Craft Camp - Day 4

The girls made these cute boards that they sanded, painted, applied vinyl lettering to, and pounded horse shoes nails into. They turned out really good. Lisa's dad has a vinyl lettering machine for his business and so we had the ultimate hookup on that one.

We also Mod Podge some cheap frames from Ikea and added some embellishments and ribbon to hang it up with. We took their pictures yesterday so they could have a picture to put in it (although this one didn't have their picture in it when I snapped the photo - oh well.) Note to self..Mod Podge and 8-year olds don't mesh.

They also got to take home their button rings that they made the day before. I LOVE these! You just take some old buttons and use some super strong glue (Lisa found some Epoxy glue that you mix just before using that worked well) and adhere them to the ring bases (which you ligthly sand for better glue adherance) that we got off of Oriental Trading. Sure to make their fingers green after a few consecutive wears - but very cute. Here are 3 for display although my favorites are the big giant buttons that I will be sporting out on the town. We found the buttons at an antique shop for super cheap - quite the assortment.

Craft Camp - Day 3

Today was paper crafting day. Although many of the girls' projects did not turn out like this exactly (you know what I mean), this is what they were shooting for. Sorry the pictures are a little dim, but you get the idea. Here is a little confession: Basically all my card ideas are inspired from something on SplitCoastStampers.com which is a website where they provide tutorials found in the Resources section (loaded with some really cute ideas and techniques and boxes, etc.) and a Gallery where people post all their card ideas (which admittedly are not all very great - some are super terrible - , but I like to gather different ideas and elements and create my own).

Here is our owl bag topper made from our new Big Kick Sizzix machine. The die is folded in half to create the owl head. It is the Top Note die from Stampin Up - you may just see these on your Christmas cards this year ( and no, not the owl).
Then here is our Flower Pot Pocket Card. The leaves are made from green cardstock that you fold in half and then run at an angle through the crimper. Then you cut the folded crimped cardstock into half circles and when you open them, you have a cute little leaf. Try it sometime.

We started another small project that I will post when they finish drying tomorrow.

Day 2 - Craft Camp

I am going to make a valiant effort to blog this week - for the sake of sharing some crafting ideas. Today we finished up our Marble Magnets that we started yesterday. I'm sure you have seen or made these before, but they are super easy and very cute if you get some great coordinating paper - courtesy of Craft Warehouse. We tried to do some personalizing which was fun using alpha stickers.


We also made these Reversible Ribbon Headbands. My suggestion is to make the overall just 1/2 inch shy of the head measurement - instead of the 1 inch difference suggested in the tutorial. The girls stated that theirs were super tight. Or just get really stretchy elastic. They needed some close supervision on the sewing and in the end I just did the ends for them for quality assurance. They enjoyed the cutting, measuring and straight sewing though.

Craft Camp

So my good friend Lisa convinced me to help her throw a Craft Camp for little girls - her niece would be staying with her and she was teaching that age of Primary kids (although she just got thrown into YW's and is probably regretting this whole camp idea..) and with my expert background in Activity Day Girls (j/k), we gave it a go. After dabbling with some digital scrapbooking, here is our flyer:

We have some great crafts lined up - so I think it will be fun. There are 10 girls. My sister Katie is in on it too and a couple of my Activity Day Girls as well. And they always love a good snack - as do I. I'll post what we make and complete as the week progresses. **We take no credit as to the original craft idea. These are all things we have seen or found online that we perfected to our liking. If applicable, I will post a link to a tutorial that someone so kindly placed online.**

Here are the little purses the girls made today. Lisa found this idea, and they turned out super cute. The girls loved them - but we did have to clarify to one little girl that she could not fill it will extra Muddy Buddies to take home (we opted for a plastic bag instead). The handles are those little metal bracelets.

Happy 4th!

This is my valiant effort to make a 4th of July decoration. It turned out well but was a very slow and at times somewhat painful process. Lisa found the idea online and we took our own stab at it, literally..each ribbon is poked in with a pin. Certainly nothing difficult but it took much longer than anticipated and after two trips to Walmart to restock on ribbon - here it is! Let freedom ring.

We had a good 4th. The kids rode on the Primary's float in Pasco's parade. It was nice to not be in charge of that. They had fun. We swam at Brad's sister Bev's house along the river. It was a HOT day finally. We went to my Aunt Cheryl's that night to see Uncle Steve & Aunt Shauna who just got home as Mission Presidents in Russia. We ate well and had our own fireworks display. Good times!