Polar Express Christmas Party

Last Christmas we headed up the decorations for the Christmas party at church.  The theme was Polar Express.  What fun we had with the decorations albeit, very time consuming!

Here you can see the train and the track.  The red in the background is the tunnel.  We had the food  tables as part of the train behind the engine on the track.

 The overall view, but blurry unfortunately. We used lots of paper!  Paper snowflakes and paper tree decorations on the tables.

This was my favorite part...Tomato cage Christmas trees that blocked the tunnel entrance to the North Pole.  I made a sleeve to fit over the tomato cages and then hot glued strips of fabric to the sleeves. The tunnel was made from pool noodles, PVC pipes and red plastic table cloths. 

Through the tunnel, the kids arrived at the North Pole where they found crafts and a visit from Santa.

Mosaic House Numbers

I've been wanting mosaic house numbers for a while now.   My MIL figured out the procedure!  Unfortunately, I didn't learn the entire process well enough to give many details.  I chose a font I liked and printed it the size we wanted.  We used the print-outs as templates to lay out the glass on.  Then we used a mesh to glue the numbers on. Then mortar. They are mosaicked right to the house. 

Rag Quilt #2

The first quilt was fun and fast enough that I had to try my hand at another.  This one will go to the school auction.  Hopefully someone will like a Paris theme. :) 

Rag Quilt

My first rag quilt!

Party Favors

Easy, fun, colorful party favors!

 

Drill gumballs and put on a lollipop stick.  Wrap and tie. 

Pig Out on Personal Progress

We had a year of "Pigging Out on Personal Progress".  I made each of the girls a Personal Progress Piggy Purse to carry their personal progress in that they received at New Beginnings. 

At New Beginnings, I told my own story of the 3 Little Piggy Princesses.  One was foolish and didn't do personal progress, the 2nd a little smarter and the 3rd was dedicated.  I made piggy houses as a visual.  The first house I smashed as I told the story.  The second one I tore.  The 3rd one had cement in it and it was solid and strong.  (I forgot to take pics of the houses before they were destroyed.  The cement house is the larger house in the picture...it survived the storm!)  As I did interviews with the girls, I gave them each a smaller house that was filled with candy.

These are other interview goodies.

 As an incentive, I baked goodies when the girls had completed personal progess.  These picks went in brownies.

And piggie ice cream cone cupcakes.

 

 I often forget to take pics so I don't have visuals for everything but we also had a "pignic" just before summer.  I used brown paper lunch sacks and put in some cut out paper food that had goals on it for our summer pig-out, plus some candies.  I told my own story of "If a Young Woman Pigs Out on Personal Progress." I also made the girls pig rings to wear to help them remember to do their personal progress. These were tied on to the pignic lunch sacks.

 

We had a county fair for Young Women in Excellence to finish off the year.  We talked about Wilbur, from Charlotte's Web, being an ordinary pig but how really he was extraordinary.  I made ribbons to present to the girls that said: "Some Pretty Icredible Girl" (Some PIG)

I hope this helps someone somewhere, which is why I post it.  :)

 

Doll House

We made a doll house out of a book shelf for my daughter's birthday.  It has scrapbook paper + mod podge for walls.  Popsicle sticks were used for the window frames.

 

 

 And we managed to make a few items of furniture as well.  A cute little bed! 

 

My son had the awesome idea of a mini I Spy table.  We used a pink lid that I found as our table top.  For the base I paninted a spool from embroidery thread.