Riley's Valentine's

I know I did these same Valentine's for Jaidan last year, but they are so cute, and I thought they were perfect for Riley's preschool class so we did them again!

You can see my original post about making the crayons here, and you can see my original post on the actual Valentine's here.

I did do a few things a bit different this year.  Instead of cutting the crayons on the cutting board with a knife, I used a hammer and a bag.  Both ways are time consuming and I don't think either one is really any better then the other LOL.  Ok, well maybe I only did 1 thing different!  On to the pictures!

All ready to start!

Ready for the oven

Liquidy crayon goodness!

Heart crayons!

The finished Valentine!  Riley wrote his name on the back.

Did you do any DIY Valentines this year?  I would love to see them/read about them!

Paris Birthday Fun

Jaidan's 12th birthday is coming up in March, so I asked her what theme she wanted for her birthday.  She picked Paris.

At first I was a bit dumfounded, trying to figure out what the heck I was going to do for her party.  Luckily Pinterest came to the rescue.  It seems that a LOT of people actually have Paris themed birthday parties, which kind of surprised me.

We'll be going with a pink, hot pink, black, and white color scheme.  I already got a hot pink Eiffel Tower for decorations.  I also picked up a rubber stamp form Hobby Lobby, I am going to use it to make her invitations, using some cute scrapbook paper from Hobby Lobby.  They actually have a LOT of Paris themed items there, so I am sure I will be making a couple of trips there in the next month.

Still figuring out all the details, and planning what I am going to do.  I have a few ideas already though.  It's going to be hard to top last years Harry Potter birthday party that I did for her, so we'll see what I come up with.

My 1st Project!

I recently decided to re-learn how to crochet.  I say re-learn, because back in elementary school my mom taught me how...tho other then a failed attempt at a scarf (which I turned into a cassette tape holder, yes I know I just aged myself LOL), I didn't really do much with it.

My daughter Jaidan also wanted to learn how to crotchet too, so we are learning together.  We have mastered the chain stitch, and single crotchet, and have also learned the importance of counting your stitches (even when not using a pattern!).

For our first projects we are both making scarves.  I am making a green one for Riley, since green is his (and my!) favorite color.  She is making a scarf for herself with some very pretty colors.

I will do another post when we are both done with our projects!  We are both making some good progress on them.  It helps that we are on our 3rd snow day of the week too!

Our 1st chains

Learning Single Crotchet

The start of a scarf

Slowly taking shape

Working on her scarf

Where we were at this morning

Do you have any projects you are working on?  Crotchet, or otherwise?

52 Week Money Challenge

Last year around New Years I saw the 52 week money saving challenge being shared, but we didn't do it.  This year when I saw it being shared I printed it out and took it to my hubby to show it to him because I really wanted to do it.

The way it is set up, there are 52 weeks in the year and you save money each week.  Week 1 is $1, Week 2 is $2 etc until you hit Week 52 at $52.  In the end, you wind up saving (either in a bank account, or where ever you keep your savings) a total of $1,378 for the year.  Some people talk about doing it backwards, so you are saving more now, and less during the holidays when money usually gets tighter for people.  We're trying to go backwards, but I did a print out that has check boxes on it, so if need be we can skip around each week and check them off as we do them.  I also saw an alternative that has you save $26.50 each week of the year, and you still save $1,378 for the year.

We have a savings account and a high interest savings account (that account is our out of site, out of mind money that we are stashing for major emergencies, like for our house).  We are transferring the money we are saving right into the high interest savings account.  We did our 1st deposit on Friday!  I am excited to do this, it will be a great addition to our savings account, every little bit helps!  I personally don't think it matters if you go in order, as long as you make the commit and do all the deposits.

Is anyone else doing this challenge?