Paper Nativity Craft

This craft is fun and easy to make and share. We like to mail them missionaries, soldiers that are deployed during Christmas, and other loved ones that live far away.

1)take any piece of paper 

2-3)fold it one or two times to the length you want 

4-6) then one or two times the other direction to make it square

7-8) now that your paper is square fold each corner to the center

9-10) then fold just the tip of each point back

11-12) flip it over and put Baby Jesus on top

1) take a paper fold it in half and cut a notch out of both sides then unfold

2) with white side face up, fold the top of the paper down

3) fold in half with colored sides facing each other 

4) bring corner of the folded top down and fold down leaving a 

bit of white on the folded side, same thing on the other side

5) fold each side in on the loose edge

6-7) one more fold that looks like this on each side

9) if it stands up  you did it right

For the WISEMEN glue anything to look like treasure

For the SHEPHERDS and ANGEL use pipe cleaner

For MARY you can cut the bottom down to make her shorter

1) this is the folder that doubles as a background

2) take a manila folder and cut it into this shape

where my thumb is holding the envelope that is where you fold up

3-4) here are close ups 3 of the left side 4 on the right side

5) fold the edges, glue them and place your people inside

I hope you have fun creating these and sharing them!

Christmas is a special time to celebrate the birth of 

Jesus Christ and this craft is perfect for the season.

May the true spirit of Christmas be with you

Monster Valentines

My kids love monsters inc and monsters university so we made monster valentines

I just cut out paper hearts and strips and we added pipe cleaner, pom poms, and goggly eyes!

Toy Story Halloween Costumes

If you follow us you already know that we love Cars and Toy Story and have had Birthday Parties for both.

Well this Halloween we went as a Toy Story Family, since that was a bit easier than cars ;)

I love doing themed halloween costumes but I got to always make sure the costume is simple and easy  for my husband. This year all he had to do was slip this over whatever he was wearing. The year before I gave him a black turtle neck, some levi's and told him to wear his glasses and boom he was Steve Jobs

HOW WE MADE THESE COSTUMES 

We bought the Buzz Lightyear wings and and hat at a garage sell but we made everything else. The front of Buzz Lightyear was a printable from my sons Toy Story Photo Booth Props. You can get the Free Printable Here. 

Woody already had levis and a yellow church shirt so we found him a hat and a vest at then dollar store, and I cut a piece of red fabric out for him. 

Jessie, I bought two of the woody vests and cut one up to hot glue to her pants, then I hot glued some yellow felt and red string to a white stained white shirt. I made her wig from yarn by crocheting a beanie hat and then tying the yarn to that base, it was fun to see my bald baby with hair ;)

Potato Heads, I took some tan fabric folded it in half glue most of the sides together, leaving just enough room up top to put our arms through. Then I cut a hole for our heads and glued felt faces on.

My favorite part was the SLINKY Trick or Treat Baskets. I covered took two oatmeal boxes and covered them in brown paper bags. I then took a slinky and poked each end into one of the boxes and hot glued it on. I then hot glued Ribbon for handles (which surprisingly held up) and I hot fluid felt for a face and ears and a little tail on the other box.

This Trick or Treat Box was great for keeping the family together, and moving in the same direction!

We attended our churches annual Trunk-r-Treat. I love Trunk-r-Treats because they are safer and supervised. We decorated our trunk as ANDY'S ROOM using a tablecloth and more of the FREE PRINTABLES from my sons Toy Story Birthday Party. And we had a toy chest that is decorated as Andy's toy chest and we handed our candy out in that, and played songs from the movie!

We had fun with these costumes all year, they were added to the dress up box and brought fun into our house all year long. I call Him Wood Year or Buzz Lighty!

Have fun this halloween!

Parks and Recreation Valentines-Free Download

Who Loves the show Parks and Recreations? It is our new favorite and we are always quoting it.

 This year I made you some Parks and Rec Valentines

  Download them HERE *NOTE* on my computer they show up pixelated and very weird looking, but when you download them they look just fine.

  Download them HERE *NOTE* on my computer they show up pixelated and very weird looking, but when you download them they look just fine.

Here are some other Valentines you can download for free. From some other fun bloggers.

These are some adorable designs form Devyn Marie Designs

This candy bar wrapper is a fun idea from One Willis Family

These adorable pencil toppers from A Pocket Full of LDS Prints

or this Valentine banner from C {dot} Love

Halloween Costume Theme - Apple Family

My husband works for apple and we have more apple products in our house then we have people to use them. This was the perfect Family Costume Idea for us.

Here is our Apple Family, I am the iPhone 4S, my husband is Steve Jobs, my littlest is a iPod Nano, my oldest is the Shuffle and my brother joined us one night as an Apple Genius!

THESE WERE NO SEW COSTUMES

my secret I used a hot glue gun. For my outfit and the kids out fits. I bought the cheaspest plain material I could find at walmart, cut into a square and glued on the top and the sides together. THEN I cut an opening for our heads.

For the boys control buttons and my app's. I just used felt cut out each shape and glued it together, my husband enjoyed helping me make apps.

For my brother I just pinned a white felt apple to his blue shirt, printed off an image of the Genius badge and hot glued it on white string!

