Dollar Store Easter Bunny Wreath

The other day I saw an adorable wreath on The Party Wagon’s Instagram feed (hers is with REAL flowers and good smells and a gorgeous banner! Go check it out!). And I loved it! I thought, I bet I could make my own version from Dollar Tree craft supplies. And sure enough, I was able to come up with a super cute version for UNDER $10!!!

First, I purchased the supplies from my local Dollar Tree:

1 – small grapevine wreath (about 8″-10″)

1 – medium grapevine wreath (about 12-14″)

5 – bounced of white hydrangea flowers (or pick another full white flower of your choice, justske sure you have enough flowers to go all the way around your wreath circles with full coverage).

1 – pink carnation bunch

1 – bunch of tiny pink flowers
I also used craft wire so if you don’t have this on hand, you will also need to purchase this (which will add to your overall total).

You will also need a pair of scissors and some wire snips.

First wire the two wreaths together – smaller one on top:

I then secured this with a little hot glue as well:

Next form two wire bunny ears about 6 inches tall and twist at bottom – leaving wire after the twist in order to secure to the wreath:

Then secure each bunny eat to the back of the top wreath – one toward each side. I pushed the wires through and around some of the grapevine stems.

Next start hot gluing the white bunches of flowers around each of the wreaths, keeping them close do the wreath appears fuller.

Once you have glued white flowers around each wreath, then take one pink carnation and glue it right in the center of the bottom loop of the bottom wreath – giving the bunny it’s bunny tail.

Next, hot glue the tiny punk flowers all around each of the bunny ears – giving them pink lined ears.

Finally, the small pink flowers had some wispy picks on the ends and I glue two on each side (towards the back side of the middle of the top wreath) to act as whiskers.

And now you have one cute bunny wreath for under $10!!!

Gingerbread House Party

Photography by:
Amber Partish of Parrish Studios
http://www.parrish-studios.com

A couple years ago, we hosted a gingerbread house party for my children, their cousins, and their friends. And I am just now getting around to blogging it!!

We setup our decorating table with mini Gingerbread houses filled with candy of all sorts and kinds. Each place setting had a printout of our shop’s gingerbread house – that acted as a placemat/charger for the adorable gingerbread plates from Oriental Trading Company. Beside each setting we placed cute gable boxes – also from Oriental Trading Company. We scattered some bottle brush trees that we had found at our local Dollar General Store. We placed a cute centerpiece of a girl and boy gingerbread plush figures along with gingerbread rolling pins and measuring cups. I had these in my inventory from several years ago from Oriental Trading Company.

We placed a sweets table on one side of the decorating table for the kids to have goodies while they decorated their houses.

For the backer for our sweets table, I re-purposed an old cardboard box by applying “frosted” (glittered) shingles made from tan paper and trimmed to fit as shingles on the roof. I then added a trimmed piece of poster board that was made to look like sugar snow covering on the roof, and I added some of our shop’s larger gumdrop graphics to complete the roof look. I printed out a window graphic for the top portion of the house and a door graphic for the bottom. I then re-purposed some old ball pit balls and cut them in half and hot glue them on all over the backer to look like candy pieces for the house. At the bottom, I hot glued on different peppermint, candy, lollipop, and candy cane graphics I had made. I also attached some candy cane ornaments from the Dollar Tree, and I made some other peppermint pieces by wrapping some of my handmade peppermint paper fans in cellophane to look like wrapped candies. And I stuck a lollipop stick onto a few of my lollipop graphics and put a little bow on the bottom of the graphic to look like lollipop candies.

The table itself held decorations of wooden peppermint candlestick decorations and some glittered tree mini standee decorations, both from Oriental Trading. There was also a Gingerbread wire tiered platter that I put into my serving inventory several years ago – from Oriental Trading.

On our sweets table, we served Little Debbie snack trees that we placed on decorative Christmas straws to make “pops” out of them.

We also dipped mint Oreos and sprinkled them with crushed soft peppermints and placed those on lollipop sticks.

We had dipped rice Krispy treats that we embellished with some gingerbread icing decorations from Michaels and placed straws in those as well, to make pops out of them.

