Awe!! My very 1st Blog Award!

I just received the "One Lovely Blog Award" from
Life With The Lebedas! 

You are so amazingly sweet for thinking of me and for helping me so much with all my questions!

Here are the rules to accept the award....

1. Post it on your blog with the name of the person who has granted the award and his or her blog link.

2. Pay it forward to 5 other bloggers that you have newly discovered.

3. Contact those blog owners and let them know they have been chosen.

1. Everyday is a Crafting Day

2. Homemaker

3. Support Blog For Moms of Boys

4. A Whisk and a Prayer

5. Make It and Love It

Easy Peasy Halloween Picture Frame & My 1st Give-away!

While looking at different Halloween craft ideas last week, I ran across a great blog called Random Thoughts of a Supermom!   (Be sure to stop by - she's got LOTS of great stuff on there!)  She did the cutest Halloween Picture frame that I just HAD to try to re-create with my boys!  Below are some instructions and pictures in case you want to make some yourself!

You'll need:

Wooden picture frame

Spray paint

Hot glue gun & maybe mod podge or craft glue

Stickers, ribbons, etc to embellish

The 1st step is to spray paint the frames.  This will take 2-3 good coats, front and back.

The 2nd step is to find some super cute little hands to help hold things in place while the glue dries!  My boys loved picking out all the little embellishments for their own frames.

For mine, I also added some contrasting ribbon around the sides.

Those are the three awesome frames that my boys did.  

(That last picture makes me giggle every time I see it!)

And these last two are the ones I did!

Now it's time for the Give Away!

The prize will be your choice of the above picture frames 

that I made - sorry gotta keep the ones my babies did!  You 

will also receive an assortment of fall goodies - 

a cute surprise that I'm SURE will make you smile!

How To Enter:

MANDATORY 1st ENTRY:

Follow my blog (& leave a comment telling me so)

ADDITIONAL ENTRIES: 

(Do as many of these as you like, for one additional entry each)

Follow me on Twitter (& leave a comment telling me so)

Visit Random Thoughts of a Super Mom & leave her a nice comment 

(comment here telling me so)

Follow me on Facebook (& leave me a comment telling me so)

Grab my button and comment back, telling me where to find it

Give Away Ends 10/1/10.

Winner will be chosen by Random.org

A Friday Funny

So this little guy is 2.  VERY 2, in fact.  He's doing everything that's all the rage among his age group: tantrums, crying over nothing to get big brothers in trouble, and mood swings like a hormonal teenage girl!  But he also has a very sweet, cuddly, 100% mama's boy side, too.  

Today, he's been pulling out old pictures and asking where he was.  I was pregnant in some, so I told him he was in my tummy.  He went off the deep end.  In an instant he was screaming at me that I was NOT nice and you DON'T put kids in your tummy.  I am never ever supposed to do that again! lol  What's even funnier to me is that this is not the first time he's lectured me about putting him in my tummy. 

Now that he's calm again, I think it's time for some cuddle time on the couch! 

My SpOoKy Mantle

If you've been checking out any blogs at all lately, you are seeing TONS of great decorating ideas for fall.  I adore this time of year, but I've never really decorated for it.  I'm totally inspired this year, though.  

This is what I've done with my mantle so far!  

Headstone, blackbird, gray material & skull are from the dollar store - great finds!

See that tiny pumpkin?  It came in a bag of miniature gourds for a buck!  I spray painted it with Krylon Champagne Nouveau in a satin finish.

I spray painted a pie pumpkin with a black gloss spray paint.  I thought it needed a little something extra so I did a VERY light spray of the Krylon Champagne paint (in the wind, no less).  It gives it a nice sheen.

As I do little projects I'll make sure to show them to you all here!  

If you've got pictures of projects you've done, I'd love to see them!

I'm linked up here:

AndThe Stories of A to ZAnd Debbiedoos

Spider T-shirt Tutorial

Spider Handprint T-shirt

While looking through sites today for Halloween crafts, I came across www.allfreecrafts.com.

They had a craft idea that inspired me.

