St Patrick's Day Paper Plate Craft

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!!! 

The Good Daughter is really starting to understand holidays and how we can make special crafts and eat special food and dress up in special clothes and have a grand time. 

Too bad all her St. Paddy's day stuff is kid friendly and she won't know the true meaning of the holiday until her drinking days start in high school. 

But for now, she gets to make cute crafts, like this one!

I took a regular paper plate and cut out the inner circle. Then I colored the bottom to look like the pot of gold and the top to look like a rainbow. I also cut out some small circles for gold coins. This would have gone a whole lot faster if I had a big ol' hole punch. Get one of those and then do this craft. 

And this is TGD's version.

Clearly the patience of a 4 year old.

I like this b/c we had all the materials on hand - paper plate, markers, glue and cardboard (the coins are cut from a TeddyGrams box!).

If you need a cute and simple craft for today, you are in luck!

Green beer and corned beef for all!!

Milk + Cookies Valentine

Oh happiness!! Valentine's Day will be here soon. And I love me some Valentine's Day crafty stuff.  It's probably b.c there is not a lot of pressure surrounding the holiday, aside from Pinterest guilt, that is. I can just relax and do fun and silly things for the kids.

It is also the point where we start to dig out from winter, turn our eyes to spring and get excited for the sunshine and fresh air. It's a nice break from all the doom and gloom of winter.

This year I found this super cute idea out on the interwebs and decided it was *THE* Valentine's Day craft for The Good Kids daycare friends.
How cute is that?!

So fucking cute, I can't stand it.

"Valentine, we go together like cookies + milk."

There is room on the back to write to and from. This will be the first year TGD will be able to write everyone's name on there. Awwwwwwwwwww.

I made the printable (which you can snag for FREE here), cut it out and taped it to a sandwich bag filled with a milk box and bag of cookies. 

Now, I should have gotten some nice cellophane bags at the craft store, but let's face it, I didn't even get all this shit together until 2 days before Valentine's Day. And it is still motherfucking snowing here, so ain't no way in hell I am going out to the store again. If you were to make these, I know you will do a better job than me.

An alternative to giving out milk boxes, if you can't find them, is to include a straw with the package of cookies so the kiddos can get their own damn milk.

Overall, this was a simple Valentine's treat that was about $2 to make.

You can get your own FREE Milk + Cookies Valentine by clicking the photo below.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!!

Father's Day ~FREE PRINTABLE~

Just like for Mother's Day, I created a FREE PRINTABLE to celebrate all things Dad.

This is a super cute way to document all the thoughts your littles have about their dads while they are still young and funny and in the "kids say the darnedest things" stage of life. That goes away all too soon, so what better way to capture it than with this printable.

You can download this FREE PRINTABLE here.

Need something cute to give to Dad this Father's Day? How about this I Love You to Pieces craft? 

Now to have The Good Daughter fill this out for The Good Husband. I wonder if she claims he is stinky, just like me. 

Love You to Pieces Father's Day (or B-Day) Craft

So The Good Husband had a birthday recently. He is generally a sour puss when it comes to all things celebrating. I, on the other hand, LOVE LOVE FUCKING LOVE ELEVENTY!!!1!!!!11!!! all thing even slightly celebratory. I especially love birthdays when it is a day to celebrate you. 

So keeping in mind TGH likes shit low key and we are on a budget this year, I decided to do a simple craft to celebrate the day he graced the universe with his presence. Break out the hot glue guns! 

I have seen this floating around in the Internets, usually in a Father's Day craft round up. And don't get me wrong, this is a *perfect* Father's Day craft. It has the right amount of cheesiness.

To make it, all you have to do is cut out a collar and tie (I used printer paper glued to cardstock) and a We Love You To Pieces cut out. Then glue them on to a jar (I used a pint mason jar) and fill the jar with Reese's Pieces. We love you to {Reese's} pieces. Get it?

How cute!!

But let's face it. TGH really didn't give a shit about it. He hugged us all as thanks b/c that's his job, but he only really cared about a jar full of candy that he and only he got to fucking eat. 

Mother's Day ~FREE PRINTABLE~

Mother's day is this Sunday. This is a day where us moms should be able to sleep in late, have well behaved and quiet children and a self cleaning house. Sadly, the likelihood of that happening is right up there with me waking up in the middle of a Channing Tatum and Shia LaBeouf sandwich, with the body of  Christina Hendricks and the hair of Kate Beckinsale and the bank account of Bill Gates. But I hope you can still have an amazing day.

One of the things I love about having children, is the simple wonder they have for everyday things. Being a cynical adult, I have lost all that magic and I get swallowed up by all the things I am doing wrong as a mom. So its nice to be able to see through the eyes of your children that you are actually a decent mom.

So I thought it would be nice for me to have something to keep forever as proof that my kids did once love me. Believe me, I am saving these babies for when The Good Daughter hits 12 and "GAWD YOU SUCK MOM!! WHATEVER!! I HATE YOU!!!" 

