RACK's or Random Acts of Christmas Kindness

One day I was on Pinterest and saw a friend's pin about RACK's. I was intrigued and had to check it out. I loved it! For 25 days, or Advent, you pick a project and do for others. All about giving and not receiving. Thought it was an awesome idea and thought the kids would enjoy it. The kids really aren't so hot and heavy into the ME, ME, ME at Christmas time, but I wanted to try and teach them something besides receiving all the time. Give to others! So first on our list, we chose 4 tags off the elementary tree for children's wishes at Christmas time. We got 2 boys and 2 girls. The boys wanted a football and a remote control car. The girls wanted color books and crayons and a pair of jeans and a shirt. We are happy to say, we provided all and the kids actually helped me wrap the presents too. When we got to the school to drop off the presents, I was surprised at how many gifts were under the tree! When we took the tags, there was only 1 gift under there. People are so generous! This is why I love our school! Next, we plan to paint stones with inspirational words and pictures, then place them throughout the mall when Emma does her choral performance at B&N. I know we will do a candy cane day and I have 2 boxes of mini's ready to go. They even liked the suggestion of paying for 5 peoples past due accounts at the library. We shall see. We do have coins in the jar we have been collecting, on the counter. May use that to help pay those fines. Let me know if you decide to do something good for someone else this Holiday Season.

Teacher gifts

Aren't these watering cans the cutest?? They are ceramic, found them at Dollar General when they were getting rid of all their summer stuff, and the cost me $.10! Yep, a WHOLE DIME each!!!! I couldn't pass it up. Wasn't sure what I was going to do with them, but when it came around to thinking of what to give the teachers, this was perfect! And cheap! They each contain a bag of potting soil, 5 Dutch Iris bulbs, and 3 Daffodil bulbs. They can plant these right away and they will come up in spring. I figure I spent a whole $.60 for each gift. Not bad huh??? I usually give a handful of handmade cards but this year I decided to do something a little different. They will probably get those at the end of the year. :) One of the teachers asked if I painted them and I was like "no way!" Maybe I should have said yes (scratching chin). But I couldn't take credit for that, could I?!?! I did put one of the Snowman made earlier into the cans as the kids wanted to give one to their teachers too.

Little office worker gifts

I wanted to give the office workers at the Elementary school a little something. I made these using my Stampin' Up top note die, cut around the edge of the patterned paper, scored it and then tied it up so it would stay closed. My hopes were to put Hershey kisses in them, but they wouldn't fit!! Onto plan B...I put the snack size Hershey bars and they fit. Funny though because when we passed them out, they kept falling out. Yeah, I forgot the glue dot to hold them in place. The ladies really seemed to like them and that they were homemade. That was the plan, Stan!!! As for the Herskey kisses...they are in a Christmas jar on my work table. Let's see how long they last in this house with 4 kids who have sweet teeth, not to mention mom and dad! :)

A new month - a fresh start

Here it is the first day of December. Can you believe it? Welcome December!!! In the next couple of days, I will be showing you some things I have made for my kids friends, their teachers, and the office workers. My children track out Friday, year round school, and won't be back until 2012. So this mama had to get her Christmas gifts done early this year.

First is the little candy holders I made for the kids friends. With 3 in elementary school, I made 60+ of these. And my goal is to make some for my daughter who teaches Kindergarten so she can give them to her children. But thankfully, I have a little time to be able to do that! Aren't they cute? I got the idea from Dawn Griffith. She made these back in 2008 but they were so cute, I had to do them for myself. I am just so thankful for so many talented women out there! Hope you like them! And I hope the children do too! :)

Yep, not here again :(

It has been a crazy 3 months. My MIL has come to live with us and it hasn't been bad, really. It has been an adjustment for all of us but we are working through it. I haven't been crafting lately, other than a few cards. My mom and I went to Archiver's 2 weeks ago and I didn't get any pages done!!! I did make 3 cards though. I just wasn't into it and I felt really bad that I spent all that time on cards and nothing else. Guess it was good for me to just get out of the house. And the kids are out of school too. They go back July 11th, we are in year round school here, and we will have a 5th, 3rd, and a new Kindergartner amongst us!! He is sooooo beyond excited. My youngest dd will be so lonely when he goes to school but she will start preschool in Sept and will be going 3 days a week. My hope is to craft a lot!!! So until then...I will try to get here from time to time and post what is going on with my life. Have a blessed day!!

Mother's Day gift for my mom

I made this for my mom! It is a topiary made out of all paper flowers. I rolled all the flowers from circles and scalloped circles. I had seen in the June 2011 edition of Scrapbooks etc , craft it forward, this idea of a topiary. I decided to make one for my mom and my MIL. My MIL is a little different in that I used some paper flowers and fabric flowers. The both turned out awesome! I am so happy with how they both turned out. AND they both loved them!! That is all that matters!!!

 

 
 

Easter egg hunt

Our town had their annual Easter egg hunt at the community park. They broke down the ages into different times and they all had a blast. If they keep the same times next year as this year, we will have 4 different hunts because of the 4 different ages. Thankfully this year, Emma and Andrew were together. They had a great time!!

Erin with her basket full of eggs.

Ian holding all the baskets while Erin is hunting. His hunt time was after hers.

Andrew breaking the rules with his hands on some eggs before they said go. But he wasn't the only one! :)

Emma and her friends waiting for their hunt to start. It was really humid that day and her hair is proof. I love it curly/wavy though!