R-n-R Reviews

NaNoWriMo

noreply@blogger.com (callmekelly) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 20:43:00 +0000

Posts may be sparse this month due to the fact that I'm participating in National Novel Writing Month. I had participated once a few years ago but didn't make the goal of writing 50,000 words in 30 days. I doubt very seriously that this year will be any different, especially since I got started late. However, I obviously like writing and thought it might be fun to try.

I'm up to 2430 words, which is a little discouraging but, again, it's just for fun. If, by some small chance, I were to make the goal, one of their sponsors, CreateSpace, "is offering all NaNoWriMo 2009 winners a free proof copy of your manuscript in paperback book form. They'll even cover basic postage!". Something to think about if you had a book idea rattling around in your head. Sometimes competition can be a great motivator.

Movember: Mustaches Fundraiser For Cancer

noreply@blogger.com (callmekelly) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:46:00 +0000

My husband is taking part of Movember, where men grow their mustaches for the month of November in order to raise money for the Prostate Cancer Foundation and the Lance Armstrong Foundation (LIVESTRONG). My husband is part of Team Mo Bicless.

If you can't afford to give yourself, you can join the team to help support and to help raise money for the cause. You do not have to grow a mustache to be part of the team, so ladies you can join too as a MO Sista "A woman who loves a mustache".

After losing my father to cancer, I've heard so many people's stories that I don't believe there's anyone who hasn't been affected by cancer.

I am selling sets of mustache magnets and stickers here. A portion will go towards the charity.

Kellogg's $10 Toy Cash Voucher & Bonus Buck Vouchers

noreply@blogger.com (callmekelly) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 18:37:00 +0000

Okay, I finally have a little time to get back into deal seeking on the net and I found this:

Receive a $10 Toy Cash Voucher by mail from Kelloggs, when you acquire 5 Toy Cash Tokens from specially marked Kellogg, Keebler, and Cheez-It products by 12/31/2010.

Go here to get the form and to see the full list of participating products.

Kelloggs is also running $10 Bonus Bucks Offer when you buy 3 specially marked Kellogg's cereals. Use these "bonus bucks" on electronics, toys, sporting goods, books, concessions and movies at participating retailers. You can find out more about that offer here. Offer ends 9/30/10.

For a complete list of Kellogg Promotions, go here.

Hopefully, this will be the first of many more great deals to come from me.

My Harry Potter Sorting Hat

noreply@blogger.com (callmekelly) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 03:59:00 +0000

While I'm doing tutorials, I realized I didn't post on my sorting hat fiasco from our Harry Potter Party. First of all, this was a last minute party set up and then I became obsessed with doing a sorting hat. Why, considering I hate to sew, I do not know. I just knew I had these old leather jackets that I'd gotten for free somewhere because they were damaged. I thought this would work great. So, I made a form from newspaper, cut out the leather...

Then I pinned the leather to kind of get an idea of how this would work. I thought it looked pretty good and so i started sewing up the back but then I had to cut out the front piece to accommodate the curve in the hat. There was probably a better way of doing that, but it worked out because it gave me a more defined brow area.

I then added the brim. I can't really give instructions on that because I was just guessing on how that's done.
I did the sewing by hand, which was no easy feat, but it still ended up being the easy part. The hard part was figuring out how to make it stay stiff enough to stand up. I tried starching it like there was no tomorrow, that didn't work. I tried stuffing it, but it was a fine balance trying to make it look wrinkled and old with stuffing inside.

Finally, I sewed some creases here and there, stuffed a little then just propped it up underneath with a CD spindle. It still wasn't what I wanted but after stressing over it, I through my hands up and it was fine.

Of course, it didn't fit my husband who I'd made it for, but it fit me. So, I didn't have sizing down either. Still, I feel it went pretty well for someone who was winging it the whole time.

How to Make An Active Volcano

noreply@blogger.com (callmekelly) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:38:00 +0000

I had mentioned before that I would give a few more details on how we made our volcano for our son's Dino B-day party (click link to see more pics). Mind you, I say "we" loosely because it was mainly my husband's work, though I did do some painting.

Basically, he had a cardboard tube with a plastic cup at the top. He then started building the volcano by wrapping newspaper to add bulk without wasting too much foam. He then covered the whole thing with spray insulation foam, which balloons up to what you see in the picture below.

