Rolled Fabric Flowers from Bandanas

 Here is a quick, simple way to add some Patriotic flair to your little ones this 4th of July!  Its also a great, inexpensive craft for Young Womens or Activity Days :)  All you need to make these cute fabric flowers are some bandanas and fabric glue...easy peasy, right?!

I cut my bandanas into strips, then once I had them rolled into flowers I hot-glued them to some barrettes I had on hand.

I followed this great tutorial I found HERE...she has wonderful pictures and step-by-step instructions!

This is the one Skylar helped me make, isn't she adorable?!  We did this with out 8-9 year old girls yesterday and they were all able to make them.  Now my mind is filled with possibilities...I'm thinking next year's 4th of July wreath needs to have these bandana rolled flowers!

Thanks so much for stopping by today!  And if you like what you see, follow Blue Skies Ahead on Bloglovin!!!

Sparkler Favors with some Fun 4th Trivia!

 Hello my long lost friends!!

Is anyone still out there?! ;)  I have, once again, fallen off the face of the bloggy planet.  Something interesting happened to me.  

I had a baby :)  And like always, I just jumped right back into life, ready to tackle all the things I had wanted to do while I was laying around on bedrest for 4 weeks.  And you know what?  It was working out really well for me.

Then school got out for summer.

No Bueno.

I finally realized what all those tired, stressed-out moms were talking about!  It has taken me the last month to figure out how in the world to take care of these kids, my husband and myself.  Actually...thats kind of misleading :)  I haven't really figured anything out...I'm just finally feeling like my head is above water and I have a spare moment to get back to doing some fun things with my family...and actually taking the time to blog about them!

So today I am jumping back into it with a really fun Sparkler Favor you could use for your 4th parties or just for fun!  I am using them for my Activity Day girls.  The cool thing about this favor is not only will the kids love the sparklers....but they may learn a little something too!

Sparkler Favors with some Fun 4th Trivia!

To make these cute favors I just got 2 sparklers, rolled them up in a darling striped snack bag from Pick Your Plum, and tied them with some bakers twine.

Then I printed out this fun little tag I made up with some interesting 4th of July trivia your kids will love.  Heck...I loved it!  That's some interesting stuff!!

I found all these fun facts HERE

Just a quick, simple favor to add to the fun of the day and learn a little something too!!

Thank you so much for stopping by today, it feels great to be back!  I can't promise when I will post again, but I am hoping to get back on some sort of schedule ;)

Valentines Activity Days Ideas

I am lucky enough to be one of the Activity Days Leaders in my ward, and I absolutely love it. The girls are at a great age and I work with some really wonderful women as well. We are doing a simple activity this work that is a fun way to tie Valentines Day into treating others with kindness...especially those in our families.

To get started we are going to talk about the importance of words. Do they really affect us? Examples where words have either teared us down...or lifted us up. Then we are going to discuss how we can implement more kind words in our homes.

For our first activity I am giving the girls some pieces of paper for them to fold in half, and then cut out a heart shape. Once they have all their hearts cut they are going to write little notes to each member of their family to deliver sometimes before Valentines Day.

After we are done with the hearts I want to talk about how important it is to use kind words with our friends. As with all girls, our group could use a little reminder about how important it is to be kind to one another. I want them to realize that EVERYONE has talents and gifts, and when we acknowledge them we can really uplift and bless the lives of others. I have a piece of paper for each girl with her name on the top and we are going to take 15 minutes passing each piece of paper around to every girl and having her right something nice about that person.

Finally I made these little handouts for the girls. They are just mini boxes of Conversation Hearts with a scripture attached. I hope when they see this Conversation Hearts they will remember how important their "conversations" are, and that there IS power in the words that we use

These handouts would be great for any primary class, Young Women's, or family home evening...so please feel free to use them if you like! :)

Hope you are having a wonderful week everyone!!