More Hair Clips

This month Vicki made more hair clips for her dance students for their showcase.  These were for some of the older students and she was able to us bigger flowers.  They were a hit with all the kids as they got to keep these after the Showcase.

Preschool Handprint Quilt

Parker's preschool teach went on maternity leave and had to return for this last week of school.  All of the kids in Parker's class made hand print animals on 9" quilt blocks for me and then I sewed them together and made a baby quilt to give to her.  I gave it to her today on the last day so that the kids could see what all of their hand prints turned into.  Ms. Rachel and all the kids were very excited to see it.  It turned out a LOT cuter than I even imagined!

For anyone interested, I had 9 inch white blocks with 2 inch strips between.  I used a 3/8th inch seam (simply because I didn't realize my machine was set up on 3/8th instead of a 1/4th when I started..oops..)  I hand quilted it together "in the ditch" and followed with a 2.5" double binding.  This all sounds fancy, but it's not...I swear...it just takes time.

Pirates Aaaarg Cool

To kick off the summer break we have been doing theme weeks at our house before things get to busy with other activities.  This week was Pirate Week.  Oh my, there are soooo many fun things to do with Pirates!  We made Pirate food, pirate shirts, pirate crafts, pirate hats, read pirate books, watched Jake and the Neverland Pirates, painted treasure chests and went on a treasure hunt.  I still have way more ideas so I think we are totally going to have another pirate day sometime this summer.  Here are just a few of the things we did . . . 

Made pirates to eat after seeing this.  My kids thought their pirates needed arms instead of a sword, I think they just wanted more pretzels:)

I had way to much fun making these pirate shirts.  For the "girl" pirate I used glitter pink heat transfer for the bandanna and glitter black heat transfer for the eye patch.  Got my inspiration for these from here.

We also made pirate spy scopes/telescopes.  For the pirate hats I followed this tutorial and then cut out the skull and bones with fuzzy white heat transfer and ironed it to the hat.  I didn't have white thread (or I couldn't find it anyway) so I didn't do the extra stitching around the edge, but the kids enjoyed them anyway:)  The eye patches I ordered from OTC.  This pirate is also holding her treasure chest.  I found these at JoAnn's for $1/each and let the kids paint them.  I also made pirate maps  -- torn the edges off brown craft card stock and drew a simple picture map of places to go around the house with a big "x" where I had a little box with some goodies in it.

A very fun and crafty week!

Custom Post-it Notes and Notepad

For Mother's Day Allison made some custom Post - It Notes for her mom (ones on the left) and a notepad (one on the right).  She used Vista Print to do this.  They are big St. Louis Cardinal Fans - can you tell?

Anniversary Gift

This month my sister and brother-in-law celebrated their 3rd anniversary and I decided to make a fun little gift for them.  I looked at items I pinned on Pinterest and various websites that suggested dating ideas (The Dating Divas website is still one of my favorites!) and then I typed up a whole bunch of dates in different columns in a word document.  Most of them I tried to keep to a few sentences.  Then I printed out the pages on different colored card stock and cut them all out.  I put all the strips of paper into a little box that I decorated. I also included a homemade card and a gift card to Caribou Coffee (some of the dates may need some extra motivation:)

I did a mix dates and most of the ideas were inexpensive ones.

Some are normal dates (go bowling, try a new restaurant, go to a museum you have never been to, etc.)

Some adventurous/unusual dates (find the best climbing trees - test them out an document it, go indoor mountain climbing, etc.)

and some at home dates (have a living room camp out, write love letters to each other and seal them up for a date night 20 years from now, Game Night, Food Taste Test Night, etc.)

Hope they have a good time!  

I am totally going back through the list to pull out all the at home dates for me and my hubby to do.

Split Letter

I used my Silhouette and designed this split letter for a paying customer!  The R is in Anabel font.  It's a pain to use as the cut lines aren't quite right always, but I am getting better at using the software that I've found some ways to adjust cut lines as needed.  I used Oracal 631 vinyl as it is sandwiched in between 2 panes of glass and isn't meant to be used outside

Knitted Washcloths

This month Kelly learned to knit.  She was able to get two Washcloths done in time for a Mother's Day Gift for her mom.

Summer in the Snow

My husband coaches soccer and hosted the teams' monthly party so I thought it would be the perfect occasion to try out these beach cupcakes off pinterest.  Little did I know their outside 8 am game would be 33 degrees and have snow flurries - oh well... at least my beach theme was good in theory....
I used brown sugar for the sand, blue sprinkles for the water and then drink umbrellas and cherries for the beach balls to finish off the look.  I also tried out the theory that you can put marshmallow on top of your cupcakes the last five minutes in the oven and it will work as self-frosting.  It was definitely a time-saver and delicious but it made them a lot stickier and more challenging to eat....Thanks pinterest!