valentines day – Our Beautifully Messy House

Ice Cube Heart Garland

January 26, 2016January 26, 2016 Porter Leave a comment

I don’t know why I never thought of this project until now, but an Ice Cube Heart Garland is perfect for this time of year! It takes about 5 minutes to make and costs nearly nothing! If you live up north where temps are below freezing consistently in the winter months, Ice Cube Garlands would be beautiful hanging everywhere! You could make other shapes too! Along with our garland, we also made some individual Ice Cube Hearts (more like ornaments)…the week of Valentine’s Day, the girls and I plan on making dozens of these to hang off of trees all over town. Such a sweet, little heart surprise!

Materials needed:

silicone heart molds
food coloring
water
string
scissors
a tray or cardboard that will fit in your freezer

First, place your silicone heart molds on your tray or cardboard piece. (It’s a tricky mess if you do it after the water is poured, like I did the first time!) Next, put about 10 drops of food coloring into a measuring cup and fill with water.

Pour the water into the heart molds.

Now, cut a string long enough for your garland and/or some smaller pieces for ornaments. Using your fingers, press the string into the heart molds. Make sure you leave 4-5 inches of string between each heart.

To make the ornaments, just press both ends of your string into the mold filled with water. The center 2 hearts are ornaments in the pictures above and below. You can see the shorter loops of string.

Next, place the tray with your heart molds into the freezer for a couple hours until they’re completely frozen.

Carefully pop your ice cube hearts out of the molds.

Now for the fun part…find a place outside to display and enjoy your Icy Hearts! So sweet!

DIY Chocolate Orange Sugar Scrub

February 15, 2015September 26, 2015 Porter Leave a comment

As we move towards Spring, I keep thinking of citrus, lemon-blueberry muffins, lemonade and sunshine! Unfortunately though, we’re not quite there yet…wind chills today in the negative digits! I think it was 4 degrees out when we woke up this morning! Brrr… And let me tell you, this cold weather is not helping the chocolate addiction I acquired over the holidays. So with all that stirring around inside of me, I dreamed up this CHOCOLATE ORANGE SUGAR SCRUB and it is divine!!! Just what I needed today! This would be great to use in the bath or shower!

Ingredients:

1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 Tbsp cocoa powder
3 Tbsp olive oil (almond oil or coconut oil)
~15 drops (1/2 tsp) Sweet Orange oil
1-2 tsp orange zest (optional)

First, mix together the sugars with a fork. If your brown sugar is clumpy, try to mix until most of the clumps are gone.

Mix in the 2 Tbsp of cocoa powder.

Next, stir in the olive oil one Tbsp at a time. Some olive oils are pretty potent…if you have almond or coconut oil on hand you can certainly substitute that for the olive oil. I’m all about using what I already have though…and it turned out great!

Once the olive oil is added, stir in some Sweet Orange Oil. (I found mine in the organics section of our grocery store.) To really bring the aroma up a notch, add about 2 tsp of orange zest to the scrub! Now it is certainly good enough to eat, but even better to exfoliate your skin with in the bathtub! The sugars will scrub away any dry, dead skin and the oil will leave you with just the right amount of moisture.

Spoon your concoction into 2 jars…one for you and one for a friend! Enjoy!!!

DIY Cereal Bird Feeder

February 4, 2015September 26, 2015 Porter Leave a comment

Being that February is National Bird-Feeding Month, I thought we’d make and share a few homemade, bird feeders with you over the next few weeks! This DIY CEREAL BIRD FEEDER may be the quickest and easiest one to make! I remember making similar ones when I was in grade school. So cute!

Materials needed:

pipe cleaners (or other thin wire)
O-shaped cereal (non-sugary)
ribbon

First, bend the wire in half gently, making a V-shape.

Have your little ones string the cereal onto the wire, as you would with beads. Leave about 1/2 – 1 inch of the wire showing at the ends.

Twist the ends together and shape into a heart.

Tie some ribbon in the middle of your bird feeders and hang them outside for the birds!

Notice the hearts are rather light, so hang them up in a bush or against a tree trunk…someplace protected from the wind. Enjoy!

Check out our DIY TIN CAN BIRD FEEDER as well!

It’s Tea Time!!! Tea Party Ideas

February 1, 2015September 26, 2015 Porter Leave a comment

Over at Our Beautifully Messy House, we love a good TEA PARTY! We have breakfast tea parties and mid-afternoon tea parties, tea parties in a teepee outside, and tea parties on the kitchen floor! We have tea parties with friends and tea parties with fairies! There is only one rule in our house when it comes to having a tea party: Everyone must wear a hat! It doesn’t matter if you are still wearing your pajamas, everybody starts the tea party with a hat!

If you’re planning ahead, you can make some “Floppy Newspaper Hats” for tea time! (DIY here.)

Tea Ideas

Obviously you can steep any flavor of tea, but with little kids you may want to get creative! Sometimes I pour L half a cup of Blueberry Wild Child Tea, fill the rest with milk and she drinks it out of her fancy tea cup with a straw. Anything goes! Kids can drink water, milk, juice mixed with water, or hot chocolate…if it’s in a tea cup, it’s tea!

Tea Cups

Tea cups don’t have to be fancy, but fancy is fun! The best place to find tea cups is at antique stores, yard sales and flea markets. Such places are filled with tea pots and cups and, at only a couple of dollars a piece, it’s no big deal if one breaks.

Tea Party Treats

For breakfast tea parties, we make PANCAKE SANDWICHES with cream cheese and strawberry jam layered in-between two pancakes. To make them extra fancy, cut the pancakes with a heart cookie cutter and let the red, strawberry jam shine through!

