ELIZABETH JOAN DESIGNS

My kids will start their new school year in about three weeks. But until then, we are doing whatever we can to stay cool in this 90 degree weather we’ve been having. I have been sneaking my kids’ toys and freezing them in a bowl of water to beat the summer heat with an ice block treasure hunt. I have seen this project done a few different places across the web and my kids have enjoyed it so much that I wanted to spread the joy.

Supplies

Plastic toys
Freezer safe bowls
Water
Wooden Hammer
Bowl of warm water
Scoop

Step 1:
Place the plastic toy in a freezer safe container.

Step 2:
Add enough water to the bowl to cover toy completely.

Step 3:
Place the bowl in the freezer. I usually do more than one at a time and let them freeze overnight.

Step 4:
Take the bowl out of the freezer and gently remove the ice block from the container. If you are having a hard time releasing the ice from the bowl, scoop a little Luke-warm water on the bottom. My kids work in their water table. I find that it is a lot less mess this way. If you do not have a water table, I am sure a plastic container would do just fine too.

*Do not hit glass container with hammer. That never turns out good. Trust me.

Step 5:
Use hammer, Luke-warm water, and scoop to thaw the ice and free the toy.

Well, that’s all there is to it. Pretty simple huh? My kids LOVE this so much that they can get hours of enjoyment out of it each time we do it.

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I’ve been kind of slacking when it comes to blogging and social media lately. To be honest, I’ve just felt overwhelmed with school and extracurricular activities starting for the kids. Plus, we decided to add a puppy to our family and that has been keeping us hopping. Trying to work in the time to get projects finished (or even started) has been difficult. Luckily, I found some time to whip up this easy drop cloth dog bed that is also washable!

That cutie up above is our sweet little golden retriever pup, Harper. I knew when we brought her home that in addition to her crate, I wanted a special place for her to lounge and nap when we were just hanging out. Dog beds from pet stores seem to be ridiculously over priced and there aren’t really many neutral options, which is what we wanted. So I decided to make this one from a couple of cheap pillows and some drop cloth, which brought the total cost of this puppy bed to around $13.

To start, I removed the drop cloth from the package and ran it through the washer and dryer. (I like to bleach my drop clothes to neutralize the small colored threads in them and washing the fabric helps to soften it some.)

While I waited for the dryer to finish, I hand stitched the two pillows together, overlapping the corners just a bit and also stitching in the middle to really secure them together.

Once the drop cloth was dry, I cut it in half length wise and ironed it. Next, I placed the joined pillows together on top and wrapped the fabric around to figure out the approximate size the cover would need to be. I wanted an envelope closure (here’s a really good tutorial), so that the pillows could easily be removed and the fabric washed if it got dirty. After I lined everything up, I trimmed off more excess fabric.

Then it was time to sew. Since one edge was already finished, I only had to hem one side.

After that, I turned the fabric inside out, lined everything up, and stitched along the top and bottom seams.

Finally, I inserted the pillows and the bed was finished!

Harper loves her new bed! I’ve found her lounging on top and chewing on a toy a couple of times and she has even fallen asleep there several times.

Now if we could just get this potty training thing figured out!

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