May 2023

Creative Kids Bathrooms Roundup

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Since making over my kids’ bathroom, I’ve got bathroom makeovers on the brain!  Luckily Hometalk has all the inspiration I need.  I’m brand new to Hometalk, so if you have an account, follow me!

If not and you love all things DIY and crafty, head on over and set up an account!  There is so much amazing inspiration over there for bloggers, non-bloggers, professionals, non-professionals, and everone in between!  But if you get addicted, it’s not my fault 😉

I was recently asked to curate a board for Hometalk, and I’m sharing the inspiration with you here today!


People are so creative!  Here a few of my favorite details:

The link to this post is broken, but I have to include it because I love this sink SO much!  

You can find more details about this nautical bathroom here: 

I hope you’ll pop over and see the rest of the Creative Kids’ Bathrooms I put together!
There are a bunch more from this board alone but let me tell you, this is only a small portion of the inspiration you’ll find there, 

Don’t forget to stop by and follow me.  Like I said, I’m brand new, but I’ll be putting together lots more inspiration for you to browse soon!

Connect with us! You can find us here:

Ahoy! A “Jake and the Neverland Pirates” Birthday Party!

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My oldest son turned 4 on Saturday.  To celebrate, we threw a pirate party.  But it couldn’t be just a pirate party- it had to be a “Jake and the Neverland Pirates” pirate party.  If you don’t know, this is a brand-new show from Disney Jr.  It’s so new there is no merchandise out for it yet.  So, I did my best to combine “basic” pirate stuff with some homemade “Jake” stuff.  My son even insisted on dressing like Smee- so he wore his blue and white striped shirt and I made him a red stocking cap out of a dollar store t-shirt. All “Jake” images are copyrights of Walt Disney.  I’m sure they’ll have their own stuff out soon, but until then, I’d like to think that old Walt would understand a parent trying to please their child. To begin with, I downloaded the “Jake” image from Disney Jr. and made my own invitations.  I used a free skull background, then put the Jake image in the header.

For decorations, we had “basic” pirate stuff- a treasure map tablecloth, black, blue, and red balloons, some skull and crossbones signs, etc.

When the kids got there, we gave them bandannas, eyepatches, and earrings, and they decorated a “Jake” spyglass, found here:

Then we played a few games, jumped on our new trampoline, ate lunch, opened presents, ate cake, went on a treasure hunt, and jumped on the trampoline some more.  Who knew pirates had trampolines 🙂

For food I served pirate themed food.

Fish n Chips- (goldfish crackers and potato chips)

Swords (pretzel sticks)

Cannonballs (grapes)

Golden Nuggets (chicken nuggets)

X Marks the Spot breadsticks (pizza dough shaped into x’s)

Crocodile Blood (Red Kool-Aid)

For activities I tried to incorporate some “Jake”-style games-

Pin the Hook on the Captain (I sketched this from a clipart image I found online)

Search for gold Doubloons (Jake and his friends earn these through their adventures)

A treasure hunt for their goody bags (not pictured)

The cake was from FamilyFun magazine and can be found here:  

For the goody bags, I made my own labels, filled brown paper lunch sacks and tied them with jute rope to make them look like loot sacks.

Inside I put a pirate compass and pirate paddleball from the dollar store, bubbles that I wrapped with a “Jake” logo I printed out, pirate stickers, a “Jake” coloring page (found here) and a bag of Hershey’s nuggets and individual Rolos.  They also got to keep all their pirate gear and gold doubloons.

P.S.  If you have a “Jake” fan and are headed to Disneyland anytime soon, make sure you check out the Disney Jr. show in California Adventure!  It truly was a magical experience for my kids!

(If you’re planning a trip, book through Get Away Today- I’ve used them several times and it has been awesome every time- no bumps or goof-ups, and we always save a little money with their hard-to-find ticket discounts!  Use code OCRAFTY to save an  extra $10 off any 2-night or longer Southern California package (hotel and 2 ticket minimum).

The kids had a great time, and I had fun being a pirate!  Maybe these ideas will help someone else until Disney gets its Jake party gear out, so I’m linking up to some of these parties: 

Birthday Bash- Giveaway #5: Michael’s Gift Card

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 It’s my bloggy birthday, and my real-life birthday is coming up soon!  Let’s celebrate!

