Valentine's Day Roses

 I LOVE this Valentine's Day idea from Family Fun!!
They have some really cute ideas on their site...check it out. I came across this in their February issue and thought it was so cool and I couldn't believe I'd never seen this before! Maybe I've been living under a rock, but I had to try this and my four year old, loved doing it, too. Who knew that celery made a really cool flower stamp!?!?!? This is so easy and a great project for kids. All you need is finger paint, paper, and celery!
 Have fun with this...you can do different colors, a collage of flowers, and more. Of course, we can't just make one thing while we have the paint out, so we did several pictures and I now have some very fun artwork for my wall as well. Enjoy! It will be beautiful because you and your kids did it together!!

Valentine Road Map

  I used to despise Valentine's Day, but since I have kids now, I've found that it's kind of a fun thing to do and a good excuse to buy some extra chocolate (as if I really need an excuse). And, it is an extra special opportunity to be super mushy, which for me, with all the testosterone in this  house, is not always possible!
  Last year, I did a really fun road map valentine for my husband. It was so nostalgic for me and he absolutely loved it! It was simple, but thoughtful, and still inexpensive (depending on your "travel coupons").

I made the boys a dinner they both really like...I can't for the life of me, remember what it was, except that I'm pretty sure it included mashed potatoes...and we all had placemats that I made from 12x12 scrapbook paper, which I placed some of their little goodies on at dinner. For my three year old, it was a book and some M&M's...easy to please! 

 I helped my little one make a card for his Daddy and he insisted on doing hand tracing, too. The card on the left, we made with both of our thumbprints in the shapes of hearts and added some stickers, of course, because every three year old loves stickers!

 These are the "travel brochures"...each is a little mini valentine with a travel theme.

 The "travel itinerary" is a the little "booklet" that enclosed the "brochures", "coupons", and "map".

 This is my favorite part...the map! Each tag with ribbon has a date and something significant to our relationship (for example: when we started dating, when he proposed, etc.). I wrote little notes with some of them and at the "end" I wrote him a little love note.



The coupons can be whatever you want. I can't remember what I did on all of them, but I know one was for a batch of his favorite cookies upon request...didn't take long to cash that in on some PB cookies!

The only materials I used were scrapbook paper, ribbon, inkpads, markers, and stickers....all of which I already had in my craft supplies and the end results were something special!


I hope this inspires you to have some fun and make something special for you favorite valentine, too!

Christmas Card Garland

 Ever wonder how to display all those cute Christmas cards?? If you're like me, you can only put so many on the fridge and they keep falling off (or little hands want to move them all around).
This is an easy, inexpensive, and space saving way to display and keep them out the way! All you need is some clothes pins and beaded garland, yarn, tinsel, or anything you can hang clothes pins on. I used the ends of my curtain rods, but you could also use some hooks (the removable 3M ones are great!!). I doubled the red bead garland so I have two rows and just attached the cards with clothes pins and lapped a few over the garland if they were horizontal ones. It took me a whopping 5 minutes to do this and only cost about $3.You could also decorate your clothes pins if you wanted or make your own decorations to display this way. Now I am thinking of some fun clothes pin crafts! It's such a simple way to be able to see your cards, it's a little eclectic, and just plain fun!

Christmas Craft & Candy

Santa pretzels were a huge hit at my house! My four year old loved to make them with me and they were super easy!!! This is a really good one for kids to do! I LOVE Pinterest for this reason!!! All you need are pretzels (we used mini ones), almond bark, colored sugar, and marshmallows or white chocolate chips. You can heat up the bark in the microwave and dip just half the pretzel in, then coat with sugar and put your marshmallow or chip on for the ball on the hat. I couldn't find a larger container of just red, so we used the multi-pack with green, yellow, and blue and adapted them to be stocking hats...they turned out great! We made enough to eat and send to my brother overseas in the military.

 We made handprint tree Christmas cards for my brother and his buddies to send with his care package.

This wreath is for my fridge....little handprints are just precious!

A Goat and Two Chickens

  With Thanksgiving approaching, I have really been trying to think of ways that I can convey being thankful and helping others to my four year old. I feel like God has put it on my heart to find ways to do missions with my children. It's obviously not very feasible with a four year old and baby in tow to serve at a soup kitchen or travel great distances to serve. I've racked my brain and finally come to the conclusion that for now, we can do something that may not involve face to face contact with those we are helping but will be meaningful and help teach my little ones about giving.

So, this year during the holidays, we are starting two projects. Our first one is A GOAT AND TWO CHICKENS ($100) through World Vision.

We are going to make a jar with this picture on it and a little meter we can color in until we save the $100 together. Now, I won't be putting in all of it...Cooper has chores he does and he earns money for them (now most of them are only a quarter), but he can put some or all of his money in our jar and I will put in money as well and match his too. I haven't tried this before so we will see how quickly we can do it. I would love to do this one by Christmas and continue giving projects throughout the year!

For our second project we plan to make cards for troops. My brother is in the Navy and he says it's great to get things in the mail, especially when you are not stateside. This is something fun we can do that is not expensive but that may mean a lot to those who receive them.

I pray that we can be a blessing to people we don't even know this holiday season and that we will experience the joy of giving like never before! Happy Thanksgiving!