Handmade Holidays Corrected Link

I just realized that my link to last week's post wasn't directed to the right place. I'm sure most of you figured it out, but I wanted to correct it anyway.

Week One (Kids)

Week Two (Women and Teachers)

Dirty Little Secrets

Here's my dirty little secrets... Be sure to leave your own dirty little secrets in the comments section. It will make you feel better AND it's cheaper than therapy!

I've hardly decorated for Halloween at all, mostly because I was too scared to go under the house and get the decorations until yesterday.

Earlier this week we used dishes out of the dishwasher all day... then I realized I never ran them the night before. I didn't tell anyone- shh!

I'm embarrassed to open my van door at Sweetie Pie's school because garbage falls out, but not embarrassed enough to clean it out.

I still haven't started on my MILLION handmade Christmas gifts even though I was determined to start on time this year.

I'm addicted to putting things I don't need in my amazon cart just for the high.

I wake up every morning and wish I had my hair from high school. It was stick straight and shiny even though I never blow dried it or used product. Now I look like Carrot Top if I don't slather it in crap and blow dry it for 15 minutes.

Handmade Holidays, Week Two (Women and Teachers)

Welcome to week two of my handmade holidays series focusing on friends and teachers! I love that when I say that it sounds like I'm actually hand making the things I share. Hopefully I'll accomplish a few of them, but mainly this is just a list of things that I would hand make if I found myself alone in my house for 3 weeks with a bottomless Joann Fabrics gift card... until then, I'll have to pick and choose which to attempt. Right after I get out of my pajamas of course.

Here is Week One (Kids) if you missed it!

An easy and quick fleece scarf that an older child could help sew and clip!

An appliqued leaf fleece blanket! Little kids could gather leaves and older kids could help sew.

I can't knit to save my life, but I love this cowl neck scarf!

Or maybe I'll try a No Knit Scarf!

Who do you know that could use some adorable handmade oven mitts?

What about some matching tea towels to use up the oven mitt scraps?

Oh my apron! This would be a great gift for anyone!

I love this ingenious teacher gift that can help me use up all those $.25 boxes of crayons!

Or how about some hand stamped cards?

I hope you found something you like! I'm going to get cracking as soon as Halloween passes... this year I really am going to make Handmade Holidays work for me!

Up-box

You know how organizers always say to use areas and baskets to 'set limits' for the stuff you can keep? Unfortunately they also taught me that when you can't go out, go UP! My 'in-box' is filled with papers from school, bills, drawings, things I need to do, etc. The only problem is that I never even touch the pile because as you can see it could topple down at ANY moment. I hope nothing in there was too important. My mission, if I chose to get off my booty and accept it, is to clear out this in-box so that I only have the most urgent papers in there. I sure does a great job of hiding my dusty chore box though!!

Friend Making Mondays!

This week's question is:

If your life was a movie, what movie would you want to live in?

I would TOTALLY want to live in Mamma Mia! since it's set in Greece overlooking the pure blue sea. It just looks so peaceful and beautiful there. And the singing wouldn't hurt if I could choose when people broke out into song. And my kids would be in HEAVEN since even my 4 year old son knows the words to Dancing Queen. And my two year old walks around singing "Mama ma, ha I go agin!". And I know that someday my son is going to be really pissed that is posted on the internet. Happy Friend Makin' Monday!

To find out what everyone else said head on over to aeFilkins for Friend Makin' Monday!

My Unfavorite Things.

I woke up this morning ALL motivated to do My Favorite Things and took my weekly stroll through my blog reader to see what I wanted to share this week. Unfortunately my desktop (the only working computer we have left) was really full and it asked me to delete some 'unused' files. I okayed it and didn't think twice... until I went to use the calculator function. Deleted. When I went to copy and paste the links into Blogger I was unable to. Apparently I can copy to my heart's content, but if I want to actually paste it anywhere I run into trouble.

Mr. Wright took me laptop browsing on Friday and I fell in LOVE with a tiny purple netbook at a price that doesn't make me choke on my cookies. Too bad we have those darn bills to pay first. Until I get a new laptop I'll just have to focus on my favorite things that I already have.

