Kids – The Hustlin’ Homemaker

DIY Daisy Rings

The 90’s must really be back! I used to LOVE to make these daisy rings when I was in middle school and now I am making them with my girls (and one of them is starting middle school!)

These rings are so cute and very on trend with fashion right now. We love making them in all different colors and matching them to our outfits. They are so easy to make, so here’s how we do them!

Here’s what you need:

Seed beads. We found these at Michael’s. We love how they had an assortment of shiny and matte colors.

String. This is the tricky part. We had to try a couple of different types of string before we found the winner. You want string that is stretchy, and it also has to be 0.3mm or less. The beads are super small, so a larger mm string won’t work.

You also just need some scissors, and that’s it. Oh, and you’ll need some patience because these rings take some practice.

Ok, I’m switching over to my coffee table because the string was invisible on my usual laundry room counter top. Yes, that’s where I take my pics. There’s really good lighting in there! haha

First thing you want to do is measure out your string. It’s better to have too much than not enough. I do about 8 inches.

Select your bead colors. We chose red, purple, and blue. Red will be the petals, purple on the inside of the flower, and blue for the spacers.

Start off with the center of the flower. We wanted that to be purple, so put that bead on first. Then, place three petal beads on next to it.

Take the right side of the string and put it through the last petal that you put on, and pull it tight.

This is what it will look like when you pull it tight, it makes one half of the flower. Next, add three more petal beads on the left.

Now you’re going to take the string from the left side, and loop it through the top petal. Pull tight!

It makes a little flower! Now, add three spacer beads and repeat the flower.

Here is what you have at the end! I find that doing 5 flowers with spacers and a few extra spacers at the end gives me a perfect fit. I wear ring sizes 5-7 on my fingers.

Tie the ends a few times (we triple knot) and trim the ends, and there you go! A cute little daisy ring.

We make these three different ways, the flowers with the spacers, flowers with no spacers, and then one flower with the rest spacers.

My girls and I have so much fun making these! We hope you will love making them too!

Thanks for reading! xx

KIDS | Back to School 2021! Must Haves + Homework Cart

Hello! My girls ages 10 and 7 are both going back to school tomorrow, so I thought it would be fun to round up some school must haves for them! We also re-organized their homework cart, so I thought it would be helpful to share that as well.

First up, water bottles. My girls always bring a refillable water bottle to school, and these from Simple Modern are their favorite. They are stainless steel, come in a ton of colors/patterns, and they are dishwasher safe! Oh, and you can get them on Amazon.

how cute, right? The water stays cold all day!

Next up, some vitamins. I don’t give the girls a multivitamin since they have a well balanced diet, but I do give them vitamin c/elderberry gummies every morning. Especially with all of this Covid stuff, I figure it can’t hurt, right?

They love the taste of these gummies. I put them into this mason jar so that they could easily open them…and it’s more aesthetically pleasing to me 🙂

Speaking of Covid (ugh), I want to share their favorite reusable masks to wear. It is challenging to find masks that are comfortable and breathable, and we have found some that they really like.

My 10-year old Allie likes the cotton ones from Cat&Jack at Target. These have a metal little nosepiece and are very breathable and comfortable for her.

It was a little bit challenging to find masks for my 7-year old Ashley. She is very small for her age, (barely 40 lbs) and so I found these toddler ones on Etsy. They are kind of like bathing suit material, very stretchy, and they have the built in ear loops. She LOVES these and wears them just for fun sometimes!

I put both kinds into a laundry bag every few days and wash them in the machine and then let them air-dry.

Let’s talk lunch! It’s the best part, right?

I love to include notes in my girls’ lunchboxes every day. They do buy school lunch about half of the time, but they love to bring their lunch too. I found the BEST notes on Amazon.

These come in a pack of 100, and have 50 different patterns, so they are perfect because I can give the girls the same one each day. They have the cutest little sayings and would be good for boys or girls! I know it makes the girls really happy when they get a note. I also like how there is space on the back to write something. It’s just a little something special to let them know how much I love them!

Here are some other little things I like to use for their lunches.

I love to use cookie cutters for their sandwiches, it just makes it more fun for them, and also using little toothpicks to make little turkey/cheese roll ups, and silicone muffin cups to separate certain foods. Also, these little reusable snack bags are so cool! I can put their afternoon snack in here and machine wash these. I usually don’t need to, I can just wash them out really quick by hand so they’ll last longer. I put goldfish crackers, cookies, pretty much any snack will fit inside and I don’t have to buy the plastic snack baggies anymore.

