Santa is Coming!

In my last post, I showed a picture of my Santa collection and this  new addition to the crew.  Within a few hours my sister was calling me and asking the who, what and how of this canvas.

So here you go… 

Usually we have another painting that I made to go there in order to cover up the cable and electrical outlets that are mounted on the wall.  Here is a picture from 2012 where you can see it up there {and look how cute and sweet Jackson was then}

Please allow me to rant….Who puts a cable and electrical outlet over seven feet off the ground and does not even center it?  Who puts something like that in a cinderblock wall that would require a really crazy TV mount situation…to be mounted there (not centered) and then decide that an entertainment center is just easier to figure out? 

Someone who cares nothing for my state of mind, that’s who!  Yeah let’s just leave it there and call it a day!

So for a few years I’ve had it covered up.  This year I changed some of my Christmas decorations  and decided to put the Santas there and have the nativity down where the boys can see it better.  So the usual canvas looks awful with the Santas and of course like any perfectly sane person I knew I had to create a new canvas to cover the outlets.

Yes, I am very good at making extra work for myself.  So I Googled “Santa picture” and finally came to one that I liked and I thought I could execute. 

It turns out that Pottery Barn had something similar (for $250) a few years ago and it had been copied all over the internet.  So I printed out a copy and set up a grid on my canvas and got to work.

I lightened this one so you can see it better.

It is pretty simple if you just put a grid on your paper and then do a little math to find out the grid on your canvas.  After that is done you just draw each square exactly as it looks in the original.

Then you just get to coloring.  I used a silver Sharpie.  I have an extensive collection of Sharpies and I’m not afraid to admit it!

{I decided to do this before my Christmas decorations were really finished and there were still boxes in the Dining room.  I have no idea why I needed to get this done so desperately….}

I got about half way through when my marker died.  I had another one, but when I opened it, the new one was dried up.   Womp, womp womp!  So the next day I trotted myself all the way across the island to get another silver Sharpie.  It turned out that they didn’t have the same one as I had before.  Why would they?  That would be way too easy. 

They did have a silver paint pen.  I love paint pens.  Well I did when I was 12, which is also when I loved White Out so much I painted my lampshade in my bedroom with White Out…so yeah, I love paint pens.

Bada bing bada boom!

The paint pen has a different sheen on the canvas and it irks me some to look at it and see two different shades of silver on there.  But sometimes you just have to call it done and move on…

There is always next year to improve it and make it even better!  I’m thinking glitter!

Oh and I’d be lying if I didn’t show you this.  It turns out that this canvas is just a bitty bit smaller than the one I usually have up there.  So the outlets show.  Let’s take a moment to mourn for my precarious mental health…

I’m looking for an easel to put it on…. maybe one I can have to fix up and make more work for myself.

Homework Problems and Solutions

This is the first year that both the boys have homework.  Jackson has full on spelling sentences, putting words in ABC order and math pages as well as reading every night.  Miller is shorter with reading and one 10 minute activity.  It’s manageable though.

However it quickly became apparent that with two boys working on different activities in the same space that some organization was in order.  I turned to Pintrest and there were tons of great ideas for homework stations. 

It’s just that none of them work for us since homework is done in the Dining Room and has to be cleaned up before dinner.

So, what is a girl to do?

That’s right I made a plan!   I opened up the cabinet that we have in our Dining Room and turned it into a homework station.

During Homework time I pull this little basket out.  It contains all the essentials!

Scissors, glue sticks, erasers, a pencil sharpener and a few other tiny things are contained in the red pencil box.  The blue box holds crayons.

The basket also holds Miller’s flash cards , a jar of pencils, rulers, a notebook and a few stickers.

I have a separate basket for school supplies that are not needed yet.  School supplies are so hard to find here {and expensive too}, so I stock up when we go to the U.S.

This cabinet is now a one stop shop for all our learning.  I am keeping markers, notebooks, dry erase pens and boards, extra folders, coloring books and puzzle magazines in here now too.

Of course I had to put the stuff that was in here somewhere.  Another project for another day!

