MOPS Craft- ID Tags

In MOPS this week, we talked about various schooling options for our kiddos. With a 2 1/2 year old and 4 month old, school seems forever away, but, in reality, not only can Josiah start preschool in 6 months, kindergarten is only 2 years away too! With as quickly as these past years have come and gone, I know the next will fly by too.

We had a panel of 4 people sharing about 4 different options in our area: a charter school, home-school, private Christian school, and public school. Each teacher talked about the pros and cons of their school and answered all of our questions.

When it came to the craft, I know that many moms still have kids who are under 1 year old while others have 4-5 year olds that will be in kindergarten this year. I chose to make ID tags that could be used on backpacks, bags, or diaper bags, regardless of the child's age. I offered the moms the option of making tags with monograms, their child's name, contact information, or a photograph. I heard that there is a concern of putting your child's name on their bag, allowing strangers to approach your child as if they knew him/her. At Josiah's age, I don't have that fear, but I can see it being very important once he's in school. So, I left that up to each mom to decide what she was most comfortable with.

When it came to assembling the ID tags, I tried to make it as fail-proof as possible. I considered using contact paper to laminate the tags as a cheap alternative, but this would require cutting out the contact paper ahead of time. Furthermore, contact paper did not seem as sturdy or easy to use as the pre-made self-adhesive laminating pouches. I bought the kind made for wallet size pictures/cards, Scotch brand, sold in the office supplies department at both Target and WalMart.

A piece of paper or picture that is 3.5" X 2.5" is the largest that can be used, with a border of laminate left around the edge. I cut each subsequent layer down by 0.5" on the long and short sides. I used cardstock and printed scrapbook paper to add color and style to the tags. The monograms and names were made with stickers. Who can mess that up?! And the information cards were designed on  my computer. I also provided a corner-rounder punch to round the edges of the photos and paper. And each element could be assembled with a glue stick or scrapbooking photo tape. Easy peasy!!!

Budget:
Alphabet Stickers- $18.36 (4 sets of stickers, 3 for $1.79 and 1 for $2.99)
Pad of Printed Scrapbook Paper- $9.99
Laminating Pouches- $18.45 (9 pkgs of 5 pouches each, $1.97 each at WalMart and $2.09 at Target)
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Total Budget- $36.80
Per Person- $0.90 if each person did 1 tag (with lots of stickers and paper left over)

I originally planned on 20 people with 2-3 tags per person,but more people showed up than expected. This would be $1.84 per person.

Question: What would you use your ID tag for?

MOPS Craft- Dry Erase Frames

I've seen these pictures floating all over Pinterest and immediately fell in love! I love that they are simple picture frames with just a piece of paper inside, and you can write on the glass with a dry erase marker, changing your message as often as you want!

     

(Sources: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5)

I knew that, for our February love theme at MOPS, this craft would be perfect! I mirrored mine most after #5, since they used a patterned paper, told their exact fonts in their tutorial, and used flowers to adorn their frame.

I bought my frames from the Dollar Tree for $1, of course. The frame is specifically for documents or certificates so it holds an 8 1/2" x 11" piece of paper. I bought the paper inside from Michael's. It was originally 12"x12" and I just cut it down to the appropriate size. Felt was from Michael's. I used 1-2 sheets of white and gray, so I'll say $1.20 for all of the flowers. (It'd be cheaper, though, if you did less/smaller flowers.) This is the tutorial for the flowers, which I still can't find an original source for:

Finally, I bought dry erase markers from Bi-Mart. I'm sure WalMart or any other store has them for around the same price, if Bi-Mart doesn't exist in your area.

This was the sample I made:

Before we did them as a craft for MOPS, we held our annual bake sale fundraiser. And, since not everyone can eat sugary sweets as well as wanting to add a few items for additional sales, I made quite a few crafts for the bake sale- including these frames! I sold them for $3, which I realize doesn't give you much, if any of a profit. However, since I made them and MOPS earned the money, MOPS still earned a profit, and every single one sold! Just before making them for the bake sale, I found one more style of frame, which I couldn't help but also include:

(Source)

For the 2nd paper, I just designed it myself using Microsoft Word, mimicking the original the best I could with the fonts I already have. So, for the bake sale, I made one sheet of each and sold the frame with both papers (which could be rotated out), decorated with flowers, and sold with a marker:

   

For most of these, I cut the pages down to 8"x10" and mounted them on a white piece of cardstock for a little bit of contrast and border. When it came down to doing this craft for our official meeting, I decided to condense it and have the ladies glue the two different papers to the front and back of cardstock, sandwiched in the middle. (I printed them all ahead of time on various patterns of scrapbook paper, since there was no way to have the moms make it themselves at the meeting.) With the papers mounted front and back, both papers are always inside the frame and the paper needs to just be flipped around when you want to change the saying. (There are no pictures of this, but I bet you get the idea.)

