Search Results for: art projects

Finish Max Paint Sprayer Giveaway

Posted on May 30, 2014 Written by 24 Comments

UPDATE: This giveaway has now closed, and our winner is #22, Susanne! Congrats, Susanne!

A few weeks ago, I told you about the Finish Max paint sprayer by HomeRight. I used it to make over a $17 glider that I found at the thrift store, which eventually landed itself in the aTeam Ministries apartment. When I spotted the glider in the thrift store, I knew it has potential to become a place where mamas (or daddies) could rock a sweet little babe to sleep.

alt="Finish Max Sprayer"

All it took was a little elbow grease. I tightened up a few loose screws to give it stability. I used my Finish Max sprayer to spray it with chocolate brown paint to match the crib.

alt="Finish Max"

The Finish Max paint sprayer made this job super easy. I stitched a new cover for the pillow out of fabric I found on the clearance table at the fabric store. I was quite pleased with the way the glider looked after just a little effort.

alt="Finish Max Sprayer"

The gracious folks at HomeRight would like to give one of YOU a Finish Max paint sprayer! Isn’t that fun? I absolutely LOVE mine, and I have used it on several projects since I got it. You guys know how much I paint furniture, and the Finish Max has saved me HOURS of painting time. You just can’t beat a good paint sprayer when it comes to painting small cracks and crevices!

Leave me a comment and let me know what kind of painting project you need to tackle. I’ll randomly choose one winner next Friday to receive a Finish Max paint sprayer from HomeRight.

Don’t want to fool with entering the giveaway? No problem! You can order a Finish Max paint sprayer today!

Filed Under: Style

Educating Kids During Summer

Posted on April 10, 2014 Written by 1 Comment

Educating Kids During Summer

A long school year will soon be coming to a close. While kids are predictably excited, many parents are left wondering how to keep their children engaged in learning over the summer. As a homeschooling mom, I am often asked how parents can continue educating kids during summer, while at the same time giving kids a break from the pressures of school.

School isn’t easy. Children today are under more pressure to perform academically than at any time in history. Mountains of testing and homework promise to deliver academically superlative kids, but children often emerge from the school year burned out and hating school. My best advice to parents just beginning their summer – allow kids some time and space to decompress from the pressure of school. Take a break from the busy pace and allow kids time to play outside with friends, swim at the neighborhood pool, and have sleep-overs. This approach might not look like a traditional education, but maintaining a slower pace allows kids to be kids, which is one of the primary way they learn life skills like effective communication, creativity, and problem-solving.

Sometimes as parents, we think learning only happens if kids are in a classroom or have their noses stuck in a workbook. But learning happens all day every day as children explore the world and their place in it. When parents think outside the box of traditional educational methods, they allow children to learn through play, adventure, living life beside their parents, and experiencing new things. A trip to the grocery store becomes a lesson in math as they learn to shop for the best bargain, a lesson in science as they learn how to determine whether fruit is ripe, and a lesson in hospitality as they plan the menu for a sleep-over. Reading a fairy tale with your child allows them to visit other worlds and expand their imagination. A visit to the hair salon teaches them how to communicate with adults and how to use polite manners. All of these are necessary life skills that aren’t necessarily learned from a textbook, and the slow pace of summer provides rich teaching time in these areas.

When parents want to create more intentional, purposeful educational opportunities for their children, the two ways I find to be most effective are travel and service projects. When children travel, especially to cultures different that what they grow up in, their views of the world change. They see that the way they live isn’t the only right way. They experience new ideas that expand their way of thinking. They learn to celebrate people’s difference for adding richness to life.

Service projects can have similar effects on children. Seeing people in need softens children’s hearts to the world around them. They learn that not everyone is as blessed as they are. Serving others teaches children to see other people as fellow human beings, each with their own story of struggle and triumph. It gives kids a sense of responsibility to care for each other. It gives them a tangible way to live out their call from God to care for the poor and give help to those in need.

Summer can be a wonderful time of learning and growing for children. Even though it might not look like a traditional education, parents can play an active role in continuing their children’s learning, even during the off months.

