Pallet Rock Climbing Wall

We just recently purchased a new home and the backyard ended up having a dreadful slope. Although it was frustrating at first, there are actually a lot of cool things you can do with slopes. One idea I had was to create a rock climbing wall for my kids using recycled pallets. This project took one weekend. Check out our building process below.

I first prepared each pallet so that they weren't so rough as kids would be touching/walking on them. I sanded each board on the front side using my electric sander. After I sanded them, I painted on a coat of clear gloss polyurethane to help protect the wood from the elements. (I didn't get a picture of this step :-( Whoops).

Then we laid the rocks in a random pattern to figure out where we wanted each one to go. Then my husband drilled them all in with the included hardware. These were the rocks I purchased from Amazon.

We laid playground mulch on the slope to go under our pallets. Then we created a frame of sort to attach the pallets to. We used treated lumber since this will be outside. The ledges on the top and bottom have "legs" essentially that we buried into the ground for stability. Then we attached the long 16' boards to each ledge. Then we screwed each pallet to the long boards.

And here is the finished wall. What do you think?

Kid approved. :-)

Felt Christmas Trees

I love these felt Christmas trees! They are great for kids to play with this time of the year; especially for those little fingers that like to touch the real tree. These were pretty simple to create once I had the 

design down. I did have to make several different trips to the craft store as it was hard to make a list for every little item that I needed up front, but hopefully you can avoid that part!

I first freehanded the tree on a piece of poster board. You can make yours as round or as pointy as you'd like. You only have to draw 1/2 a tree as you will fold the felt in half; this way each side will be symmetrical. I made green and white trees, so whichever color you think would look better in your house. I also found it to be cheaper if you buy the felt by the yard instead of the 3'x3' pre-cut square they sell in the felt aisle.

Next I found clipart ornaments online that I liked and printed them out on cardstock. After cutting out my cardstock templates, I traced them on various colored felt sheets with a Sharpie. You can make them as colorful as you would like or stick with just a couple different colors. I added extra details to a few of the ornaments as you can see below. The zig-zag ribbon and tiny pom-pom balls were inexpensive, but made such a difference! On the large present I glued ribbon around the top and curled it with scissors. 

Once your ornaments are all done, find a great spot to hang your tree. I used poster tape to hang it, but you could use tacks or nails or whatever else you have lying around the house. Here is the finished look. My kids love playing with it and I hope yours do too!

Carnival Party

For my daughter's 6th birthday we had a backyard Carnival Party! This was such a fun theme!! I had been wanting to do a carnival party for some time, but wanted her to be old enough to really play the games. This summer just worked out perfectly to finally do it. It was extremely hot that day, which was a little tiring on the guests, but overall a very successful party!! Check out the photos from the party!

 This is the invitation that I designed on my Mac. I just love the ticket idea! I sell the PDF download if you were interested in having an invite like this for your own carnival party.

We set up this cute banner over the grill for our "concession stand".  ;-) 

What carnival wouldn't be complete without carnival food?! My awesome hubby was the chef for the day. We had funnel cakes, corndogs, fresh-cut fries, and gooey caramel corn. Yum!

Mickey Mouse 1st Birthday Party

For my son's 1st birthday we had a Mickey party. It was such a fun and easy theme as there is tons of Mickey ideas out there! Here are some pics from his party, complete with DIY!

I made these invitations with my mom who graciously helped me cut one afternoon. Honestly, a Circuit machine would be best for this sort of project, but I don't have one yet. There was a lot of cutting involved here! The red piece on front makes a pocket that the invitation sits in. I had some old buttons lying around that I glued onto Mickey's shirt. I downloaded the Waltograph font from DaFont for the text on the invites. Downloading the font and uploading it into Pages on my Mac was the best because I used that font for many other things for this party. I love these invitations!

This welcome sign was pretty easy to make. I just hand-drew the three parts on construction paper, cut them out, then glued them to a ribbon, spaced apart like shown below. I also used the Waltograph font for this sign.

