Tiny Treasure Cubbies

We are paper towel tube collectors. They are one of the best craft materials.

We have made castles out of them.
We have made marble ramps out of them.
We have made other marble ramps out of them.

Last week the drawer was full again and so we made these little display cubbies. I found the idea, as I often do, in Family Fun Magazine. Love them.

First we rummaged through closets until we found two shoe boxes.

Then we rummaged through our gift wrap collection to find something fun, but sort of occasion-neutral. Stars seemed to work.

Then we wrapped each box in the paper, leaving the top open.

Finally, we cut our enormous stash of paper towel tubes so that they filled up the boxes. We got about 2-3 box-height tubes out of each paper towel tube.

There was one minor injury, Sprout cut the tip of her finger. Minor cut, thank goodness. But I did feel slightly vindicated for the heart palpitations I have every time I watch the kids cut towards their fingers.

Is that wrong?

Anyway, once the boxes were filled up with the tubes, the tubes held themselves in place. Tater was a little worried about everything falling apart, so we put glue on the bottom of his box to make things more secure.

Then we were ready to fill the little cubbies with all of the little mementos the kids have filling up their rooms.

Sprout filled hers completely. Finding rubber bracelets, bouncy balls, bug key chains and everything else she could fit to occupy each little space.

Tater left most of his open for later acquisitions. Although he did think it was a handy place to put his collection of (2) clown noses.

The best thing about this project was that it was completely FREE. All of the materials were things we already had and most of them are recycled.

Time to start filling the drawer again. I wonder what we'll make next!

Homework Helpers

The kids started back to school last Monday, and then promptly had a four day weekend. So now summer is officially, unofficially over!

In preparation for the first day of school we did our normal school supply shopping. Sprout is quite the connoisseur of school supplies, and is in possession of the world's largest collection of novelty erasers. I am thinking about submitting her to the Guinness Book of World Records. But regardless of how many pencils, pens and erasers (shaped like ice cream, and lipstick, and small animals, and hearts, and...) she has, there is always a thrill when "the list" arrives and we have to hit the Target to stock up for the year.

I have to say, I share in the thrill of the hunt for just the right notebook. And of course, an excuse to hit the Target is always welcome!

This year, we added some extras to our shopping list. I saw these homework cubbies in Family Fun Magazine and thought they might help the kids focus on getting through the dreaded homework hour (hopefully keeping it from becoming the homework four-hour-nightmare...)

We started with a cardboard presentation board and cut it in half height-wise (I did the cutting - utility knives + children + neurotic mother = too much for me to handle.)

After we had two half-height boards, I scored an additional line down each seam (described in the directions from FF Magazine, so that the cubby can be folded up with "stuff" inside.)

This picture shows Sprout holding the (closed) utility knife and ruler. Just to show you how...I did the cutting, but couldn't figure out how to take a picture of my own hands...

The lines are just scored through the top layer of cardboard so that the board can fold.

Like this...

After the cutting, we covered the inside of the cubby/board with contact paper.

Sprout was so traumatized by my inability to line things up correctly that she decided not to cover the outside of hers. Tater went along with covering both sides. We had to re-score the folds on his from the outside so it would fold with the covering on.

Then we used mounting tape to hang up hooks and supplies inside the cubbies. Each kid has a little white board to write down assignments or reminders, one side is covered with cork squares so they can pin up things, and they each have a pencil box mounted with Velcro so that they can take it down to get the pencils out.

Here is Tater's finished cubby:


And here is Sprout's. She is very excited about her protractor.


They were so excited when they finished these that they immediately went and got some workbooks to do a trial run. They were both sitting on the porch with their cubbies up, working on crossword puzzles or something...


Then they realized school hadn't started yet and they went to watch some Phineas & Ferb.

I hope these will be fun for them to use when they are doing real homework.

Maybe I need one, too. And some fun pencils - and an eraser that looks like a hamburger - and a protractor...

Garage Reveal

The garage is finally done! We actually finished it last weekend, but I didn't get to take pictures and I know you have been waiting to see photographic evidence that we finished!

Although it didn't turn out to be quite the kid-friendly activity that I originally envisioned, the kids did help out quite a bit. They liked giving ideas for what should go where and were great about handing me things while I was on the ladder.

I even got over my neurotic control-freak tendencies and let them help with the drill and power screwdrivering on the things that didn't require a ladder.

The walls are all nice and blue-ish. The paint color is called Mineral Springs. It looks purplish in the pictures, but it is more gray-ish blue in person.

We used this Rubbermaid rail system to hang everything up. Each of the rails is on at least 3 studs and then a bunch of anchors - they aren't coming down any time soon! Sprout enjoyed using the stud finder. I don't even want to think about the jokes about her future teenaged tendencies that could come out of that.

We still have this toy basketball hoop junking up the joint, --->
but as soon as I can convince the kids to let it go, it is all going to be nice and neat. At least briefly.

My car is blocking the view of the scooter-hanging area. It's rainy and I can't move it right now...not good photography composition, sorry.

Sprout felt strongly that we needed hooks for helmets next to the scooter and bikes (the bikes are parked behind my car). Good idea, I think. The bottom shelf there has all of their other toys - stomp rockets, jump ropes, etc. The bins were on the floor before, so this is better.