I got a new sewing machine last weekend! It's gorgeous and even though it took a bit of getting used to (it's a Brother and I've only ever had a Singer) I'm LOVING it! I also got a random call from my mom yesterday while I was late for a Halloween party and dressed like a slutty witch and sewing on my new machine to finish 'Taylor Swift's' felt guitar. Have you ever tried sewing in stilettos? I don't recommend it.

Anyway, my mom called to see if I would take the GORGEOUS armoire sitting in her garage out of her way! Duh! If it would fit in my van with all the carseats and garbage I would have stolen it years ago! Whoo hoo for free furniture that makes all my other furniture look crappy! I can't wait to get her home and fill her with stuff. And cookies of course.

Dirty Little Secrets

Here's my dirty little secrets... Be sure to leave your own dirty little secrets in the comments section. It will make you feel better AND it's cheaper than therapy. Unless you want to make a donation of course. I accept payment in the form of cash, check, and Joann gift cards. See how flexible I am!? Here we go!

I lost my favorite black sweatshirt and looked everywhere for it. It appeared in my entryway again yesterday covered in dried grass and leaves with fruit snacks in the pocket. I wore it anyway. And I may have contemplated buying a second one just so I never have to go without one.

You can't see the bathroom floor in the kids' bathroom since I haven't done laundry in a few days. I also left a load in the washing machine and had to re-wash it with a TON of vinegar to get the smell out.

I bought more vinegar at the store just to be ready for next time.

My kids are having a sleepover at Grandma's tonight and I don't have anything to pack for them since it's all on the bathroom floor.

I've eaten kit kat bars for breakfast more than once this week.

I also ate a HUGE baked potato with tons of butter while judging The Biggest Loser contestants on their lack of self control.

I forgot to put my trash out for collection yesterday, so now my porch has a stack of garbage on it.

We're going to a Halloween party tomorrow and Sweetie Pie is going to be Taylor Swift. Right now all I have for her costume is some cowgirl boots.

I make no-bake cookies because I'm the only one that eats them so I actually get the whole batch to myself.

I consider my kids taking a bubble bath with the jets on to be cleaning the bathtub.

Handmade Holidays, Week One (Kids)

My kids are swimming in games and toys with a million pieces, all which they play with once or twice (just long enough to leave the pieces where I'll step on them) and discard. This year I decided that I was going to have a handmade holiday season, and make everyone's presents this year. I still haven't figured out what everyone is getting, but since I have 23489 kids to make presents for I decided on theirs early. I'm starting a weekly series with my progress on the gifts, and ideas for handmade gifts for everyone! Leave a comment if you have a great link to a handmade gift, and I'll feature it!

This is what I'm making for the 3 and under girls:

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=32439073

And for the little boys:

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=32956108

And for the 3-6 crowd:

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=32612416

I'm in LOVE with this lady's patterns! And I'm LOVING that felt is a whole $2.50 (on sale at Joann's) a yard (that's 72 inches wide!). Cheap material, adorable patterns AND a handmade holiday present!? That really Works For Me!

Who Has 2 Thumbs And Knows How To Party?

As I was unloading my van from my trip to town today I had to laugh at my purchases. Luckily they came from 2 different stores, but that didn't really help too much since I was present at both purchases anyway.

Today I bought:
1 yard each of 11 different colors of felt
Fishnet stockings
A plastic treat bowl
5 bags of Halloween candy
1 lb of sliced ham
100 brown lunch bags

So I ask you, who else can party like Mrs. Wright?

Dirty Little Secrets

I ate a ton of popcorn at the movies on Thursday, then brought my popcorn home and ate a ton more tonight.

Sweetie Pie had 4 days of make-up homework that I forgot about until 30 minutes before we had to leave for school to turn it in. She went to school with unbrushed hair but had her homework done.

Sweetie Pie totally could have gone to school Wednesday, but I kept her home so I could stay in my jammies and just to be safe.

