Cheap and Adorable T-shirt Makeover

It's that time of year again.  Actually, in our case, since it's not actually a yearly thing due to the stress I heap upon myself and coordination required to get everyone together and looking halfway decent, it's more like that time of every-three-years again.

Family Pictures

I've combed Pinterest for hours in search of original photo ideas.  I know, "Pinterest" and "original" don't belong in the same sentence.  Nevertheless, I make no claims to originality, and I've already confessed to being a pinposter.

While scouring for pose ideas and outift ideas, I came across this one for Kami.

Our colors are:

Or something like that (the last one is gray, not light blue)

I got the idea here: http://tearosehome.blogspot.com/2010/03/tutorialruffle-shirt-why-not-vertical.html

I purchased two orange shirts on major clearance from DownEast.  Each was marked down to $2.50, so the finished ruffled shirt and a headband cost only $5.00!!!

The end result?

Once again, I have Pinterest to thank for feeling so frugal and crafty and awesome!

I'm a Pin-poster!

I've found a new hobby (addiction, if you ask my family) called Pinterest.  It's this awesome virtual bulletin-board where you "pin" ideas you find anywhere on the internet.  You categorize the stuff you like into "boards" like "party ideas," "home decorating," " recipes," "favorite quotes," etc.  Because of Pinterest, I am able to feel incredibly creative, witty, and organized, when all I've really done is sit in front of the computer for three hours "pinning."

At last count, I have 28 different boards on which I've pinned 692 things.  I'm too embarrassed to admit how much time I spent gathering those pins, but I'm proud to say that, as of today, I have actually done 12 things that I've pinned!  I think this makes me officially a "Pin-poster"--someone with the ability to copy, re-create, or duplicate an idea they saw on Pinterest.  That's a term I made up, so don't go trying to use it on Words with Friends.

My favorite re-creation is this awesome monster birthday cake:

I love it for several reasons, not the least of which is that it looks just as good as the original I found here: http://www.makoodle.com/monster-cake/. I even made a little improvement by covering the skewers with pipe-cleaners!  On top of that, I actually used TWO pins, because I got the frosting recipe here:

http://whipperberry.com/2011/08/recipe-simple-vanilla-buttercream.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Whipperberry+%28WhipperBerry%29

My sweet friend, Heather, from http://whipperberry.com/, is an amazing blogger, creative genius, mom, and all-around super-woman.  I aspire to be her. Every time I go over to her house there is something new and awesome that she has created.  In other words, Heather doesn't just pin stuff and call it a day, she creates the stuff the rest of us pin!  Since among other things, Heather is a food photogrphaer, one of her favorite books is:


I always joke with her that I'm going to write my own book one day.  I'm going to call it "From Pixel to Plate--Lost in Translation."  The book will be filled with all my recipe fails because every time I try to re-create a recipe, it NEVER EVER EVER looks like the picture in the book.

Maybe I won't have to write the book after all, because today I made somethine awesome!  I feel so accomplished!

I have to thank Jake for having a birthday for which I could justifiably create my monster cake.  Jake is my daughter's boyfriend, and he's nineteen.  He may have liked the cake better when he was five, but he was kind enough to indulge me and pretend like the cake was the best he's ever had (okay, he didn't actually say that, but I saw it in his eyes.)

It's possible I'm emotionally scarred when it comes to cake making.  The last time I put as much time and energy into a birthday cake was the "Great Princess Cake Debacle of 1998."  That was the year I spent the better part of two days building a stunning "Belle" cake for Kacey, who was then four.  After the singing, candle-blowing, Kacey said, "Thanks for the cake, Mommy, but next year can you make one I like?"  It's been Costco cakes ever since.

With several years of thickened skin and the wonders of Pinterest as encouragement, I was ready to try my mad skills again.  It was Jordan's birthday earlier this week, so I casually asked if I could make him a cake and what kind he'd like.  His response was, "Nah, a Costco cake is fine."  He was only two when I made the Belle cake.  How is it possible the Belle cake was so bad that even he isn't ready for a home-made cake?

Temple Picture Project

A few weeks ago we made these awesome temple pictures in Relief Society:

During the project my friend commented how awesome it would be to have a whole wall of temple pictures. Of course, I went straight home and started planning how I was going to do it.  On a tight budget of exactly $0 for craft and home decorating, I knew I was going to have to get creative!  I couldn't afford the $30-$120 per picture it cost at the activity, so I starved my family for a week and used grocery money to make my own temple pictures for less!

