Mother's Day {FREE} Printables

Two more weeks til Mother's Day!  Last week I shared several great Gift Basket Ideas.  This week, I wanted to share several resources for Free Printables, perfect to attach to your gift basket!

Visit my Mother's Day Pinterest Board for links to all of these beautiful printables.

  

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Don't forget, I have a Pinterest Weekly Craft Challenge going on right now!  Click HERE for all the details, and be sure to link up your version of the challenge!  New challenge options go live this Wednesday, so get craftin'!!!

Simple Things Sunday

Miss Marley and her elementary school chorus group sang the National Anthem at the Atlanta Braves home game Friday night!  I am seriously one proud momma!  :)

Mother's Day Gift Baskets

Mother's Day is in three weeks!  (Are you ready?  Did that just freak you out a little?  Sorry 'bout that.)  I'm here to help!

Gift baskets are fantastic for Mother's Day.  What mom doesn't like one big useful gift full of lots of little useful gifts?  I love gift baskets, especially when the container itself is useful.  Here are a few ideas I've spotted lately to get those wheels turning in your head for that special momma in your life!

{Left} Coffee and Book Lover  {Right}  For the Cook

  

{Left} For the Beach/Pool Lover   {Right} Make Your Own Pizza

   

{Left} Pasta and Wine Lover  {Right} Gardening

   

{Left} Scrapbook Lover  {Right}  Pet Lover

  

{Left} Card Night/Poker Night  {Right}  Cooking with Mom

  

{Find all of these gift basket ideas and more with details and links on my "Anytime Gift Ideas" Pinterest board HERE.}

One {Amazing} Year!

I cannot believe it has been one full year today since I started this little piece of internet craftiness.  It almost slipped by unnoticed, but as I was scrolling through my list of posts, I realized the date on my first post and got super excited!

A whole year!

365 days!

195 posts (counting this one)!

Over 50,000 visitors!  (This shocks me, seriously.)

It has been exciting, wonderful, sometimes stressful, educational, and always fun!  Here's a little recap of the past year on One Tough Mother:

TOP 5 POSTS

1. Mini Personal Binder

2. Family Binder

3. Ribbon Wreath How-To

4. Printable Chart Tutorial

5. Handmade Halloween

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I've learned a lot over the past year - technical stuff like designing my own blog buttons, inserting HTML code, etc.  But the best lessons are the things I didn't know I'd learn...

Friends come in all shapes and sizes.  I have made so many new "friends" in the blog world over the past year.  I had no idea the sense of community was so strong.  It's amazing - we all live everywhere, spread out across oceans and continents, yet we get to know one another because of the power of the written word and shared interests.  Some of my best new "friends" are Rebecca from Simple As That, Christine from The D.I.Y. Dreamer, Karyn from Pint-Sized Baker, and Bethany from Pitter & Glink, just to name a few.  These ladies regularly comment and show love on the blog, and for that I am so grateful!

It's best to share.  I grew my little blog via Facebook, Pinterest, and linky parties.  Google + and blog link sites, like Bloglovin, are my newest additions to the love fest.  You never know what people will like and how they can be affected by what you do.  I have had some of the sweetest emails from people who saw one of my blog posts on Pinterest, or a friend shared it with their friend who shared it with them on Facebook, and so on.  Blows my mind...

Real life comes first.  Always.  I've had to take breaks to deal with reality and I usually feel guilty for a couple days.  But I know that my family is the most important thing in the world, as it is with all of you wonderful readers, so I know that you understand when real life gets in the way of my regular blogging.  This blog has become therapeutic for me, though, and I'm always so glad to get back to it!

Change is a good thing.  When I started this blog, it had no real direction or goal.  It was just a means for me to vent sometimes, share the occassional craft sometimes....  I have changed a lot in the past year, showing my crafts as tutorials, scrapbooking layous, organizational ideas, and even a few recipes.  I also occassionaly share snippets of my life behind the scenes.  I have thoroughly enjoyed watching One Tough Mother adapt and grow into what it has now become, and I'm anxious for the next year!

Thank you for being a part of this ride with me.  It's because of all of you that I'm still here.

God bless!

Sites I'm Loving Right Now...

The internet is a fabulous thing.  I love when I stumble upon new and interesting websites, and there are several that I have discovered lately that are definitely worth sharing.  You may have heard of these - I have been out of the loop lately.  But if not, they are totally worth checking out.

Wild Olive is a fabulous blog filled with tons of great ideas.  My favorite find so far are these awesome FREE printable blog planning pages:

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Super Healthy Kids is A.MA.ZING.  The women behind this site are brilliant.  Kid-friendly HEALTHY recipes, full meal plans, printables, and SO much more.  I'm in love with this site.  Great for the entire family, whether you have kids or not.

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I've just recently become a member of Bloglovin and I think it's fabulous!  I love a lot of different blogs and feel like I miss so much because I don't have time to visit them all each day.  Bloglovin takes care of that.  I get a simple email each day with a list of what's new in each blog I follow. If you are also a blogger, this is a great way to keep up to date on linky parties you participate in.  Your daily email from Bloglovin will send you the list of updates from each blog you follow, so if a linky party is up, you'll know! Check it out!

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A mighty Girl is so stinkin' cute!  This is a great resource for moms of daughters - find great books and movies that encourage and support girls of any age.

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I've been an Etsy addict for a long, long time - most of my wedding items four years ago came from Etsy sellers.  So I was super thrilled to come across Everything Etsy!

This site is packed with important information to help you run your own Etsy shop, but my favorite thing about the site are the "101" lists.  Amazing lists with clickable links, with everything from "101 Simple Handmade Gift Tutorials" to "101 Sewing Tutorials for Summer" to "101 Pretty Free Printables".

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A great resource for DIY projects that rely heavily on repurposed items, Saved by Love Creations is a beautiful blog full of great ideas.

This site has great lists, similar to Everything Etsy.  They have what they call "50 + Friday Roundup" with things like "50 + Wood Pallet Ideas" & "50 + Mason Jar Decor Ideas".  Those two are my favorites :)

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There you have it!  My list of new favorite sites :)  What are some of your favorites?  Share in the comments section so I can check them out, too!

DIY Earth Day Bird Feeder

Earth Day is Sunday, April 22nd.  Marley and I decided to make a bird feeder out of repurposed materials to celebrate!

Here's what we did:

Dakota was begging to chew on the bottle :)

We pulled out an empty 2-liter bottle from the recycle bin and cleaned it out, then gathered our paints.

I let Marley do the painting, and it came out beautifully.

The only purchase I made for this project was the bird seed.  We used wooden spoons we had on hand.

First I cut holes to put the spoon through at an angle so the seed spills out into the spoon.  I tried a wooden skewer, too, but opted to add the second spoon instead.

Finally, after both spoons were inserted correctly, all we had left to do was hang it in our tree and wait for little birdies!

For more Earth Day craft ideas, be sure to stop by my Earth Day Pinterest board for a little "Pin-spiration"!

Happy {early} Earth Day!