Now while I joke that all my teeth are “Sweet” teeth, it seems to me like there’s always some holiday on the horizon with the promise of sweets to eat. It’s hard enough to say no to myself, but it seems like I’m constantly telling my kiddos “No” to some around every corner.

So I wanted to share with you the Valentine’s Day cards my little ones will be giving out this season. I decided to make 2 different ones though not for any reason other than the fact that I liked both of them. While you might think 1 was for boys and 1 for girls, that’s not the case. My girls LOVE playing with cars and I know plenty of little guys who would dominate this puzzle with their (very) admirable hand eye coordination.

So, where did I find all this cute stuff? The Dollar store of course! The little cars were in the toy section and came in a package of 8 and the Heart shaped mazes were in the seasonal section in a package of 9. The cards I designed myself and printed them at home. I tried to utilize a lot of “white space” when designing them so that it wouldn’t hog all my colored ink so I could simply print them at home. All in all it really is a great cheap inexpensive way to send some love with no cavities included.

Want some of your own? You can get either, or both in a downloadable PDF format with editable fields to personalize them to your own little one. Click here to download the Race themed card. Click here for the aMAZE valentine card. Race car cards print 2 to a page and aMAZE cards print 6 to a page. I recommend using plain white letter sized (8½x11) cardstock. In case you need it, I used KG Ten Thousand Reasons for the names (it’s a free downloadable font).

Here’s to love in the air and fewer cavities.

Enjoy, and Happy Valentine’s Day!

]]> http://millionayres.com/2244/got-no-love-for-cavities-candy-free-valentines-day-cards/feed/ 0 http://millionayres.com/2200/sonshine-birthday-party/ http://millionayres.com/2200/sonshine-birthday-party/#comments Tue, 22 Jan 2013 02:11:56 +0000 Michelle http://millionayres.com/?p=2200

So, it may have been thrown 10 days after the fact, but I’m so excited to share with you Weston’s 1st birthday party! The theme was {son}shine, without being the typical “You are my sunshine…” so that meant there was yellow galore!
As it typically is, 1st birthday parties aren’t usually about the kid but it’s more for the adults. It’s a congratulatory celebration for keeping another human being alive for an entire year!

We started the party with Weston still asleep but shortly after everyone arrived, we woke him up, made him look a little dapper in his gray and yellow interlocking circle bow tie and blue fedora we picked up at target.

The cake was simply made from 3 layers of store bought cake mix and frosting since it meets the “dairy free” requirement of not only my kids but many of our friends’ kids. I wanted to create a cake that was reminiscent of a cloud and I achieved that by piping large circles of frosting and smoothing them out in one direction with my frosting spatula. Lather, rinse, repeat until you’ve gone all the way around. If you figure out a better way to finish the last section without it being super noticeable, please let me know! But regardless of that slight imperfection, I really like the way that the cake turned out.

It seems a shame that I still do not own a cake stand. Every party I throw, I grunt and say “I should just buy one!” but then after the party is over I rationalize not buying one. So I wanna say a huge shout out to my mom who came up with this solution. We took an old disposable salad bowl and lid from olive garden, put the lid on top of the bowl turned upside down and voila! DIY cake stand.

The smash cake was made from the remaining layer of cake that wasn’t used in the main cake. I cut out two 4″ circles  and iced them. Needless to say, Weston was less than impressed and the idea of getting his hands covered in frosting did NOT appeal. It really is confusing since this kid gets into EVERYTHING and is no stranger to yucky messes.

The fare for the party was a simple (and delicious) taco bar complete with all the fixin’s (although I later realized that we forgot to put out the salsa and sour cream…whooops). Just a side note, I found 4 pks of those clear plastic tongs at the Dollar Tree, which was perfect for picking up all those toppings.

I wanted to keep the gray & yellow theme going in the kitchen and achieved that with subtle touches here and there like these fabric flowers and plush hearts mounted onto narrow dowels aka bamboo skewers.

In addition to the taco bar, there were other foods that held up the yellow theme like cheese and crackers, lemon/pineapple jello, fresh pineapple and bananas.

