Brag

First Freebie!

Our Young Women Presidency decided we wanted to give our girls a little extra challenge this year. We knew they needed a nudge to strengthen habits. And with the Olympics coming, we decided an Olympic theme would be an appropriate challenge theme. We didn’t want it to be easy. Habits don’t just happen. But since it’s not easy, there are only 3 goals. The first one is to read their scriptures for 120 CONSECUTIVE days. The Second goal is to say their prayers for 120 consecutive days. We also set the goal to attend the temple 8 times with their own names. Our ward is pretty close to the temple, so it shouldn’t be too hard of a goal. If you don’t live so close to a temple, you could just make it a goal to find 8 names that need temple work.

Anyway, I decided, since it’s pretty specific, I’d just make it a freebie instead of loading it up on Etsy.

New photo by Keira / Google Photos

At new beginnings, we will give each of our girls one of these bracelets

New photo by Keira / Google Photos

You can buy them at templesquares.com. I’ll add a little note that these are NOT the bracelets we ordered, but when they got here, we just went with it. They come with this little scripture charm on the leaf, but we took them off because they’ll earn the charm when they complete the goal.

New photo by Keira / Google Photos

They will also get a charm for saying their prayers, but we didn’t want that one to be earned until Girls’ Camp (they can complete it now, but we will have an award ceremony at GC to hand them out there). Our Girls’ Camp Director is ordering those, so I don’t have them.

We ordered our temple charms from Doodle Beads, and I love them! If you need a lot (like we did), I’d recommend you contact them (like I did). They were great to work with, prompt, and very approachable.

I’m sure you could come up with any goal prizes you wanted to. You could award charms or make it so if they earn all 3 goals, they get one big prize. In fact, I will be making a few bracelets of my own soon (clerical error, I have charms we aren’t using), and they’d make great prizes. I’ll post the Etsy link when I get that far.

Anyway, click on the picture and it should take you to google drive, if I did it right, and you can download the page there. If I did it wrong, lemme know. We’ll fix it. 😉

Brag, Recipes

Soft salts for a baby shower

Guess what? My sister’s having a baby! like, in a month. I’m actually pretty excited. We’ve got her shower coming up and so we made her favors the other day. I LOVE them. I’m sort of hoping she doesn’t have that many people show up, so I can keep some of the left-overs (Some, because of course the pregnant mommy should have her fair share).

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  • 16 c Epsom salt ( I’d change it to 12 cups and add 4 more cups of sugar)
  • 3 c sugar
  • 2 c quick oats (or oats run through the blender)
  • 2 cups Dr Teal’s Body & Bath Oil with Olive Oil & Aloe Vera (looks like they’ve replaced it with coconut now.) You could just use regular olive oil, if you wanted, too.
  • 4 cups coconut oil (I would probably add more for personal use, but this was more of a bath salt instead of a scrub)
  • 1 tbs vanilla
  • 10 drops rose oil (ours was cheap stuff, so this may vary)
  • 8 drops lavender

Mix it all together and divide into favor-sized containers.

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It smelled so good! And it was so pretty and sparkly. Perfect for a winter baby! This made about 22 cups of scrub. It ended up a really light scent, but that’s perfect for a baby-shower gift. For my personal use, I’d definitely cut back the salt and add more coconut oil. I’m more in favor of a scrub than just salts.

A Day in the Life, Brag

Oz Party Games

We had lots of cool games at our Oz party. And none of them took too much time on my part, which is also a plus.

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First we played toss the heart in the Tin Man. I kind of just let the girls toss it as much as they wanted, and they kept going and going, so I didn’t really stick to any rules.

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I got the hearts and the pails at the local craft stores. Easy peasy.

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Then I totally cheated and pulled out our Halloween game of pin the nose on the witch, drawn by yours truly last October. The Girls wanted to play it a few times, too. And I let them. Why not? It’s their party?

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Then it was time to move to the table, where we had a bunch of “teacups” set out. We got what we could find at the local thrift store. Don’t get me started… See previous post, about the shoes). They don’t all match, but what do the girls care? They’re all going to their own houses, anyway. I had them take them home to bake, so I sure hope they worked. We sent home a little note that said to place them in the oven and then pre-heat it to 400 degrees.Leave them in for 40 minutes, and then turn off the oven and let them cool inside. I’d google it before attempting. It seems like a hit-or-miss project. My girly hasn’t baked hers yet, she just keeps her pens in it. Works for me.

 

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Next, we moved on to the snacks. Seriously, I know what they say about teenage boys (and I’ve witnessed that it’s true), but 9-year-old girls can still eat their weight! (I took the cup pictures while they were eating, hence why there’s wrappers and 1/2 eaten suckers in all of them.

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When we were all done, the placemats became the next activity and the party favor bag. Two birds, one stone. The girls really enjoyed it, and it made me feel better about the fact that I was going to have these made up and just didn’t find the time. So, on the fly, I created this craft! If I had been the one to make it I would have cut off the little brand-name strip and probably would have glued instead of taped, but tape sounded like the best bet for a bunch of girlies. Quick, easy, and mess free.

Started by folding our paper into fourths. Then cut off 1/4 of the page. Turn the paper around, and fold the other direction, but this time, fold in from the sides and skip the middle fold. Then, on each corner, fold diagonally by taking each folded corner and having them meet up. The girls needed shown what I meant, but they all figured it out (The one that struggled with the craft had my sister and the “birthday” girl help her the whole time, and everyone else cruised along). When all the corners were taped (My sister and I debated about which end was better to fold the triangles at, and never really decided. I think it mostly depended on how the girls folded), we moved on to the lid. Measure the lid against the box, and cut (it’s 1/2 of the paper, in case you were curious), then take the lid and fold in half plus an inch (meaning find half, then scoot it over a little bit so there’s a spot to tape it to the box), on both sides, so the basket has 2 openings. Then cut the other strip in half and either use one strip for a stronger handle, or use both halves taped together for a longer handle (some of the girls picked one option, some picked the other. Personally, I’d pick stronger, but it doesn’t really make too much difference. No one had too weak of baskets, or had any break before they made it home, so it worked out well.

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Then pass out the favors (ours included bubbles, an apple, and a lollipop from the snack table. I would have loved to include a glittery red nail polish, but I can’t find Bon Bons anymore and I’m not paying 6$ per kid just to include polish! So we used it as an activity, bought 1 bottle of nail polish, and painted everyone’s nails in turns between “Yellow Brick Hopscotch,”  (Hopscotch drawn with yellow chalk).

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Oz party success with incredibly easy games. I say that’s a win.

Brag

Brag post

someone posted on a yard-sale group recently asking if anyone made belly sashes in the area. I jumped at the chance. My house is full of singed flowers that didn’t sell very well at the fair. I told her to come and take a look at what I had and that I’d give her a steal (I really did. Have you seen how much these retail for on Etsy? I should be making more of these!

She came over and we played with flowers for a little bit and I threw in a baby headband and a little girl headband.

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Headband for her daughter

 Headband for the future newborn.

I  called up my prego sis and had her come model for me. She was less than thrilled, but did it anyway.

I know that I could make these pictures better in Photoshop (GIMP. I like GIMP), but I’m hoping to get pics from the actual photographer, and they’re guaranteed to be better than I can take (we know how great I am with pictues).so I’ll see what I can get, and you guys will have to suffer with awful product pictures. But aren’t these headbands super-cute even without my picture abilities? I’m pretty proud of them, actually.