So Much To Say! 3 Projects, One Post. Can You Deal?

Dearest Internets! I have been so busy, I haven't had time to sit down and blog our many adventures! We are in full on Summer mode here in our house. Lots of work, lots of play, very little extra time! I set a goal this summer to spend time teaching my kids how to do chores instead of just sending them to do various jobs and it's been great. I've also encouraged them to do chores and fulfill their responsibilities by giving them the opportunity to earn all of the fun activities we've been doing. It's been fabulous to give them some of the power--they don't do the work they don't get to do the play. But that's a post for another day. Luckily, I have some pretty great kids and we've had a lot of fun. So without further ado (because this is going to be an eternally long post anyway!) Here are some of the things we've done--we've made Kool Aid Taffy, we made Squirty Sidewalk Chalk and I made a cute stamped bracelet for a friend. How I LOVE Pinterest!!
Kool Aid Taffy

link found here

Before Pinterest provided the super helpful "Hey Smarty! You've already pinned this!" feature I pinned this easily two or three times! So I KNEW I had to give it a try. The pin took me to the food.com website where they proclaim that this can be made in 11 minutes using things I already have onhand. Fast! Cheap! Easy! By now, Internets, you know me well enough to know that when it comes to making a craft project, these 3 characteristics equal a winner in my book. We got out the stuff and got started. (I don't have a supplies picture--do you really want to see the 5 gallon bucket I keep my sugar in?) First, Don Diego and Mademoiselle buttered some cookie sheets. Er, a(n OLD kind of dang gross don't judge) cookie sheet and a pizza pan. My cookies sheets were out on loan at the time. 

Blurry action shot. Don Diego is clearly

a speedy butterer.

Then, in a pot, I put some sugar and cornstarch and mixed it up. 

Then I added the corn syrup, water, butter and salt. 

At this point, I started digging through kitchen drawers for my candy thermometer. It was nowhere to be found. I resigned myself to being forced to use the whole, "dump a little bit in a glass of super cold water and see if it's reached "hard ball" stage or not." I hate doing this, I never seem to get it right! Maybe this step  made me cuss a little. 

I let the syrup mixture cook and cook and cook stirring pretty frequently.

 Once it reached "hard ball" stage where, when you pour a little in a glass of cold water it turns into, well, a hard ball. (Not just a clever name, the "hard ball stage.") 

I turned off the heat and Mademoiselle poured in this little packet o' fun.

I mixed it up and then dumped it onto the cookie sheet.

The entire pot full fit on just one cookie sheet. I used a wooden spoon to smooth it out

Mademoiselle said, "Ewww! It looks like blood!" Muahahaha!

At this point, the instructions say to wait for a bit for it to cool enough to be able to handle it so you can "pull" it. So I waited, I used a scraper to sort of mess with it to see if it was hardening..

Nope. Not hardening. It cooled and I tried to get some up off the pan to pull it and it was gloppy and sticky. I waited a little longer...

Still gloppy. Spoiler alert: It never progressed past this gloppy stage, leading me to believe I didn't let it boil long enough. This stuff was sticky and gross, it got EVERYWHERE while I tried to work with it and was really just a frustrating MESS. But it tasted GREAT, right Boy?

He liked.

So this pin ended up being a big fat sticky fail for me! I don't blame it on the recipe, I blame it on my inability to judge the hardness of a ball of syrup in water. I wouldn't try this again for any amount of money in the whole wide world without a candy thermometer. Sigh. Bummer! Oh well. Moving on!

Squirty Sidewalk Chalk

link here

Here's another pin I have pinned maybe 3 kajillion times! I was super excited to try this one. I was in charge of the activity for a family night and thought this would be perfect! Here are the materials I used:

(water not pictured. Poor water.)

The blog author over at Growing a Jeweled Rose recommended using neon food coloring and I heartily agree! It makes the colors so bright and really vibrant! First, I added cornstarch to the squirt bottles (which I got at Walmart for .97 each)

Can we just pause momentarily to bemoan how POWDERY corn starch is? You guys, I made a HUGE mess doing this!

Then I added the baking soda

the water...

and the food coloring 

And then shake-a shake-a shake-a! 

