AZ Game On Expo day 1 photos

These are a few photos of the vendor hall on the first day of the Game On Expo 2015 in Mesa Arizona at the Mesa Convention Center. We caught Pikachu and Luigi in the middle photo!

(This was not a sponsored post)

AZ Game On Expo starts today!

The Arizona Game On Expo starts today at the Mesa Convention Center at 5pm and runs through the weekend. Details are at www.azgameonexpo.com. We are ready with our badges!

(This was not a sponsored post. My husband will be selling his art at the convention)

Mustache Perler beads

Mustaches are really popular right now so the kids asked for these Perler Bead mustaches. 

They really remind me of the little guy in the Lorax, just different colors. 

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Perler Bead retro cassette tape

This was such a fun retro cassette tape we made with Perler Beads. 

We look around on Pinterest for ideas and usually change them just a bit (sometimes by accident),

This one only needs 4 colors and you could change the colors around depending on your supplies.

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Pink Kirby Perler Bead figure

Kirby is such a cute little guy he is one of our favorite Perler Bead topics. 

This one was very simple and only used 3 colors. 

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Minecraft Perler Bead figures

Minecraft is another favorite at our house and the kids love to play with these Minecraft figures we made.

These are Steve, a Creeper, a pig and a sheep. you can see on the creeper I ironed it a bit longer to make the beads more square and that also flattened the figure to be thinner. 

They also love these little diamond swords, emerald and heart. The Emerald is also from Minecraft. The heart is just something fun we designed. 

(This was not a sponsored post)

Pokemon Perler Beads 2

These little Perler Bead Pokemon were some of the best ones we have made so far.

There is Charmander (center), Squirtle (left) and Bulbasaur (right). 

They were very fast to make and only used 4-5 colors maximum for each one but some of those were optional just to add shadows.

The Pokeball is a Great Ball. 

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Pokemon Perler beads

Our kids are really into Pokemon and these are a few of our recent creations with Perler Beads:

Zygarde and Rayquaza 

Latias

Diglett

If you keep the iron on a little longer you can melt the beads long enough to close the circle and they become squares. This does lose some thickness of your final figure but can be a nice effect.

Mew

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Nintendo Perler Beads - Toad and Gameboy

These were our a few requested by our kids today that we put together. They were really easy because they were pretty small and didn't use many colors for each figure.

(This is not a sponsored post.)

Tips for dealing with scorpions - scorpion in the garden

Notice anything hiding in the picture?

Move in a little closer and you can see the scorpion that came out after I planted

two new Hibiscus plants today and watered the garden very well.

Whenever we see one my husband grabs one of these glue traps and takes off the paper (to make it ready to stick).

Then he gets an old broom handle and some gloves (while I am keeping an eye on the bug).

He folds the open trap around the top of the handle putting the stick through the tab slot. 

Then we add some tape to keep it on there (usually duct tape, today we only had packing tape.)

Then he lines up right in front of the scorpion and gets up the courage to move the trap straight at it with the pole end right where the scorpion is. Once he smashes the trap on the scorpion he uses the broom stick end to make sure it is smashed. These traps are so sticky even lizards get stuck if you are not careful so they really grab the scorpions well. 

You can see the trap stuck to the wall with the smashed scorpion behind it. It wasn't going anywhere so I went and grabbed an old shoe box. 

My husband uses the pole to pull the trap off the wall (or floor) carefully without having to touch it. 

Then he brought it over to the box and it stuck right inside the box. 

Just to make sure we got the scorpion he used the stick to flip over the trap and sure enough he got it. You can see the orange outline right in the middle (on the Letter "P") along with other debris that was along for the ride.

We get a few in our yard and pool every month.

We have two young kids so are always vigilant to make sure the scorpions are on our minds when we are home or outside. 

Some other tips for dealing with scorpions:

1) Get your home sealed professionally by someone with proven success

When we moved in to our Chandler home we hired Seal Out Scorpions to seal our home  and evaluate our yard for risky areas they may hide out. It has been over a year since we had the home sealed and we have only seen the scorpions outside, usually dead or dying. They also sealed a house for us in Mesa and again, we had no scorpions inside and were in the house 2-3 years after the initial sealing and the yearly maintenance.

