$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

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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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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Throw A Sing Party for Kids With A DIY Outdoor Stage

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Last year, the kids were mermaids and sharks. This year, they took center stage at a Sing inspired party. There was a DIY mini stage, good music, DIY candy microphones and characters from Illumination’s Sing. Fun was had by all, including the adults who took to the stage, too.

Once again, Jessica shopped Oriental Trading for most of the party’s decorations and favors. Shop OT for the red fringe curtain, gold stars, microphone trophy, white favor boxes, glow-in-the-dark bouncing eyeballs, Inflatable guitars and star disco ball necklace.

Here’s how you can throw a Sing party for all your future super stars.

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Materials:

Directions:

Step 1: Visit Momtastic for the full DIY mini stage tutorial and materials needed. All the details are here, including the stage, Buster Moon and the moon and the DIY speakers. It’s totally affordable, and the fun can last all summer (and next summer, too) in your backyard.

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Step 2: Make the DIY candy microphones. We can’t take credit for this idea. We found it here. Fill the clear tubes with candy, add the top to the tube, and then top it off with the colorful foam microphone covers. This was a huge hit with the kids, and we can foresee a classroom holiday gift with this one. To display the candy microphones, Jessica spray painted a box (from a recent Amazon purchase) red, and cut small holes on top with an X-acto knife. Make sure the holes are not too big, and not too small – they need to be just right (and snug) to hold and secure the microphone tubes. Next, paint or add white letters to the red box. We used a comment in the movie from Buster Moon, the koala. When a contestant was nervous, he said to, “Just…sing.”

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Step 3: Prep the favor boxes. Make tags with characters on it with Microsoft Word and jpg’s of the characters online. We gave the kids bouncing eyeballs in honor of Miss Crawly’s, the chameleon assistant in the movie, bouncing eyeball. Another fun favor was the Star disco ball necklaces, trophies (see below) and toy microphones.

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Step 4: One must have a trophy for a singing competition. Luckily for our guests, they were all winners, or Sing champs. We made custom labels on the Oriental Trading microphone trophies with vinyl and our Silhouette CAMEO electronic cutting machine. We designed the words, Sing Camp, and put the vinyl on each trophy.

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Step 5: Hang the gold stars. Use a white Sharpie oil-based paint marker to write all the guests names on the stars. Hang the stars with string. Jessica used a piece of cardboard, and her Silhouette machine to cut out RISING STAR letters with Astrobrights Paper.

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Step 6: Every singer needs a microphone. We had a karaoke machine, as well as toy microphones with everyone’s name on it.  Use puff paint to add the names. White shopping Target, Jessica found an empty box with holes in it (used to store another toy on the shelf). She added it to her cart for $0, and wrapped it with wrapping paper. Each microphone fit perfectly inside each hole.

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Step 7: Sing and have a good time.

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Oriental Trading sent us some items of our choosing for this post, free of charge. We’re so happy they did! All opinions are honest, and our own. No other type of compensation was received. Thanks for supporting the companies that support j. sorelle. We love Oriental Trading, even before this post.

This post contains affiliate links. 

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Sunny Days Call For DIY Trucker Hats

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As I painted some super cool DIY trucker hats for my kids for Momtastic, I realized that I have never seen Jenna in a baseball hat. It’s a go-to for Jodi and I, and our mom has more baseball hats than shoes (maybe that’s where we get it). Jenna prefers shoes. Maybe if I make Jenna a DIY trucker hat, she will wear it?!

You can read the tutorial for DIY trucker hats here. No sewing required.

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If you’re not up for making a DIY, shop for some cute one’s below. We picked some out for the whole family.

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