Thursday, May 31, 2012

50s Housewife Bridal Shower Part 5 -- Party Time!

I respectfully ask that you not pin pictures of my children to Pinterest. Thank you!
 Here's part 5 and the wrap-up of my sister's 50s Housewife themed bridal shower. Her wedding is going to have a vintage modern flavor with a coral and blue color scheme and lots of lace. I wanted to incorporate some of those elements into the decor of her bridal shower. We also wanted to use her milk glass collection to add to the vintage theme. (Check out more shower posts here: Pennants and Poms, Coffee Filter Wreaths, Lacy Mason Jars, and Games and Decor)

To sum it all up:
Theme: 50s Housewife
Invites (designed with free digital scrapbook kit elements, Macromedia Fireworks, and MS Publisher; free fonts: fontdiner.com Sparkly and Cherry Cream Soda; some of the personal info has been blanked out):
Games and Door Prizes: 
Prize for Best Apron (She won for borrowing an apron, hat, and beaded necklace from her 2-year old!) 
 
and "1950s Price is Right"
Our lovely Bridal Shower Beauty --- modeling the product up for bid.
A few of our willing contestants with the  bride-to-be.

Yummy Food:
Dishes, Napkins, and Flatware on Server
Menu: Turkey and Ham Wraps, Veggies and Dip, Fruit Salad, Strawberries and Chocolate Fondue,
Cheese Ball and Crackers, Deviled Eggs, and Pillow Mints (all served in milk glass or on white platters with coral chargers)
Drinks: Raspberry Punch, Iced Tea, and Water
Desserts: Hershey Kiss Pretzel Treats, Hard Candy, and Couture Cupcakes
Decor: milk glass, lace, mason jars, coral and blue, gerbera daisies, 50s housewife clip-art, and pics of the happy couple
Fun: Guests in aprons and pearls, lots of laughing, lovely gifts, and a happy sis!
A gift for the groom? :)
My mom, my sis, and me! I made the apron for my sister as part of her gift and
loved it so much I had to make one for me.
The happy couple (and Soprano) in their aprons
 Linking up to these great blog parties:
Sunday: Sunday Showcase at Under the Table and Dreaming; Show Me What Ya Got at Not Just a Housewife;
Tuesday: One Project at a Time at A Bowl Full of Lemons; Tuesday's Treasures at My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia;
Wednesday: Wicked Awesome Wednesday at Handy Man, Crafty Woman; It's Overflowing at Overflowing with Creativity; Whatever Goes Wednesday at Someday Crafts;
Home Decor & Organizing at Organize and Decorate Everything;
Thursday: Delightfully Inspiring Thursday at Delightful Order; Thrifty Thursday at Thrifty and Fabuless;  Transformation Thursday at The Shabby Creek Cottage;
Friday: Frugal Friday at The Shabby Nest; Flaunt it Friday at Chic on a Shoestring;

Monday, May 28, 2012

Make a Card Monday - Do the Robot


I've got a birthday boy in the house who's turning the big 1-0! Double digits. :) To celebrate, he'll get a grown-up but not too grown-up kinda card. I mean, really, don't boys of any age love robots?



Details:
cardstock: Georgia Pacific (white), DCWV (base and mat)
patterned paper: DCWV (layer)

embellishments: tickets (unknown)
color: Palette Noir ink, Tombow markers
tools: Fiskars edge punch
stamps: TAC Robots

Friday, May 25, 2012

Frugal Tip Friday - Kitchen Week 10

Saving in the kitchen...
  • Buy basics in bulk (ex paper towels, garbage bags, even sugar!)
  • Grocery shop without the kids.
  • Don’t shop when you are hungry!
  • Stick to your shopping list.
  • Rinse the bag from a cereal box and use as wax paper. Also can be used to wrap meat in-wrap in bag, then in foil for the freezer.)
  • I love the convenience of single serving products but hate the expense.  Split large jars of applesauce, big containers of yogurt and cottage cheese into smaller portions using 4 oz. baby food jars or use Ziploc's snack containers available in a 4 oz. size and create your own snack cups.
Happy Saving!

