Freebie #20: Addie the Dinosaur Mini Kit

I designed this kit for my older daughter's birthday party as I had trouble finding girly dino kits. Click on the link below the preview to download:

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD

Freebie # 19: Aquarelle Mini Kit

On November 19th, I am hosting a color design challenge over at Stuff to Scrap. Members are creating mini kits in the following color scheme:

Aquarelle means watercolor in French so all of the kits will be centered around a whimsical artistic theme. Here is the kit I designed for the challenge:

You can CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD my kit but then come on over to STS Nov. 19th Challenge-A-Day Forum to find more matching freebies or even join in on the fun (non designing members can participate by creating a quickpage or by doing a layout featuring the colors of the kit).

Finding Games for the Whole Family and Freebie 18

Thomas and I are both the oldest children and grandchildren in our families. And so it follows that our girls our also the oldest grandchildren in their generation. On my side, their closest counsin is 4 years old and on Thomas's side the closest is 2 years old. So for many years we had to find a way to include them in our family get togethers in a way where adults were the primary attendees. We found the best way to do this was through games. At each family event we attend, we now bring a game with us. Here is our top 5 list of adult games where kids can be included:

1. Scattegories. Perfect for large groups, we have everyone work in teams and the kids each get put on a team just like everyone else. A letter die is rolled and everyone uses the same list of categories to come up with words that start with the letter on the die. For example if the letter is S and the categories are things like a boys name, a flavor of ice cream, or a sport, the kids can work with their team member to come up with answers starting with the "s" sound (Stephen, strawberry, soccer).

2. Yahtzee. When we first tried this game we put the girls on teams with us but at 7 & 9 they are able to hold their own. Of course, they always want to keep rolling for the Yahtzee so sometimes we have to step in and explain the wisdom of holding on to a certain die but overall this is a game that we all enjoy playing together.

3. Blokus. This game focuses on spacial perception. Players compete to cover the board with their randomly shaped pieces. I must admit the girls are better at this game than I am!

4. Wii. Nope it's not a traditional board game but it is a game that the kids love and adults will actually play with them. Things like Wii boxing and Wii bowling are perfect for the dads and uncles to do with the kids so that the moms, aunts and grammys can get a chance to chat. We're actually going to pack ours up and bring it with us for our family roadtrip up to visit our relatives in New England.

5. And our personal favorite....Pass the Pigs. This is a simple dice game where players roll pigs inside of dice and earn points based on the pigs landing positions. Here is a picture of our family playing it at our last family reunion:

This layout was made with the new collab kit between Becky, a.k.a. SAHM Scrapper and Kat of The Scrappy Kat. It is called Family Fun Night and it will be free for one week on their blogs before going to the STS store. before pooing over to their blogs to grab the kit, please grab the freebie quickpage I made from my layout. I made two versions of it, one with the word art and one without it. Both versions are in the same download file. (The link is below the previews.)
Here are the previews:

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD

Miss Savannah's Magic Trick and Freebie #17

Miss Savannah is going through a magic phase right now. She loves performing her "magic show" to the delights of the ohhs and ahhs of a crowd whether that crowd is made of 1 person or 10. Here she is preparing her cards for one of her best tricks:

Here are the directions:

The magician arranges 8 cards, one of which must be the 8 of hearts) in the same pattern as the hearts on the eight of hearts before turning her back to the room. The assistant chooses a volunteer to pick 1 of the 8 cards. The assistant shows everyone the selected card and puts it back in place. The magician turns back around and has the assistant point to cards one at a time, asking "Is this it?".

Now here's the trick... the assistant points to the 8 of hearts as the first card when asking “Is this is?”. When she points to the 8, she uses her index finger and points to the heart on the eight that is in the same position as the card on the table (remember, she arranged the card just like the hearts on the eight). This will tell the magician in which position the selected card lies. The magician now knows which card was selected and will correctly identify the chosen card when the assistant asks if that one is it. We found the complete instructions for this trick here.

And the Scrappy Details....

