New front door "wreath"

Pardon the picture but it was taken at night. This is my new "wreath" for my front door this holiday season. I have seen lots of similar ideas on pinterest and I wanted one..BAD! But I do not have a lot of space between my door and screen door, so I did not want to use the usual round ornaments that most of the example had hanging down. I found this cute laser cut wooden snowflake at Michaels. I painted it white and then used modge podge to add tinsel white glitter. The rest is pretty easy. I painted a frame that I had red, hung the snowflake in the middle and added a bow. I love how this turned out and I can not wait for the day after Thanksgiving to put it up ;)

GO BEARS

This is going to be a short post. Because it REALLY is SUPER simple. While shopping at JoAnn's my mother and  me found a yard of Chicago Bears fleece in remnant bin...this was a BIG SCORE at only $7.50 (50% off the regular price of $15 a yard) I used the same pattern that I used to make the dinosaur hat HERE . The fleece was kind of thin so I doubled it up to make scarves. I made a set for both boys. Though I have not been able to get Alex to agree to take a picture for me, I was able to get Nicholas to stand still for a few seconds to grab this photo. I know its not the best, but you get the idea!
(this was the best picture out of like 10 :( if I get a better picture I will update the post)

The BIG Nicholasaurus DIG

This Halloween I knew it was going to be cold. I needed costumes that I could layer to keep the boys warm. One day while scrolling through pinterest I came across a cute Dinosaur hoodie...That is how Nicholasaurus was born.

The above picture was take just after My mom and myself made the hoodie and the tail. The hoodie came from HERE  It was super easy to make. All we did was fold a piece of felt in half and draw the points so that we had a long row of mountains( we did 2 sets, one for the hood one for the back) I sewed them right down the middle and then folded it over so the points matched up and sewed them shut.

Then we moved onto the tail. And I am not gonna lie....it was a pain. Maybe it's because I am new at sewing but it took me and my mother about an hour and a half to get it done. I am sure if I was a faster sewer/learner it would go quicker. The tutorial that I used can be found HERE She does a real good job of explaining things. We only changed how the points were done because we were using felt. We did the same thing we did for the hoodie, except we just folded and sewed the points shut. Then we went back to following her instructions.

 The next thing that we made was a fleece hat. It's cold here in Chicagoland and Nicholosaurus needed something warmer than a hood to keep him warm at night. The instructions for the fleece hat can be found HERE you will also find PDF printouts for all the patterns as well. That page does a real good job of explaining everything, there is even a video that you can watch.

So...now that I had Nicholas all figured out, what do we do for Alexander? Well thanks to my sister for the idea he was an Archeologist. Had to be one of the easiest costumes that I have made to date. I made him a badge that said he was the Head Archeologist on the Big Nicholasaurus Dig. He had a "Dinosaur" bone and a map of the dig site, he also carried some paint brushes as his work tools. The hat was found at Party City. Both of the boys had an awesome Halloween and stayed warm too :)

Burlap flowers fall wreath

 I have had this grape vine wreath since Spring. I had plans to make some yellow fabric flowers, but after trying a few different types(none that I was happy with) I put it aside. Fast forward to this week. I had been playing around on pinterest (the mobile app is deadly, its a wonder I get anything done in a day) and I stumbled upon a tutorial for THESE burlap flowers. OMG...that was it. I knew that I wanted those flowers on a wreath. Off to Joann's I went. I got a 1/2 yard of burlap(I have LOTS leftover) for about $2. I also picked up 2 fall floral picks (the little white doodads were one pick that I cut up and I got one with acorns) The tutorial is super easy to follow. I layered 2 of the flowers for a fuller effect. I have had the bird for awhile. It is a laser cut piece of wood that I painted cream. I got the cute little wooden buttons at the Scrapbook Expo in St. Charles today(they are by Melissa Frances). All together the whole thing cost about $8 to make.

I am super happy with how this turned out. Fall is my FAVORITE season and I know that its a little early to start decorating for Fall, but I just had to leave this out.

Fabric Notebook Cover

Happy Sunday! I wanted to share this super cute notebook cover that I made.


 I am going to National Conference with Thirty-One in about 3 weeks. I will be taking classes on how to make my business stronger and I needed something to take notes on. So I did what anyone would do and I turned to Pinterest. I started searching and I found 4 ideas/tutorials that I liked. So I started messing around and I found a way to combine everything that I loved about each of them, and what I ended up with was the super cute notebook that you see above.

All you need is an ugly composition  notebook(mine measured 9 3/4 X 7 1/2)
Fabric of your choice
A sewing maching
a hair tie
a fabric button or button of your choice

All of the directions are in the tutorials/ pictures that I used. I am going to link back to the original blogs, I will give you a description of what part that I used.

