Recycled Bows

Aren't these bows cute, despite the fact that I'm a lousy photographer? They are way easy and cheap. They are made from magazine pages! All you need is an old magazine, brads, scissors (I used a paper cutter), and a sharp item to poke a small hole. Here are the directions. They are way fun to make. If you have older children, they would enjoy this too. Talk about a way to save money. Put your kids to work. Next Christmas you shouldn't need to buy a single bow. Have fun!

Christmas Breakfast

These are such cute ideas!!!
Go check out some fun Christmas Breakfast ideas from Ramblings of a Crazy Woman. They are all so cute. I think the French toast tree is my favorite, even though she didn't think it was one of her best. If any of you have some fun family traditions, please share.

White Stocking

It wasn't that anyone had really been forgotten, not children had been slighted or made unhappy and no adult had been forgotten. The presents had all be distributed and all the stockings were beautifully filled, all that is except one; It was the stocking intended for the child of Bethlehem. Of all the people belonging at that Christmas gathering, only he had been forgotten. Only he had been left out of the festivities. This didn't seem quite right, inasmuch as it was his birthday that was being celebrated. This year. The little white stocking will be hung in a special place in our home. On Christmas Eve, we will gather the family together and each of us will write on a piece of paper, a gift for Jesus to be placed in the stocking. It will remain in the stocking until next year's Christmas Eve, when we will pass out the papers from the year before. Then we will see how well we gave to the Savior through our gifts.

This is a new family tradition of ours. This story is placed in a white stocking and hung up.You don't have to share what you are giving the Savior, or tell everyone how you did on your gift last year. We don't. It's personal to us. Aand you don't have to use a stocking. Use a gift box and place the gift under the tree. Or, make a family gift, like more regular FHE or more reverence during church. What a great tradition to bring the Savior closer to your Christmas celebration.

Neighbor Gift

OK, so a neighbor gift is not so much a fun activity to do with your kids, but I saw this idea last year on Studio 5, thought it was a great one, but could never find a great tutorial later. That is, until now.
Personalized soap dispenser. What a cute idea!!! Your older kids could help with the project if you wanted. Click here to see the full tutorial. Thanks to Schlosser Designs for sharing this great idea. When I saw it on TV, they put the family's name on the transparency.

Microwave Fudge

I love fudge, but have always been to scared to make it. Now I make microwave fudge! It's easy and not too bad either.

The basic ingredients are :
one bag of chips (chocolate, peanut butter, white chocolate...)
14 oz can of sweeten condensed milk
1 Tablespoon unsalted butter
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
Extras (nuts, marshmallows, craisins, etc)

First, line a 9x9 pan with aluminum foil. Spray the foil lightly with PAM.
Place chips and sweetened condensed milk in a microwave safe bowl. Microwave until melted, stirring ever 30 secs or so. Add butter cut up in small bits. Stir in till melted. Add salt and vanilla (NOTE: if you don't have unsalted butter, try using your regular butter and not add salt) Now you add whatever extras you want. Pour into you pan and sprayed smooth. Place in your refrigerator for 3 hours. Once the fudge has set up, flip the pan upside down on a cutting board, peel off foil, and slice into bit size pieces. Enjoy!

I made chocolate walnut, pistachio craisin, and peanut butter. The peanut butter is way yummy!

Neighbor gifts are now done!

If you have any questions or if you try different "extra" that turn out great, email us. We would love to hear from you.

Edible Christmas Wreaths

You need:
1/2 cup of butter
3 cups of miniature marshmallows
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon of almond extract
green food coloring
4 cups of corn flakes
red hot candies (or another red candy)

I made it in the microwave, but I am sure you can do it on the stove too, just like rice krispie treats. First, in a microwave safe bowl, microwave your butter until it is melted. Then add the marshmallows. Cook in increments of 45 seconds stirring every time until they are melted. Then add the extracts. You can use all vanilla if you want, but J and I are big fans of almond extract, so we add it to a lot of stuff. Then add the food coloring. Make sure you make it a deep green because once you add the cornflakes, the color will lighten a lot. Then add the cornflakes. Make sure to just coat them so that they don't get crushed. Cover a cookie sheet with foil and then spray with Pam. Then just plop the mix by the spoonful onto the cookie sheet and shape into wreaths. This recipe doesn't make very much, so I did 6 medium sized wreaths. Cover with red hots and let stand until set. I hope you could follow that. I am obviously not cut out for writing recipes.

