Here are a few cards I like – they are very easy to make and I hope you will enjoy the task!

Thumbprint Card

What You Will Need:

• ½ sheet of pink construction paper
• Red acrylic paint
• White paint pen, white paint, or tiny wiggle eyes
• Black fine point marker

Directions:

1. Fold the half sheet of construction paper in half and crease to create your card.
2. Dip thumb in red paint and press onto card at a slight angle to the right. Repeat on the left, lining up the bottom of your thumb with the bottom of the first thumb print. This should create a heart shape. Let the thumbprint dry.
3. Use a black marker to write a Valentine greeting on the front of the card.
4. Add arms and legs with the black marker. Use a white paint pen to dot on two eyes. 
5. When white is dry, add two black dots to the two whites with black marker.
6. Write a message inside the card.

Tips:

1. If you don’t have a white paint pen, you can dot on white paint with a toothpick or the handle end of a small paint brush. 
2. Instead of construction paper, you can use colourful card stock for this project.
3. Construction paper provides hours of fun and stimulates your child’s imagination!

Lots of Hugs

What You Will Need:

• Green cardstock cut to 5 ½” x 8 1/2”
• Patterned paper cut to 5” x 4”
• Pale purple cardstock
• Adhesive, such as double-sided sticky tape, glue stick, liquid glue or mini glue dots
• Scissors
• Several pieces of pink and purple cardstock, about 3” x 4”
• Heart stamps and ink, or stickers
• Spiral paperclip

Directions:

1. Fold green cardstock in half.
2. Glue patterned paper to green cardstock.
3. Stamp, write or print “(((hugs)))”on the pale purple cardstock. Cut out and glue to the patterned paper.
4. Write your Valentine message inside the card.
5. Write personalized “hug IOUs” on the 3” x 4” pieces of cardstock. Decorate with stamps or stickers. Use the paperclip to hold them inside the card.

Tips:

• Have some fun with other emoticons, such as (kiss, kiss) or :-{} (blowing a kiss). Or, put the recipient’s name inside the hug brackets.
• Use some of the patterned paper from the outside of the card on the IOUs.
• Spiral paperclips add a special touch and are available in a variety of colors at craft stores in packages of 20 or 50.
• If you don’t want to use a paperclip, glue a piece of paper inside the card to act as a pocket.

Love You Lollipop

What You Will Need:

• Pink coloured glitter glue
• White cardstock
• 1 wooden skewer
• Coloured strips of ribbon (2) 1/4″ and (1) 1/8″ wide
• Large plastic clear crystals
• Pencil
• Glue gun
• Heart-shaped polystyrene/craft foam
• White glue
• Scissors

Directions:

Card Template

1. Fold white cardstock in half.
2. Trace polystyrene heart onto cardstock.
3. Cut out heart leaving a fold line at top of card. Make sure the card heart shape is small enough to fit nicely on the front of the polystyrene heart.

Step 2:  Making the Heart

1. Glue heart card to front of heart-shaped polystyrene using white glue.
2. Cover the front and sides of heart shaped styrofoam with pink glitter glue.
3. Dip styrofoam heart in a bowl of plastic clear crystals. Let it dry.
4. Cover back of card with pink glitter glue.
5. Dip again in clear plastic crystals. Let it dry.

Step 3: Lollipop Stick

1. Twist and glue one piece of 1/4″x10″ coloured ribbon around stick.
2. Twist and glue a second piece of 1/8″x10″ coloured ribbon around stick.
3. Trim off excess ribbon.
4. Pierce tip of skewer into bottom end of polystyrene heart.
5. Glue a piece of 1/4″x 7″ribbon end to inside front bottom card.
6. Glue a piece 1/8″ x 7″ ribbon end to the back inside bottom card.
7. Tie both ribbons together.
8. Cut a piece of 1/4″x 15″ ribbon.
9. Tie a bow around the base of heart. 

Scroll Surprise

What You Will Need:

• 3/8″ x 7′’wooden dowel
• Two 3/8″ wooden caps
• 1/4″x 40″ ribbon
• 3-D fabric paint
• Green paper
• Two medium-sized beads
• Two small-sized pearl beads
• Design paper
• Wood glue
• Scissors
• Glue gun
• Pencil
• Ruler
• Heart-shaped paper hole puncher
• Watered-down glue

Directions:

Step 1: Cutouts

1. Cut out 6″ x 11″ rectangle with design paper.
2. Cut the ¼” sized ribbon in half–making two pieces of 20″ ribbon.
3. Cut out 16 hearts using heart paper hole puncher or cut by hand.
4. Cut a 7″ dowel.