Newport Beach

Los Angeles (nice iPhone blurring technique)

Kirtland (Kami's favorite)

Nauvoo (we went there a couple years ago for a family reunion)

St. George

Now I just have to finish the others (Oakland, Las Vegas, San Diego, and Logan) so I can hang these on my new temple wall!

The pictures were taken by Altus Photo Design and can be found here :  http://www.flickr.com/photos/31543164@N08/tags/ldstemple/ 

I double checked to make sure it was legal to download the photos and use them for myself before I had them printed at Costco.  The prints cost $.39 to $2.99 each depending on the size.  The smallest print is the Los Angeles (4x6), and the largest is the Las Vegas (6x18 which I haven't completed yet.)

After Costco, it was off to Home Depot, where I had to give the wood-cutting employee a free lunch at our sub shop (shameless plug here: FIREHOUSE SUBS on Flamingo and Ft. Apache in Las Vegas.) so he wouldn't charge me $.50 per cut for the 19 cuts I needed on the 4x8 piece of wood I planned to use to back the pictures.

While at Home Depot, I utilized my big-girl panties and sawed close to a million pieces of various widths of baseboard moulding to use for my frames.  The thinnest is 3 1/2" and the widest is 6"--I bought the pre-primed mdf because it seemed like less work than the non-primed stuff.

With my backing and moulding in tow, I headed to the paint counter where I spent something like two hours deciding which black was the "right" one--who knew there were so many shades of black?!?  And seriously, those little samples of wood that demonstrate the "sheen" are useless.  I spent another hour before I finally settled on semi-gloss.

The following morning, I woke my teenage son up around 1:00 in the afternoon with the sound of power tools.  Jordan was geniunely concerned enough to call my husband at work to ask if it was okay that mom was using a power miter saw in the back yard.  I guess he was afraid it wasn't safe enough to just come ask me...

With all my pieces cut and only one or two minor mistakes, I was ready to use another PINTEREST tip!

What a clever idea!  A rubber-band around the paint can kept the whole can nice and clean which totally satisfied my "keep-my-projects-neat-and-tidy" ocd.  Okay, that's not technically a form of ocd, but I have it anyway.

Here are my cut frames neatly resting on plastic cups on newspaper on my dining room table:

I didn't take pictures of staple-gunning the frames together, but I will next time, because it's not as easy as it seems.  You definitely need a frame thingamagig that holds the frame perfectly square while you staple.  The correct term may be "band clamp" but I'm not sure.

I can't wait to use this idea I found on PINTEREST to hang my pictures!



http://www.centsationalgirl.com/2010/05/wall-art-whats-your-style/

I Forgot My Punchcard

Jordan began working at our family business the day we opened.  Even though our food is seriously amazing, Jordan has developed a habit of frequenting the bagel shop next door nearly every morning before work. 

This is how it goes when Jordan walks up to the counter:

Jordan: "Dangit!  I forgot my punchcard, and it was full!"
Employee: "We don't have punchcards.  You know that, Jordan."

Feeling less than defeated, Jordan pays for his bagel and walks next door to work, only to try again the next day.  When the next day rolls around, and Jordan strolls back to the bagel shop.

Jordan: "Dangit! I forgot my punchcard, and it was full!"
Employee: "We still don't have punchcards, Jordan."

Apparently, this has been going on for months--at least the 5 months we've been open, with little variation in the routine or the conversation about punchards.  Needless to say, the bagel shop employees know Jordan well!  Finally, yesterday, the exchange went Jordan's way!

Jordan: "Dangit! I forgot my punchard, and it was full!"
Employee: "Jordan, we don't have punchcards, but today the bagel's on me.  Don't tell my manager."

Sometimes I love the persistence of that boy!

Chocolate Scriptures

Today's Young Women lesson was on scripture study (Manual 3 Lesson 30.)  As usual, I have other creative bloggers and pinners to thank for making lesson time more palatable.  What's more palatable than chocolate?!?  NOTHING

Armed with this:

I made these:

Then these:

Fortunately, I thought I was teaching the entire Young Women, but I only taught the Laurels, which meant there were 20 of these little gems left over for my family to eat in 1/100th of the time it took me to make them.

As usual, I cried pretty much throughout the whole lesson.  The crying had nothing to do with the burnt fingers from using the hot glue gun to secure the chocolates to the cardstock.  It had more to do with the lesson itself.  Instead of using the case studies from the manual where examples are given and the girls are supposed to come up with scriptures that apply, I felt prompted to share personal journal entries about scripture study.

