New Dresses

I decided that I wanted to make my girls some dresses. I have been going back and forth with idea for a few weeks. I am always afraid of making clothes because I am afraid of it not turning out the way I want (that has happened one too many times for me). I had some fabric I wanted to use up and I thought it would be perfect to make my girls some new dresses.

Here's what I came up with

doesn't she just look THRILLED to be having her picture taken??

there that's more like it.....this is the cheesy picture taking girl I know

I used Simplicity #E2241
it was pretty simple which is right up my alley....a simple peasant dress
and it didn't take a real long time to make

At first the length was a little too short for what I wanted so after hemming it I un-stitched the hem and added a few inches of the coordinating brown/white polka dot fabric to make it longer.
I actually like it better with the other material at the bottom.

and here is the other dress I made for my other daughter

I used THIS tutorial from "Sewing in No Man's Land" that I actually found on Pinterest
Her dress came out looking way cuter than mine, but mine's not too bad...don't ya think?

I decided to make this at 8pm on Saturday night and finished it right before midnight (it won't take me as long the next time I make one because now I know what I'm doing).....I really wanted to finish it so my little one could wear it to church the next morning.

Here she is all ready to go to church

The Countdown is ON!!

Seeing that tomorrow is the last day of August, I can officially start counting down to one of my most favorite holidays of the year!  Just two more months until

Halloween!!!

I LOVE Halloween!  I love coming up with fun costumes for myself and my kids.  I love 'spookifying' my entryway and house.  And I love Halloween parties with their activities and gruesome food!!  I just love it all!!

So today I thought I'd share some really fun Halloween ideas I've seen on Pinterest lately!  (If you haven't joined Pinterest yet, you should!!  It's amazing!  It's basically a way to bookmark all your favorite things in one place.  It took me a while to jump on the pinning bandwagon, but now I am addicted!)   

I'm throwing a Halloween party this year, so I've been on the lookout for fun food.  Check out these ideas!  Click on the image to get more info.

So fun, right?!  I'm getting excited just thinking about all these fun ideas!!  

You want to see more?!  Look at these costumes!

I love them all!!  That last one gives me the creeps, but I love it!  I might have to do that this year!

 Check out these fun decorations!

 Aren't those some great ideas!?!  Are you ready for fall and the wonderful holidays that come with it?!  Do you love Halloween as much as I do?!

Thanks for reading!

Juli

Weather Dials

 I am homeschooling my 3 yr old this year for preschool and didn't like any of the weather charts available.  So my great friend and I made this cute one in Photoshop.  She had these cute graphics from Etsy and I also made an arrow.  I cut out the circle then  laminated them. The I used a scrapbooking brad and stuck the arrow in the middle and now my boy can tell me what the weather and season are.  I LOVE them!

 

I also made this mood wheel too.

More Hair Clips!!

This last weekend, a few of my girlfriends and I got together for a bow making night!  We got tons accomplished, and were able to get some girl talk in while we were at it!  So much fun!  I didn't get a picture of the other ladies bows, but I wanted to share a few of the bows I made.  

Again, forgive me for the picture quality!  It's the best I can get with my ipod.  Thanks for understanding!!

My first and favorite one is this layered look.

I was just fiddling around with the ribbon, and thought this looked adorable!  This could be done with so many different color combinations, and it's so cute!

I also love the orange and yellow flower clip on the bottom.  My friend Lindsey showed me how to make those ones, and I am in love!! They are so cute but yet so simple to make! 

This is another one of my favorites!  I love the layered boutique bows!  I'll definitely be making more of these!

I got the coordinating ribbon from Joann's.  I love the pink and brown color combo.

These next flowers are just like the ones I made HERE and HERE.

I'm still loving the burned silk.  The creme one was just silk, but the pink one I layered silk and tulle.  The tulle gives is a little sparkle, which is fun!  I glued a ribbon-covered clip to the back of the flower for most, but some I did this.

I cut a circle of felt, and cut two slits in it.  Then I glued the circle to the back of the flower, making sure not to glue the middle of the circle at all.  This makes it so you can either wear the flower on a clip, or you can slip it onto a headband and wear it that way.  Love it!

