Curls Without Heat - Part 1- Rambo Headband

So, I have long hair. It's a bit wavy but more annoying than cute.

I have 2 sets of hot rollers under my bathroom sink that I never use. I also have a few curling irons and a flat iron or two that I never use either! Being a busy work at home mom means I usually do not take the time to use heat appliances to make my hair fancy. Because 1.Inevitably I have to wait for it to be ready. And my son will have to see what it is and touch it. and 2. It's just too much of a bother.

While perusing YouTube one evening, I found this:
Curls Without Heat

There are several other ways to do it, but this one looked the easiest and the fastest (takes me about 5-10 minutes to get it wrapped and less than 5 to get it out the next morning).

I had bought one of those "no-slip" headbands from Goody, and of course it slipped, so it was just sitting there in my bin of hair stuff.

So I thought, I will try it.

Please note: I have alot of thick, long hair, and this worked like a charm. You could use it for any length of hair, but I would think shoulder length or longer would work best. As you can sorta see from the photo, the curls dont' start until the top of your ears (which you can't notice on long hair). It's worth a try though!

Basically you put the headband on like RAMBO (as my husband would say). Start on one side and wrap hair around the headband (loose or tight- depends on the curls you want). The next section you pick up the tail of hair you just wrapped along with more hair (kinda like a french braid). You do this on both sides, and then MacGyver something at the back. (I twisted the ends in a bun and put a bobby pin).

Then, you go to sleep.

I look worse than Sly Stallone. Can't remember if this was before I went to bed or when I woke up, Either way, scary!

It's easy to get out in the morning and you have great curls that last all day.

A couple more shots for you. The curls are big and bouncy!

A bit of makeup and some hairspray and you are all fancy!

Try it!

Homemade Playdoh- looks and smells yummy!

Ok, so everyone loves Playdoh. But, having a 3 year old- I just find harden bits on the carpet or those little tubs with no lid. Grr.

As a teacher, I did have a playdoh recipe somewhere that was my mom's (she was a teacher for 30 years!). But, having taught intermediate kids (gr 7 and 8) and now high school, I just was out of touch with homemade playdoh.

So I noticed something on Pinterest that someone else had pinned: THIS:

Which led me to this website: Playdoh Recipe

I read the recipe: Seemed straight forward. Loved that the colour came from jello, and not food colouring (that I inevitably will have all over my hands for days).

I had most of the ingredients, except the weird Cream of Tartar.

$2.99. We used the whole thing for 5 batches. 2 tbsp per batch.

ALWAYS USE CREAM OF TARTAR.  Please don't ask why, just buy it.


Oh, and I thought I had jello, but it turned out to be fat free pudding.
No worries! I read the comments and saw that people used Kool Aid (the cheap ones that you add sugar to that I never buy or use- too much work). I remembered I had some from somewhere! I found them.
Thirty cents a pack.

I gathered up my materials:

(You don't need a photo of salt, oil, flour- do you?)

My little helper. We made a BATCH for every colour we wanted.

Birthday boy.

Put everything in the pot. That's it. Even a 3 year old can do that.

The messy goo.

Ok, so the one MAJOR problem with the recipe on the website above is the LACK OF INSTRUCTIONS. Nowhere does it say to cook it! Hello? Thank goodness I read all the comments below where another wonderful poster had posted the same thing. So I put it on the stove, medium heat. Some of the batches I watched and stirred, the batch above, I forgot about it. Oops. Here is the result:



Do NOT leave the pan. Ok, well it came off pretty easily with hot water.



Once you cook it and stir, this is what it looks like. It looks oily and wet- and it is. I set it on foil and waited a while. It gets less gooey and supersoft! Love the vibrant colours. It does smell yummy for a little while. And if your kid decides to try and eat it, it tastes awful (yes, I tried).

We used all the colours we had!



Remember to knead it so you dont have weird clumps (like mine!)



All ready to go. Will last a long time if you actually keep it in the ziplocs!

I put each in a ziploc bag. As an activity, we used dollar store stampers to make impressions in the playdoh. We also used hard placemats (not pictured) to use as a table to we could sit on the floor. And it DOESN'T come off on your hands- no matter how many times we checked!



Why don't you try it?

Photo Thank You Cards

I always write thank you cards. It's a nice old-fashioned way of letting someone know that you appreciate their thoughtfulness.

So here are a few ideas:

1.These are adorable!

These would be good for a child who can scribe or could write.


2.For a child that could draw or write a thank you.

These are nice, all purpose cards! Love the avatar.


3. For a smaller child (like my 3 year old!)

Love this idea. But, I didn't have a recent portrait. Hmmm. Then I thought, why not include a photo of my child playing/wearing/doing something with the gift and put it in the card with the recipient?

I thought- I could print out a photo and use double-sided tape on the photo of my son.

I started off by keeping my camera close, and every time I saw my son with a present, I would snap a decent pic, to be printed later.

Then I went to Picnik to put the words on. I have a decent printer, but didnt want to try and figure out how to put the cards through it. So, I thought- I might be able to put text on a background photo and add it to the card. Then I could print it out for everyone, and use said double-sided tape and add it to the card. This is my version:

So- all I needed was cards. I thought I might have saw some at the dollar store- And yes! There they were. Plain white. Love them. Perfect for my two photos. And best of all, I just needed to print the thank you for everyone, and then one copy of each photo to match the gift-giver. No writing required. (ok, maybe the envelope!)

