Car Organization

More travel posts.  We have traveled a few times across country and one of the things that I hate the most is the mess!  Every time the doors open stuff falls out.  Coloring books, crayons or pencils scattered across the floor, headphones to the DVD player - you get the picture.  To help combat that problem I searched for ideas online.  I found this tutorial to make an organizer on the back of your van seats.  As you learned in this post, I don't sew.  Apparently I'm not too bad at it because these projects have turned out.  If I can do it so can you!

The post has great instructions, but I will tell you about the few changes I made on mine.  The seats in my car aren't as wide as the tutorials so I made them a little more narrow.  It ended up being about 16 inches wide and the same length.  
The top of my seat aren't as deep either so I added another row of pockets.  This top row is only 3 inches tall (with 2 inches between each row). I sewed it in half so each pocket is 8 inches wide.  I haven't figured what will go here yet, but some ideas are pencils, sunglasses (or glasses case since they will be doing a lot of sleeping), or glow in the dark bracelets.  My second row has 3 pockets instead of 4.  I didn't think much could fit in 2 inches so I eliminated that one.  I made one 7 inches (for a project I'm hoping to get done), one 5 inches, and one 4 inches.  The bottom row of pockets has one at 10 inches and one at 6. 
I also added a Velcro loop on one side to hold the headphones and two button holes on the other side to attach carrabiners.  This is just an extra option to hold things in cases: DS, cameras, PSP, etc.  Their pillows already hold their iPod touch, or in my daughter's case my old iPhone that doesn't have service but still has games.
Post coming soon on an item I'm making to be stored in the little pockets :).

Travel Activity Books

How do you keep children entertained in a car for days on end? Hopefully I found some helps. I stumbled across this wonderful site: Prepared Not Scared. She has some absolutely wonderful stuff (most of which I have yet to discover, but I will take the time in the future to read more)! But for my purposes today I'm going to share her road trip items. She did a beautiful job!

I decided to go with the 4x6 book. I know a lot if people are using these in an 8.5x11 binder, but I wanted something smaller that will store easier in the car. I purchased some inexpensive photo books from Dollar General, printed out her creations, cut them out, and slid them in the books. I let each cold pick out their favorite color car for the cover. 
I haven't done it yet but my plan is to attached the tic-tac-toe game to a sheet of adhesive magnet. I would have it done, but I purchased the wrong kind of magnet (one you print directly on).  I don't think it is strong enough to attract magnets. I also plan adhered the tokens to magnets. I will put them in a snack sized Ziploc bag and stuck them in an extra pocket in the back. I figured it would be easier to retrieve them without ripping the pages if they were in a bag.
There are extra pages in the book. I could search for more games, but I'm thinking that I may have some of of the pictures from our trip printed while we are there and they can look at them on the way back home.
To find the printables go to her travel post here.  For some reason the link to the multiple games in the 4x6 size only shows one game.  If you go here you can find all the travel printables.  Or you can get to them by going to the travel post and at the top right clicking on Folder Three.

The Teen's 'Stache Bash

The oldest is just a teeny tiny obsessed with mustaches.  And while I told her last year that that was her last birthday party (until 16), I got a little excited with all the mustache items out there.  While most parties I viewed were little man parties, I knew we could pull off the teen party with similar items.

First the invitations:

We began with the invitations.  And while I type this I find out I didn't take pictures of the invitations, oops.  I do have a copy of the front of the invitation (because of course it will be available to download).  I cut blue card stock in half and on the front I glued:

On the back I put in the party info and I designed it subway art style.  I can't share it though because my computer crashed and I lost all my fonts.  Now it doesn't show up the right way since I didn't save it as a PDF. 


I used my Cricut to make most of the accessories/gifts.  I ordered the mustaches and glasses from the Cricut Craft Room.  I cut out a bunch of mustaches and made a curtain with them:

The colors of the party were black and white highlighted with blue and pink.  I cut most of the mustaches out on black paper with a few on white, pink, and blue.  Here is a close up of my son being silly, but you will also be able to see what I did.

I took two of the same mustache, some clear beading line, and a tape runner.  I attached the mustaches together with the tape runner, securing the clear line in the middle.  The pattern on each string was: two black mustaches and then a different color, two black, another color, etc.  I tied the strings onto an inexpensive tension rod and hung it in a doorway.  The kids LOVED the curtain.

