Craft- Picture Quiet Books

Recently I joined Pintrest. I really didn't want to, in fact I had avoided it. But then I got called to the Relief Society Additional Activities Committee, formally known as the Enrichment Committee, formally known as the Personal, Home, and Family Enrichment Committee, formally known as the Homemaking Committee.  All of a sudden I was in charge of coming up with craft ideas for our ever popular Super Saturday craft day.  

I browsed Pintrest with no intention of joining but pretty soon I realized that I needed to take the plunge, if only to keep straight the craft ideas I was coming up with for our Relief Society event.  I had also been thinking of creating a quiet book for Matty so this helped too. While I was looking around I realized two things: 1-Matty is still six months away from using quiet books 2- I was at least a year away of having the talent to make a quiet book. 

Then I stumbled across the picture quiet book. Perfect not for Matty but to keep James entertained. The premise was simple. Simply Fresh Designs had already created the templates I just had to add pictures. Perfect. They had books on beliefs, Old Testament stories, Teaching of Jesus, Life of Jesus, Book of Mormon stories, Articles of Faith, Gospel ABCs, and Life of Prophets and Apostles. 

I used the LDS Gospel Art book to put in the pictures with my paintshop pro. Then I sent the pictures to Walgreens and picked them up a few days later. I found some 24 photo photo books at Target and Walmart and then put them together. 

Simple and easy, my kind of project.   Now I will have to launch into the other quiet book...maybe next week.

Craft- Back to school and welcome home banners

Back to school, the time of year most kids dread and most moms look forward to with gleeful anticipation. As I child I loved going back to school, I loved pouring over back to school ads and deciding what school supplies I wanted buy, what Trapper Keeper was going to go best with my new folders and pencils.  I would drag my parents to five or six different stores to make sure I got the best deals my babysitting money could buy.   Yeah, I was unlike most kids. 

My kids however cringe whenever I mention how many days are left till the school bell rings. They are even now holing up in the rooms hoping beyond hope that August 27th will never come. 

Recently I was reading the Disney Family Fun magazine and I ran across a craft that was so simple and easy that even I could do, and would solve the kids back to school blues. 

The idea was simple enough. Celebrate summer's end by picking a few activities that we hadn't done yet and pack them into the last few weeks. I just had to make a banner.

Now I like to be crafty, but I am not very good at it. So this was a low key craft for me. 

I made a template first off to have something for my banner.

 And then I got my letters and paper ready

 Look how nice all this looks, really I should be barred from Hobby Lobby, I am just grateful the closest one is about a half hour away.

After the letters were put on I went and got them laminated.  

I had to think about this one for a minute. How do I keep the fun activities on...turns out all those envelopes that I had lying around finally came into good use.

Then I strung and hung the banner. It looked pretty good if I do say so myself.

It worked so well I made a Welcome Home banner too to celebrate the kids arrival from their super long trip.  

This turned out to be one the best crafts  I had ever done and one that I am thinking of repeating for several other holidays.