Hair bows by Jesstastic Creations

Okay, so I've been working on a few new Hair bows. I've also been trying to learn a few new ways to make others, but this is what I have come up with so far. If you have any suggestions please let me know. I've been asking others who make bow and I have been watching video tutorials and looking up other information online.

I also sell these bows. If you would like to order one contact me for prices via e-mail at jesstastic.creations@gmail.com. These bows range anywhere from $2 each to $6 each. Also, if you buy more you save money.

I am hoping to have more up on here soon. I hope you enjoy these!

Internet for children

So many of adults that have children, have children who wish to explore the internet. How do we know that the children aren't getting into something they shouldn't be? My brother told me about a website that parents can go to and download a FREE kids browser called KidZui.

Once this is downloaded, you will have to click installation button that will be saved to your desktop. Click it and it will open a small window. Click the "Install" button and follow the setup wizard.

After installation and setup is completed click on the large "K" on your desktop to start the KidZui browser. When the browser opens the only things your children will be able to access are the items shown.

Your children will be able to learn, play various games, watch child suitable Youtube videos, and so much more. All this without the worry of your child talking to dangerous people or visiting inappropriate sites. They will have so much fun and you will not have to worry about what they are doing online.

I hope this is helpful and that you all enjoy it!

Mardi Gras in September

This month was my two oldest nieces birthday.  Every year they decide on a theme for their party and this year their theme was Mardi Gras!

I was not personally born in Louisiana, however, the majority of my family is or was born and raised in Louisiana.  Being from a family who was raised with the type of cultures and traditions that is shared among all of those who are from there, I was also taught many of their cultures and traditions, including one of the state favorites, Mardi Gras.

Mardi Gras facts and a slight history:
To read about the history click here.  This will open the East Jefferson Parrish: The History of Mardi Gras website and you can read it all.  

For the girls birthday party we made the majority of their decorations and activities.  Any of you who enjoy celebrating or are interested in celebrating would have loved our party.  We had games such as:  Pin the baby on the King Cake (our own version of pin the tail on the donkey), a doubloon hunt (our version of an Easter egg hunt), and Mardi Gras hot potato (hot potato with a Mardi Gras stuffed animal).  We were able to make everything from items caught at parades threw out the years.  Because it is Sepetember, we couldn't find any Mardi Gras items out for sale so instead we bought plain white t-shirts and "puffy" paint to make the girls Mardi Gras shirts to wear on their special day.  We also had lots of help from the girls grandpa who is a Mardi Gras fanatic and happened to have LOTS of decorations that we could use.

I am so happy that we were able to have a birthday party that everyone was able to interact with and the girls were able to celebrate their own traditions and learn more about them while having fun!

Do you know YOU?

My six year old niece came home from school today asking a LOT of questions about where she is from. I have been trying to explain to her about her back culture; she's Guatemalan. So I've been researching foods, attire, traditions, and other fun facts about her heritage so that we can have a "Guatemalan" day for her to help her learn more about herself and her heritage.

I found information on the history of Guatemala and many of the cultures of the people there. I also found out about lots of different foods. The Guatemalan people are of a Hispanic heritage and love to use fresh exotic fruits such as bananas, papayas, and mango's along with many others. Corn, cocoa, and rice are some of the primary foods used to make many different stews, coffees, and light dishes.

This would be a fun project for any family. Even as Americans, we forget to remember how we got to where we are today and what a better way to remember than to celebrate our past. My family has lots of Italian, German, and French, but your family may have Indian, Mexican, Irish, Swedish, etc. Research and learn how much you really know about yourself. I can't wait to have our Guatemalan day so my wonderful niece can learn more about herself.

Remember, just because you have a past heritage, doesn't mean you aren't American. Americans are made up of all types of people including Guatemalan. I hope that I can help her learn and grow but also make her understand that no matter where she is from that she is where she belongs and that she IS an American.

Crafts for School

School is starting up soon and you or the kids may be in lock down with homework during the week, but that doesn't mean the weekends have to be boring. Find some time between the hectic studying and work to do something fun with your kids. Kids love to do crafts and what a better way to spend the weekends then to help your kids learn how to enjoy school or learning.

