The time has flown and a year has passed by so very quickly. I wanted to stop and take the time to share with you the last year in review at Pepper Scraps. I hope you will stroll down memory lane with me or find some good reads that you may have missed the first time around.

January

• I start Project 52: Self Portraits with Lynda from DigitalWoe.com. I made it almost halfway to my goal. This year I may choose to do another Project 52.
• I vowed to defeat my weight issues last January. I have lost 60lbs this year, I hope to loose another 50lbs this year.
• Zarek learned how to crawl out of his crib. Today we will be converting his crib to a “big boy bed”.

February

• CommentHour was created by me and Jenny. I’m not sure what will happen with #commenthour this year, I have to think long and hard about it’s future.
• I received my acceptance letter for my weight loss surgery!
• I shared a photo of me and the hubby on Project 52. Not the best photo, but when you consider it is one of very few it’s pretty nice to have it.

March

• I tried doing March Vlogging Madness with Jendi at SimpleVloggingTips.com. I made it through about 10 videos, but it seems as if life had gotten in the way. I will be trying to do another 30 day vlogging challenge this year!
• I participated in the Ultimate Blogging Party. I was a little disappointed in the event this year 2010 was a lot more fun it seemed.
• My sleep study revealed I have severe sleep apnea. This year I hope to get another test done to see if my sleep apnea is better after my weightloss.
• I shared my typical day of a working mom. My hope to stop working out of the house is being delayed as we try and work on our goal this year to become debt free.

April

• I shared my imperfect life with a photo of me and my messy house.
• I had my first weigh-in required by my insurance for weight loss surgery.
• Zarek turned 2 this year and I wrote him a letter to tell him how much he means to me.

May

• I wrote a post all about how to slowly invest in your web design. If you are on a budget but would like to learn how you still might be able to update your website you should read this post!
• I shared about the 7 major elements of blog design. Are you re-evaluating your blog for the new year? Use this post as a guide at the different key elements you want to look over.
• In Beauty vs Budget I compared a website or blog to buying a house, which would you rather own: a travel trailer, a  mobile home, a pre-built home, or a custom home?

June

• I started a new version of A Craft A Day where each craft was related to a letter of the week. We have made it halfway through the alphabet and I hope to finish the rest of the alphabet this year.
• I drove up to Seattle to attend Bloggy Boot Camp and got my first speeding ticket.
• #commenthour went live all on it’s own with it’s own hashtag, twitter account, and website!
• I shared how you can create an amazing about page in 5 easy steps.

July

• I hit a plateau in my weight loss and struggled to keep my motivation. I finally made it through my plateau to only hit another this December. I hope to just keep going and keep on losing.
• I talked about 15 ways you can clean up your sidebars in a post called How Much is Too Much? Which had a few people question my thinking but I promise your blogroll is doing less for you than you realize.
• I introduced you to my newest toy my Iconia Tablet and started a series about some of my favorite Android apps available at the Marketplace.
• If you are struggling with creating an editorial calendar or getting people to read your posts you should run back and read my post about How to Use a Magazine for Easy Headlines.

August

• I had my first guest blogger on PepperScraps and her post was a huge hit, if you missed it you have to go back!
• I offered my first freebie for kids and moms looking to get active with their kids. I have a video showing off my boys using the printable activity cards and if you want you can still like Pepper Scraps on Facebook and get them free!
• As summer came to end I felt my blogging motivation dwindling and saw many of my blogging friends struggling so I shared one of my favorite posts on how to beat Blogging Burn Out.
• I started a new series all about bloggers you should follow.  I really enjoyed sharing some of the great people I have met through blogging and I hope to share more this year!
• One of my last posts of August I took the time to thank some of my favorite blogging buddies, but also encouraged others to thank someone special in their lives also.

September

• I posted about my thoughts about getting Invisaligns and why I was considering this great product. I’m still thinking about this as I get my dental work finished and am continuing my quest for healthier living.
• I shared a little more about one of my favorite blogger Darren Rowse and how you can learn more about blogging from him.

October

• I got invited to an awesome little party by Kristin from Our Ordinary Life that was sponsored by Diaper Genie and had tons of fun. I’m hoping to do more fun things like this this year and to learn more about different products and product sponsorship. I may even do a series on how to be a sponsored blogger.
• I really nailed down a great system for creating an amazing editorial calendar and I shared my secrets with you!

