Holiday Links

I have to be honest, we are enjoying our selves and spending time with family way too much to have any motivation to blog, but I have been relaxing in blog land a little and found some fun links for you!

A fun little snack for cold wintery days, try this melting snowman

This fun craft uses things I guarantee you have around your house, for those kids on vacation with boredom creeping in!

Use this site for cute Christmas decorating if you have a party coming up, or just want to make your own Christmas dinner extra special.

A FREE Christmas Printable, if you've got an empty frame "hanging" around, decorate easily with this or, print out some wallet sized, hit up the $1 section for some little frames and make some ornaments as gifts or for yourself!

A cute, inexpensive gift idea for your kids to put together for their friends or family!

Food for thought, Christian parenting at Christmas.....Santa or no Santa?

Consider giving a gift that keeps giving.....request a catalog and let your kids pick out a gift from them.

Weekend Finds

I love finding great ideas, even more than that I love sharing great ideas. So here a few finds I fell upon over the weekend worth sharing!

Kids 
I'll be getting this Nativity pack ready for the plan ride in 9 days!
And probably this Christmas pack as well! 

Just Because

Recycled Kitchen There are some pretty fancy Mini kitchens out on the market these days, but this one was too cute not to share!
 Traveling this season? You want to read this Mom's idea for keeping eveyone in fun spirits when traveling gets tough!
 

Christmas

These paint stick ornaments are adorable and practically FREE! If you must pay for the sticks, our were .32 at Walmart (that may be cheaper in the mainland) Each stick makes 4 ornaments. The printable is {FREE} follow the tutorial and make your self or others some ornaments for pennies, literally!

Fabulous Freebies

Free Digital Scrapbooking downloads! I have spent a lot of time over at Shabbyprincess this weekend!These are not only great for Scrapbooking, but why not create your very own Christmas or New Year's Photo Card this year! Get them printed up at your local Costco or Photo center, personalized them the way you want them!

 A little disclaimer, this isn't our Christmas Card. In fact the kids are STILL sick and we haven't even gotten to take family photos yet, so we are planning on sending new years cards!

A Challenge

Are you up for it? Head over to Courtney's Blog for a great challenge. Starting this week would be great since the challenge is to take a bubble bath!

Digital Scrapbooking Addiction

Oh Wow.......I was up with a sick little girl last night and started clicking around the web reading up on Digital Scrapbooking. I love Scrapbooking, though I don't have the time for it anymore. 

The above layout was made all for free {FREE}with downloads from

Shabbyprincess

 The coolest thing is, you can get FREE tutorials on this site that walk you step by step through the entire process AND you can get these pages printed at your local Costco!! (as well as a million other places!) Or on a photo printer (which I have, but I am wondering if ink costs are more than printing....)

I think I have found a new addiction brewing.

I want to be a good keeper of Memories for my children, I enjoy photographing them but have little time to create something! This way I can create and stop with no mess and no cleaning up! Oh wow. I know I'm coming a little late to the game here but....sigh.......I'm in digilove......

Chalkin' it UP!

Last year for Valentine's Day giveaways I made crayons out of well....crayons. I know creative right? Okay so if you missed that post you can catch up on the idea here {and no, I didn't come up with the idea, I just bought a cookie pan with the fun shapes to melt them in. Anyway, they turned out great and were a big hit.

So this year for Christmas, I sprouted another idea. Something fun without the sugar and allergy warnings! Plus spreading a little creativity along the way!

So this year we are making.......

Homemade sidewalk chalk! And let me tell you it's way easier than pealing all those crayons! Especially the ones you hadn't even used yet! You need a few simple ingredients and you are on your way to some sidewalk art fun!

Gather your indredients: Plaster of Paris, Powder tempera paint (liquid would work, but you'll end up with very light colors), cookie tins (I bought girl shapes and boy shapes at Target), a tuperware bowl, measuring cups and spoons. 

Chalk recipe: 2 cups of plaster to 1 cup water , 1-2 T of powder tempera paint. A few notes about the recipe: You ratio of plaster to water may be different than mine. The thicker it is the faster it will set BUT the harder it is to pour, you have to find a middle ground. You can use tempera paint but your colors will be very muted, if you do that add the paint to the plaster first and then add water. Since you are adding a liquid you'll add less water than the 1st recipe called for. There is a lot of wiggle room, you can always add water or plaster if it doesn't seem right. If you have disposable bowls and mixing spoons I'd use those....

 Measure your water first, add the plaster and paint and mix......

 and mix.......

and mix some more!

 

Pour your concotion into the molds and wait! It takes about an hour (sometimes longer) for the plaster to harden and dry enough on the outside. They are pretty hard to get out of the mold so don't be afraid to wack the tin against the counter or tap the back of the mold itself. We didn't have any chalk break and I was pretty rough!

 

Cute huh? And of course we tried them out and they work great and wash right off! You have to wait about 24 hours for the inside of the plaster to fully dry, but have fun. Oh and if you are coming over for Thanksgiving....your kids might be going home with a few of these......