valentine's party

Last Thursday, Elle threw a Valentine party. While it was definitely filled with chaos, I think everyone also had fun! (thanks to Laura for the photos)

THE PARTY DETAILS

Attendees:

10 3-year-olds

9 moms

6 younger siblings

2 older siblings

Activities:

Photos on the chalkboard wall with sequin heart hair clips (girls) and felt heart pins (boys)

We taped die cut hearts to the chalkboard wall and drew white chalk designs around the hearts. Each child got a hair clip or pin to wear and their picture taken in front of the wall.

Musical Hearts

We put several die cut hearts on the floor and played music while they danced and moved around. Once the music stopped, they had to find a heart. Each time we took away hearts until we had a winner.

Valentine Exchange

Each child brought valentines to give away. We found metal mailboxes at Target in the dollar section for everyone to collect their valentines.

Snacks

It was mid-morning so we wanted a healthy snack. Heart shaped granola bars with fruit leather embellishments, grapes, apples, yogurt and a mini bottle of water.

Decorating Cookies

We rolled out sugar cookie dough on sheets of parchment paper for each child to cut out heart shaped cookies. We baked their cookies while they molded and played with the remaining dough. After the cookies cooled, the frosted and decorated their cookies to take home.

Balloons

We bought mini 6" heart shaped balloons and filled with helium for the guests to take home.

3-year-olds (minus Ayden and Nate who came a little later)

Chalkboard wall photos.

Musical hearts.

Passing out valentines for the valentine exchange.

Collecting all of the valentines.

Snack time.

Heart shaped granola bars with fruit leather embellishments. We made homemade granola bars and then cut them out with heart-shaped cookie cutters.

Yogurt with wooden spoon and fruit for dipping. We put vanilla in first and dropped spoonfuls of strawberry yogurt on top to make a heart.

Cutting out sugar cookies.

Frosting sugar cookies.

Playing with balloons.

happy birthday

Happy Birthday Adam! I love you, and I'm so glad we get to create this life together!

fall/holiday projects

Obviously the preceding posts should have been posted months ago...but in an effort to not forget about them, I'm finally posting them now.

Native American Headbands

Turkey Pie Crust Handprints

Turkey Cookies

Thanksgiving Dinner Menus

Christmas Kick Off Party

christmas kick off party

Last year I heard about a family who let their kids sleep under the Christmas tree the night they put it up. I thought it sounded like such a fun tradition so this year I decided to start our family's annual Christmas Kick-Off Party. My hope was to create an event just for our little family that

- gave us time to be together before the start of such a busy season with friends and extended family

- let us talk about our plans for the season and how we wanted to make it special for ourselves and others

- gave us a chance to learn and remember the real reason we celebrate Christmas

Overall, I loved how the party turned out and can't wait to continue the tradition. (i only took video of the party so don't have many pictures - these are just images saved from the video file.)

This year for the party:

- Elle and I made invitations for everyone in our family, and she passed them out to everyone at Family Home Evening a week before the party.

- We planned the party for the day after Thanksgiving so we'd have the day to put up Christmas decorations. We spent that Friday putting up and decorating our tree and setting out other basic Christmas decorations.

- For food, we ate appetizers: sourdough and pumpernickel bread with hot artichoke dip, veggies and dip, sparkling cider and cranberry juice

- During the party, we ate, planned, read the story of Jesus' birth from the scriptures, and opened up one present (pajamas - traditionally my family always opens pajamas on Christmas Eve, but I wanted to use pajamas as part of our kick-off. For Christmas Eve, the girls got to open a book which we read before bed.)

- After the girls put their pajamas on, we all watched a Christmas movie together. This year it was old Christmas cartoon classics.

Other things I envision for party but didn't incorporate this year:

- Sleeping out under the tree

- Hot chocolate/popcorn during the movie

- Talking about memories/looking atphotos from past Christmases

- Writing letters to Santa

Here's a few pics of our Christmas decor - thanks again to my sis-in-law Julie.

Thanksgiving menus/placecards

This year I wasn't very motivated about creating the Thanksgiving table decor so instead of focusing on the entire table, I just created the Thanksgiving menus for each place setting. (Thanks to my sis-in-law Julie for taking these pictures!)

I designed and printed the menu on Lettra paper in dark brown and orange. I also printed the name of each guest and then used an oval die cut to cut out each name with my Epic Six. The die cut name was adhered to the menu with foam tape for dimension.

On the top third of the paper, I printed Happy Thanksgiving and folded the paper so the menu/placecard would sit off the plate and the guest sitting across the table would have something visually interesting to look at.

We also used the traditional "go around the table and say what you're thankful for" as a fun way to announce to everyone that we're having a boy. Adam went first and said he was thankful for his girls. I went next and said I was thankful for our girls too but also thankful for little boys!

turkey cookies

Elle and I made these turkey cookies for the kids Thanksgiving table. You can find a variety of how-to's and images online. For ours, we used oreos, fudge stripe cookies, candy corns, reeses peanut butter cups and chocolate frosting.

pie crust handprint turkeys

Elle and Liv both had a great time making and eating these. I think it would also be fun to make decorated pie crust leaves. You could use leaf cookie cutters or collect and trace leaves from outside.

