Our Gratitude Tree

November 5, 2021 ~ ceeceesparkles ~ 1 Comment

I think we should focus on gratitude and showing thanksgiving throughout the whole year – but especially in November. I’m actually really loving this opportunity to talk to my boys about what gratitude really is and how we can show it and express it. One way we are doing that this year is by adding leafs to our Gratitude Tree, daily.

On Pinterest there were so many adorable ideas on how to document gratitude in your home throughout the month, but the one that resonated most with me was a tree. So, as best as I could, I copied a tree I liked, cut out some fall-colored leaves and voila! Not too hard.

I’ve been loving what the boys are adding. ‘Switch,’ ‘YouTube,’ ‘milkshakes..’ But thats just it! We can be grateful for so many things, and I love having my kids recognize that!

Coffee Filter Wreath + Fall Ribbons

August 27, 2021 ~ ceeceesparkles ~ Leave a comment

I made this coffee filter wreath a while ago (and its truly one of my favorite DIY things I own), but I’ve just recently decided to start making my own ribbon sets to go with it. Making a ribbon set is not hard. Its also therapeutic and, if you’re a crafter/DIY-er, pretty dang exciting. So I’m all about this lifestyle change.

I started my ribbon-ing with a nice, general Fall set. My intention is to have this up September through November.. But lets be real. I may have to make a more Halloween-centered and Thanksgiving-centered one.

This set turned out great if you ask me. I’m pretty obsessed with it. I also have tons of ribbon left over, so if you’d like a set yourself, let me know!!

I’m selling the ribbon sets for $15

and if you want your own coffee filter wreath, I can make you one of those too, for $50!

You’ll love it. Promise.

Memory Keeping

March 23, 2021 ~ ceeceesparkles ~ Leave a comment

Since having my first child five and a half years ago, I’ve been wondering just how I would store my kids important papers/documents/keepsakes. Everyone has their own method that they’re passionate about, and I listened to so many ideas, but ultimately I (finally) landed on this, my own, method. I’ve seen this same idea all over the internet, so I’m not at all claiming it as my own. I’m just super excited about it so I’m sharing it with you in case you’re on the hunt for a good storage idea too! And believe me, if I can do it, so can you. It was super simple and very satisfying.

I ordered file folder boxes and files. The boxes I ordered came in a pack of 4, so I even have one ready for my next baby! Then I ordered a pack of files for each box – the packs I ordered came with 25 (I think) and there are several extra folders in each box, should we decide we need them for something in the kids future. I put the folders in the box and labeled them (in this order):

Baby

Toddler

Preschool

Kindergarten

1st Grade

2nd Grade

3rd Grade

4th Grade

5th Grade

6th Grade

7th Grade

8th Grade

9th Grade

10th Grade

11th Grade

12th Grade

Stats

Medical

Keepsakes

Documents

Then, with my cricut machine, I cut out their first initials in vinyl and applied them to the front and voila! Told you it was easy!

I don’t plan on keeping every single paper from school or piece of art they create (like adorable scribbles on scraps of paper, you know?) But I’m going to mindfully keep the papers that my kids worked extra hard on or are extra proud of. The papers that have a funny story behind them or are particularly adorable. The ones I think they’d be happy to see someday when they’re adults showing their own children their memories.

I have put the bracelets we wore in the hospitals for their births in the Baby folder, along with ultrasound pictures, etc. In the boys Toddler folders, I put the bag of clippings from their first haircuts. Things like that. I also knew I had to have a folder dedicated to their stats from doctors appointments. I’m obsessed with my kids stats so I wanted them readily available.

What else would you add?!

