Easy Alphabet

Love this easy pipe cleaner alphabet idea from Aesthetic Outburst. Now that's a great, easy, no-mess winter project for ya!!

New Ideas Tuesday

Project inspiration via Pinterest

Easy Very Hungry Caterpillar snack idea via Cute Food For Kids

 Paper Doll magnets DIY idea via One Pearl Button

 Fun art supply storage DIY via House to Home

Made By Joel - A Few Fun Projects

I absolutely love the Made By Joel website. So many cool ideas for projects for all ages. Joel has changed the website up a little so that now you can search by age group or category. Here's a few of my favorites from my latest search of the website:

This great Cheerios box modern dollhouse:

These little cardboard cutouts:

These dress-up drawings using scraps of fabric:

These handmade books using thick art magazine covers, paper, and a sewing machine:

New Ideas Tuesday

A few of my favorites from this week:

Fun with felt, Dress A Pumpkin, from Pinterest

A nice way to display children's artwork, from Isabella & Max Rooms

Fun painted pumpkin ideas, from Whatever blog

I don't know why, but I really like these mini camera stickers, from the PetaPixel store. 

 This fun Trick-Or-Treat Paper City Halloween craft from Made By Joel

Happy Monday

I had a totally free day to myself today for the first time I think since Bean was born. She's visiting my husband's parents for the week since I'm traveling for work and my husband has house project #2975 part B to finish. I honestly can't remember the last time I had an entire day to myself. I'm so grateful to my mother and father-in-law for this gift!! It's funny though, I thought I'd want to sleep in and nap all day, and instead I found myself running around doing about a thousand things that I can never get done when Bean is around. I haven't stopped all day, I woke up ready to take on the world and napping seems like such a waste of time. I'm just so excited to get to do a few things that I never get to!! Here's what I've done so far in one action packed day!!

• Drop husband off at train at 7am
• Run 3 miles
• Do 2 loads of laundry and 2 loads of Dryel
• Pack for business trip
• Clean basement playroom
• Organize my closet and Bean's closet
• Put away dishes and clean kitchen
• Wash couch cushions and vacuum entire first floor
• Organize living room bookshelf by color (I've been wanting to do this for ages!!!)
• Weatherproof my leather boots for winter which I didn't get to do last year
• Visit the mall and finally find an awesome pair of brown boots which I've been searching for all year
• Finish Bean's desk for her big girl room, apply final coat of Poly finish

And next on the list, pick husband up from train and run to Home Depot to get all the supplies he needs for our closet renovation. Seriously, you can get a lot done in one day with no toddler around! I have to say though, it's really boring stuff. It's all the little things that you wish you could get done, but I much prefer chasing chickens at the farm or playing dress up, and then being so exhausted that you just have to nap. It's good to get all this stuff done and I'm so happy to have all of it out of my head, but I'm glad it's just for a day. Toddlering is way more fun. Speaking of fun, I'm really happy about this picture below which I took the other day. Bean is starting to draw, for real and not just a bunch of scribbles and lines on the page. I'm so excited, this is her very first flower ever. She did it all by herself and was so cautious about the circles and the line for the stem. It was amazing to see her draw something recognizable. She was very excited about it too and now she can't stop drawing. All of a sudden it clicked for her. Art time will be WAY more fun now!! Happy Monday!

New Ideas Tuesday

A few of my favorite new ideas from the last week:

This awesome dresser renovation. But more than the dresser itself is the blog and the shop itself, The Modern Cottage Company. If I lived in the Seattle area I would definitely visit them often. She has an online shop so you can see all of her inventory, and make appointments to visit. Brilliant, I totally love it.  You'll probably see a few posts just for them in the future on my blog.

 This fun little project for toddlers that I will be doing this winter, from A Happy Wanderer.

 This little project using the leaves, via Pinterest, original source unknown.

 A One Fish Two Fish sorting game from Oopsey Daisy.

 And these awesome yummy looking pretzel treats from Squidoo

Fairy Tales

I love this sign, it makes me feel better that all Bean wants to do is read about and play princess everything. It is true, princesses and fairy tales help develop an imagination. We've been doing a lot of story telling in the car lately. I say "Once upon a time a...." And then Bean usually says "a beautiful princess..." and then we both take turns with parts of the story. She loves it, ever since we started doing this in the car we've had very few car tantrums. Anyways, this sign could be a simple DIY project, but can also be purchased on Etsy here:

Made By Joel Dressy Cats

A new very fun and easy project from the guys at Made By Joel, the Dressy Cats found here. Just print on card stock, color and set up with tape or glue. He has a black and white version for the kids to color themselves, or a colorful version if you just want to print and set up. Love it!!