Voting for Earth911's "Stash your cash" Design Challenge

Let's imagine that you're traveling somewhere and you wanted a sneaky and DIY way to hide your cash from would-be robbers.  What would you make?  How would you make it? 

Go on, take a moment to think about it.  I'll just twiddle my thumbs and wait.  *Twiddle, twiddle* 

Why do I ask?  Well, about a month ago, I was posed this exact question by the staff of Earth911, a neat website providing people with information and ideas for reducing everyday waste. (Can you tell?  These are definitely my kind of people.)

They invited a couple of bloggers to participate in their "Stash your cash" design challenge.  Each blogger had to think up one sneaky way to hide money.  We were allowed to make whatever we wanted, but our solution had to incorporate upcycled and recycled materials.  

Here's my entry:  The Chocolate Bar wallet.

Very crapty... and pretty sneaky.   All the materials were destined for the garbage and now they get a second James Bond-esque life hiding some cash.

If you have a free moment, I'd love for you to vote for your favorite entry here.  The other challengers came up with pretty great ideas, so they're definitely worth checking out.

Hope you have a great start of the week.  We're still battling illness here, but things seem to *hopefully* be on the mend.

What's up Chuck?

Hi everyone! 

We're still battling the remnants of illness here, blech.

Here are some photos of our life lately....

1.  Chuck feeding his best friend, Pink Pig

I have no idea why... but Chuck loves this little pink pig.  She's his best friend.  He loves her so much that every time we eat a meal, Chuck has to feed Pink Pig too.  He places her on our couch and puts those two cups in front of her.  Then, when we're done eating our meal, he cleans up his pig's dishes too.

Super cute.


2.  Fun with Cars

Move over balls, cars have now stolen Chuck's heart.  We've already built several racing ramps and today Chuck and I mixed it up and built a large parking lot.

(Oh boy, do I wish parking in our neck of the woods was this plentiful!)


3.  Potty Humor 

Lately, Chuck has been adding "poo poo" to a lot of strange words and then giggling hysterically.   I've now heard, "Eat poo poo," "Poo poo rawr rawr," and "bad poo poo."

He also likes making his stuffed animals poo into different containers.  I'll let you interpret the above photos on your own. :)


4.  Putting on our shoes

Chuck really is  his father's son... because he loves shoes.  He especially loves wearing mismatched ones.

One day I found him wearing these two shoes and walking around the apartment.  I was so proud of him because he put them on all by himself. 

5.  Baking with Chuck  

I'll let the video do the talking.


P7226875.AVI from Pink Stripey Socks on Vimeo.



Hope you have a great weekend! 
I'm hoping we all feel 100% better by Sunday....



(Psst- I did the unthinkable. I jumped full force into social media and got myself an Instagram 
and Twitter account. Yes I know.  It's kind of overwhelming... scratch that... very overwhelming.  I have no idea what I'm doing, but I'm pushing hard to try new things... eeek.)

Contact paper and cellophane stained glass windows

Our weekly baby and toddler music class has now morphed into a music and craft class.  The kids are getting more mobile now, so we figured it was good to give them something to make and do with their hands.  (Otherwise, they go straight to grabbing the lovely books on the shelves or pushing the furniture around.  Cute, but slightly disruptive to the library.)

But what kinds of activities could the kids do?  Well, the activity had to be
- Suitable for children from 1-3
- Easy to prep
- Easy to set up
- Super easy and quick to clean up
- Made from cheap materials
- Fun!!! (Of course.)

Because of my love for stained glass, I wanted to try a simple stained glass activity with the kids.  Instead of using glue (too messy for the younger kids), we used contact paper to attach our colored cellophane.

Materials:

• Two identical rectangles of contact paper (I just bought a small roll from the Dollar store instead of buying the expensive large roll from the department store)
• Masking tape and clear tape
• Frame cut out from a cereal box (Note:  Make the opening of the frame smaller than your contact paper rectangles)
• Different colored pieces of cellophane cut into small rectangles

 
Directions:
1.  Carefully remove the backing from one contact paper rectangle and use masking tape to tape the sheet sticky side up to your table. 

2.  Let your child stick the cellophane rectangles onto the contact paper. (Chuck loved this part.)

3.  Remove a portion of the backing from another sheet of contact paper.  Then, slowly stick the second sheet of contact paper on top of the first (sticky side down), smoothing it, and removing the rest of the backing as you go.  (This was the toughest part. When we got bumps or bubbles, we just lifted up the top sheet of contact paper and tried again.)

 4.  Tape your contact paper rectangle onto your frame.   Decorate the frame however you want.


Results:

Here are some of the mommy and children's actual work (My sample item is in the one on top in the middle.)

Review:
They were fun to make and came out super colorful and cute.

We struggled a bit with the contact paper, but I didn't care because some of the 2 year olds actually sat still for a couple of minutes and stuck the colored cellophane onto the contact paper.  What?  A couple minutes of concentrated effort?  Awesome.  I'll take it!

One very pregnant mommy even said that this was the longest time that her almost-2 year old sat still.   She didn't want to leave because he was behaving so nicely.

Ahh, music to my ears.  Her comment just made my day.

I love seeing moms and children engaged in an activity and enjoying time together.

Happy crafting!