Don’t you love it

Don’t you love it when you figure something out?  I may pay for my blonde locks, but in this case I feel like I am a true blonde!

When we moved here we bought a Costco set of Vanity Fair paper napkins and over the almost 3 years we have been here, we still have a few packs left.  Paper products on this island are crazy expensive.  A 4 pack of toilet paper runs about $6.  We were wisely counseled to pack as much paper products as we could with our household goods.

At the beginning of the year I decided to try moving the paper towel holder under the sink and seeing how few paper towels we could use.  We were already good at using rags for spills etc, but I wanted to see what we could do.  We cut paper towel use down to about a roll a month.  Not too shabby.  So could we drastically cut out already minimal paper napkin usage?

For as long as I can remember I have preferred using cloth napkins.  They just feel special.  This was way before it was cool to be green.  My hubby even came into the marriage with some cloth napkins.  {Before you try to take away his “man card”, his family uses mostly cloth napkins and his brother worked at Williams-Sonoma}.  We just like them.  When I do use paper napkins they need to be the good ones.  It’s just yucky to wipe your fingers on a disintegrating piece of paper.

There have been times where it is not practical to use cloth napkins, {when the boys were very young and I just could not bear to wash one more thing comes to mind!}  but we always come back to cloth napkins.  It’s just that paper napkins can be awfully  convenient.  It is the siren’s call of easy and disposable.  That call is a tempting call. Like a Hot Now sign.  Almost.

I’ve tried keeping my everyday cloth napkins in a few different spots, but I couldn’t figure out a spot that was as easy as the basket that held paper napkins.  That basket of paper napkins being out is just so convenient.  My cloth napkins were too long to fit into the basket.

The other day we were out of paper napkins and I was headed upstairs to get another pack, when I got sidetracked by a load of laundry that needed to be folded.  That load had dish towels and cloth napkins.  It was then and there that inspiration struck.  could I fold my cloth napkins in such a way that they would fit in the disposable napkin basket?

Why yes, yes they could!

I present to you the one thing that has made me happier than a bird with a french fry!

Now that we have to go upstairs to get a paper napkin, I bet we will still have a few napkins left when we leave this island.  Either that or we will start using more paper towels!

Cookies!

Almost two and a half years ago I decided that I wanted to learn to make decorated sugar cookies.  I had seen them for years and thought they looked like a fun thing to be able to make. 
I love a good theme party and what better way to personalize your party than with a cookie?
If you know me really well then you know I am a decent cook, but I am not a great baker.  All the exact measuring is just not my strength.
So I got to baking.  As expected, it’s harder than it looks.  The cookie part is not too hard, but the decorating of those cookies took at lot of practice.  Good thing my family doesn’t care what the cookies looked like.  They had plenty of practice cookies while I learned the ins and outs of piping and flooding cookies.
After a few months I made some simple stars for the 4th of July party.  Jackson was so proud to tell people that I had made them, I knew I needed to keep trying.
That summer I also made these for their party.  Simple, but cute!

At Christmas I got brave and had some friends over for a cookie decorating party and made these.

I made hundreds of cookies that Christmas and have no pictures to show, but they were good {and good practice too}!
In April our friends moved back to Canada and I made these for their going away party.

The kids were all running around with black tongues that night!
I made some graduate cookies for our friend who graduated High School.




I think I nailed it!

For Canada Day I made some maple leaves.

The next year for 4th of July I made these …

Because I learned that if kids are gobbling them up, rather than appreciating them as mini works of art, it is easier to keep it simple.

In August we had a Lego party and these minifigure cookies were a fun addition to the party.

In December I hosted my second cookie decorating party and we had a blast!

I also made a couple hundred other cookies to give to friends and neighbors.  Yeah.
With the end of school approaching we were invited to a start of Summer party, we had a class party for the summer birthdays and a couple other things happening, so I made a big bunch of cookies for those events.

Sharks, surf boards and bathing suits!
And flip flops too!
While I feel a lot more comfortable with my cookie decorating than I used to, it is still tough.  There are plenty of things I’d like to do better, but then I remind myself that it’s a cookie for heaven’s sake and it will be eaten no matter how it looks.