Quarantine Scrapbook

May 20, 2020May 15, 2020 ~ ceeceesparkles ~ Leave a comment

I wanted a few things to keep me busy or to be used as an outlet during this pandemic/quarantine period of life. I had a few ideas, but ultimately I kept coming back to this:

A Covid-19 Quarantine Scrapbook

Scrapbooking has always been something I’ve really loved doing, but its tricky for me to make time for it. It involves making a bit of a mess, and currently I don’t really have a scrapbook station where I can leave my things in the middle of a project. You also have to take into consideration when you’re going to scrapbook. Have you ever tried to deal with small embellishments for your scrapbook page and keeping things semi-organized and not bent with toddlers running around and being very curious about what their moms doing? Its hard. But I decided I’d make scrapbooking – this form of time for myself – a priority during this pandemic. I’d make the mess, I’d take the chance of doing it while my kids were awake and wild and I’d delve into the creative outlet I’ve been missing for a while now.

I decided to make my own little kit as I began this project. I wasn’t going to go to the store, so I went through my stash of scrapbook things and threw paper, stamps, embellishments, etc, into a box that I thought would all work nicely together for my project. Next, I chose several pictures and sent them off to Snapfish to have them printed and sent to my house. The trickiest part in starting everything was figuring out what I was going to scrapbook on. I really didn’t want to spend any extra money on this, so I had to get creative. I settled on these plain white 10 page notebooks I got in an 8-pack from the Dollar Spot at Target. I knew how many pictures I’d sent in to get printed and knew the amount of pages in these little flimsy notebooks, so I was glad I had 8 to work with, if needed. I also made the decision though, to add pages to my notebooks. I have a 6×8 paper pad from Heidi Swapp (storyline chapters) that I’ve loved and they fit nicely into the notebooks, so when I wanted to add pages, I’d use paper from this pad and glue them in, in several different ways to add several more pages to this tiny book. I am almost done with my first notebook now and its very thick and chunky looking and it actually makes me love it more. Right now thats a look and feel I’m into, so I’m not mad about it one bit.

Now, as I am starting to visualize my Quarantine Scrapbook Volume 2, I can’t decide if I want to stick to the same stash I created or if I want to try new stuff.. I still have a couple pages to go in my first volume before I have to decide, but whatever I choose, I’m excited to keep this going. I think looking back, this will be a neat time to have documented so well. I know the majority of our pictures and my journaling on the pages aren’t exciting or extravagant, but thats a perfect representation of this time of life anyway. So again, it just makes me like it more!

Are you guys doing anything special to document this phase of life?!

Our Messy (Disney) Christmas Tree

December 13, 2016 ~ ceeceesparkles ~ 1 Comment

I’ve never been one to want the fancy Christmas tree with the perfectly placed ribbons, the fancy ornaments, the odds and ends somehow placed seamlessly throughout the tree and everything coordinating. Thats not how I grew up so its never how I intended my Christmas trees to be once I got married. Lucky for me, Wild Man quickly embraced my crazy love of Disney and agreed when I told him I wanted our Christmas tree to be just Disney. I have dozens of Disney ornaments from my whole life and every year on Christmas Eve a Christmas Elf brings us a few more Disney ornaments, so even over our four years of marriage we have acquired a few dozen more Disney ornaments. Plus sometimes you just see a cute Disney ornament while in Disneyland or Disney World or the Disney Store and you can’t turn it down, you know? Basically what I’m saying is we have a lot of these ornaments and thats our trees theme.

Our tree always looks a little ‘messy’ but I feel like since having one year old this Christmas and having to hang most of the ornaments higher and leaving the non-fragile ones lower so H can pull them off (and apparently shove them under the couch because thats where I find lots of them) and play with them it looks a little more messy. Also not all of our ornaments are hung this year because it looks like we need a bigger tree – not enough room!

As we speak, this is what our Christmas Tree currently looks like. (ps i’ve only wrapped 50% of my gifts but considering I’ve been known to do all of my wrapping on Christmas Eve before, I’m calling this great progress). I know its not anything special and maybe to some is a little underwhelming, but I LOVE it. Its a tree chock full of Disney and I’d say that sums up our family pretty darn well. Oh, and yes we do have Disney snowflakes hanging from our ceiling.

Sooooo this post was supposed to be showcasing some of my favorite ornaments… Lets get on to that now, shall we?