Filed Under: Homeschooling

God’s Promises Bottle Cap Rainbow

Posted on July 2, 2013 Written by 1 Comment

One of my big girl’s favorite summer activities is a camp called “Created for a Purpose.” It is a fabulous day camp hosted just for girls by a local church. They spend a week celebrating all the many good plans God has for them. They talk about how God created girls with talents and characteristics and interests that are uniquely their own because He needs them to fulfill His purpose in their own way. Each day they work on a project that is very “girly” and fun.

This rainbow project is one that I will hang on the wall in the girls’ bathroom because, not only is it cute, but it has truths I want them to see everyday. The rainbow is a sign between God and His people. When God makes a covenant or promise to us, His promises are YES and AMEN. (For all of God’s promises have been fulfilled in Christ with a resounding “Yes!” And through Christ, our “Amen” ascends to God for his glory. 2 Corinthians 1:20.) And we know when He promises us something, He will not go back on it. (God isn’t a man that he would lie, or a human being that he would change his mind. Has he ever spoken and not done it, or promised and not fulfilled it? Numbers 23:19) I want them to know that truth in their spirits so that when the devil speaks lies to them, they will hold fast to the Word of God stored within them and be able to discern His voice.

So on to our project. First you need to gather your materials. You will need a board cut to the size you want, acrylic paint, bottle caps (they used some vintage and some spray painted in rainbow colors), small nails, a Sharpie marker, and about 2 feet of ribbon with which to hang it.

Rainbow Title

Step 1: Paint the board. We wanted the grain of the wood to show through, so we watered down the paint. However, you can paint it any way you like. Allow to dry fully before moving on to next step.

Order

Step 2: Nail bottle caps to form the “spine” of your rainbow. Be sure to use proper order of colors. You know the ROYGBIV mnemonic, right? Well, we didn’t use indigo, but you get the idea. Simply nail in one bottle cap of each color to form a vertical line down the middle of your painting. Start with the red bottlecap at the top and end with the purple (or violet) bottlecap at the bottom. You want tome space between the purple bottle cap and the bottom of the board so that you have room for your rainbow to arch.

Numbers

Step 3: Fill in the rest of the rainbow beginning with bottom row and moving up. After the spine is in place, finish out the purple row. Then move on to the blue row. Going in this order will keep you from having a cattywompus rainbow. (Sorry, I slipped into southernese.) When finished you should have something that resembles this…

Close

Promises

Step 4: Using the Sharpie, add the wording around the edges. You can use whatever promises from God’s Word that you want your child to remember. Ours says, “God’s promises: He always loves me – He will always be with me – He will give me the things I need – He forgives me – He will guide me through tough times – He will keep me safe.”

Nail

Step 5: Add ribbon to hang. Using two more of the nails, tack each end of the ribbon onto the back of the piece to hang. You will want to add ribbon close to the top so that the piece doesn’t kick out from the wall when hung.

I pray that as your children work on this piece they will be reminded of God’s faithfulness toward His children. He is able and will keep His promises!

To see more of our artwork projects, click here and here.

Filed Under: Faith, Homeschooling

Clutter Jail

Posted on January 29, 2013 Written by 3 Comments

clutter jail

About a year ago, I had a come-to-Jesus meeting with my family about the clutter that was in every corner and on every surface of our home.

We’re homeschoolers, and that means we are home ALL DAY. You might think that would give us plenty of time to pick up clutter, but the reality is that it makes clutter worse. There are a thousand projects going on that we don’t want to put away because we are coming back to it. The kitchen is always cluttered with dishes from cooking three meals every day. And don’t even get me started on the books and papers that come with homeschooling.

And I don’t know about you, but clutter makes me cranky. I like order and organization. I found myself constantly raising my voice about the mess. Our home was not the peaceful, fun, comfortable, happy haven I wanted it to be

Y’all, something had to be done.

I turned to my BFF Pinterest for ideas on how to restore order without my having to nag. The idea of a clutter jail sounded like it was just the ticket. After instituting this idea for the last few months, I am happy to pass it on to you, as it has helped us tremendously.