You can read about their service here: http://sealoutscorpions.com/
They performed scientific research to help develop their procedures after dealing with scorpions in their own home. They know the ways the scorpions get into the home and how to seal up the home safely to keep you safe and at ease.

They have made us feel so safe in our home that we always recommend them to any friends or family or even strangers in Arizona as soon as we hear they are dealing with scorpions.

They also provide some scorpion repellents to spray around your windows and doors and outside on paths for added security from these pests. Did you know cedar oil is a natural scorpion repellent?

2) Have your home's exterior sprayed monthly by a Scorpion Specialist

We use Scorpion Tech to spray our home's exterior and yard monthly. They work with the guidance from Seal Out Scorpions and we have been very satisfied. If we see the scorpions outside they are usually dead or dying and the glue traps for the garage are also helpful to capture any bugs that are wandering around. If you do happen to accidentally catch a lizard just pour olive oil on it and help it gently to get off the trap. It is best to leave them where there are only bugs.

They have fantastic customer service and are very reasonably priced and accept PayPal financing. They always check in to see what kind of activity we are seeing and if there are any areas we want them to spray or to avoid.

They are very careful to keep the yard safe for our kids and our pets as well. It was money well spend for the peace of mind we have walking around barefoot inside and letting our kids play on the ground and sleep on nap mats.

3) Try natural repellents and solutions

 Diatomaceous Earth

You may read about this as an option online. We have tried some and bought FOOD GRADE to make sure it was not harmful to anyone in our family or our pets.

I have read mixed reviews on it and cannot tell for sure whether it made a difference but it made me feel better spreading it all over our yard. We were told that it should be finely spread so the scorpions will walk through it and take it back to their home to nest where it scratches their exterior causing harm and vulnerability to infection.

Cedar Oil and Cedar granules

Much of the research I have been doing online is showing cedar oil is a natural repellent for scorpions. This can be either in straight oil or as granules and other formulations. Our scorpion sealing company has an oil that we are using and we just ordered granules called CedarCide (called Pet Safe) that is a container of red cedar granules you can use in your yard and is safe for pets and children. They are ground up granules of red cedar tree so are all natural and replenishable. I ordered this one tonight because last night we had our first scorpion in our home since we moved in over a year ago and I am pretty freaked out. It was right where the kids had been playing Legos but luckily they were upstairs in bed when we saw it crawling over. I will update this post or add a new post once it arrives and we try this product out. For now we are using a cedar oil spray around the windows and doors and bought some cedar cat litter and sprinkled it all around the house right next to the foundation. I will tell you I didn't get much sleep last night!

4) Black Light Hunts

There are companies that you can hire to search your yard at night using black lights which cause the scorpions to "glow" and be easier to see. There are some companies that perform hunts of the scorpions to find out how many you have, where they are and help get rid of the nests. We haven't tried this yet because we have seen good control with the other things we have tried but someday when we have a little extra money I would like to do this just to feel extra relaxed in our yard.

5) Call Poison Control and 911

If you or someone in your home gets stung you can call poison control 1-800-222-1222 and watch them carefully for symptoms and issues. There are options to treat the venom for people who are more at risk for complications. Watch for anaphylactic reactions and it is always smart to take them to Urgent Care or the ER just to evaluate and help lessen discomfort, especially for babies, kids or the elderly. Paramedics are free just to come see how the victim is doing and monitor them or provide advice on where to take them for care.

More details are here on the FDA website where they state 11,000 people are stung by Scorpions in Arizona alone: 

http://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/ConsumerUpdates/ucm266515.htm

This was not a sponsored post. If you have questions please email us about our experiences (admin@kenwrightonline.com) and I would be glad to share information with you. There was one link to my Amazon Affiliate site but it was noted in the post and we receive commission when people purchase through our link. 

