Wednesday, July 7, 2010

{Creating Life} Sweet Valance & Sibling Summer Fun.

Life has been extra busy the past week as I try to recover from camping.  I love camping but I hate the unpacking, endless laundry and the cleaning that is a must afterward.    I haven't has much time to create much of anything...except laundry piles.   But I am excited to report that we finally got the carpet remnants laid out on our basement floor.  This makes the basement feel more cozy and fun for the kids to play with toys.   While not perfect it works until we get our basement finished.   So I feel like Brad and I (with a little help from our cuties) did "create" a special place for our kids and their friends to hang out...even if it isn't "finished".  :)

I am in the process of trying to decorate my girls room.  It has been a long process because my girls kept changing their minds.  So I finally put my foot down and told them I was going to do it how I wanted...but I would keep in mind their favorite colors, and styles.   So far they are happy with the changes I have been making.
My talented friend, Holly, introduced me to the idea of using tulle for a quick, easy and cheap valance.
So I took an old decorative window rod and finials and painted the wood portions white.
Purchased 10 yards of purplish tulle.
Then I had Brad hang the rod and I wrapped the tulle around the pole and played around with it a bit until I got the desired look.
While visiting my parents a couple of months ago my Mom helped my kids each make a little strand of colorful butterflies.  She got the idea and printouts here.  Once the tole was how I wanted it I tied the butterfly ribbons together and tied the ends to the end of each side of the pole and then pinned the strands in two places to create the look of butterflies fluttering around their valance.
This is the finished product.
My girls are very happy with it  so I am happy too!

As you can see I am not a photographer.  lol


Creating with Kids
Brenley has been doing some of her own creating this week.   She loves to create little fun activities for her siblings.   This week she created a fun little game.    She called it "Sibling Summer Fun: Castle Activity".   She got the idea from some old kindergarten teaching aids I had in the basement.
She copied a picture of a cute castle and then cut it out.
Once it was cut she had Haley and Camden help her color the castle.
Then she had me make slits in the windows so the windows would open.
She had 12 windows so she wrote up 12 different activities and then I typed them up for her.
She cut each idea out and folded them and placed them in each window.

She had each of them take turns pulling an activity from a window. 
This was her list of activities...
1.     Sing:  “Do as I’m Doing” 3 times so everyone gets a turn to be the leader.
2.    Meet  “The Story Fairy”  in living room for story time.
3.    Go in the  backyard and slide down the slide 5 times.
4.    Go to the Living Room and dance to fun music until the music stops.
5.    Pull  weeds for Mom  for 5 minutes.
6.    Solve this riddle…”I have wings but cannot fly”…then go and find me.
7.    Do 20 jumping jacks in the front yard.
8.    Go give Mom and hug and kiss and tell her you love her.
9.    Have a spinning contest on the front lawn.
10.    Clean the baseboards for Mom.
11.    Find Mom ….she has something to read to you.
*Note for parent:  hide from the kids so they can find you….once they find you read this scripture: 
Mosiah 2: 17 when ye are in service of fellow beings, ye are in service of God
12.    Eat Animals!  Just kidding.  Go in the kitchen and make a sugar cookie animal.

The whole castle activity took about 40 minutes and my kids loved every minute of it.
To top off this great idea  Brenley decided she wanted to make a copy of the castle and activity list and share the idea with a family in our area.   So together we decorated an empty formula can and she made her copies along with instructions that I typed up and placed them in the decorated can.  We also sent cookie dough balled up into three balls (this family had 3 kids that were old enough for the activity).  She was so excited to share her idea.


I was so happy to see Brenley share her talent with her family and with others.
It was fun to help Brenley see her creation through to the finish.
Creating seems to be catching on at our house.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Love the window with the butterflies, I just might copy that!!!!

Shian said...

I love your valance! It turned out so darling.