Minecraft Creeper T-shirt

We are coming up on the 100th day of school for Brayden, and they asked him to decorate a t-shirt with 100 things on it. Last year we did legos for him and googly eyes for his brother. This year, I was bored and wanted something to do, so I took this project over! I had a great idea! I would "stencil" some creepers on it for him! I googled 100th day of school tshirts, and saw that people put "100 days smarter" on them. I thought that was cute and used it! 

It looked kind of plain after that so I decided to add some of the creepers to the front.

Some tools of the trade! A pic and some tweezers! I put the other 80 creepers on the back....

This picture kinda shows you how I did it. I cut the design out with my personal cutter, then laid it on the shirt where I wanted it. I used a sponge brush and some Acrylic paint and just blotted the paint on. NO STROKES. You don't want the vinyl to peel up. And since this was my first try at this, and it will only be worn for a day, I wasn't to upset with the few mistakes I made.(he didn't seem to notice them anyhow!)

I hope you enjoyed this and I hope this inspires you to get up and be creative!

VEGAN No Bake Cookies

Growing up my mom would make the best No Bake Cookies! I remember her making them every year around my birthday! I would come home from school to them cooling off on the counter! BEST DAY EVER!!!!

Today I decided to try to make them VEGAN style!

Vegan No Bake Cookies

1 3/4 cups Sugar
1/2 cup Coconut Oil

1/2 cup Coconut Milk

4 TBSP Cocoa Powder

1 tsp Pure Vanilla Extract

1/2 cup Crunchy Peanut Butter

3 cups Quick Oats

In a medium sauce pan, combine sugar, coconut oil, coconut  milk and cocoa powder.

Bring to a boil and cook for 1 1/2 minutes. 

Remove from heat, add vanilla, peanut butter and quick oats. 

Drop by spoonfuls onto wax or parchment paper. Let cool until hardened. 

You can even put them in the fridge to cool off faster! Store them in an airtight container! Don't worry, they won't last long enough to go bad! I hope you all enjoy them and let me know what you think!

Baked Apple Chips and Banana Chips

This year I have started something new. It's not a New Year's resolution, it's a lifestyle change! I know everyone says that when they don't want to be labeled as a resolutioner, but really, I'm trying to change the way we live. 

I'm a snack kind of person! I love to snack on foods all day long. Once we started to really look at the foods we eat, and see what is in them, I had to put all the snacks down. I was eating potato chips, crackers, granola bars, candy, pretty much anything we had in the way of snacks, I was eating it! You might be thinking, "those don't sound to bad." Well, they are not that bad, until you see how they are made. When I think of a granola bar, I think of the following ingredients, oats, nuts, dried fruit, honey and peanut butter. Yummy! When you look at what is in the granola bars you get from the store, it might have all of that yummy stuff in it, but it also has some other stuff that you don't need. 

Here is an example of the ingredients in the granola bars you get at the store. ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR????? Why do you put artificial flavor in granola bars? That's when I was done. I decided that if I wanted snack food or junk food, or anything in between, I was going to make it myself. I don't care how many added vitamins are in there, I don't want the other garbage that they are also adding to it. It defeats the purpose of the vitamins in the first place. 

I haven't made Granola BARS yet, but I have made No Bake Energy Bites, and those things are AMAZ-BALLS! And you can really just add whatever you have on hand! I didn't have the coconut last time, so I just left it out. And I added Craisins one time too! 

Waiting for things makes me snack a lot as well, and since we are "waiting" to see where we are moving to next, I need a lot of snacks! Chris and I made Banana Chips and Potato Chips earlier this week.

I don't have a picture of the Banana Chips just because I didn't have time to take it! They were gone before I knew it! These Potato Chips were cut with a mandolin and baked at 400* for 30 minutes, flipping after 15 minutes. 

Yesterday I made some Apple Chips! I looked up a recipe on Pinterest and all I could find were ones that say to cook them for 6-8 hours......Ummmm, this mom doesn't have 6-8 hours. So I sliced them with my mandolin, dipped them in lemon water, sprinkled them with cinnamon and baked them on 250* for 2 hours, turning after 1 hour.

I watched the first batch like crazy! I didn't want the to burn. They started getting golden and the sides started turning in, that's when I flipped them. 

And it's just that easy! Use your favorite fruit and go for it! You will be supplying your family with healthy snacks and they don't have any added ingredients! No preservatives, no corn syrup, no artificial flavors! My kids love them and that is why I love making them for them!

Simple Teacher Gift

As a minimalist, I try to do simple gifts for people. Either something they "need" or something useful that anyone can use.

When the holidays come around, I always like to do something for the boys teachers. They do so much during the year for my kids, the least I can do is create something for them during the holidays! This year, I had a ton of ideas! I had some clipboards that I wanted to use, and I also got some plastic apples that I was going to do something cool with. My list of ideas goes on and on!

With my oldest in the hospital, everything was put on hold! When we got home, I took a few days to just relax and after those few days, I was ready to be crafty again! I knew I was going to do something small I just didn't know exactly what I wanted to do. I had purchased some clipboards on Amazon.com and had some ideas for saying to go on them. I looked at all of them and finally (I think it took me an hour) decided on one. I had my design all ready to go!

I got my clipboards ready and started cutting out the vinyl!

TA DA!!!!! As my youngest would say! All done! Not only is it simple, but who couldn't use a clipboard?? My kids use the extra ones I have all the time when doing their homework! At this point, it was kind of a little blah. I didn't want to put more vinyl on it, I just wanted to dress it up a little so it would be a pretty gift!