V and Company : I used this as the main tutorial, but where she has the muslin rectangles I used more of my main fabric like in the next link
Momma go round: Just to be clear. I liked that the main fabric wrapped around to the inside of the notebook, In the above tutorial I liked that there were seams that made the pocket have an easy fold. That is why I did it this way.
Babes and Sages: I liked the ruffle that she added down the side of the notebook
Now I have never made a ruffle before so I used the next tutorial as a guideline to making a ruffle
Made by Lex: Near the middle of the Tutorial are the instructions to making a ruffel

Now the whole project took me maybe an hour or so. I can guarantee that for a advanced sewer this should only take maybe 20-30 min. But because I measure about 3 times and cut once, and sew slow it took me a bit longer. If you make one post your link in the comments I would love to see it!!

Kathy

My favorite baby shower card!

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Hi everyone, I hope that you are staying out of the heat. Here in Chicagoland we have had heat indexes of 110+. Today I wanted to share with you my favorite card for a baby shower. It is a cute little onesie that I found about 8 years ago while surfing the WWW....I love that I can change it for a boy, girls, or if needed I can do it neutral. Its super east too! for the leg and neck cutouts I just use a circle punch, and then you angle the sides...and that's it.

Here birdie, birdie...

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Hello Everyone... Have you all been enjoying the summer? I know that we have. We spend most of our days poolside. But every once and awhile I get to sit at my desk and make something. Rewind to June 22nd. In my neighborhood a back yard buffet bash has been started. We have decided that the best part of going to a Jimmy Buffet concert is the tailgating. So why spend $60 a car to tailgate at the park, when we could do it in someones back yard. The hostess this year called me the night before asking for drink signs. She wanted something to put near the "Mom's Lemonade"(an awesome combo of gin, frozen lemonade concentrate, and 7up) and the water. I have had the giant clothes pins and the birds in my stash for a LONG TIME! I never knew what to use them for...til now. I have also saved the paper that is on the birds for about 5 years....again I didn't have the perfect project for it, so it sat in my stash waiting. I am very happy with how they turned out. They will be at every Buffet bash, but till the next one they are proudly holding photo's on my desk. Stay cool!! Kathy

Memo station

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Not sure if I shared my wine cork cork board before, but just in case here it is with the super easy dry erase board that I made. The cork board was super easy to do. Before you ask...no i did not drink all that wine. As a matter of fact I am not much of a wine drinker at all. A family friend had one hanging in her kitchen and I just had to make one. I found the large frame at Hobby Lobby on sale for $5. I took it home sanded it and spray painted it white. When it was dry I had my husband nail a piece of cardboard to the back, as well as picture hangers. Then it was time for the task of gluing the corks to the board. I got the majority of my corks from Freecycle, and I got some from the local wine store, when they have wine tastings they save the corks. If you call and ask if they have any you can usually pick them up for free. It took me about 2 hrs of hot gluing everything down. I love how it came out! The dry erase board was a ton easier!. I got a frame from a garage sale for $1....can't beat that! Then I got it home and spray painted it white. I took some of that pretty grey fabric I got a JoAnns and taped it around the mat that came with the frame. I put the new "mat" in the frame, added the back and hung it up. That's it. And I now I have a cute little board where I write down my son's chores.

I made it to the paper!!

OK...so here it is...my BIG NEWS!! About 2 weeks ago I received an email from a freelance reporter at the Naperville Sun Newspaper. She said that she came across my blog while surfing the net, and was wondering if she could do a story about mine. At first I could not believe it. I mean the email came through at 11pm at night, I thought that it was a scam. So I showed my husband and asked him to Google her. Well it was not a scam. This lady writes about authors of local blogs in Naperville. I emailed her back and a day later I was giving my interview... here is the final product...(click on the link below my photo)

Blog Love: Kathy Raymundo Finds Her Love For Scrap Chat! Thank you to everyone that reads my blog!! Have a wonderful Memorial Day and don't forget to thank a solider!!

My favorite layout of the weekend

My scrapbook weekend was a success. I got a total of 16 layouts done and i finished scrapping 2010!!

This was a page that i did this weekend. Its a photo of me and my favorite author Charlaine Harris. She writes the books that the  HBO series True Blood is based on. It was an awesome experience that i will never forget, so i wanted the layout to be something that i have never done before. The inspiration behind my page is the paperback cover to the first book in the series . I printed the fangs from the internet and cut the from card stock. Then i just added the red glitter paper to the tips. I am really please with how this turned out.

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One of my favorite layouts

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I love this layout!These pictures were taken moments after Nicholas was born. It is also the first layout that I have ever done that had a shaped paper as the base. I really like how it turned out. I happened to get this paper at the scrapbook expo(held every year in St. Charles IL near the end of August)and I am glad that I bought it...and for about .25 cents, it was worth going out of my comfort zone a bit. I wish that there were more clearance papers there last year, but I guess that it is a blessing that they didn't because I have way to much paper(I may have a problem..haha) A little info about the items used: the flower was made by my dear friend Celina, the chipboard letters at the bottom were bought at Archivers about 6 years ago. They were ugly colors and I think I paid a dollar for a box. I peeled the colored part off and inked them with a lighter shade of blue and the covered them with glossy accents. I also did the same thing for the chipboard swirls. Thanks for peeking in today!