So what do you think?!

Thanks for reading!

Juli

linking to these fabulous parties!

Cold Pasta Salad

The kids are back in school (hallelujah), so technically summer is over. Here in California, though, it's still in the mid to upper 90s. I thought I would share a recipe that our family uses a lot in the summer time. The only heating of your house is to boil the pasta! When we didn't have A/C, heating the house was a big thing!

Cold Pasta Salad

1 lb pasta
1/2 lb mozzarella, cubed
8-10 fresh basil leaves or 2 Tbl dried basil
2-3 tomatoes
1/4-1/2 cup olive oil
salt or vinegar (optional)

Boil your pasta as normal. While boiling cut mozzarella, basil and tomatoes. Drain pasta and rinse with cold water until pasta is cool. Combine mozzarella, basil and tomatoes with the pasta. Drizzle olive oil over the pasta and stir to coat.

In our family some like a little bit of salt on our pasta and others like vinegar.
Let us know if you find something else that tastes good!

Hope you had an enjoyable summer!
And enjoy the kids going back to school!
Yeehaw!

Jacki :)

Summer Scripture Water Party

With summer finally dwindling down and things aren't so crazy around here for me I thought I get back on here.....it's about time.

I am in the Primary Presidency in our ward. We have a very small Primary and when I say small I mean that we only have about 26 kids on our list and only about 10-12 actually come to church on a regular basis. Having such few kids is really not all that bad....makes sharing times way easy especially since the majority of them are under the age of 8.

Our kids have been working really hard on bringing their scriptures to church with them each week. They have been filling a jar with beads to show their progress. We decided to reward them since it's about half way through the year and the jar is about half full. This past weekend we had a "Summer Scripture Water Party".

Here's what we did........

We had three game stations set up and since we only had 10 kids show up we just all rotated together but if you have lots of kids you could very well split them up into groups and rotate.

Station 1 "Noah's Ark"
The story of Noah's Ark was briefly told and followed by a relay race. We split the kids into two groups. They then had to take a cup and scoop up one animal from the bucket and race it over to the "Ark" dump it in and then run back and hand off the cup to the next player who then scooped up another animal and raced to the "Ark". First team to get all their animals into the ark won.

Station 2 "2000 Stripling Warriors"
The story of the 2000 Stripling Warriors from the Book of Mormon was briefly told by one of our teachers and then it was followed by a tough of war. We spilt the kids into two groups and had a little kiddie pool in the middle. They showed off their "GREAT STRENGTH" as they tried to pull the other team into the pool.

Station 3 "Nephi Built a Boat"
The story of Nephi and how he built a boat for his family to sail to promised land was told by one of our great teachers. We then had the kids make their own boats out of Styrofoam, straws, & paper sails. (Sorry no pictures....I forgot my camera) The kids colored their sails and then with adult help we attached them with straws to the Styrofoam. After they were done we had some boat races. The kids seemed to really enjoy this. We learned though that if we to do this again he sails need to be made out of foam or laminated some how cause the kids kept cap-sizing them.

After the stories and games were all played we then had Popsicles followed by a water balloon fight. Over all the kids seemed to enjoy themselves and for us adults it was simple and easy!!!!

Teacher Gift

Hello hello!! How was your summer? I'm sad to say that the last week of our summer was filled with throwing up, laundry, throwing up and more laundry. We all took our turn with the flu bug except my little 1 year old (hallelujah!). But thankfully we are all feeling better, just in time to send my oldest off to 1st grade!! I can't believe it!

I couldn't pass up the chance to make a fun gift for my son's teacher. My inspiration came from Amanda over at Shindig Parties To Go. She made Oreo Apple Pops, and put them in a cute vase covered with pencils. So I used her idea, and made it my own. Please forgive me for the horrible pictures! I still can't find my camera, so these were taken with my ipod! :)
Ok, here's my version

I used Amanda's tutorial to make the apple pops, so check it out HERE if you need a tutorial. Do you want to see how I made the super cheap version of the vase? Well, I started out with this

I didn't want to spend anything on the container, and was lucky enough to see the Parmesan cheese container in our recycle pile! I just washed it out, removed the packaging,
and cut it just a bit shorter than a crayon. The crayons I got at walmart for less than $1,
and the Styrofoam ball was in my craft stash. $1 for the vase? I can handle that!!

