Valentine Wish Bracelet

I made lots of valentines this year but I wanted something I could send to all of the ladies I love and give to the young women I work with at church.  I needed something inexpensive and not too time consuming, so I came up with this heart wish bracelet.

I ordered the open heart charms here off Etsy from Lorettas Beads.  She has hundreds of different charms and beads and other jewelry items.

I had the other items, like red twine, in my stash.

I looped the twin onto the charms, mounted them on some card stock and had a cute valentine ready to share.  The young women last night were so excited about them and I'm hoping to see wrists full of them on Sunday.

Be My Valen(twine)

I whipped up a few valentines this morning and this is probably the EASIEST valentine I've ever done.

I gathered a few things I bought from CuteTape: 

bakers twine (pink, white & red)
gift tags
washi tape
an old clothes pin from my grandma

I simply wrapped up some twine around the clothes pin, made a little tag and I had a quick, simple valen(twine). 

Weathered Wood Sign

I wanted something a little "aged" to put on my mantle for Valentine's Day so I whipped up this weathered wood heart sign last week.

I started by tearing apart this old weathered crate.  I've used it on the porch in the fall but it was starting to fall apart and the wood was perfect for my project.

I lined up several pieces and hot glued them to two boards on the back.  Quick and simple.  Then I white washed them with some craft acrylic.

 

 

 

Last I painted a heart on with acrylic then sanded it down to give it a little distressing. 

 

I love how it looks on the mantle!

Felt Ball Garland Giveaway!

I whipped up some Valentine's garland this afternoon to giveaway as my first act of love for our 14 Acts of Love.

My friend bought the felt balls and we split the reds, pinks and whites.

I bought the bakers twine over at CuteTape.  She sells all sorts of twine, washi tape, gift tags, bags, paper goods and embellishments.  I love that it's three colors: red, pink and white. 

I threaded the twine on a large needle then pushed it through the balls.  This one measures roughly 3 yards.  This is such an easy, fast project to add some cute pop to your holiday décor or party.

The best news is.....I'm giving this one away!  Head over to my Instagram { www.instagram.com/sometimescreative } to sign up to win this garland.  I'll take entries until Sunday night and mail it out Monday morning!

Good luck.

14 Acts of Love

I'm starting my annual 14 Acts of Love again tomorrow.  I did it last year and blogged about the results here.Basically, each day in February my family and I will perform random acts of kindness {or love} in an effort to spread some love this Valentine's Day. 

The kids and I have planned out a few specific acts of service but we'll do some random ones as well.  You can follow along via Instagram {@sometimescreative} and post your acts of service with #14actsoflove.  We'd love to see how you are spreading kindness!

Pajama Party With A Cause

My husband and son left town this weekend so my daughter asked if we could have a girl's night.  I thought it was the perfect opportunity to have a pajama party and collect pajamas for the Pajama Program.

Pajama Program donates new pajamas and books to children in need including foster children, orphans and at risk youth.  They have a campaign going currently to provide "One Million Good Nights" to children in need.  They are working to collect one million pajamas and one million books to children by the end of 2015.  Bedtime and reading time are two of my favorite parts of being a mom and I think that every child deserves some peace and happiness at bedtime.  If I can help even a little bit with that, I'm all in.

In addition to the party I posted on Facebook to my family and friends that we were having a pajama & book drive and asked if anyone else wanted to help.  Before the party even started we had over 20 pair of pjs!  Amazon Prime and Target make it so easy to ship free so it's easy for people to help, even if just one book or one pair of pajamas to help make a difference in the life of a child.

We invited some of her friends over and asked them to bring new pjs or books with them.  Here they are with all of their donations.

I kept the decorations and food cheap as I wanted to spend my budget on pajamas and books.  I stapled up some dollar tablecloths to my windows and strung up some garland from my baby's nursery.

 

 

I wrote their names on the cups so we didn't go through more than necessary.

They strung fruit loop necklaces while we waited for everyone to arrive.

 

 

I threw out the idea of "pancakes & pjs" but she insisted on pizza so I ordered pizza and served fresh fruit & veggies.  Simple and done. For dessert they decorated pillow shaped sugar cookies.  I just used a knife to cut out pillow shapes.

I stitched up two pancake bean bags in the morning and we had a relay race with pancakes, bathrobes and teddy bears.  Then we played "hot pancake" with one of the bean bags.

 

 

 

Last I handed out glow necklaces and sent them to dance in the basement to the Frozen soundtrack.  They were in girl heaven. 

We sent them each home with donut skewers.

It was a fun night for a great cause and I'm excited that my kids are old enough now to get involved in serving others and seeing the results of their labors. 

At the end of the night, including things that were shipped this week, we ended up with over 50 books and 36 pair of pajamas.  We have more coming our way and are still collecting for another couple of weeks before we take them all to our local Pajama Program chapter.

