Baby sister and I had one last hurrah together before we both leave on a jet plane (her trip is much longer than mine). We’re 10 years apart, but we’ve always been close. I say she’s the sweeter, lazier version of me, and I’m the bossy, more responsible version of her.
I’ve started wearing foam rollers to sleep. I chopped my hair to get rid of all my damage, but I still would like to have organized curls (I have naturally wavy hair and it just looks frizzy and poofy), so I’ve been trying rollers to bed. Ben laughs at how silly I look (I think I look silly too), but whatever, I like how my curls come out in the morning!
Have a good weekend! This week will be adventure-filled (will be sharing bits on my instagram), so I’ve got a lot of nerves and excitement, and my girls tell me I’m “nervousited.”
We all wore black, white, and silver on Father’s Day to show team spirit for our San Antonio Spurs. This was such big game and it was happening on Father’s Day. Ben is from San Antonio, Texas and I was raised by an anti-Laker in Southern California (my dad is a huge Boston Celtics fan), so you can imagine, we’re pretty much a perfect match!
This was on Father’s Day and we celebrated by showing team spirit for the San Antonio Spurs, which is Ben’s favorite sport’s team (and us girls love them just as much too!). Since we didn’t get to give him his present at home, we brought it with us to give it to him while out. I got him his fave ray-ban aviators because I accidentally lost his; it slipped out of my purse while we were out somewhere.
Old Navy had all the black, white, and silver I was looking for, and I particularly loved Brave’s romper and her silver shoes. This is my first time wearing a romper and I liked it even though I kind of felt like an overgrown kid. The girls are also sporting some Hello Shiso goodies, which I first shared about here. Soul hates spaghetti straps or exposing too much of her shoulders, so she put a shirt on under; that girls has a style of her own! Brave was hilarious this day as she wore her sunglasses everywhere, even indoors.
We were bummed that morning since Ben wasn’t feeling well, but thankfully by the end of the evening, the body aches were gone and he was feeling himself again. I think his fave team winning a championship (and some meds) is a good cure for a stomach infection. His only Father’s Day request was to watch the game together and for the Spurs to win, so I think he was definitely treated like a champ that evening.
I’m headed your way soon, so if you’re able, don’t forget to sign up for either the felt flower making class or learn how to make the paper chandelier (pajaki). There are still some spots in both classes, so sign up for one or both (you can blend your two new skills together) and get ready for a fun afternoon/evening of crafting and chatting with me and Bloesem! Hope to see some of you there!
And please do share where we (Ben and I) should eat, shop, and see while we’re there. I’m thankful for the suggestions some of you have already sent over.
Oh gosh, this post is so late, so my True’s been 8 for a couple months now. She’s the best biggest sister ever, much better than I ever was. Her heart is so sweet and forgiving, and she has a much more nurturing spirt than I ever had (read: not as bossy as I was). Her requests were simple (kind of)… a My Little Pony party at a hotel with home sewn pony costumes. Thankfully, we had Spike and Pinkie Pie from previous Halloweens (here and here), so I had to make Rainbow Dash (Brave’s favorite) and Fluttershy (True’s favorite). It’s no surprise True identifies most with Fluttershy because True is the shyest of the bunch.
Since Fluttershy is her fave, I used that character as inspiration for her party. Fluttershy’s cutie mark are butterflies, so I cut out a bunch of butterflies from card stock and used that for her party background. She requested a bundt cake from Nothing Bundt Cake like Brave had at her party, so that made my cake decision easy. I really wanted to bake her a yellow and pink cake, but I was running out of time, and it wasn’t what she asked for, so it was easy to scrap that idea. I picked up some pretty disposables from Target and used some things I already had too. True made her own pony version of pin the tail on the donkey, and we had all the makings for a splendid party.
Ben and True went out to go pick up dinner from Veggie Grill, while the other girls and I set everything up. When she came back, the girls were in costume and we surprised her with her special party set up. We ate, played party games, opened presents, sang Happy Birthday, watched an episode of My Little Pony, and just showered the birthday girl with lots of love and attention.
She had several gift requests, but we told her (as we tell all the girls for any celebration) just because she wants it, doesn’t mean she will get all of it. She got two of the many requests, and one was her slip-on checkered vans and the other a planner. At the end of the day, her favorite thing was getting the planner. Guess I’ve got a type-A personality on my hands. My favorite gifts she received were all the homemade ones Brave and Soul made for her (see more in her other birthday post). The binoculars she made is pretty sweet!
I love when the girls request a hotel birthday because I find it much easier than throwing a birthday party at the house with family and friends. If they had asked for a party with friends, we would have been happy to go that route too. We always make a vacation out of our hotel birthdays and enjoy staying a few days in another city. For True’s, we went down south near San Diego. See other past hotel parties here and here. Brave’s 7th birthday is in a little over a month and she’s asking for a Transformer party at a hotel. We will see if she changes her mind, but for now, that’s what I’m planning for.
