Mommy needs coffee

Good news I can walk on my broken foot again, the down side the house needs cleaning. My husband has done a great job doing both of our jobs, and keeping the home running. Now that I'm up and moving it's time to give a good cleaning. My crafting has had to take a back seat :-(
This morning I woke up to get to work. Time to get a cup of coffee and get started. What do you mean I don't have coffee creamer?

I like this one, it's just caramel, but sometimes hard to find (they like to add vanilla ). Well I was out, so I made some up.

All I needed.
A jar
Measuring cup
14Oz sweetened condensed milk (one can)
1 3/4 cups milk (I used whole milk)
2 tablespoons of caramel ice cream topping
Put the sweetened condensed milk, milk and caramel in jar. Put the lid on the jar. Not hard so far right? Ok here's the hard part, are you ready? Time to shake, shake, and shake. Done

Now time for my cup of coffee, and then get to work.
This website  http://fun2bfrugal.com/homemade-flavored-coffee-creamer has a lot of different flavors to pick from.
I love this creamer and now I'm ready to get to work.

Mom is this trash?

I love making books. This is one of my favorites, it’s quick to make, and you can use reclaimed material. I used scraps of construction paper, cereal box, and some thread. But you could use just about anything. My kids can make this, well besides the cutting part.

I cut the cardboard down to about the size of the paper. I do a final cut so I’m not worried about it being to big.
I folded the paper first. Then the cover by its self. Put the two parts together. I used an awl, but you can use a nail, a needle, anything sharp. I went with a super easy two hole.


Ok time to thread, are you ready?  Start from the inside, go through the top hole all the way through to the outside, then back through the bottom hole into the middle again.  Then just tie the two ends together.

Using my cutting mat, I trim the edges to make it looks nice. You could use sand paper at that time to smooth the sides. You could round the corners.


4 done in maybe 15 minutes. My kids love to get new "special books ", this would make a good gift, and so much more.

Mom can we play slip and slide...

Slip and slid down the stairs that is. Well that's what it felt like anyways. We live in the woods, so our steps always seemed to be damp with some kind of film. Not nice stuff, not at all. We tried grip tape but after about a week or so it would come off. Was I cursed? My dad came to visit and we got to talking about it. More me tell him to be careful. My dad has worked construction most his life, why I didn't think to ask him before is beyond me. He gave me the best idea.
Paint your steps first, while the paint is still wet cover with sand. After the paint is dry brush off the extra sand, and put another coat of paint on it. How easy is that? Now we may have to do it again at some point, but I'm sure it'll last longer then the other stuff.
I thought I would share this with everyone.

Yes it's very red lol

Mom can we make chicks...

Ok again maybe more my idea, but they've been bored and needed something to do. I had this great idea in my head, but it didn't come out as great as I had thought. There was a lot I had to do, and not as much for the kiddos to work on. But I'm still going to share, maybe you'll come up with a better idea, or maybe your kids are older so they can do more.
I started by cutting out little feet, a beak and a small square for it to seat on.

Then got out my trusty hot glue gun and put them together.

Part one done. Now I took a fork and wrap the yarn around it.

After I got a pretty good amount on there, I just wrapped another piece around and tied it around to hold it in place.
Here's the part that was a pain. I had to take scissors to cut all the hoops of yarn. Then its hot glue time again

Here is our family of chicks. I think I'm going to come up with some type of bowl that looks like a nest for them to seat on the kitchen table.

Mom can I have milk...

My little one's use to love milk, but with them starting school it seems like they are always trying to fight a cold. As soon as I hear a cold coming on I hate that question, because I would take them off milk. The kids were great about it, but I know they missed it. Well I got the idea to try soy milk. You should have seem my face when they LOVED IT!!!! My son can be kinda picky. So I wanted to share with you how we make soy milk... Don't tell anyone but it is so easy.
First Soak a cup of dry soy beans in water over night. Drain water off
.
Take one cup on beans and 3 to 3 1/2 of water and blend, and blend. You want to see all the beans cut up to small pieces.

Stain off the liquid from the parts of beans.

