Hopes for Summer

Hi All! I wanted to post a craft we did a couple of weeks ago in case you'd like to do something similar. I got this activity from The Confident Mom summer activity calendar that I purchased from her blog back in April. If you'd like to get one, they are SUCH a great resource and VERY inexpensive. You can go HERE.

The craft was supposed to be dream catchers, but I modified it because being the detail oriented person I am not, I picked up a couple of supplies that were not in the original idea and they weren't going to look like dream catchers so summer hopes and prayers it is!:-)

I have 5 children 7 and under so if we're doing any kind of craft my 20 month old needs to be strapped down or asleep and I have to be organized... at least to start. So I sat out all the supplies and gave each of my 4 oldest a space to start. This is a craft I had to be pretty involved with because of embroidery hoops and hot glue guns, but when we were done, the kids were proud! These are hanging on our art wall and they can look at them as the summer passes and see if they're hopes and prayers are coming true.

Table to start...

Work in progress. We colored our doilies with marker first...

Then placed the doilies on the hoops and added feathers and jewels with hot glue. I had the kids write their hopes for summer on cut outs and I attached them to the bottom with string I had on hand.

They all turned out completely unique and each is beautiful in it's own way.;-) 

If you didn't notice, my 3 year old isn't in this pic. Turns out it was a little much for him, but he was totally content to scribble and draw super heroes on his paper doilies with markers so that turned out to be just fine. We added a few jewels to his with regular glue too. 

Ultimately, it is NOT me to craft and compared to the pics on the blog this idea came from, ours were less then perfect, BUT the kids were creative and made something they were proud of and I got to spend time with them helping the process, so it was SUPER worth it!!

Supplies

Embroidery Hoop

Paper Doilies

feathers

jewels 

markers

hot glue gun

card stock

string (any king, but the thinner the better)

A month later...:-)

Oh my goodness!! Is it really almost the end of June?? And I'm just getting to my first summer post?? Wow, as you have probably experienced, time is FLYING right now! I'm loving having the kids home and filling our days with activities together and plenty of resting and relaxing, catching up on movies and doing lots of crafts and reading together. I'm going to throw it back to the day they got out of school when we had our little party to welcome summer and share some pics!

All I did for prep was pick up water guns, a bubble kit and water balloons at wal-mart. I used a couple of hours in our morning to fill water balloons while the kids were at school. Did you know they have the kind that seal themselves?? Am I in the dark ages because I just found out about these. No more knots! Unless of course the little stopper malfunctions, then you have to tie the not, but STILL. They're great!. The younger kids especially loved helping fill the balloons!

It seems like months ago... but I guess it's just been one month, right??:-)

We had lots of water fun... they loved every minute of it! I tried to snap some pics amongst the water splashing...

We welcomed summer with a bang and I can say I'd like to make this a tradition. Not just water activities, but the welcoming summer party. It's a great way to make a land marker of memories for the end of the school year and the beginning of summer!

Next post will be some things I got from my 2015 summer activity calendars over at The Confident Mom.