Monster cake

Where has the time gone? Nicholas is 2! When I was trying to think of a theme for his party, I had no idea what to do. So I turned to pinterest. There I found someone who did a monster party. It was perfect. So I found some banners at target that were on clearance that had monsters on them, the goodie bags were silly straws and a spiky monster(those soft spiky balls with eyes that you can get at the $1 store) and I made a monster cake. I saw THIS

cake and I thought that I could do that. It was a fun cake to make and everyone loved it! Nicholas had a great birthday and he really enjoyed his monster cake!!

I DID IT!!!

If you would have asked me back in January "Wanna run a 5k with us?" my response would have been " You're joking right..." Mid January my husband and I joined Lifetime fitness. We both just wanted to lose a few pounds and have a more active lifestyle. I went to the gym for the first time nervous and overwhelmed. There is so much going on there. Row after Row of machines, weights, classes both group and private, boot camps....and more. I had no idea where to begin. I hate the scale (they are evil little machines) so I gave myself a fitness goal. I told myself I was going to run a 5k! My neighbor gave me a work out plan called the Couch potato to 5k runner. It seemed easy enough. Three workouts a week and it told me exactly what I need to do, and I liked that. I had a reason to go to the gym everyday. Jump ahead to April 29th. Its the day of the race(we ran the Celebrating differences 5k in Oswego, benefiting children with disabilities)...and I was worried. I had not been able to get to the whole 3 miles yet. Would I be able to do this? I really wanted to run the WHOLE thing...no walking. My running partners were the best! My neighbors Julie S(on the left) and Julie G(on the right) were my encouragement! They kept me going. Around mile 2 I wanted to stop so bad. My knees were feeling it and so were my hips. But they didn't let me. It was hard... not going to lie. I am not a runner and I know this, but I was not going to let this race beat me, I was going to beat it. And 35 min 24 seconds later I crossed the finish line RUNNING! I ran the whole thing. And it felt great. All my hard work paid off. The icing on my cake was after my race I got on the scale. I felt better about my appearance. I stopped drinking all soda in January, and I didn't feel or look bloated anymore. But I knew that I had built muscle up in my legs so I didn't expect the scale to reflect much. It was not a lot....maybe 7lbs, but I feel good about it all. Now I go to the gym 6 days a week. I take a Pilates class, and a spin class and I am hoping to try Zumba too. Joining the gym was one of the best decisions that we have ever made. I will be running more 5k's. BUT...they will be for charity. Seeing as I don't necessarily find running to be fun, I do find that I enjoy running for a cause. I think that my next race will be the Zoo Run Run help at Brookfield zoo on 9/23/12. All money will go to conservation efforts. Enjoy your day, and thanks for stopping by!

Remember and Enjoy...

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SO I don't get to scrapbook a lot anymore :(. Every time I try and sit down at my desk Nicholas thinks its time for him to play with mommy's papers too. So starting last fall my neighbor and I have been going to my sister-in-laws scrapbook retreats. Every few months I get 3 days of uninterrupted scrapbook time!! I love that I can get lost in the paper and enjoy scrapping again. But I am also almost 2 years behind on my books...Ahhhhhhhh. This is not like me and its driving me nuts! So I decided at the last retreat that I was going to be getting back to the basics. I just want to get the pictures on the page and journal...after all to me the handwritten part on every layout telling the story about my pictures is the most important thing. Over the next few days I am going to be post some of my favorite layouts that I have made at the last couple of retreats. I am also going to try and post layouts from my phone while I am there. Thank you for stopping by today...P.S check back often...I have something pretty cool coming up that I will post as soon as I can!

Diy...clorox wipes

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I have been trying to cut my spending, and one way I am doing that is by making my own cleaning supplies. Not only are they CHEAP but they are better than breathing in all that nasty stuff and better for the environment. They also DO NOT require you to have to re-wash the surface when you are done using them. Have you ever read the bottle of clorox wipes? It tells you to re-wipe the surface after you have cleaned it with the wipe. That is an extra step I am not interested in doing.

So the search began for something that would disinfect, that was cheap and where the materials were easy to find.

http://www.onegoodthingbyjillee.com/2011/11/homemade-clorox-wipes.html?showComment=1321206144001#c7156161311817350679

(please copy and paste the link into your browser, blogger is being difficult)

All you need is a baby wipe tub, a t-shirt cut up into squares about the size of a baby wipe, HOT water, white vinegar and castille soap, it also suggests tea tree oil, I was able to find the castille soap that had tea tree oil in it already...so It killed 2 birds with one stone. I found my soap at Whole Foods, its a HUGE bottle and is $15.99.