These frames were a HUGE hit. The ladies at my MOPS group seem to love the felt flowers, just like they did when we used them to adorn t-shirt scarves before, since they are such a forgiving craft and look great no matter how much you butcher them! The rest was easy to put together and makes such a cute piece of decoration for your house or as a gift for a friend!

Total Budget:
Frames- $15.00 ($1 each)
Scrapbook Paper- $3.07 ($0.59/ea)
Pad of Printed Scrapbook Paper- $9.99
Pkg of Solid Cardstock- $3.99
Felt- $5.80 ($0.29/ea)
Dry Erase Markers- $16.82 (I got 7 for $1.99/ea and then the 8th had to be a different kind because the store was out of the first. It cost $2.89 for that one.)
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Total- $54.67
Per Person- $3.64

Question: Who would you write messages to?

MOPS Craft- Chalkboard Pots

For our other MOPS meeting in February, we had a speaker come share gardening tips for our group. To go with this topic, I chose to do a potted plant as the craft, with an added twist of having the pots painted in chalkboard paint. However, because of the time to prime and paint the pots, I had to do this myself at home before the meeting. To still make it a craft worth doing, I bought a pot of flowers for each mom and provided the chalk and decorations for the pots.

My inspiration was this picture, which turned out a million times better than my own:

(I got the idea from Pinterest and used the original site, along with others, for directions. However, when I tried to link to it just now, I was warned that there were possible viruses. So I say, just google it or browse Pinterest for further images/directions.)

I really struggled to do this craft within my tiny budget, so I cut some corners. I bought one base for the terracotta pots as an example, but did not buy them for each person, as it would've added nearly $15 to my budget. I also was able to buy 2 pots and get the third free with special coupons from Fred Meyer, which helped cut down on the cost. 

I used the cheapest painter's tape I could find too. First, I taped off the rim of each pot with the painter's tape. 

The employee at Michael's recommended that I seal, prime, and paint each pot, but I ended up buying a black paint that said it was for ceramics, hoping that was good enough to seal and prime it together. I took all 15 pots outside, after being taped, and painted them with the ceramic paint. I coated each pot about 2 times, until all of the pots appeared to be evenly covered. I did notice that you could see where the price stickers had been, but the chalkboard paint later covered this up- no worries!

Once dry, I brought them inside.

Then, my mom helped me to paint each pot with the chalkboard paint, according to the directions:

And, once dry, I removed the painter's tape:

Then, I decorated the rim by gluing hemp around the rim and into a bow:

I bought pre-potted primroses for each mom to put into her new pot. In mine, I had violets. And then I used a chalkboard marker to write on my pot: Roses are red, violets are blue, I love MOPS, because of you!

(My violets were dead by this point! I do NOT have a green thumb!!!)

(I also think my pot failed in comparison to the inspiration because it was missing the bold, white, simple word the inspiration had. I think the small, colored hand-writing on mine makes it look less classy. I also like the original herbs, but found that I could not find pre-potted herbs for everyone in February. While I could've provided seeds and soil, I liked the instant gratification of already-blossomed flowers.)

I then bottled up nearly 2 ounces of the chalkboard paint for each person to take home their own bottle. This way, they could do any touch-ups they needed or do their own chalkboard project at home.

I made up directions for each person to take home, instructing them on how to properly use their chalkboard paint:

And, I made sure to add the inspiration picture, along with this idea as well, on our MOPS facebook page, so that everyone could see the great ways they could use their pots:

(Source)

Total Budget:

Clay Pots- $13.09  ($1.19/ea with a buy 2 get the 3rd free sale)

One Saucer for Display- $0.89

Painter's Tape- $3.29

Primer- $5.99

Chalkboard Paint- $10.09

Sponge Brush- $0.89

Hemp- $1.79

Flowers- $17.04 ($3.99 for the violet and $0.87 for each primrose)

Chalk- $2.00 ($1 per box)

Paint Bottles- $6.90 ($0.69 per bottle)

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Total- $61.59

Per Person- $4.10

Question: What other uses can chalkboard pots serve?

MOPS Craft- Orange Creamsicle Body Scrub

As mentioned in my "About Me" section, I am the creative activities (craft) coordinator at my local MOPS group. If you haven't heard of MOPS, you are missing out on one of the greatest things in the world, at least my group is! In short, it's a Christian-based moms group that's held twice a month. We meet together, hear a speaker share on a topic, eat brunch, chat- never long enough!- and do an awesome craft... well, I think they're awesome because I created them! In January, one of our meeting topics was depression. That's never a "fun" topic, but it's important to talk about. Not only are there people that suffer from clinical depression or mood disorders, but post-partum depression is something that affects many new moms, and the feeling of guilt can keep many moms from speaking up to get the help they need. Furthermore, you may not suffer from depression, but so many people do that, likely, you know someone who does. We had a counselor from CAFA come to speak with us about the topic, and she shared some great insight to the various ways depression presents itself.

