kid's dining

I LOVE this time of year. The weather is perfect. The food is delicious - but one of my absolute FAVORITE parts??? The garage sales!!!

A friend of mine is moving to Germany and had a garage sale this weekend. The night she was setting up she invited some people over for a sneak peak and I'm so glad she did because I came home with a steal!

I snagged this cute little table and chair set for 5 bucks!

Ever since we tore down the wall between our kitchen and dining room I've had this corner I wasn't sure what to do with. Well this little set happened to fit perfectly!

So I applied 1 coat of gray primer and then finished it off by spray painting it one coat of basic black. I sanded it down a little and here she is...

Absolutely adorable and my kids and I love it!

Do you love garage sale season as much as I do???

sunroom table redo

We inherited this classic table from our college apartment. I'm sure many of you may have something similar! It's been hanging out in our sunroom ever since we bought our 'real' dining room table several years ago!

I finally decided on a color scheme for our outside room and so the table has FINALLY gotten a revamping!

No sanding. Just 1 coat of gray primer and 1 can of Navy Blue spray paint later (both of which were already hanging out in my paint box)...

(don't mind the shadows and BAD lighting!)

I also revamped these college chairs as well - they already had a coat of spray paint and fabric on them from a past redo - now they're just covered with some white washable slip covers from here - you can't beat $2 dollars!!!

Ta Da...

I'm still slowing decorating and adding more accessories but I think our outdoor space is well on it's way to having a little bit more style!

Candy Buckets

I have a good friend who gave me this fun idea that Kierste over at Brown Paper Packages shared for general conference!

She used this activity while watching general conference to try and get her kiddos to pay better attention. She fills bowls, buckets, etc. with treats and a corresponding word. Every time the word is said the kids get to pick a treat.

This year I decided my oldest was big enough to try it out and with a ton of Easter candy in stores and cute Target $1 buckets stacked up in my basement already - I figured it was worth a shot.

She is still too young to be able to read the words on each bucket so we attached a picture with each corresponding bucket. Every time she heard the word she would run to that picture and pick out a treat. She definitely paid more attention than I thought she would and definitely considered conference a fun time and was always asking to listen to more!

This will definitely be a tradition in our home from here on out.

This activity could easily be adapted in lots of other 'learning' activities.

Instead of using church words you could attach numbers to each bucket and when kids are solving math problems if their answer is on a bucket they get a treat.

You could attach a 'chunk' to each bucket (-ick, -at, -ump, etc.) or a sight word (and, there, etc.) and every time the kids think of a new word using that 'chunk' or read that sight word they get to pull a candy out.

So many ideas...Have Fun!

Tissue Paper Pom Poms

We had two little girlie birthdays this month at our house so that meant some fun parties over the past couple of weeks.

I have seen these cute tissue paper pom poms around blogland for awhile now and finally tried my hand at making some of them.

At Walmart and the Dollar Tree I found they sold tissue paper by the color so I spent 3 bucks and bought a pack of teal, hot pink, and white.

Then I followed the super easy tutorial by Martha Stewart.

Supplies (for one pom pom):

- 8 sheets of tissue paper
- 2 inches of floral wire
- ribbon to hang the pom poms by
- scissors

Directions:

1. Take 8 pieces of tissue paper stacked on top of one another and fold the entire thing accordion style.

2. Cut a 2 inch piece of floral wire and wrap it around the center.

3. Cut the edges of the tissue paper (either pointed or round).

4. Fan out paper to make a huge ball.

*Mine turned out a little too big for my liking but I was too lazy to go buy more tissue paper to make more. Next time to make them smaller I would cut some tissue paper off the ends after putting the floral wire on before fanning them out.

They've now found a permanent home in my kid's 'book nook' in the basement. Such a fun and inexpensive decorative touch!

Have Fun!

Rice Bin

I'm the kind of crafter that sees ideas and copies them. Sure I have my fair share of things I think of on my own but with the huge wide world of blogging available now - most ideas I get from someone else - and I love it!!! So many fun things to see and try :)

After watching my girl's spend a good hour at my friend Julia's from Sweet Serendipity playing in her rice bin I knew this was something I must try in our own house. She changes hers for the holiday/seasons so I started with Easter and so far...so good.

Ingredients:

- Rice (I used about 8 cups)

- Rubbing Alcohol

- Food coloring

- Trinkets/Play things
(measuring cups, tongs, etc.)

-Storage Bin

-Cardboard/Newspaper

Directions:

1. Take 2 cups of rice and add 1 tsp of rubbing alcohol and 10 drops of food coloring.

2. Mix till the color is evenly on all of the rice.


3. Spread out on something to dry (about 1/2 hour).


4. Add it to the bin and play away!

* I added a cheap vinyl tablecloth underneath my bin to help 'catch' any rice that made it's way out (which was A LOT - I have a 2 yr. old...) But overall the mess that resulted from this activity was WELL worth the time they spent happily playing away.

The trick for me was to place the bin in a room we don't go in very often (and has hardwood floors). That way throughout the day it wasn't really in my way at all and I didn't really care about the mess. When we were through playing it got picked up, the lid placed on top, the bin put away unto a very high shelf, and the extra rice got swept away.

It's already made it's way out for us to play with several times in the past couple of weeks!

Have fun!

Bird's Nests

When I saw these over at
Crafting Chicks I thought they were absolutely adorable! I thought they would be the cutest little treats to make for Easter and then I realized I had almost everything on hand and couldn't wait another month to try them out! So I gathered what I had on hand and ended up being able to make four of them.

Ingredients:
- around 2 cups of Fiber One cereal (I just used what was left in my bag)
- 1 tablespoon of butter
- around 1 1/2 cups of mini marshmallows (I just used what was left in my bag)
- easter egg candy (Reese's are our favorite!)
- Peeps

Directions:

1. Melt the butter on low heat and then add the marshmallows like you're making rice krispie treats.

2. Once the marshmallows are melted remove from heat and add in the cereal.

3. Spray your hands with cooking spray (very important - these are SUPER sticky) and mold the cereal into nests once they aren't so hot.

4. Wait a few minutes while the nests firm up a bit and then add your eggs and Peep.

Even the kiddos were pretty good at helping and had lots of fun - making them AND eating them of course!!!

A super cute little treat to add to a bag with some ribbon and Crafting Chicks tags!

Have Fun!

Chocolate-Marshmallow Bunnies

I am a sucker for marshmallows. I really don't know why because I'm not one who will sit and eat them plain - but add a little something and I'll gobble them up. They're SO cheap and nowadays they have so many fun ones to try - caramel, chocolate, etc. The other day I even say some flat square ones perfect for s'mores - except I'm not really sure how good they'll actually hold up on a campfire!

So when I saw these cute little holiday bunny marshmallows I knew I had to snag them up. Even if we didn't do anything with these cuties I knew my girl's who devour them. I passed by the egg shaped ones several times over the past month but when I finally went to buy some they were all out :(

I have memories of my grandma getting the Russel Stover marshmallows covered in chocolate and since I knew the Easter Bunny wasn't bringing any of those to our house this year we decided to make some of our own. We took these cute little colored ones and poked them with some fondue sticks and covered them in some yummy melted chocolate. Then my girls had a hayday covering them in LOTS of sprinkles - their favorite part!

I took a few sans sprinkles and added them to a little bag with a note. They'd be perfect for teachers, classmates, friends, visiting teachers, etc.

Yummy - I'm sure they will all get gobbled up for Easter at our house!

Have fun!