Field Trip!

Today we took a trip to the Railway Museum in Perris, CA with Autumn's school.  It was her first field trip on a school bus and she was extremely excited!!  Of course I was a nervous wreck!  Unfortunately many other parents also had worries for their children and decided to volunteer for the trip as well.  So there was not enough room on the bus for all of the parents.  So I drove with another mom and we followed the school bus.  I was disappointed that I was not able to take a whole bunch of pictures of my Autumn on her first bus but oh well I think that I will live.  After we got to the museum we were given another student to keep track of.  So Autumn, Joshua and I went around with the other students and looked at the old trains and we took a couple different rides on an old trolley and street car.  The kids LOVED it of course!  They were so cute they took being each others buddies very seriously and never left each others side!  We had lunch on some picnic tables and then we headed to the gift shop and then back to the bus.  It was a long day in the sun and by the time we got home I was completely exhausted!  I fell asleep within a matter of seconds and Autumn was right there next to me snoring.  I had a great day spending time with my Autumn and her little friends.

Also this morning I went to Target and went through all of the Smash products that they had because I wanted to get their little special pens for my book.  I found so many little goodies and they were on sale so that was even better!!  I got all three colors of pens, (black, pink, and light blue) some cute polka dot tape, a date stamp, and an ink pad.  I had so much excitement flowing through me since I was going on the field trip and I would be able to write while there!  Then I realized I forgot my Smash journal at home...FAIL!!  Anyways after my nap I filled out a page dedicated to Autie's first field trip.  I can really see myself becoming addicted to my folder because it has been all that I have wanted to do!  So I will leave you with a look at my smash finds and a little peek at my page so far.

Ugggh

The house is a mess..and I really do not feel like cleaning in the least bit, hence this blog post. I just gave the kids baths and put them in bed and the house is so quiet. I just want to make a cup of coffee and wait for the new episode of The Killing to start. Laziness is my nemisis at this point in my pregnancy. I will clean! I will clean!! ... I won't. I am almost to the halfway mark and I can't let laziness take over yet!! At 18 weeks I should be feeling great! But I am not. We only have two more weeks until we find out if we get to disappoint Deegan with a sister or Autumn with a brother. Either way Tonio and I will be be happy to start planning for a him or a her! Well I think I have distracted myself from cleaning enough for tonight I mean 5 minutes of quiet blogging is golden in this house! Have a good night everyone!

Another DIY Project!

So I think that it is pretty obvious that I am DIY mode right now!  I seem to be on a roll with wanting to create things nonstop.  I was browsing Target last week when I came across a new product (at least I think it is new) called a Smash Folio.  It is a small notebook with different types of blank pages to use as a sort of on the go scrapbook.  It also came with a pen that was a glue stick on one end so that you could glue whatever you wanted into your notebook.  I fell in love with this idea!!  I am a lover of scrapbooking and just the idea of having one in my purse at all times made me all happy inside!!  So I was seriously tempted to purchase this Smash Folio but the cost was around $13.  So since I am on a budget I decided that I would not buy one and instead I would go home and create my own since I had all of the supplies already.  So today while my cousin was over I told her about the notebook and we both made one since we were feeling crafty!  I apologize for my lack of step by step photos as I was so excited to make this I completely forgot to take pictures until I had the whole notebook bound together...Oops!

So first I measured out how large I wanted the book to be and cut out the front and back cover out of a really thick picture frame mat.  I then went through my cardstock collection and picked out all of the pages that I wanted to use.  I used a variety of different sizes of paper so some pages are smaller than others but they do not exceed the size of the covers.  After I got my papers all cut to size I used my handy dandy Bind -It-All and bound the whole notebook together.

After all of those steps this is what it looked like.  The cover was nothing special because I just wanted to cover it with fabric anyways but I wanted to be thick and sturdy enough.  I then dug through my fabric collection and chose a piece that I wanted to use and then cut it out to cover the whole notebook.

I then started of with one end of the book and began gluing the fabric to the cover.  I made sure that it was pulled tight and glued down both covers and covered the wire binding.

The last thing I did was cut out two pieces of cardstock to cover up the rough edges of the glued fabric on the inside cover.

I am very happy with the way it turned out and I am excited to be able to craft on the road!  I plan on doing some headers on the top of some of the pages.  Some headings that I have already been thinking about are: Blog Ideas, Baby Names, Recipes To Look Up, Fave Thrift Shops, and the list goes on and on!!  If you are interested in buying a Smash Folio rather than creating your own click the link Smash Folio and you can find more info there.  I hope some of you feel inspired by this little project!  I cannot wait to fill this baby up!!

DIY Alphabet Jar

I have finally decided on a theme for the kids' bathroom!  It was actually kind of hard for me to come up with something that would suit both my daughter and my son.  So I went from themes like robots, mythical creatures, and Mickey and Minnie Mouse and finally decided on doing it in the alphabet.  It sounds like such a simple and plain theme but I have been doing a lot of research and finding tons different projects for me to make.  Right now I am making all the individual letter so that I can hang them on the wall in a sort of cluster.  So far I have 6 letters done so I am going to wait until I finished with all of them before I post pictures of that project.  However I have finished one project.  I wanted to paint some alphabet rocks  and I luckily had some river rocks that I had gotten from Target a few years ago for a fish tank.  So I washed the rocks with soap and water and painted each rock with a letter.  I just used acrylic paint and sprayed them all with a clear gloss to make them shiny.