November

• November 2nd I had lap band surgery! I shared with you all the steps that led up to my surgery the day after surgery.
• I didn’t write much in November due to my recovery but I did share a very detailed account of my surgery day, including my ride to the surgery room with my hilarious anesthesiologist.

December

• My recovery was harder than I thought after surgery, it wasn’t the pain but the exhaustion that got me. Do to this there was only one post in December.

Now onto a new year with Pepper Scraps. I hope you will join me in all the adventures I share here. I hope that I can share more about blogging, more about crafting with your kids, more about how to lose weight and become healthy, and who knows where this adventure shall lead us.

What a way to start October! This week was all about monsters, of course all our monsters were fun and cute!

If you are new to A Craft a Day

A Craft a Day gives you five activities that you can enjoy with your kids, one for each day of the week.  Most of these activities work well for preschoolers, but you may be able to adapt them for your toddler.

You can learn more about the basics of a Craft a Day Here.

I will post the crafts on Saturdays so you can use the weekend to get any supplies that you may need. We are making our way through the alphabet this year so if you missed a letter you can find it here.

• Moon Phases – I thought this still worked since the moon is often associated with monsters. I did this with pepperoni instead of oreos, since I was unable to get to the store. I also had seen it done with cheese. As a bonus food craft I found a recipe for a Jelly Swamp Monster!

• Mini Monsters – I thought these were adorable and I had everything I needed to create these cute little guys. We tried it with regular yarn and with fun yarn, both turned out great! We used a piece of cardboard instead of the embroidery ring. We also used pompoms on the purple monster for feet.

• Shape Monsters – This was so much fun! Plus with a toddler you could work with them learning their shapes. I cut out all the shapes beforehand and gave them to Zane to create his monsters! I used craft foam, but you could use constructions paper.

• Blow Painting Monsters - I loved her trick on how to use the straws without getting your kids to slurp up the paint! I’ve done bubble artwork with Zane before but he slurped up the water and we were done!
• Sandwich Box Monsters! – I’ve seen these done with tissue boxes also, but I think they are so cute!! Make your own monster and recycle at the same time. I wonder what you could store in these cuties!

The Crafts:

Supplies: oreos, round cookie cutter, lime jello, marshmallows, chocolate chips, pink icing – optional, yarn, buttons or googly eyes, scissors, glue or glue dots, embroidery ring or cardboard, pompoms, bright coloured paper or craft foam, straws, thinned non-toxic paint or food color and water, white construction paper, black pen, straws, 2 cups from a cardboard egg carton, black paper, white and black paint, empty sandwich bag box

Are you Supermom?

Now I’m not supermom and I don’t expect you to be either. We don’t always get to each activity, sometimes life is just too busy. Hopefully you may try one or two of these activities with me and my kids! You don’t have to do every single one. You don’t have to be doing preschool with your child. I just hope to give you a resource for some great fun with your kids!

Be Featured

If you do any of these crafts and happen to take a picture or write a blog post about it please make sure and share your link in the comments. Also don’t forget to link the original crafter! I may feature you and your blog  on the following weeks post!

Haha the first time I posted this I forgot to change the intro. Oh well, that is how it goes sometimes. Zane loves lions, his lovey from when he was little was a lion named Judah. This week you can see my failed attempt at a bento gone bad, but also you can see my own craft I created to work with Zane with scissor skills.

If you are new to A Craft a Day

A Craft a Day gives you five activities that you can enjoy with your kids, one for each day of the week.  Most of these activities work well for preschoolers, but you may be able to adapt them for your toddler.

You can learn more about the basics of a Craft a Day Here.

I will post the crafts on Saturdays so you can use the weekend to get any supplies that you may need. We are making our way through the alphabet this year so if you missed a letter you can find it here.

The Crafts:

• Lion Bento Lunch Box - I made this and it turned out okay I will share the photo just so you can see one of my project fails. LOL This must have been done with cold mac n cheese.