To quench everyone’s thirst there was ample amounts of sweet tea, lemonade, capri suns (for the kids) and water bottles. I did have plans and designs for the water bottles, but ran short on time (like always) and that little touch was left out. Oh well.

I wanted to share with everyone a snippet of the cuteness we saw everyday in the past year and I made a strand of sun and clouds paper garland to hang pictures from. I used some little clothes pins that I picked up at the Target Dollar spot earlier this year. I also used these same clothes pins in this years Advent calendar.

The table that got the most raiders visitors, was the dessert dessert table where we served marshmallow pops, golden oreos, lemon drops, golden raisins, butterfingers, and for the salty counterpart, popcorn and goldfish crackers. I accented the table with a paper medallion banner and some die cut sun shapes.

I accented the table with a paper medallion banner and some die cut sun shapes and 3-D Sun and clouds hanging from the ceiling. Those were actually the very first thing that I made when I got my Silhouette this Christmas.

For favors I picked up a bunch of tiny round containers from the Dollar Tree, 10 for $1 and filled them with lemon heads (my favorite) and had the hubbs glue a 2″ favor tag on top. Aaaand for those who are not of the lemony goodness persuasion, I had a metal pail full of individual gummy bears (also my favorite).

And now for the fun party of the party. One of the other things that I got to use my silhouette machine on was all the props for the “Photo Booth”.  I drew out a bunch of shapes and using different paper from my scrapbooking stash, made over 30 different props. I also made the sign and slid it into my ultimate must have party decor item, my $.99 Ikea picture frame. I scored the backdrop which is actually a section of fabric from the clearance bin at Joann Fabrics. It was a steal at $3. The fabric is 108″ long from selvage to selvage and just over 1 yard wide . It was just the perfect length for our short 8 foot ceilings. The rest is history. I sorted through the nearly 300 pictures, and here is a little sample of the fun, starting out with my family of course.

It was a great party and I so thankful for the wealth of friends we’ve made since moving here just over 2 years ago. We are blessed above and beyond anything we deserve and it’s a testament to God’s grace in our lives.

Valentine’s day is approaching and many mommies are starting to think about sweet treats and gifts to give to their little ones. I just love Valentine’s Day and I try to make is as special for my kiddos as (I hope) my hubby makes it for me!

Well now you can save 20% storewide at the Millionayres Etsy site including all the newly added Valentines bows, headbands and bow ties.

Just use coupon code VALENTINE  at checkout. Have special requests or want different color combos, just message me. You can either visit the site by clicking here, or use the widget below…

Today was our son Weston’s first birthday. I could gush and tell you all the typical mom speak that seems to spill out of the mouth of a proud mama but this post would be entirely too long and there are enough pictures I wanted to show you so I’ll spare you. Just know I love my son’s guts and I am so blessed to be his mommy.

If “idle hands are the devil’s playground” my son is ANGELIC. He is a boy in the utmost and he is always getting into stuff, so why not give him an outlet for all that investigative energy. I’ve seen some busy boards on Pinterest and from some Googling but the idea to do this was all my hubby. When you have 2 young kids already, there’s not really a need for toys. I try to buy clothes for the kids (on sale of course) 6 months – a year before hand to save money. So what do you get for a little boy who doesn’t need clothes or toys and who had his first Christmas just 2 weeks ago. A busy board!

I wanted it to be eye catching and more interesting than just bare wood. Black and yellow stripes seemed to do the trick. I used the wax paper image transfer technique from Unexpected Elegance to get my message across the top and then I just used a black Sharpie to fill in the letters and achieve the sharp message of : “Caution: Boy At Play”.

Between a trip to Lowes and going through random stuff we had around the house, we were able to pull together all the items you see here to keep those little hands busy, if even for a few minutes! Between everything we probably spent about $50 which pains me a bit to say, but I guarantee that between all 3 of my kiddos we’ll get our money’s worth.