Each day this week, I have a giveaway for you, as well as a fun, birthday-themed post.  !  The theme of my giveaways this week is “My Favorite Things”!   I have not been compensated in any way for featuring these shops or products– I am just thrilled you get to share them with me, and I hope they become some of your “favorite things!”

Thanks for coming back today!  Before we get to the last giveaway, please make sure to enter all the giveaways this week.  They can be found here.  All giveaways are open until midnight on Sunday the 13th.

Now, on to the show…..My final giveaway is simple and hopefully really useful.   Any crafter knows a great place to shop is Michael’s.  It’s dangerously close to my house, and I go there ALL THE TIME (much to the chagrin of my husband and boys).  I only get through it with the promise of lollipops at the end, but hey- it’s worth it!

Today I’m giving away a $25 Michael’s gift card.  Need a stack of scrapbook paper?  That’ll cover it.  How about some paint and supplies?  No problem.  A little home decor?  $25 will pick you up something cute, especially with your 40% off coupon that is on their site weekly.

Simply use the Rafflecopter form below to enter.  Good luck!  


Don’t forget to enter all the giveaways, found here.

Finally, please come back this afternoon for a HUGE announcement about my blog.  You won’t want to miss it 🙂


Giveaway- Bonita Bellita Accessories

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If you’ve been around here for awhile, you might remember when Bonita Bellita was one of my sponsors.  I have always loved Stephanie’s simple and beautiful accessories, so I am thrilled that she contacted me with some pretties just for you.

With the holidays coming up, these would make great gifts.  Or, we know a woman can never have too much jewelry of her own, right?

Take some time to look around Stephanie’s shop- my favorites are her hair clips, like this beautiful one: I also love this necklace, and I’d love a little earring holder like this.

Stephanie is generously giving away these lovely golden topaz earrings (perfect for fall!)

AND these Butterfly Bobby Pins (which my daughter would just love!)

If you’d like to win, simply use the Rafflecopter form below to enter.  This giveaway will be open until 11:59 pm (Pacific) Sunday night.  Good luck!


Water Bottle Motivational Tracker (Free Silhouette Cut File)

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This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #WaterMadeExciting #CollectiveBias




Last year I lost ten pounds.  You can see how I did it here, but one of the biggest things I did to not only lose weight, but just feel better in general, was to drink more water.



I have always been horrible about drinking enough water.  I just didn’t enjoy drinking plain old water.

Well, the awesome thing about water is, you don’t have to drink it plain!  There are ways to enjoy flavored water without adding any extra calories or sugar, or at least keeping it very minimal.



For example, I love drinking flavored sparkling water.  I quit drinking soda, but I missed that carbonation BADLY.  For me, sparkling water was the answer.  The only problem is, it can get quite expensive.



So I was really excited to try out the SodaStream Power Automatic Sparkling Water Maker.  It automatically carbonates your water, and then you buy different flavors to make your water a bit more interesting!



You can choose your level of “fizz”.  I am definitely a three drop girl.



Simply fill your bottle with water,  attach it to the machine following the instructions, press your fizz button, and voila- sparkling water!  Now you just need some flavor.


SodaStream has several varieties of flavors:

Waters: all natural ingredients and very low calorie

Fruits: delicious fruit flavor combinations (though be careful of the calories on this one)

Zeros:  no-calorie, full-fruit flavors made with stevia

Gourmet Waters: unique chef-inspired flavor combinations with high quality natural ingredients



I tried several different flavors, and my favorite so far is the Berry Mix from the Fruits line.




Another thing that helps me drink more water is using a fun water bottle that helps me track what I’m drinking.



You can make one too, and all you need is a 32 oz water bottle, some vinyl, and a Silhouette (or a friend that has one!)



Download this cut file , open it in Silhouette Studio, resize if necessary for your bottle,



and cut it on your machine.



Remove the excess vinyl, including the pieces above the cut lines in the water drops, then apply transfer tape.



Move the design to your water bottle.  If your water bottle has marked spots for the different amounts, you can match up each line to your bottle.  Definitely apply this one line at a time!




If not, here’s how I figured out where to put them.  I filled a liquid measuring cup with 8 oz, then poured it into my bottle.  That’s where the 24 oz line went.  Repeat and mark the 16 oz line.  Do it a third time, and mark the 8 oz line.