• Lion & Lamb Mask – This was great you got two L words in one! Plus this worked well for a bible theme also.
• Macoroni Lion – We have actually never done a pasta project before and I thought this was a pretty cute one.
• Crunchy Leaf Lion – Again a two L project here. I actually believe I have featured this project in the past. But what is great is you can find any image you want trace it with glue and add the crushed leaves. I wanted to use this lion picture and outline the main in glue. But we didn’t make it out to get leaves. Two outings outside, one Zarek fell off a wall and two Zane had an accident. I gave up.
• Clothes Pin Lion – I created this craft after learning that clothes pins can help your preschooler with scissor skills. Zane and Zarek were both able to participate in this activity.

Supplies:  cheese, carrot, celery, white cheese, macaroni, paper plate or card stock, elmer’s glue, black pen, google eyes, clothes pens, markers, collected leaves, glue, craft paper, paper plate, yarn, glue, craft paper

Are you Supermom?

Now I’m not supermom and I don’t expect you to be either. We don’t always get to each activity, sometimes life is just too busy. Hopefully you may try one or two of these activities with me and my kids! You don’t have to do every single one. You don’t have to be doing preschool with your child. I just hope to give you a resource for some great fun with your kids!

Be Featured

If you do any of these crafts and happen to take a picture or write a blog post about it please make sure and share your link in the comments. Also don’t forget to link the original crafter! I may feature you and your blog  on the following weeks post!

I read that having your children work with clothes pins helps with their scissor skills and since that is one thing that I have been working with Zane on I decide to create this craft.

Creating these lions was so easy even Zarek, at 2 1/2, could help us!

Supplies:

• plate or card stock
• Elmer’s white glue
• craft paper (white, black, light brown) (Cut white eyes, pupils, nose & mouth)
• clothes pins
• markers (Red, Orange, and Yellow)

Step 1: Color the clothes pins with the markers.

Step 2:  Color plate (I trimmed ours as the lip didn’t work well with the clothes pins) or circle cut from card stock

Step 3: Glue white of eyes down (Zane went crazy with the glue!

Step 4: Glue pupils down

Step 5: Glue nose down

Step 6: Glue the mouth down

Step 7 : Let your child place the clothes pins around the outside edge like a main.

You can let your child play with this over and over.

This was such a fun project and it was really easy. Plus you can get all these items for $10 or less (You can find clothes pins at the dollar store).

Do you have any other crafts or activities that help your preschooler with their scissor skills?

At first I was going to do K is for knight but then realized with Zane learning phonics this may confuse him. I decided to change it to K is for King. We are doing a lot of the same activities I’m just changing it all to be about a king instead of a knight.

If you are new to A Craft a Day

A Craft a Day gives you five activities that you can enjoy with your kids, one for each day of the week.  Most of these activities work well for preschoolers, but you may be able to adapt them for your toddler.

You can learn more about the basics of a Craft a Day Here.

I will post the crafts on Saturdays so you can use the weekend to get any supplies that you may need. We are making our way through the alphabet this year so if you missed a letter you can find it here.

The Crafts:

• Mini Sword Snacks – I actually used sword toothpicks that I use for the boys bentos, but if you are concerned with your children with something sharp you can use pretzels instead.
• King of Kings Crown - A fun, easy and inexpensive project. I love that everything in this project you can at the dollar store. Plus it let my boys have a freedom to draw, paint, color however they wanted.
• Knight Collage – I know this is more knight than king, but I told Zane that this was a King Knight. This project took a little prep on my side as Zane is still learning scissor skills so I cut out all the pieces beforehand. But if your child is learning or good at scissor work this project is great!

• Paper Plate Crown – What I love about this project is that you can pull out any odds and ends you may have from other projects to decorate these crowns. You can use stickers, gems stones, marbles, pom poms, scraps of felt, and any other kinds of odds and ends.
• Card Board Castle – Create a castle for your little King (& your Queen). I first saw this castle and loved it, but their isn’t very much that my boys would be able to do to create this. Then I found the colorful artistic castle created at Frugal Family Fun Blog. Perfect! You can let your children freedom of decorating their castle with markers, crayons, tissue paper, and more.
• Shield Collage (Bonus Craft) – Cut out a shield from cardboard and use tissue paper to cover the cardboard. Then let your child use stickers to decorate their shield and create their own “coat of arms”. Supplies: Cardboard, Glue, Stickers, Tape

Supplies: assorted fruit, pretzels or sword toothpicks, craft foam, Popsicle sticks, decorations for crown, hot glue, elmer’s glue, styrofoam balls or pool noodle, cardboard, misc decorations for the walls,, paint or markers, craft knife or good scissors, Construction paper, Tin foil, Yellow and black pipe cleaners, Feather, Black pen or marker, Knight Template, plate, stickers, scissors or exacto knife, random craft scraps

Are you Supermom?

