Sorry to disappoint, but this is not a recipe. It’s the next FREE Christmas gift in my How Many Christmas Gifts Can I Make for the Kids Without Spending Any Money? challenge to myself.

This time I cheated. Kind of. My moth-in-law graciously let me go through the piles of clothes she was getting ready to donate to Goodwill and snag a few (dozen) items to use as fabric.

Like this sweater. I felt REALLY bad cutting this, it was a very nice name-brand sweater from an expensive store, but it didn’t fit anyone in our family, so I guess re-purposing it is the next best thing.

Sorry for the hazy pics, we desperately need a new camera!

I have been wanting to make some steamed crab toys for a while. We are originally from Baltimore and steamed crabs are just part of our culture. I thought it would be adorable to make some for our kids.

I drew a template for myself on card stock. (Then I re-drew the claw about 5 more times until I finally got it right.)

I cut out the pieces and used them as a guide to cut fabric from the sleeves of the sweater.
(See I felt so guilty that I could only bring myself to use the sleeves.)

Then I sewed the pieces to the shell and stuffed it with more polyfil. I added black eyes with a fabric marker in keeping with the Maryland colors.

I made two of them (one for each kiddo) and put them in a basket lined with newspaper with a mallet we had lying around.

I was tempted to make more just to fill up the basket, but how many pretend steamed crabs does a kid really need?

I am in love with them.
And even more in love with the fact that they were free.

These crab toys sell for $9 each, so that adds another $18 to my total savings. (They are pretty stinking adorable though, and make me want to do a blue crab version)

That brings my total savings up to $194!

If you get a minute, check out my other no-cost gifts:

Dominoes
Dollhouse Diorama
Sweater Puppets
Rag Doll
Ideas

It was bound to happen eventually. Eddie is scheduled to come back for his first “visit” home in two or three days. (He is traveling for work for the next three months, but is able to come home for a few days periodically.) Unfortunately I did not quite make it through this first three weeks without him before going into crazy-lady-with-hormones-worse-than-when-I-was-nine-months-pregnant-melt-down mode. It has been extremely stressful trying to file all the paperwork for the dissolution of my business, work several evenings a week, schedule Nicholas’ appointments for play therapy, occupational therapy, special ed teachers, preschool orientations and meet the teacher days, doctor’s appointments, and do all of the normal day-to-day stuff that Eddie usually helps me with.

This morning I might have cried hysterically because my daughter misplaced her sippy cup full of juice. I might have turned off the tv and forced Nichols to search frantically with me while he was crying tears of his own because he felt like he was being punished. (When he came back to me crying and holding a plastic soda bottle from our toy kitchen and said “Here mommy, I found a drink for you.” I realized I was being slightly ridiculous and let him go back to watching Toy Story.) I might have called Eddie screaming and crying about how not finding the sippy cup was going to lead to juice stains on the furniture, cockroaches, and people in Hazmat suits taping off our house as a contaminated area while clouds of green smoke came out of the chimney.

He might have tried to comfort me by telling me that he had scheduled a cleaning lady to come give us an estimate this morning so I wouldn’t have to be so overwhelmed. (Believe me, I know, that’s why I married him.) I might have responded to that by screaming “WHAT?! HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME?!!!” I might have told him that I could not possibly let a woman who cleans houses for a living see our house in its current state of disarray. I might have yelled and screamed and cried until he offered to try to reschedule the appointment so that I would have time to clean for the cleaning lady.

I might have also yelled at my son and forced him to leave my bedroom because he moved the blanket on my bed about six inches after I told him not to touch it because I had placed it a certain way to cover a stain on the comforter since I can not possibly have the cleaning lady think that we are messy when she does come. I might have also told him it was just too bad that his toy train went under the hutch in the dining room and I guessed Thomas was gone for good. I might have made my daughter go back in her crib only an hour after she woke up and let her cry while I frantically threw boxes (from my new dinnerware that arrived yesterday) into the garage and the suitcase from the kids’ weekend with their grandparents that was still siting on the kitchen table into my closet.