Three Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies makes about 18 cookies
Ingredients:
1 cup peanut butter (I prefer chunky over creamy)
1 egg
3/4 cup sugar
Nutella (totally optional, but makes it so good!)
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Combine the peanut butter, egg, and sugar together well. Spoon 1 tablespoon of batter into a ball onto the baking sheet, and flatten ball with a fork twice to make a crosshatch pattern on top of the cookie. Sprinkle some sugar on top and put it in the oven for 6 – 8 minutes.
If you want to make it dangerous, sandwich a teaspoon of Nutella between two cookies. There you have a peanut butter – nutella sandwich cookie. Seriously, it’s so amazing. Technically, if you do it this way, it’s a four ingredient cookie, but since the Nutella is optional, I’ll leave it in parenthesis.
I’m a peanut butter dessert lover… peanut butter ice cream, peanut butter cupcakes, peanut butter cookies. Then, when you mix peanut butter with chocolate, oh man oh man, I know no bounds. Moderation? What’s that?!
Old Navy teamed up with P.S. I Made This and sent us a box of summer pieces to decorate with tie-dye, fabric markers, beads, and puffy paint. If you have my book, Let’s Sew Together, then you already know (and probably from this blog too) that I’m all about letting your kids have fun with drawing and painting on clothes. I love seeing their excitement in creating and their joy when they have their finished product. I have many fond memories of summers spentadorning my clothes with puffy paint, which is so 80’s, but my girls had the same fun with it, so who cares?!
All you need are clothes to decorate and lots of fun things to decorate with!
The clothes were colored, so the fabric spray paint didn’t stick too well, but I imagine if we used white shirts, that would have showed up fine. Brave ended up wanting to draw on hers with fabric marker. True went for tie-dye and adding beads to her shorts. Soul was all about the puffy paint; I helped her with her shirt and she did the shorts completely on her own. True and I did Glow’s together and tie-dyed her shorts and gave her some fringe on her top. We made some tassels and pom poms out of embroidery floss, attached those to a safety pin and added those on. Once everything was washed, dried, and ready to go, and they put them on, it looked like they were going to some music festival. Thus, in true festival style, we made some crowns to go with their outfits too.
Directions:
Cut the wire in a length appropriate for your child’s head. Add a dab of glue at one end, wrap the crepe paper around and continue down to wrap the entire length. Add another touch of glue at the end of the wire to secure crepe paper on, and twist the ends of the wire together to form the wire crown. Cut 30-40 – 6″ strips of crepe paper streamers. Layer 2 or 3 together, cut slits toward the center but not all the way through, and repeat for opposite end. Pinch together and twist onto the wire crown. Repeat until the entire crown is covered in your desired amount of fringe.
It’s the perfect “Camp Home” activity, and we are all having so much fun making things together. It does get messy, so make sure you have a space you can get messy in. We had a large piece of plastic down and worked in clothes that could get stained in case some of the dye and paint ended up elsewhere. Make sure you wash clothes beforehand, and you’ll also have to be patient and give clothes ample time for dye to set and paint to dry, so keep that in mind too.
I was intimidated by the tie-dye at first, but it ended being quite easy. We will probably try our hand at getting a little fancier with tie-dye patterns on a home sewn dress soon.
I have a large growing pile of fabric scraps. I refuse to throw them away because I am sure they can be used for something. I have been seeing different types of interesting necklaces made of buttons, beads, and fabric. Then, I figured why not make one out of my scraps...
I think it made my white shirt a little less boring. This was so quick and easy to make.
How to make a recycled scraps necklace (which is very similar to the straps on my braided tablecloth bag):
1. Take your scrap fabric, I cut a .5''-1'' snip and tear the rest of the fabric down for a nice frayed edge. Used 3 different fabrics for each strand.
2. Take 3 of the torn pieces and tie the ends together with a rubber band.
3. Braid the 3 pieces together and tie ends together with rubber band when done.
4. Repeat steps 2 & 3 for more strands. Remember you can make the strands any length you want, if run out of fabric, just weave more into the braid.
5. Once all the strands you want are braided, gather one end of each strand together and straight stitch together with sewing machine. Repeat for the other ends of the strands. Snip off any excess.
6. Gather ends of the necklace and sew together (snip excess) or a ribbon can be sewn at the ends to be able to tie the necklace closed, but I just sewed both ends together.
7. Voila! A nice way to make use of all your lovely scraps.
Sorry if the directions get you a little lost, but it really is easy. I promise. Maybe I should put some in the shop. Please share any other good ideas you may have of things that can be made with scraps. I would love to hear (read) them!
Baby sister and I had one last hurrah together before we both leave on a jet plane (her trip is much longer than mine). We’re 10 years apart, but we’ve always been close. I say she’s the sweeter, lazier version of me, and I’m the bossy, more responsible version of her.
