Gift card and candy bouquet

This is one of the presents I gave hubby for Christmas and thought I would share with you how I did it, I am sure it is pretty self explanatory.

You will need  a box or a cute cup, Styrofoam, shredded paper (all of which I got from the dollar store)
Popsicle sticks or flat sticks (I got mine at walmart)
Gift cards
candy
Packing tape

Start by placing your Styrofoam in your box or cup. Tape your gift cards and candy onto your sticks( I used a glue gun on mine and had some trouble getting them off the sticks, learn from my mistake).

Next start sticking your sticks into the Styrofoam and arranging things how you want.  Once you get it how you want stuff your shredded paper around and between the sticks, until they are all covered.

I also made some for 2 of my nephews with a McDonald's gift card and candy using a mickey mouse cup and a snoopy cup (found in the party section at walmart).

This is a great gift that is easy to make, works for anyone and is easy to have on hand. I think this is our new birthday gift for parties this year.

Let it snow banner

 Here is my banner that I shared at embroidery club.

 Here are a few close ups.

 I finally finished making these cute reindeer ornaments for Little man's class.(21 of them) The only problem is, is that he has been home sick with croup since yesterday and will not be going to school until after the new year. I had all but 3 finished so I decided to just finish them and let K take them and drop them off to his teacher to hand out.

 Mr K has also been home sick with croup since Sunday. At least it is before Christmas and not on Christmas.

 I have also had a few people in need of embroidery, this is the latest one.

 I did  owls for her 2 nieces

 and this cute bear for her nephew

Party Day

Well today was Little man's party, and he was pretty excited

 Here's the table all set ready for pizza and cake

 I decided this time I was keeping it simple and made cupcakes and toppers (in photoshop) instead of a cake.

 Well I thought I was, but B asked where his smash cake was(she is very much liking the idea of smash cakes for not just one year olds lately) and I said well I didn't make one, but since I had left over batter from the cupcakes I poured it in a pan and made one.

 The problem with making a cake and frosting it too hours before the party, is that it is very crumbly and does not frost well. B said "it's fine mom, it looks like they had a battle"

Apparently I did not take pictures of all the activities so here is a run down of what we did: as the kids came they were issued their gear, a helmet and  a shirt my sister in law screen printed with the word army across the front. Next it was time for sergeant says, B was my sergeant (she even wore an army shirt because we had an extra one, kind of sad that she fits into a 6 year olds shirt)

Next we had physical training which consisted of sit ups, push ups, running in place etc, then it was on to the mess hall then off to basic training camp, where they had to do an army crawl under a net, weave in and out of cones, and up and down the stairs.

We then did target practice using a printable I found HERE and nerf guns.

We did the pinata next.  Little man hitting the pinata as hard as he can

 the candy scramble. The pinata lasted through them all hitting it twice.

Cake time was next. blowing out the candles

 He LOVED the idea of a smash cake and didn't hesitate to dive right in

 Here is the inside of the cupcakes...camoflage

Then it was present time and time for kids to go home.

I really need to do a better job at taking pictures, I apparently didn't get a picture of all of the kids together either.

This year Little man wanted to have an army guy party, he has been slightly obsessed with anything army/camouflage for a while now. I tried to talk him out of it because I already had one for K a few years ago, and do not like to repeat parties, but he was insistent on it and nothing I came up with was good enough, so army party I planned.

Here is his invitation I made using photoshop. Add your last name and base after the Report to. I have to say  even though this doesn't look all that impressive I am pretty impressed with the way it turned out because I learned how to use photoshop brushes and a few other techniques. I don't know how I didn't know how to do this before.

 I made little pockets out of paper and put air heads in them for "air raids" I know the kids will not understand it but I thought it was fun. I made the tags in photoshop.

 Here is a better look

 Here are my "rescue ropes" made out of licorice, I was going to put them in plastic bags and make the topper and then found them individually wrapped and decided to just glue them into the topper instead. The topper was again made in photoshop.

 So I found this awesome idea and tutorial HERE and thought how could I NOT make a paper bag pinata? So I ran to the dollar store in search of crepe paper but was only able to find the light green, so I went to hobby lobby and was able to find the dark green, and also the brown paper bag (you can use any bag)

 I got to work gluing and folding...two layers of dark green and then one layer of light green. On the back I did not "ruffle" it and just glued it down flat. Then I made my sign in photoshop, printed it out and added a ruffle to the back and glued the whole think on. Filled it with candy and stapled the top closed.

 I bought juice boxes and covered them with brown paper(remove the straw before doing this) then let Bricanie decorate them to look like walkie talkies, then taped the straw back on the back to look like an antenna.