Valentines Candy Bracelets

This is such a fun sweet idea to give to the ones you love for Valentines Day OR any day to make someone feel special!!! It could even be a sweet surprise in your child's lunch at school! These bracelets  could be made with many different treats! I chose three different types of valentine candies as examples (Tootsie Rolls, Gum Balls, and Jelly Beans).

There are also other options if you want to stay away from artificial dyes. Jelly Belly has Snapple jelly beans that are colored with real fruit....It's still sugar but a little bit better choice! =)

 Now, the reason it's great I did this first is so I can tell you the reality of this project. This is more of an adult or older child project. I thought it was going to be a lot easier than it was. 

At first I started out with a LARGE needle so I could thread elastic string through it and so my kids could hold onto it better. The needle and elastic were so thick that there was NO WAY a child could do it!

 I changed things up a bit so my 4 year old could get involved! I got out a small sewing needle and dental floss (very thin AND will hold up a lot better than thread)! I was nervous about the small needle but my daughter did well after I talked to her about being careful! Of course the elastic string bracelets are easier to get on and off but its just way to much trouble to make them with it! Anyways, once a child gets a hold of one of these, I'm sure they wont be wearing them long before they GOBBLE them up! =)

If you are going to make a bracelet out of jelly beans, they are sticky when you poke the needle through. The needle needs to be wiped every other bean because of sticky residue. My 7 year old could do the jelly beans by himself but my 4 year old daughter needed help. I would say, the best way to involve a younger child would be to first take a LARGE sewing needle and poke holes through your gum balls. I say gum balls because there is no sticky residue. When you do this it makes them like beads and they are very easy to thread. 

It was hardest to string the Tootsie Rolls because I did it lengthwise. I figured if I did it the other way you would need TOO MANY to make one bracelet! If you want to string the Tootsie Rolls lengthwise its more of an adult project and you will need a long large needle. However, a child should be able to string through the center of tootsie rolls with a smaller needle!

 Success with gum balls! She did it all by herself! 

Once you are done double knot the floss together and make sure you have about an inch excess floss after the bracelet is tied!

No matter what candy you choose, you will have to make a tassel for your bracelet! I chose a heart shape because these are for Valentines day but you can really do this in any shape you want! Cut these shapes out of nice scrapbook paper. Make one a little larger than the other. Your smaller shape will be where you write your saying so make sure its large enough that you have enough space to write on it. 

 Next, dab a little hot glue in between the two sheets of paper right on top of your excess floss.

Press you smaller shape on top of the hot glue!

   

 Cut off the extra floss that is hanging out of the bottom from between the paper shapes after the hot glue drys!

Then write your cute saying on the smaller shape.

 This next step is optional! I sealed my heart tassels with sparkle Mod Podge!

 Paint your Mod Podge on the tassels and let them dry. Be careful not to touch the candy when painting!

  

While you are waiting for your Mod Podge to dry, you can make envelopes for your bracelets! You have to put these bracelets in something if you are going to hand them out to people because no one wants to eat candy that has been all over the place!!! Unless you are using candy with the wrapper still on, like Tootsie Rolls! 

I wanted to have a somewhat see-through envelope so I used vellum paper. Check out the cute, do it yourself, Heart envelope idea I found on Forty Weeks and Then Some. It's so simple and a lot cheaper than buying a bunch of envelopes! 

   

 I love the glittery seal the Mod Podge gives the Heart tassel!

I thought I would give you a few more ideas for your candy bracelet saying.

• GUM BALLS~ "I CHEWS you" or "You BLOW me away"
• TOOTSIE ROLLS~ "I like the way you ROLL" or "ROLL with me toots"
• JELLY BEANS~ "BEAN mine" or "Thanks for BEAN my friend"

One idea I though of after doing this project with my kids was to make a bracelet out of any kind of gummies! Your child should be able to string their own because gummies don't have a hard shell around them like jelly beans and gum balls have! 

• GUMMIES~ "GUMMY a hug"

 Happy Valentines Day!

The Best Play-Doh Recipe & Other Uses for Alum Powder

Recently my mom sent me some Alum. It is a white powder that you normally find in the spice section. In the previous century Alum was used in food preparation, especially in pickling. It would help keep pickles crisp and crunchy! It was also a common component of baking powder which helped baked goods rise. It is not commonly used in foods today because they found that consuming large amounts of the spice isn't good for you. 

