DIY Carpet Shampoo

To be completely honest, my memory is horrible . . . for a month straight I forgot to buy carpet shampoo & my carpet was in desperate need of a cleaning. I couldn't stand looking at it any more, it had to get done but I wasn't going to go into town just to buy one thing. So I decided I would just whip together a carpet shampoo from things I already had at home to save me a trip, & to my surprise it worked just as good, maybe even better than my Kirby shampoo I usually get.

I used

1/2 cup of Tide

1/4 cup of Shout

1/8 of Dawn

1/8 of Baking Soda

Gallon of water (maybe a little more)

I mixed it all together in a big soup pot in the sink & used my measuring cup to pour it into my vacuum & started shampooing as I normally would. It worked great & that shout really got out all my stains.

Shampooing the carpet takes me a good 2 1/2 hours to do my whole house (4 bedrooms, living room & hallway). The trick is to go slow & take your time to really work in the shampoo & suck out the dirt.

 So of coarse when I'm done I treat myself to a little something special.

I hope this helps you if you needed a quick fix to shampooing your carpet without any shampoo on hand. Leave a comment below to let me know if you will use my carpet shampoo recipe.

Easter Desserts

It's Easter, which means it's time to decorate & hide the eggs, but it also means . . . desserts.

I'm a sucker for sweets, I have a major sweet tooth & we love making desserts as a family.

Here are 3 cute & Easter friendly ideas for you guys to make with your little ones at home.

BIRDS IN A NEST

Ingredients:

Peeps

Melting Chocolate (regular or white)

Pretzel Sticks

M&M's 

In our house there is one sweet snack everybody loves . . . chocolate covered pretzels. So this dessert is a little twist off of that. Instead of getting a normal pretzel you will get the small skinny "sticks", break them up (they don't have to be perfect, we get messy when we're in the kitchen. My rule is "it doesn't have to be beautiful . . . it just has to taste good). To melt your chocolate I find it easiest to use a glass bowl (it helps with the heating) be very careful not to over heat. You want to only heat for about 30 seconds at a time before checking on it & stirring. Now take a handful of those broken pretzels & throw them in your chocolate. Once they are coated place them on your parchment paper (I had to use foil because I was out), you want to aim to get them in a "circle" shape, to make them look like a "nest" but really the kids are more interested in hurrying so they can lick the chocolate off their fingers. That is the difficult part . . . now just place your peep in the center & throw some M&M's on there for "eggs".

BUNNIES IN THE DIRT

Ingredients:

Chocolate Pudding

Chocolate Graham Crackers (Oreo's)

Melting Chocolate

This is really just like making mud pudding, the only thing different is your putting a bunny on top instead of gummy worms. With your melting chocolate your going to draw out bunny "butts" the kids thought this was hilarious. We used baby marshmallows for the cotton tails.

Mix up your chocolate pudding & in a separate bowl crumble up your chocolate graham crackers (you can also use Oreo's), now you will layer the pudding & the graham crackers. Just make sure the graham cracker crumbles are on top for the dirt affect. Now that your done lay your bunny butt on top.

Another sweet snack that we all love is Smore's

No in-depth instructions needed on this one, you can easily swap out the marshmallow for a peep.

I hope this was fun & inspiring for you to get your little ones involved in making tasty sweets with you. Leave a comment below & let me know if you have something that your family likes to make together.

DIY Pirate Patch

Pirates are all the rave for my son right now. So of course his birthday party will be pirate theme, his party isn't till May but I like to get things done ahead of time if possible. I thought it would be fun for all the kids to have eye patches to wear at the party . . . plus the eye patches are so cute. Instead of spending extra money on buying the plastic ones, which are cute, I decided it would be cheaper to just make my own, which are just as useful.
 All the supplies I needed was from Hobby Lobby:
sturdy black felt
white elastic
paper (for sketching)
scissors
glue gun

After cutting out your sketch for the eye patch, you can trace the patch onto the black felt & cut them out. I got about 18 eye patches out of one sheet of black felt.

Now that your eye patches are all cut out, cut a slit up the middle (starting at the bottom of the eye patch).

Over lap the slits that you cut & glue it down. This will allow you eye patch to pop up instead of laying flat against your eye.

You also need to cut 2 slits on the edge of your eye patch to tie the elastic straps. Double knot to really secure it in place.

Now your all done . . . & they are super cute for not a lot of cash. Plus the whole project is extremely easy.

I hope this helps you whether you just want to make pirate eye patches to play around the house or your planning a pirate party on a budget. Leave a comment below to let me know if this was helpful & how you & your little one used your eye patches.

DIY Ol' King Cole Costume

Yes, I know I get a little TOO excited when one of my kids has a project to do. When I got a note home saying that my son was having Nursery Rhyme day at school I knew I would have fun making his costume. He wanted to be Humpty Dumpty, but you can only imagen how many other kids thought of that too. I wanted him to be a little more outside the box. So I went through ALL of his nursery rhyme books (all 2 of them) & I decided Ol' King Cole was the best fit. When he found out he was going to be a KING he didn't have any complaints. I don't have a sewing machine so every project I do doesn't require much sewing (I only sew by hand & use fabric glue for the rest).

