Valentine’s Day Round-up

January 25, 2021January 24, 20214 Comments

Good morning! It’s been a couple of weeks since I have been here! Life has been a little crazy since the new year started. Not just in world news, but in our little family too. We are all okay, but we have had some stressful times. And now, Valentine’s Day is right around the corner! It’s the perfect time to show a little extra love to those we care about.

I thought I would share some of the past ideas from the blog. If I can get some things together, I will show you next week, what I will be sharing with my friends for Valentine’s Day.

It’s A Valentine Tablescape-Set a pretty table to celebrate with your family.

Vintage Valentine Tablescape– Here is another tablescape using some vintage pieces.

Cute Valentine Printable– This is a cute little printable card to pass out to your friends…or pets!

Recycled Hardware Heart– Looking for a craft project? Go through your stash or hit the thrift store and see what you can create!

Faux Flower Heart- Here is a craft using Dollar Tree flowers!

Ombre’ Wooden Heart– Another craft idea with Dollar Tree items.

Gum and Candy Basket- Here’s a cute way to give some special treats to your special someone!

Valentine Pixi-Stix Flower Vase– Or maybe you want a special vase to give some flowers to someone!

I Love You Wooden Blocks– Another easy craft project for you!

Stamped Heart Treat Bag– One last idea for a goodie bag! (Scroll to the end of the post for the how-to)

I hope you enjoyed this round-up and found some ideas! I would love to hear about what you do for Valentine’s Day!

Easy Easter Goody Bags to DIY

April 6, 2020April 2, 20202 Comments

Good morning! I hope everyone is doing well. I’m not sure what our Easter is going to look like this year, but I still wanted to give my kids a little bag of goodies even though they are adults. I think they like it too! I made these cute little bags for them this year.

Items you need:

small paper bag
ribbon
stencil or shape to trace
clear cellophane
ribbon
hole punch
scissors
pencil
tags for names
candy!

I used a cookie cutter for my shape. I liked this bunny shape. I centered it where I wanted it to be on the bag and traced around it with the pencil.

Once I had the tracing, I carefully cut it out with my scissors.

I placed a piece of blue paper behind it so you could see the shape.

I cut out a square of clear cellophane, large enough to cover the whole design. I taped it to the inside of the bag. This will keep the candy from falling out!

I punched two holes in the top of the bag, through both sides of the bag, so I could tie the bag closed with a ribbon.

I always give my kids a chocolate bunny, so that when in the bag first, and then I added some other smaller candies to fill the bag.

I had these circle key rings and the letters in my stash, so I joined the two together. I made a hole in the cardboard letter so I could add it to the key ring.

Once the bag was full, I tied the top closed and added the initial key ring.

I think they turned out pretty cute! Perfect for kids, both small and grown up!

I know my kids will enjoy getting them as much as I enjoyed making them!

This was a fun project to put together and fun to give to the kids! I hope you have a happy spring and Easter!

Five Easy Valentine Ideas to DIY

January 21, 2020January 21, 20202 Comments

Good morning! I finally found out that my surgery isn’t going to happen until the middle of February, so I thought I would come visit with you all!

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I’ve enjoyed seeing some of the Valentine ideas I have been seeing, so I thought I would share a few of my own. I am even adding a new DIY for you!

Valentine Gum and Candy Basket

Get your Valentine’s favorite gum and candy and put it all together in this cute little basket! Add some pretty ribbon as an accent.

2. Valentine Pixie Stix and Flower Vase

Here is another candy idea, but with flowers! It’s a great way to up-cycle a tin can too! This would make a great teacher gift!

3. Faux Flower Heart for Valentine’s

Here is another project with flowers, this time shaping them into a heart! Of course, you could use any color you want!

4. I Love You Wooden Blocks

This is a little simple project to decorate your home for Valentine’s Day! You could use blocks and letters to spell out whatever you want.

5. Stamped Heart Treat Bag

Here is another sweet idea to make for your Valentine! You could fill the little bag with stickers, jewelry or candy!

I started with a plain muslin bag, pink paint, heart shaped cookie cutter and foam dauber. I wanted to use a rubber stamp, but I couldn’t locate one in my stash, so a cookie cutter was my next choice. It worked great! Just make sure to wash it well before you make your Valentine cookies! 🙂 I added a little bit of paint to the foam dauber and added it inside the heart. Be sure to put a piece of paper or cardboard inside the bag so the paint doesn’t go through.

Once the paint was dry, I got out my letter stamps and some black ink. I picked out the letters I wanted to use. I started with the word ‘love.’

I pressed the stamp into the ink pad and then pressed it onto the bag and the heart. I didn’t worry about keeping the letters straight or even. Obviously!

Don’t they look cute! They are perfect for adding just a little something for your special valentine!

Aren’t these fortune cookies the cutest!! I found them at the Dollar Tree and they come with a special fortune inside. I can’t wait to see what the fortunes will be!

I hope you all have a wonderful Valentines Day! If you create one of these projects, I would love to know! Have a great week!