I hate making juice because I have to clear out the sink of dishes or wait 15 minutes for my crappy dishes sprayer to fill up the pitcher.

I had more, but of course I forgot... what's your dirty little secret??

Pajamavation

Yesterday was the first day in a while that I got to hang out in my jammies all day and get things done around the house. I actually almost finished my whole list of things I wanted to get done! Almost finished because I didn't quite have the motivation to get those dishes done.

I did get my bed made, covered it with tons of laundry, washed more laundry, then folded and put away pretty much every piece of clothing we own. I actually ran out of things to wash which only happens a few times a decade year. I also got my craft table totally cleaned off and even sorted all my new craft stuff from my sister. For some reason I was just really motivated yesterday. It must have been the pajamas. One could say I had 'pajamavation'.

Sweetie Pie is home sick again today, which I think is the key to a productive day. On a usual morning I'm so focused on getting her off to school that by the time I get her there at 11 the rest of the day is just downhill, but when she's sick I can take off running. I've been up for less than 90 minutes and already have 3 kids fed, breakfast cleaned up, all the dishes from yesterday washed and loaded into the dishwasher and my bed made. It may not seem like much but that's more than I do all day on some days!

Today I will:
Move the old surround sound system downstairs and try to get it to work
Get the rest of the craft stuff out of the van, sort it, and put it all away where it goes
Boil chicken breasts for the freezer or dinner
Run my errands
Do something crafty

Maybe I'll actually finish a list today!

Slacktastic

So I've been a bit MIA this week due to the dreaded flu sweeping through my house, and then I was gone all weekend partying in my PJ's for Canadian Thanksgiving. I thought we were getting back to normal but alas, the flu isn't done with us yet. Little Man served his 8 day sentence with the sickness, and now it's Sweetie Pie's turn. This SUCKS. The good news is since she doesn't have to go to school today I get to stay in my jammies all day!

Despite the sickies we did manage to have a fun weekend at my parents house stuffing our faces with turkey, ham, mashed potatoes and corn casserole. I missed posting my Dirty Little Secrets on Friday and headed up to my parent's house early to get a jump start on reading all the new People magazines before the family showed up. Oh, and doing a few chores my mom needed help with too... I kept telling myself I would log onto her dial up and type my secrets, but it just didn't happen. Then on Saturday the kids played the wii and ran around crazy while I had my third second helping. I thought I would skip the DLS and just do my favorite things then for Sunday and didn't get around to that either. And then yesterday I said I'd do it when I got home, and obviously didn't do that either. So this is me telling you that once again, I'm lazy, and I'll just be skipping those this week. Don't cry, they'll just be double-y juicy next week... maybe.

Today my mission is to fold the 8 loads of laundry that I washed, dried and abandoned. I was going to throw it all on my bed to fold, but that would require making my bed, so I just decided to do something else.

Today I WILL:
Make my bed
Fold and put away the laundry
Clean off the craft table
Empty the dishwasher
Make something that doesn't suck for dinner

WFMW- 50 Cleaning Tips!

This week's Works For Me Wednesday's theme is cleaning tips! I know the first person that pops into your head when you think of cleaning tips is me! Amazingly I have a small arsenal of cleaning tips that I never quite put into action. It's safe to say that if I ever did get up off the couch I would have the cleanest house in America. Soooo, that's why I stay put. I don't want my kids getting sick everywhere they go since their immune systems would be so fragile from my germ free house. That's my reasoning and I'm sticking to it... mmmmkay!?

Most of these tips came from my 'old lady bible' (Women's Day Magazine) and from this awesome book How To Clean Your Home Fast.

Here we go!

1. Clean your dishwasher by setting a bowl filled with 2 cups of vinegar in the bottom rack and running a complete cycle.
2. Shake some salt on a greasy pan before washing to help absorb the grease.
3. Running a sticky iron over salt on a brown bag will remove the gunk.
4. Make a cheap all purpose cleaner with 1 part vinegar and one part water.
5. A water and baking soda paste will clean anything from stoneware to chrome.

6. 2 parts lemon juice to 1 part olive oil makes a great wood polish!
7. Pet your dog with a rubber glove to remove hair painlessly.
8. 'Pre-wash' dried on or greasy dishes by spraying them with 12 ozs of water and 1/4 of vinegar . Let them sit for a few minutes and the food should slide right off.
9. Clean the gunk out of the trim of cabinets with a toothpick.
10. Scrub your tub or shower with an inside out grocery bag after spraying with a cleaner. The ink can transfer if you use the outside.

11. Filling a sink with pinesol will make your house smell like you've been cleaning for hours.
12. Keep a bottle of oxyclean under the sink for stain pretreating on fabrics, or even on Jello or Koolaid on the countertop.
13. Keep an emergency stain kit in the laundry room stocked with white clothes, pretreater sprays, shaving cream for grease, hydrogen peroxide for ketchup and blood, and rubbing alcohol for pen.
14. Clean stove burners and knobs with an old toothbrush.
15. Clean top to bottom, and left to right.

16. Invest in microfiber towels. They work wet or dry, with little to no cleaner help.
17. Make a 'sparkle kit' with just the essentials. A multipurpose cleaner, a glass cleaner, a toilet bowl cleaner, paper towels, a few cleaning cloths, a magic eraser, small duster and some gloves. I carry mine from room to room and hardly ever need to track down cleaners.
18. Empty the trash from your car while your gas is pumping.
19. Keep baby wipes in the car for spills and sticky kids.
20. Keep sink sponges in a cute dish to hide them.

21. 'Paint' detergent on a stain with a chunky paintbrush and let it sit overnight for a cheap stain remover.
22. Two tennis balls in the dryer can help eliminate static and soften fabrics,
23. Making beds does wonders for a room.
24. Fold laundry or pick up clutter while talking on the phone.
25. Keep an empty decorative basket in every room that can be an emergency clutter collector when company is on their way.

26. Baby wipes clean suede wonderfully and leave no residue.
27. Keep unruly wrapping paper rolls in a tall wastebasket.
28. Keep extra pillows, sheets and blankets inside luggage to keep them out of the way and dust free.
29. Drain bath toys in a lingerie bag hung from the shower head.
30. Rub chrome fixtures with wax paper after cleaning to prevent water spots and smudges.

31. Arm small children with a cloth dipped in warm soapy water. They'll love to help and will find lots of low dirty spots you may have missed.
32. Every few months spray your bathroom ceiling with a 1 to 1 solution of hydrogen peroxide and water. It will keep the mildew away.
33. Use vinegar to remove sticky hooks from painted walls, or price tags from glass.
34. Cover a broom with a cloth to dust walls and ceilings.
35. Fold towels to half their width, then in thirds so they'll be ready to hang on the towel bar.

36. Sprinkle baking soda on pets' bed, wait 15 minutes, then vacuum to remove odors.
37. Make your own spray starch with 1 tablespoon cornstarch with 1 pint cold water.
38. Toss a wet towel into the dryer a few minutes before the end of the cycle to kill static.
39. Clean an oven with a paste of baking soda, salt and hot water. Scrub with steel wool.
40. Steam clean a microwave with 2 tablespoons baking soda in 1 cup of water. Cook for 5 minutes, then wipe walls clean.

41. Clean furniture with 1/4 cup dish soap or laundry detergent and 1 cup warm water.
42. Sprinkle dry cornstarch on carpet, wait 30 minutes and vacuum to remove smells.
43. Dust bookshelves with a soft shaving brush.
44. Fill nail holes with 3 parts baking soda and 1 part Elmer's glue.
45. Sterilize a day sponge in the microwave for 30 seconds, or a wet sponge for 60 seconds.

46. Clean mirrors lint free with glass spray and a coffee filter.
47. Add a dab of perfume to (cooled!) lightbulbs to spread the aroma.
48. Drop denture cleaning tablets into the toilet overnight.
49. Stick scented dryer sheets in shoes to freshen them
50. Ignore all these tips and hire a maid! :P Since I don't have a maid I just have to make ignoring these tips work for me!

