Just a heads up, incase you are at all inclined to join, we are doing another no spend month. We did no spend September and I can say with certainty that it was THE BEST month for our family ever.
(fun and free!)
I got the idea from the NW Edible Life blog. We didn’t actually spend no money. We gave ourselves a $400 budget, and I summarized our spending on this post. We ended up spending $412.49 plus re-occuring monthly costs (dance class, mortgage payment, etc.). It was a great exercise for us, and not just for financial reasons. When we decided to account for every penny we were no longer going to “run errands” or “pick something up”. We didn’t wait until the last minute to figure out what to eat for dinner. We had to plan it out. We didn’t want to drive anywhere because of gas. This meant a lot more family time, lots of walks and biking. Of course it was different in September, when there was so much bounty to be had, for cheap. We’ll see how it works out in April.
Something else I’m trying is #100happydays. I’m super excited about this one too. Everyday you find something that makes you very happy, take notice of it, and document it somehow (instagram, facebook, etc.). I’m planning on doing a weekly roundup of our favorite happy things. This goes great with my word of the year: Smile. The site states that 71% of people starting this project fail because they don’t have time to be happy. I am going to make time. How cool would it be to be known as the happiest person on the block? Sounds good to me!
I also found 40 bags in 40 days (a bit late). And I have been doing some spring cleaning. I may not fully participate on that one, but I love the idea. So even if you’re not interested in these three things you can find something fun to join in online. There is so much good stuff out there! Have you participated in an online group activity like this? I’d love to hear about your experience. And I’ll let you know how we’re doing as the month (and 100 days) go on.
This Moment
Joining in on Amanda’s this moment project. A moment from the last week. A slice of life.
Non toxic cleaner to make with your kids
Tuesday had a blast making a bunch of non toxic all purpose cleaner a few days ago. I think getting to use SHARPIE (!!!) on the labels might have been her favorite part.
I swear I shared this at some point on this blog, but searching comes up with zero. And I was asked for my favorite recipes and tips so here you go!
(Tuesday October 2012)
I first tried this with Tuesday when she was 3.5. I had made really simple cleaners, vinegar & baking soda together and Bj was not a fan. He didn’t think they cleaned that well so we kept getting Method and I kept saving the bottles to fill someday. This is the original recipe (from the now defunct Natural Home Magazine):
All-Purpose Cleaner and Disinfectant
2 cups hot water
1/4 cup white vinegar
1/2 teaspoon washing soda (similar to, but more caustic than, baking soda)
15 drops tea tree essential oil
15 drops lavender essential oil
Combine all ingredients in a reusable spray bottle and shake well. To use, spray on surfaces, especially cutting boards, countertops and toilets. Wipe with a dry cloth.
One thing I don’t do any more is mix in the bottle. I find it much easier to mix in a large measuring bowl and pour it through a funnel into the bottles. One reason is the chemical reaction of the washing soda and vinegar; it makes lots of gas. It’s a little violent so it’s easier (and more fun) to deal with in an open container.
I basically used that same recipe this time, but modified it a bit. I had infused some white vinegar with citrus (after reading this post by NW Edible Life) so I used that instead of plain white. Since the vinegar now has some oil in it not as much essential oils are needed. Tuesday also wanted to try a minty smelling one, so a few of these bottles used peppermint instead of lavender (and not the full 15 drops).
We used Method bottles (and if you know me and you have some extras we’d be happy to take them off your hands and re-fill them with natural cleaner!). They hold about three cups of cleaner, but I wouldn’t fill these to the top. The labels peel off these easily, but leave a residue. I used scraps of vinyl (colored contact paper would also work great, and is readily available) to cover it up. Before peeling off the backing I let Tuesday decorate them (any excuse to use a Sharpie!). I also wrote what was in the bottle.
We gave some of these as gifts and kept a couple. I’d try to use them up in six months or less. We had some hanging around from the first experiment and it had separated a bit. So how do these work? Amazing! We love them. Bj loves them! You can tweak the smells to your liking, so try it!
*SAFETY NOTE* Washing soda is all natural, but it’s not all safe. I would do this as a really closely supervised activity, and keep way out of reach of a kid who might put things in their mouths. When Tuesday was three her bottle just had baking soda in it, to be extra safe. The essential oils are also very potent. We had both doors open and a nice breeze going through the house when we made these.
Scrapbooking (Memory Keeping)
Why do I want to scrapbook. I had to ask myself this as I looked at loads of giant albums and drawers and cupboards full of stickers, paper and embellishments. Is there a point to all of this? Will anyone care about it all?