Step 2 : Scroll/Ribbon

1. Place a small amount of glue in the hole of each cap.
2. Place a cap on each ends of dowel.
3. Glue one ribbon end to each end of the dowel.
4. Glue one 6″ side of the 6″x 11″ rectangle along dowel. Wait until glue sets.
5. Wrap paper around dowel. Use a little glue to keep paper in place. Wrap the loose ribbons around the covered dowel and tie the ribbons together with a bow in the middle.

Step 3: Designing Caps

1. Glue medium-sized beads on each end of scroll.
2. Glue small-sized pearls on top of medium beads (let it dry).
3. Apply small dots around end caps using 3-D fabric paint (let it dry).
4. Glue green heart cutouts on caps using watered down glue.

Key To My Heart

What You Will Need:

• Design cardstock
• 1/4″ x 20″ cream-colored ribbon
• Antique key
• Medium-sized pearl
• 6 small rhinestones
• Gold thread
• Glue gun
• Hole puncher
• Velvet fabric
• Fabric filler
• Cardboard
• Watered down glue
• Small paint brush

Directions:

Step 1:   Card Template

1. Cut out two  5″ x 7″ rectangles with design cardstock.
2. Cut out a 2 ½” heart from cardboard.
3. Cut out 3 ½” heart from fabric.

Step 2:  Heart pillow

1. Wrap heart-shaped fabric around cardboard heart.
2. Glue fabric to back of cardboard heart with glue gun.
3. Leave 1 ½” on one side of heart unglued.
4. Stuff heart with small amount of fabric filler.
5. Glue open seam on back of heart closed.
6. Tie a small bow with 1/4″ ribbon.
7. Glue bow to top of heart with glue gun.
8. Glue medium sized pearl below the center of the bow with glue gun.

Step 3:  Key

1. Tie gold thread to the key. Cut thread.
2. Glue the free end of the gold thread on the backside of the padded heart.

Step 4:  Card

1. Place the 5″ x 7″ rectangles of cardstock together to make the card. Make sure the design side is visable on both sides. 
2. Punch (7) even-spaced holes along left edge of card with hole puncher.
3. Lace 1/4″ ribbon through each hole from top to bottom and back to top
4. Glue ribbon ends on inside of card at top.
5. Glue padded heart on front center at 1 ½” from top of card with glue gun.
6. Glue rhinestones to the front of card with watered down glue

Butterfly Kisses

What You Will Need:

• White cardstock cut to 5 ½” x 8 1/2”
• Scraps of patterned pink paper
• Scrap of patterned brown paper
• Pink cardstock
• Black or brown fine-tip marker
• Adhesive such as double-sided sticky tape, glue stick, liquid glue or mini glue dots
• Scissors

Directions:

1. Fold white cardstock in half.
2. Use your scissors to freehand cut two teardrop-shaped pieces, about 2 inches long, from the pink patterned paper. These are the top wings of the butterfly.
3. Use your scissors to freehand cut two more teardrop-shaped pieces, about 1.5 inches long, from the pink patterned paper. These are the bottom wings of the butterfly.
4. Use your scissors to freehand cut a strip of brown patterned paper, about 2 ¼ inches long. Round one end and make the other end pointed. This is the body of your butterfly.
5. Glue the teardrop pieces to the white cardstock, pointy side to the middle. Glue the body over top of the wings.
6. Use the fine-tip marker to draw curly antennae.
7. Stamp, write or print off “Sending you butterfly kisses on Valentine’s Day!” on the pink cardstock. Cut out and glue to the white cardstock on an angle.

Tips:

• Chose white cardstock with a bit of fleck pattern to it—it’s more interesting than plain white cardstock.
• Keep an eye out for different sources of paper and cardstock. For example, the patterned paper of the butterfly is actually from a magazine ad (printed on a card like a magazine subscription card) that shows the new tweed patterns of a widely available pair of canvas tennis shoes.
• Thinner cardstock (which is also less expensive) tends to work better in home printers. Look for it at office supply stores.
• To give the feeling of a fluttering butterfly, choose a font that has the letters following a wave pattern, rather than a straight line.

I hope you have lots of fun making these cards and please send in your comments. suggestions and experiences – your input is always welcomed and very much appreciated

If you don’t have a tradition of making something like the Wreath or a little Christmas tree from your child’s handprints for grandparents yet – give it some serious consideration. You can create a sonderful tradition and these gifts have a very minimal cost attached to them!