*I wanted to use this theme again this year, but the new IOS came out, so I would have to change all my apps, I think we will just save it for a few years, and then we can be RETRO apple products or if I wait longer maybe even VINTAGE

Homemade Valentines

Valentines are really special when they are HOMEMADE, and even more special when they are personalized. I spend all year thinking of new ideas for my loved ones and spend the whole month making different ones for each person. Here are some from last year...

This was a homemade check I made last year, I tried to make it look as real as possible, (the background picture was an easter egg he had made the year before) We made it out for a Million Dollars, and he was in shock until he realized it was fake, then we all got a good laugh

FUN VALENTINE & GAME...

I made this for my sister, since she just married into this beautiful family!
THIS ONE would be a GOOD CHOICE for ANY VALENTINE. 

Have you ever played DON'T EAT PETE? Same rules I just changed the name to don't eat my valentine.

MAKE IT: I made a grid with pictures of her family and their dog and filled in the other spaces with other characters, I laminated it and gave it to her with a bag of candy. HOW YOU PLAY THE GAME: One person leaves the room, every one agrees on one picture, then they cover all the pictures with one candy, then the person comes back into the room and start picking pieces of candy, if it isn't the picture that was picked they can eat it, but if it was the candy on top of the picked picture, then everyone yells, DON'T EAT MY VALENTINE!

So my dad is always singing the song

NOBODY LIKES ME, EVERYBODY HATES ME, GONNA GO EAT WORMS

So I made a card with these picture of him and the words to the song on the front, then inside I put a picture of a worm that said...

AHHH!!!! SOMEONE GIVE THIS MAN SOME LOVE!

Hope this post inspired you to make your loved ones some personalized homemade valentines.

Valentine Crafts

Valentines Day is now one of my new favorite holidays. I have the most incredible husband, I am head over heels for him, & there is a holiday to celebrate that!

I saw this in a local craft store and wanted to do this craft so bad, but the wood letters were $3 a piece and the scrap booking kit was $12 and I just couldn't afford it, but I also couldn't forget about it, and with a little creativity and time I figured out how to make it for

ONLY $2.50!

$1 foam board at the dollars store

$.25/paper in the discount section of my local craft store.

I came home picked a font on my computer, resized the letters, and printed them off.

Then, I used the letters to cut out the foam board with a razor, my husband helped me with this part, he did such a good job because he is so precise.

While he was doing that I used the letters he wasn't using to cut out the fancy discounted scrapbook paper.

Then we glued them on the foam board.

My next decoration idea was to buy this glass vase, also at the dollar store and fill it with those conversation hearts. It wasn't as cute as I thought it would be, but I sure loved snacking on those hearts. I also filled the center with newspaper so I didn't have to buy as many hearts to fill it.

Next year I want to make a special valentines frame to put along these two crafts, I want it to say "A Life without Love is no Life at all"

Matching Crochet Hats

Crochet is a hobby I picked up, because it gave me something to do while I watched TV, and I could try and justify that I wasn't wasting my time...TRY is the key word.

My first Crochet project was matching hats for the family, a complete necessity for family pictures for our christmas card!

The pattern is really easy for those who know crochet. (For those of you who have never crocheted before, this will be way to confusing...)

Chain 8 and then slip stitch into the first loop of the chain to make a circle

chain 2 and then fill the circle with double crochet's ending with a slip stitch

Next row chain two and double crochet 2 in every hole, with a slip stitch at the end

Next row chain two and double crochet 2 in the 1st hole, 1 in the next, then 2, then 1... end ss

" " dc 2 in the first hole, 1 in the next, then 1, 2,1,1,2,1,1,2,1,1 " "

so this row the pattern is 2,1,1,1,2,1,1,1 and every row you keep adding 1 until it is wide enough

Now to make in long, stitch 1 double crochet for the rest of the rows until it is long enough.

Then I just winged the ears, and finished it with a single crochet around the whole bottom, including the ears. At the end of the ears I strung some yarn through, braided it, and tied a knot in the bottom.

Our Christmas Cards turned out to be very cute, although I noticed we didn't pick any of the pictures with our matching hats! Don't worry it wasn't a complete waste, a winter hat never goes to waste during an Idaho Winter

Haunted Gingerbread Houses

We never do traditional Gingerbread Houses, it is so much funner to do HAUNTED Gingerbread Houses. If a cookie is broken or the frosting is messy it makes it even better.

No Kit needed ;)

A Halloween Costume for the Pregnant Lady

One of the funnest family home evenings my husband and I have had was making our halloween costumes together. I was 7 months pregnant with our first and decided to do the old bun in the oven idea.

We got a huge box from the local movie theater and then turned it inside out and taped it all up again. The we used tin foil, construction paper to decorate it. We cut the holes with razor cutter and it was so funny because when I tried it on to see if I would fit I got stuck in the box and couldn't get out.

My husband was rolling on the floor laughing. My husband also wanted the front to open so people could see my belly and see our ultrasound pictures, so he used two magnets to make it open and shut.

JON's costume was way easy, he just threw on an apron and then we took a strip of poster board, taped tissue paper to it and wrapped it around his head. He made one good lookin Baker ;)