Ruby

Where does the time go? I can't believe this little lady is already 4 months old! I love her to pieces. Hopefully I will soon be able to start making stuff again (I have made a couple of things but haven't made the time to photograph or photo-edit them!), but for now I'm devoted to this one and my other two little ones. Three kids under the age of 5 has a way of keeping one very busy!
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Summer Smoothie Recipe

So my husband is a crazy cyclist. Road biker, mountain biker, snow biker, bike shop owner. He rides crazy canyon climbs (like 4 in one day) and has done Lotoja (210 miles through mountain passes) numerous times, and is hoping to get into Leadville this year. Anyway, that's kind of a side note that leads me to my point. He gets to be part of the Blendtec cycling team and because of this and that and the other, we got a super schnazzy Blendtec blender!!! This is like the Ferrari of blenders.

Let's just say that since we got it I've been making a whole lot of smoothies. And I'm going to share with you one of my favorites. This is a peach strawberry smoothie, and the fancy blender actually has a "smoothie" button. Just push the button, it does the rest and turns itself off when it's done.

Peach Strawberry Mango Smoothie

16 oz Dole Orange Peach Mango juice (from a can, in the freezer section of your store)
1 1/2 heaping cups of frozen strawberries
1 1/2 heaping cups of frozen peaches
1 handful of fresh spinach leaves (optional)

Dump it all in, hit the smoothie button, and you're done.


One of my favorite things about this blender is that it completely pulverizes the spinach. With my old blender, which was a good one, it left the spinach just big enough that my daughter could see something green in there and wouldn't drink it (despite being a pretty good vegetable eater otherwise). This Blendtec gets everything so finely blended that you can't tell there's any greens, so it's a great way to sneak in some extra veggies.

One of the other things I love is that I can use this to grind fresh wheat flour (freshly ground = more nutrients) and flax seeds (which I previously never used because I didn't have a grinder). You could also throw a spoonful of that in any of your smoothies! Pin It

DIY Pine Cone Door Decor

This is a little overdue, but I blame JoAnns for running out of ribbon. I had to wait until they got more of this wired dusty teal burlap/linen ribbon back in stock to finish the project. It was mostly done before Thanksgiving anyway....

This is a simple Thanksgiving or Christmas DIY door decoration. It cost me about $5. The ribbon I got at JoAnns with coupons, and I bought some circle screw-in hooks, that's it. The fabulous giant pine cones came from Ryan's grandparent's yard. They have a sugar pine tree (or two) that drop these giant pine cones and they are kind enough to share.

I considered dipping the pine cones in white paint for a more modern look, but they are pretty sappy and earthy, and for this I think I prefer them au natural.

If you want to try this yourself, its super easy.
1. Just use a small drill bit to drill a hole in the top of your pine cones.
2. Screw in your little circle hooks.
3. Tie on the ribbon.
4. Make some bows and glue them on with a hot glue gun, and away you go.

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Halloween Costumes 2013 (part 2)

Now for Ezra's costume. I love me a good paper maché costume. It's cheap, it's easy, but it certainly does not store well. This, in fact, did not really survive the night. A 2-yr old and paper maché aren't exactly a great match. But I do have suggestions for making it work, below. Mike Wazowski from Monsters Inc.

I did add the little horns after this photo shoot, because I realized I forgot them, but the new photos didn't turn out great. Ez liked to hold onto them as handles. The arms and legs are just footless tights from WeLoveColors.com, my go-to source for tights in any color. And I paper-machéd a 36" balloon (Amazon.com or local party supply stores), doing 3 or 4 or 5 layers, so it would be strong enough. Plus some green spray paint. What I should have done though is layered the inside with duct tape to toddler-proof it. I did that around the neck as we were heading out the door to trick-or-treat, but it could have used a little more, especially since he fell once. I also had bought a blue baseball cap and had good intentions of putting an MU logo on it, but got busy and lazy and wasn't sure he'd wear it anyway, so I skipped that. The eye and mouth I painted on with acrylic paint, and that's what really saved it.

My kids both loved the costume, and Ezra loved wearing it, despite his lack of maneuverability. And that' all that really matters, isn't it? Pin It

Halloween Costumes 2013

For some reason I always come up with these costumes that are difficult to live in. Like barely fitting though door-ways and no room to store them kind of costumes. I'm going to try to do better in that aspect in the future!

Back in July, when I started brainstorming for Halloween, I asked Ava for suggestions, and she said she wanted to be a cake. I was totally on board. So a little cardboard, poster board, duct tape, and felt, and voilá! Here's the finished product!

I wanted it to be kind of girly, not like a wedding cake. But fun, not like a 9x13 pan cake or something, and recognizable. I almost put candles on every layer, but decided that would be too much. What do you think? Should I have? The candles are just paper straws with some felt flames glued in.

The nice thing is that I only had to buy the pink felt and white fleece. The sprinkle colors of felt I already had in my stash (it's just the 45 cent sheets of felt).

And this is the support structure. Real fancy, eh? cardboard boxes, posterboard, and duct tape. With a slit in the back to help get it on her. Really though, the back could have been all closed up except for the top circle which needed to bend open to allow her head through. I did put buttons on the back of the fabric so it wasn't gaping open or anything.

That cardboard part will be tossed now so I can easily store the fabric part. When I want to use it again, it will only cost me about $2 to remake the cardboard support structure.

The best part though, is how happy she was when she put it on. She absolutely love it! That is the best reward of all!

I'll post Ezra's costume next.

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Making Costumes!

I have 4 days until our first Halloween party, and the last 2 of those days are scheduled for other things, meaning I have 2 days to turn this into something Trick-or-Treat worthy! Let the race begin!

Anyone want to guess what these 2 costumes will be in 2 days? (Anyone who doesn't know already, that is). Pin It

DIY Reclaimed Wood Headboard

It only took me about a year to get this project done. I acquired some reclaimed wood from my kind brother when he tore down the 30-something year old shed in his backyard. It sat in my backyard for a while, then my husband moved it into the garage and gave me a time limit to finish it. I guess that's what I needed, and I was glad for it.

But I finally tackled it. I loved reclaimed wood for it's color and texture variations, and this wood is good and worn, let me tell you. Some of it was a little warped too. I read up on doing this and brushed it to death, sanded lightly, started to spray it with a clear coat (but didn't like the result so I quit), and so on. I finally decided, this wood is so old and worn, I can't imagine there are any chemicals left in it at all. And the spraying didn't seem to reduce the likelihood of splinters at all, but it's not too bad that way. It's full of old nail holes and cracks and character and I just love it.

I couldn't find quite the right screws I wanted, so I bought black ones and lightly coated them with some bronze/gold spray paint and they turned out the perfect color. On the lighter wood they show a little more, on the darker wood they almost disappear. It's nice. And look at those old rusty nail holes.

Below you can see some of the weathered variations. As for the ends, I haven't treated them yet, but let me tell you what worked fabulously on my mirror frame. I read all about soaking steel wool in vinegar, etc. but that didn't give me as much as I wanted. So I grabbed a gold Sharpie marker that was on my desk and threw that into the mix. It was perfect! a little of the vinegar solution, a little marker, a little more vinegar, and the result matched perfectly the ends that were naturally weathered. So that's what I will do here as well.

Now to get some nightstands...

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