This little thing came from a swag bag my husband picked up at a scuba diving convention. When you push the little button, a small LED light shines. To attach it to the board I just relied on my tube of trusty E-6000 glue (Love that stuff. It works so well and it’s super cheap. Less than $3 at Walmart). I just swapped out the message under the plastic and using my Silhouette machine, (squeeel! I’m still so excited I have one finally!!!!) I printed and then cut a piece of card stock to the exact dimensions including the rounded corners. It made me smile…

This latch was seriously my favorite. To be honest, I don’t know what it’s called, but the range of motion that the handle goes through in order to lock is what makes it a perfect addition to the board ‘o business.

Because we countersunk the light switches, that meant that they were sticking out of the back by about  ½”, so to fix that problem, we took some spare pieces of 1×2 screwed into the back of the board and then through the board into the wall. We kinda liked the way the hardware added to the look.

I added a hidden message with some good old thumb tacks underneath one of the hinged boards.

 My perspective.

Weston’s perspective (exaggerated just a bit).

The Hubbs and I “installed” the board during nap time and this was little man’s first introduction to it….yes, we took a million pictures (only in Florida can the baby take a nap in January in nothing but a diaper).

The door stopper was a last minute addition to the busy board plans and it has proven to be worth it’s weight in FUN. Like every baby I’ve ever known, the door stopper or the “boy-yoy-yoing thing” like we call it, is his favorite thing on the whole board!

Born just 1 day after my own birthday, there’s no one cuter who I’d let steal all MY birthday thunder than this guy. He is my {son}shine and snuggle buddy and I can’t imagine life without him. Happy 1st Birthday Weston!

Well if you’re much like me, you only just got the rest of the Christmas decorations put away and you’re already geared up for the next holiday. We have 3 birthdays between now and the day we honor love in this house, so it can get a little tricky having seasonal decorations up in addition to party themed decorations. I guess everyone’s birthday will just be full of a little extra love this year.

To get you started I searched the inter-webs and rounded up 14 Valentines garland ideas to get your ideas going and bring a little extra love into your home.

Stacie over at Stars for Streetlights offers up her sewn paper heart garland with a slight stitch and color twist after being inspired by an old college friend. You can read all about it here.

Audrey, a contributor at Sei Lifestyle, brings you these sweet paper hearts. See how she did it here.

Anna at Noodlehead chose to celebrate Valentine’s day by using one of my favorite kid craft items, pom poms. Cheap easy and fun, this window garland is fun and unique. You can read about how she did it here. I just wonder  how she got her strands to hang straight, maybe a little weight on the bottom, maybe tape…

I swear Natalie over at The Busy Budgeting Mama and I could be the same person. Budget obsessed concious, with 3 very young kiddos, 2 girls and a boy. I mean, her first born and mine have super curly hair, her 2nd and mine have super straight hair, and we both were blessed with a little boy to protect his older sisters. We’re both graphic designers and keep a crazy busy house. Oh and she makes super cute stuff while looking fabulous. That last part might be where we start to differ. Having 3 kiddos did not leave me with a pre-baby super fit body like hers but ….oh well. You can check out her valentine garland here. There’s a super cute photo shoot of her little one to go along with it.

Jen of the ever popular Tatertots & Jello offered up her take on Valentine’s garland last year with these heart doiley mantle lights.  So maybe don’t put away all those strings of Christmas lights just yet. Check out her entire mantle here.

Pam Garrison brings us away for the typical heart theme with her take on a Valentine’s Day garland using these super cute cupcake liners. Check it out here.

Tristan over at Two Girls Being Crafty stepped away from the pink and red themes and made this adorable sewn felt heart garland. I love the time she put into the stitches even if she claimed it didn’t take very long…it helps if you know what you’re doing. You can see this and other ideas from the other “crafty girl” here.

And then there’s Martha. You know, Martha Stewart, someone who gets paid to do this stuff for her she whips up this cute interlocking heart garland. You can read about how that was accomplished here.

 I gotta be honest with you, I love orange. That’s why I super love Jessica from HowAbout Orange‘s Asterisk Heart garland. Pink…Red….who needs ‘em. I’m going orange! See her whole post here.

Let’s continue on with the throw caution color to the wind and let me tell you about Brooke from Grace & Light‘s Paint Chip paper punch garland. It wasn’t created with Valentine’s day in mind, but I’m loving where she’s going with it. I love it even more when you consider her supplies were free from her local paint supply store. If I love anything, it’s saving money…and making cute stuff. Check out her fool proof phototutorial here.