Mix together and that's it! I "spring cleaned" my WHOLE kitchen using these and Miracle cleaner ( HOT vinegar and Blue Dawn dish soap) No other chemicals and I DID NOT USE ONE SINGLE PAPER TOWEL!

Try it...

My new favorite colors....

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I am pretty sure that I need an intervention. I am in love with the color combo yellow and grey. I mean I LOVE IT! I even switched the colors on my desk (pencil holders, files, ribbon accents) to yellow and grey. My newest addition is my new nook cover (you can find the tutorial that I used HERE, and a new coffee cozi...tutorial that I based my finished product on HERE.

They are both super simple to make...I guess that is why I have made so many. Now everything matches my Dark Denim Cindy tote with my Awesome blossom scarf from ThirtyOne.

I hope that everyone has a wonderful Easter!
Kathy

Key chains/luggage tags

So next weekend I am going to a scrapbook weekend. I pack all my stuff up and get a nice quiet weekend away with my good friend Julie and 25 other women. BUT....packing up all of mt stuff requires me to label them, don't wanna loose a bag(GASP) I like pretty things. I did not want to go using the old freebie luggage tags that I have been using, I wanted to make something that was colorful(my bags are almost all black) and fun. SO I looked around pinterest...and found a cute tutorial. I loved the idea it looked easy, but I still needed to put my info on it some how. So I took a trip to Joanns and got the other supplies that I needed and then looked around in the remnant bin and I found some clear vinyl. PERFECT! It would work great...

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So I followed her directions. I ironed on a K to the front and just added the extra layer of the vinyl to the back, and that's it! I made a total of 12..6 for me with a K and 6 for Julie with a J. They look super cute! Try it and post a link I would love to see

Cover for my nook

Let me start by saying...I LOVE MY NOOK!! I take that thing everywhere. So of course I need something really cute to put it in. Now for the sad part...I have a First Generation nook and since they are not making them anymore you can't get cute accessories for them, so that means I must make my own (bummer I know ) So I have looked through pinterest and have found a few. I made one and didn't like how it turned out. Then I made this one and I just love it. I found THIS tutorial. I have to say this is one of the easiest to follow. I love how simple mine is. I also did not have hair elastics(I have a house full of boys)so I used elastic instead. Again I could not get blogger to do what I want so I can't get the photo of the inside to load...I will try again later. But it looks just like the one that the lady did .

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Soda can flowers

What do you do when you have a sick baby and an 8yo that asks you to take him to the store so that he can get his teachers flowers for Valentines day? First you feel real bad for telling him no :( (At this point in the day Nicholas had been screaming because he wanted to go home, so staying out longer to head to a store was not on my list of "fun things to do today") So he said ok mommy (Alex is such a good boy!)
Second you go to the WWW and find a tutorial to make some really fun flowers for him to give his teachers. I found these cool soda can flowers. (Blogger is not working right so copy and paste this link)http://crissyscrafts.blogspot.com/2011/05/i-am-just-in-love-with-my-metal-flowers.html
Third...you call a neighbor at 5 pm and ask her to dig through her recycling bin and get the cans for you :) Thanks Julie ;)
Then you follow the directions. Alex woke up in the morning and was a very happy little boy, and his teachers loved them too!!

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Initial "wreath"

This was another idea that I saw on pinterest. The picture that I saw can be found HERE. I made the rolled flowers that you see using the tutorial found HERE
I added a ribbon and thats it!! Super easy and can be done pretty quick. This would make a great house warming gift too!!

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The petfect hand lotion

I know that there are homemade recipes all over the internet. This is one that I found through Pinterest. You can find the original post HEREhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
I changed it up a bit and used the 27oz size of lotion and I used the vanilla oatmeal scent. I also only used 1/2 a the jar of Vaseline.
I made this with my son for him to give as gifts for the holidays. I will suggest that you use a mixer, you get a nice smooth texture. I have made a total of 3 batches since December.
This lotion has helped get rid of both my boys eczema, its also does wonders for hands and feet...try it out and let me know what you think!!

P.S everything can be found at Walmart, I also added a bit of vanilla oil to our batch you can find it at hobby lobby

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Pinterest is deadly...

So I have been addicted to Pinterest lately. I was able to find lots of things for me to make for Christmas. I found the idea for this ornament from 2 different blogs (I do not remember where I saw them because I did not pin them) I used floor wax on the inside of the ornament and then sprinkled red glitter on the inside. It's the perfect glittered ornament...NO MESS!! The I added silver glitter to a ribbon buckle and glued everything down. Easy as that. I used the ornament in a picture for an ornament exchange, I also made a box that matched but I don't have a picture of that one.

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