(It is supposed to go “backwards” because you’re tracking how much water you drink as you go through the day). 

Make sure you hand wash these bottles, as the vinyl will not hold up in the dishwasher.  I also recommend using a more permanent vinyl, like Oracal 651, since water is involved here. 

Research is mixed on whether or not you actually need 64 oz of water a day, so I put REFILL at the bottom as an option.  I can promise you, though, if you even drink 32 oz a day, you will feel so much better!




It gives you energy, helps aching joints, keeps you from snacking mindlessly, and more.

The SodaStream Power would be a great holiday gift for anyone!  You can get free shipping with any order over $50, too!  Find all the latest SodaStream offers here.

How do you do at drinking water?  What flavor sparkling water do you want to try?

Ahoy! A “Jake and the Neverland Pirates” Birthday Party!

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My oldest son turned 4 on Saturday.  To celebrate, we threw a pirate party.  But it couldn’t be just a pirate party- it had to be a “Jake and the Neverland Pirates” pirate party.  If you don’t know, this is a brand-new show from Disney Jr.  It’s so new there is no merchandise out for it yet.  So, I did my best to combine “basic” pirate stuff with some homemade “Jake” stuff.  My son even insisted on dressing like Smee- so he wore his blue and white striped shirt and I made him a red stocking cap out of a dollar store t-shirt. All “Jake” images are copyrights of Walt Disney.  I’m sure they’ll have their own stuff out soon, but until then, I’d like to think that old Walt would understand a parent trying to please their child. To begin with, I downloaded the “Jake” image from Disney Jr. and made my own invitations.  I used a free skull background, then put the Jake image in the header.

For decorations, we had “basic” pirate stuff- a treasure map tablecloth, black, blue, and red balloons, some skull and crossbones signs, etc.

When the kids got there, we gave them bandannas, eyepatches, and earrings, and they decorated a “Jake” spyglass, found here:

Then we played a few games, jumped on our new trampoline, ate lunch, opened presents, ate cake, went on a treasure hunt, and jumped on the trampoline some more.  Who knew pirates had trampolines 🙂

For food I served pirate themed food.

Fish n Chips- (goldfish crackers and potato chips)

Swords (pretzel sticks)

Cannonballs (grapes)

Golden Nuggets (chicken nuggets)

X Marks the Spot breadsticks (pizza dough shaped into x’s)

Crocodile Blood (Red Kool-Aid)

For activities I tried to incorporate some “Jake”-style games-

Pin the Hook on the Captain (I sketched this from a clipart image I found online)

Search for gold Doubloons (Jake and his friends earn these through their adventures)

A treasure hunt for their goody bags (not pictured)

The cake was from FamilyFun magazine and can be found here:  

For the goody bags, I made my own labels, filled brown paper lunch sacks and tied them with jute rope to make them look like loot sacks.

Inside I put a pirate compass and pirate paddleball from the dollar store, bubbles that I wrapped with a “Jake” logo I printed out, pirate stickers, a “Jake” coloring page (found here) and a bag of Hershey’s nuggets and individual Rolos.  They also got to keep all their pirate gear and gold doubloons.

P.S.  If you have a “Jake” fan and are headed to Disneyland anytime soon, make sure you check out the Disney Jr. show in California Adventure!  It truly was a magical experience for my kids!

(If you’re planning a trip, book through Get Away Today- I’ve used them several times and it has been awesome every time- no bumps or goof-ups, and we always save a little money with their hard-to-find ticket discounts!  Use code OCRAFTY to save an  extra $10 off any 2-night or longer Southern California package (hotel and 2 ticket minimum).

The kids had a great time, and I had fun being a pirate!  Maybe these ideas will help someone else until Disney gets its Jake party gear out, so I’m linking up to some of these parties: 

How I lost 10 lbs in 8 weeks- the Right Way! 60 Day BMS Challenge

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Losing weight is hard.

Losing weight when you’ve had three kids and are super busy with work, family, and church is harder

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Losing weight when you have Rheumatoid Arthritis and take medicine that makes you retain weight is ridiculously hard.

I could go on.  We all have our reasons that make it hard for us to lose weight.

