Summer Water Party

Last year my friend Haley had a super fun summer party for her kids and their friends on the last day of school.  I asked her if I could take over and do it this summer (I must be crazy).

I started out with these popsicle invitations.  The original idea was to use velum to make the popsicles but I just love these chevron prints from Mel Stampz and I have been using them for everything.  I printed a full sheet of the chevron paper, then I printed the free printable from Martha Stewart over the chevron paper and just cut them out and glued them to the popsicle stick.

When Haley did her party last year, she served the treats in buckets, so I thought I'd do the same... it's just super cute!

This watermelon shark has been floating around Pinterest a lot!  I didn't go all out, like some of the other ones I've seen, but the kids loved it and that's all that matters:)

I felt so bad about forgetting the jello petri dishes for my son's science party, so I had to make jello fish bowls for this party.  They were a huge hit!

We let the kids jump on the tramp with the sprinkler under it.  We also had our "vintage" slip-n-slide that my mom has saved from when I was a kid.  It's awesome because it's way stronger and longer than the slip-n-slides you can buy these days:)  I really wanted to make the bike car wash that I keep seeing on Pinterest, but I totally ran out of time:(

I had a huge list of game ideas that I wanted to play.... but the kids had more fun just doing their own thing.  We did get to play "duck, duck splash" and we played a game where they shot down towers of cups with squirt guns.... I think where I lost them was with water balloon volleyball... It was just too hard for kids this age!

This little water balloon filler was my life savor!!!  I bought it at K-mart for $4.  The kids can fill and tie their own water balloons!!!  I set them to work a few days before the party and they filled almost 400 water balloons!

I couldn't send the kids home without a party favor!  I love this "Have a Ball this Summer" printable from Dixie Delights.  I don't particularly like bouncy balls and I know how much kids LOVE gumballs, so I used gumballs instead!

I'm not sure what my deal is lately about forgetting things.... but I totally forgot to give the kids the orange cream sicles I had bought for the party:)  It's all good, most of those friends have come back at later times to enjoy those popsicles!

Pinned it and Made it!

Oh blessed....
... do you ever find yourself pinning idea after idea after idea and never doing anything with them? I often find myself doing that, but every once in awhile I really get some great ideas that I do use. I LOVED this idea from The Anderson Crew. I love the idea of being able to write "love" notes to each other. So, I dug into my mom's box of random brass candle sticks. I spray painted them with primer then with black spray paint. Then I glued my cute dollar store mail boxes on the candle sticks. I made our monograms on my Cricut with my mini monograms cartridge. To tell you the truth, I think mine are a little cuter:)
The thing that I do pin the most and actually make the most are recipes. Just thought I'd post a few that I made recently. These Rolo Cake Mix Bars from Cookies and Cups are heavenly. They really are easy except for unwrapping 40 rolos. The idea behind this brings endless possibilities. I was thinking of trying chocolate cake with Reeses Pieces or maybe chopped cashews with a Scores bar... I don't know... endless possibilities.
This Easy Cashew Chicken from Eclectic Recipes really was EASY. I thought it was good, but anything with cashews is good to me. My mom said it was nothing special... maybe that's the way to describe it... good, but nothing special.
I hope you are enjoying Pinterest as much as I am!!!

Halloween Character Jars

I saw this cute idea in my most recent issue of Scrapbooks Etc. magazine. So I started saving my pickle jars, and any other kind of jar that I could find. I even asked friends to save a few jars for me.
Then I started spray painting lids all sorts of different colors. I made the characters that were in the magazine and I also came up with a few of my own. They turned out totally cute and I had tons of fun making them.
I think I'm going to use them as a centerpiece at my kids' halloween party. And I was thinking of giving them away as guesstimation jars.... whoever guesses closest to how many candies, wins the jar.

