Graduation Gift

"I can't believe I'm old enough to have a child graduating from high school!"  Those are words I've heard come out of many peoples mouths but never thought it was that big of a deal...until I'm the one that's old enough to have a child graduate from high school!  Along with my own child graduating, he also has lots of friends graduating....friends he wants to give gifts to.  So, I decided to put together a simple yet cute gift. 

 

 Dr Suess always says it best, right?! This can be as cheap as the candy bar and paper, or tuck some cash or a gift card inside. 
 

I started out with an XL symphony candy bar.  I wrapped a piece of white paper around it and taped it on.  I used our school colors and added a pattern strip of paper that I wrapped around and taped also. Next I cut out the poem and backed it in maroon cardstock and placed it over the patterned strip.  I found some fun sparkly yarn that I wrapped around the remaining white paper and then added  this  fun graduation cap.   I had some paper with our school name on it that added a fun touch. I didn't have enough for all 20 I needed though, so I added a PVHS to make it fun.  

 

I cut the graduation cap out on my Cricut Explore.  I love how you can buy 1 image instead of purchasing a whole cartridge!  I only cut out these two pieces and then snipped the tassel off so I could add my own.

 

 

For my tassel (which I think makes the whole hat), I used embroidery floss.  I was able to get 6-7 tassels per skein of floss.  I wrapped the floss around my fingers five or six times and then left a long tail.

 

 

I then wrapped the tail around one end a few times to make it look like a knot, and then tied it off leaving a short tail to attach to the hat.  Snip off the ends and it's good to go.  I attached the two pieces with a puffy glue dot to give it dimension.  I love how they turned out!

 

 Click here for poem

 

Pull out all those scrap pieces of paper and turn them into a stinkin' cute grad gift!

 

Happy Summer! Let the pool sitting, bon bon eating, lemonade drinking begin...I'm ready!

 

 

Strawberry Tapioca Salad

We spent the past 5 days in Southern California, visiting Disneyland and the beach.  My today's task list has been well used while I have been doing laundry and getting my house put back in order.  Why is it that you need a day of vacation to recover from your vacation!?  Dinner was in the back of my mind when my friend called and reminded me of our neighborhood block party.  I had totally forgotten about it, but was excited that all I had to do for dinner was make a salad to take to the party.  Strawberries are in season right now, so I decided on this yummy salad.  I have a few different salads that are my go to.  You know the type, easy and everyone asks for the recipe because they are so good, this is one of those.  

 

 

We actually call this "Peach Salad" at our house.  Then depending on which fruit it has in it we say, "Peach Salad with Strawberries".  Confusing I know...the first time we had it was with peaches, and the name peach salad stuck.  The thing that's so great about this salad is that it is very versatile as to which flavor it is.  My absolute favorite is peach loaded with fresh peaches...YUM!  But, since it's not peach season, today it's strawberry salad. 

 

Laundry Instruction Sheets

Two years ago I put my back out and was down for almost a month.  It was a long hard month (especially because my hubby was working out of town).  Luckily for me I had a teenage driver that ran everyone around and kept milk in the fridge, teenage girls that kept the house going and watched the younger ones, and meals in the freezer so we didn't have to eat Mac and Cheese every night.  My family and friends were also great to help out!  During this time I realized that there were some areas I hadn't taught my kids enough.  One of these areas was doing laundry.  I'm kind of fanatical about my laundry and up until hurting my back, I was the only one allowed to do laundry.  I know....dumb!  My hubby had ruined too many of my clothes at the first of our marriage won thru incompetence  and I had banned him from the laundry (there are many things he does GREAT in the house - laundry just isn't one of them).    In order to help them, I made detailed instruction sheets for the different loads of laundry they would be doing.  I later framed these and hung them by the washer.