Personalizing Project and Gift!

One of my new favorite words is "repurpose."  I have found some great treasures to repurpose with and share with you.  The first is Scrabble Game tiles.

I just started collecting this series of children's books and needed a fun thing to put on the shelf with them.  Did you know they make great bookshelf decor!?

 These Scrabble book markers are a fun way to break up books on your bookshelf and make a great personalized gift. (My sister was here last week and had just had her birthday.  I made little bookshelf markers with each family member's name on them for her-and she loved them!)

You can also use them to separate genres of books.  

To make yours, you need a Scrabble game and a hot glue gun.  Lay out the word on the stand before you begin to glue.  Center the letters.  Then glue them on.

Simple. Easy. Done!  Enjoy {This Little Project} for yourself or as a personalized gift!

Friday Favorites and Freebies

I hope you are having a Fabulous Friday and find something to fit your fancy :)

Darling skirt pattern and tutorial-you know a little girl that would love this!

Thinking of giving some chocolates as a gift?  Wrap them in this for a cute touch!

The weather is cooling off and it will be time to say goodbye to seeing our animal friends soon.  This is a beautifully done nature coloring book!

This fridge magnets idea is fun!

Check out this faux make-up-perfect for LITTLE girls!

Feel free to snag a "I've been featured" button from the left sidebar if you made the list today!

Game Time!

Tomorrow is National Family Game Night so I thought I would share a few fun and easy games that have been fun for our family (and don't cost anything.)

I picked up these paint chip cards at Home Depot a few months ago when Kay was learning her colors. They are free at the store and with two of each color we used them to make a memory game.
I used a black marker to cover the name of the colors on the back.
It is still a favorite game-with the kids searching for their FAVORITE colors!
Laminating the cards to make them last longer too!

One of our other favorite games is DON'T EAT PETE! It is fun with any age group. I've included links to game boards you can print out and use below. I'm working on making a game board with pictures of our extended family for the kids to use to remember names of family members. It will be so fun to here them say, "Don't eat Grandma!"

How to Play "Don't Eat Pete!"

This is such a great game because it's EASY (and tasty too!)  Just cover each box on the game board (see the links below) with some small food. You can go healthy or make it a treat. Things that work well are: cheerios, raisins, cereal pieces, m&m's, candy corn, etc. Then send one person out of the room and choose which box on the game board is "Pete." When the person comes back in they can eat one at a time until they get to "Pete." Then everyone one yells, "Don't eat Pete!" and you recover the board with snacks and send the next person out. The great thing about this game is every age can enjoy playing.

For game boards you can go with plain, or add a teaching moment into it. This Etsy shop game board would be great for working on number recognition.

If you have girls in your family, check out this American Girl game board :)

And for chocolate fans, this one or this would be for you.

Here is a plain board too, if that is your style.

Have fun playing and spending time with your family! Let me know what your favorite games are too!

Friday Favorites and Freebies

I hope your are having a fantastic Friday and find something to fit your fancy :)

I am a big fan of books, but I've never seen anything like this before!

Yummy granola bars recipe-perfect for our healthy snacking pledge :)

Gift tags that little people can make-right here-brilliant!

You might think you know sidewalk chalk...check out these artists-amazing!  Scroll down to look at past year's works too.

If you aren't familiar with Jan Brett's work, you will love it!  You will want to grab some crayons and color these beautiful pages too!

Be sure to grab a 'been featured' button for your blog on the left sidebar if you made the favorites list today :)

Happy Friday!

Earth-Friendly Shipping (for cheap!)

I promised to share my favorite shipping tricks with you.  I reuse things you get everyday at the store to ship items to family and from my shop.  

There are 3 things I love about shipping things this way:
1-So much more Earth Friendly (reuse, ship, they can recycle your shipping packaging)
2-Inexpensive (other than thread, there isn't anything to buy)
3-So much more personality in the packaging!

I've seen lots of ideas all over the web. This is how I make {This Little Shipping Project}:

I usually take my own shopping bags when I shop. But if I don't have them and I hear, "paper or plastic?" I say "paper."
Then I go home and take the bags apart :)


1-Start by cutting the two sides and the bottom of the paper bag away. This leaves you with just the front and the back of the paper bag.

2-Pick your favorite stitch on your sewing machine and stitch around 3 sides of the bag-leave the top open.


