Halloween Mantle

Love my Halloween mantle this year.  Everyone seemed to love the painting.  All I did was paint on clear cellophane and tape it over our normal painting.  Turned out great.

This Or That?

I was in charge of the activity this week for Young Women.  We were welcoming two new girls into the group so I wanted to plan some kind of get-to-know-you game.  I found a couple ideas online and decided to combine them.

 

First, I took a bunch of tongue depressors and wrote two words, one on each end, which the girls would have to choose between.  Some examples were "Chocolate" or "Vanilla", "Cats" or "Dogs", and "Facebook" or "Instagram".  I also took some yarn and wound it into a ball.  The container is just a No. 10 can wrapped in washi tape.

 

I tied the end of the yarn to my wrist and picked a stick.  I can't remember the exact stick I picked, but lets say it was "Fame" or "Money".  I chose "Money".

 

The next step was to ask who agreed with me.  Everyone who agreed raised their hands.  I then threw the yarn to someone with a raised hand.  They put their had down, wrapped the yarn around themselves and threw it to someone else with a raised hand.  This continued until no raised hands were left.  At that point, the person with the yarn chose another stick and the game continued.

Pretty soon, the yarn had woven quite a web illustrating that we are all connected in some way.

 

I was pretty nervous going into the game.  I figured everyone would love it or it would be a huge flop.  Surprisingly everyone had a blast and really enjoyed themselves.  It was great getting to know everyone a little better and it was a perfect introduction for the new girls to the group.

 P.S.  You may want some scissors on hand for the end!



It's Better With Chocolate

This week for a Young Women lesson, I used Dove chocolates to enhance my handouts.  They come in almost all of the colors of the values. (I painted the milk chocolate with almonds gold for Virtue).  I also love that each chocolate has an uplifting thought inside the wrapper.  Perfect for my girls!

Personal Progress -- Washi Style

A lot of the projects I undertake have to do with me being a counselor in Young Women.  I was in charge of the Personal Progress activity recently and I decided we'd try our hand at washi tape.

We started with these white frames from Ikea.  You can't beat $1.99.  Especially when you have to buy a dozen of them. 

Next, I bought a bunch of different colors and designs of washi tape from this shop on etsy. I had the girls wrap their blank frames in whatever pattern they liked.  It was really easy to do and only took the girls about 30 minutes. 

Afterward, I brought all of them home and put a coat of Mod Podge on them to keep the tape from peeling.  It wouldn't stay stuck very well otherwise.

I wanted to make sure that each girl had a special picture to put in the picture frame.  So, during the same activity, we had each girl sit in front of a whiteboard and the rest of the girls wrote positive words that described that girl.  This went along great with PP Individual Worth Value Experience 7.  We used all different colors of dry erase markers to make it colorful.  We have a few artists in our group of girls and they drew cute little pictures too.  We tried to let the girls run with it and they did a great job making them cute and colorful. 



 

For the girls that weren't able to make it to the activity, we wrote their names on the board and wrote the words around them.  When we were done, I snapped a pic and erased the board for the next girl.  Then I took the pictures home and put some cool filters on them.  Some have galaxy overlays on them.  Some look like they're splattered with paint.  Some look like vintage photos.  Each picture is different and has a fun vibe to it.

I ended up having one extra frame so I decided to do one for my outgoing advisor, Maren, who is getting married.  In this case, I used Power Point to create the picture for the frame.  I downloaded a bunch of really cute fonts and made sure that each word used a different one.  I chose colors close to her wedding colors and changed the orientation of the words so they'd fit in a nice little square.  It was remarkably easy and I *love* how it turned out!

All in all, this activity worked out great.  It was easy and fun for the girls and they will have something to always remind them how amazing they are.  Plus, they passed off a personal progress experience!  Bonus!



Halloween Scrapbooking

I know. I know. YES we are just getting around to doing the Halloween scrapbook pages for the kids. Someday we will be all caught up with everything. But today is not that day. As for now, I am happy with our progress. My mom helped me with these as always. She did Nate's by herself. I always need help. And I am grateful for it. :-).

This was our first crack at the distressed look. We used a lot of the Tim Holtz stuff that we have collected. We also made some good use of that leftover Halloween paper from our wooden letters projects. Love how they turned out! Thanks, as always, Mom.

Christmas Card

Tonight Izzypop and I decided to make a Christmas card for her teacher. We used the Tim Holtz Christmas stamps and embossing folders. Then Izzypop used her creative talent to draw a perfect picture. We even made an envelope.

Christmas Crafting

I have actually gotten more Christmas crafting done this year than I had anticipated.  As always, Mom has been a huge help.

First, Mom bought us all "JOY" from The Wood Connection.  I love it, because it starts with a J and ends with a Y.  (Love you Callie.)

 

And here is Mom's version.  It looks great in her front room.  Incidentally, someday I hope to be as great as my mom at decorating for Christmas.  This is her front room.  You should see the "big" room.  I'll be sure to post pics of it later.

I decided to try to make the wreath for my front door.  The pre-decorated ones seemed so expensive.  I bought the wreath and sign from Hobby Lobby.  I wrapped some ribbon around it, wired various sizes of ornaments together in bunches, then wired them to the wreath.  All in all, took about 30 min to make.  I hope it keeps well for next year.  I kinda like it.

I wanted to get something cute and inexpensive for all the girls in our Young Women group.  I went to Bath and Body works and got the pocket hand sanitizers along with cases for them that the girls can use to attach them to their backpacks, purses, etc.  They were on sale and I had a $10 off $30 coupon so it came out to be pretty cheap.  I used a Sizzix die cut to cut out tag shapes.  I then used a Sizzix Tim Holtz embossing folder to emboss some snowflakes on the tags as well.  I tied them with a bit of 1/8 in. ribbon.  The tags say

"May your days be merry...

And your hands be clean.

Merry Christmas!"

My favorite craft I have worked on this year has been these wooden block advent calendars.  I made these for the Young Women leaders in our ward.  First I painted the base red and the blocks off-white.  I put a different scrapbook paper on each side of the blocks, then Mom helped me cut the numbers out of scrapbook paper using her cricut.  We printed out "Christmas is Coming..." onto scrapbook paper for the base.  I sanded the all the edges with sandpaper, then mod podged it all.  I also used the Tim Holtz Sizzix ornament die to cut tags out.  I stamped them using a snowflake, tree and "To: From:" stamp and tied it all with some grograin ribbon.  The ladies loved them.....maybe I should have made one for myself :)