Just Add Stickers

This past January I decided to change up my Just Add Stickers logo and background. Over the past 12 years of this blog I have changed the look of my homepage twice. When I look back on the old designs I feel nostalgic, I remember all the times that I worked on my little blog over the years, the projects that I worked on with my kids, for them and for myself.    When I started my blog in 2013, I was figuring things out as I went along. I didn't have a smart phone at that point, I finally got a tablet soon after I started but my first blog posts were made from my laptop, uploading pictures from my digital camera. I chose a playful option from the background themes. It fit well with the crafts that I was posting, very playful.  Then I discovered Canva! That was a game changer! I changed to this background on New Year's Day 2017. I was crafting more for myself at this point, Little Man was at school and I was working on my Etsy shop. I was looking at making my blog look a lit...

Happy Spring everyone! The weather was cold at the beginning of the month but we've had two weeks of warmer weather and lots of rain, perfect gardening weather! When we moved to our new home last summer the garden box was overgrown and we started using it to put our hedge trimmings in. We finally cleaned it out and added new soil  We were excited to try our hand at gardening again. Over the yeats we have had little  herb gardens  and of course our  Fairy Gardens , which are more decorative than actual gardening.  Little Miss was very excited to start our very own vegetable garden. She helped me create our garden plan and we shopped for the plants, seeds and garden decor together.  We had to make a few adjustments to the garden box. We realized that it was too deep to be able to reach the plants in the back, especially for Little Miss. We searched through the shed, which has a lot of  ceramic tiles and garden stones leftover from the previous owners. We...

  Little Miss was reading her Chirp magazine recently and we found out that it is 'make your own book day' on May 8th. That sounded right up our alley, so we tried out the make your own book tutorial in the magazine.  Little Miss is very interested in fuzy animal notebooks these days, so we made our own version of a fuzzy book. We used felt to cover the books. Little Miss chose to make Stitch and Angel books. We used felt to make the eyes and ears and used a black market for the details.  I chose to make a ghost notebook, I think it turned out pretty cute. You could cover the little books with nice paper or stickers. These little books could be used for daily notes or lists. They would also make a thoughtful Mother's Day gift.  Happy make your own book day and happy crafting!

Little Miss is in her slime phase right now. She wants to make it and play with it and she saw on YouTube that you can even make edible slime. So, of course I looked up recipes and I chose the one with the ingredients that I had on hand. I have to say that it was easy to make and Little Miss says that it tastes good too!  There are two main kinds of edible slime that I found, one that uses gummy bears and one that uses marshmallows. We used marshmallows because it was what we had in the house but I think that the gummy bear recipe would be more colorful and you might  not need food coloring.  The recipe that I used contained marshmallows, corn starch, oil and food coloring. The other variation on the recipe that I saw was to use powdered sugar instead of corn starch. I tried using the powdered sugar but the mixture was always sticky, the corn starch gave the mixture a coating that made it more maliable, it didn't stick to our hands. At first I opted for the powdered sugar...

  Putting together a fast board of snacks is one of my favorite ways to incorporate holidays into our everyday. It doesn't take much more time but it looks great. This brunch board is a great idea for Easter brunch (lots of fruit to counter act the chocolate) or for Mother's day.  Small egg bites are a good way to add some protein to the snack board. My simple recipe is: Ingredients: • 4 eggs • 1/3 cup grated cheddar cheese • 3 slices of ham chopped Instructions: 1. Preheat oven to 350° 2. Grease muffin tins or silicone muffin molds (I used heart and flower shaped molds) 3. In a small mixing bowl, beat eggs with a fork  4. Mix in the rest of the ingredients 5. Spoon the mixture into the muffin molds 6. Bake for 12-15 minutes until the egg bites are firm I start by lining my board with parchment paper. Them add the veggies and fruit. For this brunch board I used blueberries, apples and carrots. I also made tomato and mozzarella skewers. I had some mini muffins but buttered...