At our house, a homework cart is necessary. We keep this little cart in the kitchen, and it has everything in here that the girls will need to do their homework.

They like to do their homework in the kitchen while I am cooking dinner, so that is why we keep it in here. We have everything in here, so that they won’t have to run to their art table in the playroom to get something.

On the top here we have a little plastic caddy, two cups for each of their pencils and pens, some glue and scissors, and we use the space at the back for any important papers and homework due at the end of the week. Also up top we have a little hair-do caddy. We keep elastics, ponytail holders, hair clips, and a brush in here so that I can do their hair in the morning while they’re eating breakfast. It’s just easier than going over to their rooms to do it.

The next shelf has notebook paper, plain white paper, and their scratch journals.

The last shelf has markers, crayons, colored pencils, and then a few packages of extra pencils.

On the side of the cart I have these little magnetic hooks, and that is where we hang their face masks. They choose a new one each day to wear.

Alright, well that is all I have for back to school this year! Not only are they excited, but MOM is excited too!

Thanks for reading! xx

What’s In My Bag | Disney Park Day

Hello! We recently took a trip to Disney World, and I thought it would be fun and helpful to show you what to pack for a day at the parks! Usually park days are super long, so having a lot of items with you is crucial to making the most of your day. We were packing for a family of four; me, my husband, and our two girls, ages 10 and 7.

Here’s what we packed!

First off, my backpack. I chose to take this pink Jansport backpack with me because it is washable and I wouldn’t have to worry about it getting dirty or wet while on the rides. The straps are really comfortable to carry all day and it’s just easy with the two compartments. One big one in the back and a small one in the front that actually fits quite a lot.

The two things that took up the most room in the backpack were our rain ponchos and cooling towels.

If you aren’t familiar with Florida’s weather, you might not know that it rains a lot in the summer. Seeing as Disney’s tickets are non-refundable, you’re not going to let a little rain stop you from enjoying the park. Disney has these for purchase at the gift shops, but they’re much cheaper on Amazon. I have a two pack of children size and a two pack of adult size. Luckily, we did not have to use them, but didn’t want to take the chance!

Next are these cooling towels. These are a must if you go to Disney in the summer, you just wet them, wring them out, and then throw them around your neck. Instant coolness. They also do sell these in the gift shops too with cute mickeys all over them.

You gotta have the proper headwear! I packed all of us a cap just so our faces wouldn’t get sunburned, but we did wear our ears most of the time! I found these ears on Etsy because we wanted to have them before we went to the park. The girls even wore them in the airport 🙂

Sunscreen is a must! I have a cream face sunscreen here SPF 50 and then also a spray on with SPF 50. We all used these and reapplied often and did not end up sunburnt!

Also, you really want to have bandaids on hand, not only if someone were to get hurt but because BLISTERS! Luckily, we did not have to use these because we all wore comfy shoes and socks. Always good to have these in the bag though.

Medicine! I have to take Dramamine when I travel because I have extreme motion sickness. Planes, Ubers, the monorail, and the rides all make me feel ill, but Dramamine really does help me a lot. If I take one in the morning I’m good for the rest of the day. I also packed some Tylenol and threw some chewable Tylenol in this container for the girls. You never know if someone will get a headache and you don’t want it to ruin their day.

Sunglasses are a must if you can’t see in the sunlight (me!) and then also this little re-chargeable fan is awesome to have. I originally bought this for me to use while watching my girls tennis practices and matches, but it came in so handy at Disney for us!

Also, face masks – when we went to Disney face masks were not required, but we still wore them inside shops and monorail and Ubers. I know they are requiring masks now everywhere at Disney.

A couple more things – I packed a little wallet with my cash, license, credit card and our park passes. Also, some extra ponytails and a lip balm.

Disney does allow you to bring in food, so keep that in mind – you are able to bring in snacks and bottles of water, just not any ice chests. Packing water is a good idea so that you don’t have to buy it there.

So that is what we packed for Disney park days! It wasn’t too much and it’s so nice to bring a backpack so you’re hands free!

Thanks for reading! xx

Easter 2021 | Eggs and Basket Ideas

Hello! Sunday is the big day, are you ready? If not, I am here to help! I have some simple and pretty inexpensive ideas that will make your kids so happy on Easter!

A little bit about my kids – I have two girls, Ashley is 6 and Allie is 9. Most of these ideas are for girls, but you could easily swap these things for the boy versions.

First off, the egg hunt. The egg hunt is always so exciting, but sometimes it is so hard to find little treasures that fit inside the eggs.

You can never go wrong with candy.