Tire Swing Tutorial

In my efforts to keep my kids out of the house... I decided to build a tire swing. My little boy's preschool teacher had one a few years ago and it seemed like a hit at his preschool. We saw a hard plastic one at Home Depot a few weeks ago, but they wanted $65 for it! We decided that we could build one ourselves.
The first thing I did was head to my nearest tire store. I asked them if they had any old tires that I could have (for free). They took me out back and I picked a fairly large one. The 2nd step was to paint it. The nice lady at Home Depot seemed to think that any type of paint would work on rubber. I like the Behr paint that has primer. I wanted something bright. A quart would be plenty for sure. I had a couple of reasons why I wanted to paint it... first, I didn't want the kids turning black from the dirty tire and 2nd I was hoping it would keep it a little bit cooler. (Now, I don't know if the paint will last forever, but that's okay)
The next thing we did was measured the tire's circumference and divide by three. That way we knew where to play our three chains.
We bought 3 U bolts. We drilled holes in the tire to put the bolts through. We cut our 3 chains about 5 feet long. (One thing that I have learned is that the nice employees at Home Depot will cut your chains to length for you). We put the chain through the bolt then secured it to the tire with the nuts on the inside. The bolt comes with a bracket on the back, but we added washers for more strength.

Now, you have a tire with 3 chains coming from it... the top is the tricky part. We wanted our tired to be able to swivel.. that way our kids can make themselves sick spinning in circles. The nice employee at Home Depot was no help. So, my crafty dad came to the rescue and welded me a swivel. Now, if you don't have a super crafty dad, you can visit this site to purchase a ball bearing swivel... or google it and find another site. Or maybe the employees at your Home Depot will be more helpful.



We hung our tire swing from our existing swing set. You could hang it from a large tree or be creative!!! All 3 boys fit on it perfectly and they have created several games that they can play on it. It's been a huge success.... but they still don't like playing on it in 103 degree weather.... please cool down:)

My only concern is that I may need to drill holes in the bottom of the tire for drainage... the sprinklers fill the tire up with water.

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment.

Anisa

Simple Table Runners

I love seasonal decor... I think it's because I get bored of the same decorations all the time. Plus, my mom always had different seasonal decor. So, I thought it would be fun to have a different table runner for each month.
I really love fabric, but I don't like some of the really "cheesy" stuff. I had a hard time with some of the months. I love this July fabric. Red, white and blue with stars... but also paisley.
For August, I opted for BBQ fabric... just seemed summery to me.

So, I have to tell you my little trick. I buy exactly a half a yard of the fabric. So, that makes my table runner 18"x45". I think it's a nice size. But, my trick is that it's two-sided... one side is July and the other side is August.

That way, I'm not "wasting" a piece of fabric on the back that will never be seen. I just try to pick two fabrics that can use the same color of ricrac. And I LOVE the big, giant ricrac.
I have kind of forgotten to take pics every month. But I thought I would show you March and April.
(And I kind of slacked and never made one for May and June... that's why I don't have a pic. I have super cute stuff for Sept. and Oct... so more happy sewing).

Shrinky Dinks

I've become a scrounge.... I'm digging through garbage:)... in a way. At my school I teach a remediation class during lunch. The students have 45 minutes to work on assignments, take tests, write essays, etc. At the end of the 45 minutes they are given a box lunch. Well, one of my co-workers told me that you could make "shrinky dinks" out of the plastic lunch boxes. Do you know what shrinky dinks are? Well, you're about to find out!
So, I took the boxes and cut the plastic top and bottom out of them to make square sheets. Then I used the die cutting machine at my school to cut out the shape of a clover. I used my circle cutter to cut the circles in the middle. This piece of plastic is about 4" square and the circles in the middle are about the size of a dime.

The next step is to bake them in the oven at 325 degrees. Put them on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. They will cook for about 3-4 minutes. They will curl up and shrink. When they start to lie flat again, they are done.
When you are finished, you will end up with these cute clear embellishments. They are much smaller than the original size. They are now stiff and about the thickness of a nickel. You can tell by the size of my thumb and ribbon how small they are!
You can use them on your scrapbook pages, or make jewelry, or on a cute banner like I did here.

The science teacher in me is ready to experiment! Let's see what I come up with next!!!
-Anisa

Quick Valentine's Card

Just thought I'd post a quick idea for a Valentine's Card!

