Edible colored macaroni - Rainy day play!

Today Jonas & I had a blast creating edible colored macaroni. I made macaroni necklaces when I was young, and thought it might be a fun rainy day activity for us today. I came across this edible method online, here, and decided to give it a go.

It's SOOOOO Easy.
1. Get some small plastic baggies
2. Macaroni or other small noodles
3. Food coloring
4. White Vinegar

First, get your kiddo helper situated & give them a teaspoon and a small bowl of white vinegar. Fill the bag with desired amount of pasta, add 1 Teaspoon of white vinegar, add 5-6 drops of food coloring, then seal the bag. Shake shake shake it up, until pasta is well-coated with color & evenly distributed. Then, (carefully) pour out the pasta to dry. ( I used a cookie sheet, covered with foil & papertowels. )

We had a great time, although now my hands are a lovely shade of green. Note for the future....wear gloves. (lol)


What a great helper I have! Can't wait to display our necklaces. But our art has to dry first!

Jonas' Big Boy room inspiration board

Idea board for Jonas' Big Boy room: Still collecting ideas!

First - Some ideas from a room found on Apartment Therapy:

This goes along with antique bed frame we picked up at a garage sale for $5! Still needs a frame, but it will do!
Find some inspiring artwork - maybe from an old storybook.


Storage & Mobiles!

Then some great finds on Etsy:

Stores I love: boygirlparty by Susie Ghrahremani





Her prints are just perfect. Whimsical, but rooted. Jonas loves music & animals & being outdoors. I think he'd like these as much as I do. Then again, he also loves cars, trucks & robots, so we'll see where all of that takes us. :)

Here's some artwork from Guardian of the Night's Etsy Shop:





That's about it for now....more to come later!

Garage Sale Success....sort of

Well, after much stress...we finally got all of our possessions outside for a much-needed, much-anticipated, GARAGE SALE!

I wish I had a picture of it. So wonderful to get rid of so much STUFF!!!!

We had some wonderful friends who brought us some "big stuff" to sell, i/e tables & chairs, a headboard, double stroller, etc., and we advertised diligently on Craigslist. We were busy all morning, and opted to stay open until close to 3:30pm, because people kept coming. We also picked the most beautiful day. It's been over 100 deg. every day this month, but for some reason, a "cold" front came in that day, and we relished the 88 deg. high. Great weather for our shoppers.

We were preparing to close up shop when, we noticed a strange puddle of water snaking it's way through our garage sale, and down to the driveway. We watched with horror as it grew, and realized that our water heater was suddenly...leaking. This was particularly strange, because we had had absolutely no trouble with it at all, the entire 4 years we've lived here.

Ironically (or not, depending on how you look at it) we made roughly $20 less than we had to pay for our brand new water heater. Thankfully Clint was able to stifle the leak until Monday, and temporarily patch us up so that we still had hot water and A/C through the rest of the weekend, allowing us t skip the $158/hour plumbing fee.

Now, thanks to his ability to do pretty much anything he puts his mind to, the leak behind our bathroom toilet is fixed, our sink is no longer dripping & we have a brand new water heater up and running. I have an amazing husband. ;)

In the end, the sale ended up providing the exact amount we needed to repair our water heater (Thanks God!) and we sent 20 trash bags, 6 boxes, a TV & filing cabinet to Salvation Army. We've lost approximately 2 tons of weight from our house & are still in the mood to trim down.

Thanks friends for your tips & support. Thanks Sarah for helping man the garage sale.

This feels so good & we're excited about simplifying our lives even more!

Nautilus

Something I like...too bad it's almost $500

I think this Nautilus lamp is so pretty & whimsical, but it won't be hanging in our home anytime soon. ;)

I'm taking a free online photo editing class from Jessica Sprague at jessicasprague.com.

I'm working on a Mac and have Pixelmator rather than Photoshop, which the class is geared for, but I've still found it really interesting so far.

Here's my first attempt at a framed photo with some word art. It's not perfect, but it's a start. ;)

Photo fun

So, I am embarrassed to say this, but the main reason my blog is without many pics, is because I haven't quite figured out an "easy" way to load them. Compared to my Facebook app in iPhoto, which lets me select a few pics and then automatically uploads them, this is a much more laborious process.

Can you share your tips and tricks for making your layout look snazzy? How do you guys upload your pics?

Clutter Patrol - Help!!!

Okay,

I feel like I've got craft overload. I've been jumping from thread to thread joining crafting blog after blog....why you may ask? I am seriously wanting to make something.

What's keeping me from moving forward? Well....good question! I have too much stuff in my house as it is. Some of you may know that C and I have a serious problem with getting rid of stuff. We're gearing up for a garage sale, but really don't even know where to start. We're totally clueless, and it's so sad.

