Cinco De Mayo Dinner

Living in Arizona, people celebrate Cinco De Mayo big time. Also, in my family, we celebrate everything we can. So, this May 5 I will be preparing this meal for my family. It is Taco Salad with fresh homemade (and homegrown) salsa and guacamole. Even the taco bowls are homemade.
To make the taco bowls I used flour tortillas. I traced a medium size cup, and a large mug with a knife. Tortillas cut very easily.
The larger circles are used for the taco salad bowls. The smaller circles are for holding the sides. I am going to make up 2 smaller bowls for each person, one to hold guacamole and one to hold salsa.
To turn the tortillas into the bowls you take your circles and shove them into a muffin tin, for the smaller circles, and a larger oven safe bowl for the larger circles. Preheat the oven to 450. I fill the bottom of each tortilla "bowl" with dried beans to keep the tortilla from puffing up. Bake them for about 6 minutes. I then empty the beans out and turn the bowls upside down onto a baking sheet. The beans keep the bottom of the bowls from crisping up, so the bottoms need a bit more time in the oven. I also add a ball of tin foil underneath each "bowl" to help it keep it's shape. I bake them for another 3 minutes this way. You can bake them this way from the beginning. However, I find that I like more folds in my bowls and putting the tortillas into the muffin tins seems to achieve this look that I like.
I have a garden. I try to always have at least a salsa garden. I make salsa many times a month and it is devoured immediately. I don't usually have avocados on hand, but when I do I always also make guacamole.
Salsa:
1 Cup Fresh Diced up Tomatoes (I use whatever I have ripe in my garden)
1/4 C Onions
1-2 Teaspoons minced Fresh Cilantro
1 Large Garlic Clove, minced
2 tsp Lime Juice
A dash of salt and pepper
Anjeanette adds a small can of diced green peppers to hers. I keep mine more mild because my kids will gobble it up unless it's too spicy!
When I make this I usually make a huge serving (at least twice this recipe) and it's gone immediately!
Guacamole:
1 Cup Salsa recipe
2 ripe Avocados
Mash avocados, add salsa, and stir. Make this very last minute to keep it from changing color. Anjeanette also leaves the pitts of the avocados in her guacamole until it's time to serve. She says this keeps the guacamole from changing colors.
I also make chips out of the flour tortillas. Once tortillas are baked, they just have such a delicious flavor to them! To make the chips I first coat a sheet pan in vegetable oil and salt. Then I take a flour tortilla and rub both sides in this. Next take the flour tortilla and slice it into fourths, like a pizza. I even use a pizza cutter to do this. Lay all these tortilla slices onto the sheet pan and bake at 400 for 2 minutes. Then, turn them all over and bake for another minute. Watch your oven and cook times as all vary so much. You want both sides to be golden brown. They are so yummy!

My Taco Salad:
Refried Beans (I always stir in taco seasoning to my refried beans!)
Cheddar Cheese
Browned Hamburger (Stir in Taco Seasoning with water to coat hamburger)
Lettuce and Spinach (torn up)
Optional: Olives
Layer ingredients in baked tortilla bowl, in order. Top with salsa and guacamole!

Happy Cinco De Mayo!
Rebecca

Great things for Sensory Integration and Preschoolers

Today you are going to benefit from some of the things I have taken away from my son's occupational therapists over the years. These are not just good for kids on the Autism Spectrum. They are great for preschoolers too. They will help your child to center themselves so that they can attend to a task at a table. Strengthen their fingers and hands for pre writing and cutting skills. A treasure hunt to warm up those fingers before writing or cutting.

This is silly putty and some beads. You can get putty that is meant for hand strengthening and it comes in different colors associated with how stiff the putty is. I have even spotted some in sporting good stores, used for strengthening the hands. For this post, I wanted to give you the general idea. You will hide the beads in the putty and then let your child play with it.

Ask them to remove all the beads inside. Tell them how many they are looking for. That way they can make sure they have found them all. It really does take some doing and manipulating to get those beads out. What this does is several things. It warms up their fingers to get them ready for writing, fastening buttons, snaps and, using scissors as well ask toning the hand muscles. Also it is very calming.

