good things

I was long overdue bring my sweet friend, Wendy her birthday present.  You see, I had it in my head that I wanted to stamp her birthdate on the tag with my library stamp but I couldn't find it anywhere... for days!!!  I became obsessed and would not give it to her without finding it.  Lucky for her it only took about 2 weeks!  Ugh...  Oh well, maybe the cuteness of the wrapping made up for it??

I used a recycled dessert box from the grocery store and cut up some old book pages for the fluff at the bottom.  Then I wrapped up a vintage tea towel, some of her favorite tea, and a tiny ceramic tea spoon from Crate and Barrel.  I wrapped the outside with a strip of vintage Holly Hobby fabric and some cute tags I bought from the gals at Modern Textiles a long time ago.  I've been waiting to use them.  The top tag I recycled from a used one I had and covered up the writing with scrapbook paper and washi tape.  And of course, we cannot forget the added touch of her birthdate stamped on it!  Ha!
I kind of like this cute packaging thing... my mom is the master at it, as I've mentioned and shown you here before.  I will have to keep thinking of new things to try out in the future!

I wanted to share this too- I stopped at a yard sale yesterday after picking up Mary Beth from Art, lunch and recess... and spotted these beauties!  The chair was only $5 and it just needs some piping added around the edges of the fabric.  And behold!  Vintage sheets!!  I've been collecting these to use for the crafts I'm making to sell at Unglued and the Junk Market coming up next weekend.  You won't believe it but the really nice gal who was having the sale GAVE these to me for free!  We got to talking and I found out she is from The White House Boutique(love their stuff by the way!) and she told me she had wanted to come to our sale but didn't make it so to consider this a donation.  How sweet is she??  I know I can make good money with these items in the future- I'm so excited and blown away by the kindness of others once again.  But that's not all!!  She also offered to sell the vintage jewelry I have left from the sale at her booth at Junk Market!   Yay!!!

And in closing, a shot of the sunflowers Jeffrey planted at the community garden- they let him cut some to bring home last night.  Gorgeous!

super day!

today was pretty super... an awesome garage sale find for MB(it's full of dance attire!!)
luckily she had just enough birthday money left to buy it!

and tonight was the super moon!!!
which is very hard to photograph for some reason but I gave it my best shot!

Flea Market {Detroit Lakes}

Look at what we found at the flea market!!  It was fate...

And then these two things I of course did not buy but I do love them!

We hung out with our friends for a bit and the kids got to swim.  Good day.

our homeschool room {aka our old dining room}

So about halfway through the year I decided that I wanted to have one room where most
of our learning materials could be stored and displayed... a room that felt happy and inviting.
Our dining room was rarely ever used as a place to eat- we eat in the huge kitchen- so I shoved the dining room table against the wall and made John carry all the chairs out to the garage.  And then I slowly began transforming the space.  We love it now and the kids and I hang out in there a lot.  It is cheerful and cozy- full of so many wonderful, enriching books, games, and learning materials.
It may look a bit busy but we like that- and since the room is so small it is difficult to have all the things we want out without it getting full.  For awhile we had a teepee in there but it took up too much space so we adjusted and redecorated again.  Much better now... the teepee can go up in the backyard for the summer.  I know that as time goes by there will be more revisions but this is what it looks like right now and it works perfectly for us!

This is our BIRD BASKET.   We have bird books, flashcards, stuffed bird friends, and binoculars in it.
We use this stuff A LOT.  We LOVE birds!

This is a chair that my friend Amber gave me to sell at our yard sale this summer.  I put it in the house for now- I may keep it in here, I may sell it and put a different chair here... haven't decided yet!
One thing is for sure- reading chairs get a lot of use in this room!

This little table holds all things related to nature.  In fact, since I took this picture, the bottom shelf now holds specimens from nature- a nest, robins' eggs, shells, ect.  We find things all the time and my mom is also THE BEST collector- she shared a bunch of her loot with us a while back and we've saved it all.

This is the butterfly section.

