Superhero Theme Girl's Camp: Cityscape

The first thing we had to get ready for was Camp Kickoff to introduce the camp theme for the year. We decided to have a guest speaker who would speak on the importance of talents and gifts. We had a musical number "Glorious" (originally sung by David Archuleta) and we had our YCL's make a cute video/commercial showing how sometimes we wish we had other peoples talents but it's important to recognize and build our own. Decorating the gym was a big part of our planning. We wanted to be able to use the decorations for Kickoff as well as at camp so we could get the most out of our decorations. We really wanted to do a cityscape big enough for our Amphitheater at camp 10 ft x 15 ft, we tried pricing a banner out and it was way out of budget so we decided to sew it ourselves. Last year I made some cinch backpacks out of some no sew fabric, it's pretty durable, comes in 60" wide and is cheap, we're talking $2.99 a yard but you can use a 40% off coupon! I found it in all different colors at Hobby Lobby. Figured it would be perfect for our cityscape. This is what it looked like

We got 5 yards of blue and 10 yards of black and a little yellow. We made a base of blue and black sewn together,(10 ft high 15 ft wide) we then found a cityscape that we liked and on graphing paper figured out the dimensions for fitting it to our base. We then cut out the buildings in sections (there are 5) We sewed the windows on before attaching the buildings to the base, we did this by pinning them in place and just sewing around the edges. To attach the buildings we hung the base and then pinned them on. We sewed them on just following the edges. (make sure when you are determining the horizon for the buildings you keep it higher then 5 ft, otherwise you will see where you sewed the blue and black base together.)

We then had our Ignite logo printed on banner material and cut it out and sewed it onto the base. We put grommets all around the edges for easy hanging. We hung it up on our stage, it made a great statement as people came in. It did awesome up at camp as well, it held up really well with the wind, we didn't have any rain, but it is rain resistant as well, so we weren't worried if it had. Here's what it looked like up at camp.

It looked amazing in pictures, the girl's used it as a photo booth as well.

Next up were banners, we have used tablecloths in the past for decorating, they are easy to sew and rain resistant so we decided to use them again. We chose bright colors and cut the tablecloths into pennants, we also found some wrapping paper that was polka dotted that we used as well. Make sure to use durable string since you will be using them outside as well. It's worth spending a little more on the thicker table cloths from Zurcher's, we also found the Kapow signs at Zurchers. I just used a stapler to attach the pennants (basically making a casing make sure you put the staple under the string I did 4-5 staples), make sure to staple the bottoms as well to add some extra weight, so they hang straight.

We had our Value shields printed professionally onto plastic corrugated signs, after the fireside we wanted the girls to come into the gym and fill out their permission forms so we set up tables and signs designating where each ward would come to get their camp info. We just got extra table cloths and hung them on the walls (we saved them for another project I will post about) then put the corrugated sign in the middle. We then had a sign saying what ward it was since we were just introducing what ward had what value.

We served sugar cookies with frosting the colors of the values and different flavors of drinks, we called it our "Power aid station" we wrapped boxes in the same colors as the banners and put trays of cookies on top to give dimension and then put different quotes on skewers and pushed them into the boxes so they were standing up. It looked really great! I found the quote bubbles with a quick search on pinterest and added text with photoshop.

We made more decorations for  camp checkout my post for our Flags made out of tablecloths and our Pallet signs.

Super Hero Girl's Camp Theme - Ignite your Power Within :Look Upward, Reach Outward, Press Forward

This year for Stake Girl's Camp the Young Women of our stake decided they wanted to do a Super Hero theme, but we didn't want to go with the usual super heroes, we wanted the girls to be the heroes. Our theme was "Ignite your power within" we wanted to focus on the girls spiritual and physical talents to help them see that it is ok to be themselves! We also wanted to focus on how the girls can use Heavenly Father's powers (scriptures, prayer, atonement etc..) to strengthen their own. Our scripture was Moroni 10: 7-8, we also had themes for each day of camp which were: Look Upward (Look to Heavenly Father for guidance) Reach Outward (use your talents to help others) Press Forward (The Savior can help you keep moving forward), like how superman has his "up, up and away" ours was "Look upward, Reach outward, Press forward!" We have 8 wards in our stake so thought it would be perfect to assign each of the wards a Young Woman's Value that they could concentrate on in their own camp. We asked a talented woman, Jenny Smith,  in our stake if she would create a value shield for each of them, this is what she came up with: (she has given permission to share these)

Aren't they amazing!! These were the basis for all our decorations! Click on each value for the artwork:

                                              

Hope this helps you in your planning! You could also use it for New Beginnings or Young Women in Excellence. I have been so grateful for others who have been willing to share their work in the past I thought it would be nice to pay it forward. I'll be showing how we used these for decorations and other camp ideas in following posts. Look for our "Sky High" activity, Bishop's Assemble,  Camp Kickoff, Crafts and Music/Skits as well as other Camp planning helps in the next posts.

a mummy, a bat, and some creepy hands

I was so excited to make the mummy this year, I actually made it in July :) with the help

of my 14 year old son, unfortunately there was a casualty in the making, his prized silicone bracelet

he got while we were in Paris :( so warning if you are going to make the mummy make sure all

jewelry is off and you are wearing clothes you don't care about because scissors are involved!