Every day we do 5-10 minute clean-ups. These have helped tremendously to keep the clutter under control. They are short so that nobody gets overwhelmed by having to take on the whole clutter project at one time, and we can pick up a lot of clutter in 5 minutes. We try to do one of these during the day, one before J comes home from work, and one before bed. If anything is left out after bedtime, it goes into my clutter bucket, a Rubbermaid bin that I keep in my hall closet. If there are items left in my bedroom (a big no-no!! I HATE to step on Polly Pockets when I get up in the middle of the night!!) they go into the bucket. If bathroom counters are left messy, it all goes into the clutter bucket. I’ve even thought about instituting clutter for things that get left in my car.

The girls have to do chores around the house to earn their items back from clutter jail. Of course, the chores are age appropriate, but they also serve to help keep the house in order. It’s a double win for me: the clutter is out of the way and I get the dishwasher unloaded or a load of laundry folded or the floor swept. My girls have been known to do a quick chore to get their ballet shoes out of clutter jail as we wait in the car to take them to ballet. They have had to earn back their toothbrush before they can brush their teeth in the morning.

The thing I love most about this idea is that I don’t have to nag or be grumpy. I simply pick up the clutter, and into the bucket it goes. The girls know the rules, and they know to check the clutter bucket when they can’t find something. They routinely come to me and ask for chores to get something back from clutter jail. I get a chore done, and they get their toys back. Order is restored and everybody is happy, happy, happy.

Filed Under: Family

A Weekend of Celebrations

Posted on May 13, 2012 Written by Leave a Comment

I sure do hope you all had a lovely weekend. We are in the after-party-crash mode around here, complete with naps and homemade chocolate chip cookies. Before I forget all the details, let me record them here.

First of all, it was ballet program weekend. Y’all, the Briarwood Ballet has been such a blessing and outlet of worship for us. I simply adore the way they teach the girls that dance is something we do as an act of worship to God, and everything they do oozes that philosophy. We don’t have a “recital”, we have a full-length ballet that usually comes straight from scripture. This year was a take-off on the story of Joseph. It was breathtakingly beautiful. And boy oh boy can those high school girls dance! And the littles, like my own, aren’t half bad either 🙂 This year we were in the Saturday 7:00pm show.

We were all so proud of our dancer, but baby sister was especially happy for her.

The ballet is always on Mother’s Day weekend, which works out great for our family. The grandparents are always in town for the ballet, so we get to have everyone over for Mother’s Day lunch at our house. This year we had both of my parents and Jonathan’s mother with us. We had to keep the party indoors this year because of rain, but we still had a really nice time.

The menu included:

Chicken Salad Croissants
Corn Salad
Crunchy Romaine Salad
Spicy Feta Dip with Pita Chips
Fruit Parfaits with Chocolate Topping
Pink Lemonade Cake

I can’t believe I didn’t get a single picture of the mothers, but I did snap a cute shot of my dad with two of his favorite granddaughters.

My husband brought home some pretty flowers. I loved the whites and greens.

I adore a handmade Mother’s Day gift. MA’s sweet Sunday school teachers had them make these for their moms. The flower is an ink pen. It makes me happy!

Patterson’s class had their art show last week at school. I convinced her teacher to let me bring home all of her art work so that we could hold our own art show since all of her grandparents would be here to see it. We added some of big sister’s work to it, and we had a nice little gallery in our hallway.

As part of our classical studies unit, MA did a set of drawings of Greek gods and goddesses. I loved this drawing of Mt. Olympus she did to go along with them.

She also did a series on the seven days of creation.

Pitter Patter painted lots of fun works this year. Arts and crafts was one of her favorite parts of preschool.

I’ve used DeepSpaceSparkle.com for art ideas this year. She did this castle project in water color, but we used oil pastels for ours.

ArtProjectsForKids.org is another great inspiration website for art project ideas. We used Kathy’s idea for this many-colored hands project.

Pitter Patter’s teacher saved their very first piece of art work from their first day of school. They could draw anything they wanted. Patterson chose “a door.” She actually went through a door-drawing phase, and this must have been during that time. I had forgotten all about it until I saw this drawing. We got a big kick out of it.

After such a big weekend, it has been nice to take naps this afternoon and chill for a little while. After my time on the treadmill, I came upstairs to find somebody in my kitchen. Ha! There goes my treadmill workout. But those chocolate chip cookies my girl made (with a little help from her daddy) were worth every step.

Hope you all had a great weekend, too!

