What not to buy.

I recently read an article about someone’s don’t buy list. Since I didn’t save a link to the article I can’t share it with you, but the basic gist of the article was creating a rule for your house to help you decide what you would and would not buy to decorate your home with.

Such as “I don’t buy modern accents.”

Great. Very helpful right? So as I’m thinking through what my “don’t buy it” list would include I cannot in good faith limit the rule to decorating my house.

Because at the end of the day, I don’t really care what my house looks like.

Eep. My Alexa rank totally just went down with that little confession. I know. I’m not really sure I care.

I’m all about engaging in authentic relationships with friends and family. So at the end of the day I’d really rather invest my energy in people, not possessions.

Because everything I purchase will eventually be thrown away. So there. If  you thought my house is all posh and designer-y I’m sorry to burst your bubble. It isn’t.

Anyway. Back to the point. My “don’t buy rule” is this: if it doesn’t serve to strengthen my children’s character or improve a relationship with people I care about it doesn’t come in my house. Comfy couches for family time? Yup.

Formal anything that I’m afraid to use it because my tornado child will break it five minutes after I take it out of the box? Yeah, no.

If it’s a toy that only one kid can play with at a time, forget it.

Enough storage to tame the clutter and keep my organizational brain from freaking out (and yelling at my kids?) Yeah, totally.

These are the things I think about before I decide what can come in and what should just stay at Target.

Have a “don’t buy” rule for your house? I’d love to hear about it. It’s your turn. Go.

12 cool new water play ideas

12 cool new ideas for water play Hot, bored, grumpy. These are the sounds of summer, am I right fellow Mama’s? As July turns into August and some of our early favorite summer boredom busters get a little, well, boring. (Gasp. I know.) It’s time for some fresh ideas on how to entertain our youngsters.

I’m going out on a limb to guess that by now you’ve filled up the baby pool and yanked out the basket of tub toys for some outside play so many times that your eyes get a little crossed every time your youngster brings it up in conversation. Me too. Well now. Let’s think outside the box on this one, shall we?

How about:

• Paint brushes
• Scrub brushes 
• Paint roller
• Straws
• Ice cubes

(yeah, you didn't think I was going to post all 12 ways here did you? The rest of the article is waiting on Today's Mama)

Paid in full...

When we set out on our crazy adoption adventure we knew there was no way we could afford to complete the project without God's help. $35,000 plus travel expenses was unattainable at best. We also knew that God wasn't going to command us to do something, and not give us the resources to do it. So early on, with a lot of prayer, we laid down a financial plan that looked something like this:

- No borrowing money
- Elissa continues to put the children's needs before the family's finances (aka no part time job)
- we'll just pinch pennies and fundraise and the money (and clothing and furniture required for a new child) will come.

Then the floor fell out of our fundraising campaign when our church instituted a no fundraising plan.
So we were left with scraping pennies from Jory's modest income.
Sounds like a fantastic financial strategy, right?

We've talked before about the generous donation miracles that have occurred, and all the random people that have been touched by our story that have stepped up to the plate. You know who you are, thank you again.

As of this post we have not borrowed money. Elissa has done nothing more than a little freelance work, a little babysitting, and a whole lot of penny pinching. And our adoption debt has been paid in full.

Barring an unexpected agency fee (or homeowners emergency) we don't owe anything to anyone. We are debt free.

We did have to pinch pennies for a while after we returned home to rebuild our financial safety net. But as we begin February, our accounts are all settled up. Our savings, retirement, and nest egg accounts are all paid back, and we're good to go.

Can I get an Amen?

Now comes the fun part. By our best estimates we have $28,000 to pay forward. That's right, we're going to match every penny of what was donated to us to someone else who's neck deep in one of God's crazy schemes. And we can't wait to get started. Project "pay it forward" is a go.

Hello old friend...

Guess what.
I have a sewing machine.
It's a little dusty, but I do have one. I can't remember the last time I used it.
Oh wait, yes I do it was last September. 

As I was wrapping gifts for Christmas last month I realized my stash of fabric bags and embellishments was woefully inadequate. When I went to make myself some more (on Christmas eve, no less) my sewing machine just laughed at me as it messed up stitch after stitch. Of course. So now that my life is a little calmer, and I have no real use for red and green striped bags, I dug the half made bags and other projects out from the bottom of the pile and got down to business. Wouldn't you know my machine worked just fine? Typical.You can check out my little tutorial for making fabric gift bags and reusable embellishments from the beginning of my stash I started last year.

I gotta tell you, last  year I started the whole wrapping with fabric kick because I thought it would look pretty and be more earth friendly than wrapping with paper. This year in the days before Christmas when things were just a little too insane to think about "pretty" I was so glad to have those fabric sacks to shove gifts into.

While I was plopped in front of my sewing machine, I also happened to make myself some little girl goodness, for some little girlies who may or may not be turning 8 on Friday. Eek.

Upcycled window display board

Hi! Still in Russia! Having a blast with my old man and my little man. Since I'm on "vacation" I'm turning the reins over to today's guest writer, Kelsey Apley who has a fantastic craft for us. If I wasn't in Russia, I'd totally make this. 