An added bonus is a quick counting lesson. When they have found all the beads, have them hide them again. They will most likely want to do this several times before they are done. Be ware that silly putty does not come out of hair, carpets or clothing with out a huge fight and scissors. For those with sensory issues, it gives input to the hand muscles and helps to center the child. Allowing them to be able to sit and attend to a task. This is also something that a child could do if they are getting agitated. The input of working the silly putty will help to calm them. This is something that you should do with your child. I had to shave it out of my son's hair the first time I let him have some (he put it on top of his head and left it there). Rebecca's son put is on his stuffed monkey's tail and well, I think it is still there.

This is a container of dry rice and beans that I hide trinkets in. This is for warming up the fingers to get ready for writing or cutting. Also a sensory integration tool. The texture of the rice and the beans on the hands can help to desensitize children with sensory issues. Again it is all about the input.

Here is the same container with all the trinkets well hidden. You can make this with all beans or all rice. I had some of both so that is what I used.

This is a hand fidget. It is soft and squishy. It is a balloon filled with flour. Think of it like this. When you are anxious or fidgety, if you have something like a ball to squeeze or some gum to chew, you will chew it a lot or squeeze it a lot at first. As you begin to calm down you will find that you aren't chewing as much if at all or squeezing the ball quite so much. This is because the input on your hand muscles or your jaw muscles is having a calming affect on you. Slowly you start to focus more on the task at hand and less on the gum or the ball. Plus this just feels cool. I like to give it a squeeze every know and again.

These are lap snakes. They are made from Men's tube socks. The boys used permanent markers to decorate them. Then they are filled with generous amounts of beans or rice to give them weight. You could tie them off with a thick rubber band, but I decided to go ahead and sew them closed. I didn't want the beans and rice to accidentally spill all over the place. The one on the right was made my by 7 year old last year at school. His brother wanted one too so I made the one on the left for him. What you do with them is have your child hold it in their lap while doing work at the table. They could also put it around their shoulders. What is at work here is the weight of them. These are again giving input that has a sort of calming and centering effect. Again it is all about the input on the muscles. For those that have children on the spectrum you may have heard of weighted vests or blankets. This is a smaller more portable more friendly version. Who doesn't like a sock puppet?

Other things that provide input are jumping up and down, hand walking (wheel barrow races) anything that puts pressure on the joints. In order to get my son ready for a big event we have had to give him joint compressions. What this means is that we are putting pressure on his wrist joint, elbow, shoulder, neck, ankles, knees and hips. It sounds strange but how we do it is hold his hand and arm just above the wrist and push them together in a gentle compressing motion. We do the same with the other joints. With the head we put light pressure down on the top of his head. We do each joint 10 times. This centers him and allows him to better cope with his environment. My 4 year old isn't Autistic but he loves joint compressions. It feels good to him, much like a massage. You don't have to be on the Autism Spectrum to benefit from these things.

Something else I have made for my son is a tunnel. One made out of knit material. You don't even have to sew it. You can buy knit t-shirt material that is a tube. It comes in various widths. The smaller the width the more the child will have to work to crawl through the tunnel. Guess what! It is that input again. The kids have to push their way through the tunnel because it does not have any supports holding it open. The nice thing about knits is that from the inside you can still see light and don't have issues with not getting enough air. I have one of these that I made from two remnants that I sewed together to make one long tunnel. The other nice thing is that I can lay it out flat and roll my son up in it. Rolling him in it gives him input on his shoulders, and hips. He gets a gentle squeeze from the fabric when he is all rolled up (like an infant in a bunting). Some times when he feels he needs it, he will still ask me to roll him up. Even though that was something we did with him mostly when he was 2 1/2 years old to about 4 years. He as out grown some of his early sensory issues. Some of that has been because of the intervention we did when he was little.

My son's Autism isn't a curse, it is a blessing. It has taught me how to look at things differently. I appreciate the little things that I would normally have taken for granted. The advice I have for every one is that what we teach our babies when they are young will indeed help them through the rest of their lives. I have seen it first hand because I couldn't ignore the issues. We worked and worked hard, harder than any typical child should have to but we are getting there. We have made huge amounts of progress.

For all our Autism Mom's out there. Happy Autism Awareness Month! Give yourself a pat on the back, you deserve it.

For all those Mom's out there that are looking for things to do with and for their children, I applaud you. You should also give yourself a pat on the back.