3- Note: If you are shipping small items, simply cut the front and back of the paper bag in half or thirds.

4- I am usually shipping things that don't break easily.  But if I need extra padding, I like to reuse plastic grocery bags.  If you wrap your shipment in them too then you've just made your packaging quite waterproof :)

I think a lot of recycling centers have packaging peanuts that you can get and reuse too.

5- You can sew the top closed or tape it if you have to.  Sewing is more environmentally friendly though.

6- Sometimes I need to ship in a box.  I have been able to pick up boxes easily at the grocery store-they have all sizes.  I love that they get reused this way.  And it doesn't hurt that they are free!

I really love that I can make shipping envelopes in any size I need, simply by reusing materials.

I think it's fun to use rubber stamps to personalize the package even more.   Then just address it and you are ready to go.  Enjoy {This Little Shipping Project}

Pretty Threading Activity

Today we did a threading activity that even turned out pretty :)  This will make a fun playdate activity coming up.  

To make yours, you will need: chenille stems, silk flowers that have been taken apart (think dollar store) and colored straws that have been cut into pieces about 1 inch long.  If you have large sequins those are fun to thread on too!

Jay opted for the nonflower look.  He threaded straw pieces onto 2 of the chenille stems and then we hooked them together to make a necklace.

Kay went for the pretty look with flowers threaded between her colored straws.  The chenille stems are very easy to thread things onto.  The ends of can be kind of scratchy so be sure to bend the ends down before you twist them together to make a bracelet.  

Enjoy this {Little threading Project} with your little one!

Friday Favorites and Freebies

Happy Friday!

Don't forget about Free Chocolate Fridays here!

Have you ever wanted to make your own cross word puzzles or word searches? You can here. This is a lot of fun for parties or showers. We've even made them to include with valentines.

If you have a little one that's learning the alphabet, check out these coloring pages. There are lots of other great free printables on this site too!

This is a great tutorial about how to turn a photo into a stencil.

And here is a tutorial about how to take that photo stencil and put it on a t-shirt!

I hope you find something to fit your fancy! Have a Fantastic Friday!

Password Protected

Tuesday's Tip and Tricks Feature: Remembering your passwords and login

Do you ever go to log into a website, only to have forgotten what your login or password? My mind is already filling with places that need my password:

Amazon, email, picassa, ebay, paypal, facebook, Technorati, bloglines, etsy, bank accounts, cell phone account, etc. there are a TON of places!  

It's a lot to keep track of.  It's possible to memorize the most important, but for the rest I trust the memory to my little notebook.  This little friend sits next to my computer.  When I can't remember the password or log in, all I have to do is flip to the page that I wrote it on when I registered at the site.  No more forgetting.  I feel like I'm in control of all this information I need to access instead of wondering what password I used this time...

This notebook in the photo above is from this etsy shop.  Something fun to write them in might remind you about how handy it will be later.  

By the way, today's date is 9-9-09...it's always fun to have a reason to celebrate-will you be having a number nine party too?

Snack Attack

Yesterday was my husband's first official day back at school (I know-weird that it was Labor Day).  I'm determined to have healthier snacks for him and us this year.  We whipped up this yummy trail mix in no time:

raisins, craisins, peanuts, dried banana chips, sunflower seeds, and just a FEW mini chocolate chips :)

For more yummy trail mix ideas, check these out from ABC's and 123's.  They also have a great list of easy snack ideas for kids.

Happy Healthy snacking!

Friday Favorites and Freebies

A Charming note card that is Free to download and give to someone special :)

What can you make out of paper?  You will be blown away by these paper creations!

Make your own balloon yo-yo. A great after-school activity or party fun.

Check out this awesome kid's kitchen!

And if you have kids in your kitchen, you've got to check out these yummies!

Party HELP!?

It just hit me that Kay's birthday is coming up (I still have a few weeks) which means I need to start thinking about a party. I was just browsing Kara's Party Ideas...sheesh that girl is amazing! She did a barnyard party, which got me thinking that my little Kay's favorite things right now are: PIGS and PINK. The pigs things kind of drives me crazy! But it's her phase right now.

So now I guess I'm on a mission to see what I can do to come up with a pink pig theme for her party. Any ideas? I'm starting to feel overwhelmed already!  

Honestly, getting the details of how to feed and invite everyone is only the first step.

What am I going to do with everyone (and their parents) once they get here??

PLEASE share your tips and ideas!