Sep 28, 2011

Short Survey enters you to win $500 visa card


HSLDA needs your input to help them better serve you and the homeschooling community! Follow the link below to their short, six-question survey and you’ll be entered in a drawing to win a $500 Visa gift card.
http://www.hslda.org/Survey/mvt/Default.aspx?rid=29667

Survey and drawing entries must be submitted by October 9. Winner will be drawn on Tuesday, October 11, 2011, and will be contacted by email. If we do not receive a response within 72 hours, a new winning name will be drawn. Must be age 18 or older to participate. By entering this contest, you agree to have your email address added to HSLDA’s email list. You may unsubscribe at any time.

Sep 27, 2011

Flowers

So not having a little girl I have never really gotten into the flower headbands, and flower clips. I have been head first in bow ties and ties for my shop. Well with this craft fair coming up I decided I needed to broaden my horizon. So here are my first three flowers!


What do you think?

New Fall Colors!

New Fall Colors!


Here are my two new fall colors, Cranberry, and Burnt Orange.
I am really excited I have my first craft fair coming up November 26th!
If you are interested in purchasing a bow tie check out my shop at

Sep 26, 2011

Sharing Monday 26

I totally spaced Sharing Monday today, I will add the features later.

Sep 24, 2011

Week 3 Letter Hh

This week we had two sick boys! Sam had a cold and Colten also had a cold but also was teething and not very happy. I figured we wouldn't do school this week but Sam insisted so we just took it slow each day.
Sam loves cutting here he is cutting out his scripture for the week.
We are still doing laundry this week for our life skill but now we have added hanging shirts, as he masters one thing in laundry (like folding dish towels) I add something new, he is still folding pants with the shirts because he hasn't quite gotten it down, he still needs help. But surprisingly he learned really fast how to do the hangers!
I look forward to finally being able to let him really help with laundry.
This week he really enjoyed the color puzzle he matches the hippos to the color on the paper.
His coloring and writing has really taken off, he hate coloring before and at church when his class would color he would just sit in a chair and watch them, now he loves coloring and making pictures!
This week we did a scavenger hunt around the house for things that start with H, we had a hard time finding things we got, Hammer, Hat, Hippo toys, and House but it wouldn't fit in the box :)
His letter H for his ABC book, the capital H had hand prints, and this one we did Happy Faces.
I didn't get a picture of it this week, but I got the rice back out and had Sam scoop it with a tablespoon measure into a baby food jar and then let him just play with the rice. He actually did much better this week keeping it in the tub and not on the ground.
I had someone comment and ask how I have time to make everything, I really and struggling with this, but I have found that if I plan four weeks in advanced, I do a better job of staying ahead, I am trying to devote one night a week to planning home school lessons and it seems to be helping. I also rely a lot on prepared activities from the blogs listed below, I use the members page from 1+1+1=1and bought the letter of the week from Confessions of a Homeschooler, these help tons!
This week the boys came and helped me cut out, and laminate 30 FEET of school stuff for the next four weeks! Thank goodness I found a cheep place to do lamination!

Blogs/websites I used to help make this week successful:
Confessions of a Homeschooler (I bought her letter of the week download and I really love it!)

Sep 20, 2011

First Pair of Longies

I made my first pair of longies, for those of you who don't know what longies are (I had no clue a month ago!) they are long pants made out of wool, that can be used for a diaper cover, at this point we are just going to use them for warm pants this winter for Colten, but I love how they turned out!

There was a little hole on the back so I added some contrasting wool and then added more of the same color, I think it looks like a little tale, Stephen said it looks like a bulls eye.
I couldn't get him to look at the camera for the life of me

With the help of dad her is a font view!

and the super cute back again, its big for two reasons, one I wanted it big so he could grow into it this winter, and two because he is wearing a disposable and his cloth diapers are more bulky so it will fill it out more!
For my first try I feel it was pretty successful,

Chocolate Nutella Cupcake with Caramel Frosting Filling

I made cupcakes the other day for a neighborhood party and wanted to experiment, I decided on making a chocolate cupcake with a filling, I noticed that we had a bunch of Nutella that needed to be used up soon and decided to try making a Nutella chocolate frosting to top the cake, it was SO yummy! Sam helped me put the pearls on and mix the ingredients it was lots of fun to do together!
The Nutella made the frosting a little grainy but it still tasted really good, I just made a basic butter cream frosting added 1/2 cup Nutella before adding the milk and added just the right enough amount of milk to make it smooth, I did add a little cocoa powder to make it more chocolaty.
For the cake I just used a chocolate cake mix, and added cocoa and sugar because it was really bland. Now the filling is the best part of this cupcake, but sadly I didn't get any pictures of it! I made a creamy caramel frosting, the caramel sauce made by this recipe is amazing, and once you add the powder sugar it is even more amazing. It was really hard to throw away the extra (the recipe made lots more than I needed) but after a few naughty spoonfuls I tossed the rest.
You can follow the recipe here I followed it all except I let it boil a little over the 2 min, a reviewer said it would give it a stronger caramel flavor and it tasted great so I would recommend giving it another minute just don't let it burn!
Enjoy!

Sep 19, 2011

Giveaway Winner!

