Camp Cre8

It's funny how even though I realize that I'm not good at crafty things, my daughter had to give me a blunt reminder today.

Both of my girls went to Camp Cre8 where Nancy and Kristy have some adorable crafts for the girls to make.  You can check out their posts here and here.  These two ladies are brilliantly crafty and I'm proud to call them my friends.

On the ride home, Sweet Cheeks says "Mom, you should start a camp like this sometime."

I paused and looked at her with a mischevious grin as if to say "are you kidding me?  I'm not crafty."

She quickly figured out what my grin meant.

Then, she said "well, maybe you could do some type of cooking camp for kids."

I paused and, again, looked at her with a questionable grin.

Oh, yeah, she said.  You're not a good cook, either.

So, we left it at that.

Mom's not the greatest at everything....but she still tries her best and keeps a smile on her face!

Here's some of the cute stuff they made...

She did not want her picture taken.

Oh, well....mama needs her picture.

Great crafting by great Ladies.

Thanks, Kristy and Nancy.

You've made this summer camp a blast and a half.

Cute ornaments in the making

My house has been a disaster for the past week, mostly due to Christmas prep.

The dining room table has looked like a craft bomb went off.

All for a good reason.

We had everything in place to make homemade ornaments.
We do this every year as our family tradition.

I've blogged about this a bit before showing you some of the previous years models.

So, I thought and thought....and finally came up with this year's plan.

Letters!

Bought a bunch of letters and other christmasy ornaments (since all the letters that I needed were not available) to paint and decorate.

Also bought ribbon to glue gun to the back.

Cover your table with newspaper, grab your paint, brushes, puffy paint/fabric paint, glitter and extra bling to create a one-of-a-kind ornament for someone special; family members, close friends or teachers.

First, paint the base color on the ornament.  Let dry.

Add extra embellishments and your own decorative flair.

You can also just use glitter by covering the letter with glue, then dump the glitter on top.  They come out beautifully.

This little elf joins in for a bit, finishes painting quicky and then
creates her own black magic art.  Ta da!!  It's Spongebob and Patrick!
I encourage her to come back to the ornaments but she dances to her own tune, escapes...and tries to hide.
When the camera is out - there's no getting away!

We make homemade tags and place them on the back of each ornament, too.
Always put the year on the label for future reminiscing.

Here are just a few of the finished product.

It's easy.
It's affordable.
It's personal!

Crafty? NOT!

We have a Christmastime tradition to make one of these cute houses.

We lay out a table cloth, separate the candy into individual dishes,

get the icing ready and begin.

You would think that putting this pre-baked gingerbread house

would be easy to put together, right?

Not in our house.

The directions are simple.

Step 1: use icing to put the 4 walls of gingerbread together to form the house.

Step 2: more icing to put on the roof.

Gotta taste it, too.

Step 3:  Put icing on other parts of the house

so we can put some candies all around.

Then - BOOM, BANG...

The roof begins sliding off.

Gravity.  Uuurgh!

It's like a slow-motion, bad movie.

The girls have become accustomed to this action over the years.

They don't panic.

They simply start packing on more icing to put it back together.

We try again.

Back to the candy application...

Things are looking up.

We think it's going to stay put.

NOPE.

More icing, please.

Bet you can't figure out which is our house

and which is the picture of the manufacturer's box.

Maybe I need some new kitchen tools to help us out.

Even though our tradition doesn't offer perfection,

it's fun!!

What are your family traditions?

Give Thanks

Anyone who knows me well, knows that I stepped out of my comfort zone

to do this project with my girls....and it came out cute.

Our "Give Thanks" home-spun craft!

(stolen from Nancy)

Just stepping into Joann's Fabrics made me nervous.

Picking the coordinating scrapbook papers made me feel nauseous.

So, I had to call my 411 for help.

"Hello, Nancy.  How many pieces of scrapbook paper do I need?"

She talked me down and helped me through the stress of shopping for crafy items.

My girls love this stuff...

I can do this....

So, we painted, cut, glued and had fun!

It's some good, old-fashioned crafty time that the girls need.

It's that special time with them that I adore.

Sweet Cheeks wrote 3 thankful notes today:

thankful for her friends,

thankful for her family,

thankful for her house.

Sugar Nugget wrote 2 thankful notes today:

thankful for her 3 doggies,

thankful for her family.

I wrote one thankful note:

thankful for my handsome, kind, funny husband,

thankful for my healthy, beautiful daughters.

I have soooo much to be thankful for.

Don't know if there are enough feathers to show it.