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Celebration!! Our Peacock Graduation Party 2015

May 20, 2019May 16, 201922 Comments

Good morning! I hope everyone had a great week! We are headed south for Haley’s graduation! Unbelievable!! It seems like we just did this a couple of years ago, but it’s been 4 years since her high school graduation. We won’t be having her graduation party until June, so I thought I would share her peacock party with you again! I love decorating and coming up with ideas for parties! Enjoy!!

The day finally arrived! All the pomp and circumstance! What a crazy week leading up to this day, but I have lots of great memories I am tucking away. My baby graduated! It just seems so crazy that time has passed so quickly!

I had so much fun decorating for the party! For starters, it was in my favorite colors!

Second, decorating helps to keep me busy and maybe not shed so many tears! Haley picked out the peacock theme and we went with turquoise, lime green, purple and a little black. We purchased most of the paper goods at Hobby Lobby and the silk flowers came from the 99 Cent Store. I did order some of the peacock feathers and our very kind neighbor gave some others. He owns some peacocks and had been collecting feathers for us for the last 2 months. He also gave us the 2 metal peacocks to use as decorations. We are so thankful to have such great and generous neighbors!

We started with purple tablecloths and laid a runner of turquoise sparkly mesh down the middle. I also added some graduation scatter on the runner. We created centerpieces with peacock feathers, lime green cattails, and grasses to glass vases. We bought Floral Gel Beads (from the Dollar Tree) and Haley added food coloring until she got the color she wanted. We added these to the bottom of the vases. We kept the table very simple.

We had purchased tissue paper balls and paper fans from Hobby Lobby and hung them above the food table and the main dining area.

The Candy Bar was the real hit! Do you recognize the beverage bar I made a month or so ago? I found the beautiful peacock feather wreath at Michaels several months ago and hung that on the top. Then we added glass containers for the candy. The glass jars came from Target, as did the 2015 dishes. The other clear bowl were from Walmart. Most of the candy was in the turquoise theme, but Haley wanted a couple of her absolute favorites too, Swedish Fish and Peanut Butter M & M’s!

I also made a bunch of these tassels from tissue paper and hung them in different areas around the space. There were some by the food table, the drink table and the patio.

We had a table with lots of memorabilia from Haley’s high school years and even younger, but since I didn’t want to plaster her information all over the internet, I will just show you a picture of her medals. She is a discus thrower for her school and is the school record holder! We are all very proud of her!

You can just see a little corner of the prayer the principal gave for all the seniors. He had verses and then listed each seniors name. It was so moving and made the occasion so much more special.

We had so much fun planning this whole party! We received many compliments and it was a great way for Haley and I to work together to make the day more special. I am so very proud of my girl and can’t wait to see what the future brings!

Valentine Games for Kids of All Ages

February 6, 2017February 6, 20175 Comments

Good morning! We have had the strangest weather this past week. Last Monday, it was so foggy here, we had several big accidents on a nearby freeway. Thankfully, there was nothing serious, but lots of crushed vehicles. On Wednesday, it was so nice, we could wear short sleeves outside in the sunshine. On Thursday, it rained. On Friday, there was so much rain, some areas flooded and on Saturday, it was back to short sleeves again. Whew! It’s pretty hard to know how to dress each morning!! First world problems, right!?

Here we are, just a week before Valentines! Do you have your plans yet? I thought I would share some fun games for the kids of all ages to play. Even my grown kids like a little adventure now and then.

1. Scavenger Hunt

Scavenger hunts can be done a couple of different ways. I made this one for my preschool class for a fun Valentine Day activity and it’s great for the younger kids who can’t read yet. This can be made with all different kinds of things in the squares, depending on what you have in your home. I made this on Microsoft Word and added in the different pictures.

You can also make a scavenger hunt with written clues, which works better for older kids. The clues can be a easy or hard as you want. I have made simple ones, such as ‘look where the movies are’, to harder ones like ‘this is where we go each day to talk about our work and play.’ I hand the child the first clue and then they have to go search for the next one. The second clue leads them to the third and so on. There is a special gift at the end of the hunt.

2. Yarn Treasure Hunt

I did this one for the girls a couple of time at Easter. Each girl got their own color of yarn. I tied the end of the yarn on their doorknob and then wound it all through the house, over and under furniture and all around. There would be little treats at various places and then their basket at the end. We even took it outside through the doggy door! The girls would have to follow their color string all over until they reached the end. I didn’t have any pictures of this, but here is a very similar one from handsonaswegrow.com.

3. Mad Libs

We love Mad Libs! We play them when we travel in the car. They always bring on a good laugh. Haley gave these to her friends in her Senior year of high school. She wrapped them around a piece of chocolate and gave them out at lunch time. Then the group sat around the table and had lots of laughs together.

Haley also mentioned using Conversation Hearts to fill in the blanks. I’m sure some of those answers would be hilarious!

4. Heart Hunt

How about a heart hunt? Similar to an Easter Egg Hunt, but the kids can look for hearts instead. This could be heart shaped candy, heart gift certificates, or bags filled with candy.

Just try and remember how many you hid them or you will be finding candy long after Valentine’s Day!

I hope you all have a wonderful Valentine’s Day filled with love and lots of chocolate!

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