Happiness in Family Life & Other Activity Day Ideas

 

This week for our activity day activity, we are making these wooden blocks as a Mother's Day gift.

I first saw the idea at ldsactivitydayideas. There is a free download for the quote, making it super easy for that part: print & cut.

The wood blocks are 5 1/2 in. by 7 in. painted with matte black craft paint.  The paper is a light cream, cut to 5 in. sq.  I lightly distressed the edges with walnut stain distressing ink.  The ribbon is a light cream 5/8 in. grosgrain from HobbyLobby about 35 in. to leave plenty of room for a bow or to trim however the girls would like it to be.

 

Another cute version found at strawberrypearlstudios.

 

We believe the family is ordained of God

 

I am also going to print out scripture stickers like the ones at meckmom (I bought the sticker paper from her etsy shop).  I downloaded the most current edition of The Family a Proclamation to the World  and converted it to black & white to use.

 

In April, we did a scavenger hunt based on the 13th Article of Faith/My Gospel Standards inspired by this one at abushelandapeck. I changed/added a few things for our scavenger hunt and had some things printed off from For the Strength of the Youth that went along with the categories.  We also used a sudoku puzzle, a crossword puzzle and a page from the Friend on the 13th Article of Faith.

Also this from the New Era and this from a General Young Women meeting.

 

In April we also had an activity about budgeting.  The girls brought a plastic container to label to use as a place to save money for a certain item they'd like to earn and save money for.  We talked about several categories they should think about allocating money to: savings, tithing/fast offerings/mission fund, saving for an item and spending money.

We also played a game where we brought several items and had them write down how much they thought each item cost to give them an idea of how much items they use daily/weekly really cost.  This idea was also inspired by blogs with LDS activity day ideas.

Some articles we used were:

Making sense of dollars and cents

The doll dilemma

A dollar here, a dollar there

 

Other activities we've had this year include:

 

Babysitting. 

We gave them a small bag and a few items and forms to start a babysitting kit.  We went over things they should do & ask about when someone asks the to babysit, what information to make sure they have while they are babysitting and just some general things that are a good idea to do & be aware of while they are babysitting.

Some ideas:

"Bee" a great sitter

Babysitting kits

Babysitting bags

 

The Sacrament.

Based on the conference talk Blessings of the Sacrament.  We actually watched a video clip of Elder Clarke giving the talk.  We discussed ways to be more reverent each Sunday.

I made a handout with the main points from the talk.

Why is the sacrament important?

How should I behave in sacrament meeting?

 

 

 

Missionary Night.

We invited the sister missionaries to meet with us and tell the girls a bit about serving a mission and to answer some of their questions.

We also had the girls write to the missionaries from our ward.

ldsactivtydayideas

 

Personality posters & washer jewelry.

We had a poster board taped on the wall for each girl, had her stand in front of it and traced around her head and shoulders.  Then everyone went around writing things they liked about one another on each other's posters.  I then took a photo of each girl in front of her written on poster.

While I was snapping pictures, the girls made washer necklaces & bracelets with cute scrapbook paper.

Idea from here.

 

Music.

The other leader I work with is a talented musician.  She went over some music and music leading basics with the girls and we played a game about some of the musical items we went over to see if the girls could recognize what they were.  We also practiced the song I'm learning the Ways of Jesus to sing in sacrament meeting. 

 

These have also been great to use for family home evening ideas.

sewing projects for New Beginnings

I made a cute banner for our New Beginnings decor!  I used the colors for the values, and most of it was from fabric donated by a sister in the ward.  I had white in my stash, and had to buy a bit of orange.

The theme this year is "Stand in Holy Places" so we had each girl bring a pair of shoes from something they did that tied to a PP value.  They brought shoes they wore to their first temple trip, or shoes worn during service activites, etc.  I used little baby shoes in each value color as display.  (except I forgot the shoes at home for Good Works, darn!)

The nice thing about church activities down here in Argentina is that the expectations are low. Pretty much anything you do is super appreciated. It makes me think of all the fluff we do in the states that we think is important. :) 

I also made some book holders for the girls so they can keep their PP book, journal, a pen and strength of youth together.  The YW were super excited and now maybe they can keep track of their stuff and keep working on it!!  The tutorial came from pinterest...
http://chocolateonmycranium.blogspot.com.ar/2012/01/young-women-personal-progress-book.html
I didn't want to do the ribbon, cuz I knew it would get knotted and frayed and wrinkled.  So I just sewed on some velcro and glued a big decorative button on top.  It ended up taking me like an hour for each one.  I did one step for 6 of them at a time, but it took forever!  Plus, I kept messing up and having to un-pick.  Will I ever grow out of that?? 

