merry cactus

making panda badges (patterns here!)

best friends forever

I made a tutorial for this fun little activity book over on Whip Up.  Go check it out!

More tutorials HERE.

Thanks for stopping!!

My e-course ended today and I am doing a bit of veggin’ out.

I painted with the kids and watched some Ally McBeal on Netflix.  That show cracks me up!  I remember watching it in college with my best friend who lived down the hall in married housing.  It was our favorite night of the week.  We’d kick out the hubbies and munch on popcorn. Good times, good times.

I promised my guys I’d share their works of art, so here they are.

Happy Wednesday!

Harry Potter Peggy

It has been Harry Potter mania, in this house, for the last 7 days.  One Harry Potter movie a night. My little one is a bit too young to see all but 1-3, so he happily plays in his room while his older brother and I indulge in popcorn and butter beer and watch.

I solemnly swear that I am up to no good & mischief managed t-shirts

It all started my first year out of nursing school, 12 years ago, when I read the first Harry Potter book.  Oh, how I wished these books were around when I was young. It was but a dream that my future children read these books and love them as much as me, and it really has been a dream come true.  I’ve been able to see first hand how these books can make a young child into an avid reader, my oldest having read the series 7 times before turning 10.  And now my youngest cuddling with me before bedtime to read the first book.  It’s how it all begins. A deep and true love for the magical and amazing world of Harry Potter.

So we saw the final movie today and it was everything we had hoped it would be.  I’m sad to see it all end, but happy to know that this story has longevity to last forever.

Some fun HP links:

HP puppet sticks, wands,  Dumbledore’s Vegan Army, butterbeer, HP stuff on One Pretty Thing and my HP pinterest collection

I had thought I would go to the botanical garden early this am, all by myself.  I imagined myself  quietly walking through the garden with my camera in hand, taking my time, or not. But two little guys caught wind of this and wanted to go too.  At first I resisted, worried that I wouldn’t get the time I needed to take pictures and chill out, but it’s rare that they want to do something like this. So water bottles and snacks were prepared.  Hats and sunscreen on, and off we went.

We actually had a splendid time. My guys were on there best behavior,despite the heat. Not one complaint. We arrived at 0830 ( would have been earlier, had they been open) and by 9 it was already 92 degrees. Didn’t stop us though.  We stayed until 10 then headed to the air conditioned gift shop and lobby for a glorious 20 minutes of cooling off.

And look! Clouds!!!  As I write this (at 1030 pm) it’s actually raining!  With lightening and thunder too. YAY!

The kids were complaining this morning that there was absolutely NOTHING to do.  So, I pulled out some sheets of poly-shrink, which I had hidden away for the perfect moment.  They balked at me, rolled their eyes, but I ignored it and preceded to sit down with some gel pens and prisma colored pencils, and I began to draw. Within just a few minutes they were drawing too.

The exciting part came when we put them in the oven.  So exciting to see them move, curl, shrink and become flat again.  It was extra exciting when one of then popped off the cardboard onto the bottom of the oven~OY! That meant me trying to scoop it up with knife before it completely melted to the bottom. It also meant me getting 4 little burns on my arm and knuckles.  Ah, well.

They turned out great, but we forgot to put little holes in them. I think my little rotary tool will do the trick though. I made the mandala and the flower scene.  The colored pencils work really great for this.

24 bracelets went in the mail on Saturday for Craft Hope’s Project 12: Orphan Outreach in Russia. I thought this would be fun for the kids to help me with, but they did about 10 beads and jumped ship.  My mom and sis helped make some of them when I was visiting them last weekend and then I finished some while watching movies. I had hoped to make 50 but time just ran out.

Lots of simple beads on elastic  cord with a few paper bead, that I made ages ago, thrown in for fun.

I love projects like these. They make for an important conversion starter for your kids. Even though they didn’t participate much in the making of these bracelets, my kids were excited to think that another child would be able to get a small, bright and cheerful little gift.

Untitled from Regina Lord on Vimeo.

Another video, this time, made by my amazing little big 9 year old.  He has our old (and almost broken) camera and he makes these really cute videos using lego characters and lego pieces.  He completely amazes me.  Not sure how he came up with ‘Flyguy’ though.

We are using Vimeo this time, because YouTube is a little scary and I don’t feel safe having him there. So we are trying Vimeo.  There is also the whole music issue of being allowed to use it. I see nothing wrong with using a little snippet of popular music, but maybe I’m looking at it all wrong. Anyway,  ‘People are People’ is Flyguy’s new favorite song, so I had to use it and we just happen to have loads of Depeche Mode (I am a child of the ’80s after all).

He also made this cool dragon drawing with gel pens that we scanned. I did some digital clean up on the background because he made this on scrap paper that had writing on the other side.

We are heading out of town for the weekend and for cooler weather.

Hope yours is lovely!

We celebrated my littlest guy’s birthday this week. He had chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast and went to school. I made a 6 year badge and crown, per request.

We joined him later at school for his birthday ceremony which involved him carrying the earth and walking  around the sun 6 times to represent each year of his life. He stopped at me each time around and I shared something about his life to the class.  It was all so perfectly sweet and his classmates were completely joyous about the special occasion.

Then we came home to presents and dinner out, where an opera singer sang to I-guy in Italian. That was pretty hilarious and kinda uncomfortable at the same time.  Then home for delicious vegan cupcakes and playtime with new gifts.  He asked for art stuff, so he received a carrying case full of creative items.  The kid is mine, yes he is!

Yesterday was my 39th birthday. I had to work, but it was okay because I love my job and the people I work with.

I did come home to some awesome presents (that I will share later), dinner out with the family, and a big beauutiful chocolate cake.  Mr. Kismet made it, a tradition, and although he said the process was bit crazy (wish he had video taped this),  it ended up looking great and tasting awesome!  He says that he was going for a spackled frosting look. HA!

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So to celebrate my birthday, I’m having a HUGE ‘Happy Birthday to Me’ sale in my shop.  39% OFF(!!!) Just use coupon code HAPPYBDAY.  Sale is for today and tomorrow only.

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