GRANNY SQUARE HAT FOR EVERY OUTFIT!

Personalize your child's outfits this fall/winter with crocheted granny square hats. They are so fast and easy to whip up if you are an experienced "hooker" (he he) and very easy to learn how to make if you are a beginner. I have always wanted to make one but could never understand any of the written patterns. So, luckily, recently a YouTube channel I am subscribed to posted a video on how to make these. I added the ribbon and bow which I found for $.99 at Michael's. And it matched her cheetah print pants and flower on her shirt.

 

Here is the link for the granny square hat tutorial:

http://youtu.be/sQG_MBnXtY4

 

Have a great week!

 

What I'm Reading...

I have been on the waiting list for this book for weeks now and I finally get to read it. It is wonderfully written by Pastor Francis Chan and its a book that makes you want to live for God because you want to, not because you have to. So far he talks about being a "Lukewarm Christian" which admittedly I AM. I don't want to be. This is the first book I have read of the genre. Christian Non Fiction. I have to say that it is definitely a wake up call. In chapter 4 the author tells you to put the book down, pick up your Bible and read the Gospels for yourself. So, that's what I'm doing. I have read through Matthew and I realize that even Jesus' disciples were subject to worldly distractions and doubt. They didn't doubt that he was the Son of God, but they tended to lose faith when an obstacle occurred instead of looking to Jesus and be unafraid. He reprimands them, of course, and seems to be pretty harsh at times. Imagine if Jesus yelled at you "You with such little faith!" Man, I'd be scared.

Link up this week.

Very Hungry Caterpillar Party DIY Decor

My friend recently had a party for her son's first birthday. The theme was "Very Hungry Caterpillar". It is such a cute idea and yet you cannot find decorations at party stores or dollar stores for this theme. So I offered to help make some decorations to spice up the atmosphere.

 

 

 

This Happy Birthday sign is really easy to make. I used a cricut to cut the circles and letters but you can easily cut them out by hand. I used regular scrapbooking cardstock that I bought at Michaels. I needed 6 sheets of green and 1 sheet of red. Each sheet made 4 circles.

I bought a pack of brads at Michaels for $1.99 to hold each of the circles together.

Next you can stencil and cut by hand the letters, or if you have a Cricut you can use that to cut out letters. I liked having the white behind the black on the letters because it stands out more. The caterpillar face you use:

brown paper for long ovals for the ears and a small circle for the nose

yellow paper for ovals for the eyes

green paper for the pupil of the eye.

I loved using brads for this because you can easily put the banner up where you want and give it that little wave like a caterpillar moving.

 

This cake was made by someone else. It was one tier of chocolate and the other banana. All of the cutouts, minus the candle, are made out of fondant.

 

Instead of making one cake for the birthday boy Mom made a series of cupcakes. Great for this theme!

 

Birthday boy eating his cake. The banner around the highchair was made with glitter paper from the scrapbook section. I used the Cricut to cut them out but of course you can hand cut these. I didn't want there to be too much red  and I was tired of circles so the stars were just a little different. I used left over brads from the banner to put the brads on ribbon which is easily taped onto the highchair. Mini spools of ribbon that only cost .99 at Michaels are perfect for this. 

 

 

 

I made this crochet hat for James (which of course he didn't want to keep on, most 1 year olds don't). But I did get some good pictures of him. If you would like this pattern I will gladly write it down and post it for free. 

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Trendy Little Link Up: Fancify white

 

I can't resist a cute outfit. I found this white onesie with tutu attached at Once Upon a Child secondhand store. It seemed a little plain to me so I finally found a cute iron on to put on it. I found this princess iron-on at Michael's. I never knew the giant selection and personalized stuff you can put on clothing. They are very reasonably priced too! I will definitely be using them for birthday outfits. This iron-on was perfect for this outfit.

 

 

 

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If you are looking for cute, inexpensive boy clothes that coordinate look at Kohl's. I only go shopping there when I get my 30% off coupon in the mail (you get them with a Kohl's charge acct.). These coordinating separates on Liam were $5 each and I love that the shorts fit great.

 

 



Lovely blog hop.

Link up with "Her and Nicole" Lovely blog hop every Thursday!

Rewarding Good Behavior

I used to reward my son's good behavior or lack of bad behavior with screen time. I would let him play my Ipad, Iphone, Nintendo etc. Unfortunately, I found it very easy to give him one of these things and have him sit quietly and let me get stuff done around the house. However, he does not know how to have this screen time in moderation and it took a meltdown at Tball practice to realize that I had to cut him off and come up with something new.

Instead of rewarding him after EVERY good thing he does I decided to let him earn something after multiple times of being good. I made a sticker chart for  him that has 5 rows and the numbers 1-10 on each row. Now he gets a sticker for things like eating all his dinner (which is a struggle most of the time), not crying at TBall practice, cleaning his room etc. I don't punish him for bad behavior by taking OFF stickers, he gets time-outs for that. This chart is strictly for positive reinforcement. It is working out great!!

 

Materials:

Small poster board

Computer print outs of rewards

Stickers for rewards

Stickers for title (I used a Cricut to cut them out)

Sharpie

 

Directions:

1) Make title at the top. You can name it whatever you want. "Good Job ____" worked for me.

2) Use sharpie to make lines for 5 rows

3) Use Google Images to search for pictures for your rewards. Save them to your computer, then insert them all on a Word document to print them out. You can adjust the size on Word.

4) Cut out the pictures and place them at the end of each row.

5) Hand write or use scrapbooking stickers if you want to be fancy to put in the number of stickers you want your child to get before getting their reward. I did 10.

6) Give your kid a sticker to start off and watch how fast they want to help you out or clean their room to get more stickers! 

 

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