The supplies I purchased for the party included a large mustache mold, a mustache ice mold, finger tattoos, adhesive mustaches, and chocolate sucker molds:   

 Oh, and I forgot to add the mustache sandwich cutter:

 Let's start with the gift bags:

Here is a close up of the tag on the bag (well all except one word, read on):

I actually saw this idea here.  I emailed her and she sent me her creations, but then I needed to change the colors to match the party.  So I used the same saying and created my own.  After I did so my daughter wanted it to say I instead of we.  You see the original was used at a one year old party so it was a gift from the parents and child.  My daughter wanted it to be just from her.  So I changed the we to I and we used the tape runner to put them on the front of black and white bags.


Inside there was a 12 inch mustache magnet (see below), an adhesive mustache (see picture collage above), a mustache glass filled with m&m's/reeses pieces and chocolate mustaches on a stick.

To make the glass I cut out mustaches on black vinyl and adhered them to the glass.  They now are hand wash only.  I put them where I thought it would look like they were wearing a mustache when they took a drink.  If I had to do it again I would put it a little lower.

Mustache Suckers: I also made a bunch of chocolate suckers.  The light brown ones are peanut butter, the dark brown ones are mint, and the black ones are milk chocolate with black dye.  You have to use an oil based dye for chocolate.  Each glass has three chocolate suckers in it.  I had two molds (as you see in the above collage).  One mold made four of the same thing and one made three different ones.  We ended up with lots of the one style, but that was also the style we used the most throughout the party.

12 Inch Magnet Mustache: With the cricut I also made jumbo magnets.  I bought a roll of adhesive magnet and adhesive felt.  I cut a mustache out of both at 11 inches and stuck them together.  Here is what I learned: You can't put them together before hand because it is two thick and will slice up whatever item is on top.  The cricut does not cut through felt well, but if you use adhesive felt put the paper backing up.  It will cut through it and part of the felt.  You will have to trim it up, but it is a lot easier that way.  I didn't take a picture figuring I would take one of my daughters.  Well guess what, she doesn't know where it is.  Funny since that was her favorite thing!  When it turns up I will add a picture.

With the extra material I also made some small magnets and some stick on mustaches to go with the ones I purchased.


We had lots of Mustache shaped food.  

We had a large Jell-o mustache, large Rice Krispy treat mustaches, large mustache cake, I used the mustache sandwich cutter (pic above) and cut out thick sliced ham, bread, and cheese.  The kids then assembled their own mustache sandwich with the toppings they liked best.  There was a platter of chips, and water bottles for them to 'wet their whiskers':

But we also had glasses with mustache straws:

To make the straws I used the good ol' cricut again.  I cut out mustaches, punched a hole in the middle and then slid it on a blue or pink straw.


I also made some some cup cakes to go along with the mustache cake.  I didn't take a picture of the inside of the cake, but it was a zebra striped cake - black and white to go with the color theme.  I frosted the cupcakes in white and added a chocolate mustache on top.  To make the chocolate mustaches I put some melted chocolate in a squeeze bottle.  I laid mustaches under wax paper.  I outlined the mustaches with the chocolate squeeze bottle and then filled it in with chocolate.  I also dragged the tip through the chocolate to give it texture.

I kept cutting out mustaches on the cricut.  This time I hot glued them onto dowels:

We used these for our photo booth.  I spray painted a large frame pink and they held the frame in their pictures.  We went outside with the woods as the background and took pictures of the girls with their mustache disguises.

Games: As the girls arrived they decorated shirts.  I tried the bleaching the shirts idea.  I bought, shirts, bleach pens, some letter stencils and then I made mustache stencils and set the girls loose.  I had cardboard or thick newspaper in between the shirt.  I also put a plastic table cloth on my table.  The girls were very creative.  Some things to note: we bought black shirts and when bleached turn more of a rust color.  I would recommend a lighter colored shirt.  Don't use too much bleach.  I think the girls thought they needed a lot and they piled it on.  That only presented problems when we washed it.  Since they had so much extra it got on other parts of the shirt.  We started with this activity so I could wash them during the party.  Sorry no pictures I was a little occupied at this point.  