If you made it this far in the post, I thank you for taking the time to read my post.

Katrina

Teacher Appreciation Week is May 4th - 8th

Thanks Rebecca and Katrina for holding down the fort while I was down for the count this last week. It was nice not to have to worry about anything but getting better. It was also fun to receive their fun get-wells;)

On with my post...

I send my child off every weekday to have his mind filled and to learn and grow. I miss knowing everything he does in a day, but I'm enjoying every second watching him to learn and grow. My 3 year old is still at home with me every day, but his turn will come.

I can't spend endless money on daily gifts for my son's teacher. I wish I could. What I do have is time and the creativity to make things. That is what I did this last week during my recovery from my ear surgery. I wasn't in so much pain, but I get dizzy easily. So sitting things worked well for me. Sewing and sitting mostly;)

I found out his teacher's favorite color is pink, her favorite treat is a brownie and her favorite Starbucks drink is a Vanilla Chai.

I made four days worth of thank yous from me and one day from my son.

I found these cute Journal Mounts at Joann's that I am going to write out a little poem to go with each gift. (Oh and I am NOT a poet, but I had fun trying to personalize the gift with a thank you for each thing. They had to be short because the Journal Mounts only have a few lines each.)

Here are the gifts with their little poems:

1. An ice cream cozy

Now take a time out
For yourself won't you please.
This ice cream cozy
Won't let your hands freeze.

2. A cup cozy. You make it the same way you make the ice cream cozy, but I use an actual cozy that comes from the store when you order a hot drink for my template. I also used Insulbright for the inside insulation. I put a $5 Starbucks gift card in there too. You are so awesome

So please won't you try

To take some time to unwind

With a Vanilla Chai?

If you are interested, here is the little coffee cup card I cut out. I did not want it to be cute, I just wanted it to be a place holder, if you will, for the cozy. The ice cream cozy will have a real pint in it, this will not since it has the Starbucks gift card. You could totally use a card like this and make it way cute for another purpose though;)

3. A pencil holder. I just stitched up a cylinder with some patchiness. I used some really stiff Peltex to keep it standing up nicely. It is completely lined with no exposed seams.
You do so much

In this difficult joint.

Thank you so much

That is my point.

4. A rectangular container to catch whatever she may need. I put some of my favorite brownies in there. We love to mix these up with just applesauce. So good.

You held us together

And that's no small feat

And now we share with you

OUR favorite brownie treat.

5. I had my son draw some flowers in different sizes. I had drawn the circle on the right and said to make flowers smaller than that. This way he had an idea how big to make them. I used my favorite technique for sewing with felt and stitched up a broach from his drawings. It is so fun and simple. You take your drawing or whatever, cut it out of paper and layer it on top of felt. Reduce your stitch length waaaay down, and sew directly following the lines on your paper.

If your stitch length was short enough, the paper will almost pop off on it's own. You carefully peel the paper off at this point. Carefully trim closely to the line without cutting the line. Do this with all your flowers. Stack them together, stitch them together. Embellish with some cute matching buttons and sew a pin to the back.

I just love how it turned out. My son was so proud of himself with this one.

My 3 year old saw it and had to make one too. He doesn't get nearly enough drawing time in. It took all we could do to get him to draw two flowers. But I stitched his up just the same. I think any of these would be great girlfriend, or Mother's Day, or pick me up gifts individually too.
For all that you do
I want to say thank you so.
Your nurturing ways
Have helped me to grow.

I also had my son write a letter to his teacher. And lastly we included a letter he wrote and sent to our Governor asking her not to cut his education any more. Arizona is right there at the bottom of the list (or second to the bottom) for education. There is this idea if you are in AZ and want to teach your kids about being involved in making change happen. join hands for education

My girlfriend and I are having the kids in their class trace their hands and then sign them. We cut them out and made a poster with them for the teacher.

Take a minute to thank your children's teachers. Teaching is so much more than just the ABC's. It is stepping in where I am not, to do all the things I can't do while my son is at school.

I'm also going to add a note and another favorite poem, I'm not sure who wrote it, but I totally feel like a teacher's job and a parent's job are one in the same.

“WHOSE CHILD IS THIS?”