First, I want to explain why my mom sent me some Alum. We use it to help take away the pain and heal Canker sores of the mouth! All you do is wet your finger, dab it into the Alum powder, and then touch the sore area in your mouth. At first the Alum will taste sweet and then it quickly turns sour. Just immediately spit in the sink once you dabbed it on your sore! Then rinse your mouth with water and spit out to get extra residue of alum out of your mouth! It works by drying out the sore which helps it heal quickly! I'm telling you it REALLY works! 

As I researched Alum to do this blog post I found out a few other interesting uses for it!

• I found that if you mix Alum powder with water to create a paste, you can put it on furniture or other things your dog/cat are chewing in your home and it will deter them from that spot. It will leave a white residue while you are trying to keep your animal away from chewing area. However, after a few weeks your animal will not want to chew the area and the white residue will wash away!
• Alum can also can help you out with Acne!!! A mixture of 1/4 cup of witch hazel and a pinch of Alum can be applied as a paste on acne/pimples! The powder can also be mixed with hot water, rosewater, or egg white and applied on the face as a mask for 15 minutes. This will close the pores and remove acne.
• It is also an ingredient in Play-Doh. Below you will find The BEST Homemade Play-Doh Recipe! It is so soft and will last for MONTHS if you seal in an airtight container!

What you need to make Homemade Play-Doh

• 2 1/2 cups of flour
• 1/2 cup salt
• 1 tablespoon Alum
• 2 tablespoons oil
• 1 3/4 cup boiling water
• food coloring

Boil some water and then measure out what you need into a glass measuring cup. Then stir in Alum, Oil, and food coloring.

In a separate mixing bowl stir together your flour and salt.

Pour your warm liquid into your flour mixture. Once all ingredients are mixed together, knead well. Add flour if sticking to your hands.

Then, have fun playing and creating with this soft dough!

I suggest cutting this recipe in half if you are only making it with one child!

**Tip** If you can't find Alum in the spice section of your grocery store you can always go to the pharmacy and they will special order it for you. My mom got hers ordered from the Target pharmacy. It's very inexpensive for a large quantity.

Healthy Birthday School Treat Idea

I feel like I haven't blogged in a LONG time! I have been pretty busy with life recently. My Big boy Brenden just turned 7 years old! We had a great time celebrating! I wanted to share with you a little about what we did for his birthday but most of all, I wanted to share the treat we brought into his class for his special day!
Every mom knows that with Birthday's come birthday treats for class. I always hear of the treats that my boy gets because of another birthday. I don't know about you but I don't want to fill up little tummies with more artificial dyes and Sugar! However, I don't want my son to bring something that all the kids wont eat and/or like! After searching the internet I found a cute idea of butterfly snacks! 

I thought it would be fun to put fruit in the wings of the butterfly to make this a cute AND healthy treat! Also, I wanted to keep the cost down so instead of buying clothespins I simply tied the bags together with a pipe cleaner!

What I did was divide the fruit somewhat equally on each side of a snack bag. The fruit I used was grapes, blueberries, and mandarin oranges but you can do any mixture of what you have on hand or what's in season. 

Then you simply fold a pipe cleaner in half twist it and then bend it back up.

   

 Twist the pipe cleaner at the top of the bag and bend like ears.

   

 Next, I drew butterfly bodies on a plain sheet of scrapbook paper and Brenden drew a different face on each of them. Brenden was very excited to bring the butterflies to school to show off all of the different faces he made up! 

After you cut out the bodies, you just hot glue the paper bodies to the pipe cleaners. 

I also wrote "Happy B-day Brenden" on every body.

   

There you have it! A healthy snack for your child's class that their teacher will thank you for bringing in! And for what it's worth, my son told me his first grade class loved the treat!

I also wanted to show you what Kiki and I made for Brenden. I got out my trusty large roll of paper and we made a fun poster size sign to surprise Brenden when he woke up on his birthday. I looked up some of his favorite characters and printed out coloring pages of them. Kiki colored them and I cut them out. Then we glued them into a large city scene with a billboard the said "Brenden Dean is seven years old!" We also added a cake because Kiki LOVES to color cakes!!!