Now I’m not supermom and I don’t expect you to be either. We don’t always get to each activity, sometimes life is just too busy. Hopefully you may try one or two of these activities with me and my kids! You don’t have to do every single one. You don’t have to be doing preschool with your child. I just hope to give you a resource for some great fun with your kids!

Be Featured

If you do any of these crafts and happen to take a picture or write a blog post about it please make sure and share your link in the comments. Also don’t forget to link the original crafter! I may feature you and your blog  on the following weeks post!

I was recently talking to a friend about her wanting to do more crafts with her daughter but she really didn’t want to buy lots of supplies. I can understand this as we are always on such a tight budget. This week we will be taking a break from our usual link of crafts and talk about supplies for you and your kids.

I thought this is perfect timing to talk about what you should have stocked up. As school children are about to rush through the doors to a new school year you are already purchasing school supplies. Or if you only have little children then this is still the best time to buy your supplies. Stores are trying to entice moms to do their school supply shopping at their location and are offering amazing prices on certain items.

Basic Preschool Craft Supplies:

• white glue
• markers
• stickers
• pipe cleaners
• craft foam
• craft felt
• construction paper
• pom poms
• popsicle sticks
• tape
• googly eyes
• scissors
• crayons
• paint & paint brushes
• basket to organize everything

You know what’s the best thing about this list? You can find all these items at the dollar stores! That means with a $15 investment you have a great start to your crafting supplies.

Of course you may find you need more items than this, but this is a good start. Keep your eyes open when you see a clearance section at a store or use your imagination when you walk through the dollar store. Look through the ads right now as Back to School is in full force.

Or check out the clearance sections a week or two after Back to School to get even better deals. Right now I’ve found Crayola crayons and markers on sale for 99 cents and pencil boxes for 59 cents (great for organizing). Find your local store’s website and check out their ads online! It’s quick easy and you can find some great deals.

Next week we will be back to our regularly scheduled a Craft a Day post.

Of course I had to be all about ice cream, especially with summer finally choosing to grace us with it’s presence in Oregon. But summer and playing outside is distracting us from our crafts, so we only did half of them this week. That’s okay we still had fun!

If you are new to A Craft a Day

A Craft a Day gives you five activities that you can enjoy with your kids, one for each day of the week.  Most of these activities work well for preschoolers, but you may be able to adapt them for your toddler.

You can learn more about the basics of a Craft a Day Here.

I will post the crafts on Saturdays so you can use the weekend to get any supplies that you may need. We are making our way through the alphabet this year so if you missed a letter you can find it here.

The Crafts:

• J is for Jiggly Jellyfish – Jello, marshmallows, and carrot make up this adorable snack. I actually just used the premade cups, cut the jello in half to make them a little flatter and decorated. The boys loved these! Oh and if you use the premade jello clean the cups and save them for the Flying Jellyfish craft!

• Jellyfish Dogs – I know a second food related craft, but can you blame me these are so cool! You just stick the speghetti into the hot dogs and cook following the pasta directions! Easy peasy & tons of fun!

• Flying Jellyfish – Another craft that I totally failed at. I recommend putting the hole in the cup before having Zane decorate them. When I tried putting the hole in the glue didn’t hold to the plastic so kind of destroyed the craft. And I was so excited because cutting the yarn would have been a really good scissors practicing activity.
• Jellyfish Invasion – We didn’t make it to this craft, for one rare week I didn’t have tons of produce bags this week. Oh well, I still think these turn out really neat!
• Coffee Filter Jellyfish – Both boys had fun creating their jellyfish and this is such an easy laid back craft. This is also a great toddler craft!

Supplies: jello cups, carrots, mini marshmallow, mini chocolate chips, hot dogs, spaghetti, Snack Cups, glitter paint, yarn, grocery bag, tissue paper, scissors, curling ribbon or yarn, tissue paper, coffee filters, pens, spray bottle with water, google eyes, glue dots or glue

Are you Supermom?