OK this may have been a bad time to take a picture. It won't all look like this all the time, it will run out like water. I found this really cool bag somewhere but cheese cloth would work too. You want to ring it out to really get everything good out of it.
Repeat and repeat until you are out of beans. It takes me three times.

You'll see that there is a froth that floats on top. I take a spoon and remove it. Well most of it anyways.

Now put it in a pot and start heating it up. You need to be able to dissolve sugar, and mix in some vanilla. Do you have to add that no, but my family likes it. I add about 1/2 cup of sugar, and a good splash of vanilla, but make it how you want it.
Oh a helpful hint if you go to an Asian market you can get the soy beans so much cheaper.
So mom can we have milk, is no longer a question I fear. Problem solved.

Mom can we make something for our teacher...

Well that's what they would have said, if I hadn't already thought of it, that is :-) In trust they have a great teacher and I'm room mom, so I wanted to do something nice for her at the end of the year. Here's what I came up with, I'm calling it "why you do this job" book lol. We all know sometimes we have bad days and needed to remember why we do it. I know I do.
I started with 12x12 cardstock,I cut it done to about 12x9. No need to be perfect, you just want it over lap your book by about an inch on three sides.

Have you checked out Sea Lemon? Can I ask why not? Ok check her out she's on YouTube and may other places. Back on point, that's where I got the idea for the tiger print (our mascot is a tiger). So with my trusty sharpie I got to drawing. I made two, know they're not the same, I know. I've never seen a tiger (on tv) that is uniform lol.

I did trim down my paper a little, so that my pattern looked right. Ok glue stick time. I'm sure there's a better glue for this, but it's what I have and seems to work just fine. You want to really cover you book. Get a real nice layer, trying not to get clumps. Now line your paper up and press it down.
Now to fold the paper over and give it a nice edge. What I did was make small cuts in the corners. Now more glue. I like glue :) I start with folding over the corners, then the top, and side. That stag is done.
 
Inside time. Cut another paper About an inch smaller than your note book cover. I did round two sides so that it looked pretty. OK now glue, glue, glue.

And there you have it!!! The one next to it is another one I made with just some scrapbook paper I really liked it.

That part is all done now. Now to fill it. I know at some point I said I was making this for their teacher right? lol I want to get each child in class to write a little note and draw a picture for her, and let other parents write a note if they want. I'm just going to glue them into the book once I get that far.

Mom Can I help...

I guess I got bored and tried to walk on the top of my foot, and for my effort I got two broken bones. One of the hardest things is that I have to stay off of my foot for 3 weeks. I knew it would be hard not getting up and doing all of things I normally do, but I never thought I would have so much guilt. Yes we're a family and we work together, but my 6 year olds should not be the ones taking care of me. Even when they go play they come out every few minutes to check to make sure I'm ok and don't need anything. Isn't that my job to be the one taking care of them? Most Sundays they spend the day with their grandparents, but even that's been hard to get them to do. "But what if you need something and we're not here". That one gave me such mixed emotions. On one hand it's great their that caring, but they shouldn't have to worry about me. My husband has had to pick up the slack and do both of our jobs. Yes I'm sad that everybody's had to do so much to help me, but it sure has given me a whole new appreciation for my family.

Mom what key is it again?

My kids are at the age where they want to help with everything, and really its pretty nice to have their help. Right now they have been working on trying to unlock the doors for me, and its pretty helpful when you have your hands full of bags. Until you get to the "what key is it again."

Here's a picture of what my keys look like, and we wonder why they can't find the right one.
So I loved the idea of making the house key stand out in some way. There are a lot of tutorials out there, so I'm not going to make another. This is the tutorial that I used. www.cremedelacraft.com/m=1 The thing I did different was I placed two coats of mod podge gloss over it after I was done with the floss, and let it dry.
I liked the shimmer it added.I made one for my truck key too... Why I don't know because it was pretty. You can kinda see it behind the purple one, it's red to match lol.
Yes I know I could just go get a key made that looks different, but as my husband has said many times "why don't you just buy something like that?" (said in my best male voice). To me the answer is easy, I want something that's me, something I made, something personal. I hope this helps you.