4th of July stars for my twinified bottles

Here are the bottles I made recently. I like their natural rusticness, but decided to dress them up for the 4th.

 I'm not in love with them. But they'll stick around for a while. Supplies on hand, about fifteen minutes of my time, worth it. I was thinking something a little more dimensional though, I'll have to work on that.

 I cut the stars on my Cricut, precut slits in the center, added the silver star brads and then used glue dots to attach the white ric-rac.

easy peasy.

Pinwheel wreath

So a few days ago I saw this pinwheel wreath


which I loved.

She used the instructions from Neverland Nook which is where I went too. The pinwheels are super easy to make.

I whipped mine up in about an hour. I used everything I had on hand so it was free (plus I think I got the wreath at The Dollar Tree to begin with).

 I've been putting up some 4th of July/Summer stuff but steered away from the traditional navy blue. I like the more summery aquas and brighter blues. I picked these two scrapbooking papers and I had the silver star brads in my stash. I just used the two colors, instead of three, and folded the pinwheels in different directions so some show the white on the inside and some on the outside.

 Assembling them took some concentration. To make it easier to put my brads through, I used a craft knife to cut slits in the corners and center of each pinwheel so I could feed the brads through.

 Once I had all of my pinwheels made I used hot glue to attach them around the wreath. I personally like the woody vine of the wreath peeking through.

 What do you think!?

Twinify something

I finally finally got around to making some twine wrapped bottles. I love them, the texture is fun and it's a great way to recycle something I already have. Glass bottles and twine on hand = free. My kind of project!

There are tutorials all over the place so I'll spare you the details. Two things I did specifically: I used my trusty glue gun, I'm an instant satisfaction kinda girl, and I figured out that wrapping from the bottle neck to the bottom was easier especially on my bottles that widen so much at the base of the neck.

I unfortunately had pretty crummy twine but I went with it. The fibers aren't wound very tight so after I finished each bottle I had to give them haircuts so there weren't so many strings sticking out.
They look less hairy in person.

I went searching around for some other fun twinifying projects and these are a few of my favorites:


From The Country Chic Cottage



Twine wrapped storage cans from Crafty Chic Mommy




Monograms from McChesney Moments

Technology. Blech!

We are having a minor issue at our house called....the Mac does not take an SD card and we can't find the cord to our camera. So....my camera is currently holding my pictures hostage. 

Not to fear! I finally transfered them off and will have projects to share over the next couple of days.

Yeah!

Free Kindle Books for Kids

Over the past few weeks I've found a few free Kindle books to share with my little ones. While I prefer to just sit down with the real thing, my Kindle has been a life saver in the car a few times and on a recent trip to visit family it was great to be able to pull out my Kindle and share a bedtime story with the boys.

I don't see too many freebies for kids though, especially in the well known titles that all little ones seem to love. I have one gem to share with you though.

I'm a long time follower of 1+1+1=1 homeschool blog and Carisa recently started creating easy readers for kids that can be downloaded onto mobile devices, as well as science based books for topics that coincide with her calendar cards. 

 

These are such great resources I wanted to share them with you.

 

They are perfect for when you're sitting in traffic, at the doctors office, or anytime you need to entertain your littles for a few minutes. Toddlers will enjoy looking at the fun images and early readers can practice sounding out simple words. She has made a few books (We Are Skylanders and others) based on characters per her children's requests, and others (On the Farm) that should interest any little one.

Don't worry, she includes links to instructions for downloading her books onto various devices!

Free Kindle Books

The minute I had my Kindle set up I started looking for ways to find free books, because that's the way I am.You can go onto Amazon's Kindle Store and simply search for "free" and you will get list after list of books that are available, most are free, a few slipped in that aren't.



Amazon does offer hundreds of free Classics which is where I started. There is everything from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland to Dickens.

I've found a couple of good blogs that post daily deals or books that are currently free. Some of the deals are only good for one day but many of them stick around for a while.

Ereader News Today :Tips, Tricks, And Free Ebooks For Your Kindle

 Ereader promotes a book each day including reader reviews and a bit about the author. I follow along for the freebies of course. Generally several times throughout the day a post goes up with 5-8 new free reads. You simply click on the title and you're redirected to Amazon's site where you can download the book with their one click system if your account is set up right.

The majority of the titles are fiction romance, mystery, and horror. Every once in a while there is a gem of a nonfiction title or a children's picture book. I've found many fun fiction books this way.

Pixel of Ink

Similar to Ereader News, Pixel of Ink posts three times a day (morning, afternoon, and evening) with daily freebies, typically 5-8 titles. They also provide links for daily deals, author reviews, and ebook bargains.