Easy Olympic Torch

No Olympics would be complete without a torch, right?

Well, here is about the easiest torch ever!

 

All you need is:

a piece of gold metallic poster board

double sided adhesive

assorted colors of tissue paper including red, yellow, orange, gold

Roll poster board into tight cone shape; secure with double sided adhesive.

Inside the cone, make several verical lines with the double sided adhesive.

Insert tissue at various lenghts to mimic flames.

Ta-da!!  A torch!!!

Great prop for our Olympic Party!
CLICK HERE to see the OLYMPIC PARTY INVITATION

Go USA!
Smiles!


Back to School Treat

Ok, I'm asking you to please bear with me as I share a few back-to-school crafts over the next few days.
These pencils are what I'm sending with my eldest to his first day of Kindergarten.  I saw this idea in the September 2010 publication of Creating Keepsakes.  It was created by Jaime Ward from an idea she saw on scrapmatters.com.  I haven't had the time to check it out, but after I get this boy off to school, I'm going too!  Happy Back to School!

 Update:  A printable pattern for Valentine Pencils has been added to my ETSY store.

I'm also offering a Custom Printed Pencil Printable.

Check it all HERE!

Or, a BLANK PATTERN HERE!

 

 

To make your own:

3 1/2 " x 4 1/2 " yellow cardstock

pinking shears

3 1/2" x 1/2" pink cardstock

1" circles pink cardstock

3 1/2" x 3/8" aluminum foil

Rolos

Hershey kisses

adhesive

 

UPDATE:  Would you like a pattern & directions to make it a little easier??

Would you like a customized pencil printable??

Stop by my ETSY shop HERE

 

 

Linking to these great parties:

MMM at C.R.A.F.T.

Whatever Goes Wednesday at Someday Crafts

Show and Tell every Wednesday at Blue Cricket Designs

Sugar and Spice at seven thirty ten

Strut Your Stuff at Somewhat Simple

Show off Your Stuff at Fireflies and Jellybeans Under $100 at Beyond the Picket Fence Fingerprints on the Fridge The Shabby Nest Its a HodgePodge Friday Look at Me at Fun to Craft Frugalicious Friday at Finding Fabulous Weekend Wrap-up Party at Tater Tots and Jello  Saturday Spotlight at Craft Envy Everything but the Kitchen Sink at a Little Knick Knack Mad Skills Monday at Support Blog for Moms with Boys Just Something I Whipped Up at the Girl Creative Making the World Cuter Market Yourself Monday at Sumo's Sweet Stuff

Motivate Me Monday at Keeping it Simple

</ a="">

Mini Care Package - Day 3

Did you happen to see the article in the August edition of Living by Martha Stewart?  She had an interesting article about braiding fabric, yarn & leather.  She used the braids for shoe strings, belts, bracelets, and cording.  Since I had some fabric left over from the fabric flower I  made my goddaughter earlier this week, I thought I'd give it a try.  The braided fabric makes a pretty cute little bracelet for her to wear at camp.

I also noticed a tutorial at Fireflies and Jellybeans using Mod Podge Dimensional Magic to make charms and ring toppers.  It looked pretty cool, so I thought I'd give it a try, too.  You can find it here.

Since sweet goddaughter's bracelet turned out so cute, I used the left over fabric braid to make myself a double wrapped bracelet.  Pretty cute!

smiles!

Jami

Mini-Care Package ~ Day 2

My sweet goddaughter is at camp until next week and I HAVE to send her things.  It was always such fun getting mail at camp...especially mail with some kind of treat in it! 

While checking out the camp's posting of daily pictures, I've notice my sweet goddaughter is looking awfully hot.  Her face is flushed and her hair is damp all along her hair line.  Auntie Jami thinks she needs to pull that beautiful chestnut hair that falls just below her shoulders back into a ponytail. 

OK, so I know you've seen these a MILLION times out there in blog land, but I had to show you my efforts!  I used the tutorial at V and Co. and I highly recommend it.  They were super easy to make and I think they turned out SUPER cute, too! The green & white fabric and the green buttons were on sale at Hobby Lobby this week  (I think the ribbon was, too, but I already had the ribbon,) which was great because those are the colors of her tribe.

 Hoping they're not too froo-frooee for camp. 

smiles!!

Fun places to link:
Fireflies & Jellybeans
Strut Your Stuff Thursday at Somewhat Simple

Framed Photo Confetti

I just love Darcy Miller from Martha Stewart Weddings. She is so talented and clever! I happened to see the episode where she was sharing

her scrapboxes with Martha. SO AMAZING!!!

One in particular caught me eye...The Framed Photo Confetti Box.

http://www.marthastewart.com/photogallery/family-history-in-the-making-darcys-frames-and-scrapboxes?lpgStart=1&currentslide=14&currentChapter=1#ms-global-breadcrumbs

Well I didn't have any photo confetti, but I have lots of pictures and a photo printer. I didn't do a step-by-step of this as I wasn't blogging yet, but will do one as I'm going to recreate the above picture for both of my brothers. (Not really worried about spoiling the surprise for them...they're not exactly craft/food blog followers! )

Basically, this is what I did:

I made a file folder on my computer with a special label just for these pictures.

Then I went through folders I had already created for each of my family members, copying the pictures of them that I wanted to use and transferring them to the above mentioned folder. (I tried to be sure there were an equal number of pictures of all the siblings...if you have children, you know how this goes...lots of pictures of first child, some of 2nd child and, well, the 3rd child has the fewest.) This one has 120 pictures. I took each picture, transferred it to a Print Shop program, cropped and resized to about 7/8" square.

The page was full of tiny black & white photos of my sweet family.

Then I made my own "confetti" by punching out each picture with a 3/4 circle punch. On a 12 x 12 piece of heavy white cardstock, I lightly lined out a grid in pencil. I erased the lines except for the "+" where the lines intersected. With mini glue dots I randomly added each photo. I also created a little label that I also printed with the photo that said "Earley Family, Est. 1959" I added it to the left corner, close to a picture of my paretns at their wedding. Since I didn't have any scrapboxes or shadow boxes on hand, I used a 12 X 12 frame I got 1/2 off at hobby lobby. It worked great!

I made this for my parents as a late 51st Wedding Anniversary gift. They seemed to really like it!

I can't wait to make more!!

My first attemt to link to one of these...bear with me if I make a mess of it...