After the holidays, the scale had really inched up to a point I said I’d never hit again.  I knew it was time to do something to turn things back around.  

My bloggy friend Abbey from The Cards We Drew posted in a Facebook group that a new challenge over at April Kennedy’s 60-Day Body, Mind, Soul Challenge page was about to begin, and would anyone be interested in teaming up for the challenge?

I read over the challenge details and was excited.  This wasn’t a “diet”, it was more of a “healthy living” plan.  I felt like it was totally do-able for someone like me who really doesn’t like a lot of “healthy food”.  So I jumped in and the challenge began.

I’m 5’4″ and I started my challenge at almost 146 lbs. Here’s my “Before” pics: 

 


After 8 weeks of healthy eating and daily exercise, I ended the challenge at 135 lbs, and I lost a combined 15 1/2 inches, dropping a dress size.  Here’s my “After” pics:


In addition, I feel great, have more energy, and my disease activity has been the lowest it’s been in awhile!

I don’t know how obvious the change is since 10 pounds isn’t a huge amount of weight.  But, my legs and arms are more trim, my belly is flatter, and I have had comments that my face is a bit slimmer. 

 My clothes fit so much better, and I’ll have to buy new shorts for summer since none of mine fit from last year!

I can’t give you all the details, since we pay April for her hard work when we register for the program, but maybe I can give you enough to see if it’s something you want to do for yourself.

Food:  The requirements are adaptable for any diet- regular eaters like me, gluten-free, paleo, vegan, etc.  You eat whole grains, fruits and vegetables, lean proteins, and low-fat dairy.  Whatever combination of foods you eat is really up to you and your needs.  There is no quantity limit on this plan- you never go hungry.  I could always find something to eat even when eating out.

**You are going to cut out a lot of carbs, most sugars, and unhealthy things like fast food, soda, bakery items, etc.

Exercise:  30 minutes a day, 6 days a week.  If this sounds crazy hard, know that you can adapt this to your own physical needs.  As I mentioned, I have Rheumatoid Arthritis, and I have damage to my wrists and hips.  My doctor insisted I only work out 3 days a week- the other days I had to do very light exercise like marching in place or sidesteps down the hall.  I felt stupid doing them, but I did those light exercises for 30 minutes and it counted.  And I still lost weight 🙂

That takes care of the B for Body, but we were also challenged to improve our Minds and Souls.  There was a daily prayer/meditation/scripture study portion (again, adaptable for your own beliefs), and each week we had bonus activities and acts of kindness to perform that would earn us points.

I loved working as a team.  It kept me accountable when I knew I had to report my points each week.  I knew others were counting on me to do my part.  We even had our own FB group to encourage and help each other along the way!

Our team came in 4th place for overall percentage of weight loss- and I personally came in 4th for total inches lost!  We didn’t win any prizes, but I’m proud of us!

Now I’m in maintenance mode.  I’ve let myself eat some naughty foods this week, but overall I’m going to try to keep up the healthy habits I’ve developed and stay at this weight (or even drop a few more) for summer.

A new challenge begins on April 11th- so head over and register next week if you want to be a part of it!  And if you have any questions, I can try to answer them- leave a note in the comments or shoot me an email.


Connect with us! You can find us here:

Christmas Printable

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I am trying something new today.  People all over blogland make the cutest printables.  I followed a tutorial on how to do it from here, so here goes nothing! I love the original “Keep Calm and Carry On” and all the variations people come up with.  Here’s my contribution to the Keep Calm line. Right click on this to save it and print it for yourself!

I’m linking to some of these parties.

Ahoy! A “Jake and the Neverland Pirates” Birthday Party!

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My oldest son turned 4 on Saturday.  To celebrate, we threw a pirate party.  But it couldn’t be just a pirate party- it had to be a “Jake and the Neverland Pirates” pirate party.  If you don’t know, this is a brand-new show from Disney Jr.  It’s so new there is no merchandise out for it yet.  So, I did my best to combine “basic” pirate stuff with some homemade “Jake” stuff.  My son even insisted on dressing like Smee- so he wore his blue and white striped shirt and I made him a red stocking cap out of a dollar store t-shirt. All “Jake” images are copyrights of Walt Disney.  I’m sure they’ll have their own stuff out soon, but until then, I’d like to think that old Walt would understand a parent trying to please their child. To begin with, I downloaded the “Jake” image from Disney Jr. and made my own invitations.  I used a free skull background, then put the Jake image in the header.