I just started gluing the crayons to the outside of the vase. I was going to use my hot glue gun, but ended up using E-6000 glue instead. This turned out to be a very good thing when I got to the last crayon and realized it wouldn't fit. Since the E-6000 stays wet for a while,
I was able to go back and space them better so there wasn't a huge gap.
I tied a ribbon around and glued the bow to the crayons. Then I glued the Styrofoam ball
to the bottom of the container. I first tried the E-6000, only to find out it made half
of the ball disintegrate! So use hot glue to glue the Styrofoam to the bottom! I also lined the inside of the vase with white paper....I'm not sure why. I just did! :)

I used raffia to tie the bags around the apple pops, as well as to hide the Styrofoam in the vase.

Here's my sweet 1st grader (ahhhh!) ready to give the gift to his teacher!

What do you think?! Did you do anything fun for your kids first day of school? If you need more ideas, Jess made some adorable cards for her kids teachers, found HERE.  Or Jacki did a whole week of teacher appreciation gifts HERE.  I also made a supply box for my sons teacher last year that turned out really cute.  Check that one out HERE!

Thanks for reading!!

Juli

Linking to THESE fabulous parties!

You're Invited!!!!

My Oldest is turning 5!!  I had fun making these trucks, because he loves them so much!  Hope you enjoy!
   (sorry about the picture, I had to send it from my old phone, because I can't find my cord)
Jess

Favorites

Hello there!  How has your summer been?!  I know we've been busy here! We have two weeks left until school starts, so we're trying to pack in as much fun as we can.  So forgive us for our lack of posts lately!

Unfortunately I  don't have a craft to share with you today because I seem to have lost my camera.  I know it's in the house somewhere, but my 1 year old took it and hid it!! So hopefully we'll find it soon!  I might be crawling around on my hands and knees for the next couple days in hopes of finding it.

So today I wanted to share some amazing posts I've found lately.  Click on the pictures to find out more!

This first one is from Brandy over at Gluesticks. Did you know you can make your own foaming handsoap?!?

Seriously?!  Why did I never know this?  You just use a little bit of regular soap, and add water.  What?!?  I'm super excited about this!

I found this next amazing idea over at MaryJanes and Galoshes.

I need to try this one!  No heat curls?  Who could ask for anything more!  I'm going to try this on myself, but I'm not sure if my hair's too short, so I'll let you know.  This would be perfect for my daughter though!

I saw this next one a while ago on Eighteen25, and every time I see it, it makes me laugh!  And then I start humming the song...

I think it's hilarious! We could make it for our kids, and they would have no idea where the phrase came from.  But us "old-timers" would get a little chuckle! :)

I love this next one.  I don't know about you, but I suffer from severe mommy guilt.  No matter what I do during the day, I always feel guilty about something.  If I clean my house, I feel guilty that I didn't spend enough time with my kids.  If I take my kids out, I feel guilty that my house is a wreck.  I love this list from IMOM

I'm going to print this and put it on my fridge!  What a great reminder to work on being the best mom you can be, every day.  Knowing I worked on that one thing will help me feel accomplished, even if I don't clean my house!

This last blog has been one of my favorites this summer.  Toni over at Design Dazzle has an amazing blog!  Right now she has Summer Camp going on, where she has various guest bloggers, or 'camp counselors', post about different crafts you can do with your kids.  Here are just a few of the amazing ideas.  You should definitely go check it out for yourself!

Rock Candy Tutorial

Bird Feeder

Super Giant Bubbles Kit

20 Ways to Use Pool Noodles

Seriously, this blog has the best ideas for summer activities! 

Well, there you have it.  Hopefully I'll find my camera and be back to crafting by next week!!  

Enjoy the rest of your summer!

Thanks for reading!

Juli