This is our tree topper from the Disney Store. They always have cute little Mickey and Minnie ones during the holidays. We got this one the year we got married and I really love it. It lights up, too – H’s favorite.

I can’t remember if this is a Disney Store or Disney Parks ornament, but its one of my favorite on my whole tree. It plays the Steamboat Willie song and Mickey rocks back and forth, pulling the string connected to the horn (the horn makes no noise). I’ve always loved this one and H is particularly fond of it. He’ll sit and stare at it for quite some time, smiling and pointing.

Alice in Wonderland is one of my very favorite Disney movies. I’ve always had a soft spot for her so I actually have several Alice ornaments. This is a Disney Store one, too.

Many of our ornaments are princesses. Ariel and Belle are my two favorite so they’re who I have the most of. I have got princess ornaments from the park, from the Disney Store, from Etsy… Its hard for me to pass up a princess ornament.

The rest of these ornaments were bought from either Disneyland or Disney World and are some of my very favorites on the tree.

I have always loved this one from Cars Land in Disneyland – I mean, how cute is it?

My mom got me this one (from Disney World, I think?) and she gave Wild Man a Mickey one. I don’t know why I love this so much but I just do. Its so festive and adorable.

If you’re into Disney then you know how right now there are these Starbucks mugs, etc that have Disney designs on them that are very in right now. I love them! This was another gift from my mom and I think its so cute and so unique.

We’ll end this post with an ornament that both makes me happy and sad. The ornament we got on our latest trip to Disneyland from Tower of Terror. It closes down in January and I’m going to super miss it. So glad we have this ornament to remember it!

xoxo

ceeceesparkles

Let the Fall Crafting Begin!!

October 11, 2015October 15, 2015 ~ ceeceesparkles ~ Leave a comment

I love to craft. I especially love to craft with the woman who helped spark my love of crafting – my momma. First of all, she is the cutest lady, ever. Second of all, she is a killer-crafter and everything she touches turns to gold. She’s so creative and a great ally to have when trying to ensure your crafts turn out even half as cute as hers.

Once fall {best season, ever} comes around, I get a mega itch to craft and cook. Cooking kind of won’t be as fun in Halloween since I can’t have sugar {thanks, gestational diabetes}, so I’ve really had to immerse myself in the wonderful world of CRAFTS. A few weeks ago my mom and I were looking on Pinterest to find some inspiration for our next craft. As Pinterest typically does, it filled us with ideas – and also made me completely overwhelmed. But we found one particular craft that was going to be quick, easy and so cute and tonight we finally made it. We found this idea off of our friend, Landee’s Pinterest. She created this, so unfortunately I cannot take any credit for the creative brain that dreamt this creation up. (if you want to see some of her stuff, check her blog out here)

I love how this turned out. It was really easy, fairly quick and an inexpensive craft all in all.

Here’s how we made it.

First we bought frames. Ikea is my place of choice for frames because they’re cute and also crazy affordable and I am all about saving money wherever I can. Then we bought several sheets of various autumnal colors and some teeny little clothes pins.

Then we found a cute leaf template and used the Silhouette to cut the shapes into the paper. Eventually, we ended up with a big, happy pile of leaves.

Next we got our frames, took out the glass, grabbed some jute and blue tape (i don’t know if thats what its really called, but thats what we call it) and began taping the jute to the back of the frame in a bunch of different angles.

Then we sanded the edges of the leaves we were going to use. It gave them a little more worn look that I really liked and thought made the whole project come together even better than if we hadn’t.

After the leaves were distressed, we started clothes pinning the leaves onto the jute.

It took me a little while to figure out how I wanted all my leaves placed, but finally, I finished and am really pleased with how it turned out!!

I highly recommend this craft if you’re into DIY stuff and are looking for a pretty quick one to whip out. All you need is a frame, a sturdy tape, jute, colored paper, sand paper (if desired) and tiny clothes pins.If you do make it, tag me somewhere and let me see how yours turned out!!

Happy Crafting!

xoxo

ceeceesparkles

“If you can dream it, you can do it” – Walt Disney