Now I’m not supermom and I don’t expect you to be either. We don’t always get to each activity, sometimes life is just too busy. Hopefully you may try one or two of these activities with me and my kids! You don’t have to do every single one. You don’t have to be doing preschool with your child. I just hope to give you a resource for some great fun with your kids!

Be Featured

If you do any of these crafts and happen to take a picture or write a blog post about it please make sure and share your link in the comments. Also don’t forget to link the original crafter! I may feature you and your blog  on the following weeks post!

I saw a great Jellyfish activity on No time for Flashcards. When I saw it I knew I could instantly use an old coffee filter craft trick to make it even more fun!

Step 1: Color the coffee filter. Notice the mat underneath, the pens will bleed through. You can do it on newspaper also.

Step 2: Spray the coffee filter with water. Watch the colors transform!

Step 3: Let your coffee filter dry in the sun!

Step 4: Fold your filter in half

Step 5: Cut out strips from tissue paper. Zaney really wanted red.

Step 6: Use glue or my favorite glue dots to paste the tissue paper strips to the back of the Jellyfish.

Step 7: Place two googly eyes on Jellyfish and enjoy!

This is such an easy craft you can do it with your toddlers. As you can see Zarek joined us in this activity and he loved it! If your little one is not good with scissors just cut the strips of tissue paper beforehand.

Hope you enjoyed this craft.

This week Daddy was on vacation, so crafts were not on the top of our list. This week was more about the things we could do without spending too much money. As I’m sure everyone is dealing with we have gone a little over budget and the timing wasn’t perfect as it was the week of my husbands vacation that we became a little short. But that’s okay we still made due with what we had and had some fun. This week I won’t be talking about Crafts but about inexpensive things you can do with your kids while on vacation or when you have a family day.

Activities:

Have a Potluck Party with Friends

My birthday was last week and to celebrate we ended up just having a few friends over. It’s been a long time since we have had friends over so the boys were so excited to see their “aunties” and “uncles”. We enjoyed the warm summer evening after the boys went down and played a board game. We used to have friends over almost monthly long ago. I think we will have to start a game night with our friends and just schedule it!

Go to a Good Park!

My husband did a little research and found a park (Blue Lake Park in Fairview, Oregon) that had tons of fun things for us to do. So we packed a picnic lunch, ended up forgetting it and ran to Walmart bought some Uncrustables, chips and Koolaid Squeeze Pops for the boys and got ourselves sandwiches at Subway. We had to pay $5 parking at the park, but it was so worth it. The park had play structures, fishing, a sprinkler water play area, and a lovely exploring garden which the boys only had time to glance at as the day was coming to an end. We had so much fun and will be putting this park on our day trip list for sure!

A Day in the Backyard!

One day my husband took the boys on a walk to the store for donuts for breakfast and to the park to play off the sugar while I had a conference call with a client. Then we spent the day filling up the pool in the backyard and just enjoying the sunshine. Sometimes just staying home is so much more enjoyable than getting all your stuff together and throwing the kids in the car for a long tiring drive.

Visit the Local Zoo!

This one cost us a bit though we saved a little money by leaving the zoo to eat and coming back with our hand stamps. We may have paid close to the same amount for the food, but their was more food and when you are doing that much walking it was worth it. Plus when we got back we got a better parking spot! Plus the boys don’t get to go to the Oregon Zoo very much, so this was a big treat. I was torn between the Oregon Zoo, Portland Children’s Museum, and OMSI. But with the perfect zoo weather we had to be outside!

Going to the Beach

This is our favorite trip of all. We made it through the week with a tight budget so the beach was a little bit more of a splurge (but not much thanks to a blown tire). We love going to Seaside, OR. I love it because I’m just not a sand person and the beaches in Oregon aren’t really about swimming and water. But Seaside is great because you have the aquarium, the boardwalk, the carousel, and the arcade. Oh and you can’t forget the candy shops and toy store too!

Fishing at a Stocked Pond

The most recent activity my boys have gotten into is fishing. Zane loves fishing and has already caught three fish this summer. Zarek likes getting into the action too, though its just safer to not put a hook on his pole! The boys have been enjoying going to Small Fry Lake. I didn’t get to go with the boys this time round (darn work), but my mom did and they had a blast!

What do you do when you are a little short on money but want to have some family fun?