"Whose child is this?" I asked one day

Seeing a little one out at play

"Mine", said the parent with a tender smile

"Mine to keep a little while

To bathe his hands and comb his hair

To tell him what he is to wear

To prepare him that he may always be good

And each day do the things he should"

"Whose child is this?" I asked again

As the door opened and someone came in

"Mine", said the teacher with the same tender smile

"Mine, to keep just for a little while

To teach him how to be gentle and kind

To train and direct his dear little mind

To help him live by every rule

And get the best he can from school"

"Whose child is this?" I ask once more

Just as the little one entered the door

"Ours" said the parent and the teacher as they smiled

And each took the hand of the little child

"Ours to love and train together

Ours this blessed task forever."

Hopefully this will give you an idea or two for doing something for your child's teacher. Let me know if you ended up using any of them yourself, K?

Anjeanette

Kids version of the Hummingbird feeder

After watching my son get so excited over seeing a hummingbird drink from his feeder, I decided I should post a version kids can make all on their own, mostly. You will still need to make the drinking well for them. Since it involves using a hot glue gun and cutting the cap.

My 7 year old has been waiting and waiting to see a hummingbird drink from his feeder. Last night he finally was around to see it happen. He cheered and quietly yelled "YES!! IT WORKS! IT REALLY WORKS!!!" Then he said "how thoughtful of her." Meaning how thoughtful of the hummingbird to come by and drink from his feeder.

What you will need:
empty soda or water bottle (something like the 16 oz size or smaller is great for this).
4 Pipe cleaners
lid from the bottle you are going to use
a lid slightly larger than the one from the bottle.

Cut 1 pipe cleaner in half and make two rings out if it. Be sure to over lap the pipe cleaner generously since this will be what holds the feeder.
1: loop and twist the ends of the other 3 pipe cleaners around the ring. Again making sure they are secure.

2: put the neck of the bottle through the ring of the pipe cleaner and arrange the 3 straight pipe cleaners around the bottle. Gather them at the base of the bottle and twist. If they are long enough simply make a loop out of the ends. If they are not long enough, wrap them around the second ring you made. This loop is your hanger.
3: Now for the parent's job. Make the feeding well out of the caps. See Hummingbird feeders using recycled materials for directions.
4: Your child can choose to decorate their bottle or hanger any way they choose. My son opted to leave the label on the bottle (since it is a red color it helps to attract the hummingbirds). He also chose to pick real flowers from our garden to put in some of the slots in the well. Of course this means that he will have to replace them every couple of days but this is what he wants.

Ideas for items to decorate with.

-Permanent markers

-more pipe cleaners twisted into flowers or other shapes and then twisted to the pipe cleaners up the sides. (since the pipe cleaners are metal inside I would not put them in the drinking well).

-stickers (use colors that will attract the humming birds such as red and yellow and orange)

-silk flower tops (you can hot glue them to the places where you glued the caps together to hide the glue.

Make some nectar.

Bring to a boil 1 cup water plus 1/4 cup sugar. This will kill any bacteria. Let it cool then pour it into your bottle. Screw on the cap. Keep it upside down till you are outside and ready to hang it. It will drip a bit till the vacuum forms. This is normal. For this reason I suggest you hang it from a tree rather than your patio. Also your kids won't scare the birds away every time they open the door to watch them. (be sure to wash it out with vinegar before you refill it.

Now wait for your first customer. It may take them a day or two to find your feeder, but they will. Watch for them in the morning and in the afternoon. We see them less during the heat of the day. Around here they are buzzing about till about 11am and then back again around 4 to 6pm till dark.

I hope you and your children get as much joy from this little project as we did. I just love watching my boys get excited about nature. As we watched the hummingbird (from our hot tub), we talked about if we thought the visitor was a boy or a girl. My son said he thought it was a boy. I said that I thought it could be a girl because the bird wasn't very colorful. Usually it is the boy birds that have all the flashy color. He agreed that it was probably a girl then. We laughed and the boys giggled over how acrobatic those little birds seem. In this way we are passing on the love of the out doors to our children. They now have a vested interest to do things that are beneficial for animals and our environment. Mostly I just LOVE my boys and anything to make them laugh and smile and enjoy life is work it.