He sprayed it with brown matte spray, but it's wet here so it looks much shinier than it dries. Still it was too bland and so that's where I came in. I went over it with greens and black to break it up. He did the red and silver at top, not sure why he used the silver, but whatever.

To make it explode, he read it was about 2 tablespoons baking soda to every 1/2 cup of vinegar, but he said more baking soda produced better results. He also added a little dish soap to make it foamier and red food coloring.

Sorry, don't have a picture of it, I was too busy filming it. If we'd been outside I would have done the mentos with soda. I still plan on doing that though, when it gets warm again.

Last Minute Halloween Party Ideas

noreply@blogger.com (callmekelly) — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 03:46:00 +0000

Now this Dexter inspired theme is what I call a party. I absolutely love Showtime's Dexter and I find this mix of horror and fine dining hi-larious!

Equally hi-larious and to go right along with decorating your stroller, why not decorate your car? Tip Junkie has a nice round up of different pics from the web.

Eddie Ross has a super simple bat napkin ring tutorial.

Creativity Portal has a good tutorial on making Hershey Nugget Candy Wrappers. Just think scary and add any scary image you want.

Okay, these band aids for "boo boos" could be handouts for people at the party, or just for your kids. They don't even have to be for Halloween, honestly, but I saw them and had to list them. I actually have some Dexter ones that they gave out to my husband's work. I didn't even think about stamping my own, but now I know. Thanks to Gets Bored Easily for the tip.

If you don't have a costume yet and you're freaking out, there are a lot of tutorials out there on some cool make-up effects. I really liked this one.

Halloween Party Decor

noreply@blogger.com (callmekelly) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 04:23:00 +0000

I am loving candy corns this year and apparently everyone else is too because I'm seeing them everywhere. I saw these Candy Corn Pom-Poms on Intimate Weddings. Don't know that they scream wedding to me, but party...yes!

Entertain Exchange has a good candy corn round up.

Speaking of seeing something everywhere, I've seen these Candy Bar Covers from Skip to My Lou several times now and can understand why...they're awesome!!!

Hey, don't forget the bathroom with these tastefully done Pumpkin Toilet Paper Covers from Blissfully Domestic

Halloween Stroller Costumes

noreply@blogger.com (callmekelly) — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 02:41:00 +0000

I saw this Stroller Fire Truck Costume from Free Kids Crafts and kicked myself for not thinking of this last year. Now my son's all about walking and probably wouldn't get in it.

It got me thinking of what other ones might be out there. Here's what I found:

Pig in a Barn from MapleTree. Oh I hate it when people are more creative than me. That's funny.

Mouse and Cheese by KiKis Things

Costume Page has a great list of costumes, some that suit strollers and some wheelchairs, which is a whole other area I never thought about.

T-Shirt Transfers: My First

noreply@blogger.com (callmekelly) — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 03:52:00 +0000

For My Son's B-day, I decided to do a shirt for him that I thought was ingenious. His name is Jaxon, or "Jax"; so, I made this image:

Well, I hadn't done a T-shirt transfer before and ended up messing up a corner of the image. I then printed out some colored strips and created a little border. I thought it was a good save personally.

My Son's Dino Party

noreply@blogger.com (callmekelly) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 03:17:00 +0000

Well, my son's b-day was over the weekend and I thought I'd share some highlights:

My husband chalked dino prints and made some different direction signs (Bedrock, Jurassic Park, etc) to welcome our guests. This was a last minute idea so we didn't go to much trouble over it.

We went ahead and did the dino balloons that I posted on before. I loved the way they turned out!

My husband made an active volcano, which I plan on giving more of a detailed description in a post to come.

I did the dragon turned dino eggs from Dad Can Do out of Easter eggs and matte spray paint. We then decorated a box lid with plastic bags to try and contain the liquid when the volcano erupted. We spray painted the bags to look like camo.

I used drink holders to hold the silverware, complete with dino wraps I made and scrapbook paper cut to look like grass. I knew those decorative scissors would come in handy one day.

Okay, so then I decided to paper mache some giant bones. This turned out to be a horrible idea. It was too heavy when wet and ended up collapsing. So, I started over with newspaper wrapped around wood sticks. Then I taped it like nobody's business and painted. I would have aged it, but by that time I was ready to be done with that project. I cut leis to look like vines and topped off with 12 x 12 cardstock cut to look like leaves.

