07/11

$250 Oriental Trading Gift Card Giveaway

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Oh my goodness, we have an amazing giveaway with one of our favorite companies, Oriental Trading. When we think about parties, decorations, DIY’s, and crafts, Oriental Trading is top of mind.

Recently, we’ve been playing around with DIY Balloon garlands. It’s been a party of balloons in our house for several weeks now with all the lingering balloons. We get the kids in on the blowing and tying action, so it’s fun for the whole family. Oriental Trading has everything we need for our balloon garlands (tutorial coming soon). It’s a wow-factor for any party, and an affordable one. Get balloon happy like us and check out the awesome selection at Oriental Trading.

If you have a party coming up, want to stock up on school or craft supplies, or you’re hosting an upcoming holiday, enter the giveaway today to win $250.  The giveaway starts July 11 at midnight and ends July 25 at 11:59 pm (Pacific Time). Enter below.

$250 Oriental Trading Gift Card Giveaway

After you enter the giveaway, check out some of the other amazing blogs included in the giveaway:
Happy Family Blog
Teacups and Fairytales
Suburban Wife City Life
Little Bits of Everything
Living La Vida Holoka

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Filed Under: adult, decor, diy, gifts, kid, lifestyle, party
06/29

Celebrate Toy Story at Walt Disney World With A Fun DIY T-Shirt

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Jessica’s family went to Walt Disney World this past spring. We went as children with our parents, and when she went back, although there are new, awesome additions, it felt like that world had remain untouched. Yes, there were notable differences – everyone is on smart phones now (their app is amazing), security was more intense than she remembers (a good thing nowadays), FastPass is wonderful (makes lines more bearable), and it was more painful being the one actually paying for it all. But, precious memories came flooding back. The matching neon Mickey shirts our mom made us wear, the famous Mickey flower garden (and photo opp), a pretty Main Street, U.S.A., animated characters brought to life, Splash Mountain, happy vibes, and yes, It’s A Small World looked and sounded exactly the same.

Disney has certainly made it a magical world for generations, and Jessica was happy to share that magic with her kids. Despite having blown out his back earlier in the week, Jessica’s husband was a total trooper, and rode every ride (and stood in every line). The kids loved every minute of it. We felt the pure exhaustion after all the excitement and crowds at the end of the day! So happy we stayed for the fireworks show – worth it (near the back with a quick beeline to the Monorail). She can share tips of the day if y’all are interested – it’s a compilation of tips from great friends, and first-hand experience. Let us know at hello@jsorelle.com.

Jessica and her family missed the opening of Toy Story Land on June 30th, and her kids say it’s another reason to go back! It’s a story all our children adore, and it was even an animated film we grew up with, too. Before she left, Jessica made DIY t-shirts to celebrate the opening of Toy Story Land at Walt Disney World. She went with classic phrases by the lovable characters, Woody and Buzz. The boys took it to the next level by Disneybounding, which is dressing up as the character without wearing a costume (basically wearing everyday clothes inspired by favorite Disney characters). They love their shirts, and it was a great DIY project anyone can do. Tulip ColorShot Instant Fabric Color paint was amazing to work with – we can’t wait to work with it again! See the full tutorial on Momtastic.

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06/28

DIY Rocket Popsicle Piñata

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Jessica’s kids birthdays are close to July 4th, plus we love to celebrate America, so it’s always a really busy time of year and we are in the party mode. This year, we’re celebrating with all things red, white and blue. A party just isn’t a party with young kids without the joy of hitting a piñata. We couldn’t find the perfect (and affordable) red, white and blue piñata, so we made one with the iconic patriotic popsicle in mind. It’s DIY rocket popsicle piñata! It only took a couple hours from start to finish, so you still have time!

Materials:

  • Red, white and blue tissue paper
  • Scissors
  • Pinata, frappuccino shaped
  • Glue stick, or
  • Strips of cardboard
  • Packaging tape

Directions:

Step 1: Remove all existing tissue paper from the pinata. We found a frappuccino shaped piñata at Walmart for less than $15, left the cardboard shape and stripped it of all pink and white tissue paper. Remember to fill the piñata with goodies before you cover it with new fringe.

frappuccino pinata

Step 2: Cut strips of red, white and blue tissue paper.

Step 3: Cut fringe on each strip of tissue paper.

Step 4: With 12 inch strips of cardboard scraps (about 3-4 inches thick), position them from the lid of the piñata frappuccino shape, and angle them up. This is hard to explain, and sorry for our poor photos, but the 4 cardboard scraps will be used to made a little square (or for lack of better words, nipple) on top of the popsicle, to look like the real thing. We used packaging tape to keep it in place. We added the white cardboard tube on the bottom of dry cleaner hangers to create that indention affect along the side of the piñata, but it didn’t really work, so don’t worry about that!

craft with cardboard

Step 5: Starting from the bottom, glue the fringe onto the cardboard. We found it’s best to do two layers of fringe on each layer. You can glue the strips of fringe on top of each other before gluing onto the pinata.

Step 6: Continue layer by layer, blue on the bottom, then white and finally red. Cut a piece of cardboard the shape of a popsicle stick, and with an X-acto knife, cut a slit on the bottom of the popsicle. Insert the cardboard popsicle stick. Hang and have fun!

Enjoy…and then grab a real Rocket popsicle from the freezer to ring in this 4th of July!

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05/09

Celebrate Teachers With Fruit And Free Printables

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It’s teacher appreciation week! We know we each had our favorite teachers growing up, and they made a positive impact on our lives. Now, we see our children’s teachers helping them learn and grow. It’s awesome, and honestly, we don’t know how they do it! Since we can’t seem to get enough of all the cute fruit everywhere (recently at Bullseye’s Playground at Target), we’re thanking our teachers with fruit.

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Fruit has irresistible puns, so Jenna (Fleur de lis, a paperie) made fruit-tastic printables for us. Good news because we’re sharing them with you! There’s a tag for cherries, bananas, apples and watermelon; We CHERRY-ISH you as a teacher, You’re awesome to the CORE, You’re one in a MELON teacher and You’re like a PINEAPPLE, you stand tall, wear a crown (of knowledge) and are sweet on the inside! These labels are 4×6, but for our fruit tags we scaled them to 60% when we printed them to attach to the fruit.

Some other fun ideas you can attach the tags to is fruit-flavored gum packets, juice or sparkling water, totes, water bottles or anything else with fruit you can find!

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Take the time to thank the teachers you love this week, or any week. These printables are perfect for Valentine’s Day, back to school time and at the end of school, too.

Print the FREE PRINTABLE here.

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04/23

March of the Penguins 2, Movie And Game Night For The Whole Family

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I (Jessica) was thrilled to create a DIY family activity to celebrate the release of March of the Penguins 2: The Next Step documentary available on Hulu for Momtastic. My family fell in love with Emperor Penguins when we watched March of the Penguins, so we were so excited to discover more about the Antarctic-dwelling birds we adore with the sequel.

Make Friday night a movie night and game night all about penguins. It’s fun for the whole family. After making this DIY Penguin Domino set, I can’t imagine Dominoes any other way. It’s like those tiny black and white penguins were meant to be on the back of Domino pieces. Read the waddle-ful tutorial here.

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