Make a Wreath from Your Children’s Handprints

 You will need:

• Green Construction Paper
• Piece of red construction paper or a red ribbon
• Pencil, scissors, glue
• Glitter or glitter glue

Instructions:

1. Trace your child’s hand on a piece of green construction paper.Cut out the hand print.
2. Make about 10 paper hands for each wreath.
3. Glue the hand prints together in a wreath shape, with the wrists overlapping a little bit.
4. Glue on a red ribbon bow (or make one from red construction paper).
5. Optional: Decorate your wreath with glitter or glitter glue.

Make a Christmas Tree from Your Children’s Handprints

 You will need:

• Green construction paper
• Brown construction paper
• Yellow construction paper
• Large piece of paper or cordstock for background (use colour you like)
• Pencil, scissors, glue
• Glitter  or glitter glue and paper ornament to decorate the tree with

 Instructions:

• Trace the child’s hand on a piece of green construction paper.
• Cut out the hand print and fold the wrist over.Make a lot of paper paper hands (the number you’ll need depends on the size of your tree). If this is a class project, you may want to put each child’s name on his or her hand print.
•  Draw a tree shape on a large piece of paper.Cut out a small piece of brown paper in a rectangular shape – that will be the tree trunk – and glue it in place.

• Glue the hand prints together in a tree shape, gluing the folded part of the wrist to the background. Start at the bottom of the tree. Starting with the second row, make the fingers overlap the next hand a little bit.

• Cut out a yellow star for the top of the tree. Glue it on the tree.

• Write a Christmas message around the tree. Decorate your tree with glitter, glitter glue, or paper ornaments.

 Hand and Footprint Reindeer

You will need:

• Brown and tan (or orange) construction paper
• Pencil
• Scissors
• Glue
• Googly eyes

Instructions:

• Trace around the child’s foot using brown construction paper. This will be the reindeer’s head.

• Trace around the child’s hands using tan construction paper. These 2 pieces will be the reindeer’s antlers.

• Glue the handprint “antlers” to the top of the reindeer. Add a bright red paper nose, a paper (or drawn) mouth, and googly eyes (or paper eyes) to the reindeer’s head.

You can now decorate your house for Christmas with these cute reindeers. Don’t forget to put the child’s name and age on the back of the reindeer!

Hope you will enjoy making these and creating your own special memories – please send me your comments. suggestions and experiences along with pictures of your special creations, your input is always welcomed and very much appreciated!

Complete Halloween Guide:

The Perfect Halloween Pumpkin

How to select, design, carve and light your special pumpkin. Including templates you can print to carve out the perfect Halloween pumpkin and more…

Halloween Party Planning Tips

Halloween parties can be a lot of fun – but if you are not sure where to start and how to go about organizing it, it can create stress nobody needs! I have put together some tips for you – check them out and decide to have the best Halloween party ever!

Fun Halloween Snacks

You will be able to stay in the Halloween spirit and serve your family or friends some fun, surprising snacks that will fit right in! Easy to put together and definitely fun to eat!

10 Easy Halloween Costumes

I really think the idea is to create Halloween costume that will not cost a fortune ,make heads turn and people smile. It is not all the difficult and here are 10 ideas for you that will for help you accomplish it!

Homemade Halloween Costumes for Kids

Believe me – you can improvise and get a good costume made right in your home and at a fraction of what it would cost to buy one! Here are a few ideas for you – not meant to create the exact replica of pictures, but to give you ideas as to what you can do!

Homemade Halloween Costumes for Adults

Some people head for the costume rental place,others for the mall – but you dont really have to spend a whole lot of money to have a creative and fun costume. Here are some ideas for you:

Easy Halloween decorations

You don’t have to spend lots of money to create some nice Halloween decorations – little bit of creativity and a few hours will get the job done! Here are some ideas and instructions for you:

Halloween Safety Tips

Safety is very important all the time – but on the Halloween it is even more so – please read the following tips and refresh your memory – everyone wants to have a safe and happy experience!

Halloween Pet Safety

Halloween can be full of temptations and danger for pets – and not in the candy and the opened front door. Your pet need to be looked after with extra care during Halloween and here are some tips that will help you avoid a potentially hearth-breaking situation.

Have a happy and safe Halloween and make sure you send in your comments, suggestions and experiences – your input is always welcomed!

I like the idea of scrap booking as you can add your own personal flair to the pictures with embellishments, mementos and your own words.

I am currently starting to get myself geared up to start scrap booking my sons life up until now. Although it’s only 6 months so far, which doesn’t seem like much, we have collected A LOT of pictures of the little man in that time.

Here are some tips that I’ve learned from scrap booking in the past that may help you get your mind around how to do this for yourself.

