The Tour Part 3: The Play Room/School Room

Welcome to the play room/school room!

What I really love about this room is the way I've finally gotten all of the children's books in one spot. I am working hard to foster a love for reading in my children and I can think of no better way than to surround them with great books.

Even before we had children I was collecting favorites from our childhood to save. Series like Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, Trixie Belden, The Bobbsey Twins, Brains Benton...the list goes on and on.

This room is where we plan to do school when we start back up in the fall. I've picked up these desks here and there and have plans to paint them. I just can't decide on a color. So leave me a comment if you have a thought on that!

This bench/chest was my toy chest when I was little. My dad built it for me and I still love it! It's very versitale and I've used it for all sorts of things. It's getting back to its roots though and is housing toys once again.

Some of those toys are a very random collection of puppets. Do you like puppets? Our kiddos do and Vince is actually pretty great at doing voices for them, too. A couple of Christmases ago he built them their very own puppet theater. For the occasional performance, you know...

Just above the puppet theater is a wall-mounted tv for the kiddos to watch their videos on. Can you tell we are into space-saving ideas around here?!

The last feature of this room is the closet. I put a bookcase inside it and have it stuffed full of games of all kinds.

This is definitely a room that we will be using a lot. It's a small space, but it's being used well.

Thanks for dropping by!

The Making of an Egyptian Death Mask

We are learning all about the ancient world this year with Story of the World I and loving it! We've been learning a lot about Egypt, of course, which is completely fascinating. Most recently we have studied the New Kingdom of Egypt, which includes the story of King Tut. So we decided making an Egyptian death mask in the style of King Tut's would be a fun project. First since it was too cold at the time to paper mache in the garage (it probably would have frozen instead of dried-ha) and it was too messy to do it in the house, we decided to pick up a couple of cheap craft masks at Hobby Lobby. Next we cut out cardboard shapes to complete the shape of the death mask, attaching them with hot glue. Vince even put a little detail on the *beard* with the hot glue per The Princess' request. Then the kiddos started to paint them with this metallic gold tempera paint. It worked okay for the cardboard, but would not coat the plastic of the mask. We thought maybe a second coat ...

Door Hanger Chore Charts

My kids have had a chore chart for a while. It's one of those magnetic boards and they share it. However, it's not by their rooms and often they (and I) forget to update it. Plus it's a little bulky. When I saw the concept of a door hanger chore chart on Pinterest, I loved it! It was compact, right there were the kiddos could see it coming out and going into their rooms, and it costs almost nothing to make. I headed over to one of my favorite stores: Hobby Lobby, of course. They have these little wooden door hangers for .79. I also grabbed a couple of packets of decorative buttons for $1.99 each. I already had the clothes pins and the paint so those cost me nothing. I began by painting the door hangers (I used tempera paints because that's what I had). Then I grabbed a fine point Sharpie and the clothes pins and started writing chores on them, making sure to write them correctly so they will ...

Making Notebooks

Recently I tried out a new craft idea~and it was SO much fun!! And extremely frugal, too. That's always a bonus, right? So here we go: 1. Take your basic composition notebook (purchased at the back-to-school sales for .99 each). 2. Go to your craft supplies and get your Mod Podge ready, along with a good paintbrush. 3. Look through all those scrapbook papers you've been randomly collecting and choose some. 3. After choosing your paper for the cover of your book and trimming it to fit, start *painting* the cover with the glue. Next, give the back of your paper a good coat of glue, too. (I left the binding uncovered so that I could use a contrasting paper there later on). 4. Glue it on! Remember to smooth out any air bubbles under the paper. 5. Flip the cover open and make a few cuts on the corners so that they will fold over nice and neat, then add a little more glue to the edges of the inside cover and a little more to the paper edges. 6. Fold them over and press...

my blessed life

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