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Yesterday I shared the HUGE Custom Photo Poster I made for my girls' room.  My son was impressed when he saw it and wanted something similar, so I used the same concept with an engineering print, but made it a sports collage instead. Check it out...   I knew I wanted something sports related to match his room and his interests, so I made a collage of him playing four different sports and added text labels.     Again, I used PicMonkey.com to add the effects, make the collage and add the sports words.  This isn't a sponsored post or anything, but if you haven't tried PicMonkey for photo editing fun, you really should.  It's really easy and there's so much you can do. I simply went to the collage page and chose the layout that I wanted, then added my pictures.  I changed all the photos to black and white, adjusted the sharpness and exposure, and cropped them to best show the action.  When I had everything looking the way I wanted, I hit "Edit" at th...

Last year, I saw this awesome Giant Picture on Sugar Bee Crafts and knew I wanted to make something similar.  All I had to do was wait till I got the perfect photo that I would want to make giant-sized.  Well, last week I finally got that perfect shot of my girls and set out to make my own huge print. Here it is... Isn't it pretty?  It's 2 feet by 3 feet, so it's quite big, but fills the space above their big dresser just perfectly.  (For a tutorial on their pretty, fabric-covered dresser, go HERE ) .  Oh, and did I mention that this gorgeous big custom print cost under $4?  That's right, four bucks!  It was so inexpensive that I splurged and got an $18 white frame to display it in.  Just over $20 and such a wow factor when you walk in their room. When even an 8x10 photo enlargement can easily cost $4 or more, how did I get an 24x36 print for the same price?  The secret is getting an engineering print at an office supply store or copy center...

For the most part, I don't use a lot of Martha Stewart's ideas.  I think she's a very creative woman with lovely projects, but I just don't have much need for a fancy centerpiece when our table is usually set with mismatched cups and plastic plates.  However, when I came across this idea for ornament storage on Pinterest, I knew that it was a Martha Stewart tip I would actually use.  Before I took down our Christmas tree the other day, I got my supplies ready. Check it out... Pretty smart, isn't it?  I already had the large storage box, but the flimsy little cardboard dividers it came with were pretty much worthless.  I just cut two pieces the same size as the storage bin from a large cardboard box, then hot glued on some plastic cups.  As I took the ornaments off the tree, I put them into the plastic cups, filled up one layer, then added the second piece of cardboard and cups! Thanks, Martha, for this smart and easy solution.   (Now if only she had s...

With three kids, I've had many attempts at Gingerbread Houses over the years.  They love the idea of making a house out of cookies and candy, but every year we end up being disappointed by the final results.  We can never get the royal icing to actually hold the walls and roof together so the whole house ends up being lopsided, if we were even lucky enough to get it to stand up at all.  Then, that same darn royal icing ends up dripping and glopping all over the place when we try to attach the candy pieces.  If they don't get too frustrated, they do enjoy the process, but I knew I wanted to come up with a better idea for this year. Check out our houses...   Don't they look cute?  They look like real gingerbread houses and they even SMELL like real gingerbread houses.  We got to plan our designs and choose fun candies to put on them.  They even have what looks like royal icing on them as decoration  ~ but we didn't have to deal with the real th...

Last month, when the kids were off school for Election Day, we worked on a 1,000 piece puzzle of the U.S. Presidents .  We enjoyed doing it and with all four of us working together, we actually completed it in just one day.  However, once it was done, it sat on the floor in the corner of my living room for nearly a month.  The kids wanted to save it and hang it up, but I didn't want to deal with the hassle of using the puzzle saver glue.  I'd tried the glue before  ~ it was kind of messy and I didn't think it held the pieces together all that well.  I knew there had to be a better solution, but it took me a month of stepping around the finished puzzle before it finally came to me ...  Use iron-on adhesive! It turned out awesome and it was super quick and easy to do.  Seriously, like 5 minutes tops!  All you need is some Heat n Bond Iron on Adhesive .  It's meant to be used on fabric (I use it all the time) so you can find it in most fabr...

Over the years, my kids have accumulated quite a collection of stuffed animals.  We periodically do purges and give away some of our "extras" but they still have dozens that are their "favorites"!  I try to keep them contained in baskets and bins, but they still end up everywhere and look messy even when put away.  When I saw this idea on Pink and Green Mama to put the stuffed animals in a bean bag cover, I knew I had found the solution to our stuffed animal woes!  The girls can still play with them when they want to, but when they're not in use, they're tucked away in the pretty bean bag. Check it out... Doesn't it look sooo much better?   I found this bean bag cover at Bed Bath & Beyond, used a coupon and only paid about $10.  If you have a similar stuffed animal collection, this is the time of year to pick up a cover to contain them ~ they are pretty easy to find with the back-to-college stuff in the stores. All we had to do was fill it up... ...

When I saw this idea for melted bead suncatchers a few weeks ago at The Artful Parent , I put it right at the top of our "must do" list.  We had the plastic pony beads and the baking tins already, so we were good to go.  Following a suggestion in the comments of Jean's post, we decided to melt our beads outside on our gas grill instead of inside in the oven.  The beads melted quite quickly and there was very little melting plastic smell to worry about. Check it out... Here are the simple supplies needed: That's right.  Just some plastic beads (we used a combination of translucent colored beads and some pastel glow-in-the-dark ones) and metal baking pans ( I happened to have some heart-shaped pans as well as regular mini muffin pans) Here's what to do: 1.  Preheat your oven or grill to about 450 degrees. (I used our grill, put the burners on high, then shut the lid.) 2.  Arrange your beads in a single layer in the bottom of your pan.  We did some pa...

Odd title for a blog post isn't it?  But it's true, these pretty flowers were made using only a stalk of celery!  No paintbrush, no stencils, just veggies!  Want to know how long it took me to actually do this project?  About 15 years!  That's right, I first saw this idea more than a decade ago.  I can't remember if it was in a magazine or craft book or what, but I've had it on my "to-do someday" list for that long.  Finally today, the girls and I picked up three stalks of celery and made some cute celery printed placemats.  {actual project time was less than 30 minutes!} Check it out... Here's how we did it... 1.  First, gather your supplies.  You'll need a stalk of celery and some paints.  We did our celery prints on some plain white placemats, but you could also do them on paper, a tote bag, a t-shirt, etc. 2.  Carefully make a straight cut across the bottom of your celery stalk. It totally looks like a flower, doesn't it? 3...

For ages, I've been wanting to try my hand at making a quilt.  The problem is, I'm not very precise when I sew and I'm not really patient enough to spend weeks or months on a sewing project.   I thought I might never get around to actually making one until  I saw this gorgeous baby rag quilt at Do It Yourself Divas.  I went right out and picked up some coordinating flannel fabrics.  I did mine slightly differently than my inspiration piece and I'm so thrilled with the way it turned out.   When I tell you it's a great beginner project, it truly is.  Because it's simply straight cuts and straight seams, I was able to make it in just one evening.  (Granted, I started it at 9 pm when the kids finally fell asleep and finished at 2 am, but I still consider it a one-night project!) .  Some of my seams aren't perfectly straight, but because it's all ruffled and ragged, you really can't tell. Here's how I did it   (excuse the poor photo qua...