Arizona Gaming Convention: Game On Expo - August 28-30, 2015

If you are a fan of video games this will be a treat for you.

August 28-30th, 2015 there is going to be a really fun video game convention at the Mesa Convention Center in Mesa AZ. You can visit www.azgameonexpo.com for more information!

(This was not a sponsored post. This image is also not mine, just using to help promote the con. We are very excited about it and want it to be a success!)

Mini figures - Perler Beads - Pac Man and Splatoon

These little Pac Man ghost and Splatoon Squid Perler bead figures were really fast and easy to make. The kids had a lot of fun picking out the colors and playing with them. 

(This was not a sponsored post)

How to stretch out tight karate uniform pants

Our kids really love their karate class but the uniform pants shrunk really quickly. We didn't want to spend a lot on new uniform pants that would be too long so we came up with this way to stretch them out at the waist to make them more comfortable. We washed the pants in the washer and then when they are wet you just stretch out the waist over a clip hanger that is wider than the pants at the waist. Leave the pants on the hanger like that for a day or so and do it every time you wash them and before you know it the elastic is looser. Our boys' pants didn't have the option to just remove a drawstring or the elastic because they were so well sewn at the waist but this technique helped so much.

(This was not a sponsored post.)

Baymax Perler Bead Project

This was our little mini Baymax (from Disney's Big Hero 6 movie) we made out of Perler Beads. We found a similar pattern online but I thought he needed longer arms so modified it a little. It was so simple because it only needed black and white beads and was a basic outline with a few details.

We use a Perler Pen when we work with larger solid blocks like this one and it makes the project go so much faster. We just load a couple of pens with the main two colors and start clicking the beads onto the tray. It saves so much time to buy the beads in bags by color or in the divided trays and then load the pens with one color at a time.

(This was not a sponsored post but I have an affiliate account with Amazon if you decide to purchase any of these items through my link a small commission will be paid to our family to help keep the blog going and pay for the boys' Montessori tuition.)

Minecraft inspired tooth fairy pillows

Our son lost his first tooth this year and wanted very specific Tooth Fairy Pillows. He asked for an Enderman (from Minecraft) and a Creeper (also from Minecraft). I looked around on Pinterest and didn't really find anything so we decided to try to make them out of felt.

We found an image of a cartoon Enderman online and then modeled our pillow after it. We cut out all the shapes just by eye using fabric scissors and then glued them together with a hot glue gun. To make it a pillow I cut out a rectangle for the back that was as large as the front and only glued three edges. I filled it with cotton balls (we didn't have any other filling at the time) and then glued the fourth side shut. To make the pocket for the tooth we just glued a black panel 3/4 of the length of the front to the figure and glued it on 3 sides only, leaving the top open. You could also choose to leave the purple mouth as the pocket. 

For his second tooth (that is still wiggly but we are all set for the Tooth Fairy) he chose the Creeper. 

Here is what was left of our felt after cutting out the pieces we needed. We really just tried to follow some cartoon images of Minecraft characters we found online and worked together. My son is 6 years old so he is old enough to help with some of the cutting and gluing and decision making for projects. 

Here is our stack of felt - we bought it on Amazon in a multi-pack for around $11 (here is my affliate link to some of the assorted color variety packs from $7 - $10 on Amazon). Ours included at least one sheet of glittery purple felt which was a big hit. We bought this in the spring of this year.

This is our glue gun which is pretty ancient. It was mine as a child and still works. These are some of our fabric scissors but any good sharp scissors will work, just watch your fingers.

Here is the finished Creeper pillow. The pocket for the tooth is pretty small on this one and is 

the black mouth that looks like an upside down "U."

These little guys sit on the bookshelf in the kids' room eagerly awaiting the next chance to meet the tooth fairy and deliver some money to our boys in the morning. 

(This was not a sponsored post but I have an affiliate account with Amazon so if you decide to purchase any of these items through my link a small commission will be paid to our family to help keep the blog going and pay for the boys' Montessori tuition.)