March Madness

A little unknown fact about me is that I am actually a dual citizen. I have citizenship in America and British Citizenship. New Zealand is a commonwealth of England and so I grew up submerged in both cultures. So I actually celebrate St. Patrick's Day each year and have a lot of fun looking for leprechaun's.

This year as in every year we will be having a yummy cabbage and potato dinner with a slight alteration to the traditional corned beef. Weight Watchers actually has a lower points St. Patty's day dinner and even whole wheat Irish Soda bread. (scroll to the bottom for the recipe) I have also found some fun St. Patricks Day food for kids here as well as more great craft ideas.

For Liam I have found tons of great websites that have great kids activities for the holiday. Here you will find some great coloring pages. For easy and cheap projects I liked this website. Last year I did a play group dedicated to St. Patrick's Day and I used several of these crafts. This year we are doing the leprechaun marionette as well as the rainbow streamer.

With the rainbow streamer we put on Irish and Celtic kids music that we got from the local library and danced like crazy all over the house. You can also hang your streamer from the window and watch the light stream through the rainbow. We are also going to make this mobile to hang in our window. Have fun and good luck!! Let us know what you did to celebrate St. Patrick's Day.
(This picture of Liam was taken last St. Patrick's Day when he was 1 year and 9 months old hence why he looks so short!)

A Different Kind Of Organizer.

I am a visual learner and love all things that pertain to imagery. I have a vivid imagination and I speak in metaphors. So what better then to have a place to store all those things visually that inspires me to keep my New Years Resolutions? I read this article and it inspired me to create my own Spark Book.

These are the materials that I used to create my own book. For a detailed list of what you will need to create your own book, the list is included in the link above. I purchased my notebook from Wal-mart for only .99 cents! I liked the cover so much that I only added a little embellishment to it. I used SEI products from the "Winnie Walls" collection and the alpha stickers are made by American Crafts from their "Hickory" collection. The SEI collection that I used for the paper has file folder stickers so I opted to use these instead of making my own with ribbon per the instructions.


Close-up of the finished books cover. Just some torn paper with the edges inked and then I used a tag with a "I" letter sticker and wrote the word, "Inspire"




I created 9 sections for my Spark Book, each section has a cover page decorated and labeled accordingly. This is just the close-up of one of the 9 sections.


The 9 sections that
I have in my Spark Book are:

1. Daily Inspiration: a place to record daily goals, include ticket stubs, pictures, color chips, anything that inspires me.
2. Books To Read: Section to record the books I intend to read over the course of 2008
3. Health and Wellness: Record food journal, weight goals,etc..
4. Personal Stuff
5. Family Goals: Activities, projects and goals to be completed as a family for 2008
6. Home: Projects, organization, home decor we'd like to accomplish in 2008
7. Cooking/Entertainment: Recipes and dinner part ideas I want to remember
8. Travel/R&R: Places I'd like to visit or do in the next 12 months.
9. Projects to complete in the next 12 months such as creating our 72 hr kits.
   

Close-up of the tabs. I really like using the SEI file folder stickers. I think I find excuses to use them since I love them so much!

This is definatly a different kind of planner, I personally am excited to use it.

Feeling Crafty, In The Good Kinda Way!

A few weeks ago our ward had our annual Super Saturday, it was super fun! We made amazing projects here is a look see at what I got done.


2x4 panted with black paint, edges sanded, latex lettering applied and matte finished. I will display this near pictures of our family.



The lettering on this one didnt turn out the way I imagined, so I added some eye screws to the top and used ribbon for a hanger, I actually like it better now. I had originally planned on displaying it on a shelf with some family pictures, but I didnt like the way the font looked so I think it looks better where it is on the front door. PS my door really is in need of a fresh coat of paint!! To bad I live in an apartment and cant paint it myself!



This is really hard to capture on film, it is actually a piece of bent or curved glass that says in white lettering Bill and Moana and the black lettering says Fullmer. I will be displaying this a little differently then what is pictured in the next picture. But until then this is where I have it displayed.





I really love chrome and metal finishes. This is actually a magnet board so that family pictures can be hung with magnets from it. I haven't actually got any cute magnets yet but when I do I will use them to hang pictures from this amazing magnet board. It is a piece of mdf painted blacked then sanded, a piece of galvanized steel glued with liquid nails and then latex lettering applied. I matte finished the wood before adhering the metal.


This board is really heavy and didnt have any way of it being hung so I added eye screws to the back and used ribbon as a hanger.


This is were it is being displayed in our house, I think it will live here but I am still experimenting. I like it next to my black and white curtains, I love chrome! Yummy!


This one also has metal intended to be a magnet board but I love the chrome so much I am not using it as a magnet board but rather as an amazing way to display our wedding date. I really love the look of the metal finish.


This is a regular picture frame that was purchased from a second hand store, I sanded it down, painted it black sanded it again and matte finished it. The glass then has latex lettering applied to it. When displayed your wall color shows thorough. Very cool as it is but Bill and I are going to add a piece of galvanized steel to the back of it so that we have our metal look. We chose words that we are striving to live up to as a family, or the values we believe in.