Summer Fun Day 1

*Warning: This is a long post with lots of pictures. I’ll try to be brief.  :)

The first month of summer vacation went by fine. Everyone enjoyed just being able to lounge around and play and do whatever we want. Each boy even got to spend a week on their own at their grandparent’s up in Frisco. However by the end of June, I was starting to get the whole “I’m bored” repetition. Add to the mix the fact that the 2 kids that I babysit would be returning for the remainder of the summer, and I knew it was time to start planning. At first I thought we could do “summer school,” but it seemed a lot of work to plan for “school” all day everyday.  Plus, I’m not one who does well sticking to schedules. I like flexibility. Then, I stumbled across the Whimsy Love blog and her Summer Diary. Basically, she tried to do one special thing each day. One thing, I can do that…

So I poured over her past Summer Diary posts (this is her 2nd year doing it) and all the fun kid stuff I had pinned on Pinterest and I made a plan. I made a spreadsheet with each day remaining in the summer and a list of activities to do for each day’s theme. I want to chronicle the fun we are having and hopefully inspire you to think outside of the box and have some fun. Even if it’s only once or twice a week.  (I’m actually a couple weeks behind, so I’ll have to get y’all caught up)   So here goes…

Day 1 Chalk and Inflatables

We started the day out by playing with some pool floaties. Each kid had their own raft. They pretended to be floating in water for awhile.

We had to run to the store and while we were there we found these beauties for only $2! Punch balls! If you’ve never seen one before they are kind of like a giant balloon attached to a giant rubber band. You hold on to the rubber band and  punch quickly and it bounces back and forth. Simple enough but super fun!

Then we watched a movie while laying on our pool rafts. Watching movies on pool rafts…very comfortable.

Next up was homemade sidewalk chalk paint.  I found the recipe here on The Idea Room blog. (How convenient that our brush match our paint colors!) Each kid grabbed a color and painted away in the driveway.

I made a few sidewalk games to play after our chalk paint dried. We threw two rolled up socks to play a bulls eye game. (You can’t see it because of the brightness of the pic, but each ring was a different color and the center was worth 40 points.)

We used wood mulch chips to mark our spots while playing Hopskotch.

Bean made a maze where you had to get from one side to the other without stepping on any lines. Very cute.

They all had so much fun and kept saying “This is the best day ever!” I would say it was a hit. Too bad Monkey missed out, he was still at his grandparents’ house that day. Well, one down 45 more days to go…

C&C and a men’s shirt refashion

When my hubby last cleaned out his side of the closet, he had a lot of old dress shirts that were too big for him. (Yay, weight loss!) So I grabbed a few and added them to my refashion pile. I kind of had an idea of what I wanted to do with them but nothing was really jumping out at me.

Then one day while perusing Pinterest, I stumbled across Liz and her blog, Cotton and Curls and totally fell in love with her blog. I started pinning her  refashioning tutorials, and they just kept coming until I had to create a board just for refashions. I spent hours reading old posts. I love it when you find a blog like that.  If you haven’t checked out her blog yet, go do it. Right now, I’ll wait….

See?! Pretty awesome, right?

So, one of my favorite refashions was her men’s dress shirt refashion. It looked amazing but easy enough that I could pull it off with my minimal skills and lack-luster sewing machine.

Source: cottonandcurls.blogspot.com via Marissa on Pinterest

So I started with one of hubby’s old shirts…

(My lovely helpers jumped in the picture at the least minute.)
And ended with this…

A nice loose summery blouse.  It looked great belted and paired with dark denim. However, by the end of the day (when I finally have someone home capable of taking a picture of me), it was a mess from wrangling kiddos all day. But trust me it’s pretty awesome. :)

The shoulders were a little wide on my shirt so I added this pleat detailing to bring them in a little.
 
I really love it and can’t wait to do more of Liz’s refashion ideas. In fact, I might just make a few more of these!

P.S. If you love Liz’s refashions check out this week’s theme…


So far it’s pretty cool, I just might try it myself. :)

Reupholstering a Dining Chair (a.k.a my first pictorial tutorial)

We wanted to sell our old kitchen dining set because with Bee no longer in a high chair it was too small for us. However, from wear and tear of 3+ kiddos the original white upholstered seats, looked like this...

This grey color was after me scrubbing with various cleaners. You can only imagine how bad it was before, but trust me, it was bad. So, while the white seat cushions were okay in their original state, these grayish hued seats were not working for me and  I figured buyers probably wouldn't like them either.

Something like this seemed a bit more appealing...

This project was actually a lot easier than I thought it would be. Once I had figured out how to dismantle the seat of the chair, it seriously only took me about 15 minutes per seat to dismantle, recover, and reassemble. Let's just say I was super proud of myself. :) So, I'm going to try a step by step picture tutorial of how I did these. (My very first tutorial I might add.) You'll need plenty of material (I used maybe a 1/3 of an old $5 red vinyl tablecloth), a scissors or rotary blade, a cutting mat, a staple gun and staples, screwdriver (preferably one with a magnetic tip), and a plastic baggie. First, figure out which screws on the bottom of the chair hold the cushion to the seat. After accidentally removing all the legs on my chair, I realized that the three screws on the sides of the seat were what needed to be removed not the legs. Oops.  

The holes to the screws are fairly deep so a magnetic tip screwdriver helps to pull the screw out of the hole after you've unscrewed it. Put the screws in a plastic baggie. Trust me don't skip this step, otherwise you'll spend 30 minutes just looking for that one screw that rolled off the counter top and your daughter decided to take into the other room. Just sayin'...

