Dangling Keychains

Trying to come up with inexpensive ideas for crafts because that's what I'll be doing at Girl's Camp this year. Well, crafts, quilts and the slideshow! I couldn't find my key chain rings at the moment, but this is the idea:

After putting these key chains together, I think the beading part would be too tricky ;) Just having enough tools and giving instructions to 30 girls at once might give me a headache - LoL

The one right above is some things I adore: seahorses, volleyball, flowers and pink and of course I love Jonathan!

I have lots of cute images to put on scrabble tiles (glaze drops for the tops of scrabble tiles found here) . . . maybe beads on safety pins with the scrabble tiles would work?

Cuteness

The hummingbirds were gone for about 2 weeks, but that's a lot better than 5 or 6 months like it's supposed to be in Seattle ;) And now they're back, I am seeing more of a variety and it makes me smile =) This little guy has awesome coloring and because it's a hummingbird, it automatically qualifies for being VERY cute (only to me? hehe). It definitely is looking very happy - LoL

Same hummingbird, but it's sitting up straighter so it looks very different, so above picture with its feathers all ruffled and squatty looking is cuter:

And this woodpecker visits almost every day - loves the suet (of course so do the squirrels!), however, it will NOT let me take its picture, it flies away =( So here it is in our yard high, high up in the maple tree:
The doves are also back, loving the wild bird feeder (3 of them trying to sit on the feeder at the same time doesn't work so well as they are large birds! But they still attempt it) as well as the pilated woodpecker - he only visits about once a week though.

all you need is LOVE is all you need

A daughter of a friend of mine is getting married and I made these blocks for her - wow, I guess I've hit that age where I feel old now because my friend's kids are old enough to get married - craziness ;)
I made a layout of digital scrapbooking papers on my computer:

And cut out letters - the tricky part was the love because I really liked the outline look, but wasn't about to glue those suckers on ;)

I also did an outline for the squares in pink, but I wanted a white inside border too:

Cut out my squares, layered them and glued on the letters:
Cut out some blocks from Jonathan's 2x6's while he was away shoe shoeing - haha
Sanded them - sorry the above photo is WITH a flash!

Made some FAST drying 'stain' out of brown acrylic paint and just added water:

And brushed it on my blocks:

Let it dry, then mod podged the squares onto my blocks of wood & let that dry and added some pretty ribbon:

I also made some earrings she could possibly wear with her wedding dress . . . or just another dressy outfit:

Now I want to make myself some cute blocks - love them!

EASY Homemade Donuts

That's right - just make these babies from the biscuits:

Cut a section out of the middle, there are small fondant cutters that are perfect for this, but I left mine at a friend's house, so I used the bigger end of a frosting tip.

Fry them up - I used Olive Oil because that's all I ever cook/bake with:

Turn them over fairly quickly (like 15-20 seconds and if you only fry 4-6 at a time, much better to fry a few at a time because they won't get burned), these ones are too done, but that's what I get for trying to take photos and make food at the same time ;)

Fry up the donut holes too:

Frost and sprinkle (or add cinnamon & sugar OR powdered sugar):

I brought these to the YM basketball game and they loved them - just ask Fawn's boys ;) Next time I'm going to make them with chocolate frosting - yum!

Visiting Teaching Handout Mar

The VT message for March 2010 is Strengthening faith in God the Father & Jesus Christ through personal Scripture Study.
I thought a scripture bookmark would be a good handout ;)

Supplies needed, photo, scrabble tiles, paper clips, E6000 glue, mod podge, clear covering for tops of tiles - glaze drops:

Cut your image, spread mod podge on tile and on back of image:

Place image over tile and move around until centered, add clear square adhesive:

Glue paperclip to back of tile with E6000 glue:

Let dry and try it out as a bookmark:

Up close:

Communication Handout

Improving Communication Skills handout for lesson #8, manual 2:

Found Cheez-it's with letters on them for my handout. Filled 3x4 bags with 25 crackers. Designed a topper that says on the front 'form your words light & mild in case you need to eat them' AND 'good communication is a great blessing to a family'. On the back it says 'ways to improve communication in your family:

Be a good listener.
Accept other members of the family as they are.
Confide in parents and other family members.
Care about the interests of other family members.
Be affectionate.