(I'm just too cheap to spend money on cards at the store:)

I just simply used my heart punch to cut out scraps... I glued them on first, then sewed stitching through!!!

-Anisa

Christmas Cards

They are starting to come... all of those fun Christmas Cards! I love getting Christmas cards... especially from people I haven't seen in a long time! I used to throw them away at the end of the year.... gasp! But a couple of years ago, I decided to save them. It's fun to see how families change and grow over the years. And it also helps me to not forget someone on my Christmas card list.

I didn't want to put them in a photo album... I wanted to save some space. So, I made an envelope to put them in. I used my Platin Schoolbook Cartridge on my Cricut and cut out an envelope. To make it big enough to hold all of my cards, I actually sewed two 12x12 pieces of cardstock together to make a 24"x12" piece of paper. Then I cut the envelope as big as it would go! The sewing is on the back and it adds a cute effect.
Last year I jazzed it up a little by putting my own families photo card on the front.
I made a tie closure on the back by using 2 eyelets and a card stock circle.
(Up-close view)
If you don't have a cricut, you could find an envelope template online or just purchase a manila envelope and decorate it!

-Anisa

Ornamental Creativity: Using What You Have

My mom is kind of old-fashioned... to say the least. But she does have some really crafty creative ideas. I thought this idea was super cute, so I wanted to share.
She took candle sticks... and instead of putting candles in them, she put ornaments! She's going with a gold and red thing... and she loves brass, but this is a great idea. You could use any type of candle sticks that you like. I think it would be really cute as a table centerpiece.

Seasonal Banner

I'm really into seasonal stuff... I don't know why. I think it's because I get bored with the same decorations all the time... However, I'm realizing that all of my seasonal decor takes up a lot of storage space... and it's a lot of work to change the decor every month... oh well, I still love it!!!

So, our enrichment made this countdown calendar to Christmas. I thought it was an adorable idea, but the countdown was only for 12 days and I do a countdown for all 25 days of Christmas. So I decided to use mine as a seasonal banner. I had made a few seasonal banners before. But I didn't make one for every month. Now, this cute banner is hung up all year and I will just make new cards to go into each pocket.
(I ran out of time to embellish my Thanksgiving banner)
Here is a close-up of the banner. You can see that what I did was sew together two pieces of plastic .... the kind you use as a table cloth... I have no idea what it's called but you can buy it at Joann. I used a zig zag stitch to sew around 3 sides. The back piece of plastic is about a 1/2 inch taller than the front piece. Mine is about 4" square, but you could make it any size. Then I just hole-punched the top corners and tied them all together with ribbons... I used browns and creams to keep it as neutral as possible.
I think it would be really fun to make one that says "Celebrate" for birthdays. It's super easy to just take the cards out and switch them.
And the nice thing is that all you have to store is a small stack of papers for each month!
Let me know if you have any questions on how to make this banner.

-Anisa

Jubilee of Trees

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas....

When we moved to St. George I had the feeling I would get roped into helping with the Jubilee of Trees. You see, my mother-in-law, Rosalie Scholes, is the Director of Facility Decor. Which means, she is in charge of.....
.... all decorations and set up for the Jubilee.... from Banners.....
... to presents in the foyer....
.... to a giant castle that greets you as you walk in...
....to walls that separate all of the booths...
.... and the details....


... there are a lot of details... I was feeling kind of guilty that we hadn't helped much. So, the last week before I asked, "what can we do to help." She said, "well, I'm having someone paint these banners and I just need some help outlining them in black marker." So, I headed off to a cold, empty warehouse (the staging area) to help. Little did I know.... I made the mistake of saying, "I can do that." So, I helped with the banners. I actually painted some of the banners. They hang from the ceiling to tell you know where each booth is. It was actually kind of fun and fun to walk through the Jubilee and see that I had done something to help.

And last, but not least is my mother-in-law's tree. She has decorated a tree for 23 years. She has won people's choice many times. She is awesome at what she does! This picture doesn't do it justice!
The Jubilee ends tomorrow (Monday, Nov. 22nd.) So, if you live in St. George and have the time... stop by and see for yourself.

-Anisa