Salt Dough Ornaments

A Feathered Nest has a cute idea to make salt dough ornaments with you kids. Check out her recipe here. I's a cheap and fun holiday activity.

Count Down Till Christmas

Check out thirtyhandmadedays.blogspot.com and littlebirdiesecrets.blogspot.com. They have combed the internet and have found tons of great ideas for advent calenders. I also want to share a couple links from some favorite blogs of mine (If you aren't already check them out on a regular basis.)

skiptomylou.org talks about an advent book series. I've never hear of them before, but it is an intriguing idea.

And another idea I just LOVE is from makeandtakes.com. I found this idea back in February and have just been waiting till the holiday season to share it with you guys.

One more to share... lovelandmisc.blogspot.com has a free download for an paper advent calendar. All you have to do is add fun activities to the back of each day.

If you have any holiday traditions or count down ideas, please share.

Thanksgiving Links

So I've been pretty busy this month. I've done nothing for Thanksgiving yet. I have found tons of ideas online that I want to try. Maybe some will have to wait till next year. I thought I would link them for you.

Cereal Box Turkeys- My Plum Pudding has a great way of using old cereal boxes to make fun puppets for your kids. Or you could use them as place cards.

Traditions & Gratitude- Tip Junkie has a post with tons of great ideas on how to teach you kids the idea of gratitude during this time of giving thanks. The Thanksgiving Tree is my favorite. For another take on the Thanksgiving Tree go to Skip To My Lou.

Speaking of Skip To My Lou....here are some great ideas from here- Aromatic Garland, Turkey Finger Puppets, and Pilgrim Hats. Skip To My Lou is one of my favorite blogs.

And since we are mentioning favorite, Turkey Treats is a great idea from Make and Takes.

If anyone has any ideas they would like to share, please email us. Have a Happy Thanksgiving

Candied Popcorn

This is an easy treat. My mom received as a neighbor one year for Christmas. It is easy and cheap. All you need is popcorn and candy melts. You can purchase candy melts at most craft and/or baking store. I always get mine from Michaels because it's close to my house.
1. You pop your popcorn. If you don't have an air popper, you can use the butterless microwave popcorn. It works too.
2. Melt your candy melts according to the instructions. I use about half a bag of candy melts to one batch of popcorn.
3. Pour the melted candy over your popcorn and gently stir until all the popcorn is coated. It is better to not add enough candy melt at first. You can always add more, but if you put in too much, your popcorn may get soggy and shrivel up. NOTE: I always pick out all the un-popped kernels before pouring on the candy. No one like to break a tooth when eating a snack.
4. Spread the popcorn out on wax paper to dry.
It doesn't take long to dry. Once it is dry, break it up and store in Ziploc bags. You can use any color of candy melts you want (they are all vanilla flavored). I have not tried the brown chocolate candy melts. If anyone tried it, let me know how it tastes. When I first had it, it was white and I thought for sure it was white chocolate. It was Yummy! For neighbor gifts, place it in plastic cellophane bags (I saw them at my dollar store - 12 for $1), tie with ribbon, and place a tag on it....something like "We hope you have a 'poppin' good [insert holiday]"

Here I made it for my cousin's non-farwell lunch. He's going to Italy. Good Luck J.

Princess Hairdos

I was looking online for some cute Halloween ideas and came across a fun hairdo blog, shedoeshair.blogspot.com. If your daughter is a princess this year, you might want to check out some of these great tutorials.

Snow White Hairdo
Jasmine Hairdo
Cinderella Hairdo
Tinkerbell Hairdo and my favorite,
Belle Hairdo

Even if your little girl isn't a princess this year, still check out her blog. She has some great ideas. And she takes pictures of her creating from all angles, so you can see what they are suppose to look like. Some of them look hard to me (but what do I know, I have a baby boy) but others look easier. All of them are definitely worth trying.

Happy Hairdoing. (Is that a word? :)

Halloween Dinner Ideas

Here are some great ideas for Halloween food. Some of these I have tried, some I have yet to try, but all of them look fun.

