Easy Peasy Cushion Covers

I made these cushion covers last night and I love 'em...I'm thinking I might get protective of them when it comes to sticky fingers!! I made the plain cushion at the back in 30 minutes (from start to finish) and the ones at the front took me just over 45 minutes to make....my mind is whizzing with all the possibilities for the ones at the front. :)

The cushions are made from just one long piece of fabric and as I haven't attempted zips yet so they are just envelope style.

Measure the width and height of the pillow you want to cover.  Mine measured 18" wide and 13" high, so for the width I multiplied it by two, added on 1" for seam allowance and then 5" for the overlap on the back (you could make the overlap slightly larger if you want)...so total width added up to 42".  For the height I just added on 1" for the seam allowance.

I cut my fabric using my measurements (42" x 14").

Overlock the smaller ends of your fabric (so I sewed my two 14" ends)...my overlock isn't too great on my machine so I use my zig zag stitch and let one point go off the fabric so that it rolls the edge and stops it from fraying.

Turn over the now overlocked ends (1-1.5cm) and sew using the edge of your machines foot along the edge of your folded fabric.

Ignore this bit (and the next few) if you are just doing a plain cover...pin your printed fabric making sure it sits central to your cushion, make sure to check the over lapping of the fabric on the back is fairly central.  For how to print onto fabric click here for one of my previous posts.

I sewed round my fabric twice, the first time I just did a straight line, the second time I did a bit of wiggling...I like the finished result and the frayed edge, but you could appliqué etc.

Have the front of your fabric/pillow face up, then fold one end over and then the other...work the fabric so that it is the width of your pillow (making sure if you have attached a design/fabric that this is still central) and so that the overlap is fairly central again, then pin along the top and bottom.

Sew along the two pinned edges using the 1cm guide on your sewing machine, and then overlock the two edges you've just sewn to stop them from fraying.

Turn the pillow the right way out and ta da you have a super duper pillow case for your settee.

Preparing for and Reviewing General Conference #3

One of these days I'll be super prepared and get my posts on here before General Conference starts, lol!!  Well it's another 'can' idea but for General Conference this time, also below is a great link to 'The ultimate guide to General Conference with kids'...a must for anyone with children :)  

General Conference Preparation

I've made a 'can' for each of my kids this year and have filled them with pens, felt tips, crayons (for the younger ones), and some sweets...I find doing these quirky little things generally helps with my kids concentration and also they get really excited for Conference too.  I printed the phrase "I 'can' listen to the Prophets and Apostles" on some card and used lots of my 'DIY Mod Podge' to stick it on.  Voila!...job done :)

I put a big packet of love heart sweets in each one and the plan is each time they hear the word love (or something about love) being mentioned they get to have one....I'm guessing the younger ones will have finished theirs before the opening prayer, lol?!!?! 

General Conference Review

Very similar to the above except with the words 'I 'can' listen and obey the Prophets and Apostles'.  On the Monday after Conference for FHE we are going to go through our General Conference Notebooks and decide for each talk what conference square picture to stick at the top of their named lollipop stick.  

Conference Squares

Then on the back of the stick we will write a goal/idea of what we can do to follow the council given and review these during the next six months for FHE/family councils/goal setting etc.

This is going to sit on our mantle and I'm hoping it will be a daily reminder for the children and us to look through and remind us of the talks and council given at conference :)

Looking for other ideas??  The website shown below has a stack load of great links for all different kinds of activities, colouring, games etc, why not take a look it's great :)

livecrafteat.com

The Ultimate Guide to General Conference with kids

lds.org also has a page specifically designated for General Conference Activities for Children too.

Hope you enjoy watching Conference with your family and loved ones xx.

Scriptural Easter Egg Hunt

I've been asked to cover my Primary's music time this Sunday and thought I'd do an Easter Egg Hunt, so I cut out some brightly card into an egg shape and wrote different songs on...I had some left over and thought I could use them for us tomorrow to help us read the Easter story.

I looked in John chapter 20 to see what verses etc I could group together and write on the eggs and couldn't decide as it was all so lovely (cheesy but true).  So I grouped them according to the six paragraphs already highlighted in the King James Version.

