Operation Christmas Child Girl Scout Packing Party!

Today I wanted to share another one (or two) of my passions with you, Operation Christmas Child and Girl Scouts! Both of my daughters are Girl Scouts and I am a leader for both of their troops. I was a Girl Scout as a child, and went all the way through to bridge to Adults, earning my Silver and Gold Awards along the way. So early in October we had the opportunity to hear a speaker who had received a Shoebox from Operation Christmas Child as a kid in an orphanage in South America, and she was adopted by an American family and now travels around speaking about her experiences.

Happily, I do a lot of work with my good friend, Betsy AKA The Crazy Shoebox Lady so she was able to bring this opportunity to my Girl Scouts! In conjunction with hearing the wonderful speaker, we also packed 100 Shoeboxes to send to kids in need all over the world.

Because of the age of most of the girls who attended, we specifically packed boxes for 5-9 year old girls.  Above is a photo of my two girls, carefully selecting all of the items that will go into their box!

 We got to take a few photos after we finished packing so here is a photo of my girls with the speaker. It was really cool to pack boxes with her! 

And here's what 100 Shoeboxes looks like packed into the Crazy Shoebox Lady's car! Many of the items we packed were collected by the Girl Scouts who attend our local Day Camp in the summer.

Hope you enjoyed this little glimpse into some of my other passions!

Maveryk Onesie

When my friend told me she was naming her baby Maveryk I knew I would have to create him some epic onesies! This one is one of the ones that I've made so far!

I found a few images that I liked and created the aviator glasses hanging on the front of the onesie. Then I used the Top Gun logo for inspiration to create the "danger zone" on the bottom of the back and I had to personalize it with his name too! No off the rack clothes for this little guy when Aunt Mandie is here with her Cricut and HTV!

Yarn Pumpkins

Just a quick post today to share these ADORABLE yarn pumpkins! I love how each one is just a bit different from the other, but they all look cute together!

The pumpkin on the right was made from a heavier weight yarn and I made a pom pom for the base, just wrapping the yarn around two of my fingers spread slightly apart (so you can slide the yarn off at the end) about 25 times. Then I carefully slid the yarn off of my fingers and tied a piece of yarn, about 6" long, around the whole bundle in the center. Then I cut all of the loops and then snipped and shaped until I was happy with my pom pom. Then I twirled each end of a folded in half pipe cleaner around a pencil to make the tendrils. Finally I hot glued the tendril and a cork to the pom pom and I've got a cute little pumpkin!

For the other 2 pumpkins I simply created a yarn ball out of 2 different orange yarns. The one in the middle is the same yarn as the pom pom and the one on the left was a finer yarn. I just wrapped the yarn in a ball shape until I had a good size. Then I used a length of yarn to sew up from the bottom, loop around the pipe cleaner tendril and then back down though the ball. I pulled tight to get a more pumpkin shape to it. Finally I hot glued on the cork and I was done! I also added a dab of glue to the knot and the tail of the ball, which I tucked in next to the knot.

You could easily create a whole pumpkin patch of these adorable little pumpkins!

I'm Back with Fall Floral Projects

So I took a bit of time off from blogging. I had 2 kids, started getting involved with Girl Scouts, PTO, MOPS our local Woman's Club plus working for a craft store as an instructor... so I really didn't have time to craft AND blog about it! But now I should have a little more time, not because I'm doing less, I've decided I need to take back ME. And a huge part of ME is my love of all things crafty. So I've decided, all the fun Girl Scout crafts, stuff I make for myself and for gifts and just... whatever, I'm gonna spend a few minutes each week sharing! I'm also a bit Disney Obsessed so don't be surprised when I start sharing some of the pages from my Disney album!

Today I've decided a couple of pieces that I created while at work!

This is a Fall Wreath that I created for our Wreath Making Class. I just loved the little glass bead corn cobs so much I had to work them into this wreath.

I think this Pumpkin was my favorite project this fall! It's just a small dark teal colored foam pumpkin. The secret to this beauty is, I found a bouquet of flowers that I really liked in the floral bushes and cut it apart and glued it into my pumpkin. It's a quick easy way to create a well thought out design without a ton of time and effort!

Finally this pumpkin was created to look like the one in the class brochure. It's a really pretty combination of stems. This was quite a large piece, this pumpkin was one of the 14" Princess Pumpkins and makes quite a statement piece for a dining table because it sits low enough to talk to each other over!

I look forward to blogging more over the coming months!