So excited that these turned out easier and more beautiful than they were in my head!  They are 14-3x6 cards for a teacher gift.  They fit into a Cricut Cartridge box with envelopes I bought in huge supply from Staples years ago.


Supplies:
Cricut Cartridge Box
Paper-MME-Heart paper is Now & Then, card papers are Cut & Paste
Gold cardstock gifted to me from a SS sister who bought the 8x8 sheets in bulk. I cut down to 6x6 and folded in half
All sentiments are CTMH, Balloons are all Hampton Art except 1-1 and the Eiffel tower are Tim Holtz stamps
Gold embossing powder is Queen's Gold from Stamp Cafe.
I used SU! Illuminate pigment ink as my base for the embossing powder.

Look who's on 2 wheels!

I was about to leave the house when the call came.  Another call from school.  If you didn't already know, we get a call about our children about once a week.  There was a bike rodeo at school today. I asked the kids several times if they wanted to participate, but no one seemed interested.  Until 2 hours before it started.  I got a frantic call from H's teacher begging me to bring his bike over.  H doesn't often feel the need to participate in stuff, so I gave in and brought it over.

I felt a little better when I delivered his bike to the grade 2 holding area and found one other bike with training wheels out of the 20 that were there.  H does things at his own pace and gets distracted easily. Both of these tendencies are disadvantages when trying to ride a 2 wheeled bike that requires you to keep pedaling to balance.  I waited for the afternoon....

He was very excited as he won the slow race.  Turns out training wheels and going slow while riding naturally are huge advantages in this sort of activity.  It also meant he and V were hot to trot on trying out riding their bikes without training wheels.  We'd tried last summer and after a disasterous afternoon with tears on everyone's part we shelved it for a year.  This afternoon, it took about 10 minutes to at least get going. They still need to work on braking, turning and dismounting, but they can ride in a straight line at least 15 seconds without falling!
H:

V:

 

 

Then V went back to her speed demon ways on her scooter:

 

 

Farmer's Market & V gets an award & rare sighting-me!

 

Today V got an award for co-operation.  I told her this morning so she'd dress nicely and she said, "I get a reward!"  Then afterwards I asked her if she'd like me to take her paper home and she looked at me blankly a minute. "So it doesn't get mucked up" I explained. "Of course," she very adultly said and handed it over.

The weather has been so nice here-the little kids set up an obstacle course with cones and H insisted on "verifying" it.

Enjoying some sun in JC Saddington park, Mississagua with scrapbooking friends.

The kids got cool face paint tattoos on their arms and got sunflowers to plant and raise all summer at the farmer's market this week.

 

They've been enjoying the pool-esp V the fish.

 

Gnome home

C and I took a Fairy Garden class at the library yesterday. We took our planter bottom home and set it into the garden. This morning we awoke to a massacre. Lesson learned-when building fairy gardens outdoors, don't use nuts or anything that looks like a nut! He took the news in stride, though and after school all 3 kids worked together to rebuild bigger and better for their gnome...

 

 

Organizing the back deck

I love when the kids play outside. What's not to love-they get tired out, fresh air, the house is quiet.....  but the toys to keep them occupied while they are out there were getting on my nerves, so I tackled them today:

 

An old milk jug with holes punched in the bottom for sidewalk chalk hangs on a hook just outside the door for them to carry to the deck (a metal pail holds some in the front entrance way-both entrances also have a can of sunblock at the ready this time of year as a reminder to me to spray the kids down).

 

 

The Rubbermaid tool rack is an extra from the shed-I hang the not often used skateboards, foldup chairs for company and the croquet set up there.    Today I hung up big planters left over from the previous owners from when they put trees along the fence-they were stacked behind the shed- I washed them off, put hook screws into the boards with studs behind them and used a hole saw to make holes to hang them on the hooks-the planters already have drain holes in the bottom.

baseballs and bubbles  stuff are in removable pails with handles so they can be carried where they are needed and put away (well, hopefully!)

Bungee cords hold up the scooters that have no kickstands that I tripped over all the time. Since they  are stretchy the kids should be able to put them away neatly.

 

Bubble stuff is hung with two holes in a planter and rope through it to hang on the bannister.  Golf balls are in a pail on a hook for portability.

