Last Minute Valentines

My little girl's Valentine party at school was Friday,

and as Room Mom I got to help plan their party.

I have to admit it has been a total guilty pleasure for me

because I have absolutely grown to love

all those sweet kids in her class!

So I made little cherry cheesecake cupcakes

and my favorite Hershey Kiss Peanut Butter cookies,

but what went over the best were these fun Bingo cards I put together

totally last moment.

Really, I was picking them up from Staples where I got them laminated

just 10 minutes before the party started.

I've seen tons of great ideas for Bingo...two of my favorites are over at Eighteen 25 and The Idea Room!

I was ready to print them out and her teacher emailed me all the kid's pictures to use

the day before the party and I just had to use them!

(I didn't post a picture of them because I don't have permission

to show off all those cute kiddos!)

After spending too many hours trying to download, upload and all that

onto some other online bingo card makers,

I found the simplest way was to just collage them

using my favorite freebie program Picasa!

They were super easy and a fun memento for each of the kids to take home.

If you don't have enough pictures to fill the spaces, you can do what I did

and find a fun picture of the school mascot.

It worked out great and the kids loved it!

Here's one I did up for our family to play tomorrow night for family night!

We didn't make squirrel Valentines either...yes, shocker....

and we don't have 4 cats, 2 have met their maker

but we needed the numbers for bingo purposes!:)

You have to improvise when you only have 1 kid.

I had seen this fun idea for owl heads put on M&M packages

and took it and ran with it.

I cut out everything on my cricut and we glued as fast as we could!

My little girl thought it was so fun!

Pheeewwwww!

Now I get to actually enjoy this holiday knowing all the hard work is done!

My hubby has made his famous Valentine's Day Lasagna

that he makes every year for me.

Just knowing that I don't have to cook

makes me feel loved!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Glittery Goodness!

I think you all can tell that we kinda like glitter. 

We did a happy dance when we received a package of {gorgeous} glass glitter

from Meyer Imports in the mail.  Love this stuff. 

 You know how after crafting with synthetic glitter you have it in every nook and cranny of your house, all over your face...and sometimes on your husband and children? 

 Really embarrassing when you go out in public, especially for the husband. :)  

The glass glitter is different. It's heavy and pretty much stays where you are working.  This glitter is so beautiful to work with. We were especially taken with the bold and vibrant colors of the pinks and reds.

Perfect for a little Valentine crafting.

For this "be mine" craft, we used cupcake liners.  There are so many fun choices in the stores.  I fell in love with the cupcake wrapper crafting after watching Jen from Tatertots and Jello use them last year.

We found chipboard pieces, especially made for banners in all sorts of shapes at Craft Warehouse. For these, we ended up drilling a couple of holes and adding wire so we could move them where ever we please.  

The glitter gives it all a little pop and shimmer, which we love!

After arranging these for pictures, I ended up turning mine into magnets.

 A great way to decorate those magnetic boards so many of us have.

Thanks Meyer Imports for feeding our little crafting addiction!

 ( If any of you need glass glitter, be sure to check them out!)

Fancy Snowflakes

Yup, more Snowflakes!!!

But these ones are "fancy"!

Yesterday I found myself completely dragging my feet

along with my little girl to go back to school.

I have to admit that this was the first Christmas Break

since High School that I have absolutely, completely loved!

I had a few things to keep me busy but

ultimately I got to spend a ton of time with my daughter.

It.was.WONDERFUL!

It also meant I didn't really do anything crafty.

Every Monday I volunteer in my daughter's class

and I was delighted to have to fold and cut 160 snowflakes pieces

for their fun class art project!

Of course I had to make some myself!

I've seen these fancy snowflakes all over but never seen how they are made.

They are really fun and really easy!

I made my first one with just printer paper

and then moved onto sheet music!

Yes, that opera music Candace found at the thrift store has

really been put to good use!

So gather up some paper, some tape, a stapler,

some scissors and some string to hang them up with.....