These are the rocks that I used.

The rocks after I painted the letters and sprayed with shiny gloss.

I had a small glass bowl that I had from Autumn's birthday party.

So these will be going on a shelf in the bathroom just as a little alphabet accent.

DIY Sewing Box

Last weekend I did a little project.  I have a super small sewing box for all of my sewing tools and I have seriously outgrown the box.  About 4 years ago my mom bought me my own sewing machine. (I would always use hers)  It is one of my most  cherished gifts that I have ever received!!  I could not imagine living my life without my sewing machine, yes, I know it sounds silly but I am so serious!!  Since I needed to find a solution to my overflowing sewing supply dilemma I have been looking around at different stores for a new sewing box.  Anything I came across was either not my style or it was  extremely out of my price range!  So it looked as if I was going to have to just use some type of plastic bin to store my supplies.  That is when I came across the cutest little vintage Samsonite makeup case at a thrift store.

I immediately fell in love with it!!  I knew that it was going to be my new sewing box and the best part was that it only cost me 80 cents!!  So I finally found time to work on it and I was extremely pleased with the outcome of the project.

The only thing that I had to buy for this project was spray paint which cost me about $4 at Lowes.  I looked through my fabric supply (which is also getting out of control as well) and I picked out one I wanted to use.  I cleaned the whole box with steel wool and then my mom spray painted it for me so that I wouldn't have to be around the smell.  We let it dry really well and then cut out the fabric to line the inside of the box.  We also cut out some fabric to add pockets to the sides for some of my smaller stuff.  I used my trusty glue gun and glued all of the fabric into the box.

I love the way it turned out!  There is so much more room for my stuff and it all looks so pretty in my new box!!

DIY Budget Folder

Yay! Another post about budgeting! I will try not to bore anyone to death with this post. I know that I mentioned before that my husband and I are taking a financial class to help us get our finances and priorities in order. Now that we have been in this class for a couple months I am really beginning to enjoy and see the value in taking this class at a younger age. I hope that this will help us prepare a better future for our family. The day before yesterday I decided that I needed to prepare a folder that will hold everything that we are budgeting for during a 1 week period.

I began with an old planner binder that I had from last year, which worked perfectly.

Next I picked out the paper that I wanted to use as my folders for the money that we have budgeted for.  I used 8X8 cardstock from the Once Upon A Time card stack.

I then cut each 8X8 paper down to 6"3/4"X7" and then I scored each one at 3"3/4 it is a little of center because I left room for the hole punches.  I then score the right side of the paper at 3" and stopped at the other score line.

 After all of the scoring was complete I cut the upper top right corner off of the the paper along the score lines.

I then folded the paper along the score line and then took my sewing machine and sewed along the outer  bottom edge to form my envelope.  I really like the look of sewn paper!

After, I added the names of what each folder will be used for.  There is one for our Groceries, Household items, (basically all the shopping we do at Target or the hardware store) Entertainment, Blow money which is money that we can do anything with, and Extra, for any extra expenses that we have each month.  I am curious to see how this will all turn out but I am excited!

I then placed them in my small folder and added lined paper behind each folder so that I can keep a written record of each purchase.

I hope it all goes as planned!  

New Blog Buttons!!

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I Have Fallen So Hard!

Anthropologie

I would love to have these cute things in my closet!! Ugghhhh if only I could afford to shop at Anthropologie!  I wish!!  They are even on sale!  Still out of my budget! 

Pregnancy Craving?? Or New Found Love??

I have acquired a new love for Hot Cheetos!!  I never liked them before I was pregnant and now all of a sudden I am in LOVE!!  The good thing is I don't eat like a crazy person so I have been working on the bag for about a month now.  MMMMMM they are soooo good though!!

Easter 2012

This Easter we spent time with our families and the kids had tons of fun!  Every Easter Tonio has to work so he always misses out on the early celebrations.  It always makes me sad that he isn't there because the pictures are always of just me and the kids.  He said that next year he will plan to take it off so that is something to look forward to!  We spent the first half of the day having breakfast with my parents and then we headed over to my cousin Betsy's house to visit with my family.  I love family gatherings!  I wish we had them more often.  I have a very large family and luckily we all live really close to each other so it is easy for us to get together when we do.  The kids spent the day running around with their cousins and getting their white clothes all nice and dirty!  I quickly gave up on trying to keep them clean as it was a complete waste of time.  Deegan had a jelly bean stain on his shirt ten minutes after I put it on him.  The kids did the easter egg hunt where there were tons of eggs!  Autumn was very pleased with finding 40 eggs and Deegan was happy with his 28, although he really only cared about the candy.  After, we left and came back home where we prepared to have Tonio's family and my parents over for an Easter dinner.  I always love having family and friends over to our house it is very relaxing to just hangout and catch up. (after all of the preparations of course!)  The kids had another egg hunt with one of their cousins and they enjoyed running through the backyard looking for eggs.  I love spending time with family!