Fun 4th of July Crafts

I got my craft on for 4th of July.  Here's a few of the fun things I've added to my 4th of July decorations this year.

I had fun taking 3 pickle jars and turning them into these flag inspired colors.  I used just regular craft paint and painted on the outside of the jar.  I tried to tape it off to make the lines straight.  They make the perfect holder for utensils or would be really cute with some gerber daisies.

 I thought these felt firecrackers were really fun to make with my 8 year old daughter.  We cut a strip of felt about 2 inches wide and 8 inches long.  We frayed the edges (about 1- 1 1/2 inches in).  We used hot glue and a dowel that we painted in red, white, and blue.  I laid down the glue and my daughter rolled the dowel up.  We fluffed the end and put in mason jars for a cute extra decoration.

 I got the Pottery Barn inspired pillows done last year, but decided to add a white, red, and blue accent pillow (I tried to emulate the fabrics used in the PB magazine that featured the flag pillows.)  I just love them and have used the blue and white pillows many times, not just 4th of July.

 To add a little flair to the patio, I bought some fun decorative 4th of July napkins.  I set my sewing machine to ruffle settings and sewed continuous chain stitches through all of them.  The paper ruffled up so cute.  I hung them from our patio in swags and added some paper lanterns with electronic tea lights. 

No 4th of July would be complete with out some snacks for watching fire works.  I wrapped some Red Vines in cute strips of red and blue star paper.  I used the silhouette to make small popcorn boxes also out of 4th of July inspired cardstock paper.  And lastly I made some oreo pops!  I dipped them all in white chocolate and sprinkled with red and blue sprinkles.  The evening wouldn't be complete without some glow in the dark sticks for all the kids too.

I love 4th of July and our family traditions.  It's one of our favorite days.

Whole Wheat Pancake Recipe

I have been trying to incorporate whole wheat into everything we eat instead of using regular white wheat.  I grind my own whole wheat each week.

 

 I buy the white wheat so the color is much lighter than the red wheat or other varieties (my kids haven't noticed the changes at all).  I have been trying different whole wheat pancake recipes each week and every one has been ok but not quite what we prefer.  So, after much tweeking, here's my recipe.

 Combine in a medium bowl:

2 cups of whole wheat flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

3 Tbsp Sugar

Mix together well.

Now add to your bowl:

1 1/2 cup of buttermilk

1 1/2 cup of regular milk

2 table spoons of melted butter (if you use unsalted butter, then add 1/4 tsp. of salt to dry ingredients above before adding wet ingredients)

2 well beaten eggs.

Stir together until it's all combined.  They will be more fluffy if you don't over beat them.  It shouldn't be completely smooth.  Then cook on your skillet with a little butter or oil to grease the pan.

 They are so yummy.  You won't be dissapointed.

I also mix it up and add fresh berries or chocolate or cinnamon chips.  Have fun!  

Chevron Baby Blanket

Have you seen this new chevron minky?????  Oh be still my heart.  Heaven.

I have 2 close friends having babies this summer so I had to pick some up for their gift.  Here's the first one for a little girl.  It's grey minky on one side and a pink flower from Robert Kaufman.  It's a very soft brushed cotton flannel.  

 To wrap up the blanket I took a scrap of the minky and sewed it down one side making a tube.  I tied the ends so it wouldn't fray and used this to tie a bow around the blanket.  

I love how this quick little blanket turned out.  I have several quick ones like this that I've ended up using so much with my kids and they still drag them around.  I think this one's a keeper.

 To complete the present, I wrapped it in this adorable chevron wrapping paper I found at TJMaxx.  I love it!!  Now I'm ready for the baby shower.

 

8th Birthday Outfit

Every year I make my daughter an outfit to wear on her birthday.  It's always a shirt with the number on it and a cute skirt.  This year she's really into turquoise and pink so that's the combo we went with. I love how it turned out and I just love this little girl!!

 Instead of a ruffled band on the bottom, I went with a straight band and I really liked it. I decided to add a matching headband this year.  I used the scraps to make 3 flower rosettes and attached to a metal headband covered in pink ribbon.

Strawberries & Cream Cake from Southern Living Magazine

 Ok.  I love Southern Living Magazine (even though I'm a born and bred CA girl) and I LOVE this recipe I got from the April magazine (Click Here for Link).  The bad part was that it is a super involved recipe.  Everything had to cool for about 8 hours in between each thing.  So it took about 24 hours to make the cake.  The good part was it was worth it.  It was soooooo good and everyone loved it.  I didn't have 8 inch cake rounds.  Mine were 8 1/2 so I ended up with only 4 layers instead of 6, but it still turned out awesome.  I'll definitely be making this again.

Movie & Slumber Party

For my daughters birthday we decided to have a late-over/movie party.  Basically it's like a slumber party, but they don't spend the night. 

 

 We got lots of blankets and pillows setup for the movie viewing and glow in the dark dance party.  I also did a "concession stand" for the girls for the movie.  

We had lots of different candies and boxes of popcorn.

 

  I found these adorable popcorn boxes in the silhouette store.  I just got polka dot and plain cardstock and cut it with the silhouette.  They were so fun and just the perfect size for the party.

