Simple Christmas Nativity

I'm the leader of the 8-11 year old Activity Day Girls program at my church.  We meet twice a month and make crafts, do service projects or activities, and form friendships.  

During the Christmas season I always try my best to focus on the real meaning of Christmas so I wanted to do an activity with the girls during the month of December that reflected that.  I thought this nativity I found at Learning To Be Me was beautiful and really loved the simplistic look. It was also simple enough that our group could finish it in one night.

I was able to pick up all my supplies at Hobby Lobby.

Supplies:

Ball knob 1 1/4"

Rectangle 2 3/8" x 1 1/2" x 3/16"

Furniture button 1/2"

1" x 5" wood block

1" x 4" wood block

Paint colors of choice

Glue

Twine

This is all you need for one nativity.

After letting a quick coat of paint dry, I glued the pieces together using some tacky glue and tied around a piece of twine.  Simple and lovely.

This is a great gift to make for family and friends and it's simple enough that you can easily whip up several at once.  It's also simple enough to make with your kids, or better yet have your kids make them as gifts.

Felt turkeys

I was working on some felt and sewing projects one day (which maybe I'll find the time to post about!) and realized that Mr. A needed some attention.  Since my felt stash was already out I decided we could make something super quick to keep him busy.  I remembered seeing this idea and used it as inspiration for these felt turkeys.

I used a bowl to trace the bodies and A's foot to trace the heads but everything else is free handed.  Mr. A had a great time helping me pick out the colors and we later made some pirate patches as well.  When the big boys came home from school they had so much fun putting these turkeys together. 

We are traveling out to Amy's house for Thanksgiving this year (we're finally close enough to drive!) and I'm going to add a few more disguises and bring these guys along with us.  I'd love to see what disguises you come up with for your turkeys!

eShakti (and a special offer just for you!)

Many of you know Jeanine and I are sisters.  We're the two oldest in our family.  But many of you probably don't know that we have two younger sisters too.  This spring our youngest sister Rachelle got married to a sharp young man, Scott.  Aren't they cute?

Pinterest comes in super handy for things like weddings.   All us girls brainstormed and looked around for wedding items together and when we found a possibility we pinned it on a group pin board.  It was a lot of fun.

Rachelle decided that she would have her's and Scott sisters be the bridesmaids.  That's seven sisters total!  Finding a bridesmaid dress wasn't easy with the range of sizes we had to accommodate.  From Jeanine's short 5'4" to Scott's very tall six foot sisters.  What were we going to do?

Then we found eShakti!  This site was the best find.  Not only does it have darling dresses, but you can customize it to fit your size and style, all for an affordable price!  This is the dress we found on the website, but we added sleeves and extended the hem to below the knee and ended up with . . .

These perfect dresses that fit everyone perfectly!

The lovely bride with her mom and sisters.

Aren't they cute dresses?  This is one bridesmaid dress that I'll wear again and again.

Can you believe all these girls?  And our younger brother Jacob, the lonely groomsman.  He sure is spoiled with all these big sisters.

We loved our experience with eShakti and we love all the cute dresses they sell.  With the holidays coming up there always seems to be a need for a new dress to wear.  We would love for you to check eShakti out and give them a try too.

Right now you can get $25 off your first purchase by entering the code AMYPINCOCK at checkout.

Have fun shopping! 

And congratulations to Scott and Rachelle.  We're so happy for you!

Art Lab for Kids

My Mr. A loves to draw.  Thankfully he's finally learning that bodies and walls are not the places to color!  At least once a day he's asking for his drawing supplies and he'll sit there color me endless pictures. 

I recently had the chance to review the book "Art Lab for Kids".



Let me tell you, this book was amazing!  Such great projects and inspiration to do other things as well.  Perhaps my favorite part of the book was the instructions at the beginning on how to get started.  It states that "each person's work should be wholly his or her own.  Don't work on someone else's art."  I love it--mostly because W likes to be the boss and tries to "help" his brothers instead of worrying about his own work.  Another idea that it suggests is to "promote fearlessness".  I love that!

At first I thought I would just use it with the older boys . . . but it really could be adapted to any little artist!

We picked a few different projects to draw from.  It was fun to work with new-to-us mediums like oil pastels.  I also loved that they featured artists that also used each medium.

And doing fun projects like scribble drawings.

For each lab there was a list of materials needed, a "go further" section which gave you ideas of where you might go artistically based on the project, a "thinking" section to get you thinking about your art before you started and then a step-by-step outline for the lab. 

It really was a well-laid out book and I am looking forward to many more art projects inspired by "Art Lab For Kids."

Election Day Fun

My boys are super excited for election day this year.  This morning my oldest made sure to remind me that I needed to go out and vote--which I did.

To make the day extra special we're going to have an all-American dinner of hamburgers, hotdogs, homemade fries and smoothies.  For dessert, I added some red and blue sprinkles to some ice cream sandwiches to make them patriotic-looking!

I think I'll even blow up some red, white and blue balloons for them to play with.   Are you doing anything special this election day?

Homemade Crunchy Caramel Popcorn (using only unrefined sweeteners)

Every autumn around Halloween my mom made caramel popcorn when I was growing up.  I love this stuff.  I made it myself the first few years my husband and I were married, but since our kids came along there always seems to be so many sweets this time of year to add one more thing.  This year though I broke down and made some.  My daughter informed me that she would not like it but after convincing her to take one bite she was hooked and we sat there together and ate half the bag between the two of us.  Oops! 

 Some people like their caramel corn soft and chewy, but I like my crunchy.  I adapted my recipe from Kimi's over at The Nourishing Gourmet.  I love that she uses no refined sweeteners and I also love that it tastes just like the stuff I ate growing up.

Be careful.  This stuff is seriously addictive.

Crunchy Caramel Popcorn

3/4 cup popcorn kernels, popped

1/2 cup butter

1 cup sucanat

1/4 cup honey

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Melt the butter, sucanat, and honey in a small pot.  Bring to a boil and simmer for five minutes, stirring regularly.  Meanwhile, place the popcorn in a large bowl with plenty of room to stir (you may need to use two bowls).  Once the mixture has simmered for the allotted time add baking soda and vanilla.  Mixture will become foamy.  Remove from heat and pour over popcorn.  Stir until well coated.  Place popcorn onto two jelly roll pans in a single layer.  Place in preheated oven for 40-50 minutes.  Caramel will harden completely once cool.  Remove from pan and place in air tight container.  Enjoy!

Monster Patches

 I love summer-time because my boys can wear shorts.  And shorts = no holes in the knees.  But it is officially autumn here and we are back to wearing pants.  And we always have lots of holey pants.  

I patch them on the inside.  I patch them on the outside (sometime with camo patches which my boys love).  But this time I decided to try something a little different--a monster patch.  (I was inspired by this post which I found on Pinterest but since it's in another language I had to make up my own instructions and that's why I'm sharing my tutorial!)

First I flipped the pant leg inside out and roughly stitched a large square of red fabric over the hole. I folded the fabric in half so that it will (hopefully) last a while.  Make sure that your square is much bigger than the actual hole.  And I used  blue thread so that you wouldn't be able to see it from the right side.

Next, I cut some jagged teeth and big round eyes out of felt. I put the teeth right inside the hole and stitched them in (again with blue thread).  Then I stitched on the eyes with white thread and gave him x's with green embroidery floss. 

 It was pretty easy and W loved them!  In fact, I think every boy in his class loved it too.  He came home so pleased that everyone wanted his monster patch.