A Week of Easy Valentine Ideas

In past years me and my daughter have used several different kinds of items to create valentines. Most were for school ideas but some were ideas we gave to each other. All were easy to create and pretty minimal money involved. I hope you enjoy these ideas as much as we enjoyed creating them.

Idea 1: Go on a scavenger hunt for Rocks or go buy them at the dollar store. Paint them or leave them natural and write "You Rock" on the top and the child's name on the bottom with a sharpie. We painted pink ones for girls and blue ones for the boys. The kids loved them.

Idea 2: A $1.00 box of chocolates with a Forest Gump Quote. I love that movie.

Idea 3: Find a Globe, a map, etc and make a little tag that says "You mean the world to me"

Idea 4: Find a stuffed animal or a coloring book page of jungle animals and put a tag that says "I'm wild about you!"

Idea 5: Buy a Reece Cup and make a tag that says "We make a great pair!"

Idea 7: Use some left over striped wrapping paper to create pockets for microwave popcorn. Embellish however you want and make a little tag that says "Poppin by to say Happy Valentine's Day"

PTO Christmas Party - Breakfast with Santa

Here are some more details from the Candyland Christmas Party we had for the students.

Candy Cane Lane: We collected 2 liter bottles, wrapping paper rolls, and quilt batting for the Christmas party for the school's Breakfast with Santa. We cut the bottom of the 2 liter bottles off to use for anchors for the wrapping paper rolls to create Candy Cane Lane. The 2 liter bottles were filled with sand and paper and then we stuck in the "wrapped" recycled paper rolls to create the peppermint sticks.

Chocolate Woods: In the middle of the candyland board we created a chocolate woods scene. This consisted of Candy boxes that we obtained from Sam's Club, large hershey kisses, M&M's, tulle, tissue paper, and some wooden trees. The large hershey kisses were made from the top of the 2 liter bottles that we cut off to make the base of the candy cane lane anchors. The tops of the 2 liters were wrapped in aluminum foil to make them look like hershey kisses. The M&M's were made from foam cut in circles with painted on M's. Someone thought it was a chocolate train when they looked at it. That would have been really cute. I wish I would have thought of it.

Fireplace: The fireplace was made out of boxes, brown lunch bags, mailing tubes, wrapping paper, and tissue paper. The brick pattern was made from brown lunch bags overlapping. The main fireplace was made from a flat screen TV box. An opening was cut out and filled with black paper to make it look like the inside of a fireplace. Mailing tubes were covered in wrapping paper that looked like wood and bundled together with tulle and tissue paper to look like a fire. The mantle was made by wrapping the foam from the TV box with paper and placing it on top. Then finally the stocking were hung to give it a little something extra.

Milk and Cookie Mountain: We initially collected Milk Jugs to create an igloo of some kind. When we didn't have enough we came up with this idea. We would create giant cookies and make a mountain out of the milk jugs. The cookies were created using deli cookie tray lid and tray and cardboard cake rounds.

I plan to post more details about the party soon. I hope you are enjoying the pics as much as we enjoyed creating this candyland(mostly out of recycled items).

Candyland PTO Christmas Party

For our breakfast with Santa this year we decided to go with the candyland theme. This theme can be pulled off using mostly recycled items which is great for the PTO budget. About a month ahead of time we asked for donations of boxes, 2 liter bottles, wrapping paper rolls, toilet paper rolls, lids, egg cartons, cellophane, milk jugs, wrapping paper. We had a lot of fun coming with ideas for these items. We had several activities during the Breakfast with Santa to create a fun atmosphere and keep the kids busy. We created a candyland board on the floor in the gymnasium with wrapping paper and scrapbook 12X12 papers so we could have a donut walk during the breakfast. We bought several dozen donuts at krispy kreme and played christmas music. We picked a number out of a hat to see which child landed on the square in order to win a donut. We also had Santa there so anyone could get pictures with their child and Santa. We had a write a letter to Santa station as well complete with a santa mailbox created out of donated boxes. Around the candyland board we created several stations for the kids to look at. We had a gingerbread house made from boxes, a box replica of the elementary school decorated with christmas theme, and many other decorations sprinkled throughout the gymnasium. Overall it was a success and we had a really good turnout. I will post more pictures of the event soon.

Wedding Head Table

Here is the head table for the fall wedding we just did. For this post I want to focus on what's behind the table. The wooden trellis looking items are inserts for french doors. I have had these in my attic for about 10 years and since we couldn't really put anything on the walls they ended up being handy to hang the bride and groom signs and the burlap banner behind the table.

Total costs for this project for us:
Inserts: On hand
Burlap: scrap from other project
Sign: Old sign I had outside turned over and painted on Bride and Groom (FREE)
Paint for burlap: $.33 cents
Wire for one sign: $.33 cents
Total: $.66 cents

Wish board for Reception Area

We created this wish board with an old frame, chicken wire, and some spray paint.

Total Costs for project:
Frame from old dresser at goodwill: $4.99
Spray paint: $1.99
Chicken Wire: $5.00
Clothespins: $1.00
Paper: left over from napkin wraps
Total Costs: $13.00

Napkin Wraps for Wedding

We created napkin wraps for the plastic utensils and napkins at each place setting. We bought some kraft paper and printed out the Groom's last name and folded the paper around the napkin and utensils.

Cost:

Napkins = 2 packs at $1.99 each

Kraft Paper = $2.50

Printer (on hand)

Utensils (on hand)

Total Costs: $6.48

For drinks at the wedding we had water, tea, and lemonade. For the drink dispensers that we had on hand or borrowed I created burlap tags to identify the drinks inside. This was a very quick and easy project. We also elevated the dispensers with a piece of wood to go along with the them.

Totals costs for project:

wood discs for dispensers = FREE

Burlap = $.50 for a very small piece

Orange Paint = $.50 for a bottle of craft paint

Ribbon = $.33 cents for a spool

Foam Stamps = $2.00

Total Costs = $3.33 for some custom drink dispenser tags

Chair Wraps - Fall Wedding Decor

At the reception venue they had brown fold up chairs and we didn't want to rent anything else because that would be costly so we went with a simple chair wrap. We found rolled spools up burlap in the floral supply section at Michael's. They are placed near the clay pots and hot glue area in our store. We also bought orange ribbon and a light burlap by the yard and orange burlap by the yard. We cut the burlap into 3 circles and sewed them together to make a flower for the backs of the wraps.

Total Costs of Project:
4 rolls of burlap ribbon @ $6.00 = $24.00 (we bought some with 40% off)
yard of plain burlap = $2.00
yard of orange burlap = $2.00
buttons (on hand)
orange ribbon (on hand)
Total Costs: $28.00 for 80 chair wraps