Women Walking Wisely

One of the biggest blessings about being back at my home church has been participating in women's ministries. Our Sunday school class hosts a monthly women's study called Women Walking Wisely. This past Monday we had a potluck and it was so encouraging to fellowship with the ladies who sit at my table. I have a real neat group of ladies and a Titus 2 older woman as my co-leader. This group of ladies consists of different ages and positions in life. We are all learning so much from each other.

Since we had a special time this past Monday the leaders all provided the centerpiece and paper goods for their table.  I am not creative at all but there is Pinterest.......thank God! So, I pinned several different pins and added a "spring centerpiece board" to my account. I combined a few ideas and came up with the following:

The centerpiece was quite inexpensive and most people probably have these things on hand. I bought a wooden tray at Michael's and painted it white. I used 2 tin pineapple cans, painted them an ocean blue, and wrapped some burlap around them. I had a mason jar which I also wrapped with burlap and white ribbon attaching a pretty paper flower. The pretty white bird was on clearance at Michael's. I topped off the "vases" with fresh yellow flowers.

My paper goods matched the centerpiece.....

The best part of the evening was getting to spend it with these special ladies.......

Mason Jar Candle Holder

I saw this idea on Pinterest and thought it was so cute. I changed it up a little and think it turned out great. The best thing is that you can trade out the heart for a different shape depending on the season/holiday.

All you need is a mason jar, a shape(I just cut out a heart shape from my scrapbook paper), a doily, and some ribbon. On the Pinterest pin they used baker's twine and it looked real cute too. I put this together in less than 3 minutes since I was rushing before the arrival of some friends.

Winter Bird Art

Last week we had some friends come over. The boys were off doing their own thing so I grabbed the three girls into the kitchen to work on an art project. I've been wanting to try this one for a long time now. I got the tutorial from Deep Space Sparkle .  This site is one of my favorites when it comes to art for the kids. Lots of amazing art lessons and they're geared for elementary age.

Supplies needed were:
construction paper
watercolor paper
watercolor paints
chalk pastels
scissors


I made my own watercolor paints using 2 cups boiled water, 2 tablespoons vinegar and food coloring. I then divided them into four containers and used different colors of food coloring. The great thing was that there was a lot of paint left over so we have a lot left for future use.

I think they turned out real pretty!

This project is perfect for the kind of snow we've been getting lately!!

Getting Crafty

For Christmas I wanted to give some homemade gifts to some of my friends and mixed a couple of ideas I have seen floating around on Pinterest. In my scrapbooking, I am always making some sort of paper flowers and thought it would be fun to try to some fabric flowers. I also like the idea of a small "white board" where you can write down some lists, a note to your husband, or a Bible verse for encouragement. The results were these darling frames:

I got the frames at Ikea for $2 each and also bought white board markers.

I then packaged them in cellophane tied off with a ribbon. I really like

how they turned out! 

Countdown to Thanksgiving: Day 5

I've been wondering what to do with all the toilet rolls that my 5 year old likes to save. So, since I need some napkin rings for our Thanksgiving dinner, I made some out of the toilet rolls.

Here's what I used:
-toilet rolls 

-fall cloth leaves

-some Mod Podge

-paint brush to brush on the Mod Podge

-brown thin like rope (can't find raffia here)

-scrapbook paper (not pictured)

As you can see they are quite simple but I like them! They were super easy to make of course and I was actually able to finish them all while the boys worked on school. I just added Mod Podge on the outside of the rolls, cut out paper and glued it on the rolls, placed a leaf, and then wrapped the ribbon around and tied a ribbon. If I lived Stateside, I would add a charm to the ribbon, maybe like the word "Thanks" or a turkey or something Thanksgiviny. I think they'll make the table complete.

Pumpkin Art

I know it's been over a week since Halloween but on Halloween day we did a pumpkin craft and I thought I'd post it since pumpkins are still good decor until Thanksgiving.

Any craft that includes paint is always a huge hit with the boys.

 

The boys and their finished product. I loved

how it turned out. I found the idea at one of

my favorite kid's art blogs-Deep Space Sparkle .

Fall Tree Craft

It's fall time and so I thought I better get a move on with some fall crafts! I found this template  on a real useful kid's art website. The boys didn't make too much of a mess. My 5 year old didn't want to get his fingertips dirty so he used a cotton tip instead but my 9 year old got into it with his fingers. Once they completed the trees I "framed" them onto some construction paper. The boys had a lot of fun and it was a quick craft with a quick clean-up.