Last week my whole family was sick for the entire week. We all had fevers and chills for days and days. One night when I was starting to feel a bit better I decided that we needed a little pick me up and change of scenery. I decided to take out our S-Patick's Day decorations out and make some rainbow hearts to decorate with.  This was just as much of a craft as I could manage at that time. I took out a stack of felt, scissors and my glue gun. I cut hearts out starting in rainbow colors starting with red and getting smaller with each heart. I used the 1st set of hearts as a template for the others. Once they were all cut out I glued them together.  I used these rainbow hearts to decorate the hutch in my kitchen, a space I love to decorate because we can all see it from the table and it is nice to change things up without changing too much.  Along with the rainbow hearts I made a 'pot-o-gold' using some decorative coins and yellow tissue paper. I am happy with how this turn...

Have you ever ordered something and received the miniature version of it? I have, and I know that I am not the only one. This happened to me two Christmases ago. In all fainess it was probably clearly marked, I just thought that it was a cooking kit for kids but it was actually a mini baking set,  to make not just small treats but mini treats.  Instead of returning the mini baking set I decided to keep it for a rainy day and we finally had a chance to use it this weekend. Little Miss is very interested with mini versions of things these days, especially the mini brands surprise packs. I brought the baking kit when went to Grandma's for the weekend and it was a big hit with everyone.  The overall consensus is that the recipes are actually tasty but it is also messy, since we have to take out all the ingredients anyways we should have made big versions as well. There are lots of websites and YouTube channels for tiny cooking. Overall it was very cute and a lot of fun! ...

There is something very relaxing about a Sensory activity. I made this Valentine's Day activity for Little Miss, we both like kinetic sand, it's fun to play with and isn't as messy as some other sesory bin materials. I also don't think there is an age limit on sensory activities.  I found all the material I used at the Dollar Store. This would be very easy to make using any materials you have on hand.  The supplies I used are: • Container (I used a heart shaped chip and dip bowl) • Kinetic sand • Heart jewels (or any Valentine's craft supply works) • 'Shovels' (I used wooden spoons because it's not beach season so I couldn't find any little sand shovels.) • 'I dig you' sign Activity:  Open and dump. It's as simple as that, start with the jewels or craft supplies. Place enough sand to cover the jewels. I topped it all of with a 'Happy  Valentine's Day' sign that I had left over from a cake a few years ago. I placed the 'sho...

Over the years we have acquired a good amount of football decorations and come up with football themed activities and games for family friendly Super Bowl parties. This year we added some new decorations to our collection and came up with a few new activities. We started by ordering a pack of photo props. Little Miss and I assembled them and I used a metal bucket and some floral foam to display the photo props upright, which also makes this a nice centerpiece.  This year I thought it would be fun to have our guests vote for who they think will win. I made this little poster with construction paper and white printer paper. We hung the poster near the TV with pens available.  To make it fun we are giving little prizes to the winners, football keychains with the year written with a permanent white marker. I hope these easy party ideas provide some inspiration! Happy Super Bowl Sunday and happy crafting!

  Little Miss and I made a very special fairy addition to our library. I found a Fairy library kit on Amazon and thought that it would be easy to create our own version. We had all of the materials at home. Some times when I get an idea for a craft, I want to buy exactly craft supply that I have in mind but lately I have been trying to use what I have on hand, to save money and slowly work my way through my large amount of craft supplies. The end result often turns out different but more unique than what I had in mind. This project calls for a faux book box but you can easily make one out of a box. I used one that I had in my Halloween decorations box. I had a more spring themed library in mind but the dark interior gave us the idea for it to be a midnight library. We added some constellation stickers I had left over. We were very happy with the end result. I can see this as a cozy place to read books at night.  What you need: A decorative book box  Modeling clay Mini boo...

Welcome to my 3rd annual reading journal post I started in 2023 and continued the tradition throughout  2024 . This year many of the pages are the same but I have decided to make one change to the way I track audio books and physical books. The 1st year I kept them completely separate, having separate sections for reviews and trackers. Last year I kept the reviews together but tracked physical books and audiobooks separately. I always felt that the way I relate to the story is different in audio form than it is when I read a physical book. I find audio books closer to movies because you don't have to imagine the voices, the narrators bring the characters to life in a unique way.  I am also less concentrated on audiobooks, I will rarely sit listening to a  audiobook without any other distractions, I multi-task while listening to audiobooks, cleaning or walking or driving, even Christmas shopping. The other side is that audiobooks are faster to listen to than to read (espe...