as Jules is DIYing Archives - Page 34 of 45

Preschool Finances

February 16, 2012 by Jules 1 Comment

How to you teach your child about budgeting?

Yep, those my friend are more washed out formula cans. Are you ready from some up-cycling? We have begun a new habit in our home. Partly to teach our oldest child (3.5) about prioritizing and budgeting but also just as a different system of reward. I'll tell you more about our "fake economy" later but for now I just want to tell you the 3 basic categories we are teaching her to "budget" her money into. God. Save. Spend. That simple. We give back to God just a simple part of what He's so graciously allowed us to manage. Then we save for bigger things. And we get to spend more frequently on smaller things. Here is how we made her 3 banks:

Like I said, I'm working on a future post about our "reward system" but I will just say it involves bread-ties and then divides them {currently}divides them {she calls it 'organizing' them} Evenly into the 3 categories/banks.

How are starting to teach your littles about finances and how to handle them God's way? I'm always up for new ideas!!!

Filed Under: Homeschool, Parenting, Projects, The ones about the Rothacher Home Tagged With: budgeting, commision, DIY piggy banks, homeschool, preschooler, priorities, reward system, teaching finances

Valentine’s Day GIVEAWAY!

February 14, 2012 by Jules 2 Comments

I just recently learned about 2 fun new sites!The Crafting Chicks

AND

Poppy Seed Projects

I 1st came across them when doing my Feb post,"Ghetto Frames: DIY Organic Bloom Frames" for Homemaker's Challenge. When I came across these lovely ladies and their enticing craftiness I was Not only was I envious of their ability to make adorable crafts but also products they worked with. They recently has a giveaway for a Poppy Seed Project product that had me flipping my lid. Just the pictures of the products they offered had me in disbelief. I didn't know anyone sold Exactly what I'd always been shopping at the Goodwills and yard sales for. I had to contact them.

I'm honored today to be offering a $25.oo gift card to the Poppy Seed Project!

MY Poppy Seed Project!
This will give you just a glimpse into one of the options you can use your gift card for ;o) It is a stacked frame using 2 different sized square bracketed frames. I show you the process and final product!!!!

It looks similar to this Poppy Seed Projects example:

Enter DAILY for more chances to win:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Note to all the wonderful ladies I've been working with:

It's been a pleasure working with all these ladies! Thanks for giving me the chance to share this cuteness with my readers!

Filed Under: Contests, Homemaker, Projects, The Ones about Jules Life {Randomness} Tagged With: DIY picture frames, giveaway, home decor, Poppy Seed Project, the organic bloom frames

DIY Organic Bloom Frames

February 12, 2012 by Jules Leave a Comment

I love changing up my home decor often, so I can't bring myself to spend big-bucks on a single piece; so in-turn, I'm kind of a cheapskate. Most of my decor in my home is some how a DIY version of something I saw and loved so...Yep! I have a DIY version of The Organic Bloom frames! I'd love to share with you today how to get a similar look over at the Homemaker's Challenge!

Another place I found CHEAP frames to paint up yourself if the Goodwill has a low stalk: http://www.poppyseedprojects.com/kits/Frames! Check out their blog as a great resource as well!

Poppy Seed Project GIVEAWAY coming Soon! Stay tuned.
I'm thinking the RED and HEARTS might be a good hint ;o)

Filed Under: Homemaker, Projects, The Ones about Homemaker's Challenge Tagged With: cheap decor, cheap frames, collage frames, DIY, DYI, giveaway, home decor, how to, how to make collage frames, inexpensive decor, organic bloom frames, picture frames, the organic bloom frames, the poppy seed project, valentines day

Knight and Shining Armor 1st Birthday Party {FOOD}

February 11, 2012 by Jules Leave a Comment

The Table:

I had a yellow table cloth left from our oldest daughters party and the blue table cloth I though I bought to layer on top ended up being goodie bags so I used this picnic table cloth I also already had. It worked. The flag streamers are made from scrapbook paper, hot glue, and ribbon.

The feast was an attempt at “Mid-evil Carnival food/ Knight-ish food”.

We made {frozen and cooked according to the package} Corn Dogs!
The holder is a round cardboard cake thing that I covered in tin foil and poked holes through with scissors.

Cotton candy on Popsicle sticks {and my hubs thought I’d never find enough uses for that giant box of 1000 sticks…}. I took tubs of $1.00 cotton candy from Wal-Mart and unrolled it. Then I rerolled sections of it back onto sticks. The only way it would have been cooler is if it were blue…but the pink kinda looks like it goes with the red ;o)

We went with a kid-friendly, less waist version of caramel apple!

Cake balls {affectionately named cannonballs} made from the left over parts of the cake that were cut off to make the castle and smash cake!

Pretzel rods dipped in almond bark with added theme colored sprinkles, aka Pretzel Swards!

This bucket is one we had around the house for Benjamin that I’d found for $1.00 at the Goodwill! Chunked out cutlery in it- voila!

Ice cream, pre-scooped into punch cups and placed back into the freezer right before the party to save time and make for easy serving!

This is the wooden highchair we’ve used for all of children. We just took the cushion off so it wouldn’t get stained by the chocolate, left the plastic tray on for protection, and added part of the flag streamer I made.

Yep! I put on an apron and took his diapered-self straight to the kitchen sink for a quick scrub down before getting redressed for the pinata and presents!

Filed Under: Baking and Cooking, Parties, The ones about the Rothacher Home Tagged With: cake balls, corn dog stand, corn dogs, cotton candy, DIY, party food, pretzel rods, swords

Knight in Shining Armor 1st Birthday Party {CAKE}

February 8, 2012 by Jules Leave a Comment

Hosting a Knight in Shining Armor 1^st Birthday Party

My husband and I have decided that we won’t be doing huge parties every year for our children. But we will do bigger parties for milestone birthdays. For our oldest daughter’s 1^st birthday we did a “Princess Party over the 4^th of July holiday so all our parents could be in attendance. For our younger daughter we did a “Snow Princess Party” in the middle of January. Since I’m a bit on the OCD side of things when it comes to things like name, photo sessions within the 1^st year, and birthday party consistency among my children I thought it would be only appropriate to do a “Prince Party” for my son’s 1^st birthday. My hubs wasn’t a huge fan of the sissy options out there. We chatted for a while and landed on a “Knight Party”! Sticks with the royalty theme but a bit more masculine!

I’m going to do a series of post since walking you through all the DYI party details got pretty lengthy. Today I’ll tell you about the

CAKE

I love how this cake turned out! I discovered a new thing called ‘sugar sheets’ at Wal-Mart. Since I haven’t’ perfected my cake decorating skills to this kind of level it was a GREAT option! It was about $3-4 a sheet. It only took one sheet to make this cake. I made a simple box of devil’s food chocolate cake in a 11x14 rectangle pan. I had my husband sketch this castle {found on Google images line drawings} with a black edible marker, then I cut out the castle.

After the cake was baked but before frosting I laid this on top and cut the outer shape of the castle out. I also cut out the door. Then I placed plastic wrap under the edges of the cake as to not get frosting on the cake stand/carrier and frosted the sides and top of the cake with chocolate frosting. I let that try and then added a second coat. I took the backing off the sugar sheet and placed it on top of the moist frosting so it would adhere well. I found the dragon on picnic.com, made it red and printed {this same dragon was used several places throughout the party}. I cut triangles and taped them to tooth picks for the flags.

See how it became glossy and looks more like real frosting after adhering!