This layout was made using The Scrappy Kat's portion of the Family Fun Night collaboration kit between SAHM Scrapper and The Scrappy Kat. Check out Kat's blog to find some more Family Fun night freebies, and while you're here you can download my layout as a quickpage by following the link below the preview:

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD

Freebie #15: Cozy Cocoa Mini-Kit

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Storing Stuffed Animals and Freebie # 16

I have a theory that girls are either into dolls or stuffed animals. My girls are of the stuffed animal variety. They adore their stuffed animals and carry them around with them most of the day. Ellie usually only has hers with her when she is reading, watching TV or sleeping but Savannah has a furry friend attached to her as if it were velcroed to her body. I have to constantly remind her to put the stuffed animal down to do simple things like eat or do her schoolwork. With such an affinity for poly-filled four legged creatures, my girls have established quite an impressive collection. The collection brings with it a problem that I like the mothers of 6-11 year old girls who have gone before me must face...figuring out the storage of the mass of stuffed animals.

We started off having just a few stuffed animals on the bed but soon the animals had their place to rest but there was no room for my children. So I moved on to try one of those toy hammock things. That was not a fun experiment. The girls could see the toy they wanted through the mesh

but they couldn't get their arms up and over the hammock to reach in above their head to dig out the desired animal. After many tears and realizing that I had just wasted $15 and an hour of Thomas's time that net quickly came down. Next I tried using an over the door pocket storage organizer. This solution actually worked very well for the webkinz but I still didn't have a place for the larger animals. So I tried installing shelves around the girls' rooms about a foot below the ceiling. I thought the animals look adorable up there but since Ellie is on an upper bunk of a bunk bed she said it felt eerie at night with all of her animals watching her. Savannah also complained because she always wanted the animal that was up out of reach. So that solution was quickly abandoned too. And the animals were moved to temporary storage units. That was about 6 months ago but the furry critters can still be found in the extra laundry hamper in Ellie's room and in one of the larger Rubbermaid containers ever produced in Savannah's room. Of course now Christmas is just around the corner and what does Savannah want? More stuffed animals! So I am again on the hunt for what to do with the multiplying collection of plush pals. here is what I have come across for stuffed animal storage solutions:

So far my leading contender is the Boon bag (but I think my girls would prefer the larger one.). It is an over-sized, plush bag that's covered with large, zippered windows made out of transparent, mesh. You fill the bag with stuffed animals of all sizes, and then use the Animal Bag as a soft bean bag type seat. You can read a good review of it here.

This coat tree like organizer is another option I am considering as it looks like the girls can put the animals into the elastic holders on their own.

I think the girls would also like the Chain Gang. The only problem I foresee with this is that they will create plenty of fun games using animals dangling from the chain and all animals not actively participating in the game will be discarded on the floor.

These tree stumps are absolutely adorable but I don't think all of the animals that we have would be able to live in the stump harmoniously. We might have a recreation of Jan Brett's story The Mitten complete with an animal explosion.

Another creative but practical idea with more space is the zoo. We do a lot of do-it-yourself projects around here so if I can't get the Boon bags, I might consider following these directions to make our own stuffed animal zoo!

Here are a few other do-it yourself ideas:

Put up a pegboard with hooks up on a wall. Hang animals by tying a ribbon around each of the animals' necks and hanging them from the hooks.

Hang a pole of vertically in the room and screw L-hooks all over the pole. Use ribbons tied around the neck or safety pins pinned in the back of each stuffed animals neck to hang the animals on the L hooks.

Here are my girls with two of their favorite animals:

This layout was made using Manda's new kit Teddy and Me. I turned my layout into two quickpages (one with the word art and one without). Both pages are in the same download.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD

Freebie # 14: Cocoa Packet Quick Craft for Handmade Christmas Gifts

Last week the girls and I went to one of the paint-your-own pottery studios with our girl scout troop. A number of the girls decided to make mugs to give away as Christmas gifts. So for our next meeting I made them these cocoa packet envelope quick crafts:

If you'd like to make your own cocoa packet envelopes, click here to download the quick craft page. Add a title and a picture of the crafter as you would to a quickpage. Print the finished image on cardstock and cut out. Fold on the lines where indicated and use a glue stick to secure
paper in envelope shape. Put a packet of Swiss Miss cocoa mix in the envelope and seal. Add a candy cane to use as a stirring stick and tie with ribbon.