earth love: recycled cardboard robots

In celebration of Earth Day we made recycled cardboard robots!

Choose your box from recycled cereal and pasta boxes for the robot body. Turn the boxes inside out and tape or glue together. This way you have a better decorating surface.

Attach arms and legs from recycled toilet paper rolls with glue (we used a hot glue gun).

Cut out egg carton cups for the eyes and nose and glue.

Finally, PAINT! Oh, what fun.

I was inspired by the blog post Recycled Robot Monsters by the totally talented Alisa Burke.

herb garden

I planted 3 herbs this week; Mint, Italian Parsley and Basil. I'm so excited to cook with them! I really hope I can keep them alive and pest free.

national turn off your tv week

This week is National Turn off Your TV Week!

Simple Organic is hosting Make Week, celebrating a week of TV turn-off. Simple Mom wrote a great article on 5 Great Reasons to Not Watch (much) TV.

I’m excited and think we'll all enjoy a week of shutting the TV off and doing something else. We do enjoy TV entertainment however, I will admit that we sometimes have the TV on by default, while eating and some days it does feel like it is our main source of entertainment. *Gasp*

Personally, I am not a huge fan of TV. It wasn't all that important in my house growing up. I don't enjoy the sound of TV in the background (hearing people talk irritates me), I do enjoy music and I LOVE the sound of silence. Even better I love when it's so quite in the house you can hear outside sounds like birds, trees, wind.

I am looking forward to shutting off, the rest of the family ... well ... just have to see how that goes. I did make sure to talk about it over the weekend quite a bit so it's not a shock to their system and I have activities in mind to do instead like picnic dinners, gardening, board games, art & crafts, story time and imaginative play. Fun!

I encourage you to take part this week, keep your television turned off and do something else. If you do let me know! Do you think your family would happily accept the challenge of a week without TV?

Update: We made it through 2 days with a few minor protests. Bert had the hardest time with this "experiment" with Ethan a close second. Instead of watching TV we went to the gym, built a fort/tent, played board games, created recycled robots and read books. in my opinion, it was a lovely 2 days!

earth love: recycled organizer

I had yet to reuse cardboard grocery containers into something new ... until now :) To kick off the weekend I showed the earth a little love by recycling magazine pages and a cardboard container into a recycled organizer for my desk.

I have had this issue of Deliver magazine sitting around in my "save for a project" bin for years. This issue is all about thinking green, the ideas and graphics inside were worth holding onto. The cover is such fun I knew I would want to use it for something one day. My kids are kinda hooked on peanut butter crackers right now and I just realized that it is the perfect size and shape to organize all the little tidbits around the house, office and studio ... ahh organizing, one of my other favorite pastimes ... this project was a match made in heaven!

Simply cut out the magazine pages you would like to use. Wrap the cardboard container in the paper and use a glue stick or double sided tape to adhere. Viola! A neat little organizing basket.

happy earth day!

Happy Earth Day!

On April 22, 1970, the first Earth Day was held. People all over the country made promises to help the environment. Everyone got involved and since then, Earth Day has spread all over the planet. This year is Earth days 40th anniversary!

We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children. ~ Native American Proverb

We are laying low tonight, I have a couple of earth love books to read to the boys and we'll take a little outdoor nature walk and may be a good night to finally watch Food, Inc. Please give mother Earth a little love today and always.

art fest in cave creek

Last month Bert & I drove up to Cave Creek, Arizona to visit our friends Mark and Carla of Black Mountain Jewelry. It was really nice to see them and all the wonderful jewelry creations they have been working on. Mother's Day is right around the corner and our friends at Black Mountain Jewelry create beautiful custom birthstone jewelry. I am the proud owner of a peridot Tree of Life Ring and we gifted my mom a Tree of Life Necklace which she LOVES.

It was also nice to be in the Cave Creek area. I think it has been well over 3 years since we ventured there and I remembered why I loved it so much. It's very much an artist retreat. Many of the artists at ArtFest lived in the area. They have tons of shopping from one of a kind boutique and antique shops and many many restaurants to choose from ... like Big Earls' Greasy Eats!

painting in progress, scooby

Scooby 3-5-10

Hudson joined me for a few minutes during this painting session :)

monthly goal meetup

I am so behind on all my little projects. 2 weeks away can really throw things out of whack ;) It's a new month which means it's time for the monthly goal Meet Up at Athena Dreams. The Meet Up is a monthly goal sharing group.

Here were my March goals ...

1. add magnets to etsy shop - made 50 magnets and sold them all while away! Now I need to make more for my etsy shop.
   
2. finish 3 wedding invitation suites - 1 down 2 to go. All will be wrapped up and sent for printing by the end of this weekend.
   
3. continue 1 web site freelance project - in progress
   
4. buy art materials for new products: chain and pendants - chain bought still need some new pendants
   
5. scooby painting (my first ever pet portrait painting) - in progress
   
6. get to the gym 3-4x a week and get moving in some way the other days - oh boy. Definitely slacked on this one. Keeping this on the list!
   

And here we go into April...

1. add magnets to etsy shop
2. create & package up 50 magnets for communion favors
   
3. continue web site freelance project
4. buy art materials for new products: copper pendants
5. scooby painting (my first ever pet portrait painting)
   
6. get to the gym 3-4x a week and get moving in some way the other days
   

Wishing everyone a creative and productive month!

The shortest distance between two people is a smile

It's been 5 days since we got back home and I am still pretty darn sad. I seem to be in a grieving period over the loss of our family as we settle back into life as we know it. To work through it I took a walk yesterday and took pictures of the beautiful desert in bloom. It's a gorgeous time of year here and definitely something to enjoy and savor. This short walk put in a much happier mood.



When I woke up today the sadness had crept back in. I cleaned and ironed and showered and cried. Then the universe stepped in at lunch. My lunchtime fortune cookie today said "The shortest distance between two people is a smile".

I took that as a message saying that our family and friends are only as near or far as we make it out to be. We have many ways of staying in touch and involved in each others lives. I do feel deep down though that as life continues I am becoming more and more convinced that we need to be closer to family then we are right now. As the saying goes "only time will tell".

missing home

We're back from a long and action packed family trip to our hometown in New York. We had a bit of wonder and many fun adventures with friends and family while we were there. I am having a hard time adjusting back into the real world and feeling pretty homesick right about now. Definitely more so then usual. Being a family of four traveling across the country, we aren't able to visit as often as we'd like. It had been 1 year and 7 months since we had last been to visit. That is really far too long and I fear it may be that long before we go again. And that has me feeling blue. I'm slowly unpacking and getting everything back in place and hope to feel a bit less blue in the process.