Philippians 4:13
I can do everything through Him who gives me strength. Philippians 4:13
This summer, the girls and I managed to get in one creative activity. Sigh. And now I'm not so sure where I put the photographs. Must be still in my camera...
Like most projects these days, I saw this idea on Pinterest. It didn't have a great deal of instruction, so we made a few things up and crossed our fingers.
All you need for this one-of-a-kind shirt is a solid color t-shirt and some bleach in a spray bottle.
You also need a cut-out of an image on card stock. You can draw your own picture, or find something online to print and cut out. I recommend a solid sillouette type image with thick lines. If you have an image with a lot of really thin parts to cut out, it may not work so well. Both of my girls went with a dragon theme.
Spread your shirt over a board, or something to protect the other side from bleed-through.
If you're lucky, the kitten will inspect your project to make sure you're doing it right.
The next step was one of those made up parts. I wasn't sure the best way to attach our image to the shirt and make it stay in place. We decided to use a glue stick. The glue would temporarily hold the image in place without leaving behind hard-to-remove residue.
I put 100% bleach into a spray bottle and we took our shirts outside and sprayed all around the image. Plenty of room to be creative with more bleach around the image and a little less as you get further away for a spatter effect.
We left them outside to dry in the sun.
**The sun is an important element of this project. I had another shirt that was grey that I sprayed some bleach on, but by that time it was dark outside so the shirt dried in the laundry room. The bleach stains turned out redish on that shirt. The next day I added more bleach to the same shirt and allowed it to dry in the sun and those bleach stains were white. Also a great way to add some artistic dimension to your shirt, keeping in mind the original color of the shirt may bleach differently out of the sun.
When shirts were dry, we removed the paper and this is how they looked. My girls love them, even though they will not be seen in public as both girls decided they would be night-shirts.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Galatians 5:22-23
HAPPY EASTER!
Gran mailed the girls the pieces to make their Easter Baskets. They painted faces on wooden bunny cutouts. We cut the tops off empty milk cartons and glued the wooden pieces to make these baskets.
It was going to be hard to top last year's Best Easter Basket Ever. So why mess with a good thing? I created more coupons for their baskets, but this year, I added a little twist.
A SCAVENGER HUNT!
In addition to coupons, I added clues that sent them outside to search for a prize. Instead of toys, prizes were a book, bookmark, book light clip, package of mechanical pencils, and a shirt/nightgown.
Some prizes were small enough to fit into large eggs, while others I put in brown paper bags (great for instant camoflauge!). I hid them in specific places in the yard and wrote rhyming clues to help the girls find their prize.
One clue sent them to search for a prize in the shed. They opened this clue at the same time, so they went to search for it together.
Another to look under the fire-pit cover.
Another to the flower garden (minus flowers).
They had so much fun, and I do believe the scavenger hunt topped last year's Best Ever Easter Basket.
EMPTY TOMB ROLLS
I really can't believe I have NEVER done these before. I guess Easter Sunday is always so busy with getting ready for church, I've just not had time to do them. This year I was determined to do it, but we made them Saturday morning instead of Easter Sunday.
We followed this recipe for Empty Tomb Rolls.
Some of them collapsed, but a few were perfect and the girls were surprised to find them hollow, just like the tomb was empty when the stone was rolled away.
And they were delicious, too.
The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name. Luke 24:46-47
It's always super exciting for us to get snow. This year, we got some good snow! It started with a layer of ice, then a layer of snow with perfect conditions for some great sledding. The cold temperatures kept the snow around for longer than usual, so we got to enjoy sledding every day for the better part of a week.
Coke Bottle Penguins
Because of the 2-inch layer of ice plus 2-inch layer of snow on the driveway, we were a little stranded in the house. We decided to make these Coke Bottle Penguins.
We found this idea on Pinterest and followed the instructions from the image below. It's good to note that for each penguin you need 2 bottles from COKE products. The shape of the bottle from Coke products is imporant and necessary to this project. We'd have made these a long time ago, but I'd been saving bottles from other brands, and I quickly learned those wouldn't work. We rarely drink soft drinks, so I resorted to taking empty bottles from various gatherings where 2-liter Coke products were served.
These are our penguins. Aren't they so cute? We each made our own pom-poms, and I crocheted the two scarves, too.
Colored Ice Balls
As I drifted off to sleep one night during our snow week, I suddenly remembered another idea from Pinterest that I'd told myself I needed to remember should we ever have cold enough temperatures for it. Considering I'd already gone to bed before the rest of the family, I got strange looks when I walked into the kitchen and called the girls to come help me. We filled balloons with water and food coloring and set them outside to start freezing.
I used regular balloons. I put them outside close to midnight the first night when it was in the low 20s and the next day all day it stayed in the low to mid 20s. They'd been outside well over 12 hours when one of them broke and it WAS NOT frozen enough to keep the water from spilling all over my shoe. The second night got below zero and the next day stayed in the mid-teens, and it was only then that they were solid enough to unwrap.
I used big balloons, too. I suppose you could use smaller balloons with less water and it wouldn't take as long to freeze.
The picture above doesn't show at all how cool the color was inside each ball. You can see it more with this purple one below. As you can see, most of the color was in the center of the ball. But even the yellow, green, and red balls had a similar effect that the photo doesn't show.
They were a fun addition to our yard during those very cold days, and it was fun to see how they melted a little each day.
Cabin fever set in, and out of desperation we took a sledge hammer to the 2-inch layer of ice on the driveway to finally set ourselves free. True story.
When the next round of snow came, it was very powdery and not good for much more than snow angels. We decided it would be fun to shovel the driveway. As we shovelled, we made a large pile into which we dug a snow cave.
We couldn't build a snowman in the normal sense of building a snowman, so we made another pile of snow into which we carved a snowman.
The next day, sunshine and slightly warmer temperatures made conditions right for building a proper snowman.
He cheerfully helped with the shovelling.
The kids missed two weeks of school. Maybe more. I lost count. They did manage to have one full week of class before dismissal for Spring Break.
"Come now, let us reason together," says the LORD. "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool." Isaiah 1:18
