Thursday, February 21, 2013

Hoppin' Down the Bunny Trail...Shop Update!

I know Valentine's Day just ended and we haven't even hit St. Patrick's Day yet, but.....


I have a major case of SpRiNg FeVeR and just couldn't wait to start on Easter baskets.  These are a new addition to the shop this year and I hope you love them.  They are a perfect size to use for an Easter egg hunt as well as to fill with goodies!   They make a great gift for a friend, new baby, grandchild...you name it!

There are more to come and they can be personalized with a first initial if you are interested, please contact me to see available fabric combos!   Enjoy a bit of Spring!!!

(There is a link to each listing on etsy directly beneath the pictures if you are interested!!)

















I hope wherever you are this winter weather is gentle on you and your family.   Here's hoping for some spring weather soon!
Poshed Up













Saturday, February 16, 2013

Sharing a little LOVE

Valentine's Day this year was here and gone so quickly now that both kids are in school all day and have after school activities every day. Despite the fact that they were out of the house more hours than not, we started our day celebrating!

I did a little more and was a little better prepared last year (you can view last year's festivities HERE). This year I did start the day with a special breakfast and decorated the table the night before. For every special holiday my kids race out of their beds into the kitchen to check out our kitchen table.

This year I found these adorable plates and small dishes at Target for their special pancake breakfast. I wish I could say that I made them a fancy breakfast every morning before school, but the mornings are just too crazy.  I used some heart paper doilies we had on hand as the place mats and our red and pink cups we have always had (also from Target...love them!)

Last year my husband and I spent time writing on hearts some things we loved about each of them and we pasted them all over their doors.  They loved it!

Well my kids have become spoiled and never want the exact same idea twice.  Geez....so I just wrote a few hearts and put them on the table this year because I still loved the sentiment of the hearts.


Every year I buy them each a few little things for Valentine's and a very small amount of candy.   They  honestly are not big candy kids, but they love the little toys and other goodies.   I forgot to take a picture of this part.   Normally I would put their goodies on the table for them, but since I had to have a new idea I made a secret decoder and a secret message.  I found the idea HERE.

Here are their secret messages before they figured them out with their decoders...


They had to find the letter that I wrote in the message on the outside of the circle and the letter that was beneath it in the inside of the circle was the letter they wrote to solve the message.  Here is the after...



Not only were they secret messages, but they were cute poems that I found HERE.  They LOVED this idea and had so much fun!

The first one was simple because my son is just learning to read.  It said:
Full of red and pink
To find your gift 
Look under the _ _ _ _.   (the blank was sink)

The second one for my daughter read:
Roses are red
Violets are blue
To find your gift
Look by my _ _ _ _ _. (the blank was shoes)


In addition to their breakfast kick-off celebration, we had our school Valentine's.   This year only my son needed them because they no longer do the traditional exchange in middle school.  We found our ideas on Pinterest and you can find the links HERE and HERE.

For the boys... Start Wars Lego with glow sticks.


For the girls....glow sticks too.  Simple and fun.


For the teachers (I forgot to get a picture of the finished product) we made a bouquet of tissue paper flowers like these...

This is a terrible picture of them, but they are super easy to make.  I have made the bigger pom pom version for my daughter's room also.


Here are some great instructions to make the smaller flower version and a better picture.

we added the little bouquet to a pretty mug and added this (our own version of course).

All in all it was a great Valentine's Day!  I hope you enjoyed a day filled with love.

Poshed Up


Saturday, February 9, 2013

A Splash of Love!

Only a few more days until Valentine's Day.    Truth be told I think it's a totally bogus holiday in many ways. Personally I don't need a special day to tell the people in my life that I love them or feel a need to have my husband spend 3 times as much as normal on flowers to show his love, BUT.....I will go along with it anyway.  My kids love it and they love any excuse for something special so I will oblige.

I didn't go crazy on decorations this year, but I found these on Pinterest and of course and had to try it.




Now their letters are far fancier than A- I have time for or B- want to spend to achieve.   I did however give it a shot.   I bought 4 letters from the craft store for $1.99 each as well as a skein of red yarn for $3.79 and I was off to work.  For a total of only $11.75 I was super happy with how it turned out.

I apologize in advance for the horrendous picture quality..they were taken at night on my phone.

Close up you can still see the white letter underneath, but from further away you cannot tell at all.  Here is a closeup of the letter "O" which was the easiest to do.  My yarn was a red and pink mix and it's so pretty.

I added this to my mantle with the banner I made last year that you can see how I made HERE.   I also added a few Dollar Store heart picks to a red olive jar I had and some red candles and VOILA!

I kept my new canvas that I ordered right before Christmas for SUPER cheap on Groupon because I love it so much.

Here are a few closeups...banner from last year with the addition of a ribbon this year...

heart picks in an olive jar...

Certainly nothing super fancy...just festive!

Here are a few other cute ideas I found, but I just ran out of time this year.  I am desperately trying to re-stock the shop and have so little time to do much else but sew after taking 2 weeks off to re-do my office.

Next year one of these 2 topiarys is definitely joining our mantle.


And I think maybe a Valentine's canvas might be in order for next year too...check these out!



Do you have some fun Valentine's decor to share?   Email me if you do...I'd love to pass it on.

I always do a special breakfast for my kids on Valentine's Day and I have started gathering things for this year's mini celebration too.  I will share some great ideas with you next week!

Poshed Up

Friday, February 1, 2013

Valentine's Day Roundup

With only 2 weeks left until Valentine's Day I need to get my butt in motion.  I have been so consumed with my office re-do that I have neglected decorating and crafting for the big day.  I have already warned told my family that this weekend we are knee deep in Valentine's.

We will be working on our class Valentine's for only my son this year, sniff sniff.  My daughter has reached the age where it's not cool to have a crafty mom and/or bring in Valentine's Day cards.  So sad.   Technically I had time to adjust because last year she tortured me by using store-bought cards.   That leaves a heavy burden on my son for the next few years. Thankfully he loves the homemade ones as much as I do.  He already made me this one a few weeks back.

Here they were just a year ago working hard on their cards.

Here are a few that they made...

a pop up card

Teacher's cards...

and my daughter's very creative "love scale" for my husband's card

I can't wait to see what this year brings.

Here is what our Valentine's Day "cards" looked like for my son's classmates last year.  Last year he had a tiny class of only 4 boys and 5 girls so we could do a little more.  This year he's one of 25 kids, so we'll be scaling down a bit.

For the boys last year...we got the printable tag from HERE


And for the girls we made our own tags and filled the bags with animal puzzle erasers.

Front ...this was a unicorn.

Back

So this year I have the idea all ready to go and am excited to get started on it this weekend.   I will share it as we get closer.   Here are a few other great ideas I found.  We cannot send candy or food treats at our school so I am sharing ideas both with and without in case you're in the same boat.

Candy free ideas





Ideas with candy





I love the creativity in these!

We also always make something for our teachers.  Nothing big, just a little something and a homemade card to go with it.  Here are our teacher Valentine's from last year.

From my daughter to her 4th grade teacher.  What teacher doesn't need some supplies, right?

A close up of the tag.


And from my little guy to his preschool teachers...hand lotion.


This idea is originally from Spoonful, previously known as Family Fun.  

Another idea we love to do is homemade bookmarks with scrapbook paper and then laminate them at Staples and attach them to a Barnes & Noble gift card.  Fun for the kids to make!

I'm not quite sure what my son will be giving his teachers this year yet, but here are a few cute ideas I found.

And this one is just so darn cute and creative...

I have some other fun ideas to share to celebrate the big day with your little ones as we get closer.  Stay tuned!

Poshed Up