Simple Summer (or anytime) Projects

We've been working on a few small projects so far this summer--aside from the many garden and yard projects always underway.  They have all been quick and easy, not revolutionary, but still worth sharing for others to try.  

A few fun, inexpensive, ideas for rainy days...

Crepe Paper Flower:  

Back in April I bought supplies to make crepe paper flowers.  We didn't get to them until the real flowers outside were blooming, but they are still nice in our office window.  These were simple to make and a little paper goes a long way.  A quick internet or Pinterest search will show many ways to do them.   I'm dreaming up a whole "garden" full for next winter.  Maybe we can try this idea from Elsie Marley.  

I'd pretty much like to try all of her ideas.  

Home-Made Stationary:
The Montessori school in our town prints the children's artwork into cards.  We keep receiving Thank You's and invitations on "official" stationary made by our friends.  Super cool, and way easy (we've done this before, but then forgot how simple and fun it was).  So, using our copier I shrunk a few of each of the kid's masterpieces (and random drawings scavenged from the recycling bin) and copied them onto card-stock.   We've gifted a few sets and are using others for ourselves.

Peg Board Room Divider:
Wylie has been asking for his own room, which can't happen without some complicated room finagling.  But, we thought up a plan to give him a bit more private space in his shared room.  Kale and I set it up one afternoon while the two big kids were away.

We used one 4x6 sheet of peg board ($26 at our local lumber yard), some painter's tape, and left over paint.  I attached the board with twine so we didn't have to put screws into the bunk-bed.  Now the front half of the room is Kale's, and Wylie has privacy in the back section.  The holes conveniently let us see just enough to know if someone is moving around back there, which is settling if you are walking into a quiet room and are not sure if you're alone (or you are a nosy parent wondering what's going on back there).  Of course I couldn't resist the chalk board paint for at least a little bit of it.

(Confession:  I wrote the message myself.  The original message read:  Party 8:00, or when my mom leaves.)