I found a few creative ideas for kids to do on Family Fun. Everything from decorating those boring school supplies, staying organized with homemade calendars, and learning with new exciting homemade flash cards.

Magnetic Marker

The Colorful Coverup Notebook

Bookmark This!

Carton Wallet 

 

I hope you all have fun and learn lots throughout the school year. Your never to cool for school. Be safe and have a happy school year.

 

Back to School

Going back to school or sending your kids back to school can be expensive and boring. With all the specific school supplies, shopping for these supplies can look so bland and not personal. Use your skills and spruce up their supplies with little techniques and very inexpensive tools and items.

Also, think about all the paper that children throw away during the school year. The schools are never really "green". Instead of throwing everything away (or keeping everything in lots of boxes), use certain items to decorate with. Make a pretty collage of works for them to keep to look back and see what they have done. Grandparents LOVE to have things that their grandchildren have made. Put together another collage or scrapbook page and put it in a frame for them. Scrapbooking is GREAT for these little projects that your children do in school and bring home. Cropping around the main parts of projects and incorporating pictures and phrases will make beautiful pieces of art to hang around the house (like brag arts).

Stay green and have fun shopping for school. School can be COOL, but sometimes you have to help it along.

Our "Dirt" Cake Experience

The girls and I finished our first "dirt" cake today.  It looks great and tastes awesome!  The girls had lots of fun making it.  They got to add all the ingredients while me or another adult mixed.  This helped to keep the mess to a minimum.  The girls really had fun just putting the ingredients in the bowl and then helping make the layers.  I didn't have a pail or trowel to use so we used a 9 x 13" dish.  In between the layers I let them add gummy worms.  They also got to add a few to the top and of course no one is a chef unless they taste what they make.  :)  They got to lick the bowl with the pudding cream layer in it and eat a few of the gummy worms.

Also, instead of using the rolling pin and a ziploc bag, I used my Ninja cutting machine.  Any blender will do just as good.  I found that the cookies wouldn't stick together as bad if I chopped them.  Rolling the cookies just crushes and compacts them together so they stick together and make them hard to spread over the pudding.
Some recipes for this "dirt" cake suggest using chocolate pudding to add to the "dirt" effect; however I chose to use vanilla pudding to give the cake a little more variety.

I hope you all enjoy making your "dirt" cake as much as we did.  If you have an other suggestions or comments please feel free to leave them or ask.

Fun Foods for Kids Oreo "Dirt Cake"

I've been looking for fun thing for my nieces to do all Summer. We have cooked, done crafts, played new games, and even had a movie day. The next idea I wanted to do was to make a FUN dessert for them after dinner. My sister and I were talking about a neat dessert from our childhood that we remembered, Oreo cookie "dirt cake".

Just to help you understand how well your children will love this creative dessert, I have researched a little of the history and a few statistics about the Oreo cookie sandwich.

According to the Scribd website for Market research on Oreo, "The Oreo chocolate sandwich cookie was first introduced in Hoboken, N.J. in 1911.  Oreos today are far and away the world’s most popular cookie.  The Oreo family accounts for approximately 10 percent of all store cookie sales – a $3 billion market…The current target market for the original vanilla filling Oreo is children."  

Now that you understand the wonder of this cookie and the love your children have for it, lets get on with the recipe.  

Oreo Dirt Cake

Ingredients:

Kid's Sand Pail & Shovel Set OR 1 New 8" Flower Pot
1 1/2-2 lb. Oreo cookies
1 8 oz. tub Cream Cheese
1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 Stick Softened Butter
3 1/2 cups milk
2 small pkg. Instant Vanilla Pudding
12 oz. Cool Whip

Method:

Cream together cream cheese, powdered sugar and softened butter.

Mix 3 1/2 cups milk and instant pudding for 2 minutes and add 12 oz. Cool Whip.

Add liquid mixture to creamed mixture.