I gave them a garden to plant their roots and I have given them inspiration that gives them wings. My original hummingbird feeder project, inspired my son to make his own. Together we made it work.

Katrina

Technorati Tags: soda bottle feeder,hummingbird,feeder,tutorial,make your own,recycle

World Explorer Party theme

This year my 7 year old decided he wanted his Birthday Party Theme to be World Explorer. Those two words had to inspire a whole party theme. What is a World Explorer party? A party were we explore the world of course! For my son, it means a safari adventure with animals, a dinosaur dig, the earth for a pinata and other explorer items. You could really spend a lot of time and money on this theme. We stuck with safari animals, a dinosaur dig with fossil making, and a pinata made to look like the earth. I could think of a million other things you could fit into this party if only you had more than just a few hours for the party and unlimited funds. Items like outback hats, binoculars (we made the picture from the invitations smaller and taped them onto the binoculars, magnifying glasses, field journals and pictures to cut out and paste in them are just a few I can name off the top of my head.

I asked him what kind of cake he wanted. I always ask for their input and involve them in some of the details of the planning. He said a "Zebra cake." By this he does not mean a zebra drawn on the cake, NO, he means a zebra shaped cake 3D. He was even very specific on the pose of the zebra. If I were my sister, who makes shaped cakes for a living, it would probably be no problem. I make my son's cakes because they have to be gluten and dairy free. Over the years this has meant that my cakes are becoming more elaborate. I don't leave the cake in the pan and frost it. I have always tried to mimic a sheet cake you get from the bakery and more recently have done 3D cakes. I always start by doing an on line search on what other's have done for specific theme cakes. No big surprise to find that the zebra cakes people are making are with a zebra pan. I don't want to own a pan that I am only going to use once. Plus the zebra was all round and soft for a toddler age party and not a 7 year old who would love to have the real thing. In my search I found that there is a type of cake called a Zebra cake. It is a vanilla cake with chocolate added to half of the mix. In the end I talked my son into letting me do a safari themed cake with some zebras on top of the cake. Which ended up with a very small herd and other animals that you would find in Africa.

At first this is all he wanted on his cake. He didn't want me to add any more animals. In the end we added two trees (like the kind you buy for dioramas), a small elephant family drinking from the pond, a lion over by the rocks, two more zebras standing in a group (like they were having a conversation) and a rhino to the right of the zebra on the cake board. At the time I didn't have a grass tip, so I used a fine writing tip to make the grass clumps. I used a sifter to powder then cake with coco powder to make the ground less white. This cake sort of took on a life of it's own. It was a complete work in progress. Meaning, I covered the sheet cake in white because I planned to pipe black jell over it to draw a zebra. At the last minute I asked my son, if I could just use one of his zebra's and place it on top. He liked that idea, but just one. I couldn't leave it as a cake with one lonely zebra! So I got creative. I have lots of food coloring jell from previous birthday's stocked up. I got to mixing. I had the blue sparkle gel from the moat I made for a previous cake. I added the lake and then a stream. You can't have a stream that goes to no where so I made a water fall. I had to end the water fall some how so I made rocks (no they are not piles of poop!;)

Here you can see the hippo checking out the water. I wish I had taken a better picture of the finished cake. At the time I wasn't doing much blogging and only had enough time to take a quick shot of it before the kids got to it. It really did look great with the trees, and extra animals.

I made an Earth pinata and filled it with earth themed items. Which included punch balloons decorated to look like the earth, plastic Slinkys that also had the earth theme, growing bugs, safari animal finger puppets and of course candy.

The big thing for our guest was the fossil making. Along with that we had small toy dinosaurs buried in our sand box. Here is my tutorial on how to make your own fossils.

Around the yard we had toy animals in various hiding places. So the kids could go on a "safari" to find the animals and write about them in their field journals. The kids were having so much fun just playing on the swing set and making the fossils that the "safari" didn't happen as an organized event. I plan my parties so that if the kids don't want to do an activity, they don't have to. My oldest gets overwhelmed just with having so many people all in one place. So he often does not participate in any of the organized activities other than cake and presents. For him it is just one big play date and for the most part that is what our parties are. I give him the option, I tell him what we are doing and when it is happening and if he wants he can join in. He is great, he plays with his friends and when they are doing an activity he goes off to a quiet room to decompress until the next activity. He has always done this and little by little he has been joining the fun more and more.

