Smurfday Party pt. 3- Games and Activities

Because this was a "smurf-prise" party for a 30 something girl, we scheduled the activities accordingly. We started off with a quiz a la Brainy Smurf. It was fun to see how much we remembered. As we were preparing for this shindig, my 6 year old spent hours "researching" (in other words, watching episode after episode of the Smurfs until I wanted to La la, la la la la her la la la la la!). I remembered all the music and especially, all the voices... it was so weird! Our auditory memories are so much better than our visual ones... but I digress. The next game was Smurf Bingo... I just used Excel and a bunch of images found on the internet; printed it all out and added some York Peppermint Patty Pieces. In hind sight, we should have called this game, "Smurf-O" Oh well, it was fun and my mom kicked our booties! Finally, we all measured ourselves in apples next to Papa Smurf (thank you again, Cricut) it was fun to see how we all "stacked up".

Christmas Book Advent Calendar

Our third advent calendar is a tradition we started a few years ago and will continue, hopefully for the rest of our lives! Every year, we wrap 25 books, number them, then open and read one a day 'till Christmas. We didn't have 25 Christmas books, so we chose anything with a winter theme or even just a family favourite to open toward the beginning of the month. I add to our holiday book collection in the after-Christmas sales and hide the new ones in the decoration boxes so they're surprises the following year. This has worked great so far... I don't know what I'll do when I actually have 25 Christmas books! We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. This year, I used the Cricut (Cuttin' Up and Accent Essentials cartridges) to make cute labels for them. My daughter had the idea to use math equations instead of numbers, but as she is only in Kindergarten, I thought we were getting a little ahead of ourselves... maybe next year. This year, I just placed the books in the basket in random numerical order and I let her search for the number of the day. I hope this instills a love of reading, family traditions and the spirit of Christmas in our children... at the very least, I hope they remember their geeky mom trying to make Christmas more meaningful.

Christmas Village Advent Bags

Our second advent calendar this year made use- heavy use- of the Cricut. It was a perfect fit for this week's Just Buggin' Challenge #14- Layers. I just got the Jubilee cartridge and it had this DARLING village function and I immediately thought, "Christmas Village!" Then, my lovely friend gave me BAGS of those little My Little Ponies and accessories as her daughters have outgrown them and my daughter is still in the midst of her obsession. I didn't just want to give her everything at once, so the "bag" and "advent" idea was born. After all the houses were cut out, I thought they needed some fixing up so I started layering with other houses and numbers and punches and they looked a lot better. I found I could vary the same-style houses by adding little chimneys or a scallop (that was on the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge) or a wreath (2 circle punches and a bow punch- my daughter's idea). The bag itself was on Plantin Schoolbook and was SO easy to make (it had to be- I needed 25!) Oh, and ignore the pictures that were obviously taken at night- very late at night I might add. Some of the embellishments were added before the house was glued to the bag- some after. The next morning, I filled them and put them on top of the armoire in our bedroom for safety purposes- we couldn't have Little Miss Curious looking in all the bags ahead of time- also, they totally matched my bedroom the best. I think we will use them every year... well, they might make it until next year, but the twins will be TWO next year and will have to be included... yea, I think we will use these two years in a row only.

Cricut Soccer Certificate

At our end-of-season soccer party, we were giving out the candy leis and medals they earned this season, but we thought they needed something more, like a certificate... Well, the Just Buggin' challenge this week was: Triple Whammy- Use at least 3 Cricut dies on your project. Then, I remembered there was a certificate on the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge and... ta da!! I just gathered paper in the team's colors and designed a little something on the computer that would fit on the certificate. I was making 12 so I made them 1/2 page... selfishly, I thought that was a better size for the folder I keep for each year of my daughter's life... you know all the stuff I WOULD scrapbook if I ever had the time, but never will because there will always be something I want to do more so I just throw everything into a folder. A little rosette was added with felt soccer ball stickers in the center. Also, with the certificate itself and the words "Awarded To", it became my third die for the challenge. So easy... a bit time consuming because there were so many, but totally worth it. The kids just loved everything and the party was a total success! (Although, this was probably more do to the fact that we had it at my parents' ranch and she gave everyone hay rides on the tractor, but, you know, I'm sure they liked the certificates as well!)

Appetizer Picks: Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!

Guess what I got for my birthday (and Christmas...)? A Cricut Expression machine! I think that means I'm finally a big-girl crafter, doesn't it? Before I got it, I could think of about a million things I had to have it for, but when it arrived, I couldn't think of anything so... I went blog hopping, of course. I came across a site called, "Just Buggin'" which has a weekly Cricut challenge. This week's challenge #11 was:

Create a project with an animal Cricut die cut! If you don't have a cartridge with an animal die cut, make up your own animal, think google eyes!!

Since my machine had arrived literally days earlier, I just had the cartridges it came with- which had a grand total of 0 animals. So, using the Accent Essentials cartridge, I made my own animals and fashioned them into appetizer picks (which are really cupcake toppers, only I didn't have any cupcakes). I used a variety of circles, medallions, leaves and flowers and layered them for the face shapes. Then, I drew faces on them with a pen, affixed a toothpick to the back with double-stick tape and concealed it with another circle. I think these would be so cute for a zoo, circus or jungle-themed party. I hope a lack of google eyes doesn't disqualify my entry!