Atop the Krispy straws, we placed some of our gingerbread house graphic toppers from our shop.

Our table also served spice cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, wrapped and topped with our shop’s gingerbread man wraps and face toppers. We also decorated a few with some handmade paper fans from our shops Christmas pattern papers and embellished them with some of our gingerbread man graphics. We also topped a few with another set of gingerbread matching themed graphic toppers from our shop.

Our ruffled white background was decorated with a few of our larger handmade paper fans and gingerbread men graphics as well. And the front of the sweets table was draped with some of our Christmas paper circles and Gingerbread Man face circles as a mini banner.

Many of our food items were tagged with our gingerbread themed food labels.
Off to the side of our decorating table, we had another ruffled background that acted as a separator for our party room. On that separator, we placed a Peppermint “Merry Christmas” banner that is also from our shop’s Gingerbread collection.

And gracing the other side of the decorating table was our Hot Cocoa Bar.

We set up our toppings portion of the bar area atop an old chest. We placed a chalk board as the backer and strung our shop’s “Baby It’s Cold Outside” mini pennant banner across it.

We then placed all our Hot Cocoa fixings across the chest: Nestle’s and International Delight’s holiday flavored creamers, and then several toppings in mini containers from the Dollar Tree – peppermints, peppermint sticks, chocolate chips, marshmallows, sea salt, marshmallow bits. We also placed bottles of caramel syrup, chocolate syrup, whipped cream, larger marshmallows, and gingerbread marshmallows. And there were shakers of cinnamon and nutmeg. We placed a few of our handmade peppermint paper fans around the setting.

Off to the right of the toppings bar, we had our coffee and cocoa center.

Here we placed our Keurig atop a sled for ease of hot water dispensing. We also had a container of dark hot cocoa and milk hot cocoa.

We also filled a glass bowl with coffees and cider pods for those who wanted something hot but a little different than cocoa. We placed a cup full of decorative Christmas straws for “stir sticks”.

And we also placed a glittered tree decoration from Oriental Trading. And the front of the table was draped with our shop’s gingerbread themed pennants.

We tied some of our shop’s “Cup of Good Cheer” tags to our small foam cups. We received this idea from Lisa Frank Parties – an idea she had shared a few years ago on Pinterest.

Many of our items on the hot cocoa and coffee center, plus the hot cocoa toppings bar, had our shop’s peppermint food labels displayed as well.

And finally, off to the left side of the Hot Cocoa toppings bar, we had a milk beverage cart. Here we served cold beverages of plain and chocolate milk.

We had our plastic beverage bottles wrapped with our shop’s gingerbread bottle wraps and the straws gracing the bottles were topped with our gingerbread mean bow tie toppers.

We placed some peppermint tall glasses on the bottom of the cart for display purposes. These glasses were from Oriental Trading from last season.

Because of the time constraints of the party, we went with using graham crackers to build our faux gingerbread houses. The kids had a wonderful time and we look forward to hosting another decorating party again – it was so much fun!

Many of the paper good items are from our shop and are available as digital downloads for you to purchase and print and craft at home. We do offer physical tangible products as well, for additional pricing.

Most of the additional décor was found either a few years ago (and placed in inventory) or recently from Oriental Trading Company. A few of the containers were purchased from Dollar Tree. And the bottle brush trees were from Dollar General.

The sweets were either all store-bought treats, such as Little Debbies, or they were homemade by Water Walker Event (we do not offer treat making services). The backdrop was handmade by Water Walker Events, along with the paper fans and all the printables – barring the gable boxes and plates – which were from Oriental Trading. The hot cocoa mixes were homemade mixes we made in larger batches.

Thanks for reading!
Shawna
Water Walker Events

Day of the Dead – Dia de los Muertos – Masks

Today in our homeschool, we are going to introduce some of the aspects of Dia de los Muertos – Day of the Dead. Then we will do a couple projects. One of our projects will be to make or color our own Dia de los Muertos masks (instead of painting our faces). I thought I would go ahead and share the page before I do my recap that way any of you who would like to use the printable for this year, could also take part in our fun craft.