I found a great tutorial here http://craftymommyandme.blogspot.ca

for the mummy, it was a little harder than I thought it would be, I used packing paper in the end

to stuff it, it worked much better than the plastic sacks.

The bat is inspired by Disney, they had it in one of their store windows, I bought the cage at hobby lobby and the bat was a perfect squishy bat from Target.

The hands are another favorite part of Halloween this year I love this pic

and wanted to recreate it, so you can imagine my excitement when I walked into Taipan and

saw these beauties, I know it's not the same, but it works just fine for me!

Some day I might figure out how to make this actually design though!

The End

Masks and Wreath

These spooky masks and wreath have really added to my entryway this year!

I found the masks at Michaels, painted them a cream color and then used a gray for shading,
here's a close-up of where I got the idea from (Porters in Idaho)

The black wreath I followed this tutorial http://thelongthread.com/?p=1310

Enjoy!

Witch's Hand

I just love this hand! I saw it on etsy but it was sold out so I thought, "I can make this!" Here are the details:
You will need:
Pencil
paper
scissors
floral wire
batting
thread and needle
muslin
crochet hook or chopstick
lace
antique button
black sweater sleeve or cable knee high socks or just regular knee high black socks
spider
hot glue
Black DMC floss (pearl)
Coffee
Wood Candlestick
Paint

I traced my hand onto some paper, making sure I spread out my fingers and then elongated each finger about 1 1/2 inches. I cut it out and then traced the hand onto some muslin. After cutting it out (folded muslin in half to make two hands) I sewed them together (1/4 inch seam) leaving an opening at the bottom turn the hand inside out, this can be difficult with the fingers ( i used a crochet hook to help or something pointy like a chopstick) be careful not to put a hole in the finger (if you do just sew it up with some thread, it adds character) I then dipped the hand in liquid coffee and then poured some grounds onto it and rubbed them in. I would drip water on the grounds to help them "melt" into the material. I then let it air dry. I took an old pair of cable knee socks and cut them making a tube 6 inches long. I found the lace at walmart and cut it the width of the sock all the way around. I found some pearl buttons at Joann's, I used a needle and thread to sew the lace and button on. I then cut the floral wire just long enough  to go in each of the 3 middle fingers so they met in the middle of the palm, then I stuffed the hand with batting (again the crochet hook or chopstick come in handy) the trick to getting the batting into the fingers is to not use too much batting, just tiny pieces. I found the spider at Michaels it came in a pack of 6 (they are glitter). I pinched the thumb and index finger together and used a thicker DMC floss (pearl)  to sew them together, i then hot glued the spider to the floss and then put the hand on a wood candle stick I got from Hobby Lobby (not pictured, right now its sitting on a cutex bottle) and painted it a turquoise blue (love it against the black) That's it! I thought about making some warts or adding a big ring, make it yours!

Harry Potter Spell Book

    I've had several people ask me how I made this spell book so I thought I would share the details. It's so easy and inexpensive.

You will need:

The prints from here Etsy  it is $5 ( I lucked  out and downloaded it before they were selling)
(You can also follow their tutorial) (http://www.thisisdoable.com/harry-potter-spell-book-tutorial/)
dollar store book
Coffee
foam brush
Lighter
modge podge

First I dip the edges of the book into a container filled with coffee, I then pour some grounds onto each side (not too much just a few) and then drip some water on them to help them "melt", this helps give a darkened look, I then let the book dry for a few days, or if you are in a hurry I use a blow dryer.

Print out images, I then cut the paper to size and placed the sheets on a cookie sheet. I took a foam brush and gently applied the coffee (just filled a mug with water and poured coffee in) the ink can smudge so be careful not to brush to hard. After the paper is well saturated, i trickle a small amount of coffee grounds on it, if there isn't enough water/coffee I will drip it onto the ground to again help it "melt" making it darken, I will then use the brush again to spread it, just a little bit. I then transfer the papers to another dry cookie sheet (I use a beat up one, because the coffee could be a little difficult to get off) and bake it at 200 degrees for about 5 minutes, just keep checking it. After it's dry, I then took a lighter and burned the edges of the paper.
Next I found the center of the book and brushed mode podge down the center and onto the pages, I then lined up the paper with the crease of the book and slid it in, then pressed the page onto the actual book page to help it stick.
That's all there was to it :)
To make the wands I just got some chopsticks and a big bag of decorative wood beads (found at walmart in the jewelry section) and then using my hot glue gun attached the beads in different ways, I then used craft paint to paint them different colors

House rules

Last year i saw this on pinterest, and thought it would be fun to change it up to house rules. Thought I would share it with you, I uploaded the parseltongue font from overthebigmoon and then distressed it by using curblys method of antiquing paper. Enjoy!