Thursday, May 24, 2012

50s Housewife Bridal Shower Part 4- Games and Decor

Yummy couture cupcakes

Here's part 4 of my sister's 50s Housewife themed bridal shower. Her wedding is going to have a vintage modern flavor with a coral and blue color scheme and lots of lace. I wanted to incorporate some of those elements into the decor of her bridal shower. We also wanted to use her milk glass collection to add to the vintage theme. (Check out other shower decor in these posts: Pennants and Poms, Coffee Filter Wreaths, and Lacy Mason Jars)

When you walked in, we had our first game set-up: "Name That Famous TV Housewife"
I made a collage of famous TV housewives and had it printed on 12x18" paper. Then I mounted it to some foam core from the craft store. I had postcard sized answer sheets printed for guests to make their best guesses. To add height, I set it up on two wrapped boxes like I had seen here. We put little pencils in a milk glass piece and put door prizes in a lace wrapped hat box. (The hat box is a vintage piece that I wrapped with lace from my mother-in-law's bridal gown. We used it to hold cards at our wedding reception.) I also snagged a bunch of coral, pink, and yellow gift bags from the Target dollar spot for guests to corral their door prizes to take home afterwards.
In the living room, we had all the chairs set-up facing the bridal settee. Over the sofa was our tissue pom and lantern chandelier. I also hung the lace doily bunting behind it over the backdrop.
 To the side of the sofa, we put a vintage tablecloth (from our great-grandfather) over a small coffee table to hold all the gifts.
The gift table just as guests started arriving
On the other side of the sofa, I set up all our "products" for our second game: Price is Right - the 1950s version. I found 10 products that were available in the 50s and found their 50s prices. We 'called down' 4 guests to be our contestants and had them guess the 1950 price. The closest bid 'won' the prize. Just like the TV show. Once a contestant won, I'd 'call down' a replacement. We played until all 10 products had been won. (To keep my prices straight, I cut scalloped circles in coral and blue, covered it with paper doily, and glued a housewife pic on the top. On the back of each circle, I wrote the product name along with its 1950s price and the current price.) 
Our focal point in the living room was the piano on the display. I printed a couple pics of my sis and her fiance and framed them. (I had all the frames in my yard sale pile but they were a hodge-podge of finishes so I painted all the frames with some white spray paint.)  Other decor on the piano:
a bunch of lacy mason jars with tea lights with some vintage handkerchiefs,
a milk glass vase with faux coral gerbera daisies
a framed 1 Corinthians 13 print (a wedding gift that is usually in my master bedroom)
and their initials that I made like these (I used a papier mache letter base. Then I cut tissue paper circles and glued them with the same technique as the coffee filter wreaths)

In the dining room, we decorated the top of the hutch using milk glass, housewife clip art, a vintage doily, and another vintage hatbox.

The server held the flatware (in milk glass), coral napkins, Fiestaware plates (from my mom's collection), old cookbooks, lacy mason jars, and a gerbera daisy in a milk glass pot.
Above the server, I hung an old window turned memo board filled with housewife clip-art and pics of my sis and her fiance.


The buffet was where we set up all the dessert! Above the buffet was an old window and one of the coffee filter wreaths I had made. We used 2 glass cake stands and a coral cupcake holder to display the couture cupcakes that the matron of honor chose for the shower.
We also set aside a special cupcake for the bride-to-be and put it on its own cake stand and covered it with a cloche. Other decor: coral napkins, 2 glass hurricane vases with candles, 2 milk glass taper holders, a Keep Calm sign (printed and mounted on foam core), apothecary jars with color-coordinated hard candies, and a dish of Hershey Kiss pretzel treats.
Yummy cupcakes

More yummy cupcakes

Keep Calm and Have a Cupcake --- wise advice! LOL
Apothecary jars with sweet candy


The dining room table held all the food (which I didn't get a picture of!). In the center, I covered a tray with coral patterned tissue paper. Then we arranged milk glass vases and pots with coral gerbera daisies and carnations. We used white Fiestaware, my white serving dishes, and milk glass for all the food. The table was covered with a lace tablecloth my great-grandmother made years ago.
We set the drinks up in the kitchen. I put a collection of Fiestaware mugs on a metal Coke tray by the punc bowl. We also had iced tea and water in pretty glass pitchers. The backdrop for the drinks was my shutter screen and fall rag wreath. In front of the screen we had pics of my sis and her fiancee in a photo holder stand, lace wrapped mason jars, and a potted gerbera daisy.
Raspberry Punch

We had a few more gerbera daisies in the family room but didn't do too much decorating in there since the main party space was the living room. The only other place we set-up was the table by the front door. I used another memo board window. On the table we had the party favors (Clark bars since that'll be the bride-to-be's new last name), a vintage Clark Bar ad that I mounted on foam core, and a framed housewife clip-art.