Place Oreo cookies in large ziploc bag and crush to desired "dirt" texture with a rolling pin.

Put 1 1/2 inches of cookie crumbs on the bottom of the sandpail or flower pot(lined with aluminum foil) and layer the pudding mixture and crumbs. End with pudding mixture.  Refrigerate for 2 hours.

Just before serving, add 1 more inch of cookie crumbs and decorate with gummi worms. 
 

 I found this recipe on the Kids Party Paradise website.  They also have many other creative ideas to add to this recipe or other fun recipes to try.  I hope you all enjoy. 

Recipes for 4th of July

Tomorrow is Independence Day (A.K.A. The 4th of July) and I hope everyone has a fun, safe, and festive day.  Celebrating Independence in this great country, USA.  To help our family celebrate, I have been looking for creative and festive recipes for the girls to make for the 4th of July.  This way the whole family has a part of experiencing the wonders of our RED, WHITE, and BLUE.  I found a few creative recipes that I thought would be nice to share with you.  Now if you live in a home of lots of people (as I do), sometimes money can be an issue with being creative, but I am going to give you the recipes I found and then give you an idea on how to make it not as expensive. 

Frosty Fireworks (Flavored Ice) drink.  The full recipe is found on the Disney Family Fun website. 
This recipe calls for:
a drink that is clear (Sprite, 7up, Water, Clear Kool-aid of some sort),
1 red drink (Fruit punch, strawberry, red Powerade, etc.),
1 blue drink (Once again, some sort of blue kool-aid would be good to use or blue Powerade, etc.). 

The night before your festive event (4th of July in this case) freeze an 1 ice tray of the red drink and 1 ice tray of the blue drink to make the ice cubes. 
On the 4th of July put in a variety of red and blue cubes and pore the clear drink of your choosing to make the drink come out looking red, "white", and blue. 

That is what the website called for; however, if your family is as large as mine and money needs to be stretched, use this concept but with a different twist. 
My family has decided to have a small gathering and one of the cheapest drinks to find for all the kids was Kool-aid.  We have a packet of the "invisible" Kool-aid mix that the kids with drink and the ice cube were made from water (yes, water-the clear liquidy substance that we generally take for granted...lol) and food coloring.  These were ALL items that we already had at the house.  If these are not items you keep around your house these are cheaper than the products that the website suggest.  Water comes FREE out of our fridge door or faucet and the food coloring may be about $3 at Walmart. 
Mix the ingredients to make the Kool-aid according to package directions and put about 3 drops of each color food coloring into separate glasses of water, put in ice trays, and freeze.  For those of you who are more creative you can use different colored kool-aid for the "ice" if you would like or add a festive decoration to your glass to make it the talk of the party. 

Well I hope you all enjoy your Frosty Firework drinks and have a wonderful 4th of July. 

Sparkless Sparkler Experience

My nieces and I just finished with a set of Spark-less Sparklers.  It was a fairly easy craft to complete with my small group of 6 year olds.  They did need a little help but not much to not do the project ever again.  The only thing I did a little different than the original directions was used black electric tape.  I just used what I had around the house.  Also instead of chopstick I used the small dowels that are used to make shish kabobs.  They turned out really cute and the girls are so excited about the 4th of July so they can play with there "sparklers".  I'm really glad they enjoyed making them and I hope you enjoy looking at ours.

I hope you all have a safe and Happy 4th of July.

Independence Day

Okay 4th of July is coming up in just another 2 weeks. Yay!  Time to find more fun crafts to keep the kids busy on their summer break.  So today I was looking up fun crafts for the kids to decorate the house for the 4th of July and I found a few other projects that they might enjoy also.  Here is one that I thought was easy for children and I really liked.

This one is the Sparkles Sparkler.  I found this project on the Merriment Design website.  It can also be found on the Daily Candy Kids website.

Supplies Needed:
2 Chopsticks (or 2 thin dowels)
Red, White, Blue, and/or Silver Ribbon and Party Garland
White 3/4" electrical tape
Scissors
Optional:  Personalize with Wooden Letter

For full instructions on how to make and manipulate this project visit Merriment Design website by clicking on the link.

