splash pad and had a blast getting soaked in this 100+ degree whether. Yesterday was "library day" (which we will do every Wednesday). We went to our local library's story time and listened to books and sang some songs. The kids even got to climb on some tractors that were out front just for the kids! Then afterward I took the kids to a park before we came home for lunch.

Now we're on to day 4 and today we made play dough!!! I have actually made lots of different play dough recipes over the past couple of years thanks to Pinterest. I don't have my own recipe, so I thought I would just share with you a couple of the recipes I have tried and my opinions on them.

This is the recipe we used today, coming from ehow.com:

(pic from ehow.com as well)

This one was VERY easy to make. I was even more excited that I had everything already at home to make this play dough. It's always a plus for me when I don't have to go to the store. I cut this recipe in half so that I could make as many colors as possible with the amount of salt that I had at home. 4 colors total. It took me less than 5 minutes to make each color and clean up was a breeze! I would recommend this recipe to anyone! 

This next recipe is a Jello Play Dough recipe that I found through Pinterest as well, which leads back to iheartnaptime.net.

(pic from iheartnaptime.net as well)

I was soooooo excited when I first found this recipe. I have even made the cookies quite a few times and they are absolutely addictively delicious!!! Yes, you read right, this recipe is for cookies AND for play dough! Now, with this one, I know that she let her kids play with the play dough before making them into cookies, however, that just didn't seem sanitary or very healthy to eat the cookies after my kids spent time making sure every last germ from their hands, face, and other surfaces of their body were in those cookies. Not appetizing at all. So I made them the play dough and stored it for them when they weren't playing with them. ***WARNING*** I stored this play dough at room temperature and after about 10 days, they play dough developed a mold. This is the only play dough I have ever had this problem with. Maybe if you store it  in the fridge it will last longer? Just beware, this play dough will develop mold in a short period of time. However, on the upside, it is also very easy to make and makes the house and your kids smell soooooo good! 

Have fun playing! I know my kids did and still are as we speak!

DIY Print, Color & Cut Jigsaw Puzzles

So, this summer I have 2 extra kids in my home 5 days a week, giving me 5 kids total. Well, I've learned from experience that having that many kids at school and nothing constructive to do can lead to destruction of the home and each other. So I came up with a list of activities to do each day over the course of the summer. Just one small activity to do, something to break of the monotony of playing with toys, watching a movie or reading. Occasionally we will go outside, but we're only 10 days into June and we've already hit 113 degrees outside! I don't know about you, but I don't want to be out in that why would I make the kids?

Anyways, so today we are making our own jigsaw puzzles using our favorite pictures.

I found these templates here, but I wanted to make it easier for you, so I put them in the blog post as well in both vertical and horizontal form. So first, you will need the following templates:

(4x6 Horizontal)

 (4x6 Vertical)

(5x7 Horizontal)

(5x7 Vertical)

(7x9 Horizontal)

(7x9 Vertical)

(8x10 Horizontal)

(8x10 Vertical)

Now choose your puzzle, copy and paste it into a word program on your computer, and then stretch the puzzle out until it takes up the entire page. Then print out the puzzle...

After you've printed out your puzzle, reload the puzzle into your printer. You want to load it in so that when you print your picture it will print out on the SAME side as the puzzle. For my printer, I need to reload the puzzle right side up.

Now, using google search, or a coloring page website of your choice, find a picture you or your child wants. Like superheroes, princess, hello kitty, thomas the train, etc. The possibilities are endless! Once you have chosen your picture, print it out onto your puzzle.

Now all that's left is to color it, cut it out and then put it back together! Now you've got your own way to make whatever puzzle you want! You can take any image you find and make it into a puzzle! These would also make great gifts! Print out your family pictures and make them into puzzles, send them as gifts, once again, the possibilities are endless! Enjoy!

Here are a few tips:

*Take a picture of your child's puzzle BEFORE you cut it out, that way they have something to look at when they are trying to put it back together.

**After your child has put the puzzle back together, have them tape each piece of the puzzle onto a piece of construction paper. Since the pieces don't interlock very well (since they are made out of paper/card stock) this will help the pieces stabilize so your child can see their finished product.