I might have done those things this morning. Maybe. But if I did those things I know it would have been ridiculous because of all these things I have to be thankful for:

1. My husband is only gone because he has a well-paying job that supports our family.
2. We are getting a cleaning lady
3. We have had lots of help these past few weeks from family and friends
4. I got to have some time to myself this weekend
5. We are all healthy
6. The house is only messy because we have a lot of stuff (toys, clothes, food, etc.)
7. Abby slept through the night last night
8. We are making slow but steady progress on the potty training front
9. The medical debt that was caused by a mistake with Abby’s insurance is finally paid off
10. The team Eddie is working with put in LOTS of overtime over the past few weeks specifically so that he will be able to make it home on Thursday for our anniversary. It’s looking promising.

So instead of wallowing in completely unwarranted self-pity I am going to try to just wait patiently because in a few hours my grandmother will be here and tomorrow one of my dearest old friends is coming to help and Thursday I might just get to finally see my husband again.

Yes, my husband is away for a few weeks, but get your mind out of the gutter.

I have been having a HORRIBLE time over the past week while Eddie is away, neither of the kids is sleeping well at all because their routine has been interrupted and Nicholas’ attachment and behavior issues are here with a vengeance. He also suffers from chronic constipation whenever his routine is interrupted. (Last year we had to take him to the ER because he started having colon spasms after Eddie & I took a weekend get away at the beach.)That combined with the “normal” routine of scheduling his OT, special ed, play therapy, preschool, and doctor’s appointments, plus I am going to be serving on the steering committee for mom n me again this year, I’m working a few nights a week and now have to take the kids with me…you get the idea.

Anyway, today I treated myself (because I thought I deserved it) and gave in to “Temp-tations.” (That’s the name of the product.) I do not have any affiliation with the company, I just really love their stuff.

I ordered new dinnerware! I got 2 of the above sets in black.

It was about time too, since we are still using our old, chipped, super-cheap Target dinnerware from college.

Temp-Tations is a line of affordable hand-painted stoneware that is oven, microwave, freezer, and dishwasher safe. I have a few other pieces already and LOVE them. It is only available from QVC, so a lot of people haven’t caught on yet. We have a QVC outlet not far from here and I have even found some pieces there at even better prices that I’ve given as gifts.

I’m not normally one to order products off the TV, but I do love my Temp-Tations.

You can see their whole line and place orders on the QVC website.

Just to give you an idea of how affordable it is, you can get this entire set for under $50:

There. The secret’s out. Now you can get some too. I can’t wait until my dinnerware comes next week! The black is going to look so chic in our new kitchen! 😀

After completing all of the steps in Part 1 we are ready for day 2!

Day 2 steps:

1. Caulk all of the cracks with paintable caulk. It’s true what they say. This stuff really does hide a multitude of sins! To caulk just squirt the caulk into the crack, wipe off the excess with your finger, and then go back over the surface with a damp rag.

2. After the caulk dries, sand all of the edges again.

3. Put on another coat of paint.

Ok…now we’re going to start on the art rail. I used a 1×3 because we already had one cut to the size I wanted, but you can have Lowes or Home Depot cut the extra piece of furring strip from the frame to whatever length you want yours to be.

4. Sand and paint your long strip of wood. This will be the clip rail.

If you want your pieces to have a painted look then all you have to do is attach clothes pins with glue, let everything dry for another day and then hang it with picture hangers. They are surprisingly light weight pieces.

I made things a little more complicated for myself. Originally, I was just going to antique the cream color with a little stain, but the more I did the more I decided I liked it darker.

To stain:

You will need a rag, gloves, a small paint brush, and the stain. I used Minwax stain & poly all-in-one in Bombay Mahogany.

I like to rub the stain into the surface with a rag and use the brush for smaller areas, like the sides.

Ta-da.

Now do the same thing to the clip rail.

I also decided that I wanted to stain the clothes pins to match. This is way easier than it sounds. Just take the little metal things out, stain one side, and after it dies stain the other side. I used the paint brush for this. When both sides are dry, put the metal piece back in.

Ok, when the clothes pins are finally dry, the last thing you need to do today is use the paint brush to brush some wood glue onto the back of each clothes pin and stick the clothespins into the clip rail.

Stay tuned for the big reveal. 🙂