And this is the pond/general nature section(with the butterfly flip book thrown in. :) 

Here is our other reading chair- I found it on the curb one day and left the cushions(they were gross).  I bought what I believe is a dog bed at TJ Max last year to fit on it perfectly and just threw the pretend sheepskin on the back, as well as a homemade pillow and Mickey's ugly doll.  I got the chevron ottoman/floor cushion at TJ Max last year too.
The basket on the floor next to the chair is currently holding all of our spring related books.

Above the chair on the wall is more bird-related stuff- posters and a good pair of binoculars(that were my Uncle Tony's- happily we use them all the time) and a bird call one of the boys got from Santa this past Christmas.

 

This white dresser was also found on the curb a few years ago.  It still needs knobs and pulls and it's kind of smushed up in the corner of the room(probably should come out) but it holds quite a bit of stuff so it's easier to leave it there right now.

Jeffrey's keyboard lives in this room too(there's nowhere else for it right now) and besides we like listening to him practice! :)

Here is our poetry bin- I want to do a whole separate post on this another time...
we've discovered many great poetry books and Mickey in particular spends a lot of time reading, writing and illustrating poems.

This hutch was one of the first(if not THE first) pieces of furniture John and I bought as a married couple.  It works well to hold art supplies and is also the perfect height for the
kids to look through the microscope.
Sometimes I think about selling it or painting it but haven't done either yet. 

This wall displays some of Mary Beth's artwork from last year. 

 

This basket is full of Egypt-related books and supplies.  My parents put it together for the kids as one of their Christmas presents and we LOVE it.  The kids look through it all the time and works on activities.  And in the fall Mickey has a big lesson about Ancient Egypt and we will dive in even more.

 

I love organizing our books by category as much as possible.  It just makes it so much easier to find what we are looking for and I find that the books get looked at way more this way.

Well, the tour isn't done yet so stay tuned for more pictures tomorrow! 

recovering a vintage footstool

I found this vintage footstool at The Studio a while back(cheap).  I forgot to take the before picture but it was uncovered on the top(just the old batting was showing) and around the sides was retro orange vinyl.  It would have been so cool if the whole thing was still covered in orange vinyl but alas, it wasn't.

So I bought some really cute fabric from Modern Textiles and finally sat down today to recover it.

I've never done that before but I figured it couldn't be too hard, right?
I mean, I had a staple gun and everything.
I started with a couple of layers of batting I had laying around and then started stapling the fabric on.
I did all four sides first, pulling tight.

Then came the corners... ugh.  I couldn't figure out which way I wanted to do it- or how to make it look good.  I decided on the one below.  I didn't want a gift wrap corner so I tucked it under so the triangle was hiding... does that make sense?  Like the picture above but in reverse.
This decision was made after staring at it for about an hour.
John and the kids were ice skating with their friends at the school
so I had all the time I wanted to do it right.

 

 

It turned out great!  I know this picture is really dark- I used my phone.  I will take a better picture and add it soon.  I think it's adorable- I love it!!!

a great lunchbox survey

I found this idea in a parenting magazine and then found this artist's blog. You can print out your own surveys here. I did this for the boys and they LOVED it! We colored the little pictures and I rolled it up with a pencil and included it in their lunchbox. It also really helped us to learn how Mickey's lunch period was since he claims he never remembers. :) Oh- and a helpful hint for you: I had to print it at 75 % to make it all fit on the paper.

GREAT day at Target!!!

EVERYONE go to Target NOW- well probably tomorrow would work- TONS of stuff is at least 50% off and there is super cute new stuff in the dollar section. Here are some of the things I bought that make me smile: colorful straws for the kids(they love straws)- $1, colorful pom poms for their art projects(which they complete about 10 a day)-$1, googly eyes(again-projects)-$1, heart ice cube trays(for making ice cubes and crayons- I'll show you how tomorrow)-$2.50, colorful striped knee-high socks(to cut and make into leg warmers for Mary Beth- I'll show you how when I'm done)-$4.50. The kids were so excited they started projects right away and I was so excited I made a batch of heart crayons right away!

I love you Target, marry me?