You Light Up Our Life Mason Jar Firefly Craft Card

Shh.
We have a secret.

We're sending our favorite grandparents some super sweet cards for Grandparent's Day and we're giving you a free printable to do the same!

I'm all about sticking as much on one printable as I can, so here's one sheet of 4 mason jars you can print and cut out for your favorite people.

Click Here for the printable PDF.

I intentionally left the printable free of "Happy Grandparent's Day" so we could write it in ourselves with our cute kindergartner handwriting. It would also make a great card for a birthday, mother's day, father's day, or any day! We printed our cards on white cardstock, but you could also print them on a color cardstock too. I think a blue or a light gray would be super pretty! You could also print on some printer paper or construction paper and call it a day. Grandparent's just love anything from their favorite tiny people!

You can either trim the cards around the mason jar itself, or keep them squared off like I did (because I'm in get-it-done mode. Sorry not sorry.)

Next, grab your kiddos and have them put a few fingerprints on the card with yellow paint or ink. Because I have so many children, I just let each of them put one firefly because I wanted to add their names under it, but go crazy if you want! When dry, take a fine tip Sharpie or a black pen to draw in some little winged creatures and add each child's name under their print (if you want. It's totally optional. You do you, boo.)

Get extra credit by punching a hole around both sides of the jar and adding a ribbon bow. So sweet! I used a fork to help pop the ribbon around the front and then brought it back around through the back and tied a bow.

I keep a box of 4x6 envelopes on hand. They are perfect to pop a photo in or stick a cute kid-made card in the mail to Grandma.

Enjoy!

DIY School Years Keepsake Organization Bins

Like any mom, I like to keep things the kids bring home from school. This idea helps collect their memories.

Each month we hang up their artwork and fun things on our wall and (if I remember) at the end of the month I snap a monthly picture of all the art together. Like this.

But there are a few items that I just have. to. keep!

If it's got a kid's handprint on it, I'm keeping it forever.

Got a photo on it? Keep that!

Any sort of "About Me" or about a family member, keeping it!

An Award or Program. My baby got an Award! My baby was in a Play! Gotta save that forever and ever.

Anything that is uniquely special. I'm gonna keep that too (like that one time Car made a picture of a rooster with forks... I need to frame that for my kitchen!)

But by the end of the school year, I end up with a bunch of  paper and artwork that is all special. So, how do I store all of it forever and ever?

This is what I came up with.

I have four paper trays that live in our kitchen. Artwork or items to each specific kid ends up in these paper trays and this is where they live until they go down to their forever home. These trays are conveniently located next to the trashcan, so letter practice, or bingo dots on the letter M, can easily be disposed of (in secret when no little eyes are watching! because that can lead to the end of the world!). Even the baby has a tray to put her growth charts and important documents in.

When the trays get filled, I go through each kid's and weed it out again (maybe that fork rooster doesn't quite go with my kitchen décor... but it makes me smile and I still want it!) Then what has survived goes into their SCHOOL YEAR BIN.

Here's how to put together your own SCHOOL YEAR BIN.

Get a bin. I got four of these at Target for about $4 a bin. If you want to get fancy, you can order waterproof locking bins here, but I'm just not about that and I think these bins will do well stored inside in our office for the duration of their lives in our home.

I also got letter and number stickers and folders. So. Many. Folders. I found an 8 pack of folders at Dollar Tree and bought enough so I could color code the schools (Preschool, Elementary, Middle, High) but you don't have to color code them (but why wouldn't you?!?)

Take each folder and pop a sticker on it for each year. I needed to label a bunch of folders so I got creative and turned some I's into 1s if needed. Label ALL the years. Get folders for ALL the years. Get enough for ALL your kids (I even got a bin for Air so they are all uniform). Get it all done NOW so it's set up and ready to go for the rest of your child's school days. Then all you have to worry about it collecting art, awards, and fun memories.

Pop those folders into your bin! Use some extra letter stickers and put each kid's name on the outside of the bin. Boom. Done. Fill each folder with your special memories and you're all set and clutter free.

My hope is that each kid will have ONE bin to keep all of their school-year memories in. Hopefully they will fill them up with art and certificates and trophies and fun things. Then one day they will have everything together to take with them (or not. I don't care. I'll keep that fork rooster forever!)