For decorations, we had “basic” pirate stuff- a treasure map tablecloth, black, blue, and red balloons, some skull and crossbones signs, etc.

When the kids got there, we gave them bandannas, eyepatches, and earrings, and they decorated a “Jake” spyglass, found here:

Then we played a few games, jumped on our new trampoline, ate lunch, opened presents, ate cake, went on a treasure hunt, and jumped on the trampoline some more.  Who knew pirates had trampolines 🙂

For food I served pirate themed food.

Fish n Chips- (goldfish crackers and potato chips)

Swords (pretzel sticks)

Cannonballs (grapes)

Golden Nuggets (chicken nuggets)

X Marks the Spot breadsticks (pizza dough shaped into x’s)

Crocodile Blood (Red Kool-Aid)

For activities I tried to incorporate some “Jake”-style games-

Pin the Hook on the Captain (I sketched this from a clipart image I found online)

Search for gold Doubloons (Jake and his friends earn these through their adventures)

A treasure hunt for their goody bags (not pictured)

The cake was from FamilyFun magazine and can be found here:  

For the goody bags, I made my own labels, filled brown paper lunch sacks and tied them with jute rope to make them look like loot sacks.

Inside I put a pirate compass and pirate paddleball from the dollar store, bubbles that I wrapped with a “Jake” logo I printed out, pirate stickers, a “Jake” coloring page (found here) and a bag of Hershey’s nuggets and individual Rolos.  They also got to keep all their pirate gear and gold doubloons.

P.S.  If you have a “Jake” fan and are headed to Disneyland anytime soon, make sure you check out the Disney Jr. show in California Adventure!  It truly was a magical experience for my kids!

(If you’re planning a trip, book through Get Away Today- I’ve used them several times and it has been awesome every time- no bumps or goof-ups, and we always save a little money with their hard-to-find ticket discounts!  Use code OCRAFTY to save an  extra $10 off any 2-night or longer Southern California package (hotel and 2 ticket minimum).

The kids had a great time, and I had fun being a pirate!  Maybe these ideas will help someone else until Disney gets its Jake party gear out, so I’m linking up to some of these parties: 

The Evelyn Dress/Top: Peek-a-Boo Pattern Shop Tour

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Welcome!  I’m thrilled to be the next stop of the Peek-a-Boo Pattern Shop tour today! Today I’ve got a cute pattern review, on sale today for $5, plus the opportunity to win 3 patterns of your choice!


 There are so many cute patterns in the shop that I had a hard time choosing one to review.  After much hemming and hawing, I finally chose the Evelyn Dress/Swing Top.

I just love, love, love the ruffle down the middle!  Now, my girl is a little older–7 going on 8, so I was thrilled to find a cute pattern that went up to her size 7!  So many cute patterns stop in the toddler years.  

The pattern is in PDF format, mailed right to you.  It was easy to print out and put together, and the directions were very clear and easy to follow, with plenty of photos.  There were even tips on making your own bias tape, which I chose to use so to unify my finished product a little more.

The best part is that this pattern is convertible- it can be a cute A-line dress or an adorable swing top.  I initially cut this as a dress, but my daughter was less than thrilled.  She’s going through a shorts and t-shirt phase right now and wasn’t excited about having another dress.  So I chopped it and made it into a swing top.  Here’s how mine turned out:


Here’s a view from the back.  It has a fun keyhole back with a tie closure, which makes this a great pattern for more novice sewers like myself (no buttons or zippers!) The only thing I had trouble with was the sleeves.  Making the cuff was easy, and inserting the sleeve into the shoulder seam was no problem.  But when I sewed the top together, the fit of the sleeve was just not right.  I’m not sure what I did wrong, but I just kind of played around with it until it looked decent.  It was probably “user error” though, not the pattern. If you’d like to try this pattern out, it’s on sale here TODAY ONLY for $5!  What a great deal!  In addition, Amy, the shop owner, is generously giving away a Pattern 3-pack of your choice!  If you’d like to win some cute patterns, use the Rafflecopter entry form below to enter.  Good luck, and happy sewing!


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