Another thing I did was get poppers. You know those little fire works that look like a jug and you pull a string. Streamers and confetti pop out. My son LOVES them, so I had a few packs for the kids. You would have thought I was handing out $100 bills! I couldn't pass them out fast enough. I had hands sticking out in front of me for more. I couldn't keep it straight to try to make sure that every one got to do their fair share. Even better, they quickly picked up all the streamers to stuff in their pockets. We had only the cardboard ends to pick up when all was said and done.

How to make an Earth pinata:

1: I used Elmer's glue mixed with water. Cut some news paper into 1 inch by 5inch strips. White copy paper also cut into 1 inch by 5 inch strips. A piece of packing tape. A punch balloon, because they are nice and round. Blue tissue paper, clear package wrap and blue paint. Get an map (either print one out on line or buy one) and cut out the continents. A tray from the salad I ate for lunch the day before. The bowl is perfect for setting the balloon in while doing the papier mache. I used the lid as a plate to hold my water and glue mixture. (I threw both away when I was done)

2: Inflate the balloon to the size you want your pinata to be. Then tape down the end that you just tied. That way you won't have a bump there. Another tip is to spray the balloon with non-stick spray before adding your papier mache. This will help it to release from the balloon when you remove the balloon.

3: Over lap your layers of paper. Be sure to go in all directions to make your pinata more sturdy. I made the mistake of not over lapping enough on the first layer and had to repair where the papier mache ripped when it was drying. I left the top where the rubber band attaches to the punch balloon open for two reason. First is that I needed an opening so I could pop the balloon when we were done. Second, I used the rubber band to hang the pinata up to dry between layers. I suggest you do 3 layers of news paper. (if this is for older kids, then I would do 4 layers here)

4: For the 4th layer (or 5th depending on who you are making this for), use white copy paper. This will cover the news print and make it easier to decorate. This way you won't have news print showing through your finished project.











5: Paint your pinata a similar color to the tissue paper you are going to decorate it with. That way if you have a spot that doesn't get covered with tissue, it won't be so noticeable.










6: Start at the bottom. You don't have to start at the very bottom because Antarctica will cover the very bottom. Here you can see I was just cutting rectangles of blue tissue and the clear plastic. The plastic is to give the blue more of a water look to it. It moves in the wind. I was using a glue dabber. At some point I had a moment where I thought "Why am I doing this piece by piece? I should be cutting strips and then cutting part way through to make a fringe strip!" With the clear plastic you have to use shorter strips because it does not mold and bend the way tissue paper does. The neat thing about the individual pieces is that when the kids hit it, even the littlest ones, some of them would fly off. So even a hit that didn't appear to dent the pinata had a visual effect of seeing something fly off of it.





7: After you have covered your pinata with fringe. Cut out your map. I ended up using google world to print out my map. I printed out several pages, each with a full view of the continents. We cut them out and then ran them through my xyron sticker maker. I used the on line map to help me mostly get the placement right. (mostly)






We usually have our parties at home. I don't do a ton of decorations (other than the usual Happy Birthday banner and may be a bunch of balloons), but I do accessorize. I usually get 1 set of napkins and plates that match the theme and the rest are colors that match the theme. I have found that when I purchased cups and enough plates and napkins with the printed these for everybody. They usually find the plain plates and cups and napkins and I am left with themed paper ware that I don't know what to do with. I only just got rid of the "Thomas the Train" cups from 5 years ago. I didn't buy that many, they have just been sitting up in the cabinet.

Most of my effort is in planning the cake, goodie bags that have items that match the theme (one time the kids had to do a treasure hunt with clues on where to find each of the items), and items like the pinata.

What are your favorite party themes? What is the coolest thing you have seen at a party (for adults or kids)?

I didn't think to get this up before Earth day. How cool would it be to have a World Explorer party in honor of Earth Day? If you see an opportunity to have a party, you should always take it. Life is too short not to enjoy it. What are the everyday things you celebrate?

Did we ever tell you about the red plate? I am sure Rebecca has mentioned it. In this family we all have a red plate given to use by my Mother-in-Law. The idea is that one some one has something special happen to them or they do something special, they get to have the red plate at dinner to honor them. It is one small way to celebrate the every day events that deserve to be recognized.