The next game we played is like Headbandz (I'm assuming this is how you play Headbandz anyway).  I used to play it where you put a character or item on your back and you would walk around asking yes or no questions until you figure out who you are.  It is a good mingling game.  Well, the oldest wanted to play it where you put the character on your forehead and went around in a circle asking yes or no questions.  We chose to play it Mustache Style of course.  All the cards had a character from a movie that had a mustache.  To make it easier we mainly used Disney movies or similar animated movies(but not all the Disney movies were animated).  I had the name of the character and the name of the movie to help the girls answering the questions.  The movies in blue are Disney movies and the ones in pink aren't. Again, no pictures of the girls playing the game, but I do have it for you to print and use.
The last game was Truth or Dare.  I HATED this game as a kid because everyone chose mean/evil things.  To prevent this there were questions made up ahead of time for them to draw out of a truth bag or a dare bag.  I used the internet for ideas and then printed them out.  Some of the dares below: wrap yourself in a roll of toilet paper, eat a teaspoon of mustard (three choices she went with mustard), have the person on your left do your hair, have the person on the right do your makeup while wearing a blindfold, take one bite of a sandwich that has one ingredient picked out by each member of the group.  They had a blast.  I had this game last so they could play until parents came.

Here are your downloads:

Truth Questions

Dare Questions

Mustache Characters Game

Mustache You a Question - Invitation Front

Wet Your Whiskers Water Bottle Labels

We Hate to See You Go Treat Label

I Hate to See You Go Treat Label

If you choose to download, please become a follower first (on the right).  I'm happy to share my creations with my followers.  If you would like to leave a comment too that would totally make my day!

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Seat Belt (Travel) Pillow

We will be doing across country trip so I have been busy scouring the internet (and Pinterest) for ideas.  I've found many.  This post is the seat belt pillow.  The first thing you should know is that I found it here: Living Life and Loving Every Second.  Since I don't sew I'm not going to attempt to redo her tutorial.  And since I don't sew and I made one three, I know you can too (seriously, I can count how many things I have made before this project on one hand).  I will tell you what I changed in case you like my adaptions.
I let the kids pick out some soft material they wanted a pillow out of.  Next I cut it out, but instead of two pieces I cut one 12 x 26ish (it may have been a little bit longer - I didn't measure exact, but it was at least 26 inches).  I also cut out a piece 5x7 to create a pocket to hold a iTouch or iPod.

This piece I laid right side up and folded the top down twice.  I didn't sew it, but if I do it again I would sew it down.  I folded the other sides back 1/4 inch and pinned them to the bottom of the pillow.  I sewed it on using a zig-zag stitch.  

Instead of using ribbon I wanted Velcro tabs.  I made one pillow with three and then decided to make the other two with four: I cut eight strips of material out of cotton 3 x 3.5.  I ironed them in half (so I had a crease) and ironed 1/4 inch fold on one short end. I sewed 2 inch Velcro towards one end (the one that wasn't ironed, but leaving room for it to be stitched together).  I folded it in half, wrong sides out and sewed the short end (not ironed) and the long side.  Flip in inside out and pin it on the pillow.  

Sew them onto the pillow (see picture for example, but don't look too closely because my stitching isn't the best).  After the tabs are on, fold the pillow in half - right sides together - and pin.  Sew along around the outside leaving room to stuff it.  Stuff it and hand sew it closed.  I used the ladder stitch I found via YouTube.  Now it is good to go.  My daughter tested it out (in that picture it wasn't stitched closed yet because we were testing the stuffing level) and she liked it so much I may have to make me one too!

If you have questions, let me know.

I Love My Whole Family (Primary Manual 1, Lesson 25)

Sunbeam Lesson #25, I Love My Whole Family

I was recently called to the Sunbeams.  My team teacher and I were formally nursery workers, but when both the sunbeam teachers were released they moved us up to Sunbeams.  I was very sad to leave my nursery class ~ I had a bunch of cute kids!  My Sunbeam class is cute too, they are just more challenging.  We are working hard at getting them to stay in their seats (Any suggestions?).  They have a short attention span.  I guess I should state that I have taught Sunbeams (and then the 4 year olds) for YEARS.  It has been awhile, but it is the calling I've had the most and the longest.  This bunch is a little harder to keep their attention and to keep seated.  I must say we had a great week last week, but we were also a little smaller.  I tell you this to let you know that I like lots of interaction and hands on.  I always search for ideas and hardly ever come up with my own.  Often I will borrow someones idea and recreate the same thing or something similar.  My first source is Sugardoodle.net (and I try to share back with her since I use so many things).  If you know any great site with ideas, please share.

Here is what I plan to do:

First we are going to make a family chain.  I found the original idea here, but made a few more chains and added color.  Each chain has a family member listed: me, parents, brother(s), sister(s), cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents and a box to draw their family in.  At the bottom of this post are the downloads for black and white or color.  I chose to print the chains in color and the heart in black and white using red paper (which is a little thicker than copy paper, but not as thick as cardstock).  I also cut out and put each child's chain in an envelope (the same envelope will be sent to mail their letter - see next idea).  If they had multiple siblings I used the brothers or sisters, but if they only had one then I used the singular chain - brother or sister.