I’m actually starting this entry (or whatever it turns out to be) from our big comfy rocker recliner while Bennie nurses. Well she’s not really nursing. She is, but she’s more sleep nursing. She does this when she gets up from a nap too early and really wants to go back to sleep, but can’t on her own. Tuesday used to sleep nurse a lot, it was her only way of napping… FOR A YEAR.
What does that have to do with scrapbooking? Well I’m sitting here nursing and playing with Bennie’s soft baby hair. It’s amazing and I love it. It won’t be like this forever. And really I don’t want it to. I want to love it now, remember it forever, and move on to the next thing that happens. It’s a lot easier to feel this way the second time around. For me parenting only gets better. I’m more confident. My girls get more amazing, because they more fully develop into their lovely selves.
I think memory keeping is wonderful. It’s certainly the more in vogue way to talk and think about preserving memories than calling myself out as a scrapbooker. It’s also more encompassing, certainly taking photos, updating a status with a child’s quote, or blogging are all memory keeping; and I support them all. Today I am talking about scrapbooking. Physical books to flip through. Journaling to read. Products to play with. The latter may not mean so much to some. But for me it’s often the hook I need.
I found a pack of Ki Memories paper at Goodwill (unopened) for 99 cents. I was so excited. This was my favorite line back in the day (maybe 2003?). I loved it, I used some and I saved a lot, not wanting to use my special paper. When I found this pack I immediately wanted to sit down and scrapbook. I just felt an itch to tell all these stories. I love doing Project Life, and for sure it’s the favorite of everyone around here to look through. But there is something about just focusing on one picture or set of pictures and one story that I love.
It takes up more space yes, but now that I do Project Life style scrapbooking I don’t feel the need to scrapbook anything else “traditionally” unless it speaks to me and I really want to. I don’t share all my layouts, I’m not looking for praise or publication (A decade ago that was big motivation for me), I just want to sit down with the memories for a while and record them in a fun way.
I don’t think that my girls are going to want all these layouts or albums. Some people get hung up on that. I mean, “What are we scrapbooking for, ” is a huge (and valid) question. Bj and I had to deal with all of Grandpa’s scrapbooks (12 boxes full). We didn’t keep many as they were. Of the actual family scrapbooks we kept ZERO as they were. Oh we loved looking through them and pulled out a few pictures, but most “layouts” were of long ago parties and people we didn’t know and never will know anything about (he was not so great at journaling a story for us to follow). The albums were in the old books which were ruining the photos, so they had to be taken out anyway. We kept a book of his personal military service history, and a set of more genealogical type albums.
I think my girls may want to keep their baby books. I love looking at mine, and it doesn’t take up much space. I hope that I am physically able to look through these books for many, many more years. That really is my favorite part. I feel like maybe I should do a page that talks about the books, what they mean to me, and what I hope they are for my children; something fun, with no guilt if keeping them doesn’t work out.
Maybe technology will make it so that scanning in a whole album will be cake and they’ll just have digital copies, who knows. The point is: I don’t worry about. We enjoy them now. I love making them and that is good enough for me.
And this. My hand writing, my love notes to my girls, my husband, and myself. Records of things we’ve done. It’s all good.
Scrapbooking seems to be out of vogue a bit. There is only one local scrapbook store left here. How do you feel about scrapbooking? Do you think of it as an “old lady” craft? Do you do it? Did you? Did you stop? Why? I’d love to have a conversation about this friends. I updated my blog with some new fancy formatting so that I can respond direction in the comments, so can you, and they’ll be all threaded and pretty. I’m very excited about this, so please, tell me what you think.
This Moment
Joining in on Amanda’s this moment project. A moment from the last week. A slice of life.
Ombré blocks: a kid toy you won’t be able to keep your hands off of
These pictures have been sitting around in my to share file for quite a while. I found the idea for ombré blocks via Pinterest. How easy, I thought! I loved the idea of using them to teach color gradations, in the same manner as Montessori color tablets (box three). I thought they would make great fun, but also somewhat educational gifts. And they are an open ended toy which makes them great for lots of imaginative play across a range of ages (I recommend ages 2.5-6 as the sweet spot).
I started with plain square blocks. I found mine at Michael’s and Jo-Anns. Jo-Ann’s has packs of cubes; at Michael’s I was able to buy them by the cube. This was nice because I could pick out the nicer blocks, the smoothest ones with out defects. Later I would an even bigger selection from Craft Parts and ordered some other sizes. I gave the blocks a quick wipe down (after peeling off stickers some required a little too gone as well) and base coat of white acrylic.