Hopscotch Paver Path

We have a ton of rocks in our backyard which makes it hard to walk in certain parts barefoot. We were wanting to create a path connecting our patio to the grass area. I decided how cute would it be to make the path a hopscotch path? This project was fairly simple and only took a couple hours. 

We first shoveled the rocks to either side to create our space. We then laid tarp along the path. I am a firm believer that you can never have too much tarp! ;-) Then we laid a thin layer of sandbox sand on top of the tarp and raked it evenly.

Next I spaced the pavers in the path, just eyeballing them to align them evenly, but you could get out a tape measurer if you wanted to be more exact. I bought the 12"x12" pavers from Lowe's for $1.78/ea. They have other color options, but I thought red would add a pop of color out back. 

Teacher Gifts

It's custom to give your children's teacher a gift at the end of the school year. I wanted to find unique gifts that would be different from all the others. Teachers can only have so many chocolates and candles and lotions, right? Here are some of the things I've made for my children's teachers. 

I just love this cute plant! School gets out in the spring time basically and having a fresh plant is always so welcoming. I bought the plant from Lowe's. They have such a huge selection this time of the year. I found this cute sign online and printed it out on cardstock so it would be sturdy. You could also design your own. Then I glued the sign to a popsicle stick and there you go! So easy!

Everyone knows an apple is a common gift for teachers, right? Well I took it a step further and made homemade caramel dipping sauce to go with the apple! I found cute mason jar containers from the dollar store to put the caramel in (it's hard to see in the picture). Then I added stuffing and bagged them up with a sweet tag. They loved their gifts!

Another gift we have done before is bake pumpkin bread or banana bread, whatever you prefer, and make these cute apple labels. My daughter helped me cut out the apples and helped me glue on the leaves. They turned out super cute!

Jewelry Holders

Here are two simple projects you could whip up real easily to display your earrings and necklaces.

Earring Holder:

I bought this frame from Walmart for around $5. It's an 11"x14" frame, but you could get whatever size you want. I bought the lace ribbon from Hobby Lobby. I measured the lace across the frame and then cut 6 even strands. I hot glued them to the back of the frame. I spaced out the ribbons unevenly to allow space for smaller earrings (studs) and larger, dangly ones. Then add your earrings and there you go!

Necklace Holder:

I picked this branch right from my front yard. I have 4 huge trees that drop branches weekly (which I use often for many projects). I bought screw hooks from Home Depot for only a few dollars and then twisted them into the branch by hand. This took a little bit of time and my fingers were a little sore, but not a biggie. It was done in no time! I have this hanging in my bathroom. What do you think??

60th Surprise Party

For my mom's 60th birthday we wanted to throw a surprise party for her. She is such a loving, kind woman who has been through a lot over the past couple years and she deserves it. Planning this party was fun, but difficult. I had to sneak her address book away for a day in order to get her friend's contact information. A lot of people are on Facebook these days, but not everyone. Keeping it a secret was so hard because I was so excited and just wanted to tell her! Overall, it was a huge success with people who came from Wisconsin, Michigan & Kansas and all over Colorado. There was not as much DIY at this party as I would have liked, but it turned out great! Check out the party below.

The gold 6-0 balloons are reusable balloons from Hobby Lobby! I had never heard of reusable balloons before, have you? You basically blow them up like you would a regular balloon and then you just deflate them for another party down the road. How cool is that?! The material is almost like those foil balloons and are pretty durable. My daughter was turning 6 the next summer so I reused the number 6 at her party. Perfect!

I ordered these photo booth props off Amazon. They were great! They were pretty inexpensive, under $10, with minimum assembly required.

Pantry Door Remodel

 This is what our pantry doors looked like before. Very plain with no shape to the doors whatsoever. There wasn't even a handle or anything! So of course I had to do something about it. I love the "barn style look" and decided to upgrade these doors. 

We used the same doors, but just added to them. We created a "Z" design out of 1x4's. We nailed the 1x4's to the original doors, and filled in the holes with wood putty. 