Katrina

Where Do You Get Inspiration?

Well, I was just lucky enough to have a weekend full of inspiration! Grab your backstage pass and join me!

I went to California to spend the weekend with my Best Friend, for her Birthday. The weather was fantastic! While we were there, we spent Saturday at a Scrapbooking Bus Tour. I have never done one of these before. If you have ever contemplated doing one of these, do it! Our theme was Rock Star. To explain it in a nut shell, you go on a touring bus from scrapbook store to scrapbook store, doing make and takes along the way. Breakfast, lunch, snacks and drinks were also provided, plus a stop at a Starbucks! There were also contests and prizes the whole day and a big raffle at the end.
At your "home" store you received a goody bag full of fun craft supplies. I loved our bag (green is my favorite color, and I'm a bit of a nature lover)! I have also been needing a new apron, and was so surprised to find a cute one in our goody bag! This picture is just the bag and the make and takes.
I loved how well organized everything was for us. One of the best things about this was having everything ready to go, so that it was super fast and easy to walk away with 3 finished crafts! Sometimes just in accomplishing things, I become more inspired.
I really liked making this tiny book. It was just 4 pieces of square wood, modgepodged together with paper. Each store was quite smart to have you trying out fun techniques using new products. I enjoyed airbrushing my flowers here.
I also loved having all the accessories already put together. Sometimes I spend so much time in coming up with my products, that I'm already tired of the project.
I thought the coordinating papers in this project were just beautiful!
This was by far my favorite make and take (and store! The employees were so much fun and the energy level was perfect. Their store was also the cutest one, and don't even get me started on their examples. Walking through that store was inspiration enough. I have a project coming up that I got the inspiration (and supplies) from them. I am so excited to implement this with my own twist!)
Are these papers totally fantastic or what!? The funny thing about this make and take is that I was literally going to make one for my oldest child next week! It was such perfect timing for me.
I loved how this store gave you all the supplies to do the front, inside front, backside, and even the inside of the back! They gave you the whole sticker sheet to go home with all of the extras, too!
Once I finished this I realized that the child I wanted to make this for is more of an orange kind of gal and my other child is totally more of the pink and blue kind of gal. Which makes this even better. This weekend my daughter and I will now be going to the scrapbook store together to help her pick out her papers and embellishments for us to make her own book...together! This will be fun. My younger daughter will be able to use all of those extra embellishments to decorate the pages of this book, while my older daughter and I make her book.

The Tour was so inspirational in so many ways. It always gets my juices going to go to scrapbook or craft stores, and to visit all new ones is even better. To walk away with 3 finished projects really has ignited a fire in me to do more. And getting to hang out with a bunch of other crafty people (there were a few men there, too!) is totally fun and exciting.

But the best inspiration was doing that whole weekend with my Best Friend! We spent the entire weekend with no kids or responsibilities. A whole nights rest doesn't hurt either! Getting to walk through the stores with her and come up with lots and lots of ideas was so great! She is so totally crafty! I always come up with better ideas if I have someone to bounce them off of first. My friend is also very like me in so many ways. Our children are close in age, the same # of kids, and we even had the same number of boys and girls and in the same gender order! Her parenting style and thoughts on life in general are so in line with mine. I come up with so many ideas for my family, from her. Even today I had to call her up for thoughts on raising my kids. I know that she will be honest with me, have my best intentions at heart, and really understands my vision for my family (because hers is the same as mine).

I am not at a point where I was out of ideas, or even a down time in my life. However, sometimes life does just overtake you. Weekends like the one I just had help me to keep my priorities straight. I feel less like me if I don't make time to be creative. Let's face it, that time doesn't just find us. We have to carve it out. When I am at my best, I am better for my family. There are an endless number of things we can do for and with our families. I am so thankful for this time to have thought of some new traditions to start with my kids, and some awesome supplies to help me keep things interesting around here!

I would love to hear everyone elses ideas on this. What inspires you? What do you do to recharge? Where do you go for inspiration? Some day, I am going to take one of those classes at a lush retreat. Something totally new to me, and in a surrounding full of gorgeous views of nature. Actually, some day I hope to do that often, not just once! ;)

Feeling really really great,
Rebecca