Just a side note, I tried to do the origami dinos and that is, along with paper mache, not my thing.

Cake wise, we had 3 again this year. This first one was the one I wanted, but I had my sister make it because I'm not a baker either. Here's the instructions from Family Fun. Note that my sister said the bones aren't as easy to do as it seems.

My mother-in-law made the other two. She spread coconut around with green frosting at the base. I thought that was a nice touch.

The frosting on these was amazing.

Anyway, that's the gist of it. I thought it went well. I originally had a lot more planned and probably would have stressed more over it had he been older, but this was good for his age I think. Of course, I know a 2 year old doesn't really care either way, but I like doing it.

Is it bad that I already know what I want to do for him next year?

Dinosaur B-Day

noreply@blogger.com (callmekelly) — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 02:34:00 +0000

It's that time again, my son, Jaxon's B-day. This year we're doing dinosaurs because he loves them. Here's some stuff I found:

Family Fun had this cool balloon idea that I think I'll use because, frankly, I like homemade things better than store bought (if you couldn't tell by now).

Tons of Dinosaur Printables @ Kaboose. I'm thinking I could blow them up and maybe do some wall art. Kaboose also has instructions for a super easy erupting volcano and Coffee Ground "Fossils"

You can get free downloadable 3-D paper crafts here.

I found these cute Thank You cards at Baby Face Design. She has a lot of cool party items for sell on her site.

I also found some dinosaur things, not necessarily for the party, but thought my son my like them anytime:

Free printable Dinosaur memory game. Just print, attach to some card stock or whatever and there you go.

FishGoth has some pretty involved origami dinosaurs (just click on pics for instructions).

I tried to find the perfect dino hats, but didn't have any luck. I did find this hat to the right that is pretty good, but I'm still looking to see if there's something better.

Adorable Kid Finds

noreply@blogger.com (callmekelly) — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 02:46:00 +0000

My son's b-day is coming up, so I have been on the lookout for some unique gifts and thought I'd share my finds:

Polliwalks- I love these!!! It's getting a little late in the year for them now; but next year, I'm getting some for sure.

Funky Moose (UK) sells these adorable " daysacks". They have a cow one and turtle one too, all so cute. They actually have a lot of cute things, but I'm not big on ordering toys on-line just because you can find cool toys everywhere. These bags are a different story. Thanks to Giver's log for the find. She has a whole article on neat backpacks.

Apparently, I like the bee theme because I am also drawn to Kidorable's bee umbrella. You've probably seen Kidorable rainwear and things around, but thought I should mention it for those who hadn't.

My Idea of Fall Fashion

noreply@blogger.com (callmekelly) — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 04:26:00 +0000

This ought to make my husband happy. Though not a Star Wars fan myself, I have to admit, this Yoda Hat from Dollar Store Crafts is cute. I might have to make my son one.

For those who associate Fall with Halloween and the Macabre, like I do, you should check out Skull-A-Day. This site posts, guess what, a skull-a-day. I just happened upon this great skull shirt on their site and had to include it.

NO SEW Ribbon Scarf from One Hour Craft, a new blog I'm loving. I think the title says it all.

I just love this sweater by The Devil Made Me Do It. I love the colors and how warm and comfortable it looks. It reminds me of a scrapbook page and that's awesome!

Altered Art

noreply@blogger.com (callmekelly) — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 02:52:00 +0000

I've been pretty busy lately, but thought I'd share a couple more finds for my crafty readers out there.

For scrapbooker's:

I had mentioned in a previous post that Hewlett-Packard activity center actually has some pretty cool designs that are free to print. Among these designs are different patterned paper, but also tags, decorative photo corners, cool alphabets, borders, envelopes, and much more.

For Altered Artists:

Moldable Foam Stamps - Make anything into a stamp, I have got to test this out.

Dollar Store Crafts has a rubber stamp tutorial as well.

While I love to scrapbook, I also like altered art. Altered art allows me more freedom. With scrapbooking, I try to use photo safe materials and I usually like a certain order to things. With altered art, however, there are no rules. It goes against my nature and I like that. It's not about being a great artists or even so much about what you produce as the process of creating.

Here are a couple examples of one of my altered books:

Pearl Jam's New Album: Backspacer

noreply@blogger.com (callmekelly) — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 02:58:00 +0000

PJ's album Backspacer came out today. I love it! It's been awhile since their last album, which I have to say holds a special place in my heart because it helped get me through some very hard times.

