Bandana Picnic Blanket & Weekend BBQ

Hubs and I hosted our annual summer BBQ this past weekend.  It's a lovely opportunity to get all of our friends and family together - some of whom we see all year long and some that we only see a few times a year. 

We have many friends that have young children - and I always like to try to accomodate them.  One of the things I did this year was to sew a little picnic blanket for them.  I found this great idea over at Aesthetic Nest, and featured it in one of my Week In Review posts a little while ago.  You can see Anneliese's post and directions HERE.

I made mine three by three bandanas big - and picked the bandanas up from Hobby Lobby for 99 cents a piece.  I plan on backing it later in the summer to give it a little more weight - but overall I was really pleased with how it turned out.

I had a crate of outdoor toys for the kids, and a little kid-size table and basket of coloring stuff, bubbles, and play doh.

I think they liked it...

We provided the burgers, hot dogs, ribs, condiments and buns, and everyone brought a dish to pass and some beverages to share (we provided some drinks, too)  I've found potluck style is far and away the best way to go with almost any large get together - it's less stress for me, and with very little planning there always ends up being a huge selection of food! 

I wish I had taken a picture of the food table when it was full!

I used brightly colored re-usable tablecloths, and summery colored  glasses, straws and drink stirrers.

We had a great turnout...we counted about twenty-five people in our little backyard at the height of the action.  It was a really lovely evening - I'm so glad that we do this every year!

I hope that you all have the opportunity to spend summer evenings with friends and family at gatherings big and small this summer!

Flower Headbands

Thank you all, so much, for your support. All of the comments, e-mails and messages have been out of this world. I truly appreciate your support as I work through this sudden change in my life.

I still don't have my blogging mojo back yet, but wanted to share something from last week. I'm teaching a jewelry/fashion art class with a friend of mine from the Y and last week we used
THIS TUTORIAL and made beautiful flower headbands!



They turned our exceptionally cute. Now all I need is the right outfit and I'm sooo rocking it out.

Dabbledy-do, UPrinting, and Fishes, too! (Rainbow Fish Art Lesson)

Good Morning, folks! Welcome to my 100th post on Ready, Set, Craft! Yeah!

I initially had great expectations for my big post, but instead of making a big to-do about it, I have lots of other important and fun tidbits to share! Enjoy!

If you've been hanging around this blog for awhile, you'll know that I'm a big fan of Dot/Nancy over at Dabbled.org It was one of the first crafting blogs I discovered, and one that motivated me to begin my own. Dabbled has brought me all kinds of good things... like the fabulous Felt Pins I made for Mariah, and the Make Something Cool Every Day in April challenge. I was featured over there with my Pinata Project back in April (thanks again!), and am always chatting about the neat contests going on at Dabbled like this one.

So Dabbled just got a huge makeover and is looking SNAZZY. For real! Unfortunately, while making the move from Blogger to Wordpress, Dabbled lost a ton of feed followers! Oh no! So, if you are a Dabbled follower and haven't seen any posts in the past few days, you may need to update their feed. Just head over to http://feeds.feedburner.com/Dabbled to get the updated feed. Then... head over and enjoy that new site! And if you haven't checked out Dabbled.org before, now is the time to do so - and tell Dot I said hello!

Speaking of Dabbled and contests, I wanted to take a moment to chat about UPrinting.com. By being a sponsored blog of theirs, I'm eligible for all kinds of neat contests, giveaways, and info. AND, because Dabbled is sponsored by them as well (and many others...) I can participate in contests over there (such as the postcards above) as a reader. IN FACT - I actually WON a contest through them at Dabbled just last month and won a 16x20 canvas print of my choice! Sweet!

Now, not only did I not have to pay a dime for this print (no shipping or anything!) Gemini, my UPrinting contact was AWESOME to work with - so accomodating! I could even get a free pdf press ready proof of my print before I ordered. SWEET!

If you haven't already, you should definitely check them out...


Why UPrinting.com isn't your average printing company:

Blog Sponsorships:
If you are looking to find a sponsor for your blog, UPrinting.com is definitely interested. We offer giveaways, advertising and more for qualified bloggers.

Non-Profit Sponsorships:
The U-Community Program sponsors hundreds of non-profits and education to improve our local communities.

Social Justice Projects:
The UPrinting Kiva account promotes small business growth in developing countries.

Green Printing:
UPrinting supports a sustainable future by recycling, using non-toxic inks, and offering eco-friendly recycled paper stocks for business cards and postcard printing.



And lastly, the fishies! (Phew! Long post!)


I did a Rainbow Fish art lesson with a small group of kinders over at the library yesterday with great results. This is my very own project, and one of my faves. You could do this at home with your kid(s) very easily - it doesn't have to be done in a classroom! It's not messy at all, and really good for coordination and manipulation - since those teeny circles are tricky for little ones to handle!

RAINBOW FISH COLLAGE

You will need...
Rainbow Fish book
Blue construction paper
Photocopy of a fish - I use THIS
1 inch hole punch
Variety of textured papers (newspaper, construction, tissue, scrapbook, etc. etc.)
Aluminum foil
Scissors
Glue stick
Googly eyes

After reading "The Rainbow Fish"...

Step 1
Dependent on the age of the kids you're working with, and the number of kids, pre-punch circles in a variety of paper types, and also a handful of aluminum foil circles.

Step 2
Students should cut out their fish (little ones may need help!) and glue it to their ocean (blue construction paper)

Step 3
Ask students to glue on their circles to form scales of the fish. Encourage older students to think about making patterns and designs. Explain that the aluminum foil circles are special, just like the shimmery scales in the book, and they can use as few or as many as they want - but to think hard about where they want to place them on their fish.




Step 4
Make sure that students cover all of their white space. Just like a real fish, our fishes need to be entirely covered with scales! When they are finished, add a googly eye and you're done!




If you wanted to go a step further, you could color an ocean background first wit seaweed, plants, the ocean floor, other fish, etc. using pastels, paint, or construction crayons. I like the simplicity and boldness of a plain ocean and colorful fish myself - but feel free to make it your own!

Pincushion - a la Samster Mommy

If you're anything like me, you get inspired by all of the craft blogs and projects out there, floating around the web. I keep both e-files and paper files FULL of projects I see and like - they sit in piles in my craft room just waiting for a rainy day...

... like today!

It's a cool, rainy summer evening - a perfect night for crafting. I pulled out THIS TUTORIAL by Natasha at Samster Mommy for a keepsake pincushion box. A super-cute, quick, easy, eco-friendly idea to make your own pincushion out of an old jewelry box.


The only thing I did differently was to cover the bottom of my box as well - I didn't like the color, and the box didn't have sentimental value to me.


It's going to look so cute next to the sewing machine I'm hoping is coming my way on my birthday in a little over a month... nudge, nudge, wink, wink!!!


Thanks Natasha, and all of you other wonderful crafty ladies (and gents!) out there - for sharing your talents and ideas!