For the craft portion of our meeting, we decided to do something that was relaxing and good for our mental/physical health. So, I came up with the idea of body scrubs. I browsed a million different sites through Pinterest and Google and compared recipes. There were chocolate ones and coffee ones and sugar ones and salt ones. It was hard to narrow it down! I finally settled on one coffee scrub, one vanilla brown sugar scrub, and one citrus brown sugar scrub. It would've been easy, supply-wise, to do all 3 since so many ingredients over-lapped. However, when I priced out each scrub, the first two were significantly more expensive than the 3rd, especially when multiplied by 20! So, the citrus scrub it was, specifically an Orange Creamsicle Brown Sugar Scrub that sounded absolutely delicious!!!

I got the recipe from this site. It was a wild goose chase to find everything, although there were only 5 easy ingredients:

⅔ Cup of Brown Sugar
⅓ Cup of Olive Oil
10 Drops of Vitamin E
5 Drops of Orange Essential Oil
5 Drops of Organic Vanilla Extract
1 Tablespoon Honey, optional for dry skin (I didn't use this)

However, since I'm on a tight budget, it was important to find each thing for as cheap as possible. So, a few times I went to a store only to find that the sugar or oil was more expensive there than somewhere else. I suppose after driving around town so many times, $0.40 extra shouldn't have mattered! The orange essential oil and vitamin e oil were also hard to find. While WalMart has vitamin e oil, they were out of stock. And I was told Fred Meyer also had it, but I searched long and hard through the aisles and came up empty-handed. Both can be found easily at most health food stores. I was trying to get as much at one store as possible, though, and while Springfield/Eugene is filled with health food stores, I'm not used to going to them and therefore hesitant to go. In the end, I went to 8 stores to find those 5 ingredients! AGH! I was about to rip my hair out by the end. I got the brown sugar, olive oil, and vanilla extract from WalMart, the vitamin e oil and mason jars from Bi-Mart, and the orange essential oil at Wynant's.

I mixed up a sample the night before our meeting and found it easy to make. It fit perfectly into 4oz canning jars. I did think the olive oil was a little overwhelming, though, and should've used less than the recipe called for. Because of this, I used 10 drops of orange oil and 10 drops of vanilla. I still thought it needed more to cover up the olive oil, but I wanted it to be do-able for the MOPS group and couldn't go crazy with too much. Other moms did better at the meeting, using less olive oil and their scents turned out great!

I then made up a label for the jars. I designed them using Microsoft Word and mounted them on orange paper. Both were punched out with paper punches I own- some of my favorite craft supplies. (As a side note, this is exactly how I make cupcake toppers as well. I just mount them on sucker sticks or toothpicks instead of gluing them to the jar.) These were attached to the lid with hot glue.

And I finished off my jar by tying orange ribbon around the jar and including a clear plastic spoon for stirring and scooping.

It was easy to put together once I figured out how many bags/bottles I needed for the amount of people in the group. The moms in my group seemed to be excited about the craft too. Many people told me they couldn't wait to use them and others shared that their skin felt nice and smooth after use.

Here are a few more tips for making body scrubs:

• Feel free to substitute any essential oils that you would like to use. You can also use jojoba oil, sweet almond oil or avocado oil as a base if you choose.
• The sugar will separate a bit from the oil, but that’s normal. Don’t add more, just stir it up a little every time you use it.
• Use cane sugar. It is softer than raw sugar.
• Sugar contains glycolic acid, a component that keeps skin healthy. It moisturizes, conditions it, and protects it from the harmful effects of toxins. If you use a brown sugar scrub on a regular basis, it will help to improve your skin’s ability to retain its natural moisture balance.
• Coffee helps with cellulite and varicose veins. Coffee and Caffeine are showing up all over in beauty products due to their tightening and antioxidant effects on the skin. Caffeine, works on skin in the three primary ways: as a vasoconstrictor, an antioxidant, and a diuretic. Applied topically caffeine helps to redistribute fat cells and decrease the formation of cellulite. It also acts as a vasorestrictor, tightening and shrinking blood vessels thereby helping eliminate varicose veins.
• Coffee, in a body scrub, can make you feel more alert too, because you associate the smell with the invigorating effects of drinking coffee. (It's a learned response.)
• If you have sensitive skin, do not add coffee grounds and use brown sugar (as it is less abbrasive)
• If you would like a coarser scrub, try 1/2 cup of sugar and 1/2 cup of coffee grounds.

And to use:

After you’ve washed up in the shower or tub, right before you step out, apply scrub on your skin and rub onto your skin in a circular motion. It buffs away dead skin cells and leaves a new soft layer of skin. Once you’ve scrubbed all over, rinse off any excess sugar. You’re left with soft, smooth and moisturized skin. Can be used daily. Caution: the oil in the sugar scrub can cause the tub or shower to become slippery. I was also asked about the shelf life of the scrub. I believe it lasts as long as the ingredients do. In my case, many of my ingredients last until at least December of this year, and some all of the way to 2014! If you know otherwise, please let me know :-)