DIY - Mr & Mrs Pillows

I love the Mr & Mrs pillows I have been seeing in catalogs and at the stores, but they are pretty expensive. So, I took three neutral colored pillows and stenciled a set for myself! Love them!

Here are two of the pillows before I stenciled them.

I took the pillow out of the case and laid it flat on a surface for me to work on it.

I used my Cricut to make stencils and then centered them on the pillow and traced them out with a pencil. I then went in with watered down black fabric paint and a paint brush and filled in the letters.

This is the finished pillows drying.

 Love the final result!!!!!!!

Craft: Mother's Day Apron for Kids to Make

I went to Michaels and bought an adult size canvas apron. I have a friend who loves to bake and her little twin girls love to help her in the kitchen (they are 18 months old). Anyway, I thought it would be cute to get her an apron and (with black fabric paint) write on there: "Mommy's Helpers" and then put the girls' handprints (in different colored fabric paint) all over the apron. I thought it came out pretty cute (I forgot to take a picture of it before I gave it to her).

Easy May Day Preschool Project

April Showers Bring May Flowers

This was a simple project I did with the kids. I cut out an umbrella shape from some left over scrapbook paper (the kids that can cut on their own, did) and they glued it to a piece of paper. Then, they dipped their thumb into blue paint to make rain drops on the umbrella. On another piece of paper, I painted their hand prints and added green stems. On the bottom of the papers, I wrote: April showers, bring May flowers. I stapled the two pages together like a book. Cute project for May Day!





Scrabble Coasters - Great Gifts for Any Occassion

I have seen the Scrabble coasters on Pinterest and I thought it would be a great gift for someone for a wedding. I found that I liked the size better of a 5x5 tile coaster. I had just seen them with 4 letter words. So, I came up with some "wedding" words and made a set of six for a friend of mine who is getting married. I had my husband cut small squares out of thin board to glue the tiles on. I painted the backs of them black.

The words I used for the wedding tiles were:

• their names, first, last, their kids' names
• date and year of the wedding, bride, groom, loved
• share, kiss, talk, relax, often
• boy, meets, girl, the, end
• happy, cozy, ours, heart, home
• toast, laugh, dance, smile, dream

(for the words that weren't five letters, I just used a blank one or turned a letter tile over).

I loved the way these turned out that I made a set for my sister because they just moved into their new house.

The words I used for the new house were:

•  party, times, games, food, drink
• paint, blood, sweat, tears, house (they built a lot of their house themselves so that is where these words came from)
• plant, grow, weeds, trees, path
• home, cozy, quiet, place, woods
• relax, enjoy, toast, dream, laugh
• I then used their last name, zip code, town they live in and state

I will be making these again. I think they are a great handmade gift that can be personalized for any occasion! Happy Tiling!

DIY - Wine Corks to Bulletin Board

I used a strong glue for this project.



I first laid out the corks to make sure I had enough to make an "L".



I started gluing the corks on a piece of thin wood we had in the garage. I just took the cork from where it was laid out on the table and glued it on the board. My husband then cut the board a little bigger than what I had and I finished out the edges with the rest of the corks. It works great and I like the way the different corks look! I thought a star shape or a sun shape would be really cool too! I have to start drinking more wine to get more corks!!!

Easy Easter Painting Project for Toddlers

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I had the kids paint a piece of white cardstock with a couple of pastel colors.  

When it was dry, I cut out an Easter egg shape.

Fat Free - High Protein Ranch Dressing - Fooled My Kids

My son loves ranch dressing, but I hate all the fat in it!!! He will only eat carrots if he has ranch to dip them in. So, I found a great solution!!!! I use plain Greek yogurt (the yogurt pictured here is vanilla. I didn't have any plain left, but I wanted to get this post out), skim milk and Hidden Valley Ranch Dips dry packet (I use the ranch one for the ranch dip, but I have used the other Dip packets for other dips and they come out just as great!). I mix them together to the consistency that I like (pour the milk slowly because it will thicken) and keep it in a covered dish in the fridge. After my son tried it for the first time, he said it was the best ranch he has ever had!!!!!!!!!!!!! Mission Accomplished!!