Lots of coral, blue, lace, milk glass, and treasured family pieces helped set the stage for this vintage modern 50s Housewife bridal shower!


Linking up to these great blog parties:
Sunday: Sunday Showcase at Under the Table and Dreaming; Show Me What Ya Got at Not Just a Housewife;
Tuesday: One Project at a Time at A Bowl Full of Lemons; Tuesday's Treasures at My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia;
Wednesday: Wicked Awesome Wednesday at Handy Man, Crafty Woman; It's Overflowing at Overflowing with Creativity; Whatever Goes Wednesday at Someday Crafts;
Home Decor & Organizing at Organize and Decorate Everything;
Thursday: Delightfully Inspiring Thursday at Delightful Order; Thrifty Thursday at Thrifty and Fabuless;  Transformation Thursday at The Shabby Creek Cottage;
Friday: Frugal Friday at The Shabby Nest; Flaunt it Friday at Chic on a Shoestring; 

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Baptism Joy

I respectfully ask that you not pin pictures of my children to Pinterest. Thank you!
We had the great joy of seeing the younglings get baptized last month. The church opened up the opportunity to get baptized a month or so before. Both kids expressed interest (on their own) of getting baptized. We had asked them about it several times at our previous church but they were never ready. Now they were ready and excited to take this next step in their Christian lives.
The week before the younglings each met with our pastor to share about how they came to know the Lord. They also explained how they know who Jesus is and why they wanted to be baptized. The church brought in a portable tank and 11 people got baptized. Soprano was going to share a verse but got too scared at the last minute. Even though she hates going underwater, she did a great job.


Tenor wasn't nervous for the talking part. He picked a verse on his own to share. ‎"You were spiritually dead because of your sins and because you were not free from the power of your sinful self. But God made you alive with Christ and God forgave all our sins." Colossians 2:13
My whole family was able to come to church that morning to share in their special day. Afterwards, we went back to our house for an easy luncheon. My folks gifted the younglings prayer journals and crosses as a reminder of the day.
With my sister's bridal shower the day before, I didn't have a lot of time (or energy) to make a fancy cake so the cross-shaped Wilton pan and some sprinkles had to do. The cake was still pretty yummy.

It was a wonderful day and a wonderful blessing to see my kids take this step!

Monday, May 21, 2012

Make a Card Monday - Good Timber


I had a few bits of DCWV's Green Stack left-over. This pattern was a little hard to incorporate into the scrapbook but made a nice, neutral background for a tree card. To get the coloring effect for the tree, I stamped the inside of the image with green ink and then just went over the edges with dark brown. Super easy technique with a great effect.



Details:
cardstock: DCWV (base), unknown kraft (mat)
patterned paper: DCWV Green Stack (layer), polka dots (unknown)

color: Palette Landscape and Burnt Umber ink
stamps: TAC Good Timber

Saturday, May 19, 2012

Weekly School Summaries - Antarctica (May 7-18)

 I respectfully ask that you not pin pictures of my children to Pinterest. Thank you!
 
Tenor's Handwriting for week 31
One more week, one more week, one more week, one more week! (Shouted while jumping up and down gleefully!) We only have one more week of school left. Wow!!! There were times I wasn't sure we would finish the year and still be alive! We're so close! God is faithful, and we've only got one week of work left!
Here's what we did the past 2 weeks:

Math: Back to our regular schedule. Tenor had 4 days of math lessons and 1 day of computer math. Soprano had 3 days of lessons last week and 2 lessons this week since we're almost to the end of Saxon Math 2. The other days she practiced flashcards for multiplication or subtraction and played math games on the computer.


Reading and Language Arts: Soprano finished reading "The Little House in the Big Woods" from 'Across the Centuries'. She wrote a story about what it would be like to live in a time with only lanterns and candles, and did a patchwork math worksheet. She also had a couple evaluations and will finish with a final evaluation next week.

She's doing well in her third Phonics book and is almost done. She's working on synonyms, antonyms, and homonyms. In English, she's working on alphabetizing and synonyms. Don't you love it when 2 separate subjects line up with the same thing? Spelling and handwriting are continuing well. 