I explained to my children that Dia de los Muertos is not the same or affiliated with Halloween. And that our culture we live in has taken the two and combined them. As I read in a few of the links, Halloween is about self: decorating yourself, getting yourself candy, partying for yourself. Dia de los Muertos is about giving to those who have gone on – to those outside yourself. It is about remembering. The skull – when affiliated with Halloween – is thought of as scary and morbid. The skull – when affiliated with Dia de los Muertos – is thought of as a reminder, not of something morbid, but of those who were loved and have gone on. It is a symbol of love and happiness of those past.

When I looked up why those who celebrate wear masks or paint their faces, I got a few different answers. Some said they wear the masks to poke fun at death. Some said they wear them in honor of those (representative) who have gone on before them. Some say they wear them as a reminder that we are all the same and we all will face the same fate…death. Either way, the masks we are presenting here are not given or taken lightly. These are simply ways of allowing children to experience or understand another culture. I will explain to my children that this is not like Halloween makeup, but that this is part of ceremony and culture and deeply ingrained in the beliefs of those who celebrate their lost loved ones. This is not shared to be disrespectful, but as a means for those who would like to learn more about other cultures.

Here are a few links that tell about why (and how) people paint the skulls on their faces and also why the skulls are used and their meanings:

Sugar Skulls’ status in popular culture: What is their meaning and where do they originate from?

The Day of the Dead, Sugar Skulls, and Art

https://holidappy.com/holidays/Meaning-Dia-de-los-Muertos-Face-Painting

http://www.newsweek.com/day-dead-dia-de-los-muertos-sugar-skulls-696811

I have included a colored mask version (for those who only want a printed mask), a black and white version with designs for coloring, and a blank canvas one for those who wish to add their own designs and colors. I hope you enjoy!

Shark Week 2017 – Day 4

Shark Week 2017 – Day 4

We took an easier day and didn’t do much on Thursday of Shark Week 2017.

I worked on and finished up some artwork for some free games/printables to share today (Fri). And the kids went swimming.

But other than that we didn’t do anything other than make and munch on Shark Bark.

We took our inspiration from this bark from Sandy Toes and Popsicles

We gathered up these supplies for our version:

Oreos (crumbled)

Light blue and dark blue candy melts

Vanilla Almond bark

Nerds

Sprinkles

Red Swedish fish

Gummy sharks

First we crumbled up about 15 Oreos in the bottom of a foil covered 9 x 13 dish. And we sprinkled in a handful of Nerd candies for color and crunch.

We then melted up our 3 colored of melts and almond bark and dropped it by the spoonful all over the dish.

We then swirled the melts together to look like water.

Then we added different sprinkles.

Next we added gummy sharks and Swedish fish to the top.

Once we finished adding the toppings, we popped the dish in the freezer for about a half hour.

After freezing the bark for a half hour, we pulled the foiled piece out and busted and broke the bark up into hand held pieces.

Our Finished Bark!

Shark Roll Bingo

As I was searching Shark games for our Shark Week activities, I came across this fabulous Shark roll game. I LOVED the idea. But I wanted to revamp it so that we could make it into a Bingo type game for several players. So I used my custom Shark bite design and made it the same way only I made 12 different Shark cards with a different mix up of numbers. The idea is the same in that each player takes a turn rolling, counting, but then ALL the players cover what is rolled on that roll. But they only cover it up once (meaning if an added two is rolled – you only cover up one #2 and leave the other for another roll). The dice are then passed to the next player who rolls, all cover and so on! It is a great way to practice counting but still be able to play with multiple players. I also provided a single player roll game (1st card in the file). So page #1 is for a single player and all the following pages are for multiple (up to 12) players.

Just print out all the 12 Bingo Player cards on white cardstock (pages 2-13 in the document). Then trim out all the teeth cover “chips”. Pick a player to roll first then go clockwise taking turns rolling. If you get the number rolled, cover it with a tooth chip. Play until one player has cover all their teeth and shout out BINGO!

I hope you enjoy! And if you are looking for a roll over game with several different counting versions, go check out Playdough to Plato’s Roll and Cover Game! It is so cute!