1. Identify a theme of the scrapbook you want to create. Example: My son’s first year
2. Gather all the pictures you have on that topic
3. Organize the photos how you would like. Example: chronological order (first month, second month, etc), groups (pictures with mom, pictures with dad, etc.)
4. Go through each group you’ve created and select only the pictures you would like to use, being a little ruthless as you don’t want to have millions of photos in your scrapbook. They’ll end up looking repetitive if you do.
5. Gather any mementos you may want to use. Example: excerpts from my journal of certain moments
6. Gather embellishments to make your pages come to life and add a certain “professional” look.
7. Figure out a layout you would like to use. You don’t have to use the same layout for each page, but they should flow nicely from page to page.
8. Lastly, put them all together!

Keep in mind that you don’t have to spend a lot of money on this to make it look great. I have found a lot of great scrap booking supplies at the dollar store.

This can seem like a daunting task when you first start out, but the result is a great collection of your memories that everyone in your family can look back on forever!

It was very early dawn and at first, I thought I was dreaming, hearing peculiar rattling sound. Then I heard another sound – loud thunder. I was pretty much awake and realized that it was a sound I didn’t recognized. As I was trying to figure out what was going on, I heard that rattling again and looking in the direction it was coming from, I saw that it was my teacup from last night, jumping around in the saucer. And then the sound of thunder again – and I realized that planes were flying really low over us. And at that point, I heard more rumbling topped by my grandmother running into the room and yelling: “Wake up, get up – the Russians are here”. The only thing I could think of is that she had lost her mind and is reacting to a bad dream. Surely it is either a bad storm outside or maybe an earthquake???? Why in the world would the Russians be coming here? They are our friends, no?

Trying to turn on the radio was not much help – it was panic all over the place. The TV was already gone – off the air – and I realized that this was no fun, no joke, no bad dream. This was in fact a reality – the Warzsaw Pact armies invaded Czechoslovakia – the communist government of the Soviet Union very much disliked the event of Prague Spring, Alexander Dubcek and everything that was going on, including the enthusiasm of people when they heard the word “freedom”.

My memories of that day are a blur of crazinest. Rumours, gossip, reports of Russian tanks shooting at people and everything they felt was not to their liking, historical building being severly damaged…. You have to understand, Czechs are incredibly proud nationalists, treasuring their heritage with unmatched vigor and the fact that the National Museum on Wenceslaw Square in Prague was being attacked was almost enough for people to start fighting back.

I quickly threw some clothes on – the only thing I remember for sure were white socks, because they were what I spent most of the day running around in. I met with a group of friends in the town square, wanting more information and trying to understand what was going on. Shortly after we met, the thunderous rumble of tanks reached us and the decision was to either stop them and ask them what the hell they are doing or run. We ran – and that is when I lost my shoes. We met up in our secret meeting place in our town’s park, out of breath, scarred and really, really mad. We figured the tanks were heading for Prague and the only thing we could think of is to take shortcuts to directional signs and turn them around. Whether that worked or not, I will never know – but it felt good just doing something.

After couple of hours, we reached a field with few crossroads and right in the middle of it quietly stood about dozen tanks and army trucks. As we ran out of the forest surrounding the fields, we realized that the soldiers saw us. We stopped trying to figure out what to do next. Then we saw two soldiers walking toward us – turning around and running away was not on the agenda – after all, we clearly saw that they were armed. I can tell you that in a moment like that, the time stops and so do your brain functions. The soldiers approached us with straight faces and started talking to us – in polish. The two languages are quite similar so we could actually communicate – they were asking us to tell them where they were. We couldn’t believe they didn’t know! One of my friends – Stan – totally lost his temper at that point and started yelling at them without choosing his words carefully. We told them that their army is a part of an invasion of our country – and much to our surprise, they were shocked. One of them started crying – sight I will never forget. They honestly thought they were on an army exercise.

The rest of that day and events that took place after were beyond sad. Alexander Dubcek was held in captivity and his government replaced, student Jan Palach burned himself alive in protest, all media was directed by Moscow and thousands of people were running away from the country, looking for freedom.

The one thing I remember of the aftermath is seing russian soldiers everywhere I went. Especially in the shoe stores. They were buying up shoes like crazy – regardless of style, colour or size. Weird memory? For sure  - but then – the whole thing was weird.

I am one of those people who left the country – not immediately and not exactly running. But that is another story, for another day. For now – my heart goes back to my homeland, my lost future in there and all my lost dreams – just remembering August 21^st, 1968.

It’s 41 years later – you think I could watch the videos I just found on YouTube without emotions? Not a chance – this is a fresh as it was then.

Hope you enjoy watching these 2 videos – the background voices are asking to calm, trying to avoid loss of human life and the music is very appropriate. In the second video, the confirmation is given that the government has been replaced and the video ends with national anthem. Oh yes…. more tears – but just for the past, because the present is very, very good

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.