My Last Leprechaun Trap

You heard right, after four kids

having gone through grade one this was

 my last Leprechaun trap

 that had to be made.

 

We went all out.

 

It's called Lucky's Bakery

(also known as shoe box with green duct tape)

 

 

 It is a conglomeration of rainbows, green stuff and goodies.

 

Here's how were going to catch that shifty little green guy (or girl).

 

He is going to climb up the stairs.

 

 

 and he'll see all the delicious items that are available to him. 

 

 He will stand on the square

 in front of the order sign and

 BLAMO,

he'll fall into the box below the

 floor because that

 tile is a fake tile.

 

 

Here are some of our tasty treats

We have doughnuts (painted Cheerios), gold foil cakes (chocolate coins) and of course cotton candy (chalk covered cotton balls found here ).

 

 

 My son loved making this and the

 idea was his to have mini doughnuts for the Leprechaun,

 which then sparked the idea for a bakery.

(the display counter idea I got from here )

 

 

Lucky's bakery open for all Leprechauns in only five days.

 

 

Don't forget to wear green.

 

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Chalkboards Cards

 

I bought a box of 40

blank chalkboard cards

 from Michaels

and

with my bistro chalk marker

have been having way too much fun.

 



 

I love having cards done ahead of time

 so that I'm not rushed when I need them.

 

 

Can't forget the thank you

 and get well

 cards too.

 

 

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Summer Chalkboard

My friend bought a

 frame for her mother's birthday

 and wanted some cute quotes and sayings

  that she could change

out as the seasons change.

 

This is the summer one.

 

 

 

We've a had a great summer so far and life has been so good.
 

 Everything from
reunions
parades
Logan's Pass
two lakes
excellent live shows
water skiing
party island
glow in the dark dodge ball
root beer chugging contests
and the list goes on
and on
 and on.
 

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Wedding Chalkboards

 

My friend's daughter is getting married

and for some of the decorations on the wall

we are going to have chalkboards.

 

Found some cute quotes about love and marriage and did them up.

 

Here are two of them

(we are going to have six in total)

 

 

This is a quote the bride wanted.

 

 

These were done with a chalk marker

 

http://www.uchida.com/p-3-bistro-chalk-marker.aspx

 

on

 black poster board so that they didn't smear

 if someone touched them and then slipped the

 poster board onto a frame.

 

 

 

 

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4 Easy Steps to Art

 

It's spring break here and I'm trying to keep the kids busy.

 

So far we've....

 

We've gone to a movie

(Mr. Peabody and Sherman)

 

Iced sugar cookies

 

Played with our friends

 

and made some cool looking art with our cousins.

 

I found this artist on

pinterest and thought it

would make a fun project for the older kids.

 

 

It's so easy and I think the final results are terrific.

 

 

1.First we cut out shapes from cereal boxes and covered them in magazine pages.

2. Then we covered out canvases with paint

3. Then we glued around the edges of the cardboard shapes with seed beads (which then were painted gold) or "dot art" with gold paint.

4. Then we arranged them and glued them down.

 

Voila

 

 

This is a close up of the seed bead technique.

 

 

and this is a close up of the "dot art" technique.

 

 

Super fun and super easy.

 

I think I might have to try my hand at it.

 

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Another Chalkboard

 

I finally took the time to do my next chalkboard quote.

 

Love this one and had a good talk

with my kids

on what they thought it meant.

 

 

I'm also claiming this for St. Patrick's Day

(you know because of all the green).

 

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Boy Valentine's

I love pinterest. 

 

 I really do. 

 

 I was stuck on a idea for

valentine's for my boy

 to give and I came across this

 great idea

 

Found the dinosaurs at the $1.00 store and had the paper and string

just kicking around.

 

 

 

 

My son is so excited to give these out. 

(That is after I promised him he could pick one for himself.)

:)

 

 

I hope little girls like dinosaurs.

 

This is also a great option

for the no candy route.

 

 

I hope you all have a great Valentine's Day.

 



4 Random Projects

 With Christmas

coming up and projects needing to be completed,

I've been in high efficiency mode and

things have got done.

The first was more of a fun project,

 I was given a

chalkboard

 at a favorite things party and I couldn't leave it blank so.....

 

I found this hot cocoa recipe on pinterest

and stayed up late after the party for another hour to finish it.

 

 

My kids saw it in the morning and now want their own chalkboards.

 

Add another

 project for me that needs to be done by

Christmas.

 

 

Remember these knobs,

well now they're great necklace holders.

 

 

 

This was what I gave as my favorite thing at the party.

 

 

Had a party with my daughter and some of her friends. 

Made these really cute paintings

 

 

 *Be YOU tiful*

 

 

And last was this cute writing desk that I found at a garage sale in the summer.

 

It needed some love.

 

Had major potential though,

look at that carved border.

 

 

Now it's bright and beautiful

 

 

My daughter loves having this dainty little desk in her room.

