Rock Pit

When Mason was about two years old, we went to this amazing children's museum, that had this huge rock pit area. Basically like a giant sandbox but filled with pea-size gravel. It had all these dump trucks and other construction trucks to load and dump rocks. I loved it! Mason loved it! I decided for his 6th birthday to create this rock pit for him. I wanted a box formation to keep most of the rocks in, I wanted seating areas for the kids to sit on, and tubes for the kids to pour rocks into, where they would fill up their trucks. Some may ask… why not sand?!? A couple reasons… I can't stand when kids came in all sandy, in and out, in and out…. Also, before Mason was born, Kaylie actually got a sand box for her birthday… you know the cute red crab ones, with a lid. Kaylie ended up getting sand mites from the sand box. I had heard of sand mites from when Ben & I lived in Florida near the beach, but never knew they could also be in play sand. So, we got rid of it.
Plus, I think dump trucks go with rocks… and have you ever played in pea gravel rocks?? Its so soothing, soft (they are all smooth, curved rocks)… they feel great on your feet!
Because I am thrifty, I wanted to try to use pallets… great free wood! Are rock pit took about 12 to 13 pallets. The rock bit measures 9x9 feet. There are four pallets on the bottom (the floor), Two and a half pallets for the tube wall area, then the rest where cut to size to make the border. We did go buy nice wood for top edge of the boarder walls. Its 8" wide, so this makes the "seating" area of the pit. After we put the flooring in we also bought two pieces of thin particle board for a more solid flooring (on top of the four pallets). It took 34 bags of pea gravel, and that's at 5" of rock in height. I used decking stain to paint the wood, this will make it last a lot longer. Used PVC piping for the tubes.

The other little handy project for it was I wanted to provide some shade for the rock pit. I decided to take a whisky barrel planter, placed a pvc pipe in the center, and filled it a fourth with cement. This amount of cement provided stability for the pvc pipe and for the planter not to be blown over when the umbrella was in it. The pvc pipe holds the umbrella when we have it out, and allows me to remove the umbrella to put up for the winter, or during storms. Then had cute yellow flowers in the planter!

Fiendish Food & Drink Cards...

This coming Halloween, we are throwing a HUGE Spooktacular! Yes, It's only Feb, and I am planning this party this much in advance! See, the thing is… a good event/party really needs a year in advance planning! We actually started planning last September. Things got really serious after I came across a garage sale, that were previous owners of a haunted trails attraction, mostly lights and outdoor things, but I bought most of it, and knew it was time to plan a party! I have been creating a lot of indoor stuff now. I have already planned out different foods and drinks I want to have at the party. I want everything to have a display card with a unique name. All the alcoholic drinks/shots have a skull at the top of their display. I also have a specialty drink for kids, but I printed on it, that it was "kid friendly". Have to play things safe!!
I made these cards digitally using PicMonkey… LOVE this website! Then I printed them on orange card stock, then placed them on black card stock, and made folded cards.

Here are the cards for you to print:
Food Labels 1
Food Labels 2
Food Labels 3
Food Labels 4
Food Labels 5
Drink Labels

In Years Past...

I LOVE looking at "years past" photos, especially during holidays! You know the ones, that you always take with Santa, or the Easter Bunny, or the kids dressed up in their Halloween costumes in front of your door. I also think during these holidays, these photos should be displayed. They bring back so many memories of cuteness, phases with certain characters, and the fun that was held that night. My "Santa Photos" are in scrapbook style, but the current year is always placed in a special frame that is set out during Christmas. Since I have started really getting into Halloween lately.. (Which by the way… its A LOT) I wanted to display the past years of the kids in their costumes. I decided to make a little pallet project, I put a couple boards together, stained it, wrapped some twine (this will hold my pictures), painted some cute Halloween decor on it… and its done! I then got some cute glittery mini clothespins, and hot glued 3D Halloween embellishments on them. During Halloween, I just replace a everyday wall frame with this piece.

just amber….

This is one of my blogs, just for me! A place for me to show off my arts. And what medium you may ask is that… Everything, literally everything! I love to paint, craft, sculpt, remodel … and everything in between! The one thing you won't find too much about is cake decorating. I think that is an amazing talent, but I just don't have it! But, that could be because I have never taken the time to learn anything about it. Most of my posts will be over the latest project I'm working on, or have done and deffiantly some Pinterest projects I have found. . I am a HUGE Pinterest fan… probably one of the best websites that has ever come into my life. So, I hope you enjoy it, and maybe get a little inspired to be crafty!