Shark Teeth Bingo Game

Please remember my copyright and usage clause. You may use any of my free printables for personal use only. You may not resale them in any way, sort or fashion – whether digital or physical. You may also not use any piece or portion of the art in any new way or part of any other digital design or collaboration. The art may not be tampered with and must stay in it’s original form. Please also remember to credit and refer others back to us when you use these pieces – especially when posting online or on any social media. We appreciate your respecting our policies on this. Thank you!

Interesting Sharks – Fun tidbits & Memory Game – Shark Week 2017

I collaborated with the local artist The Madcat_her (@themadcat_her on Instagram) to bring you this fun Shark Memory game with fun tidbits of information.

**** DISCLAIMER****

We gathered the information for these cards from Wikipedia. We do not claim all of these pieces as facts. We only gathered this information in this way. Please be polite if you find a discrepancy and feel free to email me any new/correct information (with a link to source). I would be glad to update the cards at my convenience. I will, however, not tolerate any rudeness or ill manners. Do not email me with rude comments. This was just a quick – for fun type game. I am completely open to correcting anything. But as stated, I did not come up with this information and I used the best source I could for this quick type game. I will accept any nicely handled corrections. Thank you!

Shark Card Game

Attached you will find a pdf of the Shark cards. Just print the file once as I have already duplicated the cards in the file. I would print them on heavy white card stock or on regular paper and glue to another dark or heavy card stock or chipboard piece.

Shark matching cards

Shark Week 2017 – Day 3

Shark Week 2017 – Day 3

We started our day pretty lax. We didn’t do any shark activities until early afternoon…. at the eye doctor. Big sister had an eye appointment so the younger two took along their shark word finds from Jinxy Kids to keep them busy.

Later in the day, we made our shark clothespin craft. We went off the idea here from Kix Cereal. But I have provided you with art you can print and cut yourself, if you do not have the supplies they recommend. You will still follow the same directions – just use this artwork.

After we made our shark clothespin craft, we made some shark attach drinks for snack time before church. There are a few different alcoholic recipes out there. But we obviously like to keep things kid friendly around here and so we use kid friendly drinks.

Shark Attack Drinks

We start with having some clear round glass bowls (we got ours from the Dollar Tree a long time ago and I use them for many different type parties). We also use my tall taster dessert cups from one of my mini dessert server sets. We start by gathering all of our ingredients: 7 up (or some sort of clear soda), punch or red koolaid, Swedish fish (we use tiny mini ones from Dollar General), a package of Nerds or if you have time to order them, use Candyfetti from Sweets Indeed. You can find her shop on Etsy and her candies are THE BEST! Also grab a bag of gummy sharks – we found ours at Dollar General.

Start by putting a gummy shark in each of the mini tall tester glasses and pour some of the red koolaid punch into the glasses as well.

Then you will wet the rim of the taster glass (use your CLEAN finger or use a clean wet paper towel). Over turn the round glass “fish bowl” and place the taster glass to the middle of the bowl. Once you have secured the glass completely against the bottom of the bowl, gently turn the bowl right side up.

After you have righted the bowl, add your sea “rocks” aka Nerds or Candyfetti and also add in any other underwater life you wish – we used our mini Swedish fish. You will then add in your clear soda. You can stop here at this step before doing your “shark attack” or you can add blue food coloring to make the drink more “bluish tinted”. The blue does tend to make seeing a little harder and the red “attack” less of an “attack”.

Once you have your drink ready, you can uplift your taster glass and let your gummy shark and red punch rush out. The red will float through the drink and give an appearance of a shark attack in the drink. If you wish to do a less gory version of this drink, simply omit the taster glass and red punch and just add your shark, pebbles, and fish all to the bottom of the glass bowl and pour in your soda or drink of choice – for an “Under the Sea” version of the drink. Now just add a straw and ENJOY!

The water (drink) will appear murky – just as sea water might. And you never know where your shark will be lurking!

That was the end to Day 3. We had other activities planned, but due to unforeseen events (doctors appt etc) we just went with the flow of what we could get done. We may try to carry over some of our activities into next week – just so we can still do them and learn. Or we may save them for another time. Either way we are enjoying our time spent together and learning more about and having fun with sharks!

Shark Week – Free printable Banner

It wouldn’t be a festive Shark Week without having a mini party or at the very least some fun Shark Week decorations. Last year we shared with you this fun BEWARE banner printable. This year we thought we would share this mini Shark bite “Shark Week” banner for you to add to your collection. We hope you enjoy it!

Please remember my copyright and usage clause. You may use any of my free printable for personal use only. You may not resale them in any way, sort or fashion – whether digital or physical. You may also not use any piece or portion of the art in any new way or part of any other digital design or collaboration. The art may not be tampered with and must stay in it’s original form. Please also remember to credit and refer others back to us when you use these pieces – especially when posting online or on any social media. We appreciate your respecting our policies on this. Thank you!

Just click on the link below for a pdf version of the file.

Shark Week Mini Banner

Shark Week 2017 Day 2

Shark Week 2017 Day 2

Today we started our Shark Week activities by making these cute Shark Cootie Catchers from over at Easy Peasy and Fun.

The girls had a fun time crafting them. But more enjoyable was when they were done, they used them as puppets, singing different versions of “Baby Shark”.

We ended up not getting to our other craft for the day – which was this cute shark tube figure from Hello Wonderful.

(Picture is from Hello Wonderful. This is not my picture.)

This site shows the tutorial for this craft. I have provided (below) some printout in case you might not have these colored supplies on had. Just print and craft you own. These won’t be exact to his tutorial. But will be close enough to figure out.

Trim out the blue tail fin box and fold in half on the tailfin line. Then trim out the tail fin shape. Glue together the flaps and you have a two sided colored fin. Do the same thing for the top fin as well.

Cut this cone out and shape into a cone that is just slightly wider (at the open cone end) than the width of your tube of your shark body. Then push this piece through the body tube and pull out the other side just enough for it to act as a tail. Do not pull the piece all the way through the body.

Next up – later in the day – we made our afternoon snack to eat while watching our Shark video for the day

Shark Teeth Chow

We used this recipe from Show Me the Yummy except we added in a couple of chunks off a vanilla almond bark bar and added plenty of powdered sugar to cover the extra. We melted the almond bark and the peanut butter together and our chocolate separate. Then we added them in one at a time and then mixed it all up.

First we put a whole bag of Bugles in our large bowl.

We melted the chocolate, mixed it until smooth and also poured that over the bugles.

Then we melted the peanut butter and the almond bark together, mixed it until smooth, and also poured it over the bugles.

Then with a spatula, we mixed the coatings and the bugles gently until all of the bugles were coated really well.

Then we started to add in the powdered sugar. We added about a half cup at a time and mixed, then added more and then mixed. We just kept adding and mixing until all of our pieces were very well coated and dry looking and white appearing. And just like the recipe link said, it will have extra powder at the bottom of the bowl doing it this way. Just scoop out your snack into a large (or a couple large) ziplock bags and discard the extra powder. We ended up using about 3/4 of our bag of powdered sugar. But we did have to toss some of it out after bagging as well.

We spooned some up in these cute little blue ice cream bowls (from Dollar Tree). These are perfect little bowls to keep around for dishing up snacks at snack time. They help me portion control what the kids are actual having rather than just letting them use bigger bowls to dish up their own snacks.

This snack is a little sugary and way sweet. The kids didn’t even finish their little bowls in one setting but ate them over the course of the afternoon and even evening as their dessert after dinner.

While enjoying our afternoon snack, we first worked on this fun and informative crossword puzzle from Kids Zone. We didn’t know offhand what most were. So we looked up the answers. This still gave us information to discuss. Plus we were often able to see a picture of the shark this way – which was a fun and beneficial side to this activity. After we finished up this activity, we looked up Wild Krats “Stuck on Sharks” on YouTube and watched that episode. That also was quite informative and was done in such a way that my 7 year old was able to remember several of the details and the information.

Yesterday, we also shared this adorable mini “Shark Week” Banner. This is a FREE printable for your free use – with abiding by my copyright and usage clause. Go check it out and download it today!

Shark Week 2017 Day 1

Well it is Shark Week 2017 and here at WWEDP we have decided to make the whole week of it!

Above is our schedule we have tentatively posted. We are doing these activities each day and then will post the pictures and (if any) tutorials or links to other sites tutorials on here the next day. You can follow our day on the day by following us on Instagram @waterwalkerevents or on our Facebook page.

Yesterday was Day 1 (Monday) and so I am posting yesterday’s activities. And so it will follow each day – posting from the previous day.

Yesterday we started our activities with making Shark Bite tshirts. For this activity, we gathered up old tshirts. I had considered purchasing some new tanks, but never found the time and also decided that using old shirts would work just as well for this activity!

The kids all made their own shirts. They chose which side they wanted to take their “bite” from. They laid their shirts out flat and then cut a semi circle off the edge of their shirt. They then cut triangle shapes out so as to give the “teeth mark” pattern on the bite. Afterwards they posed for some fun pics!

For our next activity, the kids made these adorable Shark Bookmarks:

These were inspired by another blogger’s super cute bookmarks from

https://heyletsmakestuff.com/shark-week-corner-book-mark

Our print is different and so is the fold. But her print is super cute too and she offers hers as a download as well! If you want to download our bookmarks, here is the jpeg. Just right click on the image and then save to your hard drive. Please note that these are for personal use only. My copyright use allows them for FREE personal use only. Do not resale this piece in any form, digital or physical. And do not use any piece of it in any other way than seen here. If you choose to use my artwork and post online or in any public forum or social media, please credit back to us for the usage.

We also made some shark fins to wear. Below is a tutorial and a download – in case you do not have gray paper on hand. This tutorial was prepped and helped design by @themadcat_her (on Instagram). These were inspired by different pins we saw on Pinterest. I am unsure who made the first one – so I don’t have an original to credit. But this is our version we came up with from what we gathered from what we saw.

Shark Fin pic tutorial.

– Gather a piece of gray cardstock (or print the gray picture we have included below)

– Fold cardstock paper in half (fold printed paper in half once you have trimmed off all the white edges – making sure you fold where the fin is all on the front page).

– If you are using a gray cardstock – draw your fin shape (as shown). If using our print, the fin shape should already be there for you.

– Trim out fin shape through both pieces.

– Open up fins and place a row of hot glue (or regular glue which will take longer to dry) about 1″ up from crease (see photo).

– Then fold back in half and allow glue to dry.

– Once glue is dry, cut along the crease and then fold each flap back to make a tab.

– Then go back and apply glue to the top insides of your fin to secure the two fin sides together.

– We then used a mini clothespin and clipped the fins to the tops of our shirts.

Print this out at full size on a colored print. Trim off excess white edge that doesn’t print. Fold paper in half – making sure not to fold fin over on the other half. Trim out fin shape and fold the other directions above.

During dinner, we had family conversation about Sharks. I read this page from Easy Science for Kids. And then I took turns asking everyone the questions at the bottom of the page. It was interesting and we are looking forward to more Shark Facts later in the week.

After dinner, we made Shark Bait popcorn. Our recipe was inspired by

The Love Nerds recipe

only we added some drizzle and some gummy sharks to our version.

Here is how we prepared our

SHARK BAIT POPCORN

First we gathered our ingredients and prepped them. We gathered all of our “ocean” themed sprinkles (blue sprinkles of different colors, blue round large non-perils, and some gold fish crackers (for salt and crunch). We also melted two different colored candy melts to add as drizzle over our popcorn to give it some of that sweet to the salty.

Next we popped 3 bags of microwave popcorn and spread it out on our parchment covered island. We sorted out any unpopped kernels from the mix.

Then we started our layers. First we added and mixed in the goldfish crackers. Then we drizzled both colors of drizzle all over the popcorn. The kids then each took turns sprinkling on all sorts of sprinkles all over the mix. We added on our gummy sharks. And then we let it set and let the drizzle harden while we all went for a dip in our pool and decided to be sharks.

After our swim we enjoyed some of this fun snack while we watched “The Reef” on Netflix. It was a great end to our fun day!

Follow along with our day over at Water Walker Events Facebook Page!

Water Walker Events – Design – Planning

Making Art of Hospitality