Egg 1 - John 20:1-10; Egg 2 - John 20:11-18; Egg 3 - John 20:19-23

Egg 4 - John 20:24-25; Egg 5 - John 20:26-29; Egg 6 - John 20:30-31

We are going to hide them around the room and one of the children has to find number one first and then we will read/discuss those scriptures and then we can find the next one etc...once we've read them all the children can then hunt for their chocolate eggs.

Happy Easter everyone xx

Two Instant FHE games

I think I've got a bit of a wild imagination as I regularly conjure up games out of nowhere for our kids to play after our FHE lessons...though this only occurs when my brain is actually in a fairly functional mode, lol!! ;)

You need no preparation and no supplies, so you can play them in an instant.  The two games are entitled....Sleeping Lamanites and Are you Reverent??

The idea for this game came from the story found in Mosiah 24 where the Lord made the Lamanites sleepy so that Alma and his people could escape.  

 19 And in the morning the Lord caused a ^adeep sleep to come upon the Lamanites, yea, and all their task-masters were in a profound sleep.

Basically the aim of the game is for a Nephite to sneak pass all the 'sleeping' Lamanites on the floor without waking them up and escape from the city....aka get from one side of the room to the other without being detected by the people lying on the floor.  

The Lamanites lay face down with their eyes shut (no peeking!) and they are allowed one 'twitch' each...a 'twitch' is when they move their arm or leg to try to touch the passing Nephite (very funny to watch by the way).  If they miss that's it, no more twitches for that person....and if somebody does manage to touch the Nephite then they get to be the next one to try to escape the city.  I hope these instructions make sense!?!!

We played this one just this Monday after we'd a rather irreverent day at church, but we have yet to see if it's sowed other thoughts into their heads of crazy things to do during sacrament or whether it's taught them how to sit reverently, hopefully it's the latter!! p.s. I don't expect my kids not to move during church, but hopefully musical chairs is a thing of the past :)

Right how to play...one (or two) people stand at the front, while the rest of the family sprawl themselves across the settee doing things that aren't particularly reverent...eg fingers in ears, upside down, on phone, sleeping etc.

The one/two ask those on the settee "Are you reverent??", to which everyone should respond in unison "No!!"...of course, you always get someone that answers 'yes'.

Then they have a certain amount of time (we chose a minute) to get them looking reverent either by physically moving them or by giving instructions eg turn round, feet down, fold arms etc...the latter worked better for the younger ones.

We have really enjoyed playing these simple games together over the years and hopefully will have many more years of them to come, and maybe your family will enjoy them too??!

Gorzal and the Hobsnatchers book

Well the past couple of weeks have been really busy as I've been helping my husband get his first children's book released for the Kindle...or in other words I haven't been able to get a look in on the laptop, haha!!  

So since I haven't had time for anything else I thought I'd share the book with you so I can get the vision of tumble weed blowing aimlessly through my blog out of my head, lol :)

Gorzal and the Hobsnatchers

(The Eiderworld Series)

I know I'm biased but I think it's a great story (and others think so too, which is always nice to hear!).  My husband wrote it for our four older children aged from 6-11 years...they really enjoyed the adventure, and the humorous bits had one of my daughters in a giggling fit.

Sorry, but my time is up for now....wow, that went quick!  Hopefully I will be able to get some more time on the laptop soon!!

Hope you enjoy this book as much as my friends, family and others have.

Family Chalkboard

Chalkboard paint is my new love at the mo, everything is getting plastered in it!!  I decided to make one for my brother & co. for Christmas with their family name across the top.  I think it turned out alright especially since I was making it up as I was going along.

After giving the wood three coats of chalkboard paint (my paint dried really quickly), I decided to use precut wooden letters for the name and stuck them on with my good ol' faithful hot glue gun.  I decided to keep my letters plain, but you could apply acrylic paint to add a bit of colour.

I then hunted around my local DIY store for something suitable for the chalk to sit on and found this piece of wood, I think it works quite well....sorry, I don't know what it is called but hopefully you'll be able to find something similar to it.  I used a hammer and nails to attach it, this was a bit fiddly to attach but luckily my husband was about to lend a hand...if not, you could always use the hot glue gun again??  At the back I attached a small sawtooth hanger.