Filed Under: Family, Recipes

Spring Cleaning with Fish Foam

Posted on March 19, 2012 Written by 15 Comments

This is spring break week here at The Hill Hangout. We have put the homeschooling books away and taken the week off. We thought long and hard about how to spend our week o’ freedom. We considered a trip to the beach, but my folks were not going to be there. We thought about a trip to Mississippi, but in the end the girls decided to stay around Birmingham and play with their friends. We don’t get to spend nearly as much time as we’d like playing with friends because of school and ballet and church and soccer and everything else we have going on. So that’s what they wanted to do, and it sounded like a great plan to me.

One of the reasons I was so hung-ho on the girls’ plan is because I know I will have plenty of time to knock out a few projects around the house. I have a few sewing projects, some cooking to stock the freezer, and since there is yellow dust all over creation, I have some deep spring cleaning to do. Yay for Fish Foam.

Y’all, I had no idea what this stuff was until Nathan at Fish Foam emailed me to see if I’d mind trying out Fish Foam and writing a review for you all. I had to google it to see what it was. Well, it was a foam window cleaner, and boy do I have windows that need cleaning! So I quickly told Nathan that if he’d give away some of it to you all, then I’d be happy to give it a try. In the back of my mind I was thinking, “It’s window cleaner. How exciting can it be? I mean, Windex really isn’t all that fun to talk about.” Well…

Little Pitter Patter had been entertaining herself in front of one of my mirrors for a few days, and as I caught a glimpse of said mirror I was shocked at how much grime she’d gotten on it. I chuckled as I sprayed on the brand new can of Fish Foam thinking the mess would give this red can a run for it’s money. Observation #1: It was thick and foamy and didn’t run down my mirror. (hence the name Fish FOAM.) This might not sound like anything earth-shattering, but it meant that the cleaner stayed on the dirty spot, soaking in well, instead of dripping down. Observation #2: When I wiped, I was truly shocked at how clean the mirror was. It reminded me of Through The Looking Glass and made me feel like I could just step right through. It was CLEAN. Observation #3: I didn’t have to scrub away streaks. Because Fish Foam is alcohol-based instead of ammonia-based, it does not street AT ALL. Y’all, I have never had an easier time cleaning mirrors in my life. I was truly so shocked at how well it worked that I started looking around the house to find areas to try it.

Toothpaste on the bathroom mirrors: no problem.

Water marks on the dishwasher door: check.

Fingerprints on the fridge: perfect.

Glass cooktop: spotless.

30 year old windows: look like new.

The next projects I’m going to tackle are my shower door and the pollen-covered outside of my windows. I feel strongly that Fish Foam is up to the challenge.

You can order Fish Foam from their website at www.fishfoam.com. You can buy by the bottle ($4.95), by the three-pack ($13.95), or by the case (12 cans for $42.95). The fine folks at Fish Foam have graciously agreed to give away 3 three-packs to my readers. You have until Friday, March 23, 2012, at noon to enter. Fish Foam will ship to the lower 48 states only, so my winners must come from there. Here’s how you can enter:

1. Leave a comment telling me where you’ll use Fish Foam. (1 entry per person)

2. Subscribe to the RSS feed of The Hill Hangout by clicking on the orange button under “Subscribe” in the top right-hand corner of this page. (1 entry)

3. Tweet the link to this giveaway and include @TheHillHangout so I’ll see it. (1 entry)

4. “Like” our Facebook page. You can do that on the right-hand column of this page. (1 entry)

5. Blog about this giveaway, including a link back to this post. (1 entry)

Please leave a comment and for each way you’ve entered and let me know. If you don’t, your entry won’t be counted.

If you don’t win, just go ahead and order Fish Foam directly from their website. I’ll definitely be ordering more when I run out. I’m never going back to the blue stuff again!

Filed Under: Style

Easy Peasy Roman Shade

Posted on March 5, 2012 Written by 5 Comments

Part of our kitchen reno a few weeks ago was to remove the soffits above our cabinets, using the extra space to raise our cabinets to the ceiling. This left a space above our kitchen window which had once been wood-paneled soffit. Perfect spot to bring in a little color and texture with fabric!