 For the drink station, the girls got different soda's in liter glass mason jars with the flower lid tops and paper straws.  They each got to make their own pizza for dinner and they painted nails while it was cooking.

 The table was pre-set with hot pink plates, a turquoise hemstitch table cloth, lots of streamers, and puffs made from tulle.  Her Strawberries and Cream cake from Southern Living Magazine was the centerpiece.  I'll have the details on that in a different post.

 

We setup a table near the door with the party favors.  Each girl got a cute turquoise pail filled with bubbles, jump rope, ring pop, and bubble gum.  They were pretty excited.

 I love these fun silly girls!  It was a fun party!

Teacher Appreciation 2013- Mahalo

My friend and I chaired Teacher Appreciation Week again for our school this year.  This year we chose the theme of "Mahalo" and decorated Hawaiian.  I think it turned out really cute.  Here's a few of the decorations.

This was the front of the school where you walk in.  The 2 poles are palm trees.  The coconuts are brown balloons.  We decorated the night before so that's why it's dark in the pictures.

We did another palm tree by the office and some additional decorations. 

 

This was inside the teachers lounge.  We brought in a full catered lunch every day for the whole week.  So this was our main table area for the food.

 These were the tables.  We had these cute Hawaiian table toppers and beach hats.  Last year we used flowers and had to worry about watering them and keeping them fresh.  These were much easier and still cute.
  It was such a fun week and the teachers loved it!

Pop Birthday Party Invite & Baptism Invite

May is a big month.  I've been spending the last few weeks of April getting things ready for May events.  2 of the big events are my daughters Birthday Party and her Baptism.  These are the invitations we sent out for both events.

For my daughters birthday this year we are doing a "late over" (like a slumber party but the girls go home around 9 and don't spend the night).  We're doing dinner, dance party, movie, and lots of treats,  Everything is a polka dot theme or pop theme, so popcorn, soda pop, bubble gum.  So for the invite we did a ticket and made our own little envelope out of polka dot tissue paper.

I used the silhouette to design and cut the ticket.  I did it fairly large and wrote all the party details on their ticket.  The party is Saturday so I'll post pictures of that next week.

Easter 2013

Although I didn't sew anything for Easter, it's always a project to put it all together!  Here's the outfits...

 And the Easter Bunny came to our house!  It was a fantastic weekend of egg decorating, cookie decorating, Easter egg hunting, eating yummy food, and enjoying family.

Elementary School Fun Run 2013

 The other huge project I've been working on all month is chairing our Elementary school's biggest event of the year, our Fun Run.  This year my co-chair and I revamped the whole thing.  We started with a kickoff event where the classes competed to come up with our theme for the Run.  The winning theme was "Running of the Bull Dogs."  I love how the graphic for the tshirt, banner, and stickers turned out.

We also had everything organized for the teachers.  They got a bag with all of their tshirts for the class (with list to distribute) and a big envelope with all of their supplies.  They had a map, detailed instructions about the day, and name tags for each child to mark their laps during the event.

 

The event turned out great!  We doubled the amount we raised for the school since last year and had a fantastic turn out for the event.  We just finished doing all the class parties for top fundraisers and handing out prizes and thank you's, so this event is finally done!

St. Patricks Day

I don't usually do a lot for St. Patrick's day.  But here was a fun idea I used to decorate my table for dinner that day.  I have some cute cupcake pedestals.  I put some cute mini cupcakes and lines the pedestals up down the table (instead of by each plate like I normally do).  It was a cute affect.

I also got this cute shamrock tshirt done for my daughter.  I loved the hot pink and green together.

 We were also required to do a leprechaun trap!  I gave general ideas and helped gather supplies, but I tried to let my daughter do it all.  Overall, it was a fun St. Patricks Day!

Indian Themed Birthday Party

My son wanted an Indian Birthday Party.  He really wanted to play bows and arrows with his buddies.  Here's a few of the things we did.

 

Tee Pee's:  My grandparents had some old tee pees in their attic.  I was able to find them and dust them off for the party.  I had to add a little fabric but it worked out perfect for the boys.  They loved it!

And orange chevron runner with green streamers helped round out the decorations.  We had come snacks and pizza that got delivered later.

Scavenger Hunt:  After painting the boys faces with war paint, we had them all gather for a scavenger hunt.  My older daughter dressed like an Indian Princess and helped them along the route by reading the clues.  They had to run all over the park to find the clues and at the end they found their bows!  There was another clue that told them they could find their arrows in the tee pee!  The boys loved the hunt and the prizes!

 Goodie Bags:  Instead of doing big goodie bags, their main thank you gift was the bow and arrows.  The kit I bought also came with a plastic knife, belt loop for the knife and additional arrows (I gave them only 1 for the party so if it broke or got lost, they'd still have ones to take home).  We also had a pinata so they all got to take home a big pile of candy too.

I made some chevron lines to decorate the boys bags.  We put their knives and candy and extra arrows in their bags to take home.

 The boys had a blast!  I had a few set activities but they mostly just wanted to play bows and arrows together and hide along the bushes.  It was really fun.