***If you want the puzzle to be more permanent, laminate it before you cut it.

****One more added bonus, add magnetic tape to the back of each puzzle piece so your child can put their puzzle together on the fridge, or on a cookie sheet! Have fun!

Hard Work Pays Off!

Well, I haven't done a creation in a while...but I have a VERY good reason. Yard work. Yep, good old fashioned, rake and shovel, yard work. This really isn't a creation, but I wanted to share with you all how our yard turned out, I even took before and after pictures! It took me just under 5 months to get it completed, I worked through menu boards; shuffling kids to school, dance, piano and doctors visits; rainy, windy, freezing, and sweltering hot weather; and I even put myself back to work within a week of having surgery on my left kidney! It was seriously a daunting task, but I am so happy with the way things turned out! Check it out!

Before...

After...

(Sorry about the messy rocks right there on the edge...we weren't quite done cleaning up yet and I wanted to get the picture taken before it started getting dark.)

Before...

After...

Before...

 (By the way, this is what took me almost the entire 5 months...raking out all of the old rock so we could lay down weed control fabric and put in plants...)

After...

Before...

After...

(Did you notice the house color changed? I LOVE the color! It's kind of nice when your husband sells paint for a living and used to be a painter!)

(The stairs were my idea out of the entire yard...I originally wanted plain old concrete stairs, but my husband and a landscaper buddy of his talked me into the flagstone steps...they were cheaper and I am so in love with them! I'm glad they talked me into them!)

(Here is a top view of the steps.)

Before...

After...

(We broke up the monotony of the hillside by planting pink and white hawthorne bushes in strategic places around the hillside of our yard.)

Before...

After...

Before...

After...

(The reddish-orange rocks look kind of ugly in this picture, they are actually a really pretty jewelish looking red, but they were muddy when we laid them down, and like I said earlier, I really wanted to get these pictures taken, lol.)

So, I hope you are all very understanding as to why I haven't had a new creation up in a while, and I may not for at least another month or so, as we are now going to tackle the back yard...I'll add those pictures when that is done! Thank you for you patience, and please note that my yard working will not in any way affect my making Menu Boards and getting them shipped out in time to you!

Mini Menu Board Giveaway!!!

***Contest has ended! Congratulations to:

TARA THOMAS!!!***



On April 26th, 2013, the Menu Board will be celebrating it's 2nd birthday here in blogville! As a special gift from me to you, for all your support, I am going to be giving away a Mini Menu Board with 200 Recipes for 2 absolutely FREE! This is a $70.00 value and I can't wait to give this away to a very VERY lucky winner! Below are the 5 steps REQUIRED to be entered into the contest. Sorry if it seems to be too much, but this is a large giveaway, my biggest yet and I want to get the word out! Best of luck to all of you!!!

DIY Disney Autograph Books

I'm back again! For the THIRD time in like 2 weeks or less! I hope you don't mind! I've had some free time on my hands lately to create and I'm absolutely LOVING it! A few days ago, I posted the Disney Countdown and mentioned in that post about DIY Autograph Books, well here they are! I don't know how much it costs to buy your own autograph book at Disneyland, but these only cost me $9.00 each (the way I did them, but I know you can do it for less) and I love that you can put whatever pages you want in it. So if you ONLY want to see the princesses and Mickey and the Gang, that's all you put in your own autograph book. Rather than standing in line in Disneyland waiting for autograph's so you don't have any blank pages in your book. Anyways, so here is just a short and very easy tutorial on how to make your own Disney Autograph Book.

So first you will need the following:

*The "Background" template (template provided in tutorial below), printed onto black card stock, don't worry, the ink will show up and you will be able to see where you can cut. Look closely in the picture and you will see the lines too.
*Scissors
*Sharpie Marker
*Your choice of Autograph Pages, printed out (I chose to have shutterfly.com do it because the prints are already loaded onto their website, and because I got 50 free prints just for signing up, making it only $7.11 for the 69 prints that I ordered, including shipping! You can, however, download them to your computer for free and print the pages you want off at home!)
*You choice of Cover/Title Page, printed out (As you are looking through the autograph pages, you will see some blank ones as well, I used those pages as the cover page for the autograph books.)
*Clear Adhesive Dots (picture in tutorial below), or Photo Tape (I know I have a hot glue gun pictured, but I didn't realize until my books were halfway done that it wouldn't be the smartest idea to hot glue pictures lol.)