 Okay, well this one made me swoon just a little bit. Okay a lot of bit. It’s not that the idea is particularly original but it’s her execution and more over the dedication that it took to punch and sew 800 paper hearts. I’ll let you in on a little secret. Come closer to the screen, I don’t want anyone else to hear. SOMETHING VERY CLOSE TO THIS WILL BE IN MY HOME THIS SEASON! I’m sorry I didn’t mean to yell. I just love this so much. You can check out Rachel’s garland how to here.

 Marcella over at Citrus Lane‘s paper garland. Think back to your childhood and the paper links you’d make for Christmas time. In fact I made those with my 2 little girls for their tree this Christmas. I love this because you can totally get your kids involved, with supervision of course. My oldest is just 3 and she amazed me recently with her dexterity when it came to using a stapler. I think she would have a blast. You can read how Marcella or actually her son, make this super cute paper heart garland here.

 Christine at A Rambling Fancy put together this twist on paper heart garland with her use of different shapes and layering. Check out her site and other “ramblings” here.

 Rebekah at Woven Home has a sweet tutorial on how to make this chain linked 3D paper heart garland. I love it when paper and machine come together as one. Okay that was weird. Sorry. I just love this. In fact I made some things for our little man’s first birthday using this same technique. More on that later. Click on over and see the full tutorial here.

I hope these inspired you and you find time to string up a few extra hearts this year.

I’m just about finished with my latest DIY and I can’t wait to show you the finished reveal, but here’s a sneak peek.

The finished product will be revealed in a just a few days.

Okay, so many of you may also be super frugal and a little bit of the coupon crazy tendency like me. If you do you may have heard about a new app called Ibotta.

Ibotta is an app that lets you earn money for buying the products you already buy and use. The best part is that you control how much money you can earn. You earn real money by learning about products. You can take polls, read facts or watch short videos.

Since the app has already be tested and proven on the Apple market you know that it is only expanding. As a matter of fact,

Ibotta Now Works at 24 Retailers

Target, Walmart, Kroger, Safeway, Walgreens, CVS, Rite Aid, Meijer, Fred Meyer, Pavilions, Tom Thumb, Stop & Shop, Pick ‘n Save, Dominicks, Fry’s, Smith’s, ShopRite, Dillons, H-E-B, Publix, King Soopers, Ralphs, Vons, Duane Reade.

So start learning and earning and saving some money on your groceries! Who doesn’t have time for free money?

And now with their share the love program you can earn money for telling others. It’s as easy as sharing it on FB or twitter! So sign up and start saving!

As a matter of fact I was only the 17th person to download Ibotta for android.

Happy savings!

I first saw a version of what is now our “kids only” Christmas tree on pinterest. It was coming from Etsy for something in the ball park of $35. Whauuuhht? Upstairs I ran and gathered some stuff. I had bought the green felt at Walmart while I was there for my (necessary evil) Walmart run for this purpose but I had red felt at home and I wanted the kids “ornaments” to kinda match the color scheme we had going for the rest of the decorations.

If you’re thinking you’ve seen this green felt before, you’re right! I used what was left from the 3/4 yd. I bought for this tree to create Day 6′s Mistletoe Kissing Ball in this years 12 Days of DIY Giveaway.

It was hard to snap pictures of the kids because, as always, they would not hold still and silly me, these pics are from my phone! But the each had a blast decorating and Re-decorating the tree.

I first started out with the tree in the playroom and with some wall safe adhesive strips. That lasted, uh, 10 minutes. I moved it downstairs into our formal living room a place we walk through multiple times a day and secured it with some staples from my staple gun and there it has remained, relatively unscathed.

I do now and again find a random felt ornament laying in a different room of the house, courtesy of this little guy, but he’s so stinkin’ cute I’ll let it slide…

Merry Christmas!