After you've taken a second to be both proud and a little freaked out that you just dismantled the chair, lay the seat cushion-side down on your wrong-side up material. I just kind of eyeballed this next part. I pulled up one edge to make sure it would wrap over the edge and still have extra to staple to the seat. From there, I just eyeballed the same width around the seat and cut out the shape, rounding the corners.

Then, just fold over the edge and start stapling with the staple gun. I started with one side of the seat. Then stretched the fabric across and stapled on the other side. Then, I did the front of the seat. Then, the backside last. Make sure your material is smooth and taut across the seat cushion. Nobody likes a wrinkly seat. :) If you are using a cotton based fabric I would pull it hard and tight. Since, I was using this lightweight vinyl I couldn't pull it too hard because it would stretch. So, I just had to make sure it was smooth.

After you've stapled the two sides, you'll have a front and back end left. Since the corners aren't perfect 90 degree angles you have to fold around the curves. You can kind of see here that I folded the corners in at an angle first, before pulling up the front edge. After all four sides are stapled down, take your baggie of screws and reattach the seat to the frame. If your screws don't go through the fabric on their own, trying poking a hole through the fabric where the screw holes are first. Voila! Newly recovered seats ready to take on spills or just look pretty.

Now, why didn't I do that sooner? Seriously, it would have been a lot easier to take care of this little yogurt and popsicle lover's messes on vinyl seats than on white fabric. Oh well...

Bedroom Inspiration and Pinterest

Remember that contest I entered for a room makeover? Yeah, I didn't win...#57 out of 127. Anyway...it gave me the motivation to just bite the bullet and redo our master bedroom. I can so do this...I think. Keep in mind I'm working with a student/intern budget and a husband who is very opinionated when it comes to home decor. So, I've been busy working on alot of projects (sorry for the lack of blogging) but I'm almost to a point where I feel like I can share the first stage. Almost...

So to tide you over until them I'll share some of my inspiration photos. These all came from Pinterest, which by the way is my newest addiction, like seriously multiple-times-a-day kind of addiction. I know I need help. :) I'm a visual person so Pinterest is seriously like candy for me, (I can't stop with just one.) If you're not already a part of Pinterest check out Stories A2Z's short tutorial to understand the hype and then shoot me an email. I have a few invites left and would be happy to pass them on. Or if you're already in, feel free to follow me. My sister-in-law told me the other day, "Sorry, I keep repinning all of your pins, but you have such great stuff on your boards!" Anyway, pictures....

Source: style-files.com via Marissa on Pinterest

Source: designspongeonline.com via Marissa on Pinterest

Source: sewdangcutecrafts.com via Marissa on Pinterest

Source: centsationalgirl.com via Marissa on Pinterest

Source: etsy.com via Marissa on Pinterest

Source: sew-fantastic.blogspot.com via Marissa on Pinterest

Source: flickr.com via Marissa on Pinterest

Source: homegoods.com via Marissa on Pinterest

Can you tell the color scheme I picked? Yeah, I am totally loving yellow and gray right now. I seriously want to paint all of my furniture gray, which is dangerous because I actually have gray paint open in the garage as we speak. So stay tuned for photos of the bedroom reveal. All I can say is that it's not done yet and the hubby already loves it...so far. :)

P.S. I just previewed this post and a few of the pictures were chopped. So, I shrunk them down. However, some of them have awesome details, so just click through, if want to see details of the picture.

Happy Mother’s Day and LOTS of Free Printables

Happy Mother’s Day! I was reading a post on Less Cake More Frosting  and Ellie G seemed to sum up my sentiments exactly. She wrote,

“Certainly Mothers Day is a wonderful day, and worthy of a HUGE CELEBRATION.  In fact, we should probably celebrate Mothers more that just 24 hours each year. (Someone tell that to my kids.  I need more than just a 24 hour break.  Geez.  Who's in charge of benefits at this job?  H. R.?  Anyone?)

But I want to change it to "Mothering Day". 

Mothering, the act of caring for another.
Now THAT is a universal trait given to women.  All women.
A celebration of the things that make women unique.  That make them inherently giving, and nurturing, and soft.  Those are still the things I love in my mother.  But they are also things I adore in my son's school teacher.  Or in my Aunts.  Or in women that I admire.”

(Check out the whole awesome post here.)

I know that there are so many amazing women in my life, past and present, who have helped to shape me into who I am. So to all you wonderful women, whether you are mothers or not, Happy Mothering Day!

Oh! Don’t forget to check out Ellie G’s free printable at the bottom of her post. Awesome quote!

(image source)

Speaking of printables, I was flipping back through old posts from Aimee of Sprik Space, when I came across an awesome link. If you love free printables, you HAVE to check out  ishare printables. It’s a forum where bloggers can share their free printables and they are amazing! I literally spent hours browsing and bookmarking all of the awesome printables. I, seriously kept saying, “oh, I need to print that,” “I love that,” and “wow!” over and over again.

They share everything from gift tags…

(image source)

to subway art…

(image source)

to notes and lists…

(image source)

to behavior charts…

(image source)

to placemats…

(image source)

to printable quotes…

(image source)

(image source)

to  my favorite printable!

(image source)

Plus, there are hundreds more! Think thank you cards, bag toppers, calendars, invitations, board games, t-shirt transfers, chore charts, valentines, and more!

Seriously, go check it out! I promise you’ll find something you love. :)