So, the first thing you need to do is print out and cut out your background pages. Here is the template, sorry I don't actually have a picture of cutting the pages out, it completely slipped my mind in all the excitement of putting these together!

Next, get your books binded. You can do it yourself if you want with regular old binder rings, but since I intend on making these out to be little mini-scrapbooks, I took mine to our local copy shop and had them spiral binded, including a clear plastic cover and a hard plastic backing for the book. Total cost for that was $3.99 per book.

Now that you book is binded, using your clear adhesive dots (or photo tape), tape the autograph pages to each of the pages.

Side Note! See this blank page right here at the top? Use these pages to put the pictures you take of your kids with the characters on. Making this the ultimate autograph/vacation mini scrapbook! Pretty cool huh? I can't wait for our vacation so I can put our pictures in!

Finally, just one more step and you're done! Using your Sharpie marker, write your child's name on the front cover page of your book. You don't have to write it if you don't want, you can always you alphabet stickers or something like that.

And you're done! I hope you and you're kids enjoy them, and continue to enjoy them again and again, cause guess what??? These would also make AWESOME quiet books for church!

The Orange Rhino "Up-Count"

So, a few weeks ago, I discovered this website that has completely changed my life! I am not being dramatic, I promise. If you knew just how badly I wanted to changed this part about myself, you would understand what a HUGE deal it was for me to find The Orange Rhino!

This is slightly embarrassing for me to admit, (but he, the first step to solving a problem is admitting it, right?) Anyways, I have a yelling problem. I don't really discipline my children other than yelling, and I know a large part of that is because that is how I was raised, but the other part of that is because I don't think I ever consciously made the choice to NOT yell at my children.

To this day, I still tear up (almost instantly), if someone even begins to raise their voice at me. My parents never had to ground me or take anything away because yelling was enough for me, it will always be enough for me. However, with that being the case, I know just how scary it is to be yelled at. I don't know why I would yell at my children, I am 100% positive they feel the same way.

Unfortunately I have yelled at my daughter to the point of crying, and my son to the point that he closes his eyes, covers his ears and sometimes even hides under his blanket in his bedroom. I HAVE to stop! There is no other option! And the Orange Rhino is just that extra push I need to make sure I accomplish this seemingly impossible task.

So, along with purchasing orange nail polish and posting orange rhino's all over my house and in my car, I made this "Up-Count" Wreath. I call it up-count because I am counting up to how many days I go without yelling. This is just a small tutorial to show you how to make your own Up-Count Wreath to help you out in achieving your goal to not yell as well.

So, first you will need to gather the following items:

A Small Foam Wreath

Orange & Pink Yarn

Orange & Pink Toll Paint

Wooden Letters

Up-Count Numbers Printed Onto Orange Card Stock (Template at the end of this post)

Scissors

Paper Hole Punch

6 Binder Rings

Un-Sharpened Pencil

Foam Paint Brush

Hot Glue Gun

First, start by tying the end of your yarn to the wreath, then wrap it around. Then do the same with the pink.

Now, before you paint your letters, position them on your wreath so you know what letters need to be painted orange and what ones need to be painted pink.

Then paint your letters and glue them to your wreath.

Now wrap up your pencil in the orange and pink yarn.

Now, glue your pencil to the inside of your wreath. Glue both ends, stick it in the wreath, then add extra glue the the front and back ends of the pencil.

Finally, add your up-count numbers to the pencil.

And your done! Now, if you want to add some more reminders around your house to help you not yell, then I suggest printing out these adorable rhinos I found online onto orange card stock and place them all over your house or wherever you think you need reminding.

I even put some orange rhino's on Popsicle sticks for my children to help remind me, especially when I am just beginning to get stressed, frustrated, or annoyed. I'm hoping for all the best for me, and for you! Good luck!

Oh! Here are the up-count numbers! Sorry! LOL