We are also going to mail hugs to an extended family member.  This idea I got here and I didn't change a thing.  I sent it home in an envelope already containing a postage stamp.  Hopefully the parents will just add an address and mail it off!

While at Costco we sampled a cereal that I hadn't heard about before:

Quaker Whole Heart is much like Cheerios, but heart shaped.  How fun is that?  Anyway, we are going to make bracelets with them.  They will have fun edible heart shaped bracelets that we will make as we talk about loving our whole family.

If you choose to download, please become a follower first (on the right).  I'm happy to share my creations with my followers.  If you would like to leave a comment too that would totally make my day!

Download Family Chain Here - Color

Download Family Chain Here - Black & White

And since my daughter FINALLY colored in the stick people (I knew I should have done it myself) on the chains so I could have an example for the kids (and pictures for you), I decided that the chains would look better longer.  So I went it and fixed the documents so that they are.  If you wanted the longer chain version download below.

Download the Longer Family Chain Here - Color

Download the Longer Family Chain Here - B&W
**Make sure you click landscape after the document comes up to print or it won't print correctly!**

If you have any questions or problems, let me know!

I Have Feelings (Primary Manual 1, Lesson 21)

Sunbeam Lesson 21: I Have Feelings 
or
Behold Your Little Ones: Nursery Manual, Lesson 19: I Can Be Happy

I moved the tab so it wasn't right under the mouth.

I made this to go with my lesson in Sunbeams.  However, I was meaning to make it for Nursery during singing time for the song Smiles:

If you chance to meet a frown, 

Do not let it stay.

Quickly turn it upside down

And smile that frown away. 

No one likes a frowning face. 

Change it for a smile.

Make the world a better place

By smiling all the while.  

The kit I bought (I mentioned in my first singing time post that I have pictures for singing time) has something similar and the kids ALWAYS wanted a turn to do it, but since there was only one the singing leader always held it.  So when I came upon the Sunbeam lesson: I Have Feelings ~ and you were supposed to have a happy/sad face ~ I knew what I was going to make! {For those of you that teach Nursery it also goes with lesson 19 : I Can Be Happy.}

All you need to do is:

• download (link at the bottom of this post), 
• print (I recommend cardstock), 
• cut (don't forget to cut out the two windows), and 
• poke a brad through the star (line up the circles first so it goes through both sheets) ~ Teacher Tip: if you lay it on the carpet first it is easier to poke the brad through.
• hold the top circle and use the tab to move the bottom circle.

If you choose to download, please become a follower first (on the right).  I'm happy to share my creations with my followers.  If you would like to leave a comment too that would totally make my day!

Download the Smile/Frown Face Here 

The Itsy Bitsy Spider Song for Nursery

I can't believe I haven't had time to blog about what I have done in nursery.  The reason I can't believe it is because I have already been released (a couple months ago).  I LOVED this calling.  It was great to play with the "babies" since my "baby" is 8.  I was only the nursery leader for about 7 months, but I must have matured quickly because they moved me up a level: The Sunbeams!  I will share things I did in there (I have lots of pictures I took before I turned everything over).  Hopefully I can prepare my lessons a little sooner and share what I am doing with my Sunbeams too.
One thing I learned at my training was to help the kids sing ~ or at least stay with you during singing time ~ was to give them something to hold.  I already had many things made from when I my kids were little, but this idea I'm going to share was genius.  It is so much more fun to hold an object instead of a piece of laminated paper - no matter how cute the paper is. 

I present, The Itsy Bitsy Spider:

The kids absolutely LOVE wearing a spider ring when singing the song!  Ever since I brought the rings to church guess what song they ALWAYS want to sing first?  Yep, the Spider Song!
On my way out I had to leave everything nice and tidy so I made some signage for the spiders.

I recycled a container from our favorite Chinese Food Restaurant formally carrying Sweet and Sour Sauce.  If you don't have one of these nifty containers to recycle you can use Ziploc or Rubbermaid containers:

For my followers, I will share this printable with you!  Oh and I almost forgot.  I know some people sing it Eensy Weensy Spider so I made labels for that too.  Just. In. Case.

If you choose to download, please become a follower first (on the right).  I'm happy to share my creations with my followers.  If you would like to leave a comment too that would totally make my day!

Download Spider Labels here

Thanks for reading!