I'll let you know what the final tally is in a couple of weeks!

Until Next Time Notes

I'm excited this week to tell you about Until Next Time Notes.

 

They sell greeting cards, gift tags and fun party decorations.  They are a one stop shop for all of your party needs.  They'll customize things specifically for your party including invitations, banners, flags, straws, gift bags, cupcake toppers, place cards, table numbers and party favors.

They have great ideas posted on their blog including a really cute Valentine's Day Party as well as a free Valentine printable.

Ariel sent me some cute thank you cards for my guests at my upcoming Ladies Valentine Exchange.  I'm excited to share her products with them.  You can find more of her cards here.

She sent some fun cards and cute paper bows for me as well.

 

If you have an upcoming party, check them out for sure!  Be sure and follow along on her Facebook and her Instagram to see what fun products and party ideas she's sharing.

 

 

Paint Chip Learning

Kids games and learning time helps don't have to be overly complicated.  And they don't have to cost a fortune.

A while back I snagged two each of the rainbow color paint chips while at Wal-Mart one afternoon.  I wrote capital letters on one copy and lower case letters on the others.  It was a quick, simple matching game that is teaching her something along the way. 

Valentine Activities & Crafts for Kids

Here are a few Valentine things we've done in the past.  Enjoy!

1.  Heart sun catchers to hang in the trees
2.  Kids Valentine's Party
3.  Crayon hearts {complete with my secret to easily unwrapping the Crayolas}
4.  Valentine Snowflakes
5.  Shaving cream marbled hearts
6.  Valentine count down

Let me know if you try any of them out!

Chalkboards

Here are a few of the chalkboards I drew for the "Chalkboard of the Month" club earlier this year:

This one covered April and May:

This one was our countdown to Summer break at our house (my son wrote the numbers each day):

This was covered Summer for my friend since I had the baby in July:

Summer Porch

I went with red and white décor on my porch this summer.  I wanted something that would tie in nicely with July 4th and something I could leave up all summer.

I bought a couple of pillows at Pier 1.  The white bench came from World Market last fall on clearance.  I filled the porch with red and white flowers and pots and a couple of ferns.  I found the red watering can at Home Goods.

I made fabric flowers out of blue and white fabrics.  I cut long strips with a scalloped edge, gathered them and hot glued them onto felt.

 

I wrapped a straw wreath with ribbon and glued it here and there.

I pinned the flowers on so I can possibly use the wreath for another holiday or two.  I love how it turned out.  I ties in with 4th of July colors without being too patriotic so I can leave it up all summer.

 

For the 4th we hung back up our windsocks we made last summer.

I also painted some old baseballs and soft balls and put them in a basket on the bench.  I saw the idea via Pinterest and it was linked back to Better Homes and Gardens. 

 

 

Strawberry Pickin'

 

Picking Strawberries was on our bucket list this summer.  So, one morning I loaded the kids up and we found a U-Pick berry farm not too far away.  There's something about popping fresh, sun-ripened berries into my mouth that I LOVE.

When we got out of the car we could smell the berries!  Yum.   It didn't take long to fill up these two boxes.  We lucked out with big berries as this particular farm had just opened for picking and wasn't picked over yet.  The kids did most of the work as bending over in the heat 8 months pregnant just isn't as productive as you'd think.

 

 

We came home and made a batch of strawberry freezer jam the first day.  I like to use Certo Liquid Pectin by Sure-Jell and I always follow their recipes from inside the box.  The jars are Ball Plastic Freezer Jars.  I can find both at my local grocery stores or big box stores.

 

We cooked and processed two batches of strawberry peach jam the next day.  The strawberry peach was my favorite of the two.  Next time I'll try raspberry peach.
 

Do you pick fruits with your family?  What do you make with them?  I want to do peaches next summer!  In the mean time, I'm off to make more toast.

Father's Day 2013

I'm very blessed to be married to the World's Best Dad.  I try to make Father's Day special for him each year.  We were fortunate to have my in-laws come visit for Father's Day this year.  But, since I was a month shy of my due date I kept it super, super simple. 

I made photo strip bookmarks for our fathers. 

 

For my husband I printed this little fill in the blank book from Eighten25 and had the kids fill in the pages.  I wanted to add a few pages of my own and they were kind enough to email me which fonts they used so I added a few extras as well.  I love the answers and drawings the kids came up with.

For dinner we grilled burgers and I bought a case of Dad's assorted sodas from World Market. 

We had no table décor, nothing fancy but we enjoyed a yummy dinner with family and everyone enjoyed themselves.

Later in the evening we roasted s'mores in the fire pit.  I bought a variety of yummy chocolates to put on them.  We liked them all but the Ghirardelli Mint.  It was too strong for a s'more.  My fav is a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup S'more.  Yum!