I got lucky ducky and found a piece of fabric I loved at Premier Fabrics in Meridian, Mississippi, for $4.00 per yard. Actually, I ran into my friend Amanda while at Premier and she showed me this great fabric in the clearance room that she was considering for a shower curtain in her children’s bathroom, and I promptly snatched up a yard and a half of it for my own space. The colors were perfect, the design was fun, and there was enough for both of us to have plenty for our projects.

Now, I’m not a seamstress. I hardly know the basics of sewing enough to limp by on a project like draperies. But I knew I wanted a classic Roman shade, and I’d seen lots of tutorials on Pinterest and blogs about how easy they are. I followed Darby’s tutorial most closely, but actually went with a combination of several different methods. The most helpful and time-saving tip I found was to use tension rods to make the pleats. Shazam! That genius idea saved me a ton of money, a ton of sewing, and a ton of frustration. And they keeps the pleats from sagging in the middle. Here’s how it turned out:

Filed Under: Style

2011 “Not” Back-to-School Blog Hop: Curriculum Week

Posted on August 1, 2011 Written by Leave a Comment

I’m not really sure where our summer went, but it’s once again time to start getting our things together for school. Overall, I was very pleased with our curriculum choices last year. I have mulled over our choices and decided to tweak only a few things. MA (9) is entering fourth grade and is nine years old. She is a good student who tries hard, is focused on her work, and does pretty well in school. She picks up most new concepts easily, so that makes curriculum choices a little easier. Patterson (3) will be going to preschool two days each week at our church, which she is very excited about. We don’t call it “school”, because that freaks her out a little bit, but when we talk about going to “church” on Tuesdays and Thursdays she lights up. Even though she is in preschool, I will add in some additional work with her on the days she doesn’t go.

So, without further ado, here are our curriculum choices for the 2011 school year at the Hill Preparatory Academy for Girls:

Math: Saxon has been such a fantastic choice for us, and we are sticking with it. We love the repetition of spiral math. We love that the pages are uncluttered. We have been very happy with Saxon.

Bible: We are once again reading straight from the Bible. We finished Esther last year and will pick up in Job this year. We’ll probably do Job-Isaiah, but if we do more or less, I’m okay with that. We spend time each day reading the scripture and discussing it. We memorize verses each week and review all of our old verses.

Grammar: I was very happy with the Rod and Staff curriculum we went with last year, so we’re using it again. I thought she learned more from the Rod and Staff grammar books last year than she did with other books. Grammar has been a tricky subject for us in terms of finding a curriculum we liked. We have used two others that we ended up trashing. I feel like Rod and Staff is the real deal.

History: We adore Story of the World! We are big fans of Susan Wise Bauer. This is our fourth year with her series, and we are eager to get started on Modern Times. I feel like history is going to be very robust for us this year, as there are so many resources available. We plan to discover as much as we can about the US and the world around us!

Latin: Last year, we used Prima Latina. We are continuing their series with Latina Christiana this year. We have been very happy with this video series. It has been great for MA to see and hear the teacher while learning a new language. We will definitely have to be more diligent and intentional about memorizing vocabulary and phrases, however. I see notecards in our future.

Science: Those of you who have followed my blog a while know that I have never found a science curriculum that I love. I have used several in the past, but have never felt like they were enough. I have always ended up supplementing with library books on various subjects, but I’ve never felt like my approach was organized and systematic enough. It just felt sort of jumbled.This year we are going with Apologia’s Young Explorer Series. My books arrived today, and I have flipped through them just a bit. I have high hopes that this might be the one! We are starting with Exploring Creation with Astronomy. It looks very promising. We have the book and workbook, which go hand in hand. I’m excited to start digging in to this one.

Memory Work: Besides memorizing our weekly Bible verses/passages, we will also memorize other poetry, speeches, and documents. Since much of our history lessons will be about modern American history (from the Revolution to the present time), there are many important bodies of work from which we can choose. Some of my favorites are the Gettysburg Address, the inscription on the Statue of Liberty, the Preamble to the Constitution, and parts of speeches given by US presidents.

Spelling: I was very happy with All About Spelling last year. We began using this curriculum mid-year, and finished through level three in a few short months. We will begin with level four and go at Mary Anneliese’s pace. I wouldn’t be surprised, though, if we finish this series early in the year and move onto something else.

