Big Sis Art Gallery Entries

Some recent favorites from big sis....
(Pardon the sideways pics...too tired to try and fix them tonight...)
She had Mommy, Daddy, Little Sis and Little Sis' bear pose for a family portrait on the stairs. (Little sis is in Mommy's lap and bear is in between us...Little Sis got impatient, so the drawing was rushed after Daddy's picture was complete!)


She drew a crocodile one night when she couldn't sleep and attempted to spell it with no help!


I'm guessing this one is a pirate...

Hello Kitty Party

For Big E's 5th birthday, she wanted a Hello Kitty theme. Below are various pics from the party.

Homemade pinata (I followed the directions here)


Homemade cake and cupcakes (aside from the pinata, we went with lime green/pink color theme)


Paper flowers (directions easily found online) with balloons on ceiling and foam necklace craft on table


Other decorations (nothing too special here...girly colors really don't go well in my fall orange kitchen! Ha!)



We played a "pin the bow on Hello Kitty" game, had a self-serve bubble station (if you ever do this, don't go cheap on your pitcher! my valve doesn't work well...sticky mess everywhere!), made our necklaces, hit the pinata, and of course had cake and ice cream. The birthday girl had a blast!

Homemade Slip 'N Slide

We took on a major gardening undertaking that involved being outside all day. As the girls grew antsy (and saw a slip 'n slide in our neighbors' yard!), we decided to set up a homemade slip 'n slide! Not really sure I need to post directions, but in case you've never seen or thought of it, here's what we did...

Unrolled several huge trash bags without separating them. We laid them so they sloped downward and used some plastic pegs we had on hand to secure them in the ground at the starting line. (It was windy, so we initially had a bag of mulch at the finish line...ha!) We brought over the hose and set it at the start of the trash bag slide and the girls went to town! They found that it was a lot of fun to lay on their pool kickboards and slide down on them.

Lemonade Stand

After hearing about the lemonade stand from over at Oh, Pickles (her inspiration came from here), I knew immediately that I wanted to try something like this some day!

As I was attempted to clean out the garage, I noticed some spare wood and decided it was time to take on the project. After searching various do-it-yourself stands and getting input from my two little entrepreneurs, I decided to mainly use the plans from This Old House (mainly because I had the right amount of wood on hand for this plan AND the plan allows you to fairly easily disassemble the stand for storage...a must in our house!), but adding the awning from this site.

I didn't take pictures as I worked, so I only have finished product pics.

I will say that the poles I used for my awning are too long and I cut the tulle a little too short, so my awning doesn't look as cute. (I also could stand to add more!) I may just make a cloth awning at some point in time...perhaps end of summer fabric sales! I also plan to paint a frame around the chalkboard. The spray paint has worked wonderfully...it wipes down so easily! All in all, a fun project and my girls love playing with it!

Storing School Memories

Like about everyone else, I have become a bit of a Pinterest junkie. While mindlessly searching one day, I stumbled upon this fantastic idea for storing/labeling kids' school papers/work. Mine are still a bit in progress, but here's my take on it (not much different from the original post, I will say!):

Supplies needed:
Plastic file folder tub (recommend the see through kind)
Hanging file folders
Labels (I used Avery shipping labels- the kind you can run through the printer)
Possibly photo corners

Not sure if all brands have this, but Avery has templates available for free online and I was able to easily design my labels the way I wanted. I had mine print out with a table that included the following categories: Name, School, Year, Teacher

Print these out and attach one to each folder. As your child gets his/her school pictures, you can attach a photo to the folder as well using photo corners. We do not have any school photos, so I have not added this yet.

I love that each folder can hold quite a bit, it's all in one container, all you have to do is slide something into the folder and you are done!