Projects around the yard

I've had trouble the last few years growing anything under these two trees, so I was delighted this year to find them thriving. The one above was just a mound at the bottom of the tree and a pain to mow, so I dug out all the grass last year and put in some plants with shallow root systems.

 Along the side when we first moved in, nothing but moss was growing under the cherry trees on the side of the house, but the grass and violets have filled in under the trees and I've moved some of my prolific Snow on the Mountain ground cover and Forget Me Nots from the forested area behind us to fill in the space beside the house-it's looking much nicer now!

This canvas cover is the other 1/2 of a painting cover I used last year to make a sandbox cover. It didn't work well-the canvas got full of black mold from being outside all winter and the ropes on the corners tore the fabric.  I sewed button holes with the machine in the corners and at the middles of the ends  to put tie down ropes in and put a long stick through the centre to hold it up.  It's making a nice sunshade now.

 Violets, dwarf iris and daylillies are at the bottoms of the trees so that if I don't get around to weed eating right away they don't look like crap.  I mow them down at the end of the season.

 This sandcover will hopefully work better.  The garden centre had chicken feed bags-plastic mesh tightly woven that they sold me for .50 each. I cut 2 or 3 of them apart and sewed them with 2 inch seams using a zig zag stitch and backstitching every 4-5inches so they should make a nice sturdy cover.  Instead of the rope ties which the kids couldn't do up themselves I have 4 good sized rocks for the corners to hold it down for windy days.  I'm hoping this will keep out cats, sticks and leaves.

 A small, collapsable, plastic side table holds my laundry basket and saves my back.

 These planters were $3 at the dollar store, but lacked drainage holes- a large nail and a hammer and about 10 minutes for all 4 took care of that.  I filled with inexpensive, delicate plants that drape over the sides. 

 I wish you could see in the picture, the colander above is a beautiful dark blue enamel.  I got it and the one below each for a few dollars at the thrift store and bought chain from the hardware store and used pliers to bend open links and shape them to hang on to the holes in the colanders and to join the 3 sides up at the top.  I've had them for about 4 years and finally got around to making them!  2 bags of dirt at $2 each from the dollar store and I've got some beautiful flower pots that I can use year after year.

This rain barrel is from last year, but I figured it was worth another look. We had the top from our original barrel that expanded when the water froze and cracked the barrel (oops!) I saved the parts and put it on a recycle bin.  Why the recycle bin?  There are 1/2 the price of a regular trash bin as I believe they are subsidized here. Now that we know, we change the downspot to head down that drain during winter and put away the rain barrel in the shed-empty.

A cave for C

C wanted some curtains since he agreed to give the much-coveted upper bunk to his brother in the big room switch.  I had a flat king sized sheet from a set that the fitted sheet had been trashed awhile ago.  The width was just longer than the length of his twin sized bed.  I cut it 42 inches long which is the whole height of the space of his bunk, plus a few inches for seam allowance-I generally do a 3/4 to 1 inch rolled seam for projects of this size.  I didn't want to do smaller as I added snaps and wanted room for them to sit on the seam.  I then cut it in half so there'd be a way out.  I used some snaps on a strip and cut them apart to put 3-4 snaps in the doorway.  One set is on the inside, the other on the outside, so when they are snapped, you don't see the snaps.

 

I then made button holes about every foot along the top and put small Command hooks on the inside of his bunk.

 

 

Then I cut a strip two snaps long (you can sew the ends under of the snap strip or using a lighter singe the edge so that it won't fray).  I laid the curtain down and folded it up like a triangle to see where one of the door snaps would match the seam and sewed one end of the 2 snap strip to the seam.  It's important to use the opposite snap to the one on the door :) 

 

 

Now he can pull back the curtains (there's one on each side)

 

 

H got a pocket-I accidently ordered too many of these pockets from 31 gifts when they were available for $5 each.  Unfortunately the straps didn't go all the way around the rail, so I snapped two together in a panier fashion (like bike messengers) and attached some sticky backed velcro in between to make sure they didn't slip off if one side was heavier than the other.  Now he can keep a book and flashlight and any other accessories that would normally fall back behind the bunkbed overnight in these pockets.