Category Archives: DIY/Crafts

Map Art for our Family Picture Wall

02/08/2014 Danielle Huddleston 2 Comments

Since most of our family lives out of state I hung pictures in our hallway of extended family.

I might have also wanted to do something with the hundreds of pictures I take of them all…

I had been wanting to add some personal art to the wall for a while now and today finally did it!

I have seen art like this floating around all over Pinterest for a while now and knew it was easy enough I could actually attempt it!

I used a cookie cutter to trace a heart shape from each state Nick and I are from and the state we live in now.

I just used scrapbooking tabs to stick them to a paper and framed it!

It fits right in on a wall dedicated to family that lives far away.

I love walking by and seeing my cute nieces and nephews!

My boys really like looking at the pictures of their grandparents.

I got the idea from Young House Love’s Hallway.

Other than the new art the hallway has been done for a while but it is hard to get pictures of it because it is so dark.

I thought right before valentines day would be a good time to share my new heart map art!

DIY/Crafts, Homeschooling

History ~Sumerian Civilization

02/06/2014 Danielle Huddleston Leave a comment

I really liked the “Ancient Civilizations for Children-Mesopotamia” DVD and will probably get more from this series.

The Epic of Gilgamesh was a little too scary two years ago when we studied this last so I was pretty excited we got to read some of the stories this time.

“The Last Quest of Gilgamesh” touched on the flood myth, which is what I really wanted to read about since it has many similarities to Noah’s Flood.

We are still finishing “The Golden Bull” but so far it is a really good read!

It is about two children in the city of Ur and when it describes the city and different parts of their life we look it up in our reference books.

It really makes that time period come alive.

After learning that they ate Pomegranates I bought one for the boys to try.

I found this really great tutorial on how to open them.

The boys liked it a lot!

As you can see from this boys face.

I had the boys try their hand at Cuneiform again also.

All you need is some Air Dry Clay, Pictures of what it looked like, and Chopsticks.

They used reeds to make the impressions for the real thing but I found the edge of a chopstick worked pretty well.

My youngest really enjoyed making his!

He wanted to do more but I did not really want to use up all our clay on this project!

Because I am sentimental, here are some pics from when we did this project over two years ago!

The cuteness is a bit too much for me…

DIY/Crafts, Photo Projects

My Favorite Christmas Gift for Grandparents.

11/26/2013 Danielle Huddleston Leave a comment

I make a photo book for the Grandparents every Christmas.

I have used snapfish, shutterfly, and the last two years my publisher.

I really like my publishers quality and the deals they run but I am not a big fan of the software.

We do not use windows or mac so software is a bit more of a hassle for us.

I would rather make them online so I am trying out another company this year.

Mixbook, they get high ratings so we will see how they turn out.

I buy 4 books every year so I really want a good deal!

I do not put only pictures in the books.

I add funny quotes from the boys as well.

I got the idea after seeing this book.

I would like to say I am really organized and write all of their cute sayings down throughout the year.

That would be a lie though…

I put them up on facebook throughout the year and then I scroll through and grab my favorites.

This year I added a couple I did not share on Facebook to a journal on my phone.

I would like to do that to all of them but am afraid I will miss the hours spent scrolling through all those facebook posts.

Ha!

I am just not that organized.

At the beginning of the new year I make a family book.

It is pretty easy since I am just adding some extra photos to the books I have already made.

I really like that these books take something I enjoy and make it a personalized gift!

I never have any stress about what I am getting grandparents either!

Surprise!

You are getting another photo book.

They can’t say they don’t like it because it is pictures of their grandchildren.

“What! You don’t love your grandchildren?”

See, sounds bad.