First, we love Goumet Mom on-the-go! And she has some great posts you need to check out. She is full of fun and spooky diner ideas. And make sure to check out a lot of her other ideas while you are there.
Ghostly Shepard's Pie
Ghostly Pancakes
Spooky Snake Pizza
Not Your Mummy's Meatloaf
Mom?! There's Something In My Dinner

I got a copy of Woman's Day Magazine from a friend of mine. It had some fun dinner ideas as well.
Spider Web Pizzas
Pumpkin Patch Bites (I like it better with Crescent roll dough instead of pie crust.)
Serpent Sandwich
Bloody Soup Shots (goes great with the Pumpkin Patch Bites)
Spiderweb Nacho Spread

I also love a lot of the name brand food sites, like Kraft.com and Jello.com. These recipes came from Pillsbury.com.
Crescent Mummy Dogs
Jack-O'-Lantern Chicken Taco Cups
Witches Finger Sandwiches
Cauldron of Chili With Spider Bread
Toad's Eye Soup With Witches Broom Breadsticks

If anyone tries any other these recipes, please let us know how they are. If you have any ideas to share, please email us at Fun4Mommies@gmail.com. One thing I have learned is green olives make great eyes for any meal.

Happy Halloween!

Christmas Candle

This Christmas candle was a project we did for Super Saturday at my church. It is way easy, cheap, and I thought it would be a good family tradition. All you need is a candle, candle holder, and puff paint (or something similar). We got all of our supplies from Walmart. You place 24 dots of paint on the candle. Make sure you figure out how much of the candle is in the candle holder. You don't want to place any of your dots too low.

The count down starts on December first. You light the candle and let it burn down to the first dot. Be warned, I have been told it takes longer to burn down to each dot than you think it will. So don't think it will be a quick 2 minute activity right before bed.

As you let your candle burn, you read about Christ. I have a paper that has 24 different events in Christ's life, the scripture reference of each event, and what we learn from the event.

Example: Day 1-Raising the daughter of Jairus- Luke 8:41-56- Jesus Christ was compassionate
Day 12-Was baptized- Matthew 3:13-17- Jesus Christ was obedient to God's law

If anyone would life a copy of all the day's let me know. I will send you copy. You could also come up with your own tradition with the candle, such as ready a children's Christmas book every night or talking about Christmas memories.

Birthday Traditions

I was reading a post on thesavvyorganizer.com. The author was talking about a birthday tradition she has with her kids. She never let her kids go to school on their birthday. She spent the whole day with them. I think it is a great way to make their day special, but this is not feasible for everyone (I work), so I tried to think of other birthday traditions that would be fun. I thought of a couple I have heard others say they had.

1. Have a special Birthday Plate. The example I saw was a bright red one. The birthday kid gets to use the special plate. (You can also make it a Celebration Plate. Whenever someone has a special thing to celebrate, such as a good grade, winning a ball game, getting a merit badge, etc, they get to use the special plate. It makes the kids feel special)

2. Decorate their bedroom while they are sleeping. What fun it would be too look forward to a fun room when you wake up in the morning.

3. Birthday kids always got to pick what we had for dinner when I was growing up.

4. Make opening presents into a treasure hunt. Use clues to lead them around until they find the gifts.

The point of these traditions in to make the child feel special and teach them that they are of value. Also, when the sibling know they will have their own turn on their birthday, it give them a chance to help their brother or sister feel special and the celebrate with them.

Please share any birthday traditions with us. Or any traditions at all. Post them as a comment or email us and we will post them on the blog. We would love to hear from you.

Food for the Fourth

With the 4th of July coming close, FamilyFun.com give some creative ideas on how to bring the celebration to your food. One recipe that I like is

Independence Day PopsINGREDIENTS:
3 cups vanilla yogurt
Red food coloring
Blue food coloring
Waxed paper
Sugar cones
Popsicle sticks
1. To make a half dozen pops, tint 1/2 cup of the yogurt with red food coloring and 1 1/2 cups with blue food coloring. Leave the rest plain. 2. Make waxed paper cone liners by folding six 12-inch square sheets into triangles, wrapping each around a sugar cone, and using tape to hold the shape. Then place the paper cones inside the sugar cones. 3. Fill each cone with 1 tablespoon red yogurt, followed by 2 tablespoons white yogurt, then 3 tablespoons blue yogurt. Insert a Popsicle stick and freeze the pops until firm, about 4 hours, using the cone box to keep them upright .

Click HERE for more fun recipes from FamilyFun.com.

Fourth Of July Crafts

I found some fun and easy 4th of July craft from familyfun.go.com. I couldn't decide which one I liked best, so I picked a couple to share.

CRAFT MATERIALS:
	Acrylic paint
	Drinking straw
	Paintbrush
	Paper (or card stock)
	Water
Time needed: 30 Minutes or Less

1. For each color, in a paper cup, dilute some acrylic paint with water to a runny consistency.

2. Using a paintbrush, drip a few drops of paint onto a piece of paper or card stock (be sure to rinse the brush between colors), then hold a drinking straw directly over each puddle of paint and blow gently to create a spectacular starburst effect.

