Tag: VBS

Wonderful, Crazy, Exhausting Summer?

Posted on July 1, 2015 by Mama

I’m finally home from an eight-day trek across South Dakota with my husband and son and I can’t wait to share all the details of our quintessential family vacation. It was a perfect getaway for our four year old and fabulous for mom and dad too. We only stopped at “boring” places a few times along the way, and judging by the little guy’s level of engagement, they couldn’t have been that tedious.

While I’m eager to share the entire itinerary with you, it will have to wait, because I promptly put on my VBS director hat and my MOMS Club president hat this week and will be hosting a houseful tonight to decorate a fabulous float for the Parkville Independence Day parade. . . of course that was after a two-hour board meeting this morning. Come on August! No really, I’m literally going 90 to nothin’ right now, but I’m loving almost every minute. Just don’t ask my husband his thoughts on these matters. I think he’s cooperative because objecting would be futile (and, of course, he loves me).

I know I haven’t written in a while and I miss it terribly, but when I revived Small Talk Mama earlier this year I promised to put my family and life in front of this little blog. So while I’m sure you’ve missed all my wonderful tips, tricks and motherly insight, ha ha, there will be more to come; I promise. Just let me first fulfill my roles for which I so eagerly volunteered and I’ll settle back into the task at hand. Which raises my curiosity to how most folks are spending their summers. What about you? What’s been the best, craziest or most exhausting part of your summer thus far?

From T-Shirt to Self-Tying Paint Smock 2.0

Posted on June 19, 2015June 19, 2015 by Mama

paintsmock Since we are in the throes of Vacation Bible School prep, I decided to pull out one of my favorite VBS posts from my first days of blogging and repost it here today. I think it’s just awfully clever (yes, I say so myself) and has proven very useful. This post was first published on August 6, 2013.

Okay, so it’s not often that I have a completely original idea, so here’s one for the books. . . or the blog, or however the saying must go in today’s electronic age. It’s not like it’s an earth shattering discovery or anything, but it sure did make last week’s VBS painting projects much less messy.

I picked up several extra large t-shirts from my Mom’s church for a buck each and planned to use them as paint smocks, but I didn’t think the children would appreciate us pulling them on and off their heads each day so I started thinking about an easy way to make them into backwards vests that somehow stayed on their little bodies. I wanted them to have ties in the back, but I just didn’t have the time or gumption to do a sewing project involving that many shirts.

Suddenly the thought occurred to me that perhaps there was a way to cut the shirts themselves so that they would be equipped with built-in ties, and that’s when this idea was born (now if I’m the last VBS craft girl on the planet to ever think of this, please tell me now so that I’ll stop being so darn pleased with myself).

Materials:

good pair of scissors (I keep a couple of pair just for material)
t-shirt

Directions:

Lay the t-shit flat on a hard surface with the back facing up.
Cut straight up the entire back of the shirt from hem to neckband.
Flop the shirt over to the front and cut a slit just through the center of the neckband.
Then cut around the neck band toward the back of the shirt on both sides, stopping about an inch and a half from cutting off the entire neck band on each side.
These little flapping pieces of neckband will now be your ties.

Just have your child(ren) put on the shirt with the open slit at the back and use your two pieces of neckband to tie a loose knot at the top. That’s just how easy it is to make a mess-saving painting smock.

Shared at:
Home Matters Linky Party

Rainy Day Caterpillar Craft

Posted on May 29, 2015 by Mama

It rained here today. . . for the umpteenth day straight. But thankfully it was also MOMS Club® craft day at my house, which is always a good way to spend a few hours of the day (especially when I don’t have to leave home). Today’s project was this cute little pompon caterpillar that was also a former VBS project, so rounding up the supplies was a breeze.

Here’s what you need:

5 medium pompons
green craft foam sheet
printable leaf pattern
glue
small google eyes
flower stamen or light-gauge wire
clothes pin
hole punch
scissors

How to make your cute caterpillar:

Cut out a leaf from the green craft foam using the printable leaf pattern. If you want to add bite marks, use the hole punch to punch three holes in the side of the leaf.
Adhere all five of the pompons onto your leaf using glue.
Fold a flower stamen, or a short piece of wire, in half and glue it on top of the first pompon, and glue on two google eyes for the face.
After all the pieces are dry, glue a clothes pin on the underside of the leaf so that you can clip this cute little caterpillar on any number of places.

Page 3 of 4

« 1 2 3 4 »