Give sincere compliments and approval.

Keep confidences shared with you.

Help to create a good environment for communication.

I started with these elements:

And ended up with this layout:

Found the freebie digital scrapbooking graphics

here and here.

Silly Olympics

I did 'silly' Olympics for a YW activity competition to WIN a makeover with our Beehive girls. Most of the girls want the makeover from Susan, a gal in our ward - and 2 girls will earn them! I gathered some ideas off the Internet and made my own medals. I tied in Ephesians 6:11-18 about putting on the whole armour of God. Nice the YW has a torch as a symbol as it was easy to put on our medals:I used my flower punch in gold, silver and bronze colors after I used a circle punch for the above part:

I hot glued the gold, silver and bronze (red) ribbon on one corner of a dove chocolate:

and then on the top corner:
and did the same on the other end of the ribbon on the other side of the chocolate (my intentions when I went to the store was to buy peppermint patties as they are circular, but their packaging is a big rectangle now, so I opted for square shaped chocolates):

Here they are with the ribbons completed:

And the circles taped to the flower punch out ready to hot glue onto the chocolates:

This was the main side that would show:

And this was the back side with the message:

Here are the gold ones:
And the bronze ones:

And the medals completed:
I made 8 of each medal as we had 8 stations.

We did Javelin - throwing Q-tips - I added names to them so it would be easy to mark places.

Shot put - throwing cotton balls - they really liked their pictures on them:

Discus - throwing paper plates - labeled them with their names:

Swimming - blowing corks with straws back and forth 4 times in a pan filled with water:

Torch Relay: picking up a lifesaver from a skewer and transferring it to another skewer about 10 feet away.

High Diving: standing on a chair, dropping pennies into a glass of water - they got 10 pennies each

Archery: shooting rubber bands at a paper plate target - they got 5 tries (only had to hit the plate, not just the bulls eye)

Weight Lifting: using a hymn book balancing on each hand and seeing how long they could hold their arms outstretched

If the girls tied, I had the girls with the highest scores go again, like the archery, the top placing girls got to shoot 2 more times and the high diving top scoring girls got to drop 5 more pennies.

. . . would have had more photos, but the girls stopped using my camera and started using their cell phone cameras - I didn't notice until we were done =( Definitely assign 1 person to take photos!

We ate blue chips, red salsa and white sour cream for a snack while I gave them their medals.

All the girls keep telling me what a fun activity this was - I highly recommend it =)

It took us about an hour to set up, Bryonie (one of my Beehives) helped me with this activity as the other Beehive leader was out of town. She used the stopwatch and helped me write down scores at each station.

Pickle Recipe

The pickles I canned at the beginning of this month are awesome - go ahead and try it yourself, the recipe is easy and the process is fairly quick!

15 small pickling cucumbers

40 fresh dill sprigs

2 large onions, sliced

10 garlic cloves, sliced

1 qt water

1 qt white vinegar

1 cup canning salt (do not substitute)

Cut each cucumber lengthwise into 4 spears. In a large ziplock bag, combine the cucumbers, dill, onions and garlic; set aside. In a saucepan combine the water, vinegar and salt and bring to a boil stirring just until the salt is dissolved. Let it cool and then pour over cucumber mixture and let sit overnight in fridge.

Next day, divide cucumbers evenly into 4 jars and then divide up onion mixture into jars evenly and pour juice until jars are full (you will have left over juice). Steam bathe (bath?) them for 15 minutes. Place in cool area or fridge for 10 days. Keeps good for 3 months.

I'll make these again =) I thought they looked a little wilted to me when I first opened them, but they're crisp - yea!

Cucumber Salad Recipe

1/3 cup rice vinegar
1/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup water

1/2 tsp kosher salt

1/4 tsp pepper

3 cucumbers, thinly sliced

1/2 cup red onion, sliced

1 yellow, orange or red bell pepper, diced

Combine vinegar, sugar, water, salt and pepper in a small saucepan and let it simmer just until sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat, let it cool to room temperature. Prepare cucumbers, onion and pepper. Add to vinegar mixture and refrigerate for at least 1 hour. Yum!