Young Women Values Girl

In my church I am over a group of girls ages 12-18.  Our Young Women's program focuses on 8 values that we encourage the girls to develop in their lives.  

For an activity one night we made She Art Value Girls.  (I borrowed the idea from a canvas Christy Tomlinson designed).  The young women had so much fun getting messy with paint and mod podge!  To make things simpler (and less expensive) we didn't use rub-ons like I usually do on my canvases, but we had plenty of texture stamps there that they used instead, along with doodling.  

Here's the one I made that they used as an example.  It was so fun to see how each girl personalized hers with the paint colors she chose, the texture she used, and how she styled the hair.

 I prepped the backgrounds ahead of time by mod podging tissue to the canvas and then painting the blue and green.  Then the girls added their own texture with stamps and paint.  (At the thrift store I found a fabulous stack of old sewing patterns that I used for tissue.  They worked great)!

I created the blouse from muslin and mod podged it onto the canvas.

To save time, I made high quality color copies of the skirt and blouse from my canvas and printed it onto cardstock.  The girls added arms, legs, and a head from book paper to their own canvases, then glued the cardstock dress over the top.  That way they didn't have to deal with cutting and decorating the patterned paper layers.  This saved us so much time!  The girls did add their own lace and buttons as accents.  When they were done stamping and doodling, you couldn't tell it was a copy at all!

Love it!

Travel Games Gift Idea

Hello everyone!  I've enjoyed taking a break for awhile and getting ready for the holidays.  My Christmas shopping is done and now I'm down to finishing the homemade gifts. 
 

I ran across this fabulous idea on JessicaSprague.com for creating a Travel Game Book.  I think it's perfect for a stocking stuffer or to use while you're traveling for the holidays.  You can download the printables here for under $3! 

I'm not sure when I'll post again.  Santa is keeping me very busy.  ;)

A Boy and His Covered Wagon

Our summer has been full of so many fun activities for the kids! In celebration of Pioneer Day in July, Cam participated in an around-the-block parade. He wanted to make a covered wagon, so we put on our thinking caps and came up with this:

We borrowed Grandma's gardening wagon and tied some large dowels in each corner. I gathered two edges of some muslin I had lying around the house (see...I knew it would come in handy some day!) and stretched it over some kind of flexible noise makers scrounged from the boys' toy box. Voila! A covered wagon!




So, here's the funny part of the story. The kids were walking around the high school...that's it. Just around the high school. No big deal. Cam starts off at a brisk pace. He was excited!




Here he is back at the beginning 5 minutes later. He looks a little tired. Even the wagon looks tired and droopy. This is probably why we weren't born 150 years ago. We wouldn't make very good pioneers.


We'll just let big brother pull the wagon back to the car...

Scrapping Collections

Cameron has been wanting me to make a layout about his collection of Webkinz for a long time. So we finally decided to do it and set up a little photo shoot.

I was completely inspired by a layout on 2 Peas by Nichol Magouirk. My layout pretty much ended up being a scraplift of hers because it worked out so perfectly!





I created the conversation bubbles in Word and had Cam write about his pets in his own handwriting. He was so excited to help! This layout would be a great way to document the different things your kids collect. You could also scrap about your daily routine and what activities you participate in on a weekly basis. Just some fun ideas to maybe jump start your creativity a little...

As a side note, I want to share this fun collection I used from We R Memory Keepers called "72 and Sunny." I LOVE these bright colors! The color palette, designs, and fonts are so retro and remind me of when I was a child.

There are also clear acrylic stamps, 3-D chipboard stickers, pre-stitched matching cardstock, shaped papers, and some coordinating paper kits. Be sure to check them out!

Jamestown

I know I've been horrible about blogging regularly, but I have a good excuse. It all boils down to the chaos of being a mother to my 2 boys. :)

One of the many projects we've been working on at our house is a model of Jamestown for my 13 year old's History class. He had less than a week to complete it from start to finish. It's made mostly from popsicle sticks, cardboard, and poster board. Throw in a little paint and sand, and you've got a 3 foot model of the first permanent English settlement in the United States.

The fort was shaped like a triangle which might be great for defending itself against attacks, but not so great when trying to build it out of popsicle sticks. We finally got it to work out and Taylor was happy with the results.

Here's his Jamestown sign and the front gate.

A close up of one of the cannons with a cannon ball shooting out of it. (He loved that part the best).

We took the project to school last week for grading. It wasn't easy to maneuver because it was so big. (Taylor didn't mention it could be smaller than 3 feet. His was the biggest one there!) We had to turn it sideways just to get it through the door.

I thought for sure they would keep all the models on display for a few days at the school since all the kids worked so hard on them. But no...we got to bring it right back home the same day. Now it is sitting in the middle of my living room floor. What do you do with a giant model of Jamestown? After all the hours of labor he put into it, you can't just throw it out right away. Besides, I will most likely end up helping with another one in a few years when Cam is old enough...I wonder if we can just use the same one?!

