Hot Cross Bun Printable Tag

My English great-grandmother made hot cross buns every Good Friday, as many do.  Because of this heritage of mine, I too began making hot cross buns each Good Friday.  It not only marks the occasion of Good Friday, it forges a bond between myself and my great-grandmother and our English heritage.  And, being a family history nerd, I like that connection.  :)

This year I discovered a lovely historical tradition regarding hot cross buns.  Apparently, those who share a hot cross bun are supposed to enjoy a strong friendship and bond for the next year. A line from an old rhyme captures this lore, "Half for you and half for me, between us two, good luck shall be." 

What a great tradition!  So, I thought I'd take a plate of hot cross buns over to a couple friends today.  And, of course, I needed a tag to go with it.  :)  So I whipped one up in photoshop.  I rather love it.  :)  

Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/five-great-myths-about-hot-cross-buns-traditional-pre-easter-pastry-180951130/#li5ohzqpjlPrppBG.99
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Since I liked it so much, I thought I'd share it with you, dear blog reader.  Take your friends a plate of hot cross buns and share the friendship!

Blue and Gold Banquet Theme: Studio C

I'm a Webelos Den Leader. Our Cub Committee asked me to head up the Blue and Gold Banquet this year. Here's what I came up with.

The boys in our pack LOVE Studio C. Have you seen it? It's a clean sketch comedy show on BYUTV. They're obsessed, acting out their favorite sketches in den meeting all.the.time. So, I thought it'd be a fun theme for the Blue and Gold Banquet.

My little guy helped me set up.  Well, actually, I did most of the setting up while he was at kindergarten, but then had to come back to fix something and brought him with me.  While I chatted with a friend, he started setting up chairs, and didn't want to stop!  He did 80 chairs all by himself!

My favorite thing I made for the event was the invitation.  See how cute? (The background is actually white, but for some reason it uploads gray...).

I integrated the Studio C logo into the word 'cub' so the theme could be Studio Cub Scouts.  I love it!

I made simple centerpieces (I tried to do things cheaply, since we only had a $45 budget for the whole event!).  I printed the words 'studio' and 'cub scout' with my home printer, then cut them out and glued them front and back to a small dowel.  I filled mason jars that I had laying around with tissue paper and the signs and we had an easy-peasy centerpiece!

I made 10 of them, two for the food table and 8 for the rest of the tables.

For the photo booth, I covered a portable chalkboard with a couple of cheap-y tablecloths and put up an easy banner (made from the same file as the centerpieces).  

A small table next to it held the posing props (Most of which were free printables...which, I apologize, I have lost the links to.  A few (like the angel wings, halo, and a few others) I made myself.

The props allowed the boys to pose like their favorite Studio C characters (like Captain Literally, Shoulder Angel, Awkward Avoidance Viking, and Lobster Bisque Guy).  I think they enjoyed it.  :)

As I mentioned, the budget was small, so we went simple with the food.  Hot dogs and chips are always a hit with the kids, right? 

I found an awesome tip on Pinterest about cooking a lot of hot dogs at once in a crockpot.  What a lifesaver!  (I had a few questions about what that "plastic wrap" is.  It's a crockpot liner.  What a great invention; it keeps you from having to scrub cooked on food off your crockpot!)

In addition to dinner itself and the photo booth, each den did their own funny skit and we watched a few Studio C sketches on a big screen.  And, of course, there were the usual Cub Scout things like flags and awards and the like.  :)   It was a fun evening.

100th Day Shirt!

Does your school celebrate the 100th Day of School?  My kids' elementary school does, in the lower grades at least.  Each kindergartner was supposed to wear a shirt with 100 things on it on 100th Day.  This is what he and I came up with.  He LOVES it and wears it whenever he can.  I think it's pretty darn cute, too.

I drew a monster on a clearance Target t-shirt with fabric paint pens.  Then, we hot glued 100 googly eyes to it.  I have no idea whether hot glue will hold up in the washer (I'm guessing not), so I've been hand washing it.  He's worn it to school like 5 times now (in fact, he's wearing right now!).

It makes me smile when I see it (and how happy he is to wear it)!

Entryway Spruce-Up

My entryway has been kind of boring for a long time. I LOVE my little bench there, but my art was a little blah. I loved my house-rule art, but its frame and mat were looking a little dated (I bought it back in 2001, so it was definitely rocking that late 90s style).

I redid the other area in the entryway some time ago, and loved the bright colors, so I thought I'd do something similar in this corner to spruce things up a bit.

I've got my insta-frame there.  :)  

I gathered all sorts of frames for my eclectic little wall, mostly ones I already had, and painted them either yellow, green, or turquoise.  My house-rules sign (all close-ups of which came out blurry and I'm too lazy to reshoot :) was rematted and painted green.  I like the crisp white mat WAY better than the marbled 90s forest green there previously.  

 

Plus, I finally had a great place to put all my great family portraits from the last few years.   

 

I love my new frame collage.  It makes me smile every time I see it. 

Insta-frame

I don't know about you, but I'm totally addicted to Instagram.  I use it all the time.  It's a lot of fun.  I take so many great pictures with it that I want displayed.  So, I came up with a great way to display them.   

I've seen places out there that will print your instagram pics for you.  But, I'm cheap.  :)  I just use Picasa to print them on my home printer.  I upload my pictures from my camera roll on my phone to my computer, and since I use Picasa to organize all my pictures, I just tell it which ones to print.  I chose wallet-size, and selected shrink-to-fit.  I printed them onto cardstock, then cut them out with my paper trimmer.  

To display them, I found an old 11x16 frame I had laying around and painted it.  I'd planned to turn it into a bulletin board, but my cork wouldn't stay flat, so I kept the glass in the frame, with the cork as a background.  Then, I just used washi tape to tape my pictures to the glass.  Easy, cute, and simple.  Exactly the way I like it.
  

 

And, it couldn't be easier to change out my pictures when I feel like it.  I love getting to see all my happy little pictures every time I walk past!

New Year, New Blog Goal

This poor blog has been a bit neglected.  I got a little too caught up in it being a "sewing blog" there for awhile.  I got too busy to sew, plus put on a few pounds that I wasn't anxious to show off all over the internet, so I stopped.  And thus, the blog suffered.

But, this was never intended to be just a sewing blog.  It's any and all of my creations.  Hence, Jengerbread Creations.  So, I'm broadening my scope.  I make plenty of creations on a regular basis.  I just don't photograph them and upload them because they're not necessarily a cute dress or fabulous craft.

I may post recipes when I feel like it, home improvements, Cub Scouts stuff, or school projects (I've got Colonial Day costumes and 100 Day T-shirts to do this month, so why not post them here?  I bet many of you are busy moms to school-age kids who may appreciate the ideas!).

I hope to post more regularly than I have, but it won't be daily, maybe even not weekly.  Who has the time?  I sure don't.   I never intended this blog to be a big-time business type blog, but I don't want to abandon it entirely just because I'm busy, either.  Hopefully this plan solves that.  Because, I really love sharing my creations with you!