Change this project up a bit by making them for birthday party's, decor at showers, center pieces for gatherings of all sorts.  Merriment Design says "This project can be easily adapted to making fairy and wizard wands, birthday party shakers or pom poms in your school’s colors."  So you can make this design even when the kids are at school.  Sounds like a plan to me. 
 
I can't wait to try this with my nieces.  I'm gonna post my own pictures of this project after my nieces make a few. 

Our Handmade Father's Day Gifts

Happy Father's day to all of you wonderful father's!

Today, was filled with lots of excitement and handmade gift giving. I celebrated Father's day with my wonderful brother and all this last week his wife, my nieces, and I have been getting our craft on with all of his gifts. Our day started out with my brothers daughters (my nieces) and I making my brother breakfast in bed. He was so surprised and really enjoyed his breakfast. After we all gathered in the living room, we had the girls start presenting their gifts. Starting with the homemade cards.

My brother use to have some aquariums and use to love them; unfortunately, after hurricane Katrina hit he stopped messing with all of his fish tanks and hasn't gotten any new ones yet. Then again he has his hands full with four beautiful little girls. The last two years I have come up with ideas for him to be able to have his fish tanks without having to worry about feeding the fish or cleaning the tank and the girls always help me put my ideas into action.

Last year we made an aquarium photo tank. We used construction paper, fish stickers, and a frame. Of course you can't forget your glue and scissors. Now I traced the different sea animals because I didn't have access to a printer at the time it was made but this project would be so much easier if you have a printer to print the animals. You also need the pictures to put in the middle of each animal. This would be best with the most recent photos.  To make it more special and personal, we added my sis-in-laws hand print in the middle with his four girls hand prints next to hers to look like sea weed.  This also serves as a special remembrance to look back on when the children get older.  You will always be able to remember how small they were just by looking at their hand print.  

This year we made a fish tank out of a pet carrier.  We printed photos of the girls and then cut them out of the shape of the animals instead of putting them inside of the animal.  We got real aquarium rocks and seashells.  We also added the construction paper to the background of the tank so to give it the illusion of water.  We also added the fish stickers again but no hand printed sea weed this year.  :'(

Well I hope you all enjoyed my projects and if you have any questions, please email me at jesstastic.creations@gmail.com.  Happy Father's Day!

GARAGE SALE!

Okay so all of you young married couples, single parents, or retired collectors, you all should go check out some of your local garage and/or yard sales. 

Today I went and was able to save a bunch on my decor for my (soon-to-be) living room.  Yay!  I have always loved garage/yard sales, but as a young kid I never knew that I could save so much.  I've loved my last few experiences with sales. 

These sales are also great if you are a "crafty" person.  Today my sister and I went and got 2 small buckets and  a cute bag to keep all of her stickers in.  She also got some sort of "grab bags" for my nieces for 5 cents.  How awesome is that?!  Last week we got 2 baby bikes, that should have sold for $44, and only paid $5 for each.  This bike has buttons (that you can't see in the picture) to "start" the bike, it sings, and teaches though different rhymes and other voice activities. 
I found the price for this bike here.  This is the EXACT same bike that we got for the my twin nieces.  Total bargain and I can't wait to save more when we go back again Next weekend. 

I can't wait to hear about your Garage Sale saving adventures so be sure to post and let me know about your experiences.

Cute Photo Magnets

Okay so I have been searching the internet for cute inexpensive Father's day crafts, since Father's day is this weekend, instead I came across some adorable photo magnets.  They look like Tiny Polaroid photos.  Now we all remember the days of the Polaroid camera's, right?  These look so cute and very unique.  Perfect for photos that you don't have any special frames for.  Make some magnets and stick them on the refregerator or on a metal door or mirror and look at them ever time you pass.  Then those pictures that you NEVER see (because they are always put up in the attic, basement, or other storage box) will become new conversation pieces to show family and friends when they come over. 

