girl's camp quilt - I need votes for 3

I am making 3 quilt designs for the girls to tie at Girl's Camp and I need to know which patterns look the best together (these are sheet sets). If you'd leave a comment to help me out, that'd be great!

I am going to cut these options up into fairly big pieces and sew back together and then use 1 of the matching pieces of flat sheets for the back.

1 pink hearts, solid brown, brown/white zebra print

2 blue flowers, solid brown

3 pink hearts, solid brown, solid pink 4 blue flowers, solid pink, solid brown 5 blue flowers, solid brown, brown/white zebra print

Maybe there's a pattern I didn't think of too - feel free to suggest one =) We have the girls tie the quilts during craft time/free time and then there's a drawing for them. The fun part is they'll get 2 corresponding pillow cases to match!

Spooning

You can't teach an animal to spoon - but if I knew how cute it was going to look, I would have definitely tried earlier ;)

Even the arm? Come on - seriously precious!

And Ninja loves bags, he stayed in this free Safeway bag I got in the mail for 20 minutes self entertaining himself:

I think it's safe to say . . .

that Brady doesn't abuse prescription drugs ;) It's all over the news lately that this habit is common among teenagers.

Brady was taking a cold/flu pill and it was in capsule form. He has 1 of the capsules and was trying to pull it apart and he finally asked me: how do I open this?. I was like: you just swallow the whole thing. Brady: what is this plastic thing, just for holding the medicine? Me: yes, it dissolves after you swallow it.

It's good that a 16 YO has taken so little meds in his life but still funny that he didn't know this capsule information prior to our conversation. Oh the things you think are obvious as a parent and for sure your kids must have picked up along the way!

Cheating!

So I get this progress report in the mail from Keaton's early morning seminary teacher and it's a great report except at the bottom it has what the student thinks they can improve on. Keaton's response: not cheating. His teacher's comment: what? So of course I have to ask him (and then worry if he cheats at Seminary, does he cheat in school too?) and Keaton says: yeah, they play Bingo and it's very boring so sometimes I cheat to end the game faster. LoL He doesn't want a prize, he just wants the game to end - I guess they play it too often ;)

Then we're discussing it for a 2nd time and Keaton's like 'everyone knows I pretend that I had that word in a certain place, it's more just funny than really cheating'. (Keaton needs to be the comic relief then?) Brady says: but that leads to cheating at school or work. Keaton says: (totally serious like) you know people who actually cheat on tests? Brady says: yeah, some kids do it because their parents expect them to have certain grades. Keaton says: Well, that's dumb. But it'd be pretty tough to cheat at your job.

It was funny because that's so naive, but if that's what he thinks, then let's allow him to think just that =) Where did Keaton find his friends that never even discuss cheating in school? Well, let's hope he attracts more of those kind!

Let's just say 'whew' on the cheating subject ;)

Love is spoken here

I made 2 of these blocks, one for Cari, the Beehive Counselor who I work with - it's her birthday and one for Susan as a 'thank you' because she did makeovers for our Beehives at our last activity:

Here are the cupcakes we're having in class today to celebrate - it's a gumball on top!

Priesthood Handout

The outside was like a folded card, I just took 2 black rectangles and warped them with a pattern in my computer program and did the same for a pocket (which is barely visible), printed them out, then cut down the center and scored and folded the collar part. The tie I did separately and put on with dimensionals so it had a 3-D look:

The inside:The Priesthood: A Great Blessing

I asked the Young Men in our ward the question 'what 1 thing can the Young Women do to help you honor your priesthood'. Their answers (ages 12-17):

Dressing Modestly

Being Happy/Cheerful

Setting the bar/example

Encouraging the YM/not poking fun

Worthily taking the Sacrament

Sharing Refreshments (haha)

Observing the YW doing good things

Not telling them what to do like 'shhh, be quiet'

Not being so loud/silly at church activities

Having clean language/not swearing

Encouraging the YM to keep the commandments

Encouraging the YM to serve a mission

Being reverent during the sacrament

handout found at www.jackshandsjillsheart.com under tab YW manual 3 lesson 13 - once purchased you can print off as many copies as you need, just do not redistribute or share file - thank you.

Easter idea - 8 day walk with Christ

I was forwarded a neat idea for an 8 day walk with Christ - I made my own templates 
(found at www.jackshandsjillsheart.com under the occasion/holiday tab, which includes the box template and the files) and I've seen little paper boxes that hold 6 Easter egg chocolates. So I designed a template on the computer to hold 8 plastic Easter eggs:I sent the images so my plotter could cut them all out, but I had to score them by hand - that was a lot of work ;) But my friend Cari helped me put these together:

BUT make sure your sizes match up before printing them on nice paper. All I did was upload them separately because you can only print out 1 box bottom per paper as well as 1 box lid. I was able to fit 2 box insides on an 8 1/2 x 11 size of paper. Or you could make a stencil/template and just trace them onto paper too - I got 3 box insides for a 12 x 12.

We had to cut up all the scripture references, thoughts and stories and then fold them:
And glue the box together and then the vellum sheet that had instructions:

There are scripture references and thoughts with M&M's in the eggs, the stories we put in envelopes to go with the corresponding day.

I was panicked trying to find small plastic Easter eggs after visiting and not finding them at Target, Walmart, JoAnns, Michaels & World Market (claiming to be Easter Headquarters - haha - they didn't even have regular size plastic eggs! I seriously thought about telling them to take their sign down ;) Hello, I had already cut out my boxes and there had better be some small Easter eggs somewhere!! I finally found them at Fred Meyer and they were even SUPER cute =)

Kittens & Cannella

We got kittens, kept the name Ninja for the black kitten and named the other one Samari. They play with Cannella very well, but Ninja plays the best with her. These are Cannella's rope toys, but I think the kitties were sleeping on them so if they weren't playing with them then neither could the dog ;) They do have a bed . . . and they do like to sleep in Cannella's bed too!

Here is Cannella, all sad because she's not potty trained like the kittens. The kitties have free roam of the house while Cannella is banned to the non-carpeted areas, so Cannella just watches the kittens and whines =( She really has been a ton of fun!
We just can't wait for Cannella to be consistent with her potty places!

Courage Block

I completed a wood block with the graphic I designed:

This is a scrap piece of wood so my image didn't quite fit, so I filled in the spaces by embellishing with ribbon - I really like it!

Use MicroGlaze before mod podging so the ink doesn't smear =)

image found at www.jackshandsjillsheart.com - only need to purchase it once, then print as many as you need.  Do not redistribute or share original work that is purchased from this site - thanks!

Courage - Joshua 1:9

Another Girl's Camp craft idea is to print these out and mod podge on wood blocks with a ribbon (I'll have to make an example - I think it will turn out cute!)

It took a very long time to work the curved words like that . . . there's probably a program out there that makes it easy . . . but I don't have it! So, there will be ONE design for the winding loop words ;) The small looping words are the words to the scripture Joshua 1:9 in case it's fuzzy on the blog.

images found at www.jackshandsjillsheart.com - only need to purchase it once, then print as many as you need.  Do not redistribute or share original work that is purchased from this site - thanks!

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: