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!

Conference Quotes

Every October and April, my church has a church-wide general conference. My family and I spent last weekend hanging out on the couch, eating snacks, and watching conference on TV.  I love this chance we get twice a year to spend this family time together, being inspired and taught.  And, I love turning some of my favorite quotes from it into pretty printables after conference is over.  :)

Another Great Quote About Mothers

I couldn't help myself. I love this quote by Neal A. Maxwell.  Happy Mothers Day weekend, everyone!

Mother's Day Quote

I think I may be addicted to pretty quote printables. I pin and pin them. I'm a visual person and I love seeing inspirational words displayed in such a pretty way.

I have fun making my own, too.  I love the cheery yellow of this one (it's my favorite color).  The adorable yellow flower "paper" comes from Citrus and Mint.  Love her designs.

As I was designing this, I asked my 5 year old if he liked it and if he thought it was pretty.  His response, "Well, yeeaaaah...if I could figure out what it is!"  Ha!  I just love that boy and I love being a mother.  I hope you all have a great Mothers Day!

We Matter

In case you haven't noticed, I'm a Mormon.  And this weekend, my church is holding our twice-a-year General Conference.  It's 4 general 2 hour sessions of talks from our leaders and our prophet.  I LOVE listening to the inspired words and feeling the holy Spirit.  If you'd like to watch it with me, you can watch or listen to it here.

My favorite quote so far comes from Sister Elaine S. Dalton, "Our part matters because WE matter."  So, of course I had to make a printable to pin to Pinterest.  :)  So, here it is:

Valentine's Quote Printables

Since Valentine's Day is this week, I thought I'd make a couple of fun quote printables for the blog. As I've mentioned before, pinning good quotes with a pretty presentation is one of my favorite things to do on Pinterest.  I had some time last week to play around with photoshop, so I put together a couple quotes for you.  Enjoy, and Happy Valentine's Day!

 

Mothers

It has been a busy, busy month.  Between doctors appointments, commissioned sewing projects (I'm making all the bridesmaid outfits for a wedding!), summer scouting activities (I'm a den leader), vacation, and the chaos that comes with having the kids home for the summer, it seems as though there is no time left over for anything else.  

Plus, with any extra time I find, I've been trying to spend with my kids.  I even made myself a printable, to remind me of the things I want to be sure and do with my three boys.  It comes from a talk by Ezra Taft Benson called, To the Mothers in Zion.  (He gave a similar talk to fathers, as well.) In his talk, he lists ten ways that mothers can spend effective time with their children.  

I thought it was a good reminder of what I want to do, so I put together the list (with cute fonts!) and printed it out and placed it on a bookshelf in my bedroom, where I see it often.  I thought some of you might enjoy this printable as well, so I'm posting it here for you.  Feel free to download (right click and save, as always) or pin to Pinterest.  Enjoy!

 

Trip Fun Binders

We took a family vacation this year for Spring Break. It was the perfect time to visit my hometown in Texas, before the sweltering heat of summer.  It's was a long drive, though, so I made up some activity books for my boys.

 

I was trying to do this trip on the cheap (isn't that what I say about all my projects?).  Let's face it, the way this economy is, we can all stand to save our pennies.  So, I didn't want to go out and buy a ton of stuff.  Free printables to the rescue!

I gathered up some old school supplies--binders, pencil bags, and various and sundry markers and colored pencils.   

I used Picasa and Google Image Search to put together a bingo card for things we might see on our trip (I saw everything except the roadrunner...).  I made a collage in Picasa, then shuffled the images to make a different card for each person.  I put the bingo cards in some plastic sleeves that I had laying around and included some dry erase markers in the pencil bag so that my boys could cross things off right on the plastic sleeve.  

 

I printed out a few mazes and coloring pages as well.  

The mazes came from mrprintables.com.  They have tons of great free printables for kids.  They're super cute.

We all had fun doing the State License Plate Bingo by The Dating Divas.

I got some fun travel games from Whimsical Fig.

And some from LilSugar, too.  

The printable Battleship game by Cathe Holden at Just Something I Made is so fun, and SO cute!

I also added some maps.  A good way to stave off "Are We There Yet?" is to give the kids a map with your route on it that they can follow along with.  Each kid got a map of all the states we drove through, plus a Google Maps printout of our route and directions.  

 

 

 Plus, since we were going to be traveling during my church's General Conference, I printed out some Conference Packets from Sugardoodle (oh how they love their conference packets every 6 months!) for them to work on as we drove as well.  

 

 And, of course, I added a bunch of notebook paper for each binder, as all of my boys love to draw and write.  

Though not in their binders, I also had some conversation starters with me (in MY binder--of course organized me has my own binder!) from iMom and Sissyprint.  A long road trip is a great time for great conversations.

Each boy had a backpack to put their binder in.  I added to each backpack a magazine (copies of The Friend and Boy's Life), Where's Waldo books (that I keep stored with the suitcases so they're still interesting every time we take a trip), a couple little snacks (Tic Tacs and Barnum's Animal Crackers are favorites), Kleenexes and a package of wipes (do you know how nice it was not to have to twist around and get my allergic boys Kleenexes every 10 minutes?), and a teeny tiny stuffed animal each.  

 

These binders and backpacks kept my three boys happy and interested for most of our 40+ hours of driving.  We didn't even have to break out the DVD player once.  I call that a Family Vacation Miracle.  :)

Scientist Birthday Party

My twins turned 9 this month. It's my official policy that they only get a birthday party every other year.  Except, I never enforce this policy.  After throwing their Harry Potter birthday party last year, I decided that this year they were going to do something simple for their birthday.  No more parties.  Too expensive, too much stress.  Right?

And then birthday time rolls around and I just have too many good ideas for a party.  :)  I threw them a Science Birthday Party this year.   I was reminded of my idea to throw them a science party (it was in the running for last year's theme) when I came across fun little science-y things (like safety goggles and test tubes) in the dollar section at Target.  I love the dollar section at Target, don't you?  So, I broke my rule (again) and told my boys that they could only invite a few friends each and that this was going to be a simple, cheap party.  And, it was.  I love parties that are cute, but also easy and inexpensive.

A science party is a perfect party theme for this age.  They're at such a fun age--they're so excited about everything. They're Cub Scouts and love doing fun scout things like building and experimenting. They were super excited about getting to do some science experiments with their friends.

In keeping with the must-be-easy rule, I didn't start from scratch.  For invitations, I used these adorable printable invitations from Living Locurto.

 

The favor bags contained the safety goggles and test tubes from Target, some gloves, Nerds (because scientists are nerdy, right?), and glow-in-the-dark slime!

 

For the slime (which we made at the party, in addition to the ones I put together before hand), I used this "recipe" at Science Bob.  I love Science Bob!  There are so many fun experiments there.   I added some glow-in-the dark paint to make it glow in the dark (though I'm not sure if it worked...).  I made my own labels, too.  

I packaged the favors in white lunch sacks, with Living Locurto's caution stickers.  

I went with basic cupcakes, with orange frosting to match the decor.  I pre-scooped the ice cream into cupcake liners, so I didn't have to scoop at the party.  Such an awesome idea, courtesy of Real Simple. 

The only decorations were the yellow tablecloth and "The Lab" poster that I whipped up by printing out words and clipart and gluing to a piece of poster board.  

The supplies for the experiments kind of worked with the color scheme, though.

 

 The experiments (demonstrations, really) were a huge hit with the kids, even with the kids who came in saying they'd be boring.  The Oobleck was a huge hit.  

 

 

The fireworks in a jar were pretty fun, too.  

 

 

My personal favorite was the one where we blew up a balloon with a bottle.  It's the same vinegar and baking soda experiment as the old volcano eruption project (did you do that one in 5th grade like I did?), except without the mess.  

 

It was a fun (and inexpensive--I only spent about $15) party.  And, of course, my favorite part was when one of the party guests told me it was the best birthday party he'd ever been to in his whole life.  :)

Quote Boards

I've mentioned before that I LOVE pinning pretty (both in word and design) quotes to my Pinterest. Well, I got tired of only getting to see them on Pinterest. But, who has enough space for all the cute printables out there? I sure don't. So, I made a place to display whichever ones I'm in the mood for on any given day.

Normally, I'd frame them, but it's not super convenient to pry off the back of a frame, position it just right, and put it all back together.  I mean, it's not super hard either, but I wanted a space where I could quick-as-a-wink switch out printables.  So, I made some quote bulletin-boards.

I bought some cork at the craft store, traced the glass from the frame as a pattern, and cut out the cork.  Then, I put it in the frame.  Pretty simple.  I used frames I already had, spray painting them to update them a bit.  Plus, the space needed some color so it wasn't just black and white.

Now I have cute decor in my front entry and I get to see inspiring quotes all day long.  If you'd like the same ones in your house, you can download them here:

You Matter Quote, by Reliving the Moments
Charity Quote, by Simply Fresh Designs
Have I Done Any Good Quote, by Me  :)