Tonya Staab

Make and Takes: Handmade Hair Scrunchies

The '80s are back and they're bringing scrunchies.

Whoever thought that these would be making a comeback? But, if you love them now as much as we loved them then, you'll want to customize them with fun patterns and colors to match all of your outfits. I'm showing you just how easy it is to sew your own scrunchies at home with a beginner sewing tutorial over at Make and Takes. 

This is the perfect sewing project for your pre-teen or teen to start with over summer break. All they need is fabric scraps and I bet they could make a little extra money selling them too. 

Upgrade Your Summer Entertaining With These Ideas

Disclosure: This post was sponsored by Upgrade Your Summer as part of an Influencer Activation and all opinions expressed in my post are my own.

Summer entertaining doesn't have to be complicated, time-consuming, or take you away from your guests. Keep things as quick and easy as possible. My favorite summer entertaining trick is to set up serve-yourself food stations, all you need to do is pick a theme, like this easy taco bar, and make a quick trip to Walmart.

Walmart is the convenient destination for all of your summer entertaining needs – delivering a low-cost, one-stop shopping solution that saves you time and money.

Take a look at how easy it is to set this up in your own home, and then don't forget to enter the Upgrade Your Summer Sweepstakes (details below).

This easy taco bar takes no time at all to set up, take down, and will have you spending more time outside with your guests instead of in the kitchen.

Make and Takes: How To Make A Fabric Makeup Brush Holder

Is everyone still in the Marie Kondo Tidying Up frame of mind, or has everyone moved on with their lives and it's just me still at it?

I've been tidying up one thing almost every day (when will it end though?), whether it be a drawer, a cupboard, working through the never-ending stack of 'this needs to be repaired' that's taken over my office. Just one thing at a time. 

Today I'm over at Make and Takes showing you how to organize your makeup brushes in a handmade fabric roll. This is great for traveling too and makes a great handmade gift.

Harper Kids: How To Make Watercolor Umbrella Cards

We had so much rain of late it was wonderful. Living in Southern California close to the desert means it's hot and dry a lot of the time, but we were blessed with so much rainfall that the wildflowers went crazy and we had a super bloom which brought people in droves to the area to witness it. I sure hope it happens a lot more often ... not the influx of people, but the beautiful colors and blooms covering the earth.

I'm over at Harper Kids today showing you how to make watercolor umbrella cards inspired by the wonderful books Dear Boy, and Dear Girl, so head on over and see what M and I put together. This will make a wonderful weekend project to do with the kids over story time, and they get to send their cards to someone special afterward.

Harper Kids: DIY Easter Treat Jars Inspired By Books

Easter is just around the corner. Have you started putting together the kids Easter baskets yet? Every year I love hand-picking items to put into my kid's baskets, I'm just not the pre-packaged store-bought basket kinda person.

I'm over at Harper Kids today showing you how to paint Easter inspired treat jars (fill with candy or treats) that you can pop into a basket with the corresponding book, and some other fun items to make a themed basket that will be perfect for story time.

This is the first one, click here (or on the image above) to view the other two.

Where To See The Southern California Super Bloom

Disclosure: This post was sponsored by the makers of ibi as part of an Influencer Activation for Influence Central. The makers of ibi sent me this for free. All opinions expressed in my post are my own.

My parents are currently visiting from Australia and they picked the most spectacular time to come with the Southern California super bloom in full effect. We've been taking road trip after road trip over the past few weeks visiting as many spots as we can possibly can to see the vast variety of wildflowers currently blooming. There are still many more locations that we haven't been able to check off our evergrowing list though.

Having two vehicles most of the time means that occasionally we've split up from our group and made different stops along our route, so we've been looking for ways to share photos with each other. Mike is also here with us, and neither he, nor my dad, are on social media sites such as Facebook or Instagram, so although I'm publicly sharing photos my dad (in particular) doesn't get to see them ... and let's not even discuss trying to email large photo files. This is where ibi comes in; it's the smart photo manager that brings your photos, videos and favorite people by saving, organizing, and helping you to share your cherished memories.

So, I want to share with you some of the beautiful destinations we've captured photos at, but also share just how easy ibi makes it to store and share those photos with loved ones.