My bike is now down on the floor for the first time in 10 years. It is not in good shape, but I am going to get it fixed up so we can all go ride together. As soon as I can convince Tater that he needs to pedal more than once to keep the bike rolling and get myself a helmet. Probably need to get myself a helmet hook, too!

Cheap Labor

I had what I thought was a great idea for a summer activity. The kids love home improvements, love to paint, love to help with projects - so I would have them help me paint and organize the garage. Brilliant!

I wouldn't mind if the painting was a little messy - it's the garage!

I wouldn't mind if we drip a bit here and there - it's the garage!!

The kids would be so happy. My garage would be all spiffy. Win-win!! Yay!!

So we took things down and threw things away and cleaned (and cleaned and cleaned) spiderwebs and leaves and other yuckitude off of the walls. Then Sprout and I went and bought some gray-tinted primer and went at the first wall.

Two hours later:

1.) The wall looked exactly the same as when we started (apparently the paint guy at Lowe's was WRONG when he said we didn't have to tint the primer...not happy with him AT ALL.)
2.) Sprout was very annoyed with me for insisting that we paint the entire wall and not just a strip at her waist height.
3.) My back was broken from bending and stretching and painting.
4.) It was time to call in the professionals.

But Tater was very unhappy that he hadn't had a chance to paint. Poor Tater.

Today I went and got a quart of the paint the professionals will use to paint the garage and let the kids do the bottom half of the primed wall. The nice lady at MAB even gave me painter's hats for them to wear!

Tater went to work with a brush on the bottom, Sprout had a pad painter (which I find much much easier to work with than a roller). They started out with lots of energy and I was being all (sort of) zen-ish about their technique.

It's the garage. It's the garage...that was my mantra...





They did a really good job and even took turns every 5 minutes or so so each of them could try the different tools.

Tater and I took a break to play some tic-tac-toe. Which he then carefully painted over.









They even finished the entire wall - about halfway up.











Sprout was again annoyed when I suggested that we had to fill in all of the spaces. But she did it in (mostly) good spirits.

I would declare this partial project as a success. No major fights. No major messes. Over an hour of entertainment and busyness that didn't involve electronics.

The pros come next week to finish. They apparently don't have an "only the garage" rate...so if I can figure out how to get these guys on ladders (without causing myself a heart attack, which is the tricky part) we might have them do the rest!

Although I don't think I possess that level of zen. Even if it is just the garage...

At the car wash...yeah!

For some reason, my kids LOVE to clean. This is not something that they inherited from me. While I enjoy living in a place that is clean, getting it that way is not something that interests me in the least.

Today, our neighbor was washing her car outside and Sprout and Tater jumped RIGHT in there to help. Tater ran to get our big sponge, Sprout was desperate to wield the hose nozzle. They were so very happy out there soaping and rinsing...even started to wash bikes...scooters...the driveway...

This made me think that I should wash my car and let them help. My car hasn't been washed in many months, and since it is (was?) white, it definitely shows. Unfortunately, the impulse passed (maybe fortunately?). But, the next nice day when we have no plans, I am getting out a bucket and some sponges and letting them go for it!

Happy kids + Clean Car = Win-Win!!

Sticky Socks

Easy and practical. This would probably be more fun if you could find colored socks, but I couldn't. We used a 10 pack of white socks - 5 pairs per child (!) so they will be good and decorated!

Basically you just make designs on the bottom of the socks with puffy fabric paint and they will be un-slippery and cute at the same time.

I had to calm my inner control freak (who am I kidding, she's all over the place) for this project. I had envisioned cute little designs, but after the first pair for each child they started getting crazy. Witness Sprout's orange and red creation over there.

These happy face ones are more in line with what I had in mind! We also did stars, little x's, lightning bolts, and polka dots.

Fun and useful. Yay!

Decoupage

I took French for several years in high school, and yet I still feel a little silly and pretentious even saying "decoupage". Luckily, doing decoupage was way more fun than even saying it.

I thought that we should make some sort of collection box to help us work on collecting Box Tops for Education because I know we should, and yet we don't. And my mom had mentioned something about doing decoupage and I thought why not make a decorated box to collect the tops in?

Of course, Sprout and Tater felt that they each needed to have their own box to collect for their individual classes. So we purchased two paperboard boxes at Michael's ($2.99 each) and some Mod Podge ($5.69 or so). I was so dazzled by the array of Mod Podge choices (I thought there was only one kind!) that we also had to get some with glitter in it...you know, just in case more glitter was necessary.

We also splurged on some designer tissue paper squares (a preposterous $2.99 per packet - but there is a ton of little papers and they will last for many more projects).

We already had a huge supply of little foam paintbrushes. And we cut a bunch of pictures out of the Pottery Barn catalog (What is that look for? It's better than using pictures out of People!) and a random Newsweek that somehow snuck into the house (for some reason it had pictures of animals in it...we didn't use politicians for this particular project!)

It was a whole gluing extravaganza. Sprout really got the hang of painting on the Mod Podge and painting it over the pictures. Tater liked sticking the things on, but needed a little help with the gluing technique.

The end product is actually very cool looking. We need to add another couple of layers of the Mod Podge (that's just fun to say). And we need to figure out how to cut a slot in the top of the boxes for the box tops to go in. But I am calling this one a success!