Watch hot-mess me (and Car and Ay) put it together here

Baby Hudson's Woodland Adventure Baby Shower

Guys.

Parties are my jam. I love everything about parties. Like. Seriously. So when my super adorable cousin announced she was pregnant, I couldn't wait to start working on a baby shower for baby Hudson.

I co-hosted the shower with two others (my cousin, Danialle and my sister in law, Anna) and we had some help from our Aunts. There's some affiliate links throughout the blog to link you to items like what we used.

We devided the shower up into three parts so it would be easier for us to plan (the three of us do not live in close proximity to one another, but technology, yo!)

Anna took the lead on food.
Danialle took over games.
And I took on decor.

We had one group text and kept everyone in the loop with ideas and plans. I couldn't have asked for better co hosts. We work well together.

Food.
We invited about 50 people to the shower so were making the party for 40. We needed a way to feed a ton of people for not a million dollars and that everyone would enjoy eating (especially with a few special vegetarian/vegan diets).

Insert the best party food idea ever.

The Taco Bar.

Anna was on point. She made a spreadsheet of all the taco foods and we prices them out at Aldi. We were super prepared. We made most of the taco bar ourselves but had Qudoba cater the rice and queso.

We also decided to put together a cute trail mix bar. I got jars from Dollar Tree! And the kids loved all the little snacks.

Shout out to Aunt Tammy because she made the CUTEST Very Hungry Caterpillar veggie tray.

And Danialle took on cake responsibility and came through with super cute rustic cupcakes.

Games.
Danialle came up with some super cute game ideas for the party. We just HAD to play the clothes pin game. It's basically tradition for our family baby showers.

Everyone gets a clothes pin and can't say the word "Baby." If you hear someone say it, you get all their pins. Most pins at the end of the party wins a prize.

We also played the left / right game with a twist. There's a ton of left right games we found on Pinterest, but this one was fun and a twist on the game that people didn't expect.

We also asked everyone to fill out an envelope and drew prizes. This was a nice way to give Lauren a break when opening gifts so she could grab some food or walk around a bit. So every so often we would stop the party and draw a prize. This will help out when she goes to send her Thank You Cards too.

Everyone LOVED writing Lauren notes on some "late night diapers" We had quite a bit of clever and artistic people at the shower. And some super sweet and encouraging notes for the mom to be. Some favorites were a hand drawn poop emoji, Point It Down (a practical reminder for any new boy mom. Haha), and "Call me if you need me. Love, Mom" (how. flipping. sweet!)

We also had people sign a book staring the baby to be (Just go on Amazon and search "Hudson children's book" or any baby name and see what you can find. This one was super adorable and my kids gave it four thumbs up!)

I also used my Silhouette Cameo to make a custom onesie for Hudson. We used fabric markers and had everyone sign it so Hudson always knows he's so so loved. Especially since Lauren and Hudson live out of state, so what a sweet reminder of all his Maryland family.

Décor.
Lauren sent us a text of some super fun nursery inspiration and we ran with it. Cor taught me how to use our jigsaw and I may have gotten a bit carried away.

I cut and painted arrows to match arrows she showed us in the text. I also cut signs and used my cameo to make some stencils. I designed the signs myself and was basically obsessed with how they turned out.

When we cut down the holly trees in our yard, I made sure Cor held on to them so I could have chunks of wood and wood rounds for centerpieces.

We used table cloths to match our color scheme (teal, navy, white, and gray) and added craft paper on top. Each centerpiece had arrow fabric topped with burlap and a wood round, candle, succulent, book (like this Bob Marley Book!), jar of crayons, and a jar of flowers.

I also used this technique to chemical burn some wood signs.

I printed the taco and trail mix bar signs out and wrote over the titles with a metallic sharpie. I just popped them into some dollor store frames.

I ran some dollar store paper bags through my printer and made cute bags for favors so everyone would be "Ready for Your Next Adventure".
Each had some candy, trail mix, and some no dent elastic hair ties (I made those too. Because I'm a crazy person who likes DIY errrything). See a tutorial here soon! (Future Link)

Overall, the party was so much fun and we had a blast celebrating baby Hudson and his sweet Momma! We cannot wait to meet you, little boy.