You Are Not Your Things- Minimalism

Becoming a minimalist wasn't something that was planned. There were many different factors that pushed my family into choosing to be minimalists.

The biggest part of that decision was realizing that the things that we had were not making us happy. It made us stop and think about what does make us happy.

What makes you happy? Cleaning? Organizing? Rearranging? Shopping? I'm sure you only said yes to one of those, and if you really think about it, it doesn't make you happy. It gives you something to do, but when you get all that stuff home, what do you do with it? Do you use it or does it get stored with the other stuff that you don't use?

I used to have a huge collection of Owls.

This wasn't even all of the owls I had at one point. Everyone kept buying me owls, like that was the only thing about me. That was who I became. When it was time to let them go and let people see me for me and not for my collection, it was really hard but I knew that I wanted to be me again. 

I also have time for the things that really make me happy! And money to do those things! I'm not spending money on every single owl thing I see, and neither are my friends. 

So what makes me happy? Spending time with my family, making custom items for my friends and family, and just being crafty. Making something, from nothing.

What makes you happy and what do you want to be known for?

These are the hardest questions for some people. Society has pushed us into being so material and superficial that we don't know the difference between being happy and having things. 

I really hope that you can find yourself and what makes you happy. 

It's been a while!

HI! I haven't been writing because we moved! It's always a big deal with you PCS with the military, it's an even bigger deal when you are being stationed somewhere with no base! Welcome to the life of a recruiters wife!
We left our last station in June, we took time to visit family and then moved to our new home! Crafting, of course, took the back burner during that time. Since then I have done a few projects here and there. I've set up an etsy.com store, and even tried my hand at some heat transfer vinyl!

Everything else can been seen at the etsy store I opened!
https://www.etsy.com/shop/SuperCraftyMaye

Or on Facebook,
https://www.facebook.com/SCMwithBoys

Teacher Appreciation Week- Flowers

This week is teacher appreciation week and I've decided to do paper crafts with the kids for each day! Monday is 'thanks for helping me grow' so you give the teacher flowers. I made some flowers and then had the kids draw a picture of flowers. Here is the final result....

The kids love to draw so this was something I knew they would love to do. The flowers were fun to make as we'll! 

I started out by cutting 3 different sized flowers, all the same shape. The I used glue dots to stack them.

After that you just bend the petals up how you want them then stick another glue dot on the back and let the kids place them wherever they want! 

The boys were very happy with their gifts!

Tomorrow is "you're so sweet" and we will have another paper craft blog for that as well!

The Best Homemade Play Dough

Homemade Play Dough

The kids had so much fun playing with this and it was really easy to make!

I got all of my supplies ready, put them all in the pot. (except for the food coloring)

I didn't get any pictures of how it looks while you are cooking, it was to fast! 

Divide into smaller sections and add coloring. 

Once it has cooled off enough for the little ones to play with, they them go to town! Even the big kids loved it! We only have a few cookie cutters but they still had fun creating their own things with it!

Play Dough

2 cups Flour

2 cups Water

1/2 cup Salt

2 Tbsp Vegt. Oil

2 tsp Cream Of Tarter

Food coloring

Add all ingredients to large pot, in no particular order....turn on the heat and stir constantly. The mixture will become lumpy, but just keep stirring, it will smooth out. Once it becomes a large ball of dough, that is no longer sticky, remove it from the heat. Let cool for a few minutes, then kneed until smooth. This is when I added my colors, so I could make one batch different colors.

I found the original recipe on We Love Being Moms! Blog. She is a lot braver than I am! I definitely couldn't do 10 different recipes in the same day! I'm so happy I found her blog! I hope you all enjoy!

Vegan Chocolate Coconut Cake

I LOVE CHOCOLATE!!!! and coconut.....but more importantly CHOCOLATE!!! I have stopped eating dairy products and have tried to do most of my baking Vegan. I decided to make a chocolate cake for a birthday breakfast, so I started to do some research for the perfect recipe!

First place I went was Pinterest....and this is the cake that I found.  http://joythebaker.com/2012/02/simple-vegan-chocolate-cake/

Perfect little bundt cake! It doesn't even need frosting! Just a little dusting of powdered sugar and you are good to go! This cake was done just as the recipe in the link above.....however, I wanted to give it a little bit of a kick so I made it again, this time I used some coconut extract in place of half of the vanilla extract.

It was a huge hit! My husband LOVES it! Then when the next birthday rolled around, you know what cake got made! 

He is such a goober! Happy Birthday to my Cat-Man!

Vegan Chocolate Coconut Cake

2 1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1 cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup warm coffee

1/2 cup coconut oil

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 teaspoon coconut extract

Place rack in the center of the oven and preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Grease a pan with oil and dust with cocoa powder.  Set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.  In a medium bowl, whisk together coffee, coconut oil, and both extracts.

Add the wet ingredients, all at once to the dry ingredients and whisk until just combined.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan.  The batter will be relatively thick.  Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the pan for 10 minutes before inverting onto a wire rack to cool completely.  Sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve.

A Break from Crafts

Now it's not what you think, I did not want to take this break. The cord for my magic machine decided to stop working, so I'm taking a break while I wait for my replacement to arrive.

During this extremely long break(really only 2 weeks) I've been able to spend more time with the children! I've been able to help them find their passion and help them achieve their goals. It really doesn't take much. We asked our kids what they want to do and went from there. We told them that we are not going to play 5 different sports and be running around everyday of the week. We wanted them to think of something they REALLY wanted to do. Our oldest said skateboarding which made his daddy really proud, so he took him to buy a skateboard! Since that day, we have spent the majority of our free time at the skate park. If we are not there, then they are practicing their ollys in my living room. 

Our middle son hasn't decided what his passion is yet, but he also enjoys the skate park!

Not to mention our baby loves it too!!!!

Do you know what your passion is? What about your child's passion? The best part of this whole experience is seeing the look in their face when we go to the skate park! They all just light up! It's the best feeling in the world!

Toddler Club House/ Reading Nook

I have boys! And boys LOVE clubhouses!

We have had a Pack-n-Play in our closet for MONTHS!(if not a full year) I tried to sell it, but then it just ended up in the back of the closet.

Today, my youngest son dragged the bag for it out of his room and it reminded me of seeing this repurpose on Pinterest! I mentioned it to my husband and he demanded that I get up and make it for him!

Excited that I was actually given permission to be Crafty while the kids are awake, I got up and grabbed the Pack-n-Play out of the closet and set it up. Then I grabbed the scissors!

I couldn't get a before picture.....He was to eager to get in his clubhouse! All I did was cut out the mesh from the front, and put a fitted crib sheet over the top of it! 

I got as close as possible, he won't notice the extra sticking out! 

See. He's so spoiled! Watching Yo Gabba Gabba on the laptop in his clubhouse!

This picture just shows that's all I did! Cut out the mesh from the front and put a fitted crib sheet on top! Your little one will LOVE their new clubhouse!