Feedback...they love it and their kids can't stop writing messages on it, yeahhh, I love it when a plan comes together!!

Love Hearts

Just a quickie post, my kids made these for their school teachers and hid them in the classroom.  Super quick to make and with my hot glue gun at the ready the sweets actually made it to the card without being opened or nibbled at!....ok, we have a few spare packets to keep us going :)

I decided to make some for the sisters on my visiting teaching list too as they they are perfect for posting through the letterbox, it's always lovely to receive a nice note and a treat doesn't go amiss too!

General Conference Rocks!!

I've been hanging onto these leftover mosaic tiles from our bathroom just in case I could use them for something, and yep four years later and I've turned them into fridge magnets...woohoo, I don't know how I do it, lol!!?!

I used some masking tape to attach some tissue paper to card so that it would go through the printer (I got this idea from several blogs) but as you can see from my photo below my printer didn't seem to like this and chewed it up a tad.  Fortunately I managed to salvage a few squares so it wasn't a total failure :)  Your printer might be kinder, so you might be able to get a whole sheet??

I cut the non-smeared/chewed squares and stuck them onto the tiles using my DIY Mod Podge.  When they were dry, I trimmed off the excess tissue paper and used my hot glue gun to stick a magnet on the back....yep, I'm sat on my bed in my PJs making rock magnets, awww my kinda heaven :)

I used quotes/themes from General Conference for my rock magnets but you could use scriptures, children's names, a phrase...anything!!  As I was giving mine as a gift I made a little label for the top out of card, I  kept smirking at my play on words, haha!!

Rock on!!!!

I know it. I live it. I love it.

I loved Ann M. Dibbs talk at General Conference and as soon as I mentioned the story at the beginning of her talk about the girl in the T-shirt my kids remembered it too!!

Once we'd finished the story we all had a piece of paper with her chosen T-shirt statements on (I'm a Mormon. I know it. I live it. I love it), and we each wrote down how and why we knew it, lived it and loved it!  It was lovely to watch the children sit and think as they wrote down their feelings and answers to these simple but profound sentences.  I got all choked up as we shared what we had written down, we were basically sharing our testimonies of the gospel with each other...it was one of those special memories.

We each had a cut-out card T-shirt to decorate (on both sides if we wished) with either the words or drawings showing our beliefs....if you've got some old plain T-shirts laying around you could use these instead, or if you are a very hi-tech family you could design them on your computers and then print the designs onto T-shirt transfers.  I thought teenagers might enjoy the latter one, but as I have none yet I am only guessing??!!?!  It could also make quite a good activity for Faith in God too?

We finished the lesson by reading Sister Dibbs testimony at the end of her talk....

I have a testimony of our Heavenly Father’s great plan of eternal happiness. I know that He knows us and loves us. I know that He has prepared a prophet, President Thomas S. Monson, to encourage us and help guide us back to Him. I pray that each of us will put forth the effort to be able to confidently declare, “I’m a Mormon. I know it. I live it. I love it.”

For the treat I was soo excited when I found these mini football shirt biscuits, how perfect are they??!!?  And as with most of our FHE treats we had to cover them in lashings of frosting and hundreds of sprinkles...nom nom!!

I am a Child of God games

'Build a Beetle' is one of our family favourite games, so I thought I'd change it a bit to coincide with this years Primary theme, and we love it!!  Click on the link below to download the game and the instructions and get drawing some crazy stick people :)

Click here to download files for

I am a child of God game and Instructions

If you would like an easier version of the game, I found a similar type of game on Pinterest.  I downloaded the image and then typed the words above... 

gingerbread dice game

kinziekreations

I laminated both games to make them more durable and to save on photocopying...and the added bonus is that my kids love using the felt tips and then rubbing them out...the simplest of things amuse my kids!!?!

I am a child of God Totes

Include a die and felt tips and you have a great pressie and activity for all ages.  If you want to be extra crafty you can also make a 'I am a child of God' tote for the game to go in too.