Project Life 2013: Happy Birthday To Me!

My birthday last week was low-key, but one of the best I've ever had.  TJ took the morning off to watch the girls so I could get my craftiness on.  For six whole uninterrupted hours. Granted I used some of it to shower in peace and get an eyebrow wax, but the rest was spent editing photos and making a Project Life layout.

Here it is:

June 3 - 16: Father's Day, lima bean plant, double cart @ Whole Foods

June 3-16: my favorite paper EVER, popsicles, Crazy House Project

Filler - I have a thing for clouds, lately.

Calendar card with pretties

I used the Citrus Twist June Project Life Kit, mostly.  I put the last several kits in the same Cropper Hopper Paper File (love these things for storing kits!), so I'm not sure which pieces belong with each month's kit.  But I do like mixing and matching things, so I'm not too worried about it.  I especially love the Amy Tangerine Yes Please tiny puffy stickers and their fun summery colors.

And you know what else matched, and was perfect for our popsicle-making process photos?  My MOST FAVORITE PAPER EVER.  

It's the Dreamy Days Polaroid-esque paper from American Crafts' Dear Lizzy Neapolitan line.  I got a sheet at my local scrapbook store (shout out to Ben Franklin Redmond!), and when I realized how much I loved it, I went back for more only to find they were completely out.  I was heartbroken, so I ordered a few sheets online from another scrap store.  Then I realized I *still* wanted more, so I ordered a 25-pack on Amazon. At the time, it was much more expensive than it is now, but I still consider it money well spent, to secure (aka hoard) that paper. I know, it's a sickness.

But now that I have so much, I'm not afraid to use it. It works so well to frame lots of little photos. And the pastel colors coordinated really well with the Citrus Twist kit colors.

You'll also notice that I embraced two colors I don't much care for - Pepto-Bismol pink and yellow.  I'm just not a fan but they worked well here, especially with that yummy pink and yellow ombre wide washi tape from a recent Studio Calico add-on kit. Standing in for bullet points this week on my summary are the hard-to-find Studio Calico tiny star wood veneers.

I've also found the perfect solution to adhering tiny wood veneer pieces and sequins, without having to deal with messy wet glue anymore.  Hooray!  I had no idea that Glue Dots came in a Micro size of 1/8 inch. I'll be buying more of these, for sure.  They are perfect for the tiniest wood veneer stars, little sequins and even small beads.

As you can tell, this was A Good Crafty Session. I had fun, and things came together as I thought they should.  I've been in a bit of a picture taking lull, so I'm hoping the Phone Photography class I signed up for in July will help me get my mojo back.

Here's a slide show of all my 2013 pages, including close-ups.  If you can't see it, click here to view my entire 2013 Project Life gallery.

Almost Wordless Wednesday: Best Birthday Ever

38 brought to you by
Raskog, Project Life, card made by T, breakfast cooked by TJ, Silhouette download card,
6 hours of uninterrupted mama time, dinner with family at Pomegranate and cake.

A space that now you hold: Summer Kid Schedule

T's preschool is on Summer Break until Labor Day. Thanks to my new "life of leisure", this wasn't a cause of consternation or a mad scramble to find camps and alternate arrangements to cover the time.

However, I realized about a month ago that I would need to plan *something* for our days.  We don't do well just lolling around in the house. T can play on her own a bit, but quickly gets bored and wants to play *with* me. While I love being home with the kids, I don't want to be drafted into the role of being their playmate and entertaining them all day long either.

We needed a plan. I've always been intrigued by homeschooling, partly just due to the structure and organization it requires to plan educational, interesting activities.

When T was a baby, I made up a schedule to hang on the fridge that outlined our activities for the week including my work days, our Toddler Group, and various meals and naps. It helped a lot by taking some of the "hmm, what's next" processing out of my brain, and also got us on a more regular eating schedule.  (Coordinating 3 meals and 2 baby snacks was driving me bonkers until I picked times and followed them.)

My imaginary Internet friend J (who I've actually met a few times in real life) posted a quick sample summer schedule on Facebook and it was *brilliant*.  The key items I hadn't thought about were having a couple of "activity blocks" like "art project" or "outside fun" or "game" where you could change it up each day, but still have an idea of what to fill that time with.

So I ran with it. Since we have T (age 3.5) and M's (age 8 months) schedules to contend with, ours is a bit tricky.  It was like a fun logic puzzle to fit in all the pieces.

Once everyone is up and has gotten dressed and eaten breakfast, we do a bit of reading time. I noticed that lately we've gotten out of the habit of reading during the day as T is *so busy* with her own playtime.  Consequently M isn't hearing as many books as T did when she was a baby.  Sigh, poor neglected second child.

As much as I can, I try to be hardcore about making sure we're home at the appropriate times for naps and not scheduling over them. M still takes a morning nap, so we're typically home until she wakes from that, which is around 10:30am.  While she sleeps, T and I do either an art project or work on some of her workbooks. (She loves them- I swear I'm not running an academic sweatshop here.)

The *actual* schedule

We then have a morning "Get Out of the House" activity, which on nice days would be a trip to the park to burn off some preschooler beans, or running errands. (Can I say how in love I am with places that have double shopping carts?!)

Next is lunch and both girls napping (or T having Quiet Time) until about 3pm.  (Divine, I know.) After that we have a quick snack, then our Afternoon Activity, which is T's swimming lesson twice a week, a park trip if we didn't go in the morning, or maybe some sidewalk chalk or playing in the rice bin on the deck.  When it's nicer out, we'll get out the Crab Pool and play in there.

Then we get into the home stretch - T watches some Spanish or educational TV while I cook dinner, then we have Cleanup Time (I have J to thank for this!).  By this time TJ is usually home, so we eat then everyone gets ready for bed. On a good day, the girls are in bed, lights out at 7:30pm. We don't always have Good Days, though. Such is life with 2 under 4, I guess.

But just a few days into Summer Break, this schedule is making me a lot less stressed out. I don't have to scramble and plan for each afternoon while the girls are napping - I just need to pick one activity for the days we don't have swimming.  If we get off track due to late naps or sleeping in, no worries - we just pick up where we left off and skip stuff as needed (except for naps. We try not to skip naps because that causes 2am BADNESS).

I printed a copy of the schedule to hang on the fridge (with cute fonts, of course). T likes me to read it to her each day, and has already taken to asking "what's next on the Mama School Schedule?". Definitely my kid.

That's it - very simple, but super effective. I'm looking forward to seeing how it evolves over the next couple of months!

Round and Round

While TJ and T were at the new Monsters University movie yesterday (she lasted an hour, which was longer than I expected), BabyM and I went to mail some packages from my Etsy shop. We visited a nearby thrift shop just for fun, and found an intact Spirograph set.

I knew T would like it, but wasn't sure if she has the manual dexterity yet.  I remember being pretty frustrated with Spirograph as a kid - the gears would always slip around and ruin whatever cool pattern I was drawing.

So I put it down and went to pay for the $3 bead maze BabyM had gotten attached to. The nice lady behind the counter informed me they had a $5 minimum for credit card purchases, so I went back to retrieve Spirograph, which I bought for $4.50.

Turns out that was a smart move. Vintage versions of this toy with all the pieces are selling for upwards of $20 on EBay. Ours is from 1986 and surprisingly the ballpoint pens still work!

We started our new "mama school" summer schedule today since TJ is away all day on his motorcycle.  To preserve everyone's sanity, and to limit the number of entertainment decisions I need to make on the fly, I drafted a rough daily schedule, modeled on one from a friend. (More on that in a future post.)

So our morning "art project" was learning to use Spirograph, and T kept going long after the allotted 45 minutes.  (The schedule is flexible like that.)

We discovered her cheap colored ballpoint pens from Daiso, the Japanese dollar store, work great, as do her glittery Hello Kitty gel pens from the Target $1 section.  She got the hang of placing the holder under the paper and poking the pins through it, and placing the outer ring and selecting which little gears she wanted to use.  (We're all about self-sufficiency here...)

I think I need to hack our Spirograph a bit - perhaps repositionable Glue Dots to stick the frame to the paper would be better than that cumbersome plastic holder (which I'm afraid we'll lose).  I also need to figure out a good work surface so the pens don't scratch up the table. A large piece of foamcore board might work well.

I realized that the original box/package is way bigger than it needs to be, so we put all the pieces into a smaller pencil box. I did save the original packaging in the garage on the off chance that we'll still have all the pieces once BabyM is done with it, and we can sell it for $$$ on EBay.  Or whatever replacement for EBay is around in 2020 or so...

This "new" toy was definitely a hit.  Have you unearthed any of your favorite childhood toys for your kiddos?

Wordless Wednesday: 18 years, 18 years