Trace outline of hand on piece of paper and cut out with scissors. Place on piece of rolled out pie crust. Use knife to cut around hand template.

Color sanding sugar in desired colors with food coloring. Simply drop a few drops of food coloring into a bowl of sugar and stir until color is evenly distributed. We made red, yellow and orange.

Spread melted butter on top of each handprint pie crust and decorate with sanding sugar.

Take obligatory photo for mom with handprints ready to bake. Bake pie crusts in oven until lightly brown. Unfortunately, we don't have any pictures of the final product.

Native American headbands

Native American Headbands - Strips of dark brown paper plus paper die cut feathers = hours of fun running around the house together.

CHA winter

Just got back from 2 days at CHA (Craft and Hobby Association Tradeshow) in LA where we released a ton of new products (lucky for me and my pregnant body, I didn't have to stay for the entire 4 days of the show). The new dies are great versatile basics you can use for all types of projects. And, we launched 2 paper lines with dies that coordinate - a new product category for us. I've got a few projects I've been creating with the new products that I'll post soon.

At the show, I spent most of my time demoing the L Letterpress and walking the tradeshow floor. It's always fun to talk about and introduce the product to new people.

party favor sneak peek

Elle and I have started making one of the party favors for her Valentine party....sequin heart hair clips for the girls. I came across this post at Grosgrain Fabulous and loved the idea.

things i love

Do you find yourself looking for blog posts when you google something you're interested in? I definitely do. I like seeing real people's thoughts and reviews on a product or idea. For some reason, they just seem more trustworthy.

Today I've been thinking about a particular cleaning product I love and use all the time.

Pledge Multi-Surface Spray

I use this on everything in every room of my house: granite countertops, stainless steel appliances, sinks, cabinets, mirrors, faucets, glass, furniture... Not only does it work really well, but I love that I just need one product to clean so many different things.

And while on the topic of cleaning...a quick tip for cleaning glass and mirrors I just tried and loved. I don't know about you, but I have a hard time getting the spray spots from hair products etc. completely cleaned off my mirrors. And our glass shower doors never seem to be completely spotless. I've tried a ton of different products trying to superclean the shower with only ok results...until I tried rubbing alcohol and a straight razor blade. The spots, soap scum, residue just scraped away...cleanest I've seen our shower in years. :)

these girls make me laugh

Eating lunch together.

Waiting for Dad to get home.

Liv and her accessories...when I left her on the couch upstairs she was fully dressed no accessories. Next thing I know she's coming downstairs to find me - no pants and princess crown. For Liv, she's not fully dressed until she has a necklace, hat, crown, glasses, bracelet...

valentine card links

For Elle's Valentine party, we're planning a valentine exchange. We haven't decided what valentines we're going to make yet, but here are two cute ideas...

Scratch and Win

Ah-choose You

Lifestyle Crafts - Love Release

Here is the latest die release from Lifestyle Crafts...everything you need for the perfect Valentine's Day! It's a great collection of all things hearts and love. Elle and I are planning a Valentine's Day party and using several of the dies for invitations, decor and party favors...I love that she loves to plan, throw parties and craft!

If you think die cuts and die-cutting machines are just for scrapbooking, thing again...my continuous push at Lifestyle Crafts is creating products that are great for all types of creative projects.

bijou market

Introducing RedRoko Kids debuting at the Bijou Market in Provo today and tomorrow!

Featuring our fun Play Crates in 5 different themes....

Mr. and Mrs.

Weatherman

Superhero

Baker

ABC Toss

- 26 bean bags with felt uppercase and lowercase letters

Come check us out and watch for RedRoko at the Beehive Bazaar December 2nd, 3rd and 4th!

halloween costumes

For this Halloween, we were on a trip to Tennessee and Kentucky to watch my sister Lauren play volleyball, and my brothers, Matt and Sam, play football. Elle and Liv dressed up as Auburn cheerleaders and my nephew Case was Aubbie the tiger - the Auburn mascot - complete with jersey signed by Cam Newton. Unfortunately, Liv fell asleep at the beginning of the match significantly reducing our photo opportunities of the three of them together. Why does it always seem that whenever you want photos - they just don't seem to cooperate. :)

Lucky for me, I went home to my parent's house in Washington a few weeks before the trip so my mom helped sew the costumes. I'm sure it would have taken me much longer if she hadn't stepped in. Go Auburn!

hmmm...i've seen this before.

Almost exactly 2 years ago, the exact same thing happened...I stopped posting on my blog. While work, kids, life, projects are all partly to blame, I really think it's due to...

...a baby. We're expecting baby no. 3 at the end of April.

It seems that the blue balloons and numbers subconsciously got featured more than pink -maybe a sign that a boy is on the way???

On a creative note...I love the parchment paper cupcake wrappers. I didn't have any on hand so I creased parchment paper around a glass and inserted it into a muffin tin. It worked great, and I love the result. Balloon numbers were made with adhesive vinyl and placed on the already blown up balloons. Cupcake picks are diecut numbers from cardstock with a strip of metal wire glued in between.

baby projects

I love these two tutorials. I don't think you can ever have enough diaper covers (thanks for the link Cissy!) and these tights seem like they'd actually last more than 1 wear.