Advent Wreath Update

I'm putting the life-size Angry Birds slingshot on hold until tomorrow.  Since the second Sunday of Advent is around the corner, I thought I should get this out now in case anyone wanted to make an Advent Wreath this season.

As a child, I enjoyed lighting the wreath every week and wanted that to be a part of my kids' lives too.  I've wanted to make an Advent Wreath the past couple of years, but wanted to update the look a bit.  I realize it's the meaning that counts, but the crafty side of me wanted to beautify it too.   The purple and pink candles just weren't doing it for me, but last year I noticed my church did all white candles and so I thought, I can too!  I think they had colored ribbons or something to reflect the purple and pink, which is what I chose to do.

Here are the supplies I used to make my updated version of the Advent Wreath:
four white pillar candles, purple ribbon, mauve ribbon ( in place of pink), some greenery, white glitter letter stickers, leftover gold paper from gratitude wreath leaves, 2 inch hole punch, plate or platter, glue dots (or glue gun, I used glue dots, worked great!)

I used my hole punched gold paper to put the words hope, faith, joy and love on each candle.  Originally, I started with a long narrow plate, but wasn't able to use the greens like I wanted.  It looked nice, but...

I wasn't satisfied, so I changed to an oval platter to better hold the greens.  I liked it much better.  I wasn't sure what order the words should go in, then I poked around a bit and found that it made sense to do it as follows: Week 1 - Hope, Week 2 - Faith, Week 3 - Joy, Week 4 - Love.  I don't think there is a right or wrong for the words and you don't even need them, I just thought it was something to help us focus on the meaning better as we go through the season.

If you have an updated tradition, send it my way, I'd love to see it!

Enjoy the season!

Good Angry Fun!

cupcake toppers - Party Animal blog

Today my youngest turns 6, so I want to share the fun we had with his birthday theme this year - Angry Birds.   Being the youngest, he sometimes gets the shaft, so I owed him his very first “kid party”.   There were so many great ideas out there, it took great restraint to hone in on only a few.  I’ll include my sources of inspiration so you can see all the other things you can do with this theme.  Good fun!

So this year I talked the little man into doing the party outside of our house in the hopes I wouldn’t obsess so much about itJ.   We chose a gymnastics facility…perfect for a bunch of boys to run, jump and bounce out their energy.  Yehaw!  No need to figure out games, just order pizza, bring cupcakes and call it good.  They even provided a party favor!  I tried to leave it at that, but there were too many fun possibilities, I had to do one of them!

For the goody bags, I attached Angry Bird faces to colored bags (free printables from  Party Animal blog).  I tossed around a couple ideas of what to put inside and decided to do a bag of 6 gumballs (played off the age 6 too, pure coincidence, happened to be what fit) with a note that said, “Hope you had a ball!”  

I also gave each boy two Angry Bird coloring sheets (Cartoon Jr. ) and a bouncy ball.  To seal the bag, I used a mailing label with a little note of thanks. 

I know it would've been fine with just the gumballs or just the balloon and sucker provided by the gymnastics facility for that matter, but I love the creative process and the fun bags we ended up with.  They made for great decoration on the table too.  Multi-functional – LOVE IT!

I restrained myself from incorporating Angry Bird games into the gymnastics stuff.  It was hard, but I held back and let it be fun on its own.  And it was.  The boys had a blast and only one bloody nose.  Not badJ!  Tomorrow I’ll tell you about the fun backyard slingshot game we did for the family party.

Sources of Inspiration: 

free printable favor bag faces and cupcake toppers - Party Animal blog

free printable coloring pages -Cartoon Jr.

Perfectly Imperfect!

#1 Reason Why I Am Thankful for My Family:  I set the table with a wrinkled tablecloth and knew they wouldn't even blink an eye!  Not sure if you can tell how wrinkled it was from the picture, but it was like crumpled up in a ball wrinkled!  I thought about ironing it when I saw how bad it was, but knew that it wasn't worth the stress knowing that my family is so laid back and wouldn't be bothered by it.  I love them!

So obviously I wasn't too prepared for Thanksgiving this year.  I was wrapped up in Angry Bird world for my son's birthday (pics coming next week).  I saw fabulous inspirations for Thanksgiving table settings, but in the end I pulled together a perfectly imperfect table with whatever was in front of me and I loved it! 