It is time to announce the winner of the UPrinting stickers thanks to random.org comment number 11 is the lucky winner

Taylor said...
I want to use them for my etsy store!

I hope you will enjoy your stickers, I am looking forward to getting mine in the mail! Thanks everyone who entered!

Crystal

Sharing Monday 25

I was really excited to see how many people joined the linky party last week! Here are my top four, but there were lots of great submission so if you didn't have a chance to check them out you should!
These homemade bagels look amazing! I really want to try the recipe for these bagels from Diaries Of A Whimsical Wife

The Brown Eyes Have It shared this cute teen room redo, I love this little nook where they put a bed. I also love the black and lime green!

My sweet tooth has been very naughty lately, and when I saw these Praline Cupcakes by Lady Behind the Curtain I just knew I would have to give these a try!

Domestic Deadline shared how she composts when she doesn't have room for a garden at home...sounds like out house :)

Sep 18, 2011

Week 2 Letter T

We start our morning now with prayer and the pledge of allegiance, Sam really loves this part, and after just two weeks of doing it he is already memorizing parts of the pledge. He always makes sure to remind me if we have forgotten the flag!
Our home school routine is pretty relaxed at this point, we tend to wear pjs a lot and many days now we start school with calender then wait until Colten takes a nap to do our work boxes that way Sam isn't distracted by the silly baby!
This week was letter T, Sam's favorites still are cutting, gluing, stapling, and puff balls. Here he is sorting big T and little t.

Our life skill this week was folding pants and shorts, he still needs more practice with this but is getting really good and was SO excited when I let him fold all the towels and shorts in our last load of laundry, and I loved the help!
I had tried putting numbers on baby food jars and having him count them as he put them in the jar. Lets just say it was a very frustrating day, and I knew he wasn't ready for it, I changed it up and put colored post its on the jar that matched his pompoms and he scooped or used his tweezers to put them in the right jar. He loved it!
Don't mind the binki and Cheerios on the table those are my tools to keeping the crabby baby happy when he wont take a nap.
Sam doing clip letters again, he is getting really good at them!
This week the scripture is Exodus 20:15, here Sam is making the stone plates, we worked on all the commandments this week a little, he has been happily running around saying "thou shall not steal!" especially when Colten tries to take his toy.
Some days Dad is there to help tame the wild baby (who is now crawling!) but that silly little guy never takes his eyes off us!

Blogs/websites I used to help make this week successful:
Confessions of a Homeschooler (I bought her letter of the week download and I really love it!)

Sep 12, 2011

Bow Tie Label

I am trying to make new labels for my bow ties that I sell, and I want a cute little animal to go on my labels I have played around with a few ideas and I would love some input!
Cat
Baby Penguin
                       
Owl
Adult Penguin

They aren't perfect or finished just rough ideas, let me know which one you like the most, or other ideas you might have! Thanks for any input!

Sharing Monday 24

I really hope everyone was just gone because of the three day weekend, we still had lots of fun posts just a little less than normal, here are my top 4, check them out and then link up anything fun you have done recently!
I love this little beach dress from Wee Share, if only I had a little girl!
I really love subway art but haven't really gotten into it because buying it cost way to much and just printing it off the computer didn't look very cute, but when I saw the tutorial on how to make your own distressed subway art by From Gardners to Bergers I was inspired!
I love these Green Eyed Monster Slippers, I know Sam would love them! Thank you Domestic Deadline for sharing them.

Lastly you can check out Annemarie's Breiblog to see how she made these super cute flowers, she even has the instructions so you can make them yourself!

So link up have fun, and if you haven't had a chance to check out my giveaway its open until the end of the week!

Sep 8, 2011

First Week Of School


YAY we started our first week of school! I was very nervous and anxious for this day but I enjoyed it so much, and so did Sam!
Here is our Calender board where we start our day at. My dad made it for me its a big metal sheet attached to some wood, Sam loves using the magnets on it!
We do Calender, Weather, Scripture, Days of the Week, Color, Letter and Sight Word of the week.
My method is a big mix of different homeschooling styles, right now we are doing a little of Montessori, Work Box, and Thomas Jefferson. Here is our work box system each box has a number with Velcro that when Sam is done he takes it off and puts it on his chart (this is one of his favorite things to do!).
For each work box Sam takes the entire drawer out and uses it for a tray, here Sam is learning how to fold wash cloths, he has gotten really good at this!
Sam loved the rice play, we did pouring rice and scooping rice, this did get rice all over my floor but the drawer with the tall sides did help hold in some of the rice.
This week our letter was L l I am following 1+1+1=1 outline for letters, it goes by easiest to write to harder. I signed up for her members only sight and have really found it and her printable to be very useful!

Sam really loves the cutting box each box is set up ready with everything Sam needs to finish it.

After getting tired of rice everywhere I decided part way through the week to change out the rice for pom poms using tweezers and using a tablespoon for scooping
Matching colors

It has been a great week, very busy, I have really learned what Sam is really confident in and what he needs lots of help with. I am excited for the week to come.

Blogs/websites I used to help make this week successful:
Confessions of a Homeschooler (I bought her letter of the week download and I really love it!)