Happy Valentines Day!!!

I was inspired by a wonderful garland on the How About Orange? blog.  She made a similar garland out of stiffened fabric.  It's just beautiful.  I wanted it!!!  Since it's a busy week for me, and I didn't have time to visit the fabric store - I sifted through some scrapbooking paper that I already had on hand.  I made the heart shapes with a paper punch, and then sewed the hearts together with a sewing machine.  (Frankly, the sewing machine is only out because my daughter ripped holes in the knees of her winter PJ's and I can't locate another pair in her size - spring clothes are out in the stores!)  Then, because I didn't think about sewing the string of hearts together first, I used a hole punch to connect the hearts with a ribbon.

So now I'll show you the lovely garland by Jessica of How About Orange?  The fabric is so pretty and I love that the hearts are more demensional with extra layers.

  You can get the complete directions from Jessica here.  I hope you all had a wonderful Valentines Day, and took the time to tell all of your family and friends how much you love them.

Valentines Day is Monday?

Monday will be Valentines day!  How did it arrive so soon?   Don't fret, you can find some unique printable Valentine's day cards online that you can print at home.  Here are a few of my favorites:

My daughter chose these to give to her classmates:

These sweet valentines are designed by Linnette of Paper Glitter to be labels, but we printed a Happy Valentines Day message onto each and voila, they are class cards.

http://paperglitter.blogspot.com/2010/02/free-valentine-labels-printable.html.  You can see more of Linnette's designs in her Etsy shop here.

Aren't these just too sweet?  This is what I would hand out if I were still in elementary school!

You can download these cards for free from Northridge Media's site:

http://northridgemedia.net/blogs/create/freebies/free-download-printable-valentines/

My son will be handing these out:

These super cool cards for boys are available on Kat Wright's Etsy shop.  Once again, easy as pie to print at home.  She even includes envelopes!

http://www.etsy.com/shop/katwright?ref=seller_info

Our son was excited to find a "boy" valentine that wasn't pink and girly.  Since he couldn't decide, he will also be giving a few of these to his friends:

These designs are free to download, designed by Samantha Hahn of Maquette.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/samanthahahn/2192813085/in/set-72157603708838101/

I love these, and wish our school was allowing a few sweets!  Well, we'll just do them for at home anyway.

You can purchase the file print these out at Paper Party Creation's Etsy site.  I think Kristie did a great job with these.  You can print them out at home on label paper and use a scrapbook punch to create the perfect circles, or get one with a scalloped edge.

Winter Wonderland Snowflake Cookies

My children's school had a winter wonderland fundraising evening, so I made some snowflake cookies for the bake sale table.  I love the robin's egg blue and tiffany blue so much so they were fun to make.  I packaged them in clear goodie bags with ribbon for the children to buy.  

Pumpkin Whoopie Pies

 This is what I'm bringing to Thanksgiving dinner.  

I found the recipe at the Martha Stewart website and followed it to a T.  The only change I made was to bake the pies on Silpat sheets instead of parchment paper.  Be careful not to over bake them, they taste so good when they are moist.  The cream cheese filling is incredibly delicious!  What are you making for Thanksgiving?

Autumn Cookies

Now that fall has arrived, we've been busy getting into the spirit of colorful leaves and brisk nights by baking some cookies.  The oven warms the house and the cookies smell so good.  I added some lemon to the cookie dough and it tastes wonderful.

What are you doing to cozy things up this fall?  

A Vintage Craft Party

Every since I can remember, our daughter has liked tape and scissors.  It was only natural that she wanted a craft party to celebrate her 6th birthday.  We started out with the idea that we'd put craft supplies on the table in old blue mason jars, so we used that aqua blue color and pink on invitations.  Carli at Dimpleprints found a vintage scissor images and put together this wonderful invitation.  (I've deleted the contact info and address for web privacy.)

Colored pencils, scissors, markers and paintbrushes filled the jars.  Alongside is some of Elise's original artwork.  (hmm, I think she was 3!)

I found these old fashioned striped paper straws on 62cards' Etsy shop, and added the flags to them.  Don't they look sweet in the old mason jar?  I found quite a few at a local antique shop, and I borrowed some from my mother in law.

We made "windsocks" out of embroidery hoops and crepe paper.  I found the directions in Better Homes and Gardens magazine.

A Science Party

It all started with the idea for a science party. My son loves to learn new things and what boy doesn't like to watch something erupt?  We found some wonderful invitations on Etsy by  Carli of Dimpleprints.  She will put all of your information in to a file and email it to you so that you may print it at home, or at a print shop if you prefer.  Fantastic for me to get them out to all of my son's friends at the last possible minute!  (What can I say, it's the end of summer and school started on my son's birthday!  I was a bit overwhelmed to say the least!  :)

I did a search for science experiments and came up with the Steve Spangler website.  A great resource for experiments, and inexpensive ingredients.  We purchased instant snow, glow in the dark powder, a geyser tube and magic sand. 

I had my husband bend a regular round cookie cutter into an erlenmyer flask shape and made cookies.  I added pearls for bubbles and sprayed the cookies with pearlized spray.

I found beakers and erlenmeyer flasks at Scientific Equipment of Houston.  We filled the small beakers and flasks with water and food coloring.

I found plastic petri dishes at Steve Spangler Science.  We filled them with Jello and put the sprinkles in to make it look like bacteria growing in medium.

We found a local store that carries dry ice.  I filled the large beakers and cylindrical vases (found at Michaels craft store.)  I filled the vases with Aqua Gems.  They come as small spheres that swell up when water is added.  I also purchased water proof lights and put them in with the beads.  Since the vases were glass, I put plastic containers in the top of the vase with water to drop the dry ice in.  (Dry ice can shatter glass.)  It looked so cool, especially outside on the table at night.  You must be careful that the kids can not touch the dry ice as it can burn their skin.

The kids enjoyed making "tornados" out of two liter bottles and a coupler from Steve Spangler Science.

I think this was the favorite experiment of the night - Slime!  We made it with white school glue, water, food coloring and borax.  We also added some glow in the dark powder for fun.  

It was a hot night, so instead of cake we had Rita's italian ice with sparkler candles.  It was the perfect treat to cool off with.  (And allergen free for our friends with nut, egg and dairy allergies!)

We also served Izze Sparling Juice for the kids.  It's made with juice and carbonation so a bit less sugar.  It went over big, since the kids thought they were getting away with tons of soda!

Carli of Dimpleprints created the design for the favor tags.  I made them into stickers too and used them on the tops of our slime containers.  On Escapade Direct's site, I found plastic test tube and rubber stoppers.  I filled these with the snow, sand and gel beads and put them in clear bags for party favors.  (Along with some great magnets I found at 5 below,  Pop Rocks and the erlenmyer flask cookies

We also sent pictures from the party to Dimpleprints for our Thank you notes.  They turned out great, and Cole wrote his notes on the reverse side.