GeoCache Birthday Party

This one was a fun one to do. What can be more fun for a bunch of 8 yr olds than running wild in a ravine hunting for hidden caches.
I didn't want my iphone to get broken so I didn't do what I had orgianally planned was make them hunt by GPS. So I scoured thru my ravine and put red electrical tape on a tree and they had to look from that point to find the hidden find..

 To start off the party I had the kids decorate their own geocache loot bag. And to make it a little more challenging I did a code sheet where I put a sentence in a coded word and they had to figure out what my sentence said. It is a simple code. A = N or N=A.


example: Guvf vf sha = This is fun

Decryption Key

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M
-------------------------N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z

I took little containers and each one (I had 8) had enough items in it for each kid. I had one box with a marker/picture coloring set, another marbles, slimy spiders etc... Each child had to put on item in their loot bag and move on to the next find. The kids loved this idea - they got to take all the items they found home with them (although the candy portion did not make it that far).

Have fun with your kids parties. This party cost me a total of 7$ per bag / kid and made my own cup cakes. The containers I used my own that I had on. So a party of 6 kids cost me $42.00. And the kids had tons of fun. The parents have been telling me how much fun their child had and what a great idea. So I hope this blog helps you design your own geocache birthday party. You can me it as hard or as easy as you want to.

DIY STAR WARS LEGO PARTY

My son who turned 4 this August, begged me for a star wars lego party. 
Ok..mom on a budget. I had to think out of the box and do some fun but inexpensive fun stuff.

First off - what is a lego party without light sabers ???? It aint no party so mom had to do something that was not going to hurt a bunch of kids but make their day. 
Pool Noodles !!!!! The cost 1.00 each - which split into two was .50 cents per child.
Had duck tape on hand so yippie.

Cut in half

Measure it out at 13 cm for ducktape

cover and then finish off with electrical tape to decorate.

Ok - light sabers - check. I had to do a cool item for the goodie bag. what to do???? More light saber ideas. I went to walmart and they had the colored bubble wands for a dollar each. That totally worked. I used electrical tape and covered the bottom to make it look like a light saber. 

I needed the outfits. I was off to walmart again and bought brown flat sheets for 5.00. I cut out just enough to make a slip over jedi shirt. I sewed up the ends so they wouldn't fray and make little belts out of the left over fabric. Cost was about 25 cents per child there.  The kids thought this was awesome.

Now I needed to do a death star...what is star wars without that. I found a soccer ball pinata and spray painted it grey and black to make it look like it. The kids loved this. Cost 12.00$ + candy.

I went to the on-line party store and ordered plates and items that was lower cost than buying it at a party store here in the city. That saved me over 20 bucks for sure. 

Now for the final party. I went to the value village and found a black cape and the party store had a darth vader mask for 5.00. So my oldest dressed up as Vader. I had my middle son a jedi master train the padwans in the ways of the force and we put darth vader music on and my oldest came out in costume and the kids got battle him. It was a great party.

Did an obstical course for the padwans to train.

learning the jedi training ways

battle darth vader.

It was a great party. and the kids had a great time.

For food I named everything and made little signs. Jedi Juice, Han Burgers, Hutt Dogs, Wookie Cookies. It was a lot of fun for the kids and because it was a lego star wars I had a guessing game on who could guess the closest amount of lego candies got the whole jar. I hope I gave you some neat ideas to do your own jedi party. Sorry there weren't more pictures but the hubby forgets to use the camera when I am busy with the kids.

Next DIY Party - Geo Cache Party for 8 yr old party. Keep posted as this happens right away.

Fall in Love with your mantle.

So my fire place has a mantle and it was looking a bit spring like so I thought the leaves are falling, the weather is getting chilly outside. Let's fall this baby up.

Some candle holders from Ikea, some fall grain stacks from Superstore and the dollar store leaves and I was all set. sorry the picture isn't super pretty - iphone photo lol.
Once winter gets closer and the snow starts to fly- boy oh boy will the christmas stuff be flying out from under my stair storage area. I will make sure to post pictures. I will be doing a special diy banister so keep checking back on this site. Mark it and follow my diy and decorating adventures.