Friend Making Mondays!

This week's FMM question is about hobbies. My favorite hobbies seem to end up being those that involve sitting on the couch, eating, and avoiding responsibilities. If I'm feeling really wild then I'll bust out the craft stuff. My hobbies also change with the seasons.

Last Winter I was really into reading books and knitting, but by Spring it was all about decorating (or more accurately thinking about decorating!) and sewing. This Fall seems to be mostly sewing, thinking about the Holidays, and shopping.

So, to recap, my hobbies are as follows... in a bit of a particular order:
1. Snacking
2. Napping
3. Sewing
4. Knitting crappy things
5. Reading books
6. Decorating
7. Organizing

There are also a few things that I'd love to be able to do but have either tried and miserably failed, or haven't yet gotten around to doing.

1. Cooking/baking (I failed at this one)
2. Crocheting (I also failed this one)
3. Quilting
4. White water rafting (that was a joke... I don't like leaving home, or being outside, or getting cold.)

Find out everyone else's hobbies on Friend Makin' Monday at AEFilkins!

My Favorite Things!

My favorite things from blogland this week...

Sew a gift card holder for the upcoming holidays!

Make these adorable magnets with all that extra scrapbook paper!

Make your own planner with this tutorial! This post made my OCD feel good...

An amazing idea to create your personalized inspiration books!

Some great tips on photographing children!

Sew a toddler dress from an outgrown shirt and an old skirt!

Make your own laundry soap with just three ingredients!

Have a great week!

Dirty Little Secrets!

Boo and Little Man both wore footie jammies to drop off Sweetie Pie at school. Usually I walk her inside but since Little Man may possibly have swine flu I thought it would be the perfect time to be lazy.

I don't 'like' when Little Man is sick, but he sure is easier to be around. He moves a bit slower and it gives him more time to think over his decisions.

Every surface in my kitchen is sticky, and I have no idea why. I didn't clean it up yet either.

I forgot that Sweetie Pie wanted cold lunch today and I forgot to make it. On the way to school I had to break the news that she was going to be eating tuna salad on a bun today. She was thrilled.

I did Sweetie Pie's hair for school on Monday and she wore it like that on Tuesday and Wednesday. I just kept tucking in the fly-aways every day. I'm a good mom so I gave her a bath and a new hairstyle (albeit gray hairstyle) for picture day. We're classy like that.

I wish I could hit the mute button and never hear my dog bark again. She's sweet, but LOUD!

What's your dirty little secret?

My 5 year old is going gray!

I've been getting the urge to paint recently, but my financial situation has put it on the back burner. That's probably why I cruise a million redecorating blogs- I'm living through their fancy paint affording lives. My sister-in-law happened to be giving away a few gallons of gray paint (which happens to be the color I'm currently obsessed with painting everything!) so Mr. Wright and I scooped them up.

He really wanted to repaint our bathroom, and I... didn't. All the tiny crap you have to paint around... cabinets, toilets, tile, fixtures. No thanks. I did manage to get off my butt long enough to get the kids ready for bed while he was painting though, and I sent them down to the bathroom to say goodnight. 2 kids successfully returned to bed, but Sweetie Pie didn't quite make it. Apparently she bumped the paint tray and then backed into a wet wall, somehow covering her feet, front, back and her hair all with gray paint.

She was freaking out since her beloved princess bathrobe was now sporting gray leopard print (as any fashion conscious person would). I was trying to calm her down and was making progress until she asked about her hair. I didn't want to lie since she's old enough to call me on it, so I told her that there may be a ton tiny bit in her hair but that it wasn't the end of the world. It's not like it's picture day tomorr... oh crap. So, I guess it is picture day tomorrow.

I spent the next hour combing the grandma out of her hair while she whimpered. I was hoping since she is so blond the gray would blend in a bit but it didn't really. Just in case I didn't get it all I made sure to put her hair in a bun for the pictures today. Nothing like being the only kindergartner going gray...