"Fishers of Men" is the theme of our Young Women's Camp this year.
Our group of 15 girls was assigned to make pins for another group, the goldfish.
The pins were to be worn on a lanyard around the girls neck, resembling fishing lures a fisherman might have.
In thinking about what we could do, I thought it would be cute to make hooks and have a wobbly gold fish dangle from the eye of the hook like lures do.
Please realize I have never really looked at a lure...unless you count the time my uncle got one stuck in his finger while at a family reunion in Wisconsin. I gawked at it for a few minutes before he decided to head to the emergency room. His picture is still hanging on the hospital's "Wall of Shame" in case you were wondering :0)
I can't help but show you how cute it was to have all 28 fishies lined up in their very own school of fish :0) I was really excited about how they turned out.
I drew, cut and painted all the hooks and fish. Madison helped me modge podge the fish on and find the holes for the ring she so lovingly referred to as the fish's nose ring.
After finishing these two samples, I packed all the supplies up and let the rest of the girls take things from there. They all leave tomorrow morning for Northern Arizona and had to assemble the pins before departure.
In passing I found out that there weren't really any treat/prizes planned for the girls during camp. Naturally I volunteered my services to come up with a couple things the leaders could hand out when things get hard or the girls have some down time. That, also naturally, lead to me making one for each day they will be gone...and another one :0) I have a hard time deciding once I get started.
This is the first set I finished.
"Chew"s the Right...even when no body's looking.
I made taffy skewers. The taffy was purchased at the Walmart in St. George, Utah while we visited with my grandma. I bought a big bag, just under 3 lb, and it was plenty to get half eaten during the drive home, and to make these 15 skewers. Notice the fabulous use of my cakepop stand!
There was also enough for Emmalee to make some for her and Eli to eat while Madison is gone :0)
Many a friend asks me how I can craft with a little kid in the house. Here is my answer, have her craft right along with me! Emmalee {still 2 until Sunday} made these two skewers herself :0)
When I paint, I cut out one or two extra and let her paint too. Sometimes I make her stick to watercolors, but usually I just throw a Home Depot craft apron on her (the ones you get at the free project weekend) and hand her a brush. She always wants to paint whatever we are painting some shade of pink so I don't usually even have to share my paint. Away we go!
Our girls are the Great White Sharks. With all this making of stuff, of course I had to make clippies! Hello! Do I ever go one day of my life without doing something with clippies?!? Of course not!
I cut these guys out on my scroll saw, painted them white, shaded the bottom with grey, then lined them all with a sharpie. My final step was to brush on some polyurethane and sprinkle on some paintable glitter while it was still wet.
I love this glitter!!!
You can paint over it and it will still shine. It is amazing!
I bought it at Hobby Lobby-don't know if you can get it at Micheals or Joanns, but it is worth the look-see
Here is my little sharkie on a clippie. I actually googled "attributes of sharks" for another idea I had, just to see why on earth our girls would like to be known as the Great White Sharks.
Two attributes stood out to me.
1-Sharks are not afraid to be themselves :0)
Really, have you ever met a shark that wanted to be an opossum or a seal? No, and they don't really let outsiders deter them from the thing they are out to get. Yes, this can be bad if they are out to get you...but if they (the 13 year old living in my house) had in mind to achieve a certain goal, being like a shark and just going for it can be a rather good analogy.
2-Did you know that
OK, so sharks are very aware of their surroundings and so in-tune that they can actually feel intruders before they can see them. WOW! So if my sweet little girl were like a shark in this way, maybe instead of jelly filled pores, she has the Holy Ghost to alert her to dangers that may be approaching. There you go. I guess I am good with the girls being sharks.
I added the pink bow for that feminine charm :0)
The next thing I really wanted to do was make a jar of bait, like real fish bait. At first I figured I would fill the jar with red hots. They would look like the fish egg bait I have seen. Then I was trying to think about what would be jelly-like and round. Scott suggested cutting up gummy worms. I decided a gummy worm massacre would be too time consuming, but gummy worms were not a bad idea.
When I went online to see a sample label, I found a whole slew of Marshmallow Bait photos! "Fabulous! I can fill these jars with Marshmallows for way less $$$", I thought. I made the label in my scrapbooking program, had them printed at Office Max directly onto sticker ink jet sheets. All I had to do was cut the label out and press it to the jar. I bought the jars at Hobby Lobby last week 50% off, by the way. That made them $.75 each. Not bad. The total project was less then $1 a jar.
Now I am feeling a little dumb and wish I would have gone with gummy worms. Who ever heard of using marshmallows as bait!?! Maybe it is common knowledge for those who fish. For me I would think it was weird...probably because I do :0)
Gum. Emmalee and Eli have been drooling over the bucket of Dubble Bubble sitting on the counter for the last two days. They asked each time they walked by it if they could have a piece...like I had magically changed my mind from two minutes earlier?
I really liked this thought. It came from a list I found at
YWconnection. They had some good ones if you are looking for some gospel centered thought/treats.
This one was all my idea. I know that those teenagers, girl or boy, can really cause a stink! That, added to the 4 feet of dust that settles on a duffel bag during a week of camping in the desert, and there is a grossness in those tents that really isn't proper to discuss. I thought any little bit to make the girls smell better, plus fight germs would be golden!
I ran to Bath and Bodyworks tonight to grab an alcohol jell for each of the 15 girls. Would you know, they had just about everything in the whole store for 50% off!?! I got the alcohol jells for 8 for $5 then the holders for $.25 each!!! I was totally excited!
Anyway, I finally got all the tags on everything, Madison is all packed, and all that was left was the hair.
My poor girl really was a sight for sore eyes when she got home last year. I was afraid to touch the bags, the dust was so very thick. We did cornrows in her hair and it was like mud dried around the rubber bands*YUCK*
Even still, I think I would rather have my hair up and out of the way than in my face all dirty and gross. Apparently Mads feels the same way if she asked me to do it again. Madison and I sat down this evening and did her hair up right. We shall see how well it stays in through the end of the week.
Now what will I do with my #1 helper gone for a week!?!
I guess I have my excuse to do nothing, right?
Actually, I am itching to tear through my house with some garbage bags and CLEAN OUT!
Between school, family, all the craziness from my business, my house has been suffering. I think it is time to come to the rescue!!!
I may have to re-visit the Fly Lady website before we do a little boogie :0)
Good luck on yours!
***Update*** You can find some of the printables in this file. I have them all, but not all without our specific group name on them. I can take that off if you would like. Just send me a note. You can find the printables
HERE in my dropbox.
