Thrift Store Score - Citrus Juicer

Sometimes I need the juice of a lemon to put over broccoli or the juice of a lime to put in guacamole - I saw this juicer in Goodwill and thought it would make those tasks easier.   This was $2.99.

Then I looked how much it would cost to buy a new one - $9.99 at Kohls or Target.  Score!

Baby's First Photo Album

For my nephew Henry's first birthday I made him this little photo album with a photo and the name of each of his family members.  I found sheet protector pages with 4x4 squares and it hit me that is the size of Instagram photos, which could be printed and put in each square.  To make it toddler friendly, I decided to hook the pages together with teething rings.

I made this cover photo with my WordSwag app.

Awww, he's looking at Aunt Lyndi!!

Thrift Store Score - Xylophone

I found this at a garage sale for earlier this summer for 50¢ and it was in perfect condition and is so colorful and adorable!!

Score!

Quiet Book Part 10 - Finished Book!

Yea!  It's done!  I think it's so fun and hopefully Hadley loves it too!

Stacking all the pages together made me realize it would be kind of cumbersome for a toddler to carry, so I added a handle that Velcros shut.

I had never successfully used grommets in sewing before, so I was pretty excited that I figured it out!  You just buy this tool in the size that matches your grommets.  

Oh a note - I ended up sewing the pages together front to back so as to make a thicker page, since I was using grommets.  

Then you punch a hole in your fabric that is smaller than the grommet size - I used a cropodile for this - it's very strong and can punch through a lot of things (leather, thin wood, layers of fabric, plastic, etc.).

Then you poke the side with teeth up through the hole.

Then you fit the cap side over the teeth loosely.

Then you line everything up on the rubber base and then put the anvil piece on top of it all and then use your hammer to lightly hammer.

Then the teeth will fold over.

 Here is the stack of all the pages - it's actually quite tall - probably 10-11 inches!!

Pages 1-2

Pages 3-4

Pages 5-6

Pages 7-8

Pages 9-10

Pages 11-12

Pages 13-14

Pages 15-16

Page 18 

(page 17 was a quick addition - it was just eyes on the page with several mouth choices to velcro in and out)

Quiet Book Part 9 - Race Track

Vroom Vroom!!

Here are the misadventures that accompanied this project.  I didn't use a pattern, so I just started cutting road shapes out of black felt.  Once I got that laid out, I put down the dashed yellow line with the intention of sewing everything with my machine.  But the dashed lines were going askew and falling off, so I had the brilliant idea to put some mod podge on the dashes to hold them in place until they could be sewed on.  What I didn't realize was once mod podge dries on felt, it's extremely hard - hard enough to break my sewing machine needle.  Also my sewing machine broke right before I started working on this page, so the project was on hold for a while.  

I love how it turned out.  I think I found the cars in Target's dollar spot and that's what started the idea for this page in the first place.  When I was putting the book together, I found this layout needed to go exactly in the middle of the book, since the pages need to be the same height to be used.  

Thrift Store Score - Books

1. CS Lewis popup book - I found this at a garage sale and since The Chronicles of Narnia are

favorites of mine, I wanted to buy it to introduce the stories to my niece and nephew.  My niece has LOVED it.  She's three, so she doesn't listed to the stories yet, but she loves playing with the pop-out 3D pages.

To buy this new would be $48.95, I paid only a few dollars.  If you have kids in your life and you can find this used - you definitely should buy it!

This is Hadley's favorite page!!

2. Musical Christmas books

There were a bunch of these at my local Goodwill in the summertime and they work perfectly - I bought one for my niece and nephew for Christmas! 



3. I've been collecting the Left Behind series in paperback version and it's been really fun to hunt for them.  I've found books 1-9 so far so.... I have only 7 more to find!
 

Quiet Book Part 8 - Zipper Camping Page

This page is the first one that I did without any patterns.  It was fun, just cutting and seeing if the idea in my head would turn out.  

Hadley loves Lalaloopsy Tinies, so I thought they would be perfect accessories to this page!

Thrift Store Score - Lite Sprite Tree Toy

When I found this at Goodwill, I had no idea what it was, but it looked like a diamond in the rough!  It was all dirty and the battery area was all corroded.  I cleaned it up and added batteries and it didn't do anything.  But after chipping away corrosion (thank you Dad) and trying it a second time, it lighted up and played music!  Pretty fun for my niece and nephew to play with!

If you were to buy it on Amazon, you'd pay $44.95 - I think I paid $3.99!!