These Strawberry Jam Scones are perfect for tea time! Get the recipe here.

No-Bake Acorn Treats are fun and yummy for your tea party outdoors! Get the quick and easy how-to here.

If you’re just throwing together a tea party last minute, anything will do…a granola bar cut into bites, muffins, a bowl of popcorn. Your kids will love it!

A Tea Party for Fairies

If you don’t have fairies and fairy furniture, you can easily make some!

DIY Fairy Folk

DIY Fairy Furniture

Acorn Cap Treasures (aka Fairy Hats!)

Use cheerios to make FAIRY DONUTS. If you have a microwave, simply place one chocolate chip on top of a cheerio and zap it for a few seconds. Top with mini-sprinkles! We don’t have a microwave and melted the chocolate chips in a double-broiler on the stove-top and it worked just as well! For powdered fairy donuts, dip the cheerios in some maple syrup and then toss around in some powdered sugar. Silly, sweet, and so much fun!!!

If you don’t have a mini-tea set, you can use buttons for fairy plates and thimbles for the tea cups. Have the tea party on top of a box or a colorful pillow!

Please don’t think that if you have little boys that they can’t partake in your tea party fun! Everybody loves a party and if you must, call it a “picnic!” Enjoy!!!

20 Non-Candy Valentine Ideas!

January 25, 2015January 15, 2016 Porter Leave a comment

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner…time to spread a little love and happiness! Instead of giving out candy this year, why not make some NON-CANDY VALENTINES for friends and loved ones? Here are a few ideas for your kids’ friends and for yours…you may even want to make a “Thumbprint Necklace” for yourself! Most of these are really quick and easy to make too! Enjoy!!!

Just click on the link under each picture for the “how-to!”

For kids:

Homemade Sidewalk Chalk

Hidden Fairy Bath Bombs

DIY Pocket Parachutes

Fairy Folk

Sock Puppets

Melted Crayon Stones…Love Rocks!

Craft Stick Fairy Doors

Scented Play Dough

Story Stones

DIY Capes…Wizard Capes…Superhero Capes

Sensory Bottles, Sparkle Bottles, Glow-in-the-Dark Bottles, and an Ocean in a Bottle!

DIY Flower Fairies

Doorknob Mushroom-Fairy Houses

For adults:

Thumbprint Necklace

DIY Chocolate Orange Sugar Scrub

Semisoft Honeysuckle Soap

Heart Wreath

Strawberry Jam Scones

Cardboard Heart Stamps

Melted Crayon Art with Variations

Melted Crayon Rocks

January 22, 2015November 3, 2015 Porter Leave a comment

I remember doing this craft as a kid and how much I loved it, so today I introduced MELTED CRAYON ROCKS to L. And of course, she loved making them as well!!! It was the perfect way to spend this snowy afternoon!

This is definitely a craft to do with older kids, as the rocks get extremely hot! L was just old enough at 3 yrs of age. I constantly reminded her not to touch the rocks and kept a close eye at all times!

Materials needed:

rocks
crayons
tin foil
towels, cardboard, or newspapers
oven mitt or tongs
oven

First, clean and dry the rocks if there’s any dirt on them. Lay them out on a cookie sheet and place in the oven, set at 350 degrees F for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes I turned the oven off, leaving the rocks in there until we were ready to use them. I removed one rock at a time as we went along.

As the rocks are heating up, remove the paper from some crayons. If you use a knife to carefully cut down the side of the paper, it comes off in one nice, big piece. Prepare your work area with towels, cardboard or newspapers beneath a sheet of tin foil.

When you are ready to create, remove one rock at a time using an oven mitt or tongs. Obviously, be very careful…you don’t want to burn yourself or have the rock fall, roll and burn anyone else.

Gently press crayons onto the rock and watch the wax melt down the side. Sooo relaxing and mesmerizing!!! You can draw pictures, designs or make them completely random! It’s a fun craft to experiment with!

MELTED CRAYON ROCKS would make sweet little gifts for family and friends…a fun surprise to leave in your neighbor’s garden or on their front steps! I think we’ll be making more this coming month to hand out on Valentine’s Day, because LOVE ROCKS!!! Enjoy!!!

DIY Heart Wreath

January 14, 2015January 12, 2016 Porter Leave a comment

I’m so glad I dreamt this HEART WREATH up last night…it’s that time of year when your Christmas wreath needs to come down off the front door, but it’s not quite time for your Spring wreath to go up. This HEART WREATH is cute, simple, sweet and perfect to get us through the months of January and February!

Materials needed:

wire coat hanger
fabric scraps
scissors
pliers
ribbon

First, untwist the coat hanger apart. It’s easiest to do this part with your hands, holding the top of the hanger in one hand and untwisting it from below with the other.

Once the hanger comes apart, try to smooth out some of the bends. Gently fold the hanger in half as well.

Next, bend the hanger into a heart shape, looping the ends together with the pliers. It’s okay if your heart isn’t perfect…the fabric scraps will hide any blemishes.

Once you are satisfied with your wire heart, it’s time to cut some fabric strips. Each strip should be about 1-1.5 inches wide and 5-7 inches long. They do not all have to be the exact same length!

Now to assemble your wreath…simply knot the fabric strips around the wire. Pull each knot taut and, every once in a while, push the knots down so you can squeeze on as many fabric strips as possible.

If the fabric you’re using is blank on the underside, simply fold it in half before knotting.

Once your heart wreath is made, use a ribbon to hang it on your front door! So sweet!!!

This wreath would also be beautiful hanging inside in a kitchen window or on a wall! Enjoy!!! Happy Valentine’s Day!