Twine

I'm a huge fan of country decor as I just love anything shabby chic. One material that is often used with DIY country themed decor is twine. There are SO many cool things you can make with twine. I am always on the look out for new ideas. I have attempted several projects, some successful, some not. Here are a few decorations around my house that I made:

I just used an old wooden frame for the border. I bought the wreath at Hobby Lobby for $6.99 and the wooden letter for $2.99. I wrapped twine around the letter, using a hot glue gun about every third wrap. Then I made 3 burlap flowers by folding, twisting, and gluing. You can decorate your wreath however you'd like. 

Mermaid Party

I threw a mermaid themed party for my daughter's 5th birthday. She wanted to have her party at the pool, so I thought that a mermaid theme would be fitting. 

I designed this invitation on my Mac.

I made a fish bowl centerpiece with the number 5 on it. I just put glass beads, seashells, and water in it (all purchased from the Dollar store). I also scattered seashells on the tables. 

Gender Reveal Party

We are currently expecting our second child and we are beyond excited!! Gender reveal parties are a new trend and I love the idea! It's so much more special to find out the gender of the baby with your close family and friends instead of by yourself laying on the sonographer's table. I decided to hop on the band wagon and have a little gender reveal party of our own. 

The first thing was how to actually reveal the gender. I have seen so many wonderful pictures on Pinterest of people having blue or pink confetti fall on them from a box, balloon, or a piñata. I first tried to do the whole balloon thing, but couldn't find a store that would stuff the balloon and fill it with helium. Who knew that would be such a hard thing to find! That's when I discovered pull-string piñatas! I loved the concept of not having to beat up and destroy the piñata just to get into it, but instead, be able to simply pull a string. These are also great for little kid birthday parties who might not be able to break open a piñata. ;-) I had looked on Etsy for pull-string piñatas and they are around $30-35! So I decided to make one of my own using the good ol' fashioned paper mache method. Here is a great link for instructions. I wasn't good about getting pictures of the process of making the piñata, but I did take one when it was almost done. 

Here are more pics from our gender reveal party. :-)

Pony Party

For my daughter's 4th birthday, we threw her a pony party. There is a local lady who owns Fairy Tale Pony Parties which is where we had her party. Her property was beautiful and the party was a huge success. I highly recommend Fairy Tale Pony Parties!

These were the invitations. They weren't homemade, but fit the theme well. I did make a homemade insert to describe more about the party. 

I love, love cakes made in a shape out of cupcakes! It makes it so easy for people to eat, just grab and go!!

Rainbow Party

My little girl is 3 now! It truly is amazing how fast time goes by. The older I get it, it seems like the faster time goes by. This year's theme was rainbow which truly was an easy theme. You pretty much just buy supplies in every color and it goes right along with your rainbow theme. I had a lot of fun planning this party. First I sent out rainbow invitations. I found this template on Pinterest and loved it! It was a foldable rainbow that came out of the envelope. How cool is that?

Corn Hole Game

Corn hole games can cost upwards of $200. I had some materials left over from the DIY play kitchen so I figured we could make a set for way cheaper than buying it. My dad helped me build the board on one Saturday. It's actually pretty simple. We didn't make 2 at this time, but we will have to make a second board further down the road.

I found a great blog on how to make a DIY corn hole game and I like how they decorated their boards as well. Check out the Happier Homemaker's blog for step-by-step instructions.

Handprint Art

I've really been into handprint/footprint art lately. It's amazing how many different designs you can make with your child's handprints and footprints. And I LOVE Pinterest, and can spend way too much time browsing all the pins, but I found lots of cute ideas for crafts I can do with my daughter. Handprints are just so cool because they're unique to each person individually. Here are the 3 things I made over the last 2 weeks:

I captured all 3 of us. And G made sure we knew that daddy was blue, mommy was green and she was pink. ;-)

Wood Bar Top

After we purchased our house, the first thing that had to go was this little wall in the kitchen. It really closed off the kitchen from the living room and dining area and we wanted to open it up. The difference it made by knocking out that wall was crazy! Check it out below!

Before

After
Obviously there were other changes between the two pictures as well: paint, a new light fixture over the island, decorations, etc., but what a difference it made knocking out that wall and opening up the kitchen to the rest of the house! Check out the remodel journey for how we achieved this look.