If you know much about garage sale-ing or even know how to eliminate extra clutter, or organize, I am desperately pleading for your help!!!!!

I hesitate to make anything new when we already have too many things as it is, but I desperately want to create!

Please help! ;)

Garden Adventures - Phase 2 - 15May08 The Outdoor "box"

Many of the transplants didn't make it. The tomatoes all withered away into nothing about 2 weeks after putting them into the bed. The pictures on this page are from around May 15, 2008.
I also sewed some seeds directly into the ground (based on the package planting instructions).

The three large potted containers hold several different things. The outer two containers hold 2 varieties of regular potatos (started from seed potatos & regular potatos grown from sprouting eyes). To do this, you just take the potato as the eyes start to sprout & cut carefully so that the sprout has a cube of potato below it (for food). A book I read said that potted potatoes produce well in pots - so we'll see! As the leaves started to sprout, we gradually kept adding more organic soil, so that only the tops were exposed, until they were so big we no longer were able to keep up!

The center container hold 2 varieties of sweet potatoe (started from sprouting eyes), as well as spearmint from my neighbor Randy's yard & possibly some Basil (not sure if that made it).

Our garden contains:
Regular potatoes, Sweet potatoes, Spearmint, Basil, Summer Squash, Zucchini, Red Bell Peppers, Green Bell Peppers, Tomatoes (we attempted 3 varieties 1 cherry, 1 grape, 1 slicing), Green Beans, Sugar Snap Peas, Sweet Peas, Carrots, Cucumbers, Green Onions, Iceberg Lettuce, Red Onions, Yellow Onions, Spinach.

We chose the spot in our yard that sees the most direct sunlight, paying attention to the growing & sun needs of each plant.

In other areas, we attempted several herbs, as well as a grape vine & a blueberry vine, but none of those ever even sprouted. So sad.

More to come....

Green Thumb - 1 - Planting seeds - 12MAR08

This year I'm attempting a garden. Clint made me a great raised bed & I'm attempting to grow a variety of veggies organically. So far, so good. I'll include pictures & keep you updated on my progress & any learning experiences I might have.

I started a few vegetables from seed (Tomatoes, Red Bell Peppers, Green Bell Peppers, Cliantro, Basil) around March 12, 2008, before the last frost in mid April. I was told that April 15th was a pretty safe date to begin planting in OK, so I decided to wait until the weekend following Jonas' birthday to begin. (Tomatoes, Red Bell Peppers, Green Bell Peppers, Cliantro, Basil)
I put the seeds in these containers & left the lids on until they started sprouting. After sprouts formed I opened the lids, but I kept the plants inside & moved them to a sunny location. This process took about 2 weeks. These pictures were taken around March 24th, 2008.

A few weeks later, I took the plants outside to our shed. We put a timed light on them. Some of the plants got too spindly and didn't make it. I regularly watered the plants in the shed & checked on them.

About 2 weeks before transplanting the plants to the ground, I took them outside for varying amounts of time to get them accustomed to the weather & sun. The books I checked out from the library recommended doing this to prevent "hardening off" - where plants die when introduced to the outdoors.

Around mid-April I began transplanting these plants to my garden.

Stay tuned for more!!!!

Play pumps & Sustainable giving!

Last night at our house church (Injera) we watched an interesting movie

Here is the video we watched:


The premise of the video was that there is a real problem in Africa's drinking water. There are very few uncontaminated sources and many people have to walk for hours carrying the water just to get it back to their homes. The video above demonstrates a new round-about (merry-go-round) play pump. It is designed so that children playing on the merry-go-round are actually pumping water from below the ground - which is then pumped out and collected. This takes the "work" out of a task that has to be done, and provides the community with safe drinking water.

After watching the video, I did some more searching online and found out that WE CAN SPONSOR OUR OWN PLAYPUMP!

Sponsor a PlayPump Water System
Start your own group to join together and sponsor a PlayPump Water System.

Setting up your own group is a great way to get your entire classroom, family, youth group, university or community involved! It’s easy to set up and it allows everyone to contribute to the goal of sponsoring a pump. Everyone can contribute, recruit more help and track your progress towards the goal! Get started! By signing up you get:

* Your own customizable "Sponsor a PlayPump" page
* See all donations to your group
* Download resources to help you spread your word

The cost of one play pump is $14,000. I believe that we really could do this. What would you all think about me signing Bridgeway up for one sponsorship & pooling our creative genius to figure out ways that we can raise money?

Would you be in?

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The article we read and discussed by Robert D. Lupron really spoke to me as well. I really felt as though it was almost an answer to my previous post - how to make giving and going more personal and authentic. The article's purpose is to guide "would-be helpers" toward effective and sustainable giving. If you're up for a new challenge - check out the article Here.