So I promise there will be some Christmas project ideas posted tomorrow. I worked on some this weekend for Porter's and they turned out really cute. So stay tuned!

Using Scraps

We have a neighbor lady who has been very sick for a long time. We decided to cheer her up with a big, bright, happy card from all the Primary children in our ward. I was trying to get this made at the last minute and only had scraps to work with. But I love how this turned out! It's amazing how a little of this and a little of that can turn into something that makes me happy to look at! :)

Papers: Bo Bunny, Cosmo Cricket; Dies: QuicKutz
This is the outside of the card. It's 12x12, just like a regular sized layout, because we needed lots of room for all the kids to sign their names inside.

This is a shot of the inside of the card before they wrote in it. It looked so cute when it was finished with all their little kid handwriting! We delivered it to our neighbor on Sunday since it was her birthday. She loved it!

Harry Potter and Heidi Swapp

Once again, Cam is missing his big brother and best playmate. Since Taylor's at scout camp for six days, this could possibly be the longest week of his little life.

When Cameron is bored, he likes to make things. Often those things revolve around characters in his favorite computer games. Harry Potter, Wizard 101, Club Penquin, and Toontown characters are all over the house. He's pretty creative.


So today he decides he's going to make another Golden Snitch (think Harry Potter). He knows right where the Heidi Swapp wing stamps are because he uses them all the time...you can never have too many snitches after all. He wadded up a paper towel to make a ball and covered it with yellow construction paper. He stamped the wings and taped them on. Then he drew something (electricity???) all over the ball and declared it was the best snitch ever. Then he wanted to hang it from a doorway so he could fly through the air and catch it. Hmmm...we spent at least 30 minutes trying various ways to make this work without it ripping from the door jamb, but he finally gave up. I'm not sure how many violent leaps and snatches this snitch could take, but it still seems to be in one piece.


Stay tuned...I'm sure we will have an overabundance of Puffles, Fire Cats, and Doodles before the week is over!

Scrapbooking with the Kids

Yesterday, Cameron was bored. His brother had gone to a youth activity, so it was just me and Cam all day. We read, played games, did chores...and he was still bored. Anything I suggested, he didn't want to do. Finally, I asked him if he wanted to scrapbook with me. "Sure, I guess." he said.



Now, I have to admit that scrapping with the kids isn't always that easy for me.
Problem #1: I'm a perfectionist. I really have a hard time stepping away and letting them do what they want.

Problem #2: One time, Cam was happy with slapping some pictures on a page and adding some doodles. But that was only one time (or maybe two...see the zoo pages below). Since he sees me scrapbooking almost everyday for assignments, he has decided he wants his pages to "look like Mom's." So here's some tricks I've learned to help the process along:

• I let them choose the pictures they want to scrap. Then I pick a few papers and embellishments that match and let them decide what they want to use. The fewer choices, the better!
• I find it easier for them to create a layout if they have a visual idea of what it could already look like. Usually we look through a magazine together until they see something they like. Then we scraplift.
• I have to turn my head the other way when it's time to attach pictures and titles. They are most likely going to turn out crooked and I have to let it be OK. (Really...it's OK)!
• I like to let the kids journal in their own handwriting. This makes the page that much more memorable in years to come.
• Last night, Cam wanted me to attach everything to the page for him, but I tried to have him help me with as much of the layout as he could. For example, I lined up the stamp but he pressed down on it. When punching holes, I held the setter while he pounded with the hammer. (Ouch!) He applied the adhesive to the different elements and I attached them to the page.
• Remember, kids always feel like it's their creation when they are involved in the process.
  

Here's what Cameron and I made last night:

He thought the flowers on this paper looked like the jungle, which went great with his jungle-themed birthday party.

We punched holes in the round frame with a hammer and eyelet setter. (He only hit my thumb once)! He stamped the "6" on the tag and wrote his name and the date.

This was the 2nd layout of the night. It was a scraplift from a Sande Krieger layout in the July 2009 Scrapbooks Etc. Cameron soon lost interest and wanted me to finish it for him. The little circles are punched from patterned paper with a 1" circle punch, then cut in half. Very easy!

Cameron was very excited that I was going to show you his birthday layouts and wondered if we could show all of the ones he has made over the years. So here we go!

In case you couldn't tell, these are from his trip to the zoo:


This was his first year of baseball. He liked the doodling best.


Taylor is older and sort of a perfectionist in his own way. Here's some pages he has made over the past few years.

Shooting BB Guns at Cub Scout Camp

Taylor wrote all the journaling about his favorites at age 9.

Taylor loves using my old Coluzzle alphabets. It makes it easy for him to cut out a title by himself. He also did all the stamping.

This was one of the 1st pages he ever made. The dinosaur is an overlay we created on the computer with clipart and a blank transparency.

Taylor made this page all by himself.

Taylor had drawn plans so his Dad would know how to cut out his derby car. We shrunk the image on the scanner and printed it out for his page.

Well, there you have it. Involving the kids in making their own scrapbooks can be a great boredom buster. And sometimes I have even learned some great design tricks from them!