Recycling: Taking Old to Make New

So last night me and my hubby finally jumped on the scentsy train. I have wanted one for lord knows how long but I never could bring myself to order through the actual company Scentsy because their prices were insane. So after a few years I had forgotten about them until I was at my MIL house and she had a really pretty one. So I started keeping an eye out again for knock off ones. Turns out most discount stores now carry knock off versions. We found ours at Walmart  Yes I know... I should have bought it some place else but honestly it wasn't a matter of just a few dollars... this one was 15$ whereas the actual scentsy ones are 37-45$. Every dollar counts.






So I decided, harking back to something I found on pinterest awhile ago, to make my own scentsy inserts.

By melting down all our scented candles (of which we had a ton) in a water bath. This part smelled wonderful depending on which scents you were melting down at which time.










Then pour the wax into icecube trays to make perfectly sized scentsy scent cubes. This part was  a bit hard to do and can get messy. Once they are solid, wait a few hours or stick them in the refrigerator  then you can make more.








All in all it turned out rather well. I ended up with close to if I had to estimate the equivilant of 30-40 scentsy refill kits which even at the Walmart price of 2.00$ each saved us 80$.

The Ongoing Saga That Is Bug's Dinosaur Room

So I have decided that I am going to not only tell you guys about this monumental project (that we have not undertaken since he was inside me and we were designing his nursery). That I would blog about it as we go. So the first step is I created too shopping carts, one on Walmart.com (I know I know but where else will i find this stuff), one at Amazon.com.. and then I am also working with Rogue Decals for any of the wall art to see how much of it they can do. If I can I would like to get the stuff locally made from good people. I have selected only a few key items that I know I can not make myself such as, wall decals, a clock, curtains (yes I know I could make these but it would cost more than the curtains do) etc. I found some really adorable things! What I am going to make is things like framed wall art, a comforter cover, the plants, and all the painting and stenciling. So I already have blogged about the chair, the bed set and the pillow... now I am going to lay out a schedule of tasks to be done week by week. I will do an update post with pictures to show you how it's going after each one is done.
Week 1/2 Oct 14th-27th: Empty Bug's room of everything but clothes and furniture, put everything in trash bags and set in storage for now. (leave out a few key toy items which will be kept  in the livingroom in a basket)
Week 3/4 Oct 28th-Nov 10th: Paint room lt green, paint dresser darker green paint bed darker green.
Week 5/6 Nov 11th-24th: Do stencil work, Paint main toy box remove other old toyboxes.
Week 7/8 Nov 25th-Dec 8th: Sort through all the bags, give away to daycares or charity all but what he actually really plays with. put toys back in his room
Week 9/10 Dec 4th-22nd: finish prepping any of the handmade items, make sure all the store bought ones have arrived, wrap and put under tree.
After Christmas: after he has unwrapped all the gift items for his room, I will put them all up where they go and we will finish the last of the room together. Then I will take lots of pictures of the finished result.

Halloween Countdown

I thought I would share this since it is so cute.

 

The Biggest Handmade Christmas Project Yet

When I was five years old, my parents decided to give me for my birthday a whole new bedroom. We had just moved into a new town and a new apartment and the room that was mine had the most amazing pink carpet in it already. So since I literally LOOOOOOOOVED pink they ran with it. On my birthday I finally got to see the room which now had a brand new queen sized comforter, a twin sized bed, a pink end table with a white ruffle and pink lamp, white bookshelves, a white toy box, a pink bedskirt, pink sheets, a pink comforter cover, pink bookends, etc. I still to this day remember the feeling of opening that door and seeing that fairy wonderland for the first time. It was amazing. 

It was from what I remember similar to this room I found online. This isn't exact but similar.. mine was even more pink if you can imagine it.. with a plush pink carpet.

So we decided that this year we were going to redecorate Bug's room for him for Christmas. He chose a dino room. We offered Pirates, Dinos, or Space. I found a few rooms online to use as inspiration. I liked this one the best.

So when he selected a dino room I started to list all the things we could do to decorate his room and I realized that he already has quite a bit of dino themed things which I can use, as well as having an almost full can of light green paint. 

So I have started gathering some of the projects I already have done that will work for his dino room.

Last Christmas I made him a dinosaur pillow that was a fleece tie together. It is adorable and really would work well for his dino room.

For his first birthday he got a dino sheet set and blanket that also will work well for his dino room, though I would like to make a comforter cover for his big comforter (which is the same one in fact that I received on my 5th birthday.. it came with me everywhere I ever went and now is my Bug's.

