Anniversary Gift

This year, both sets of our parents (John's parents and my parents) celebrated their 40th anniversaries. The traditional 40th anniversary gift is Ruby. For a simple yet sentimental gift for them, I opted for a more modern route and created these anniversary prints for them. It highlights how many days they've been married (wow!), how many addresses they've lived at, how many children and grandchildren they have, and their 40th anniversary date on the bottom.

I typed up the milestones in a Word doc and played with different fonts and sizes. I trimmed some beautiful scrapbook paper to standard 8.5 x 11 paper size and printed them out on it. Then I matted and framed them and they loved them.

Be sure to "practice" print on plain paper to check your spacing/sizing before printing on your pretty paper!

Here is my parents' frame displayed on a buffet table with some Christmas decor. John's parents will find a place for theirs very soon, they just got their gift for Christmas.

 

You could use this idea for lots of special occasions, changing the dates and highlights however you want. It's a great way to display important milestones. It is similar to the framed dates I made for our entryway:

It is a great gift idea you can create for a friend or family member, but it's also something you can make for yourself! Start it early in your marriage, and just update the numbers every 5-10 years. Now I'm thinking of making something for our own home that includes pictures of our 5 year and 10 year anniversary dates.

Whatever you frame, be sure it includes important dates and milestones that you want to cherish, that's what makes it special!

Girl Scouts Fall Meetings

I am just going to lump our last 2 meetings into 1 post since I am a little behind on my blogging.

November meeting
One of our Girl Scouts traveled south for vacation over the summer and stopped in Savannah, Georgia to visit the home of Juliette Gordon Low. She made a poster and shared the things she saw and did, and gave each of us a postcard with a portrait of her. The girls earned the Playing the Past badge by talking about this.

Our craft was a Girl Scout law craft. I bought small colored Popsicle sticks at a Dollar Tree (100 for $1). They wrote out the law on the sticks, then I helped them hot glue the sticks together with ribbon. Now they can hang them in their rooms, or wherever they want, to remind them of the virtues that Girl Scouts should aim to hold.

For an activity, we went to the corn maze. I don't have a picture. The first time we went, we got rained out right when we arrived, but the weather cooperated the second time. Half of our troop earned badges for this outing.

December meeting
We made ornaments for our craft. I bought clear plastic ornaments at Walmart for .88cents each. I painted their names on using puffy paint prior to the meeting. I wanted them decorate their own, but when I tried it out, it was crazy messy and took a long time to dry, so I knew we wouldn't be able to paint during the meeting. So during the meeting, they cut strips of paper, wrote out the Girl Scout law (yes! The law again) on them (silver and gold sharpies really make it pretty!), curled the strips, and put them inside the ornaments. We used red and green ribbon to add a little Christmas color to them.

 

 

 

 

 

They also earned Early Bird Badges for registering in the spring.

And Bridging to Juniors bridges.

(I really need to find Emma's daisy and brownie pins so I can add them to her Junior vest!)

A few of the girls are involved in Lego Robotics and so we showed the troop how the robot works and did a little demo. More on that coming soon!

 

 

 

 

Badges:

In lieu of Christmas caroling this year, We plan to support our community by ringing bells for the Salvation Army next week. Hoping for decent weather!

Kitty Cat Tea Party Birthday

Laila turned 5 this fall and wanted a kitty cat birthday party. I found plates, napkins, and decor at our local party store.

I found a kitty cat cake on Betty Crockers website. Click HEREfor the link.
It is just 2 round cake pans cut into a few shapes and pieced together using frosting. I used m & m's for the eyes and nose, and black licorice for the whiskers and front paws.

 

 

 

This cake was for our "family" party. And I also really wanted to give her a miniature tea party with a few friends to celebrate her turning 5. She invited 5 little girls who dressed up and came over to our home for tea, lemonade, tea sandwiches, fruit kabobs, and mini marshmallows. The dishes they used were Laila's great-great grandmothers! It was her china and was passed down to me, which I am very thankful for!

 

 

My 5 year old!

Monster University Birthday

Emma is obsessed with Monsters University! We took the kids to see it opening weekend (way back in June). It was a great family movie. And she hasn't stopped talking about it. On vacation, she bought a stuffed Sulley and has wanted a Mike Wazowski ever since. She mentions it every. Single. Day. Here is a picture after our Disney store trip. Thank goodness her Grandma ordered him and she got him for her birthday! Laila picked out Sophia the First princess figurines and tea set.

 

Naturally, she asked for a Monsters University birthday this year. So for her party, she invited a bunch of girls from her softball team. We chose to have it at a frozen yogurt place. Since she was bringing store bought cupcakes (with Monsters U rings on top, of course!) to school for her birthday, we decided to make our own cake for her big party. After googling, "pinteresting", and "you-tubing" Monster U cakes, I came up with a simple plan of action. I saw a you tube video of someone frosting Sulley cupcakes where they made the frosting look like his fur. So I used that idea for a cake.

