Autistic or Artistic?

This is what the eldest drew in a workbook. Wow! I think he really thinks in cartoons and his head is often this kind of a cacophony. Or he is just a pretty cool artist for a 13 yr old.

Quickie

 

I picked up some little cork board tiles at a yardsale.

Glue gunned them to the inside of a couple of kitchen cabinets.

Tacked a couple of photos that make me smile and recipes etc on them.

The only tricky bit is to make sure the tack does not hit the shelf when the door is closed.

Easy cheesy!

retro lady gaga

May the Force Be with You

 

Not really sure what she was playing but I love the mix of pink, tink, magic wand and stormtrooper helmet.

I *heart* the dump!

  I got all this for 8 bucks!

The water table alone will sell for more than that on craigslist!

Sweet! Do all dumps have an awesome recycling center like mine does?!?

I had mentioned it before here.

The round thing is a lazy susan and the water table is headed for CL.

bird collage on a plate

Saw this:

Made this: 

We’d painted with blue paint the day before and instead of tossing the paper plate paint palette, I remembered this project. She loved it! T drew & cut the bird and egg shapes. She did the rest. We talked about nests and what they are made of. She wanted to make more! It did take a few days (and a nighttime elf adding more glue to ensure structure stability) to dry completely.

Making Angry Bird Cupcakes

Saw these and showed them to the 13 yr old and he recreated them for the 8 yr old’s birthday!

Boxed cake mix cupcakes and this frosting. The frosting was amazing and made wayyyyy too much. It covered 2 boxes of cupcakes with loads extra! Turns out it is Martha’s 7 minute frosting. Gonna have to find a recipe that makes a smaller batch.

We went through our stash of cake decorating supplies and bought a few things at central market. The eggs are candy coated almonds. The eyes are mini choc chips jammed into mini marshmellows. The beaks are gummy orange slices snipped into thirds. The bag of large marshmellows for the bellies went missing so we improvised. And T came up with the black (from angry birds Rio) bird design all by himself.

We had a yummy dinner, opened gifts and then enjoyed these! And, yes, this is the best photo of all three kids. Do you know how hard it is to get all three to look at you and smile- and not imitate an angry bird or fake a smile?

Making Cow Shirts!

If you know me- you know how much I adore Chick Fil A. My fave store- they know me by name. (is that a bad thing??) They know I want a sweet tea with no ice and an ice water (I mix my own – that’s how I roll).

And Friday was Dress Like A Cow Day. The littlest one needed a shirt so we made it using the spin art machine. Squeezing the paint bottles is good fine motor skillin’ for her and just plain fun. We use the paintings like stamps to make spots on a shirt. We have done this loads of times before- word of warning: If the kids are making one for you try not to let them stamp two RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE CHEST. Also, don’t do red or mostly red- looks bloody. We have done spider web prints for halloween party and we have also used the artwork as gift tags, fronts for thank you notes and cards. We love our spin art machines (I may have recently downsized from 4 machines to 2- what?? I cannot pass them up at yardsales!)

The CFA dress like a cow experience was great! The 8 yr old said he had to wear those shoes because they look like hooves (how smart!) and the littlest one is wearing shoes (clear glitter jellies) but looks barefoot in the photo. She stole my hat. And does anyone get the joke I made with my mask? No one but the Husband seemed to get it. The boys wanted tie on masks. I wanted mine on a stick so the littlest one did, too.

Which brings me to a strange new phenomenon! The littlest one freaked out when she saw the CFA cow person in a costume. I mean really, really scared- hiding under the table, so scared she was on the verge of crying - Wow. That was a new thing. I sent her to the car with T while I got the food and when I got to the car she hopefully asked “Did you kill it?!?” She said the cow wanted to get her. And then all she could talk about was the “cow with the big head” and how even though it was a person in a costume it wanted to get her. *sigh* But it was still a great time.

I’m not Chikin!!

It is that time of year again- Chick Fil A Dress Like A Cow Day!! FRIDAY!!

We have done it each year. And it is always right around the soon to be 8 yr old’s birthday so he thinks it is super special.

Here we are in 2008:

That baby outfit was the oldest kiddo’s 1st halloween outfit and I was determined she would wear it! No matter that it was too small. I found these cute masks on a british website and we each colored one and the boys made spin art stamped cow shirts (black puff paint on spin art machine, use the wet design to “stamp” the shirt)

2009:

Yes, I talked my spanish only speaking mother in law into wearing a cow hat and a mask (that she is holding just off camera in this photo). She was very confused but by the 3rd chickfila, she was digging it. And the kids ate CFA all weekend! Note my cow purse and the eldest kiddo has a cow costume (yardsale find! gold!!).

2010:

The british website with the neat cow mask seems to be defunct now so I printed cow head photos on 8x10, cut out the faces, punched out the eyes using my cropadile and used glue dots (removable- see the tutorial I made) to adhere them to sunglasses.  T& I just did cow noses, not whole masks. Even the teddy bear has a mask-on-sunglasses!! See?! Also the eldest’s t shirt from a couple years ago now fits the middle kiddo! Made me nostalgic!! And I once again squeezed the smallest into a too small outfit (it is a gap dress but we made it a top).

2011:

Yea, I’m in full planning mode. The eldest will wear the costume, the middle the cow hat, me with my cow purse. I was going to have them make paper plate cow masks this year but the sunglasses masks were so easy I think I will make them again this year. I also found an awesome cow print cowboy (cowgirl?) hat at goodwill just last week. The two little ones are still fighting over who gets to wear it so I might have to let them take turns or wear it myself! Also, we need to make a spin art tshirt for the little girl as she has no cow patterned clothes this year. I have been looking for a cow patterned ribbon bow but am too cheap to pay the etsy prices so she will probably just wear black and white instead. I want to look through my ribbon and see if I by chance have a cow print ribbon. If I do, I might use glue dots to stick it to her clothes- around the cuffs and bottom of the shirt, cuffs of the leggings- whatever works.

Is anyone else brave enough to dress up?

Making some Glue Dots

These are great! They are like the little glue booger that hold samples on in the mail. They work for scrapbooking- holding on a crushed penny or baby hospital id bracelet. But also for regular crafting. I use them to tack 8x10 photos on the wall’s of my 4 yr old’s bedroom. It is great that they stay repositionable (because she like to move them around) and do not harm the wall.

I save sticker sheets and the paper backing from my mini xyron and mailing labels.

The Aleene’s Tack It Over & Over I get at Michael’s (using my 40% off coupon of course!).

I lay out all the paper, making sure I have a matching cover piece for each piece, and just start squeezing the dots- some are big, some are small, some are lines or dashes. Once they turn clear you can cover with the matching cover piece.

I have tried covering when wet - didn’t work. I store mine in a couple of snack or sandwich size baggies- keep some in my scrapbooking tote and some in the craft cabinet. They are pretty handy.

She works hard for the money . .

 

CL has been pretty quiet – I have a handful of things listed and nothing is moving. Not even at 5 or 10 bucks! The vase, shopping cart cover, swim diapers and giant lazy susan ate 5 and the speaker is 10. The speaker is headed to goodwill if my nephew does not want it. The vase is going in the closet for a teacher’s gift next year. Everything else I am emailing my friends and offering for free and taking it to goodwill if there are no takers. (gawd! I cannot believe no one wants the lazy susan! The only reason I am selling it is because I have a nice big wooden one now).

But ebay has been surprising lately. I still never can tell what will sell and what will not.

These things did not sell and have been sent to friends or goodwill:

The sassy horse and bags and the See kai Run shoes are really spendy but they did not even sell for 4$. The old navy jellies, disneyland princess straw hat and the cute vintage gloves I thought had good chances of selling but nope.

What did sell?

The builda a bear shoes and skates (yardsale find) were the top sellers of the week and sold for 12.50. The keen watershoes I got from CL last year and we used them well for a season. They sold for just over 9$. And because I had seen how well keens were selling I picked up the black pair (like new!) at the thriftshop for 3$ and they sold for 10.

The fridgits (yardsale, the kids played with them till I got too annoyed) sold for 10.50 – shipping was brutal on those- like another 10 bucks for parcel! The lot of crocs went for 10.50. And the bjorn (5$ yardsale find) always sell good went for 9.50. I was hoping for a touch higher but, oh well.

I have a bunch of 3t clothes and shoes to list at the moment and some nice toys when I find boxes to ship them in.

I made a goal to list 3 new things each day. If I can get into the habit, I hope to clear some of my ebay stash before too long.

I also have an awesome lego set I picked up at a yardsale but surprisingly it looks like the two little star wars lego minifigs will sell for about 20 and if I sell the whole set in the box it only sells for less than 25. Decisions, decisions. I kinda want to split them up and see how it goes. I think it is the shipping that is the factor for the buyers. Whatcha think? Have you split up sets before??

Spaghetti Dogs!

  Pretty self explanatory. Cut hot dogs into chunks. Jam spaghetti (I happened to have fettuccini on hand- it works fine) into hotdog chunks. I found breaking the spaghetti in half and the hotdogs into thirds or fourths made for a great size. Boil the spaghetti spiked chunks until the pasta is done. Serve. No sauce needed but can be used. Me- I prefer my hotdogs sliced open with cheese crammed inside, wrapped in bacon and grilled or broiled. But the kids get a kick out of “cooking” this themselves so that is good enough for me.

Best Sellers

Here are a few of our favorite books at the moment.

• Vintage Rose Red and Snow White
• Machines
• The Aristocats
• Snow Bear
• The Three Little Kittens – what do you call that kind of pictures?
• Kitty’s Outdoor Day (the page where she gets wet from the sprinkler send the kids into gales of laughs – no kidding.
• Giggle Giggle Quack
• Counting on Calico – love the illustrations! Had to buy another copy we wore it out so good!
• Babies and Baby Animals- I admit it is more for the Gyo Fujikawa artwork (*love*)
• I love you with all my heart
• Bear snores on
• Meet my cats (again *love* the drawings!)

Who used my camera?

I found this single odd photo mixed in with my pictures on my camera. Everyone in our household denies all knowledge of it. I still cannot figure out what toys were used as the eyes. But it makes me smile.

PS: I suspect the 7 yr old and secretly applaud his graphic design skillz.

Utilitarian Storage

Pill bottle with label removed + stickers (leftovers from cd labeling at xmas time) = personalized storage capsules for the “tooth fairy” to keep each of the kiddos’ teeth separate. I thought about making them all pretty with scrapbooking paper and stickers etc. Might still do that at some point but time was of the essence.

I made 1 storage capsule for each kid and labeled them and will happily give them their teeth at some point. Not sure why or what they will do with them but it seems a waste of genetic material to just throw them away, right?

I did once hear about a man who carved them into beads – teeth are just like ivory, right?? hmmm – wonder if I could find a craftsperson on etsy who does that *off to check*.