This I Love Mom printable is a great way to capture all that cute kid stuff they have in their head. Your kids get to write their favorite memory of you, all your favorite things and what makes you special. Best of all, it's FREE!

Get your copy here, give it to your husband shit, you know you will just do it on your own anyway, fill it out with your kids and then get it delivered to you with your breakfast in bed on Sunday. Unless your husband is like mine, in which case, you just get a bottle of tequila b.c he can't screw that up.

And, I do hope you have a happy Mother's Day. (Fill one out for you mom too!) 

P.S.: You will notice that not only is folding laundry the thing I am the best at, but I am also stinky (dirty hippy 4 LYFE!!) and look the best when I brush my hair. But the best thing about me is that I love The Good Daughter - her words. 

Did you miss Mother's Day? 

Don't worry. I will have one of these babies ready for Father's Day. Just check in June, um, whenever the hell Father's Day is. ;)

Owl Valentines

It's time once again for shitty homemade Valentines!

Last year, I made cheesy candy treat bags.  The year before it was handmade cards and the year before that was a Valentine Breakfast! Can you tell I like to get my craft the fuck on during a holiday?

This year is no different and so I made owl valentines.

I saved some toilet paper rolls, let The Good Daughter color some paper (I did color some too) and then I hot glued that shit together to make these owls.

And I had to cheese it the hell up by adding sayings like "Hoo's Your Valentine?" and "Owl Love You" and of course "Owl Be Your Valentine." All in all, it was an easy craft that allowed TGD and I to spend some time together, for me to get some wicked hot glue burns and for all the other 3 year olds at daycare will think are the shit. 

What more could I ask for in a craft?

Homemade Valentine Coupons and a Free Printable

So, its Valentine's Day again and time for something special for The Good Daughter. 

Now that she has a lot of responsibilities, I thought it would be a great idea to make her a coupon book to get out of some of them. 

So I made her a Valentine coupon book full of coupons for things like "get out of time out." There is only one of those, for my sanity.

The rest are good for things like getting out of one chore or 15 minutes extra of tv/computer/game time.

There are also coupons for unlimited hugs and kisses and cuddles. 

I simply printed out the coupons on regular paper, cut them and punched two holes on the side. I cut a piece of pink cardstock and glued the title coupon to the front and tied it all together with some heart ribbon I had left over from last year's Valentines.

If you would like to make this Valentine coupon book with 16 love coupons, just click here for a free printable.

Happy Valentine's Day!

It's Valentine's Day and there is nothing I love more than doing some cheesy holiday shit. 

Last year I made some crappy cards and a candy holder. This year I wanted to up the cheese factor by making the lamest, and by that I mean awesome-est, valentine treats ever. 

Since I didn't want to overload all the kids on candy and red dye #40, I made this treat bag with fish crackers. "You're a great catch!" LOL Get it?

To top off that bitch, I made this treat bag. "I'm bursting with happiness that you are my friend" filled with starbursts candy. Amazing.

I also made some Valentine puppy chow and threw these treats in hand decorated bags with kickass Valentines.

In short, I made Valentine's Day my bitch. I hope you have an amazing day too.

Homemade Valentines

Last year The Good Daughter was only 7 1/2 months old on Valentine's Day. I bought a small box of cartoon cards and gave them to her daycare friends, congratulating myself for remembering to buy some. Then I picked her up from daycare and found 5 handmade and very cute valentines for her. I felt so inadequate.

So this year there was a tiny voice in the back of my head at the end of January saying I should find something cute to make for V-Day. Then I saw this idea in Parenting magazine and it was cute and easy and I already had all the materials to make them.

The idea is to take a wooden block with raised letters, put a piece of paper over it and color the image. The problem I found was the entire block was too big for the front of the card, so I just colored the letter and not the surrounding border.


For the boys, I used green card stock and bold colors. For the girls I used either purple or pink card stock and pastel colors. As you can see, I didn't line up the letters perfectly. Just pretend I did that on purpose to give it a more hand-made look.

To make these:
~You'll Need: card stock, alphabet blocks with carved letters, craft glue stick and colored pencils

~Arrange alphabet blocks letter side up to spell out desired word or phrase. Fold card stock in half lengthwise and then half again, this time widthwise, to create a card. Open the card and position its lower right flap on the block arrangement. Rub a colored pencil over the blocks until the impression appears. Or, you can color each letter singularly like I did, to achieve my uneven look. Turn the card over and cover the entire surface in craft glue. Fold the card in half, smooth out any lumps and allow to dry. This just holds the paper together. I could have just cut one piece of card stock in two and not messed with the glue but I'm not smart enough to figure that out until I was through.
My next project was creating this treat box from Martha Stewart. I will let her explain how you do that.

It was an easy project and it only took me about 15 minutes to make this at the most. You can see I didn't put quiet enough tape on the right corner, but it still looked good. I also used two pieces of card stock and it was a little thick, so when I folded the paper, some of it sort of cracked. Also the ribbon I used was too thick and I really had to pull it through the hole. These are all rookie crafting mistakes I am sure.

I can't wait for next year.