I found the information about these and the pictures on Ambrosia creative is Jennifer Kirk Graphic Designer's blog.  On Jennifer's blog you will find the full instructions on how to make these cute magnets and there is also a place to download the Polaroid layout that she used to make them.   

I hope you try these and let me know how they work for you. I am moving soon and I can't wait to put these cute little magnets up in my new home.

3D Father's Day Paper Craft from the Kids

Father's day is a very special day for all of our dads and sometimes can be quite expensive.  However, father's everywhere LOVE to get homemade gifts from their children.  Just like cards, kids can make other items too for there dad on this special day.  This item I'm talking about now is a craft that children ages 4+ will be able to make will adult supervision.

The Materials you will need for your child to make this are all very simple and inexpensive.

• printer
• paper
• scissors
• something to color with (if using the B&W version)
• hole punch
• string, thread, ribbon or wool
   
• Optional: thin cardboard

The full instructions are here at the DLTK's Growing Together website. Just click the link or go to http://www.dltk-holidays.com/dad/m3ddad.htm.  When finished, this would be a great project to hang up in dads favorite area to surprise him after he gets up from his breakfast in bed.  Ha, ha.  I hope you and all of your wonderful father's enjoy them too (I know they will).         : )

Spoil your Dad

Father's day is a special day to tell the most important man in your life to tell him that he is so very special to you. Instead of giving him that traditional shirt and tie gift for this day be creative. What better way to tell dad "I Love You" than with a homemade card from their child/children. The folded shirt card is creative, unique, easy, and fun to make. I found out about this shirt card on the Martha Stewart website.  Click on the link to go to the site and get full instructions on how to make this unique gift for dad. 

You can make these cards even more special and unique by adding extra special touches to them also. Adding real button with just a few threads in them will make these have a "real" look to them or adding a piece of material from dads favorite old shirt or tie that he can't or doesn't wear or doesn't want to wear anymore. Well I hope this will help with your card ideas for all of your dads. Enjoy!

Wedding Location

I'm so excited! I finally picked a place to have my wedding. A pavilion at Pelahatchie Shore Park. It's not a big place and its not very elegant but I will also have some decorations to add to the appearance. Also, nature is a great plus for adding a little style. The building is right on a lake and the view is so beautiful. The only down fall to this place is that I won't be able to reserve it until next year (2012). That won't be a big deal as long as I remember to call the first of the year. Hee, hee.  I have faith, though, because I have lots of people helping me to do what I need to do before the time gets here.

I have a few pictures that I found on the park website that I have posted to show you all what the area looks like.

I can't wait to Mrs. Jessica Marie Hackney Elam!

Camo Wedding

So I went to my brother-in-law's wedding at the beginning of the month and it was different than many of the others I had ever been to. They did a camo themed wedding and I decided to make camo hair bows for all of the bridesmaids. They came out cute and very unique. I couldn't figure out how to do the ribbon rose so I decided not to do them. This idea is great for any occasion. Weddings, gifts, or just daily hair accessories. I also made one for my sister-in-law to wear in her hair at a wedding too. Her's was gold & black to match the wedding colors. I have a feeling I will be making a few more for others in the future.

I hope you like the different flowers/roses. I am hoping to get more pictures soon. Enjoy and leave lots of comments.

Ribbon Flowers

WOW! I haven't been on here in a while. I'm still planning a wedding of my own as well as helping with one other one. Recently, I have been working on making some sort of hair clip for my sister-in-law (& brother-in-law's) wedding. So I started making ribbon flowers for all of the bridemaids hair.

This is one of the ribbon flowers that I made to use for our hair. I hope you enjoy it and I hope to have new ones posted soon.

Boutineer Roses

Okay, so I'm a little excited because I just found this new video. The video is about how to make rosebuds, but they really look like the boutineer roses. The roses that normally you would see on a guys tux at a wedding or something. I'm so excited to have found it that I couldn't wait to share it with you. For any of you creative people or planning people, this would be a great idea for you to try to make for your special event.



I think I have found what I am using in my wedding! Add a little bit of small white flowers and these will be perfect! I hope you like them.