Okay, the problem I had here is the cornstarch always settles at the bottom and gets all gloppy and it was hard to mix up. I had to stick a knife in and mix it that way. And it got gloppy again later. Next time, I will add cornstarch last.

So I made three of them so each kid would have a color

I put some vinegar in three more bottles

And we headed out to make a mess! I mean, some art!

Mademoiselle (with pink of course!) and

Poquito Tito exhibiting artistic awesomeness

The Boy and Poquito Tito

Don Diego wanted to play tic tac toe

Once they ran out of paint, I gave them the vinegar and we watched the paint erupt!

This pin was ABSOLUTELY a success. (I would put the vinegar in a spray bottle instead of a squirt bottle next time) I highly recommend it. Plus, the art has lasted a week so far in our driveway! This pin was awesome. I'm so glad we did it!

Finally...

Metal Stamped Bracelet

Funny story. So I often have insomnia and have to take Ambien to sleep. My friends and family know that if I post stuff on my Facebook or send text messages after like 9:30PM, chances are I will have zero recollection of it the next day! So one day, we get these in the mail

These are the little metal stampers used to make the cute 

stamped jewelry you see everywhere! Hooray!

It was like Christmas! Then, a couple of days later, the Boy is looking at our credit card statement and asked what we bought from Amazon for $30. Um...some little metal stampers used to make the cute stamped jewelry you see everywhere? One Click Shipping+Ambien is a bad combination for this girl! The upside is that when I see pins like this one, I can make it myself!

I am in love with this leather wrap bracelet and the personalization is just icing on the cake here! Materials shot:

So initially I was planning on using this wire wrapping technique to attach the clasp to the ends of the bracelet but that involved a skill level I clearly do not possess so pretend the wire isn't in the picture. I didn't end up needing it. I also ended up using different metal blanks, but you'll see those later. 

So I wanted to make a bracelet for a friend's birthday but didn't want to give her a gift that looked like they'd put a little somethin somethin in the Kool Aid in Kindergarten and then made a kid make stamped leather wrap bracelet. So I decided to make one for me first. First, I stamped the blanks with the initials of everyone in my family

I colored it with a Sharpie so you could see the letter better

and wiped it off with a silver polishing cloth

Okay, that's hard to read..here are all 5 of them

Then I measured how much length I wanted the bracelet to be and cut it

After abandoning the wire wrapping, I decided to just use regular jump rings to attach the clasps. I used a thumb tack (fancy, right?) to poke holes in either end of the leather strip and threaded the opened jump ring through the hole. 

I attached the clasp to one end

I threaded the letters on (I tied a couple of knots in the leather to keep the letter charms in one sort of area so they wouldn't slide all over the entire length of the bracelet) and then attached the clasp to the other end of the bracelet. Voila!

Once I had it on, I noticed that the weight of the clasp was really pulling on one of those strands so I ended up disassembling it, cutting it down to only wrap three times and then reattaching the clasp. Problem solved! Tada!

I think it turned out really cute. Because I'm a complete slacker (seriously! It's a problem!) I haven't actually given my cute friend her bracelet yet. I suppose I'd better hurry and do this before she sees this post! Act surprised, Jessica! Act surprised!

Okay, Internets. That is the end of my super long blog post! I am going to be better about posting here so it doesn't take all day to write the post and half the day to read it! Tomorrow we're doing...BUBBLES THAT BOUNCE! Are you so excited? You should be, but try to control yourself. The neighbors will talk!

From Taylor - Weddings, Ribbons, and a Sneak Peek

Oh hi there. Remember me?! I swear I write sometimes. And sometimes I would forget my head if it wasn't attached. In other words, I've been a little busy lately. But! I have a fun one for you today. I got married back in December. (And can I just say that my hubby is such a champ. He did the dishes for me while I was at work today. I hate dishes. A lot.) The first project I want to show you is actually something we used at my wedding. I'm not much of a shimmer and sparkle kind of girl. But I fell in love with the idea of fairy lights. Here's the original pin.

Link here...

Gorgeous right? Problem was, there weren't any instructions! I had to go searching. Then I found this pin.

Link here...