Oddly enough, Pearl Jam's albums seem to always speak to what I'm going through in my life at that time. This one is more upbeat than the last and I am hopeful for what that means for my future.

The song, Amongst the Waves, is especially uplifting. Here's just a piece of what I'm talking about:

Love ain't love until you feel it
Up riding high amongst the waves

I can feel like I
Have a soul that has been saved
I can see the light
Coming through the clouds in rays

I gotta say it now
Better loud than too late

The fixer is also very positive:

When something’s on let me shed a little light on it
When something’s cold let me put a little fire on it
If something’s old I wanna put a bit of shine on it
When something’s gone I wanna fight to get it back again

Of course their are some more melancholy songs but the whole album is awesome!!!

Halloween Home Decor

noreply@blogger.com (callmekelly) — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 03:07:00 +0000

According to The Green Head, these Pumpkin Ottomans are only $25 at Macy's I think. They seem well worth it to me because I doubt I could make them for much less than that, considering the time involved.

Laundry Monster- I saw this on Dollar Store Crafts and thought it was fun. It doesn't have to be for Halloween, but why not use it as an excuse to make one.

Martha Stewart's Fun house Mirror. Okay, here's the deal, I would use this year round because I have always wanted a fun house mirror in my home. Anytime I see one, I think how nice it would be to look in a mirror and laugh from time to time.

Of course, Martha has tons of other very cool stuff. Here are a few of my other favorites:

Hanging Vellum Lanterns-She shows snakes and frogs, but this idea could be used for any pics.

Coffin Table- Why didn't I think of this?

Candy Wreath- To me, this might make more sense to make up some fake candies using colored cellophane and whatever you have a lot of to make the shape. If you made them bigger, it wouldn't take so many. It would still look like candy, but you could keep it around for years to come.

Patrick Swayze Has Died

noreply@blogger.com (callmekelly) — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 03:50:00 +0000

I've just been informed that Patrick Swayze has lost his battle with cancer. I say battle, but really cancer is a bigger adversary than most of us can take on.

Much like with Michael Jackson, when I was a young kid, too young to like someone so much older, I had a huge crush on Patrick Swayze. No, not from Dirty Dancing or even Ghost, but I started liking him after I saw North and South. I remember pasting my head over his wife's in pictures and telling kids at school he was my boyfriend. That's how young I was, so young I didn't even realize how stupid that was.

He just always struck me as a genuinely good person. He was one of only a handful of gentleman left in Hollywood. He will be missed.

Halloween: Costumes & Decor

noreply@blogger.com (callmekelly) — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 03:35:00 +0000

The pumpkin Lady offers free pumpkin carving patterns. Just scroll down toward the bottom. She also has an instruction video!

I found these cute ladybug wings in Boutique Sophia's shop on Etsy. If you saw my post on fairy wings, then you probably see how these could be made.

Martha Stewart has also got a lot of great Halloween ideas, of course. The Victorian coffee Filter costume shown is one of her "No-Sew Costumes". Now, you know I like that!

You have got to check out costumes at Craftster
2008 ideas
2006 ideas

Dad Can Do

noreply@blogger.com (callmekelly) — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 02:30:00 +0000

I am so excited! I just signed up at Dad Can Do, a very cool site dedicated to help dads connect with their children by offering tons of craft/project ideas that dads can do with their children.

More specifically, Chris Barnardo runs the site and, in his words:

Dadcando.com is intended to be a resource resource for all dads, but with a special emphasis on helping the single and or non-resident fathers who have contact with their children (non-resident fathers are those who are separated, divorced or widowed, who live apart from their partner and do not have their children to live with them).

Though I am a married mother, my father had children from a previous marriage that I know he wished he'd been closer to before he passed. So, I find this to be a site and a cause, if you will, that is well worth supporting.

Of course, that is not the only reason to love this site. From a crafter's point of view, the project ideas are awesome. I originally happened upon it while looking for ideas for my Harry Potter Party and was blown away by the originality. I, honestly, looked everywhere for ideas and found that the ideas here were on a whole other level. Here are a couple examples of what I'm talking about:

"Moody's Mad Eye"

Lumos Wand

& Box

Of course, projects are not limited to Harry Potter theme, there's Prince Caspian's Sword from C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia, a papier mâché robot head from the movie Robots, an alethiometer from Golden Compass. Then there's spaceships and rockets and all kinds of paper plane designs.