 

Milk Jug

While I was visiting at my friend Rita's house I needed a small plastic bag. She told me to look under her sink in the milk jug, where lo and behold were a bunch of small plastic bags smooshed into a milk jug. As soon as I returned to the home where we stayed, I emptied all the milk out of the jug into my bowl of Trix cereal, ate my cereal, and washed out the jug. I'm not that big into reduce, reuse, recycle but I do love this idea!!

 

Rita said I could decorate the jug but I was so excited to try it out myself that I skipped that part. And yes, I went to Target quite a few times!

Scrapbooking

Whenever we return to California my sisters and I go scrapbooking together! It's sort of a tradition. We scrapbook from morning until late afternoon at a scrapbook place in Valencia. It's a great time for us to catch up, laugh, tease each other, and oh yeah.....catch up on our scrapbooks!

 The place where we go to scrap is called Remember When Scrapbooking.

It's got a store attached to a big area where you can scrapbook. 

Even a guy came in to do some die cutting! I just had to take a picture.

Afterwards we headed over to CPK! YUM!!!

Popsicle Stick Farm Animals

Last week while we had some friends over spending a few days with us we did a little craft that I found over here.  The kids really enjoyed making these and I think you could go in so many different directions with it.............you don't have to stick with just farm animals!  My popsicle sticks weren't as wide nor were my google eyes as small...........but it still worked! The kids and I actually thought it was hilarious for the animals to have such big eyes. The kids could even put on a popsicle stick puppet show once they build up a collection. I'm thinking this summer I'll buy some wider popsicle sticks and smaller google eyes and we'll make some more animals in the fall!!!

Bi-Plane Craft

We've had some rain and cooler temps lately, I'm definitely not complaining. We've also had a guest stay with us which means that I've been extra busy which means the boys are bored! Since today it was wet outside I thought we'd have the boy's friends over for a little "play date". I found the idea for these bi-planes on the Family Fun site and thought it would be a fun and quick craft for the boys to do.

 These boys love to paint. Nathan got a bit

carried away.

The glue hasn't dried on these yet but they turned out pretty good.

Ocean in a Bag

This past weekend Jon had to travel so we invited Jojo's friends over for a sleepover Friday night. They all had a real good time but I got to confess that I was exhausted on Saturday.

Saturday morning after breakfast and some Wii action I had them do a craft. I got the idea from a blogger I follow. You basically draw an underwater scene on the outside of a Ziplock bag with permanent markers. You then fill the inside of the bag with hair gel. We added some little seashells for extra dimension. It was a quick craft and only took about 15 minutes for the kiddos to do but they liked it and had fun.

 

Isaac (in the middle) didn't know what hair gel was so I put 

some on his hair to show him.

Spring has Sprung

Thankfully Tuesday was beautiful! Sharon(teammate,friend, and upstairs neighbor) and kids headed outside around 11 a.m. to enjoy the sunshine. The kids had a blast and enjoyed going on a bug hunt expedition. Sharon and I enjoyed catching up with one another. There's a brief period where you really can't go outside because of all the mud and water from the melting snow but since the sun was shining yesterday it all dried up.

Later in the day the boys and I worked on an art project. The idea came from this blog. It was a pretty quick project and the boys really enjoyed it........especially painting over the chalk pastels and seeing the paint "resisting" the chalk pastels.

First we drew the patterns on our eggs with the chalk pastels.

 

Then they painted over the eggs and these 

were the end results! 

Best Ikea Purchase

One of the best things I bought at Ikea a few weeks ago was this craft thingy.  Not sure what it's called but it kept the boys busy for 1 whole hour!!!  Nathan now works on one a day and he loves creating new patterns with different colors.  It's great because while he's working on one of his "projects", Jojo and I have undisturbed time for school.

Easter Baskets

I've yet to find Easter baskets here so we made our own this year.  The boys aren't crazy about glue so in the end, Jon and I had to finish them off.  Once again, I got the idea from another blogger.

Jojo was more concerned with getting the glue off his fingers while Naynay was more concerned with making sure there was always enough glue on the plate. 

The balloons hanging to dry.  The idea was to basically dip fabric pieces into glue onto the balloon.  I also coated the outside with Mod Podge to make sure that there was enough glue coverage.

                         And here's the finished product after our indoor Easter egg hunt! 

Salt Dough Bead Crosses

This past week I made a big batch of salt dough.  I'm so thankful for this website where I've been getting so many craft ideas.  I thought I'd help out the boy's Sunday school teacher with a little craft today.  The kids really enjoyed making these and it really kept them quiet and busy for about 20 minutes.  As they were doing the craft I realized what a great fine motor skill it is and with younger children you could just use bigger beads to make it easier for them. 

 

This cutie was too little to join in but she loved watching the

kids place the beads on the crosses.