CRAFT MATERIALS:
	Balloon
	Ribbon
	Dried lentils
Time needed: 30 Minutes or Less

1. To make each rocket, use a kitchen funnel to pour 1/3 cup of dried lentils into a round balloon. Then blow up the balloon so it's about 16 inches around and knot it. For the finishing touch, tie several long ribbon streamers around the neck.

Time to run around and get some exercise.

Door Wreath

What you'll need:

• 2 miniature paper plates
• Star-shaped foam stamp
• Red acrylic paint
• Red and blue glitter glue
• Gold alphabet stickers
• Patriotic star garland
• White craft glue
• White yarn
• Scissors
  

How to make it:

1. Cut a piece of yarn to 14” in length.
2. Cut patriotic garland into six 16” pieces.
3. Glue two paper plates together so that they are both facing toward each other.
4. While glue on plates is still wet, place yarn into the top between the two plates, insert about an inch of each end between the plates. Do the same with the garland lengths, securing them between the bottom of the paper plates. Let dry completely.
5. Paint star-shaped foam stamp with a thin layer of red paint. Press carefully but firmly into the center of the plate (don’t smash the plate) and lift straight up to remove.
6. Use a paintbrush to fill in any spots on the star that may not have transferred from the stamp.
7. Squeeze some red glitter glue onto the center of the red star and spread out using a small paintbrush, covering entire star.
8. Use white glitter glue to draw a border around the star.
9. Use blue glitter glue to draw a border around the plate edge. Let dry completely.
10. Apply alphabet stickers to the top of the plate, spelling out “WELCOME”.
11. Wrap the garland around your fingers in a corkscrew fashion to create curls. Stretch them out and manipulate with your hands to get them how you want them.
12. Hang on your door!
    

Tips:

• Check your local craft supply, discount department and party supply stores for patriotic garland.
• Set project somewhere safe and out of place to dry. Avoid areas where pet cats may jump up to investigate.
• Styrofoam plates or even bowls may be used in place of paper plates.
  

(crafts.kaboose.com) This would be an easy project to use for different holidays. Or easy to switch up if you don't have all the right materials. Enjoy!

Have A Ball Decorating

I saw these decorations on luckybeans.typepad.com. They look like they would be fairly easy to make and would look beautiful at any party, a bedroom, or on a Christmas tree.

Needed:
scissors
paper
hole punch
large brads
string or yarn (if you want to hang them)

All you would need to do is cut out numerous strips of paper all the same size. You stack 6 to 8 on top of each other. (You could try more. Just depends on what you want it to look like) Punch a hole at both ends of the stack. Place a brad through the hole. Once the brads are secure, fan our the papers into a ball. They remind me of Chinese lanterns. I made one and it was very easy. They store well too if you decide to keep them. You just push all the strips together till if forms the stack again. (I hope that made sense) Hope you have a ball with this idea.

April Fools!!!

MarthaStewart.com had some cute and harmless April Fools Day jokes.(Though I don't know how harmless the fake cockroach is). Click on the link for some good ideas. Let me know if anyone uses any of them and how it turns out. Also, post any other April Fools ideas you may know. Mom's always need a good laugh :)
http://www.marthastewart.com/

Holiday Footprint

I was talking to my friends at work about holiday traditions and we came up with a of couple easy,but fun, ideas. Warning...Some of these will require you to vacuum after.

Easter- M's husband used to do Easter Bunny footprints when her kids were little. You can cut out a stencil of a bunny footprint using construction paper. Then you lay the stencil down and use baby powder to make the footprint. You could use the footprints as a path to the Easter Basket.

Christmas-At V's house the Gingerbread Man used to try and steal presents on Christmas. In the morning there would be a trail of cookie crumbs to where the Gingerbread Man hid the presents he tried to steal.

St. Patrick's Day- When we were little, one year my mom cut out tons of little green footprints (Leprechaun's prints) and left us a trail to follow. It led to a Leprechaun trap we set. Of course the trap had sprung, but the Leprechaun escaped. His prints led all through house, where little green presents were left for us, things were turned upside down (Pictures, Chairs, Etc), cupboard doors all opened, and even the milk was dyed green. The Leprechaun even left us all a kiss on our cheeks (mom must have gave us a little green dot with a marker when we were sleeping)

***You can set traps for all of these, but of course they are all to smart to be caught :)

Does anyone else have any other fun "Footprint" ideas for any other holidays?