  

I changed it just a little bit - made it not so...cutsie.  And my boys helped me make a custom Halloween T-shirt!

You will need:

Newspaper

Paint & brushes (I used whatever craft paint I had)

T-shirt (I had an old orange shirt with a splotch of paint in my scrap pile!)

And kids' hands!

First, prep the area with newspaper or a drop cloth!  

Next, put cardboard or newspaper inside the shirt so the paint won't run through.

 

See the old paint?!  We'll cover that in just a sec...

Paint a little hand with black paint - don't paint the thumb!

(5 year old hands work great for this)

Press firmly and lift straight up.

Paint the hand again, turn other direction and press again.

I repeated the process with an even smaller little hand (from my 2 year old)

Add details - spooky green eyes and shiny fangs were our choice.  

Maybe you'll add googly or button eyes?  Shimmery embroidery thread for the web?

I'd love to see other Spider Handprint T-shirts!  

If you make one, please share a link or pictures!

I'm linking up at:

Space Fun!

As a mom, I'm always trying to find fun things to do with my boys.  I've found that if you don't keep them busy, they will keep you busy - by cleaning up their messes and breaking up fights!!!  When we moved to the Houston area, I knew immediately that I wanted to take the family to Space Center Houston.  Sure, it's kind of cliche and touristy.  But you know, there is usually a reason tourists flock to a place.  And the reason they flock to Space Center Houston is for fun and a bit of education!  For our family of five (2 yr old was free!), we paid just over $50 for admission.  I didn't think that was too bad at all.  Actually, if you go on their website, you can save quite a bit off of each ticket!

While there, you'll see tons of hands on exhibits like the flight simulators that allow you to try your hand at landing a shuttle.  There are robots you can control, a tram tour of the training facilities and mission control, as well as a great indoor playground area.  I'll be honest - my husband and I even got inside the giant playground and had a good time! 

If the fam gets hungry, Space Center does have a food court with a large variety to choose from.  I have to warn you, though that meals are pricey!  For grilled cheese sandwiches and chips we spent $50! Yikes!  But, the food was good.  With the relatively low cost of admission, the cost of food isn't a deal breaker for us - I just wish we'd had some warning ahead of time.

I think we'll definitely be visiting again soon - maybe when the Lego exhibit opens!

I was in no way compensated for my views or experiences at Space Center Houston.  I received no monetary or physical gifts, promotions, tickets or prizes for this post.  I am in no way affiliated with Space Center Houston.  My opinion is strictly mine and mine alone.

Halloween Fun!

I'm always on the look out for holiday crafts I can do with my boys.  In my search I ran across this:

How CUTE is that?!  Well, as cute as bats can be, I guess.  You can find the tutorial here on Tatertots & Jello, which by the way is an awesome blog!  You'll want to spend some time on there - there are tons of great projects!

Are your kids looking for some spooky treats after school?  I can't wait to see my boys' faces when they find these Apple Bites from Family Fun Magazine on their plate!  

Don't worry - as I find more crafts, food, and Fall fun, I'll be sure to post about it here!

For the luv of boys...

Welcome!  Thank you for taking the time to visit.  Come back soon to see all sorts of things related to one of my favorite topics: boys!  I'll have tutorials and inspiration for crafts, games and activities, products your boys may like, events and things to do... the list goes on and on.


The reason I created this blog is that while I LOVE to craft, I find that most ideas I see online are so... girly!  Oh, I admit: I'd love to have a girly house.  Sitting areas filled with beautiful furniture, accented with frilly pillows.  Scrapbooks filled with hues of pinks, purples, and yellows with cute paper flowers and butterflies.  Maybe a tiny table perfectly set with a delicate tea set and the cutest hand sewn play food ever.  BUT in reality, that stuff wouldn't last 30 minutes in my house!  Testosterone reigns here.  So while I want to spend my little bit of free time sewing and doing crafts, I'm having a hard time finding websites and blogs that cater to me!  I hope that in the near future I can provide what's lacking on the web - ideas for moms of boys.


Please feel free to contact me if you have ideas, suggestions or comments!