I also included a photo of my son with the recipient's gift. For those that I didn't catch him playing with, I used a photo of him blowing out his candles.

Note: I saw cards like the first ones pictured above at Dollarama for Christmas.

Snowman Activities from Pinterest (Part 2- Review)

So, as I said, yesterday was my little man's 3rd birthday (hard to believe!)

I am a theme person. I like themes. Themes make everything easy. You can pick a theme and run with it.

When I asked my son what he wanted on his birthday cake, he said "Sponge Bob". This is peculiar- as I don't ever remember him watching this show. And, I'm not into Sponge Bob.

So I decided a good theme for a little boy's 3rd birthday in November would be SNOWMAN.

Being a teacher, I had a few ideas. But with Pinterest, there is no need to spend hours searching and searching for things.

But of course, you have to be REALISTIC. I mean, I consider myself crafty with an above average skill level, but there are a few factors: 
 1. It's for a little boy's 3rd birthday. Most 3 year olds don't care about decor.
 2. Only close friends and family are invited, and most of them don't care about decor.
 3. I'm not going overboard- money wise, time wise or decor-wise.

So of course, I hit the dollar store. I found some cute things to give away to the kids. But I needed more.

I found this:

And I thought- OK! Some powdered donuts, some choc icing and a nose. Would be cute on the munchie trays.

I couldn't find the mini donuts, but I found 6 powdered donuts for 99cents. They are probably stale, but I figured they are only for looks.

I bought a tube of icing at the grocery store for $2.29. I used it for the eyes and the mouth. I used baby carrot pieces for the nose.

Super Easy. Here is my version:

Obviously I used raisins from a bag of trailmix, slices of carrots for the nose, and dots of icing for the mouth.

Then I found this:

Looks cute! I found some snowmen with coconut and this one with sugar. I wanted the kids to be able to make them themselves, so I tweaked it a bit.

I thought, maybe a "make your own snowman" station would be good. So, I collected what I thought might work.

I bought large marshmellows, mini-marshmellows, toothpicks. For the record, I bought the Oreos for the hats, but my husband and son ate them. So we didn't have hats.
The night before, I put the faces on some marshmellows so that it would be dry for the kids and we wouldn't have to mess with it in the fury of activity. Of course, the plate of those marshmellows were left in the house.

Here is what the kids came up with:

Ok, so its really my example. For the record, I wouldn't try and use that icing again. It didn't have a tip on it (I thought it would fit my other tips, but it didn't). I ended up putting in a ziploc bag and snipping the corner off to make a pasty/icing bag like in the awesome photo below:

Then I saw these:

Since my little guy loves Timbits- I thought I would try it. However, I ran out of time. I had the chocolate to dip them, but didn't have the other stuff, so I improvised. I went through the Drive Thru of Tim Horton's and asked for 9 powdered Timbits. They thought I was nuts. I came home and used popsicle sticks and then some chocolate icing as glue and the rolos for the other snowman (see above). They were cute!

 Oh, and don't use the chocolate icing because it doesn't stick to the powdery-ness of the timbits.




So, my first review of stuff on Pinterest. I bet you are thinking I'm really not that crafty. If I had been having a party for adults, I might have paid more attention to detail. Oh, and I promise to get way better photos next time.

Please leave a comment or a request!

Snowman Activities From Pinterest (Part 1)

Today is my little guy's 3rd birthday!

Can't wait to post photos of all the DIY projects that I have put together for his SNOWMAN themed birthday party.

Stay tuned for the round up!

scarf organization

Scarves are big right now.

I love the warm, cozy feeling of a scarf- and the colours are great!

I even found this really cool video, that shows you different ways to tie those scarves.

So, every time I bought a scarf, I stuffed it on a shelf. So I started looking for a way to organize them.
And this is what I found:

Tie on a long Ikea rod (I organize my jewelry this way).

Or Use the Ikea hardware too.

Tied on curtain rods on the back of a door.

I liked all of these ideas, but I share a closet with my husband and it is PACKED. I wasn't sure if I wanted the display to be out "on display".

So I looked for something inside a closet:

Like this:
Although I like the dollar store shower hooks, I don't have this type of shelf in my closet (I wish I did!)

So, this is what I did.

I combined the idea of the hooks with a plastic hanger. I found out quickly, that over 8 scarves makes the hanger bend, so I now use 2 hangers. Im thinking about going to one of the other examples above and finding some space, somewhere.

Enjoy!

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog. I know- there are alot of blogs out there. And ALOT of DIY blogs. So how is mine different?

• I am going to TEST out those tutorials/recipes/videos that promise to help you complete the DIY

• I will provide the original link, then try it myself! This means, photos, step by step critique and my honest opinion on whether or not it will work from you.

• I will figure out the glitches in the DIY instructions and edit if needed.

• I promise to include grainy cell phone photos for your enjoyment

• Best of all: I take requests! If there is something you want to make, or something you have seen on Pinterest or another blog/website, let me know! Send me an email or leave a comment.

• Yes, I have alot of time on my hands! Take advantage of this!

Send me your requests and I will start testing out those DIY'er projects! 

thediydivaonadime@ymail.com