I am in charge of my son’s kindergarten Mother’s Day activity.  I am working with a budget of a whopping ZERO dollars, so my options are quite limited.  I’m obviously going to have to fork out some of my own cash, which is ok, but I don’t want to spend very much.  I have scoured the Internet for something that was easy and would be inexpensive for a class full of kindergartners.  Even if an item was only 1 or 2 dollars per kid, that would still cost me up to about 40 bucks out of pocket, so CHEAP was definitely the order of the day.  Finally, after hours of searching, I came across this adorable idea by The Crafty Crow.  The pendant is not only adorable, it’s also sentimental.  I am thinking about giving the kids the option of either doing one finger print as shown in the  picture above, or allowing them to do two finger prints to form a heart.  I am so relieved to have found this idea, and even more relieved for the brilliance of people like The Crafty Crow.

The warm weather is bringing out the gardner in me!  Ok, these pots are not mine, I didn’t plant them, or paint them, or come up with the idea for them, but I can point you to who did.  There’s a complete tutorial too!

How CA-UTE!  The best thing about this tantalizing little treats is that they are as tasty as they are adorable.  Head over here to get the whole scoop!

Have you seen these?  I don’t even know the proper name for the letter montage, but whatever it may be called, I really kind of love them!  They are easy to make and can be totally customizable.  Here is a link to a Flickr group dedicated to single letters.  The possibilities are endless!  Just pick the letters that you need to spell whatever it is you’re wanting to spell, then use your photo editor to arrange them.  Have fun!

How cute is this idea?  I don’t know many people who don’t love milk and cookies.  That’s why a party themed around them is sheer brilliance!  I found the idea here.

How fun is this!  For details click here.

This is SO cute, and quite simple too!  You can’t beat that:).  For a full tutorial click here

I {heart} this adorable diy wreath.  Pop on over to Smashed Peas and Carrots for the complete tutorial.  Happy crafting!

Her is one of the adorable skirts she made!  She went on to say, in her own words, that the skirts are “actually very easy!’ 

I have a 2 year old little girl, well, actually she will be 2 tomorrow, and she made these little skirts for her 2 year old, so the project just called to me.  My little girl’s 0-6 month tights, that for some reason I keep around,were begging to be transformed into an adorable little skirt, and since the skirts were “very easy” I figured I had nothing to lose. 

I guess this would be a good time for my giant disclaimer:

DISCLAIMER:  I am not a seamstress!  I own a sewing machine which resides in my basement 364 days a year.  I have attempted to make 3 things with my sewing machine in it’s  long life including a set of Christmas Stockings which brought my own mother to tears with laughter!

I took myself on over to walmart to pick up some fabric.  I decided on some silky looking pink stuff.  It was $1.50 a yard.  I used less than half of it so the whole project cost me less than $0.75 because the tights had been purchased 2 years ago (so they don’t count).

(Take note of my professional supplies!)

Then my project began.  I followed Disney’s instructions step-by-step.  Here is a word to the wise, if  you have to google “gathering stitch,” you just might not be ready to do one!  I worked on that darn gathering stitch for at least an hour!  After tugging and tugging with no gathering what-so-ever, I realized that I wasn’t supposed to pull the top and bottom strings at the same time.  Then, once I figured out which string to pull, I would get halfway through the gathering process and the thread would snap.  Bringing me to my next word to the wise, when attempting any project that requires a gathering stitch, don’t use discount thread that has been sitting in your basement for 10 years.  I ended up with this: 

Notice my lovely straight lines which echos my sewing precision!  I don’t know why I didn’t take a picture of it, but I ended up with two more lines of stitches.  I know, bless my heart!

Once I finally got the gathering thing down, I continued on to the next steps, sewing the tops together and repeating with the bottom.  However, when I finished with the bottom, I ended up with this:

It was sewn completely inside out without any vision of the pretty side of the fabric.  At that point, I called my mom in defeat.  She suggested that I simply unpick a small section of the bottom and turn the skirt right side out.  I was thrilled that I didn’t have to unpick the entire thing. Once I had followed through with her suggestion, I ended up with this:

A beautiful fabric donut resembling nothing skirt-like.  At that point I nearly quit, but I hate to cower in defeat, so I pressed on.  I did unpick the entire bottom of the skirt and tried again, and I got this:

No!  Not the belly button. . . the asymmetrical looking skirt!

I then decided to take it a step further and make some little lovelies to try to cover up some of my mistakes, and finally, the end result. . . . . .

So in the end, was it worth it?  For $0.75 I say, Heck Yeah!

For a full (and professional) tutorial for this project, click here!

I think this idea is so great!  The frame looks like a work of art, and it is so easy to change the pictures out.  I’m sure it can be done incredibly inexpensive too!  I know at our local thrift store, there are always frames for $0.25 that, with a coat of spray paint, would look great.  Especially because you don’t even need the back or the glass.  Great idea!  Thanks Shanty 2 Chic.  For a complete tutorial just click here.