Okay, well I can’t take TOTAL credit for this idea. I was inspired by idea from the good people at Silhouette. You can check out the original here. I admit, it’s still hard to admit that something wasn’t my original idea, I guess it’s true “There’s nothing new under the sun.” (Lamentations 1:9). But it’s espeically hard to swallow when I genuinely believe I’ve come up with a completely unique idea only to later see it on another blog or hear someone say, “Oh yeah, I saw that on Pinterest.” ugh. Oh well. So no, this wasn’t my idea, but I think even without the frame, mine came out really cute and my kids and the Hubbs and I have been having a great time with it. It’s nothing fancy, I actually just used regular office staples to secure it to the wall. Mainly because the thought of push pins didn’t don on me until later and I couldn’t find the staple gun.

I know a lot of people like to include family activities in their advent calendar but this year I made it more of a learning opportunity exposing our kids to the story of Jesus verse by verse with some probing questions mixed in. Each day we read the verses from the days before and the verse for the day out of Luke 2 and when the kids are done humoring us listening intently, there’s a little sweet in there for them. For us, it alternates between m&m (7 each) and Hershey’s kisses which they call “Giant Chocolate Chips” (1 each). It’s just a little something that get’s them excited, gives them something to look forward to and helps them generate a positive association with learning from the Bible. Hmmm maybe all I need to improve my quiet times is more chocolate. I can hear it now, “Sorry honey, it’s not for you. It’s for my spiritual well being” (while the chocoholic husband frowns and slowly walks away).

So, do you do an advent calendar with your family?

***UPDATE: This giveaway is now closed. Congrats to Misty! Thanks for entering everyone. Be sure you enter all the other giveaways that are live while you still can!***

Whew! We made it! Did you break out in a sweat from all of this DIY-a-palooza? I saw something cute the other day that said “I’m so crafty I sweat glitter” to funny but way too messy! Thank goodness it’s not true. It’s been a fun 12 days and I’m just super glad that I had all of you to share it with. I haven’t even had time to share all the other stuff I’ve been up to, like out advent calendar, the kids’ felt tree, all the other kid crafts (shocking I know, I crafted with my kids again) we’ve been doing lately. Maybe I’ll share them in a couple days when I wake up from my much needed sleep-cation!

But before I enter the land of catch up slumber let me show you Day 12′s “Holicraft”. I bring you Jingle Bells lights!

On a side note, only after coming up with the idea and completely finished this project did I find that Pottery Barn is selling a similar product this Christmas season. Great minds think alike. Only my mind can’t wrap itself around the price tag they’re charging for a string of just 10 lights! Check it out here. Well I like my price tag better, $3-5 depending on how many lights you want or how long a strand of light you’re using. Odds are you have a strand of lights somewhere but even if not, a cheap short strand can be picked up at any big box retailer like Target or Walmart for a small amount so for the purposes of this craft, I’m not including a strand of lights in my price breakdown.

So let’s get started. Don’t forget you could win this by entering the giveaway at the end of the post.

Step 1: Get your hands on these 3 simple supplies.

The thing about the Dollar store lights are that 1) They’re cheap 2) They are pliable and easy to manipulate. Did I mention that they’re cheap? A 9 count bag of them will only put you out $1 + tax! I mean seriously that’s super awesome!

Step 2: With the pliers, grab the curved hook area on the top of the bell. Twist, as if to flip it over and simultaneously twist it like turning a key.

The thin metal should snap off and look like this.

Step 3: With your pliers clamped shut, insert them into the hole and twist around to enlarge the opening enough for a light to fit inside.

Step 4: Carefully slide a light bulb from your string of lights inside the bell until you get a secure and tight fit

Repeat until all the bells are used. Half way done here. For my purposes, I chose to  add a bell to every other light because of how this strand was twisted. Do this. Or not. It’s totally in your power.

With the lights on. Aren’t they pretty and so fun!

I love the details that the punch outs in the bells gives when the light shines through.

Simple enough don’t you think.

Now for a disclaimer. Since this is a new creation, I don’t know the effects of the heat from the lights will have on the bells. If you have LED lights this should not pose a problem at all but for the other traditional type of string lights it’s probably a good idea to keep an eye on it and limit it’s “on” time.

Also, if you want to be just like Pottery Barn, you can add a small section of red ribbon tied into a bow around the connection point between the lights and bell. I like them just like this and I hope you will too.
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