Here's a closer look of how to make the cuts:

The sheet music one I did with 4 inch squares and they ended up being about 10 inches.

Here's my first one made from 8 1/2 squares of printer paper.

All finished it measures about 23 inches.

You can't tell from the pictures but I had to spray it with spray glitter....

 Can't wait for my little girl to come home so we can make a bunch more!

Happy Snowflake Making!

Haunted Village

Here's a little Halloween craft we're sure the kiddos will enjoy.  My son didn't think that it was too scary....but I know he liked it! 

 We had tons of K&Co. paper left over from papering our pennant banners and we were determined not to let this cute paper go to waste.

We bought our paper pack at Michaels but I know you can purchase it here.  K&Co used the same design to make chipboard pieces and pop up Haunted houses, this inspired us to bring to life our own Haunted House.

We wandered down to the unfinished wood section and picked up these birdhouses for a dollar a piece.  Perfectly shaped for haunted houses!

We pulled the strings out and gave them a good coat of black paint.

My son was playing around with them the other day and lined them up in a row.  We thought it would be great to make a haunted row with them on a 2x4.  We cut up smaller pieces of wood to give the houses some height.

Using Mod Podge, we papered away.

We ended up pulling out the little perch for the birds so we could paper over the holes.

We drilled some holes for the dowles to hang the banners. We didn't glue any of the dowels so you can remove them for storage. I always end up with so many broken crafts, so we thought this would be a good solution.

We did the same with the large dowels. 

And this is where I stood back and watched Nicole work her paper magic on the wood.  I wasn't a lot of help, just a back seat driver ordering doors on one house ...pumpkins on the other. She's just so darn good with paper and wood...so I let her take over. :)

We made mini paper pennants, cutting paper triangles and hot gluing them to ribbon.  Nicole backed the top pennants with wire so we could shape them easily. 

We added more spider web yarn and ribbon to dress up the wood blocks. We used really fine wire to  hot glue the bats, ghosts and moon.  

My kids love chopping paper...any paper they can get their hands on.... I think I have six to eight pairs of  confiscated scissors tucked away on a high shelf.

These little paper triangles would be perfect for little hands to practice their scissoring skills. :)

I think this little haunted village needs to go straight to Nicole's house

~ where it can be adorned by her little girl with Little Pet Shops!

Sharing at Tatertots and Jello's FALL Linky Party

Pennant Banners

  

Thanks for all the sweet comments about Nicole's squirrels.  My sister has one of the biggest hearts I know.  Gracie the squirrel is something else, you would have to see her to understand.  She responds to Nicole's voice, climbs on her shoulder as she works, and even hangs upside down on trees trying to get her attention when she's distracted talking to visitors in her driveway. It's unbelievable how aware that squirrel is.  I see a joy brought to my sister watching her feed and care for the baby squirrel Izzie, it is so sweet to see.

 

We had a really busy week! We were so busy creating for boutiques and craft groups that we didn't snap many pictures. Nicole made so many cute things, I'll have to get her to make some more so we can picture them.

I "assisted" her on a couple of pennant banners.  I'm not so good at mass producing.  Nicole has been running her business for a couple of years now and is highly efficient.  I'm as slow as molasses! :)

We made each pennant with wood.  Nicole chopped thin mdf and drilled holes for the ribbon.

I picked up this very cute pack of papers from Michaels to paper our pennants.  I think I completely adore each paper in this pack.  Hmmmm, what else can I use this on?

We made some candy corn pennants.  I have seen several of these around blog land and they are too cute.  The triangle shape is just crying out to be made into a candy corn.

We glued on some of the stringy spider web yarn.  We love using this stuff on all of our Halloween projects!  I first saw this on a craft project my friend Angela did for our craft group and knew as soon as I saw this on the blog Urban Comfort in one of Suzonne Sterling's Halloween creations that it was a must have for our banner! :) 

How cute is the yarn with the spider paper?

We'll be back to share some more tomorrow!