You COLOR my world!

Now that Valentine's Day has come and gone, I thought I would share our fun craftivity-Melted crayon hearts! This is what M passed out to her friends at preschool. :)

We actually made these last year too but it was way more fun this time around since M could help more. 

The first thing we did was round up all of her old crayons. We had quite a bit, probably at least 3 boxes worth around the house. 

Next we peeled off the wrappers, but not before soaking them in warm water for about 15 minutes first. We found that the actual Crayola brand was easier to peel off than the CraZart or Rose Art brands.  This was a great fine motor activity for M!

Next, we broke apart the crayons and spread the different colors around to put in our heart-shaped liners. I think I got these at Michaels last year on clearance!

M was very particular about making sure there was a lot of different colors in each one. I've seen some where they put different shades of the same color in each one but we wanted to mix them. We left out black, grey, brown and tan (or as M called it..skin colors).

Then we baked in the oven at 250 degrees for about 25 minutes. Once time was up we took out of oven carefully and had to let it cool for at least 15 minutes. They will be a liquid form until it cools so really be sure to let it cool completely. 

They really turned out so cute. We applied extra large glue dots to the backs of the crayons to stick to the card.

You can get the FREE printable HERE. 

Now as cute as these are, they don't give off the best coloring results. They are definitely fun to scribble with though! Daddy already bought M a 64 count crayon box WITH a sharpener in the back. Not sure who was more excited about the sharpener but I would say Daddy. ;)

NYE game night recap

Wow, it's now 10 days into January, lots going on in our little world so there has been little time for posting.

Time to play catch up!!

We had a fabulous NYE party….here are just a few pics.

 Not the best pic but we had little party favors with Hershey's kisses and fortune cookies.

Our Cupcake Countdown Clock!

Saw something similar on Pinterest, of course. The idea was to move the hour hand each hour. Only moved it once before our guests started eating them!

Extra cupcakes had these cute toppers.

We had the mock "Photo Booth" which was quite a hit.

Fun Night!

 Even the little ones had fun with the props!

I had found this app Insta Booth where you can easily do Photo booth type pics. It was a free app and very easy to use. Here are few of our pics!

I liked how I could simply modify the templates to make the strips exactly how I wanted them. 

You can find the FREE printables for all of the cupcake toppers, photo booth props, banner etc HERE.

I do plan to update my New Year's Eve Printables to say 2015 sometime in the future. 

This was too fun not to do again. :)

New Year's Resolution Solution…it's TIME!!

As some of you already know, when I first took on the 24 Day Challenge almost 2 years ago, I lost 9lbs and 2 sizes in 13 days... but more importantly, I felt incredible. I learned what it was like to be healthy. I have kept the weight off and continued my adventure with AdvoCare.

I am starting the 10 day cleanse in January and honestly, can't wait. Since you can do the cleanse every 3 months, it time for me to do another one…not necessarily to lose weight (although I always lose 5-6lbs each time) but to clean out my system and put good nutrition back in my body! Let's face it…it is very difficult to eat perfectly healthy all the time. Everyone has cheat days. I am one to confess that I have been enjoying the holidays and eating what I wanted. But, I have been paying for it. Tummy aches and tight jeans. Ugh. So the cleanse will help me get back on track!

Here is a snapshot of my results. 

The cleanse is just the first 10 days of the 24 Day Challenge! My team is doing a TRANSFORMATION CONTEST! You could get paid for getting healthy! Pretty cool, right??

The transformation contest includes $1000 in total prize money to be awarded to the top 3 individuals with the biggest transformation over a 24 Day period. Order your Challenge on January 1st to be entered in the contest AND receive the discounted price! The challenge usually retails at $190 but AdvoCare is discounting to $175 if you buy on 1/1!

Message me to reserve your challenge. The time is now to feel great and get healthy!

Check out my AdvoCare website HERE!

FREE New Year's Printables!

So, we decided super last minute to have a New Year's Eve game night. We arranged for my in-laws to watch the kids and invited, via text, some of our friends over. It looked like we would have a good 10-12 people, perfect for a game night BUT unfortunately they are now dropping like flies…can't find a sitter,  coming down with a cold, or they already had other plans. In the meantime, however, I was scavenging thru Pinterest to find some free NYE printables to use as party decor. I found a really fun pop culture game to play but all the free printables I found, I didn't quite like and I wasn't about to pay $ for something that I could make myself. So I did.

BANNER

Here is a banner. Not the greatest picture but it has turquoise stripes on the "pennants". And if you know me at all, you know about my slight obsession with turquoise. I know NYE is typically gold and silver but I couldn't steer away. ;)

Simply print out the banner pennants and hole punch 2 holes at the top….

First, lay out your pennant pieces and decide which "string" to use. I had some of that Natural Sisal twine left over from another project that I used but you could use any ribbon.