For this last birthday I redid my childhood rocking chair for him with matching dino fabric. 

All in all I think between thee things, some new paint, some dino decals, some wall art and a new rug.... Bug will have an awesome dino room for Christmas.

ABC Mouse

A few months ago I was watching early morning PBS kids shows with my Bug. He is only allowed to watch one or two non PBS shows and even then they have to be educational. I grew up on PBS and whole heartedly love and support it. So when I saw a commercial promoting something called ABCMOUSE.com I was intrigued. The commercial said it was an online learning academy for children ages 2 to 6. So I decided that it would not hurt to check it out. When I checked out the site we were offered a free trial month. I figured if Bug didn't like it we hadn't lost anything. So I let him set up an account. You select and design an avatar to look like your child.

Then you set them up on a starting level based on age and ability. I started Bug on Toddler Time because when we began it a month ago he was still 2 and he had never played with a computer much. You child's start page looks like this. From here they can also go to the farm, the zoo, or visit their fish or hamsters.

The hamsters look like this.

You buy their cages and tubes with tickets. You can have three hamsters in the maze at a time. The fish are also really fun. Here is the aquarium.

They have a classroom also that looks like this. 

The classroom is a jumping off point for all their lessons and shows their progress on their current grade level. It also allows them to get to their lesson path which looks like this.

Each lesson path has 3-5 different lessons which are split into four to 6 activities. Each activity is connected to the topic of that lesson. After each lesson is completed the child gets 20 bonus tickets (they get 1-4 tickets at the end of each activity as well) as well as selecting a prize. At the end of the lesson path the child moves to a new environment lesson path. You will see the progression meter fill up as well. When it reaches 100% the child has mastered that grade level. Bug graduated from Toddler Time today and moved onto Preschool level 1. 

At the end of each grade level the child gets a graduation ceremony as well as a printed certificate. We are going to print out all of Bug's as he progresses and frame them to hang in either his room or our hallway where my framed college degree is hanging.

All in all we are sold! I am just loving this program and so is Bug. Well worth the 80$ a yr.

Happy International Baby Wearing Month

I know I said I am going to focus on more preschool and school aged topics but this one is just too awesome. I just found out this week is International Baby Wearing Week. Honestly I still baby wear from time to time, like if Bug is sleepy in a grocery store.... So in honor of this I am going to share some baby wearing pics from me and feel free to share yours on our FB page.

Fabulous Fall Farmer's Market Days!

So as you know I have been a bit lax on posting the last few months but one trip to the Farmer's Market yesterday cured that. Not only did we have a wonderful time and took lots of fun pictures, we also had a super healthy and yummy lunch of organic carrots and honey crisp apples, stocked up on maple syrup and honey from local farms and got our fall pumpkins. So since they say a picture is worth a 1000 words here are a bunch from our wonderful day.

 The day was rainy all morning but just as we got to the Farmer's Market the sun came out and it was beautiful.

 Happy shoppers!

 Eating our lunch of apples and carrots with our Halloween hats on.

 As the sun came out the puddles were drying up but not before Bug got to jump in them!

 I took this pic down the street as we were coming home... It is of our house... I never thought about it before but our house is quite lovely.

 Farm fresh eggs, eggplant, apples, carrots, honey and a whole chicken.

 Farm fresh maple syrup...yum!

 Our pumpkins.. the green one is the one we grew....it will turn orange soon.. we picked it because I was afraid it would rot like the other two did..

 Gorgeous asters in my yard... my birth flower :)

 Our home grown gourds....

 My big boy with his pumpkins....

Me and my little man....
So that was our day and our great Farmer's Market finds... :)

It has been awhile....

Hi all my fabulous readers! I really have to say I never intended to be this busy or to neglect my readers so badly. I am sorry that I haven't been able to post in awhile. To be honest between my full time job and buying a newer more full efficient car (yes the green monster has been replaced with a car that gets 33 mpg), as well as finishing gifts for about 5 birthdays including my own little (sniff) now 3 yr old man. It has been hard to come up with things to write about honestly. So here is a thought... what is on your minds.... what green projects have you all been up to? Planting trees? Starting a compost box? What fall fun have you been up to... ? If you tell me about it in a comment or on the fb page... I will select a few to be published.. along with pictures .. here on the blog. I hope you are all having a very fun Autumn full of green fun.
I will finish this off though with a few pictures of some of the other birthday hats I did for my lofty project (a hat for every child in my class).