Tenor continued with his 'A Reason for Handwriting C'. He got back to work in his writing workbook with persuasive letters.
He finished 'Helen Keller' from 'Across the Centuries C Level 2', and began his last book of the year, 'The Family Under the Bridge'. He did some vocab work, a worksheet about descriptive words, and did a few evaluations. English (synonyms and antonyms, like J) and Spelling (Rod and Staff Level 4) are going well. 

Electives:
Typer Island for their typing instruction and continuing with SOS Elementary Spanish.
Tenor is doing extra lessons for the next few weeks to finish the entire Elementary Spanish program this year.

Phys Ed.: Same as before... they're doing Tae Kwon Do each week but that's been about it. It's finally nice enough for them to play outside so they're out riding bikes, shooting baskets, and being total daredevils on scooters. I'm so thankful we live on a cul-de-sac!
For My Father's World, we're off to another continent. These past few weeks, we've been studying Antarctica. 

Bible: The past two weeks included:
Reading about Samoa and Iceland
Reading Matthew 27:31-28:20
Memorizing Matthew 28:18-20

Geography:
Things we did included:
Filling out our passports to travel to Antarctica (no flag to add though because Antarctica doesn't have an official flag) 
They did create their own version of what Antarctica's flag could look like.
Tenor incorporated flags from different countries that have scientific bases there. He also put in 2 penguins and 2 norwhals. Soprano put a penguin on an ice floe and added some water since it's surrounded by water.
Reading about Antarctica and comparing it with the Arctic. I found a printable Venn diagram that I had the kids write their observations on.
 
Illustrating notecards for iceberg, crevasse, glacier, and peninsula.
Taking a geography post-test to see what they learned from this year. They both did a fantastic job. T only knew 14 out of 105 countries at the beginning of the year. He was able to label 111 countries at the end. J only knew 1 country (the USA, which is good I guess) at the beginning of the year. On the post-test, she labelled 92 out of the 105 countries that we learned.
Other stats:
Tenor knew 21/22 studied capitals; all the continents, all the oceans, and identified 17 other elements (seas, mountains, rivers.)
Soprano knew 19/22 of the capitals we learned this year; all the continents, 3/5 oceans, and identified 2 other elements. That was working from pure memory. I think they would have gotten everything if I had given them a list of all the countries and capitals we studied this year.
If you do MFW and are worried about a 2nd grader tagging along and learning anything, don't be! :)

Tenor did 5 of the Antarctica pages from World Geography. We had one head-scratching moment... our 'Climate of Antarctica' worksheet has the answers printed on it. Tenor didn't seem to mind much. :) Soprano finished the Arctic/Antarctic Animal pages from The Complete Book of Animals. She did the whole book and loved it!

Science: We had a few pages from the Living World Encyclopedia again these past two weeks. 
They read about polar regions and the Antarctic.
We also finished up with Properties of Ecosystems and did several experiments about penguins, icebergs, and glaciers.
 
Seeing how fat on a penguin helps to keep it warm.
Seeing how much of an iceberg is below the surface of the water.
To include some fun, we rented Mr. Popper's Penguins at the library and watched it during a family pizza night. It was really, really good! There are 2 words that they use ('sexy' and 'freakin') that I wasn't thrilled with but the rest of the movie was tame. (Considering Jim Carrey was in it, I was pleasantly surprised.) 
Tenor told us (through the whole film) that it didn't match the book but he was okay with the storyline changes.


Other MFW: 
Wee sing: review songs I let the kids pick their favorites: Hello to All the Children of the World, Zum Gali Gali, and Nani Wale na Hala.
Art: crystal water snowflake (Caution: this gets messy! We did it on a cookie sheet.) and sweet snow sculptures
Soprano made a 'J'

Tenor was making a science research base, I think.
To supplement, we read other books about Antarctica, the Arctic and penguins and borrowed DVDs from the library. One of the best DVDs was "Antarctic Antics" by Scholastic Storybook Treasury. It was based on the book of the same name. It was funny and the singing is fantastic. There's a Josh Groban sound-alike that sings a penguin love song. We also finished up Kingdom Tales.
So other than a geography vocab review (my doing, not MFW's), we're finished with My Father's World: Exploring Countries and Cultures. It was a wonderful curriculum this year, which makes us excited to do Creation to the Greeks after summer break!

Linking up at www.weirdunsocializedhomeschoolers.com and
at http://2ladybugsandalizard.blogspot.com.


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