Once you have your holes punched, I would suggest measuring out your twine or ribbon leaving at least 6 inches on the ends to tie on to wherever you plan to hang. Once you have your twine cut, simply weave it through the holes. I liked to thread it thru where the twine would be in the back of the pennant but you could do it either way. 

Just keep pulling through until you have come through all the pennants. You can tie a little knot on the end pennants so they don't slide off while you are trying to hang. 

I would have put this up over the mantle but we still have Christmas stuff up! So I just put it up over my mirror in the entry way. You could add colored ribbon to the ends to make it look cuter. This literally took me less than 30 minutes once I printed it out.

"PHOTO BOOTH" Props

Here are some fun "photo booth" props I made. I have "photo booth" in quotations because, well, I don't own a photo booth so it will just be fun to take pics of our guests, whoever shows up??? If not, the kids and I will have a blast! I'm thinking about taking the glasses to school to take pics of my students! Ha ha

You could use craft sticks, popsicle sticks or cake pop sticks for these! I found these lollipop sticks at Wal-Mart for $3.

Ok, so I am not the best cutter…I actually hate cutting stuff out. When I cut out the mustaches I couldn't quite cute perfectly straight so I just used a brown and a black marker to fill in so it looked a little better!

See, can't tell at all, right?!

Once you have your props cut out, use a hot glue gun to attach your sticks.

I think they turned out pretty cute. It only took me 30 minutes to get these printed, cut out, and glued!

So FUN!

GIFT TAGS for Party Favors

I also made some gift tags for party favors. Not sure if I will be doing them this year but thought about putting Hershey's kisses in a gift bag (get it? new year's kisses?) and then just attach the tag with twine or curling ribbon. 

I couldn't decide which tags I liked better so I included them both.

CUPCAKE TOPPERS

It really wouldn't be a party without cupcakes so I thought I could make some cupcake toppers too!

Hope you can use them! It's kinda last minute for this year, I know, so I will be changing these to say 2015 soon and have them ready for next year!! Click on the link below to access the free printables.

**Oh, and since they are free I would really appreciate if you would first join this site by clicking on the right side over there….--------> Pretty, please. Oh and also, if you could repin on Pinterest and tell your friends that would be great too! I absolutely LOVE creating things like this and sharing with others. :)**

Get the FREE printables HERE!

Stay tuned, I plan to take some pics of the kids with the props later!

ENJOY AND HAPPY 2014!!

Our Thankful Turkeys

We've been cooped up in the house for a few days (only because it's been super cold) so today we made some thankful turkeys! They turned out pretty cute.

I found this idea on Pinterest and decided to extend the idea a little. I was looking for some great fine motor activities for Myla. Clothespins are always great for that. And the turkey idea was perfect for this week.

Here is how we made them…

We had some leftover cardboard from our cardboard castle we made on Saturday…

I love having cardboard boxes around the house to make stuff! This castle was Myla's idea. Sadly it only lasted about 3 days…little brother was a little too rough.

I just drew a turkey pattern on the cardboard and cut it out. I recommend using your best pair of scissors if your cardboard is thick. I didn't have a good pair at home. All my good ones are at school!

Then I gathered some clothespins and asked Myla to name things she was thankful for and I wrote them on the clothespins….

Funny because the first 3 out of her mouth were "the pilgrims, all the Indians, and autumn leaves." I had just told her the story of The First Thanksgiving earlier this week so that must have been fresh on her mind. ha ha :)

I explained how all of this was possible, the Pilgrims and Indians, the leaves etc…and that lead her to being thankful for JESUS.

Then she wanted to name everyone in our family. Next she wanted to name each individual friend so we simplified with "all my friends!" and of course she is thankful for her wonderful teacher, Mrs. Cox. I clipped them on the turkey as we wrote them.

After writing on the clothespins, I had Myla take each clip off one at a time to paint with watercolors.

I gave her two paper plates, one to paint on and one for drying.

While she was painting, I made the beak, waddle, and feet out of foam paper. I glued on some googly eyes on small white circles for the eyes.

She was concentrating so hard on painting. :)

Little brother, on the other hand, just had fun painting his plate and mixing up all the colors.

When the paint was dry, I had Myla take each clothespin and pin them on the turkey. I tried to let her figure out which way they went on the turkey so there were 6 "feathers" on each side. She did pretty good!

We just had to add a bow and eyelashes on her turkey so she looked "more girlish."

We didn't want Noah to feel left out so we helped make his too. He couldn't quite do the clothespins yet so Myla got a little extra practice clipping his feathers on for him. He was able to tell me what he is thankful for by me asking "Are you thankful for…mommy? daddy? Jesus?" etc. He came up with "Mickey Mouse" and "Doc McStuffins" all on his own. :)

Here is Noah's turkey!

We added the bow tie just so it was clear that this one was a boy!

We had a lot of fun making them today. I am enjoying these days off for Thanksgiving break where we can do arts and crafts in our PJs!!