Here is a fun craft, I decided to make. Now let me say I found this old window at a Flea Market for ONLY $1 the other day! The glass was already out of it, and I thought, WOOHOO what a find!! This whole craft only cost me $2 Note, that most of this stuff I had around the house! The only thing I had to buy was chicken wire, and the window!

Here is how to make this fun craft

Start with an old window - with the glass taken out of it! 

Take a scraper and take off the paint that is loose. After you get all the loose paint off, you can choose to leave it how it looks or you can paint it however you would like. In my case I chose to keep it with some of the old paint on it, and make it look old.

Cut your chicken wire to fit around the frame. Once you have the chicken wire the right size, you can take a stapler or a hammer and small nails and secure the chicken wire around the border of the frame! I used hammer and nails because that is what I had on hand.

Then once the wire is secure you can hang it on your wall! I decided to put old kitchen utensils in it, along with a few pictures, and a recipe. You can put whatever you want for your decor. I used clothespins to secure the pictures on the wire.

That simple! A fun and easy decor DIY project! Love to here your thoughts on this project, or idea's on what else you would put in the frame as decor?

5 adorable things to make with fabric scraps

I am the worst when it comes to fabric scraps. You should see my stash. It's scary. Really scary. I've featured a few ways that we've used our scraps in the past, but over the weekend I was toodling around on pinterest and found a couple great ideas for using scraps that I thought I'd share, on the off chance that I'll have the time and energy to make some of these things when we get back from Russia.
Not that I'm dreaming or anything.
But here they are - go look at all that fabricy goodness.

garland
You know I love my garland, so versatile. In addition to draping my fireplace with it, wrapping it around objects for interesting table displays, gift wrap. Yeah... Here's an article with 10 new ways to make some rocking fabric scrap garland. Don't say I didn't warn you.
Fabric garland tutorial

As art in embroidery hoops or frames.
Ok, that's just stinking cute. I'm such a dork about putting odd things in my frames, this is just right up my alley.
Here's how they did it


key chains or zipper pulls.
Gulp.
Check it out

mobile
So my new son s not a baby, but do you think he'll mind if I make him a mobile anyway? Probably. Welcome to the family kid, your mom is a dork.
Mobile that my new 7 year old might like

magnets
they made letter magnets - cute way to practice our letters with Max, but I'm thinking about making something without so much detail to sew around like squares or something, then gluing on felt letters maybe?
Cute magnet ideas

So there you go. Who wants to make these things for me?

Ice Play Ideas...

Got a kid making you crazy? Wish there was something fun and creative lurking in your house that was inexpensive (aka free!) and didn't make a huge mess? Ice play to the rescue. My kids love it! This is an article I wrote that outlines some of the ways that we've entertained our kids with ice cubes over the years. Check it out. I'll bet there's something in here you haven't tried yet...

Ice Play Article

Enjoy!

Seat Sack - Peterson Style

If you have kids in public school, you've probably seen these. They are all over the schools that my mom works at. Sweet concept. But I'm to thrifty and creative to invest in such things.


Enter our version of the seat sacks.I think that this one will live on my desk chair in my master bedroom. Right where I can reach it from my bed. Bonus. It's the perfect size for a notepad and pen. Or my keys and cell phone. Or whatever I don't want to set down on my desk because it will surely get swallowed by the clutter.
So far I only have one for myself, but the kids have all ordered them.

It was rather easy to make. First I cut the fabric to fit the width of my chair, then since my chair has horizontal rungs, I made some ties and tied the front piece and back piece together through the rungs (so it wouldn't slide off onto the floor), added a pocket and embellished. Then I quickly filled it with some of the clutter from my desk and was all set.

 

Anniversary adventure

So most of you know that our 10 year anniversary, was last week. A few of you know that due to our recent trip to Russia, the huge adoption invoice after we got when we returned from Russia (which had nothing to do with our trip), our recent break-in, and most recently, the death of our water heater our finances are not pretty right now.

So how does a family who's living on love celebrate such a momentus event? By seeking beauty. In our own backyard. After dinner we rode our bikes to the park near our house and rode around until we found that magical evening sunlight. Magical lighting + an unmowed field + my lovely children = a happy Mama.
So here are my photos, these are a little quirky and artistic. I have enough properly exposed photos of my children smiling at me, so I got a little creative this time around.

back to the craftiness

It's been an interesting week around here. Thanks for sticking with me as we took the time to see God's glory in the situation. But frankly enough is enough, it's time to stop crying over material possessions. It's time to get back to the crafts.
With that said, I made a project last week that turned out so cute I wanted to share it. I swiped my mother's cricut and her give a hoot cartridge and cut out these little cuties to hang in a collection of frames in my bedroom.

(disregard the less than stellar photo, I have a good reason...)

I love the look of quirky, custom made art, but frankly I can't afford it. Also, I get tired of looking at the same things on my walls day after day so it's fun to make something quick and easy (not to mention cheap!) that I can swap out in a few weeks when it's time for something new.