Fine Arts: We will continue with ballet lessons at the Briarwood Ballet. This has been one of the great joys of our year, and we look forward to having two days each week with Mrs. Barbara Barker, the founder of the Briarwood Ballet, as our teacher this year. I have wanted MA to take Mrs. Barker’s class for some time, but we never could get it to work out. This year is our time, and we couldn’t be happier about it. Mrs. Barker is very disciplined and requires her girls to be the same, so I am looking forward to the structure and rigor of her class. We will also attend as many of the Birmingham Children’s Theater productions as we can. This year we will see “Legend of Sleepy Hollow”, “Willie Wonka”, and “Sacagawea”. I’d love for MA to be able to participate in another play or musical this year, but we haven’t had luck finding an avenue for that to happen. We will continue with choir each week as well.

Physical Education/Health: There was a time when we struggled to get enough PE done. Not anymore. MA is playing on a competitive soccer team this year. That means 3 practices per week at an hour and a half each, and weekly soccer games. Some weekends we will play in tournaments, where the girls keep playing until they either lose or win the whole shebang. That’s a ton of running!! Of course, the Briarwood Ballet lessons are also very active. We have decided to take a wait-and-see approach to gymnastics for MA. If the new soccer commitment isn’t too much, we might add in a day or two of gymnastics each week. She really hates to give it up, but also really wanted to play competitive soccer. But, of course, her favorite PE activity is the two playdates we have each week on the church playground. Bliss for a nine-year-old.

Home/Service/Social: We continue to consider home activities/chores/responsibilities as one of our subjects. We continue to keep up with our service projects so that we can be sure we aren’t being too inward-focused. Doing for others has become one of my girls’ favorite activities. And as always, we monitor social activities to be sure we are getting enough down time with friends.

Now on to Pitter Patter…

As I said earlier, my little one is going to preschool twice each week, and she couldn’t be more thrilled! I’m excited for her because I know how much she adores Sunday school and VBS. This will be right up her alley, and it will give MA and me time to focus on getting some teaching time. How we look forward to doing math without someone whining that they want to play with us! 😉

In addition to preschool, I will be using Beyond Five in a Row with her. I received this curriculum in the mail today, and I think it’s something she is really going to enjoy. And, of course, she will still go with MA and me on all of our field trips and outings.

So there you have it. The Hill Preparatory Academy for Girls is ready to be back in full swing. I pray you will have a fantastic school year!

I’m linking this post to:

Not Back to School Blog Hop

Filed Under: Family, Homeschooling

Saturday (err… Monday) Confessions

Posted on May 31, 2011 Written by 2 Comments

Melissa at A Familiar Path has started a new series called Saturday Confessions. It’s a fun little meme where we get to confess, clear the air, and get it all out there. Here goes nothing…

1. I freely admit that I spent way too much time this weekend working on my blog. I was involved in that majorly LONG post you see below this one about the great things Birmingham has to offer. Writing those 2000 words + trying to figure out the semantics of a new website = too much time NOT playing with my family. I’ll do better this week.

2. Since #1 was going on, I haven’t gotten around to writing this Saturday Confessions post until late Monday night. Somehow that doesn’t surprise me these days! 🙂

3. VBS starts next week. I am in charge of craft projects for about 550 kids. While it is all planned, I have not bought supplies or started putting projects together. I guess I’ll get on that since I’m now completing #1 and #2 above.

4. Watching what I ate over the weekend? Yeah, that didn’t happen either. I’ll work on that right after I get done with #3 above.

5. There really isn’t a #5, but I hated to end on #4.

Whew. I think I really do feel better after getting all that off my chest. 🙂 What do you need to confess?

Filed Under: Recipes

Happy Tuesday!

Posted on July 20, 2010 Written by Leave a Comment

I have shipped the little girls off to Gran’s house for a week, and I am sitting in a quiet house. I have a thousand and one projects to get to this week, things that I have started and never finished. But before I get to all that, I want to finish reading my book and have a little Bible study time. I’m overlooking the pile of dishes in the sink and the pile of laundry in the hamper. Although the Martha in me wants to get it all done first, Mary is winning out today.

Happy Tuesday everyone!

Filed Under: Uncategorized
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