I made a card......(the design can be found in the Silhouette Store)

and then dressed it up with a bow!

Giving gifts doesn't always have to be big and glamorous. Sometimes we can just give something small and more meaningful. The teachers that we have had so far have been amazing. I could not have picked better teachers for my boys and I thank God for them everyday! This was just something small so they know I appreciate them. Plus it was fun making them!

Happy Crafting!!

Cleaning out your "closet"

Thinking about becoming a minimalist? Getting ready to move, and feeling overwhelmed with all the "stuff" that you have to go through. Don't stress! Stop where you are! Sit down and think about one part of the house.....your closet....the kitchen.....the play room......the entry room. Pick one and start there. Don't think that you have to tackle your entire house in one day. That's unreasonable. You need to start little and work your way around. Pick your room and go there, look around and see how many things are there. I'm going to use the kitchen as an example.

I walked into my kitchen, I see a pile of dishes in the sink and my cupboards are still full. WHY? Well, let me tell you why. If you only have 4 people in your house but you have 40 cups, there is no need for anyone to remember what cup they used 10 min ago. They can just grab a new one and not worry about it, that is until it's time to do the dishes! But if you only have 2 cups per person, everyone soon realizes that it's easier to only use 1 cup at a time. Same goes with plates and bowls. Having less means that you can't be lazy. You will be doing dishes as soon as you are done using the items, but then your kitchen will stay clean as well! You won't have to worry about having to do 2 loads of dishes because there were just to many to fit in one load.

Sometimes going through things to downsize is hard. It brings back all the memories from when you received the item, who gave it to you, when you used it and why you got it in the first place. I had a bunch of glasses from my high school homecomings and at first I wanted to keep all of them. I had so many good memories of going to homecoming every year! But that's all those glasses were for! I had all the memories, and along with keeping the glasses, I was also keeping the dust and the stress of cleaning them and moving them. After thinking about it for a few days I decided to keep the one glass from the year I graduated and let go of the other ones. I still have the memories of going to homecoming and having fun with my friends, I don't need a glass to remind me.

If there is something that you would like to hang on to, find a place for it. Give it a home. If you can't find a space for it in your home, maybe it's time to find it a new home!

Becoming a minimalist doesn't mean that you have to go through your house and let go of everything right now. It means that you have decided to change your way of thinking about material possessions. You have realized that there are more important things in life, like family and friends. Having less stuff to worry about gives you the freedom to spend more time with the ones you love and more time to do what you love! You are no longer held to the same standards as everyone else, you are not expected to have the newest and most upgraded items. You are not expected to have a collection of the coolest thing this week. You have become free from the webs of today's society.

Finally something Crafty!!!

I was finally able to sit down and be crafty!! After a week in the hospital with my oldest son, it was much needed!

I love working with Vinyl! I've done signs, wine glasses, and now mirrors! I have a Silhouette Cameo and I absolutely love it! It does anything and everything that I want it to. I use it mostly to cut vinyl and the occasional paper craft for the kids school or personal project. I'm going to walk you through my latest project! MIRRORS!!!! The first thing I did was design what I wanted in Silhouette Studio.

After designing it, I sent it to the Cameo to be cut out of the vinyl. 

When I was done weeding out all the pieces I didn't want on the mirror, the insides of the o's and stuff like that, I taped it onto the mirror where I wanted it.

I placed the transfer paper over the vinyl and pulled back the backing from the vinyl so the quote was stuck to the transfer paper. Then I laid the quote down very carefully, making sure there were no bubbles under the letters.

DONE!

Theses are the mirrors all done! They were so fun to make!
I hope my little tutorial helps you in your craftiness!

How to become a Minimalist! The easy way!

I had a few people ask me how I do it, how do you even start to get rid of everything. Well, that's not really what you are wanting to do. You don't want to get rid of everything, you just want to downsize. There are things that you need, but maybe not as much as you have.

You start with something that you have "extra" of. How many people live in your house? How many cups do you have in your cabinet? Do you really need 10 cups per person? That just means more work for you, more dishes to clean, more cleaning up, more stress. If you downsize to only 2-3 cups per person, you will start to see that you never 'needed' then in the first place.

You don't want to go head first into downsizing. Take it slow and start with something that is risk free, something that you won't need after you get rid of it. If you need some help deciding what is 'risk free' here is a list from www.becomingminimalist.com.

When I started to downsize, I started in the kitchen. I hate doing the dishes and it felt like there were always a ton of dishes to do. How can 5 people use 30 cups a day?? If they only have one cup each, they can't use 10 different cups! So I donated the ones that we didn't need anymore! Same with bowls and plates, silverware, pans and tupperware. After that I moved on to my craft closet. Now, that is one place that stays stocked, but I have stopped collecting stuff for all kinds of crafts. I figured out what I really like to do and now I concentrate on that. It's what makes me happy and relaxed. It's what I love to do!

Most of you know, we got rid of our TV before we even became minimalists! It was a hard thing to do for me and there are times that I really wish we had a TV again. Then I remind myself of why we decided to not have one anymore. My children are my life, and they don't need to be sitting in front of a TV for hours everyday. They need to be outside playing with other kids, getting some sunshine! I think it will be harder when we move and it's not sunny and hot everyday, but we will cross that bridge when we get to it! We have a projector and computers so I'm sure it won't be that hard. Oh and the boys actually just got a little TV for Christmas, with an Xbox, so that will definitely help!

Just remember to take it slow and not to overwhelm yourself with thinking that you have to get it all done in one day! Your family will be your support, and just remember that if it doesn't bring meaning, happiness or value to your life, then it can go!