My newest project happens to be a dinosaur party for my son and there's some great dragon stuff that I think could easily be tweaked for dinosaurs. For example:

Eggs with stands

Decorative Pouch
Filigree Egg Case

This is just a taste of what this site has to offer. Dad Can Do also has recipes and party planning tips. It really is a must see site. I promise you will end up bookmarking this one.

Cool Jewelry Round-Up

noreply@blogger.com (callmekelly) — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 03:34:00 +0000

I don't usually post on jewelry because I don't wear alot of it, but I came across these things and even I like them.

I love the stuff at HeadlessTessDIY on etsy.

Devil and Mouse has some great macabre jewelry that is perfect for Halloween. Of course, I'd wear them anytime.

Tattoo inspired jewelry by Orangyredink at etsy. I love it. I have a couple tattoos myself and think this is a great alternative to the pain of the real ones.

Home Decor Round-up

noreply@blogger.com (callmekelly) — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 03:47:00 +0000

I've been pretty busy lately but I haven't forgotten you. Here's my latest finds:

ISLY has all kinds of cool stuff, but I was especially drawn to this table. Unfortunately, I would have the same problem she's apparently having--kids!

Thanks to Toni at Design Dazzle for posting on bookshelves made from rain gutters (below). What a great idea. I could see something like this going up in my basement. She does have link to a tutorial on how to make them yourself.

Toni also has a great post on these Wallpaper Silhouettes -Personally, I have an aversion to wallpaper, but I do like these.

Here's a video on how to make invisible shelf. I highly suggest checking it out. It's really quite interesting.

Altered Clothes

noreply@blogger.com (callmekelly) — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 04:05:00 +0000

Don't have too much time to post, but had to share some things I've been finding around the net:
No-Stop Halter Top -this just looked easy and different.

Smarmy Clothes...Wow! That's all I have to say.

Now if I only had the body to pull these things off.

Mezzi from Craftster has a good tutorial on making hoodies out of T-shirts.

Leah Felicity did these shirt designs using bleach. I've made some bleach designs myself, mind you they were by complete accident and without any pattern. Maybe now I've found a way to salvage those things.

I'm a big fan of altered clothing by Maraleopard:

Generation-t has a great book on altered Tees, but also a great website out there.

Halloween Party Ideas

noreply@blogger.com (callmekelly) — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 03:04:00 +0000

After my Harry Potter party, I find I can't wait until my next event. So, with Halloween approaching, I've been looking up fun stuff. Here's a few ideas and freebies to help my fellow party planners:

Instructions for this "Bewitching Invitation" can be found at BHG.

Going along with my Harry Potter labels I recently made, You can get Halloween Potion labels here. She also has coloring pages, puppets, masks, all FREE!

There's a small tutorial on these "Treat Tubes" on 365Halloween's site.

I found this bloody tablecloth on Crib Candy, but it doesn't look like the Oriental Trading Company is carrying them anymore. Of course, that doesn't mean you couldn't do it yourself!

"Complete Party Planner" by Annabel Karmel

noreply@blogger.com (callmekelly) — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 03:21:00 +0000

I recently read Complete Party Planner by Annabel Karmel and was happy to see she also has a web site with fun and nutritious recipes for kids.

I thought I'd include a couple of my favorites with Halloween in mind:

Eyeball Cupcakes- Of course there are so many things you can do with cupcakes but I found these to be great inspiration.

Brain Cakes -How fun are these? I love, love, love them!

"Yes, It's a Scrapbook!": Book Review

noreply@blogger.com (callmekelly) — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 03:05:00 +0000

Yes, It's a Scrapbook! by Donna Downey. I read a lot of craft books, especially on the subject of scrapbooking and I'm not always compelled to post on them, but I love this book! Typically, rather than buying a book, I get it at the library and scan any ideas I like. Well, there are just too many things I like to scan, I'd have to scan the whole book.

Basically, the book shows you different ways of presenting your layouts, different book bindings, etc. It isn't so much that the ideas are ones I haven't seen before, but the book takes all of those ideas and gives you one reference point.

The ideas are displayed well and it gives step by step instruction, making this the best comprehensive guide on the subject, in my opinion.