I got some unicorn fruit snacks, Reese’s cups, York peppermint patties, and candy necklaces. All easily fit into the eggs.

I found these little unicorn zip pouches that I thought were adorable.

I also found some bunny hair clips, some butterfly claw clips, small scented markers that look like candies, and press on nails.

Stickers are really great because I cut them up and stick some in a bunch of the eggs. Also, I found these pink dice – I know they’re random but my girls love to play the game YAHTZEE and I thought they would love having these.

I also found these little eggs that actually expand into washcloths when you put them into water.

Lastly, just some dollar bills and quarters. Cant go wrong with $$$. I was able to fill 60 eggs with all of this. I usually put a few things into each egg.

Now for the Easter baskets.

Here is Ashley’s.

Here is Allie’s.

This pink bunny is so so soft and cuddly. Ashley still really likes stuffed animals, so I know she will love this. I got Allie a hat because she isn’t very into stuffed animals and she will love this hat. Both of my girls play tennis, so they love to get hats and visors.

I got them both matching swimsuits, I thought the stripes and colors on this one was so cute.

I got them each a book and a movie, they both got a Barbie movie because they love those. Barbie Princess Charm School and Barbie Rockin Royals. Ashley got a Junie B Jones book, and Allie a Candy Fairies book. Both of them love those series.

I got each of them a water bottle, LOL Surprise for Ashley, and a pretty marble pattern for Allie. They can use these for tennis practice and school.

I also got them some floral springtime themed pencils, a strawberry push pop with a bunny on top, a chocolate bunny, and a package of LOL Surprise jelly beans.

I found this cute pair of pink flip sequin bunny ears for Ashley, and a pack of Easter themed earrings for Allie, who has her ears pierced.

So that’s it for the baskets. I’m sure they will love them.

I also bought them these matching tie dye dresses (they love to match) and some confetti eggs to put out with their baskets.

I always like to do a Easter Scavenger Hunt with clues. I found these online and copied them down:

I hide all of these clues around the house and then at the end it will lead them to one of these LOL Surprise dolls. They LOVE these and collect them, so I know they will be really happy.

So that’s it for Easter! I hope I gave you some ideas for what to do with your kids!

Thanks for reading xx

Best Amazon Products For KIDS

What did we do before AMAZON? I don’t even remember of a time without it! It makes finding random things so much easier than searching around in a store.

I have a few Amazon posts if you want to check them out!

Amazon Accessories

Amazon Kitchen Products

Amazon Home Products

I use Amazon a lot for things for my girls, so I thought I would share these great finds with you all.

Here are the best ones.

First up, a couple of things for shower time!

My girls are 9 and 6, so they are shower-takers now! My littlest cannot reach the built in wall nooks that hold the shampoo/conditioner/soap, so I picked up this little caddy! This goes over the tub and is fully adjustable! It is super easy to assemble and holds all of the products in it so that she can reach them. It would also be so good for bath toys!

Next is this extra long non-slip bath mat. It is fun and pink, and it covers every inch of the bathtub so they don’t slip while showering. It is also very easy to clean.

Both of my girls have long hair, so I swear by the It’s a Ten Miracle Leave in Product. This detangles, protects from heat, and does 10 things for your hair. The main reason why we use this is for detangling. To go with it, the Wet Brush. We have 9 of these in our house (I just counted) and they work so much better than a comb! They don’t pull the hair and are the best for combing wet hair.

Next are these little sound machines. I have one in each of the girls’ room. There are 6 different sounds, and an adjustable volume. It also has a timer, but we leave them on all night. It is very very quiet where we live, and you can hear every little sound, so they have had these in their rooms since they were babies! You can either plug them in or put batteries. Highly recommend!

This arts and crafts caddy is such a space saver! We have every marker, map pencil, and crayon out there, so we needed a way to organize. This thing is HUGE, and holds everything we need. I also LOVE how you can remove each section depending on what you are using. Here is ours on our craft table in the playroom! It is chock full.

Next, a couple of things for lunchtime!

I have talked about these lunch containers a lot; I have some back to school lunch ideas on my blog if you want to check those out! These containers are awesome, they are dishwasher safe, and fit perfectly in a lunchbox. I love how we don’t have to buy plastic baggies- there is no waste with these. They always stay closed and the girls love them.

Also, these Thermos cups. We have 8 of these and the girls drink out of them daily. They keep their drinks cold and I like how they open and close with the push of a button. They come in a ton of different colors and patterns! They are durable and easy to clean!

That’s it for the Amazon Kids Products!

What do you love from Amazon?

Follow me on INSTAGRAM for more!

Thanks for reading! xx