I'm still on the hunt for a petite chair or stool to go with it, something in cream or white.

Maybe like these stools from

foter

 

The desk has a flip down drawer that holds some of her special things.

 

 

This desk has amazing details and is so pretty.

 

 



 

Well tomorrow I'm off to finish some projects at the "shop" because,

 Christmas is coming.

 

Hope everyone is enjoying this Christmas Season.

 

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Goodbye to Ugly Old Knobs.

 

I  do love refinishing furniture and

  I love  looking and collecting some of the

old hardware

 that come on some of the pieces.

 

  These all started out as simple and plain knobs,

with some paint, sandpaper and even jewels they can be

 so much more .

 

 

I paint with whatever paint I have left over from projects.

  Sometime I prime, sometimes I don't .

 

I rub acrylic paint to bring out some of the

details or dry brush to bring out others. 

 

I even tried dot art on some of them.

 

One thing I always do though is I spray with a

gloss or high gloss

 clear spray to seal everything in when I'm done.

 



 

It's fun to play around and try different technique's

 

The knob on the far left is the original. 

 Three different colours and paint techniques and sanding. 

 

Three different knobs.

 

 

Again the knob on the

far left is what they all started

out looking like and now

 I have some beautiful knobs.

 

 

Here are some more. 

The difference is in how you apply

 your paint

and what you wipe away.

 

 

I didn't have any of the originals left in this one,

but I do really like how they turned out.

 

 

So never give up on ugly hardware. 

 

 

These are all for Christmas presents.  I'll show the projects when I'm done.

 

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Mission Possible Sweet Table

 

I got to make a sweet table for the

Stake Youth Conference

this weekend and had the theme of

"Mission Possible."

 

Friday night was the farewell party with games,

a bouncy castle,

cotton candy and of course desserts.

 

 

Some of the projects that I did were:

 

Made the stained world map on some plywood for a backdrop.

(cost $1.00)

 

 

Made bunting from maps for the front of the table.

 

(man wishing this picture was in focus....sorry we were kind of rushed in setting up)

 

 

.

 

 

 



 

got tons of candy, chocolate, cookies

(which a dear friend made for me and everyone noticed they were homemade)

and brownies to eat.

 

 

Covered a cupckae tower with maps 

and made 120 cupcakes with flags from the 4 missions that we sent the youth on.

(Russia, Chile, Madagascar and Philippines)

 

 

I think the conference was a success and that the youth

 had a great time.

 

(The classes and speakers on Saturday were

 phenomenal and our four RM mission presidents were wonderful.)

 

Hoping that this is just the beginning

 of their preparation

for hastening the work.

 

 

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Tea Party Birthday

 

It has been a very busy week. 

Another birthday party was plan and completed.

 

My youngest daughter

just had to have a tea party themed birthday

this year. 

 

I think she did it so that her friends and her could dress up

in pretty dresses

with jewelry

 and fancy hats and eat

dainty food.

 

I love that she's so girly it's kind of fun for me to have to tap into that side.

 

 

So out came the bins and bins of scrapbooking paper

and the pinwheel and bunting

assembly lines began.

 



 

The bunting was so easy and cute that I might keep it and put it in the girl's room

 

 

 

The cake was quite the challenge, but turned out OK, don't look too close at my chocolate drizzles I was feeling a little rushed at the end.

 

 

The party guests all got to make their own

fascinators

which turned out to be very pretty and made the girls feel so fancy

that they all talked with English accents

as they asked each other to

pass the petit fours.

 



 

They also got to use one of Grandma's china sets,

 and I wish I had taken a better picture to show

 you how cute the

 mismatched sets looked together. 

 

 

 We gave the guest to eat:
(sorry I didn't take any pictures of the food, these are the recipes I used or as close as I could find)

 

cucumber sandwiches

picture

 

lemon and cherry tarts

picture

 

nanaimo bars

picture

 

 

marshmallow puffs

picture

 

cracker and cheese hor d'oeurves
 

picture

 

coconut macaroons
 

picture

 

mini cupcakes
 

picture

 

strawberry and banana pancake stacks
 

picture

 

and tons of orange pineapple "tea"

with frozen friut kabobs

(which I forgot in the freezer so we ate them at our family dinner instead)

I only did blackberry, strawberry and grape ones.

 

They were very full at the end.
:)

 

Then the girls posed for some group pictures.

 

I believe the girls had fun and I'm so

grateful to my older girls who served the guests and allowed the younger girls

 to call them "Jeeves" all afternoon.

 

One of my favorite projects that I did for the party was to

 finally wrap my glass vases that I've

had kicking around for

 three years,

 just waiting to have something cool done to them.

 

 

I also made some beautiful

coffee filter flowers to go inside,

 again a project that I've waited a while to actually do.

(I might be a bit of a procrastinator)

 

So worth the wait though.

 



 

 

 

 

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