I went to Hobby Lobby to get the materials:

Red Velvety Fabric

Fur like Fabric

Liquid Stich (or fabric glue) 

Jewels

Gold Foam Paper

White Ribbon

Things I used from home:

Rain Boots

Old Belt

Pole

Foam Ball

Starting with the cape, I used a rectangle shaped piece of the red fabric & on the bottom I trimmed it out with the fur. At the top of the cape I stitched on the white ribbon so I could tie it to hold the cape in place while he wore it. That looked a little plain for my taste so I made a piece that draped in front & put a design on it to cover the white ribbon where it connected.  

The boots were easy, I just covered his rain boots with the red fabric & trimmed the top with the fur. To add a little extra bling (because he was a king) I used the gold foam paper to make buckles on the boots.

For his crown, I just used the gold foam paper & cut out a design I thought looked "crown" like. I trimmed the bottom of the crown in the fur & I glued jewels on it for more bling. Once I glued the jewel on the top of the crown (on the cross part in the front) it became a little too top heavy & it was flopping down. So I just glued a random popsicle stick to the back to hold it up straight & it was fine after that. I used the same gold paper to make his arm cuffs & used ribbon to secure them in the back.

The sector came together quite fast, I used a pole & a foam ball I had lying around. Luckily the pole was already black so it didn't need any attention of it's own. I just covered the ball with the red fabric & used the gold foam paper & fur to add little accents. 

He always wears a belt, so I covered his belt in the fabric & used the gold foam paper to cover the metal buckles.  

All Done. I was pleased with how it all came together & it only took me about a day & 1/2 to get done (I take a lot of breaks). The only thing I can suggest is beware when working with that fur fabric. The fur gets EVERYWHERE & after your done it looks like someone murdered a cat in the house. So have your vacuum handy.

Leave a comment below & let me know if you like to make your own costumes.

DIY Centerpiece

DIY Centerpiece - Movie Theme

My baby sister is graduating high school . . . man, DO I FEEL OLD. For her senior serve she wanted to do a Movie Theme & she needed centerpieces for her table.. Of course I was there to offer my help. When you think of movies you think of  projectors, movie reels, tickets, & clapperboards. So now that I had her wish list in mind . . . I got to work.

My number one rule for crafting is ALWAYS sketch it out before you start anything permanent (I use construction paper).

I used foam boards to make the projector, movie reels, & clapperboard. Trace your sketches onto the foam boards & cut them out with an exact-o-knife. I made 2 projectors, I wanted to double them up to make them sturdy & also I wanted to put little streamers sticking out of the top. I spray painted them all black I using a metallic paint. When they dried I arranged the streamers & then glued the 2 projectors together. I also glued the year (2014) on the front & back with glitter paper to make it more decorative.

Next the reels, I made 4 because I wanted it to look 3 dimensional. I glued 2 reels together using toilet paper rolls (the cardboard tubes) after gluing them I spray painted them with the same metallic paint. Once that was dry I painted the edges silver with sparkles to add more dimension.

 Onto the clapperboard, after cutting it out of the foam board I covered it in glitter paper & used stickers for lettering.

Now it was time to make the "stand" I used a piece of wood. I cut it into two 1 inch pieces & doubled up the boards to make it more sturdy. I nailed it together from the top & bottom. After I put them together I drilled a hole big enough for the pole to sit in.

I also cut a slit in the top of the pole to sit the projector in.

I spray painted the base the same metallic color & I covered the pole in star garland. Then put everything together.

I also made tickets out of gold metallic paper & stickers to lay around the table for extra décor.

I hope this helps you if you needed to make something similar or inspires you to get crafty. Leave a comment below & let me know if this was helpful or inspiring for you . . .

DIY Terrarium For Kids

All children love hands on crafts, it lets them use their creativity & broadens their imagination. Terrariums are extremely cute to decorate the house with & they are plants that don't need much attention. So instead of buying a fake one from the store why not let your little ones make it . . .

We went to Home Depot & got a few "desert" plants, we already had soil & rocks at home, & we picked up a cheap glass bowl from Marshall's.

You'll need:

1 glass bowl

3 - 4 "desert" plants (depending on the size of your container)

{cactus & succulents are the plants we used}

soil

rocks

moss (optional) - we didn't use any

You can get fancy with these if you want to but we kept it simple because the kids were doing most of the work, I just put the cactus in so no one got hurt. Basically you just want to build your terrarium in layers, we did ours . . . soil, rocks, then plants.



The kids were so proud of their work that they did together & it is defiantly "DISPLAY WORTHY" so we put it some place where everyone would see it.  

Don't forget to give it a little water here & there so it doesn't die. I hope this inspires you to do a DIY with the little ones in your life. Leave a comment below, do you have a terrarium somewhere in your home?

Crafts & DIY

Very Simple DIY Canvas Bow Holder

My daughter has a ton of bows & I get tired of putting them in a box & digging through them when she is getting dressed. So I needed a cute way to display them without having to spend any money. I took a cute little canvas she had hanging in her room & decided to make it more useful.

Items Needed:

Canvas

Ribbon

Scissors

Glue Gun

Bows (to hang)

All you need to do is cut a few strips of ribbon (the same length) & spread them out evenly across the canvas. I cut FOUR ribbons so that the bows would have enough room to be spaced out. Flip the canvas over (face down) & glue the strips on. I also folded the end of the ribbons up & glued them, just to make sure no threads would be hanging.

Lastly add bows. . . . Ta Da. . .  Extremely easy right? & costs no money, which is a big plus.

No more digging through boxes of bows and it's a super cute addition to her room décor.