One Hour: Two Projects, Two Dinners, One Picture Session

Yesterday Maddie and I decided to take on some creative projects we've talked about.  Jake was gone, Mike was working and we had a little time.  We shopped at two stores for our supplies and headed home.

First up were the shoes I'd found at this website.  I'm not even going to explain how these were made.  Just know they were actually very simple and the tutorial is super easy to understand.  I have a bunch of scrap fabric and Michael's had flip-flops for $1 so that's what this accessory cost us.  This was probably the most time consuming project - 30 minutes tops.

She was very happy with them and I've decided I might need a pair for myself!

Next up were the ever popular hair barrettes with flowers in them.  I'd asked Maddie if she liked them and she was pretty enthusiastic about them.  The hardest part was shopping for flowers.  It's July which in stores means "fall".  There were no bright and fun flowers to be found.  Maddie was really hoping for bright pink and we were going for the big daisy look, but we found this instead:

We found some "barrettes" at Joann's except ours were actually labeled "Quilting Binders".  They are the little clip barrettes and the only kind Maddie wanted.  We pulled out Mike's wire cutter and snipped off a bud and hot-glued it on.  Maddie learned the hard way that the metal point on a glue gun is, in fact, extremely hot.  But, we made about four of these and have enough barrettes to be making them for years to come.  Next year we plan to shop early for flowers - or whatever happens to be the rage.

At this point I had to throw together dinner which was manicotti.  We aren't huge eaters, compared to the amount of food my mom made when I was growing up.  My family is liking leftovers less and less.  I've realized that a lot of bigger meals can be split up and frozen.  This is what I did and I whipped out enough manicotti for two dinners.  LOVE this!!!

Then we realized I still had 20 minutes before my lessons arrived so we decided on an impromptu photo shoot.  Maddie's very happy to have her picture taken lately and I'm not going to pass up those opportunities!

Good pics for her, practice for me...win/win!

When we realized how much we'd accomplished in an hour, we high-fived each other followed by a "Girl Power!"