Sarah cried her eyes out and said I never make her cool things.  Seriously??  I made her something very similar for her to keep her journal in at school.  I get no credit around here! 

:)

easter bags

Every Easter, I always wish my kids had big easter bags for egg hunts. Baskets just don't work well, especially in big groups of scrambling kids.  So this year, the night before an Easter egg hunt at a church near here, I busted out some cute bags.  They certainly aren't perfect, but I guess I think they're kinda cute.  I can't believe I've lived my life without getting into applique!  It's so fun and relatively easy for a big impact.  :)

Best part of this project:  FREE!  I made these from supplies in my stash ... bags made from curtains I trimmed and hemmed, the rest of the scraps are just from the endless pile! :)

Twirly Skirt: Navy, Pink & White

Finished sewing this skirt last Friday morning.  The fabrics are from Jo Ann's (last Spring), isn't the navy flower print with dots so cute!  I think the pink ruffle is a Heidi Grace fabric.

 

It'd been cut out ready to sew since last Spring when I taught a class on how to sew twirly skirts for girls.  Glad I finally got around to sewing it; just in time for a church Easter activity and egg hunt K* went to.

Easter Banner

Easter banner made by my mom.

It's so happy, bright and colorful! 

If I weren't trying to figure out an Easter dress for K* I might have made one for myself.

Emmeline Apron in Good Fortune

 

Emmeline apron from Sew Liberated in Kate Spain's dragonfly & sakura prints in harmony from her good fortune line with bella solids purple (9900-21).

 

The purple sakura print is probably one of my most favorite prints ever! I bought it last year knowing I was going to make myself an apron with it.  I just love it. I have some more, not sure what I'll make with it yet, perhaps a sewing machine cover?

Over the years, I have sewn Emmeline aprons as gifts for friends and my sweet K* always asks when I'm going to make one for myself.  Well, finally I did, just before my birthday at the beginning of February.

Photo Booth Props

 

Last week my friend came over and we cut out photo booth props for the upcoming Spring activity at the elementary school.  She took most of them home with her, but I snapped a shot of the few I finished up after she left.  She's going to laminate them and then attach them to sticks. We cut out hats, cowboy hats, lips, mustaches, crowns, glasses, bow ties, ties and thought bubbles {she's going to laminate those and then you can write on them with a dry erase marker}.

This blog post by kensi kate is where all of the fun & free prop images came from.  I traced them with my silhouette software and cut them out on card stock.

Valentine's 2013

 

o "fish" ally the best idea from eighteen25.

I formatted my own, but she made a printable you can use. 

And a great compilation of valentine ideas at simply kierste.

ah-MAZE-ing valentine printable from balancing home. 

This is what S* & K handed out to their classes.  K* wanted to add hearts to the pencils to make them look like arrows {like they do on balancing home} but I was feeling a bit lazy, so we just did plain pencils.  I did happen to have 4 boxes of 12 pencils already in my office supply stash, so no running to the store was necessary to make these.

 

And some more fun Valentine decor my mom made:

Chore Card booklets

 

During January, we talked with S* & K* a lot about being responsible.

 

{I deleted a long winded few paragraphs here.  It felt good to type some thoughts out, but then I decided to keep them to myself so this post wouldn't be so long and boring.  Mainly, the classic struggle of parenting and that I don't want to disservice my children by not letting them learn to be responsible and motivated in life.}

 

So, I made up these chore card booklets for them.

 

I thought it would be helpful to have down what is really expected of them each morning, afternoon, evening, daily, weekly, etc.... I also thought that they might like to have a place listing various activities they have, what time they need to be ready so we can leave and what they need to have with them to be prepared.  I don't have to tell them, they can look ahead and know.  Hopefully this will mean I won't be "nagging" or "refereeing" as much.  And that I will have to let the natural consequences of not being prepared teach them lessons instead of me always trying to make it all perfect.  This of course assumes they will even look at the booklet and want to mark things off.  The booklet lists several things in certain areas because I want them to feel like they are making progress each day by being able to check things off.  Who doesn't love checking things off on a "to do" list !?! And hopefully in the future, they'll do these things automatically out of habit{most of the time anyway}.

 

 

With some of the leftover paper scraps I made these bookmarks with my silhouette and a Patty Young bookmark file.

 

Which, I then placed in these Valentine's mailbags{another item found in storage!!} that I made previously.  I tie them on the backs of S* & K*'s kitchen chairs at the beginning of February and they have fun putting little notes in there for each other. I try to put little things in there for them to find after school most days.  I just LOVE Valentine's Day.