Just threw some painted pumpkins left from Halloween on the table as the centerpiece.  It was fun mixing the fancy with the fun!

My craft lived in harmony with my 6 year old's craft.

An Angry Bird even made it to the feast!

A colorful turkey with instructions of how to cook a turkey written by my daughter hung on the cupboard door (and a snowflake made it in there too).

You really can't beat the beauty of a child's artwork.

My daughter and I had fun creating the kids' table.  We wrapped the table with white wrapping paper, cut grocery bags for placemats, threw in a homemade centerpiece and some crayons for fun doodling!

And I had fun creating name tags for some adult fun, the wine glasses.  I grabbed some office labels, which I tried once before by trying to wrap the metal ring around the stem and found it to be much too challenging.  So instead, this time I simply tied them on with some colored baker's twine.  This worked out so much better.  They were still in good shape, so I was able to save them for the next family gathering.  Yay!

I was so thankful for such a relaxing, fun-filled, yummy Thanksgiving surrounded by the love and warmth of family!  It was perfectly imperfect!



Why Plumberry Pie?

So my friend asked me the other day, “Where did you get Plumberry Pie?”  I found it hard to explain, but then I thought about it last night and figured out a good way to describe it.  The name comes from a phrase my oldest son says with a goofy voice and a silly dance move.  It really doesn’t have a concrete definition except that it’s like a burst of joy or silliness and unbridled creativity.  And that’s what this blog is about, the things that give me joy, express my creativity, make me laugh or feel silly or just random thoughts.  Every time my son says “plumberry pie” in his goofy voice, I can’t help but laugh and smile.  So I say, challenge yourself to have a slice of Plumberry Pie every day.  It is an essential part of everyone’s diet.  Whether it be 5 minutes of silence or rolling down the windows and blaring your favorite song while driving down the street (I did that yesterday!), a cup of coffee…you see where I’m going with this.  Just make sure you find a piece of joy in everyday even if just for a fleeting moment.  And for fun, try saying “plumberry pie” in a silly voice.  I swear you will feel better!

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!

Kim

Clueless

Since becoming a mom over 10 years ago, I've become completely technologically illiterate.  I only read my first blog about 6 months ago.  I was looking at Houzz and stumbled across a room I loved and clicked on the link  4men1lady (then, 3 men and a lady).  That was it!  I was hooked to the blogosphere!  I am now trying to catch up with technology (especially now that I have a "tween" and need to be on my toes for future).  So bear with me as I attempt to be in the blogosphere.  I'm sure there will be a lot of fine tuning along the way as I learn.  I've been inspired by so many blogs out there, I just had to join the fun. 

A couple things you may need to know... I am the queen of unfinished projects, so I hope this blog will keep me accountable and make me finish the projects I start.    I don't always do things the proper way, I tend to shortcut things.  In that process, I come up with ways to do things that might make you shake your head.  I've never used a drill and don't know how to sew...WHAAAT?!  I have friends that help me with those things, but I'm thinking about learning how to sew and actually picking up a drill.

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I will share my "gratitude wreath" as my first official post.  I spotted the idea in the November 2011 issue of Better Homes and Gardens.  The idea of the wreath is to add a leaf to it every day with something you are grateful for.  Below is my version of it.

Supplies: scissors, pearl topped pins (I used tacks and found them to be too short), foam wreath form, burlap (I used burlap garland), feathers, paper for the leaves

It only took about 10 minutes to make!  Can't beat that!  I can't wait to see it fill up with leaves with all of the blessings we are grateful for.  It will be fun to read on Thanksgiving.

I took it one step further and decided to "gobble" my neighbor.  (Definition of "gobble":  to gobble is a spin off of the Halloween ding dong ditch booing or ghosting.)  The neighbor I "gobbled" always does for others so I wanted her to know how much we appreciate her and her family.  Below is the note I attached to a grocery bag with the wreath in it.

 

I had grand ideas of putting pumpkin muffins in the bag with the wreath, but time was a wastin' and I needed to get it out the door.  That's how a lot of my plans go...grand ideas go simple.  Oh, PS, I just pinned everything so I can change the wreath for the seasons if I want.  Keep the burlap, take off feathers, change ribbon....add Christmas ornaments, poinsettias, etc.  I love multi-functional things!

Well, I DID IT!  My first official post!  Hope you stop by again...

Kim