It was a good opportunity for me to read back through my journal and see specific examples, ones I hadn't thought of in a long time, of where the scriptures had made a difference to me.  I found examples of times when I found answers to specific questions and times when I didn't necessarily find answers but found peace just from reading.  I found examples of insights and understandings that "suddenly occured" to me.  I found the entry where I wrote that I wanted to be better about scripture study because I wanted to come to know my Savior.  I wrote that I no longer wanted to read simply out of obedience and simply to be an example to my kids.  I wanted to get to the point where I truly desired to read and could truly know my Savior.  It was about nine months after that entry where I found this:

"I have never felt as much excitement about the scriptures as I do right now.  I have never had the genuine desire to learn that I have now.  Before, reading was about obedience.  Now, it is about really wanting to read and to KNOW.  I truly love the scriptures."

I had all but forgotten about the first entry where I expressed the desire for my scripture study to be something more.  I just wanted to share with the girls real-life examples of what the scriptures can do in a person's life. I think it worked.

There was that One Time...

It's significantly easier for me to write about difficult experiences long after they actually occurr.  It's not that I don't want to share such experiences, but I live with the illusion that my perspective softens over time, and I can share things with a little more humor and insight.

It's probably just a survival mechanism.

Perhaps there's a little part of me that thinks if I share old stories, it looks like everything is better now and I've learned something or gotten better at child-rearing. I hate to admit it, but crazy stuff still happens around here.  You just won't hear about it until something else even crazier happens and what's happening today no longer seems so bad.

Not long ago, during a family car trip, Jason and I were discussing how we could trust our third child to babysit our fourth without worrying, yet we couldn't trust Jordan, who is older, to babysit without the fire department showing up.  Since we weren't actually talking to any of the kids, they heard every word we said, and Jordan was livid.

He angrily responded to our lack of trust by shouting, "I have NEVER done anything that caused the fire department to show up at the house!  A few cop cars, maybe."

The car was silent.

Then Jordan spoke a little more quietly, "Oh yeah, there was that one time..."

I long for those days when it was just "that one time."

 

The Fight and the Magic of Superglue

Disclaimer: I am not a nurse, and any rememdies you read here are not necessarily recommended by the medical community, but I wouldn't have changed a thing.

Near the end of Jordan's first semester in high-school, I received a call from my good friend, Dean Diane, at the school.  I didn't have the choice of ignoring the call and hoping Dean Diane would try Jason's cell-phone because Jason was out of town.  I seems like Jason is out of town for a LOT of these incidents... Do the incidents happen because Jason is gone, or does Jason conveniently leave when he senses something brewing???  Hmmm...something to ponder.

Dean Diane didn't waste time on pleasantries when she opened with, "You need to come pick Jordan up.  He's been in a fight, and he needs stiches."  I blew air through my bangs and contemplated whether or not I wanted the story right then or whether I wanted to just go get Jordan and wring his neck.

I arrived at the school some twenty minutes later to find Jordan slumped in a chair with a giant gash above his right eye.  To his credit, according to Jordan's teacher, Jordan didn't punch the other kid.  This, I knew, was nothing to celebrate, because I knew that whatever Jordan had done to deserve getting punched, it was probably way worse than punching the kid back.

To make a long story less long, Jordan bugged the other kid by spraying him with white-board cleaner.  When the other kid told Jordan to knock it off, Jordan translated it to something like, "How funny.  I like getting sprayed.  Do it again."  When Jordan didn't quit, the other kid spit on Jordan, which Jordan considered an unpardonable sin and way beyond punishment for drenching the kid in white-board cleaner. 

So, Jordan spit back.

And got punched.

The other kid got suspended, and I felt sorry for him.  Jordan got to go sit in the nurses office and get pitied by passersby who didn't know better.

Unfortunately for Jordan, it was late enough in the afternoon that our doctors office was closing and didn't have time to stitch him up.  I wasn't about to spend whatever it would cost to take Jordan to Quick-Care, much less the emergency room, so I did the next best thing.

I took him home and shaved his eyebrow.

I know I didn't need to shave his eyebrow, but I convinced him I did in order to keep the area sanitary for the next step, which was Superglue.  I remembered the time Jordan split his lip open on the trampoline spring, and the doctor used superglue instead of stitches to put it back together.  What I didn't know was, it was "medical grade" superglue.  Oops.

My hope was the shame of a shaved eyebrow would be a little reminder to Jordan.  Fortunately, I didn't cause any damage by using regular Superglue, but I did save a boatload of money.