Where We Are

Dress-up area on a budget

The kids have recently gotten into dress-up, and in a big way. Maybe they would have done so earlier except that all the dress-up clothes were stuck in a plastic bin in the closet. They had to ask for help if they ever wanted to play with them. My first move to encourage this kind of imaginative play was to make a space out in the room for the bin- the big, green, ugly plastic bin. Yes, this was frustrating for me. I started dreaming about beautiful dress-up areas and all that could be done if I had a budget of more than ten dollars. Which I didn't. So here is what I came up with.

I spent about $9 at Target for some red hangers,  moved the musical instruments out of the basket for playsilks., and emptied my old rollerskate box for crowns, masks, hats, wands, etc. My next move will be to figure out how to hang a mirror (that I found in our basement) on the wall so that the kids can enjoy what they have come up with.

I would love to see what other people have done to make dress-up accessible... send me your photos!!

After-dinner chips

Our bedtime routine has been a work-in-progress for quite a while, and it probably always will be! With this proect, I have combined my love of organization and craft to create something that will hopefully help our family navigate those (sometimes very trying) evening hours.

For now, I am calling them after-dinner chips. The idea is that after dinner and before bath, we will now have a designated time for a family activity. Feel free to give me other name ideas as this has never been my forte'.

Eventually, I will put up a real tutorial, but basically all I did was cut out pieces of decorative craft paper and use mod podge to adhere them to some 1 1/2 inch wood discs. Then I printed out our activities and adhered them to the other side of the discs. A very simple project!