I wanted each hue on the block to go from light to dark, but I decided to mainly do only tints (adding white) and no shades (adding black). I made an exception on yellow because I just couldn’t get a full nine different tints. At first I tried to make each block a range of tints in itself and embarrassingly it took me a few coats to realize that the blocks have six sides and I needed room for nine colors. What can I say, it was late. Once I got that hiccup resolved I laid them out and got to work one color at a time.
I found it was easiest to start with the less intense colors first so I could touch up where the edges meet with the more saturated hues last. I made these extra difficult by mixing up which block had the lightest hue. One block did not have both the lightest blue and lightest yellow, for example. That way a child won’t automatically sort the blocks based on the “easiest” color (light to dark blue I think). I’m not quite sure that was a good move. I think having one block be lightest all the way around might have given the child a better control of error.
Some of these color gradations are quite a challenge. I was just going to use cheap craft acrylic paint on these but I realized that the pigment in them is just so inferior and there is so much filler that it doesn’t work for all colors. I found it necessary to break out, at a minimum, student grade acrylics. And in the case of yellow I used a full bodied Golden Acrylic (my brand of choice through art school). I might even add a tiny touch of white to even the darkest color block in a set, as that helps the color be less transparent.
Tuesday has finally taken an interest in these (I made them a year and half ago, and gave some sets out as holiday gifts in 2012). We’ve been using them just in basic light to dark organization. She has two sets, so she can also use them to match. Lots of good vocabulary: tints, light, dark, darker, darkest, etc. She found it very interesting that colors that looked very different straight out of the tube could look so similar once a lot of white was added to them.
You could do a similar project with kids, but you’d have to let your OCD tendencies out the window (if you have them). It takes a bit of patience to get corners neat, and not leave fingerprints. I sprayed them all with a matte sealer when I was done.
This Moment
Joining in on Amanda’s this moment project. A moment from the last week. A slice of life.
Scrapbooking while traveling
Once again I took a scrapbook on a trip. The scrapbook on the road mini I did when I went to Alsaka in 2011 was one of my favorites. Another time I went to Alaska (our good friends live there) I decided to take Project Life with me (here is some info on Project Life – a pocket style scrapbook system). I was new to it and thought it would be easiest just to bring it instead of having a new project (here is what it looked like when I was done). I’m still doing Project Life, and I have lots of thoughts on it to share soon, but I didn’t want to bring it with me. There are so many stories and moments on vacation that are different than home. I really wanted to remember as much as possible. Our children are so young, they will likely only remember this trip through our photos and my scrapbooking (side note: there was a discussion about this on the Paperclipping Roundtable podcast that I found really interesting).
I ended up bringing my standard kit, with just a few embellishments, and the tools I consider must haves. I used a Basic Grey album and stuck in page protectors from Simple Stories (in the video I said something else, but I checked and they are Simple Stories). I had to punch extra holes, but that was fine with me. I wrote up stories as the time went, and sorted through ephemera only keeping what I used in the mini album. This is great because sometimes when I travel I bring a lot home not knowing what I’ll use. One thing I wish I would have brought more of were 3×4 cards. I thought the handful I brought were enough, and I did come home with extras, but I could have used more plain or grid cards. I ended up buying a 6×6 paper pad at Target so I had more paper to work with.
I wasn’t able to print photos (no computer to upload photos to), so here is a short video showing what I did get done. I’m excited to fill up the book with pictures and some more thoughts about the trip now that we are home. I certainly prefer to scrapbook with photos, but this was still a very fun creative release while we were gone. I usually worked on it in 30 minute chunks here and there, mostly during join rest/nap time.
hawaiilabumplain small from Amber Garrison on Vimeo.
Island Time
We’ve been on island time the last few weeks (Oahu). But the plane brought us home a few hours ago now. Nothing like a horrible plane right with two sick kiddos to bring a person back to reality! I brought supplies and crafted while I was there so I’ll share more soon.
She says
All the time to Bennet: “Ha! Good one Bennie!”
Her: “What’s that sound?”
Me: “It’s the music.”
Her: “Oh that’s cool. It sounds like a kid screaming.”
“Be quiet upstairs and downstairs because my baby is asleep below the sewing machine table.”
To her African American friend: “Your hair is so soft. It’s like fabric, but softer!”
After cutting off Bennie’s baby mullet, “Do you know what we should do with Bennet’s baby hair? Put it into a glass of water and see if it grows!”