Sulley cakes out of the oven...

I used 6", 8", and 9" round cake pans. I used white cake mix and dyed the mix teal and purple to create a tyedye cake effect. However, to my sheer disappointment, the cake fell apart when I removed them from the pans, even though they were cooled. I have no idea what happened but I wonder if it has something to do with all the food coloring changing the chemistry of the batter. Anyway, they went straight to the trash :(



Luckily I had batter leftover so I used it to make cupcakes, which turned out perfect.  Then I made buttercream frosting and also dyed it teal and purple. I used my Wilton frosting tool with the star tip to create the furry effect.

The cupcakes were not enough for everyone, so I did have to run to the store for 2 chocolate chip cookie cakes, which kids love!

She loved it, which is all that matters!

This frozen yogurt place puts whipped cream mustaches on the birthday kid, which is a hoot!

How to Host a girl scout bridging ceremony for cheap

It is definitely fall and we are back to school and in full swing of activities! So now that we are back to girl scout meetings, it is time for our girl scout bridging ceremony, where my Brownies bridged to Juniors! Also known as the "Fly Up" ceremony.

For the ceremony part, I created a way for each girl to step up to receive her award, by making a step out of empty pallets. Home Depot was so kind to donate them to us. I asked for 3. I covered them with 2 plain white table covers ($2) from Dollar Tree. This sort of signifies a "bridge". I prettied them up by tying balloons to the sides.

As each girl crossed over, she received a Junior uniform, membership pin, badges, and a bridging certificate. *Note how my little Miss Laila is not far from me during any of this. Can you see her?

The certificates were free printables I found online. I just printed them off onto white cardstock and filled in the names.

No ceremony is complete (ok, nothing involving kids is complete) without refreshments, and since this is a celebration, I asked parents to volunteer bringing cupcakes, treats, and drinks. I bought green and brown candy melts at Michaels for a thin mint puppy chow recipe I wanted to make from Pinterest (click here for the link), but it didn't turn out as pretty as the picture because after the cereal was coated in powdered sugar, you couldn't see the green/brown colors, it just looked like every other batch of puppy chow I've made. But it did taste like girl scout thin mints and they were still a hit!!



The only cost involved from our troop budget was for the balloons (I bought a dozen latex balloons for $17) and party supplies for $12 (green tablecloths, plates, napkins).You could even ask parents to volunteer that part too if you needed.

Now we will work on earning some badges and patches for our new vests! Here are some pictures of our ceremony:

 

 

Congratulations Juniors!

Updated Living Room

So we have lived in our home for nearly 11 years and have never painted the main living room! We have painted kids bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchen, even the man cave, but never the main living area. So it was finally time. We picked Behr paint in Plateau, a light beige tone.

It isn't a huge change but after realizing how plain and dirty our white walls were, it was a necessary change. This room gets lots of sunlight, and it is just the right amount of warmth I was looking for. With a bi-level home, the area above the stairs can be very tricky, but John tackled it without any trouble. See him in action...one foot on the ladder, the other on the ledge...yikes!

Here are the new walls:

 Not sure what to put on the half wall above the steps. Any ideas??

 I painted a lot of frames black when I was hanging pictures back up. I really need to update the large 20 x 24 portrait on the left, it is 3 years old!
The wedding portrait frame used to be gold. I very carefully taped off the painted canvas and spray painted the edges.

This is the wall that connects the living room and dining room. My Thomas Kinkade painting that we bought on a cruise is in the center. On the left is a free printable:

"People who love to eat are always the best people...Julia Child"

 

On the right is just a crazy family picture.

 

Credit to the source Girl Wife Mom. 

 

 

The dining room accent wall was already painted a green color but I still needed to update the frames.

I found 2 free printables:

Credit to the source Creatively Southern.

Credit to the source I Heart Naptime.

Downstairs I updated one wall on the side of the stairs. I was sort of going for a look I saw on another blog you can see HERE, I love the gallery look. I bought 4 initials; 1 for each of our names. These were already painted. I just hung them using ribbon and command hooks.

So that was our big Labor Day Project. Luckily the kids went to Grandma and Grandpa's house for the weekend so that we could tackle this project. Thanks Mom and Dad! Then I spent the month of September finding old frames (from my own closets) and spray painting them and updating them. We purchased 4 gallons of paint at $34.98 each, but only used 3. And on Labor Day weekend, Home Depot offered a $10/can rebate. So I have a $40 rebate on its way! So basically I got the 4th gallon free, I just need to find someone who can use it.

I think we are done with big painting projects for awhile...happy Fall everyone!
Now what to do with that $40 Home Depot Rebate...:)