making things

I made this fabric scrap banner at our girls night "making party" last weekend. It was so much fun and this looks so perfect in my living room.

I mixed newer and vintage fabrics in shades of pink, orange, yellow, white, blue and peach. The colors really pull together my pink couch (with blue polka dots), blue recliner and tan wood furniture. Now all I have to do is hang my sheer white curtains behind the banner.

I'm hoping to crochet a rag rug for this room too....but that's a whole other project.

I almost forgot....this photo was my inspiration for this project. (original source.)

right now

i'm looking forward to...

girls night! making crafts, swapping clothes and eating goodies. oh yes.

a weekend away with just my husband and our best friends.

making myself actually take pictures on this trip!

my life to slow down again, in just a couple more weeks.

school at home

Well that was an interesting unplanned break.

Hopefully i can get back to business around here.

Things have busy and all over the place the past month or so.

I've been wanting to post about our school at home progress...but we haven't had much space for school lately. oops.

I want our home school experience to be very laid back and give Louella the freedom to learn what interests her. My vision is a bit more like the unschooling approach. But I'm realizing that I need to be slightly more intentional. I've been browsing the internet for some ideas on how to add a bit more structure to our days at home. I'd like to make a 'daily rhythm chart' like this one. Something that I can put up to keep me accountable and that allows Louella to see what's available for her to work on that day or week. I'm thinking our list will look something like this...

breakfast

read books or watch a show

tidy house

spelling and writing

free play time

outdoor play or walk

lunch

project work

nap

snack

language or math

have fun for the rest of the day!

Project work would be painting, cut & paste work, play dough, building, coloring or some other planned craft. And for language we're going to work on Spanish. I'm not sure about how we will tackle math yet.

How do you keep yourself productive at home all day?

um...hi.

it's kind of been a month and a half.

oops.

instagram weekend

we had a wonderful weekend.

kitchen scratch : the owl cake

i told you there would be a few new things popping up on the blog.
we'd like to share some of our tasty makings in the kitchen from time to time. and let me just say right up front...i do not pride myself in the kitchen. but i do make some pretty tasty things worth sharing every now and then.
like this owl cake! i made this for my sisters 18th birthday.

Carrot, Raisin, Pineapple Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

i will not fool you into thinking i actually made this cake from scratch. i used a box mix.
but my mom let me in on a little secret way to pump up a box mix cake and fool anyone into thinking you made it from scratch. we poured a layer of crushed pineapple into the bottom of the pan and then poured the batter over top. it made the cake more moist and added a little extra something to an otherwise ordinary boxed mix.
the frosting was your basic cream cheese frosting but what really made this cake special was the almonds. yep. they not only added just the right missing flavor...they turned a round cake into an owl! right?! seriously this was super easy.
i cannot believe i didn't make an owl cake sooner.

is it just me

summer is flying by. it's almost over already.
how did this happen?
i had so much i wanted to do this summer and i hardly got to any of it.
and somehow we've been so busy that we have hardly had time to stop a day.

i did have some time to do something on our summer list.
make popsicles.
we made these delicious strawberry lemonade pops.
we've also made some tasty mango pops.
i don't know why people don't make their own popsicles all the time...they're ten times better than any store bought popsicle i've ever had.
i might never go back to a boxed popsicle again.