Instead of planning a party, we stayed the weekend at a hotel in the area with an indoor swimming pool! My kids LOVE hotels and pools so this was the perfect thing to do to make Brenden's birthday special. What was even better was that the hotel didn't mind us inviting guests to swim with us!

Below is a picture of Brenden, holding up seven fingers, in the pool area. This was an awesome pool because it was half indoor and half outdoor! You could swim under the wall and be outside! It did make the water a little colder than we would have wanted but it was so much fun!

 Another milestone we hit while staying in the hotel was our little Garren turned seven months. 

Here is a picture of my seven year old holding my seven month old.

 Lastly, I am so proud of Brenden. On his actual birthday he accomplished a goal he had been working on for a while now. At Gymnastics class he climbed the rope ALL THE WAY to the top and rang the bell. Before this he would always stop halfway at the knot. I wish I knew exactly how high this rope goes... if you can't tell in the video below, it's pretty high!

Here's to new years and accomplishing goals!

Hidden Name Ink Drawings

I went searching for one of my old sketchbooks from 99/00, thanks to my friend Kalen!

I thought that I would open it up and show all of you some of my drawings. These black ink drawings all have a similar theme. I love lettering and I loved trying to hide words into pictures. 

Basically, what I would do is come up with a main theme or picture that I was going to draw. Then after coming up with a picture I would try to work the name into what I was going to draw. A lot of times I would try to work with the letter in the middle of the name I was drawing.

For Example, This one is of my old cat's name Kayla. I first incorporated the Y in the middle of the cats face and as the nose. Then, after getting most of the face drawn, I would incorporate the rest of the name to the picture. 

The awesome thing about lettering is that they can be transformed to fit into any shape!

In this next example, I started with the A, in the name Suzanne, as the bottom part of the butterfly's body. Then after drawing the main outline shape of the butterfly, I worked the rest of the name in!

My friend Adrian loves cars and especially BMW's!!! So what I did for his name was used the BMW symbol as the dot in the i of his name!

My friend Aaron is Irish so I used a clover to draw his name around!

This one I drew of, My man, Jason's name....At the time he had a 1963 Bug so I drew his name in the shape of one. I love how the O in his name is one of the wheels of the bug!

This one says Ali in the "lava"part of the lamp. Can you see it?

One of my friends named Randy was always skateboarding...

This flower says Nicole.

This one was from when Christina Aguilera came out with "Genie in a Bottle".  I love how I used the C in her name as the handle on the bottle. Then I simply worked the rest of her name into the bottle shape.

 Pokemon was really big when I was doing a lot of these sketches! I had kids asking me if I could do their names in a specific character.... Sorry I don't remember the Pokemon characters names... maybe you do!?

This first character had 9 tails and I drew the name in them....it says Weston! Can you see it?

As you can see, the sky is the limit with this type of art! 

This one says Eric... you can see it in the wings! 

 One of the greatest things I have gotten to do with my art was design a tattoo for Tyrone Wells. I used to sketch with my friend Dar at some of the places that Tyrone's old band Skypark used to play at. He is now a solo artist!

Here is a drawing I did of his name using his face as the O!

He liked my style of hiding things in a simple way and asked if I could come up with an armband tattoo that represented the three most important things to him, at the time. The three things were God, People, and Music! After a few sketches and playing around with ideas, I came up with this!

If you can see the word GOD is at the center. Then the O in God is the head of two people going out both to the left and to the right. Lastly, between the legs of the people are music notes which also form the heads of more people!

Here is an old picture I took of Tyrone after he got the tattoo! Sorry, it doesn't really do it justice!

Tyrone is a great song writer and he has a BEAUTIFUL voice! You might have heard some of his music walking through a store or on tv/movies without even knowing it. You have to check him out!

I also wanted to add these pictures from a concert we took Brenden to when he was 16 months old, 2007! Leah Nash, from Sixpence None The Richer, was playing with Tyrone!

   

I will leave you with one of his music videos, also click HERE if you want to check out his website and tour dates! I was lucky to meet and know him before he got BIG! =)