Grandmothers Tables sitting around your house? I know mine are.

I have had these tables for 13 years, and my grandmother had them since the late 1950's.
They are such well made pieces. Not like the junk you get now a days that fall apart after 5 years.
But they have seen their better days, I guess my kids playing crash the car on the top of them, or spin the lamp around has made a few scratches along the way too.

It is time for a face lift.

I picked up Annie Sloans Chalk Paint and will be painting these pretty tables as beautiful Graphite, which is a color close to a slate grey. I have white leather couches, purple&grey curtains and side chairs to match the curtains. I will be posting the pictures as soon as I get under way on the painting.

Here is the coffee table and you can see on of the side tables in the background.

Side Tables

The only thing left is to put a dark wax on after the clear wax has time to set. It will darken this up a bit more to be richer looking.

Easter Candle DIY

Well I have this beautiful home but the previous owners had built it with a pony wall that had ugly fake flowers and white rocks.  After we moved in I took those flower down but I left the rocks - still not knowing what to do with this thing a year 1/2 later.

pony wall the day we moved in...love the flowers??? not me.

Ok so this is the case...it's Easter on Sunday and my in-laws started planning a party 2 months ago but the number of guest they invited to their home kept increasing and the party is now at my home. There will be over 70 people here on Sunday.  I love my home but I haven't had the best use of time decorating it. So  What to do with a bare pony wall with white rocks in them...not looking very easter celebration. 

Ok - Superstore had these rectangle vases, so I picked two up. Ran to Home depot and grabed some pretty flowers. Now off to Ikea for candles and the dollar store for ribbon and colored rock.

Now I glued the ribbon on using Mod Podge and lined the bottom with 3 different styles of rock. One purple and two white. then I layed the candles on that.

Here is my end result.

The only thing now to do is clean all 6 washrooms, and clean the house top to bottom, but atleast the ugly pony wall is taken care of. Glad it's only Tuesday and I have until Saturday to get the home spick and span. Wish me luck.

Why pay tons for a lego table, make your own.

This is my side table...bought at a garage sale last year. Didn't really need it, didn't sell it. Oh man, what to do with it????

Not wanting this anymore, the refurbisher in me (which I already painted this one last summer the grey color)...thought "What can I turn this into???".

Hmmm....a little Mod Podge and a giant lego sheet. A lego table for my boys would be a great use for this. So here I go, just winging it.

First I covered the entire back of the board in the glue.

used some heavy books to help the glue bond and dry. It was on there for a few hours today.
As I let this dry I got an idea. I was cleaning out my tupperwear drawer and was getting rid of some ziplock containers....so I decided...why not glue those down too.

There is my DIY lego table. I am going to look for some lego road stripes and add that around the sides to add a big of interest to the table. The kids loved this idea. I hope this table gets hours of fun.

Making your own table will save you $$$$ - So at Toys R Us, an imagination station for lego table is 149.00$ - this cost me nothing to make. Love IT !!!

Mud Room just plain Muddy !!!!

I have this laundry room which attached to the garage. Mind you - this was all done in one day so I did not paint or anything....at least not YET. I still have big plans for this space so THIS IS  WORK IN PROGRESS.

The heap of junk...no room to walk in here.

The closet mirror was all cracked up on one side.
No one used this space properly. A forgotten spot.

So I went to IKEA and bought a few things. I got some hooks and a little bench for my boys to use.
And a cute little rug for my laundry room. I love some organization. With 3 growing boys, I am not sure how clean this space will be but it's a start.

I removed my closet glass doors, this way my boys have no excuse to not put their shoes away properly. I would love to paint the inside of this closet a fun colour this spring.

Some cute wall art above the hooks just go give the wall a little something nice.

Well that is my mud room so far. I hope you like the change up to this point. More changes will come later on.  One of the things is we are planning on becoming foster parents and more kids means more space needed. I love the thought of things off the floor and each person has their own hook.

One of my big plans is to paint my cabinets all white to make it look nicer.