Children with Hair loss Charity

I have had long hair for a very long time now. When I was trying to decide when to cut it last year, my brother mentioned that he was going to donate his. So we thought it would be awesome to donate our hair together. Only problem- his hair was not nearly long enough! So fast forward a year later and his hair was finally ready to be chopped off! I found the charity Children with Hair Loss online, (http://www.childrenwithhairloss.us) and saw that they only required 8 inches to donate your hair. I called up my brother to see where we were going for our cuts. He had another brilliant idea- let's cut each other's hair!

While many people thought I was insane for allowing him to do this, I figured "how can he really screw this up?" And I thought it would be fun to cut his hair!

So we gathered at our parents house and did the cuts! Naturally, we had to go to a professional afterwards! Check out the process below!

DIY stick horses

For the twins 2nd birthday I decided to make them stick horses using socks. $20 and about 2 hours later, I had these cute suckers! These are so easy, you can do it to!

Materials:

Tube socks-$2.50  (target)

Wooden dowel-$5 (home depot- I cut one stick in half to make two)

Buttons-$0.99 (Joann fabrics- or use what you have at home)

Yarn-$3.50 (Joann fabrics- I got fuzzy yarn to add texture to the mane)

Stuffing- $5 (Joann Fabrics)

Ribbon- free (at home- or you can buy some for $1 at Joann's)

Tacks- free ( you can find at any office store or target)

String- free (at home- but originally from the dollar spot at target)

Scrap of fabric-free (seriously any scrap will work- or cut up an old t-shirt)

Step 1: Take your sock and stuff it! A lot.... You can fit more in there than you would think! I only stuffed the head first and then moved to step 2.

Step 2: Attach some stuffing to the top of your dowel. I just used some tape. Put the dowel inside the sock and finish stuffing. With all that stuffing my sock started looking a little thin, so I doubled up on the socks.

Step 3: Secure the socks with some string. I also used some thumb tacks (with flat ends) to secure the sock to the dowel. This prevents the horse head from moving around. I covered the tacks with extra string.

Step 4: Shape your head! Use your hands to make it just the way you want it.

Step 5: Add the mane. I used a plastic yarn needle to thread the yarn through the sock. Then I tied each piece into a knot.

Step 6: Add the buttons for eyes. I used larger white buttons with smaller colored buttons placed on top.

Step 7: Sew on the ears. I cut triangles out of fabric and attached them as ears.

Step 8: Tie on the reigns. I cut a piece of ribbon and tied it around the mouth. Then cut a longer piece and tied it to each side of the 'muzzle' for the handles or reigns if you will.

Step 9: The tube socks I bought were super long, so I folded under the extra fabric and quickly hand stitched around so it would say folded up. You could also cut off the fabric- but if you do, I would recommend sewing the ends so they don't unravel.

Step 10- Admire your handi-work and give them away!

Here is Noah lovig his new pony! I sang 'dun da dun dun dun da dun dun dun da dun dada' (you know... The horse racing music!) And he kept saying 'again, again!' 

Enjoy!

Construction Party!

Two years ago today, my wondering niece and nephew came into this world.  These two are completely obsessed with Papa and love everything that Papa loves.  Since Papa is an excavator, the twins naturally love everything construction.  To fuel their obsession, we made them an awesome construction themed birthday party.

I made this invite using word on the computer.  In the new version when you crop pictures, there is an option to cut out the background-who knew?!? That little option made it real easy to plop their pictures into the excavator.  When Noah saw this he was so amazed that his face was in the excavator- he would not put the invite down!

My talented friend Melanie made this amazing cake for the party.

With the help of materials from school, I set up little stations around the yard for the kids to play with.  Lying in the garage, I found these orange caution flags which worked great as signs for the different stations.  Of course, I did not actually get pictures of the kids playing- I swear they did!

Here is a ring toss using cones.

Papa provided some blue prints for a coloring station.  I think Nana Nancy liked it best though!

I set up boxes for the kids to knock down with a tetherball- this area was a huge hit!

Kids could dig in the rock pit using the trucks.

Here was where everyone could 'fuel-up'. The food was at a 'lunch break' station.

I & N blowing out their candles!

I hope you 'dug' the party as much as we did!

Welcome to my life!

Hello All,
My name is Anna Kontz.  I love giving people details about all the cool things I do with my life.  And by cool I mean things like reading, crafting, and lesson plans!  I am a First Grade teacher, an auntie to my amazing niece and nephew, and mother to my fur-baby Bear.  I love doing crafty DIY projects at home and at school and thought I would share the experience with all of you! You lucky ducks!