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If you’ve ever bought any plants for you yard then you probably have a few of these not so attractive black pots stored somewhere in your home.  (You may also have an adorable, although very loud, stubborn and moody toddler, if you do, this post will not help you with that.)

But, if you’re like me, then you have dozens of them (the pots, not toddlers) floating around your garage, shed, basement and attic just waiting to be used because they’re pots and they must be useful for something.  Right?  So you keep them, indefinitely, and you accept more of them from friends and family, who know you like plants, because they can’t bear to throw them out either, but unlike you and me, they don’t want them cluttering up their house. 

Meanwhile you go out and buy similar pots because they’re prettier colors.

Enter the always useful can of spray paint.  You have your choice of any color, and one $4 can will cover a dozen or more pots depending on their size. 

We’ve previously done pink and blue pots for the twins to each have their own flowers, but this year I went bland and got a terra cotta color to match my other pots.

Oh, and one last thought, as far as paint durablity goes, we’ve found that most of our pots look nice for about 3 years before we have to repaint them.

She opens her mouth with wisdom,

and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.

She looks well to the ways of her household,

and does not eat the bread of idleness.

Her children rise up and call her blessed;

her husband also, and he praises her:

“Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all.”

Proverbs 31: 26-29

Rejoice in the Lord….

For the word of the Lord is upright

and all his work is done in faithfulness.

He loves righteousness and justice;

the earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord.

Psalm 33:1, 4-5

I’m so excited.  We got our Christmas cards done early this year.

They’re not mailed yet, so there’s still no guarantee that I’ll get them out early, but I figure I at least have a good shot at them arriving at people’s home before New Years this year. 

For these cards we decided to raid the fabric scrap bag.  You’ll notice we used all types of fabric, not just Christmas themes.  There’s some from dresses I made the girls, as well as fabric from an old shirt that added a little variety.

This was a simple card that all three kids could help to make.

The twins cut the fabric triangles and Alexandra (who is two) was able to help mod podge the ‘trees’ on the card.  Then we used fabric paints to outline the trees and for the stars.

We picked a bible passage for the saying inside and printed it out on some name badge labels I had laying around (8 per sheet), and the kids stuck them inside the cards.

If you’d like to see last years stained glass church cards made from recycled crayon the post is here.

We needed wastebaskets for two rooms in the house.
So I priced them, and I guess it had been a while since I bought a garbage can, because they seemed a bit expensive for a container that was going to hold some trash.

Looking around the house I noticed we had alot of containers that would work as wastecans they just needed to be dressed up.

**  5 Gallon Buckets (less than $3 at the local home improvement store if you don’t have one on hand)

**  Food Buckets.  Buckets that large amounts of food come in that they use at any place they serve lots of food and they usually throw the empty containers away. (Ask around if you know anyone who would have access to some…we have a cousin who works at a nursing home and can get dozens.)

**  Large Plant Containers that Shrubs or trees come in from a nursery. (they are usually black)

For the ‘makeovers’ we just used some spray paint, ribbon, fabric modge podge and upcycled princess wrapping paper (because Makenna strongly believes in the theory that there is nothing that can’t be made prettier with the addition of princesses.  (see the tissue box here))

These were so quick and easy (and free!) to make that now we’re going to make more just to fancy up some other rooms in our house.

What a little modge podge and some fabric scraps can do for a few things out of the recycle bin.

These two vases and 4 napkins rings used to look like this.

It makes me wish I used cloth napkins and napkin rings more often…ok, never, but I may have to start because I just love these.

I like the idea of making them for holidays.  Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas…

As for directions.  We just cut the tubes into 2 inch sections and cut the tall vase as tall as we wanted it to be (in the case of the plastic bottle).  For the vase shown below we used a glass olive jar.   Next we cut the fabric to fit.  We spread on some modge podge and applied the fabric.  Once they dried we ‘gussied’ them up a bit with the extra little fabric tie.

If you want to see a live demonstration of how to make these, the kids will be at the Allentown Fair this weekend showing you just what to do.  So dig into your recycle bin, grab your modge podge and lets go.

My mom finally put up the pool I got for my First birthday.  Now I’m not real good at math yet, since I just turned 2 in June, but I’m thinking it took her a bit long to put it up for me.

It was lots of fun, kinda like a big see through tub with fishes on the sides.

Hopefully I get to go in it every day.  It’s really been hot out.

And daddy came home from work just in time to help me dry off.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”  Jeremiah 29:11

I’m reading a book by Zig Ziglar that I had setting on my shelf for at least a year.  Why I didn’t start it sooner falls into the myriad of excuses; we were moving, taking care of two houses, family health issues, blah blah blah.  My bible still gets read each morning, but I certainly can use any other help I can get.

The book is ‘Get Motivated.  Better than Good.  Creating a Life you can’t wait to live’ by Zig Ziglar.   Sounds good, huh?  Who doesn’t want a life that you can’t wait to live? 

I’m about halfway through now, and I think I have to read it again and again so it sinks in and I really practice what Zig talks about.   

I especially like this quote so far. 

“..fear and faith have something in common: each expects something to happen in the future.  We just don’t know what it is.  What we do know is that what you expect is what is likely to happen.” 

What a concept.  If I can just practice having more faith whenever fear pops into my head I’d never worry about anything.

Now I’m not a prude or anything, but I’m not sure that the Halloween groom and headless bride should be up at the front of the store right next to the only check out line that is open.

I might point out they were a good deal on sale, and very real looking, so if I didn’t have 7 year olds that may have had nightmares for weeks had they been along, I may have liked them.

However, since there was only one register open, I found my cart, with my 16 month old in it parked directly next to a life size, very real looking bride figurine that was holding its head in it’s hands. Alex just kinda stared at it, no doubt wondering why this woman had her head in the wrong place.   Luckily they weren’t talking or moving at the time, or I may have been freaked out.

So I’m just saying, I really like Michaels Crafts stores, and shop there often, but could we please keep these things in their own separate aisle so I can avoid them with my little darlings.  Thanks.

Welcome! 

Thanks for visiting Kidoozy.com and checking out the Blog.  Please check back in the next day or two for my first posts and for some fun and interesting discussion about kids creating their world.

Thanks,

Diane