This one had instructions. But we actually discovered that the best way to do it was with a small piece of tulle to tie it instead of string. And we only put the tulle on every third-ish light bulb. It was beautiful though. Check it out!

Photo Cred alert! This is from my good friend/wedding photographer Tory. Check her out here! 

The only problem was how long these took to do. We only did two strands, and it took about 5 hours. No exaggeration. I was a little stressed. Do you know how hard it is to plan a wedding?! Who has time for 5 hour light projects?! Good thing my totally awesome Momma stepped in and took over on this one. 

On to my next Pinterest adventure! I had more ribbon than I had any clue what to do with left over after my reception. If you search "Ribbon" on Pinterest, a lot comes up. Here's the one that struck my fancy. 

Ribbon wreath instructions!

My ribbon was sheer, so I had to alter a few things. For one, hot glue to make the loops was not a good idea. Talk about burnt fingers! So I tried sewing a few. But that was taking way, way, way too long. So I had to put my thinking cap on. And then it hit me! Staples! 

This little guy was a gem.

I lost count of my loops, so I just kept making them until I got through a few spools of ribbon. This is what they look like when they're done.

You can't really see the staple. Sorry for the bad picture!

I did have to use hot glue to attach the ribbons to the frame. That wasn't quite as bad because I could apply the glue and let it almost cool and then add it to the wreath just in time for it to stick. 

Ta-daaaaa! My beautiful wreath!

It did take a very long time, as in 6ish hours, but I love the wreath, so it was worth it. Pinterest win! Only problem?

I still have all this ribbon left over... So bloggerverse, any suggestions on how to use up a whole bunch of ribbon? Suggestions are encouraged! Here's a sneak peek for you all. Our blog post about dawn dish soap and vinegar cleaning solution was such a hit that I've decided to do another post about all of the cleaning tips out there on dawn dish soap. You can thank me later. :) That's all folks, ta-ta for now!

A Post From Peggy--Chocolate and a Challenge

Hey Internets! This post is going to be super fast because I am doing this while dinner cooks before I head off to play (and win!) Bunco. Hooray for Bunco!

So..here's the thing. Life is hard, you know? Sometimes it just kicks you in the face and leaves you sputtering and wondering what in the CRAP just happened. And sometimes you get so stuck in muck that you can't even imagine a way out of it. Have you ever felt that way? If your answer is no, you're either a stinkin liar or the luckiest person who ever lived. I know I've felt that way. Lots. And sometimes when I feel that way, someone does the smallest kindest thing that by no means solves my problem but reminds me I am loved.

As I went through my Pinterest boards trying to find a fun project to share with you this week, I did it with a dear friend on my mind and in my heart. She's going through one of those trials right now and I hate to think of how badly her beautiful heart hurts right now and I hate feeling helpless to fix it. (Who wants to rob a bank with me? I'll drive the get-away car!) So I came across this pin and it looked like something I could do easily and quickly, since I had a crapload of things to do today and 2 small kids accompanying me while I did it all. Have you seen this?

The cute girls at eighteen25 have this free printable available with the idea that you could give it to a teacher for Teacher Appreciation Week. I think that's a FABULOUS idea. But I also know someone else who really COULD use a break. My sweet friend! So I printed their printable on some kraft cardstock:

Sweet! Two of them! I can give another one

to someone else who needs a pick-me-up!

I bought some Kit-Kats at the grocery store while I did my grocery shopping, (have you tasted these mini Kit-Kats? I swear they're better than the big ones!) and taped the cut out printable to the bag. I tossed it along with a little bottle of bubble bath and a card telling her how much she blesses my life in a cute cello bag and delivered it to her house. Super easy!

I give this pin two enthusiastic thumbs up for being easy, awesome and inexpensive. You know how much I love those three things!!

Here's the thing though. I wasn't 100% sure I was going to post this because I do have a "don't let the left hand know what the right hand is doing" policy but I wanted to share it because I want to challenge you to use this pin. Print this out, spend less than a buck on a Kit Kat and give it to someone who deserves a break. We all could every once in awhile--I know I sure could! 

Next week I'm going to start sharing super fun summer projects and recipes that I do with my kids! I hope you're as excited as I am!