Homemade Hot Chocolate

1 - 16 ounce canister non-dairy Coffeemate creamer
(generic works just fine)
(to jazz up your hot chocolate, buy a flavored coffee creamer)

1 - 2 pound canister Nesquick

5 - 1 quart packets instant dry milk

2 cups sifted powdered sugar

Mix together.

Scoop into desired jar adorned with Christmas tag and Nativity bracelets you forgot to pass out last year.

Fall Fun

Start with some oven bake clay:

Cut off a few hunks of your favorite falls colors:

Knead them until they are soft, then smoosh them into a ball:

Roll out the clay to about 1/8-1/4 inch with your rolling pin:

Cut out leaves using leaf cookie cutters:

(mine were purchased from Walmart a few years ago.  Amazon.com is a wonderful shopping place if you can't find any fall cutters locally)

Here's added bonus fun part. 

The more you cut and re-roll out the clay, the more random and unique your leaves become:

Poke holes in your leaves before baking if you want to make a fall leaf mobile or to wear as a necklace.  But if you forget, you can always drill holes in afterwards.

  Bake according to package directions.

Have Fun!

Signs for any occasion

Sorry the picture isn't so clear.

This is the 'Happy Fathers Day' sign Bree and I made for Jim but the concept can be used for any occasion.  Not to mention its a great small motor skills and learning project as well.  And all it took was some leftover scrapbook paper, my cricut, scissors and a glue stick!

  Using a tie pattern, we traced one tie for each letter of our sign. 

(Helps with them learn how to trace.)

Then cut them out. 

(Helps teach them to cut on a line.)

Using my cricut, we cut out all the letters of our sign. 

(Helps with letter recognition.)

Then we glued the letters onto the ties. 

(Good practice for preschool.)

You can either string them together or just tape them individually to the wall!

As I said before, the concept of this sign can be used for any occasion.  Use a balloon pattern to make a 'Happy Birthday' sign.  Or pumpkin pattern to make a 'Happy Halloween' sign.  Or Christmas light bulb pattern to make a 'Merry Christmas' sign.  Or just use random shapes to make a sign for their door that has their name on it. 

The possibilies are about as endless as the scrapbook paper used to make them!

And, if you're really fancy, you can use material and pellon to make a more permnant, reusable banner. 

Jar Full of Love

Yet another craft project/gift I ran across researching ideas for work.  We gave it out on Fathers Day but it can most definately be used for any occasion.

(Sorry the picture is so dark.)

  I did the cutting and Bree did the gluing and eating of any candies that missed the jar.

Alphabet Book - C is for Crab

What else would 'C' stand for?

Alphabet Book - B is for Butterfly

Big sisters handprints on top and little brothers handprints on bottom make our Butterfly for the letter B.

Recycle It - Decorative Jars

How Cute!  How simple! 

How economically and environmentally smart!

Oh how I wish I could take credit for the following creative idea but, alas, I cannot. This idea came from an email full of awesome ideas and savings tips for stay at home moms.  This is was one project I absolutely had to do.

1. Start with an empty and smooth glass jar. 

Here we have an empty Smuckers Concord Grape jelly jar.  All you need to do is remove the label and wash the insides.  No need to spend hours trying to scrub the sticky glue residue from the label off since you're just going to be decorating over it.  Totally just made this more appealing to you, huh?

2. Pick any piece of scrapbook paper that catches your eye and cut to fit your jar.

The jar below isn't quite finished.  In the first picture where you can see where the ribbon meets is supposed to be a blue or brown or cream colored button.  I cannot find my buttons to save my life right now and I haven't been over to my mom's to steal one from her. 

3.  Coat the backside of your scrapbook paper with Mod Podge and wrap around your jar.  Be sure to smooth out your paper to avoid any air pockets.  Let dry for 10-15 minutes.  Then brush an coating of Mod Podge to the outside of the paper.  This will seal the paper making it water resistant.  Let dry for 10-15 minutes.  Brush on a second coat, let dry and brush on a third coat let dry. 

Then if you want to you can chose to embellish your jars with ribbons, bows, buttons and more.  But sometimes the jars are more beautiful just being left alone.  Case in point: the Cross jar below.

I love it.  Out of the hundreds of sheets of scrapbook paper at Hobby Lobby my eye was drawn immediately to this paper. My problem lies with the fact that I saved this jar for last to be sure that I didn't ruin the paper.  And since I embellished the other jars I feel the need to embellish this one as well.  But I don't know what to do!!!

Do I embellish with a contrasting green?

Do I embellish with a complimentary brown?

Or do I just let the natural beauty of God's creations and the simplicity of the crosses work together and not ruin it by adding unnecessary bling?

Happy (belated) Easter

From Bree....

And Jacob.

I found this bunny handprint idea on yahoo images one day while trying to find an easy Easter craft for Storytime.  All you need to do is paint the palm, index finger and ring finger white (or whatever color you want your bunny to be).  Press their hand onto desired paper and let dry.  Then using pink paint and their thumbprint, make a nose.  Let dry.  Draw on a few whiskers, two blue dots for eyes and a little smiling mouth.  How simple, huh?

Alphabet Book - A is for Ants

A little black paint, a few simple thumbprints and strategically drawn on legs and you've got yourself the first page in your alphabet book.