DIY "Telestrations" Game

Have you ever played the game Telestrations? It's really fun, but I decided to customize it a little and make my own. No need to buy it - but if you want, these booklets can also be used as an add-on so that more people can play. Bonus!! :)

I made enough different patterns that you can play with up to 12 people! Of course you can always just pick one design and make them all the same. It's up to you. :)

Here's the basic idea: It's basically a mix between "Telephone" and "Pictionary". Each player plays simultaneously, passing the booklets along to the next player after each round. When the booklet gets to you, you are either going to "Sketch It" or "Guess It". When everyone gets their starting booklets back, you see how closely the end guess matches the secret beginning word. It's really funny, because everyone has their own interpretations.

You can use the cards from Pictionary, or Apples to Apples, or to make it EXTRA fun - make up your own phrases! Make sure to have a noun, a place, and a verb. For example: Elvis wake boarding in Mexico, or a nun smelling flowers in the park. Whatever. 

Write that on the first page where it says: Secret Word. Pass the booklet to the player on the left. When everyone has their neighbor's booklet, read the word or sentence and start drawing on the next page - Sketch It. Everyone has 1 minute. When the time is up, pass the booklet on to the player on the left. This time when everyone gets a booklet, they look at the drawing and make their guess on the following page. (The page that says: Guess It.) Be sure to WRITE your guess and not draw it.You don't need a timer for this. When everyone is done, continue to pass to the person on the left. This time you are back to drawing what is written - make sense? 

You should end each booklet on a Guess It page. This way you can match it up to the secret word and see how close, or how messed up everyone got! It really is a lot of fun. ;)

It's fun to see what everyone guessed, but if you really want to keep score, just give 1 point to the player with your favorite sketch, and 1 point to the player with your favorite guess. And give yourself 1 point if the end guess matches the original secret word or phrase. You can keep a tally on the front page of the book if you want.

Here are the different pages for the booklets. I just copied them into Microsoft Word, and shrunk them to the size I wanted. (I think they were 3.5 x 3.5 or close to it.) I got about 4 to a page. I printed them onto cardstock, cut, laminated, and punched holes to add key rings. You should be able to use regular dry erase markers on them & they wipe off really well.

Assembling the booklets:

Each booklet gets one cover page, and one Secret Word page. Then depending on how many you are making, do equal number of the Sketch It and Guess It pages. 

Example: I made 12, so I needed 6 Sketch It pages and 6 Guess It pages.

This is how my booklet went: 

Cover page

Secret Word page

Sketch It

Guess It

Sketch It

Guess It

Sketch It

Guess It

Sketch It

Guess It

Sketch It

Guess It

Sketch It

Guess It

Make sure you start on a Sketch It page and end on a Guess It page! That's pretty much it!

These would make great Christmas gifts! I am bringing mine to play with the whole family at Thanksgiving. (One reason I made so many.) When it's just my little family at home, I can use only 4. I love that you can customize it this way! 

Let me know how these work out for you, and what you think. :)

Have fun! Thanks for stopping by! 

Blue and Gold Cake - Olympic Theme

It's that time of year again - Blue and Gold Banquet for Cub Scouts!!  This is the last year I will have to make a cake, because my youngest son will turn 11 in 2 weeks!  I'm a little sad, but mostly excited. haha :)

 

Well, the theme this year is the Olympics!  So fun!  We decided we wanted to do torches for our cake this year.  Way easier than decorating a cake, in my opinion.  :)

 

We baked cupcakes in sugar cones, made little Olympic papers to wrap them in, and then just squirted frosting on top - super easy, huh?

 

Here's how they turned out....

 

 

Okay, the really hard part, was finding something to hold them all in.  I tried cutting holes in a disposable pan, (That was how I baked them.) but then remembered we had this handy little put-together organizer thingy.  It's a little big - not sure what that will look like on the cake table, but it saves me a HUGE headache!  Whew!

Here is how I baked them...

 

One little tip - DO NOT FILL THE CONES TOO FULL!!  My first batch looked like volcano cupcakes instead of torches.  Not pretty.  You will want to fill them only 1/2 way full - leave a good 2 inches or more because they seriously expand!  Also make sure they are standing straight up - that helps too.  I baked them at 325 F for about 15 minutes.

 

I just used a box cake mix, and a can of lemon frosting.  I added a couple drops of red food coloring in and didn't even really stir it, just scooped it into my frosting bag.  It turned out a little pinkish in spots, but it looked way better than the yellow plain.  I added red sprinkles on top and that was it!

 

Well that's it!  I am also in charge of a little Olympic craft, so I bought a package of large craft sticks, and I am having the boys design and decorate their own "snowboards" using markers.  I think it will be fun for them to do, and pretty easy for me!

 

Let the games begin!  Thanks for stopping by!  :)

 

Girls Camp Stuff

Well, girls camp is coming up next week, and my house looks like a craft store blew up! Haha 

I have 25 t-shirts drying on my deck that the girls and leaders bleached the other night.  I have canvases, paints, brushes, vinyl lettering, bracelet stuff, nail polishes, glitter - you name it - all stacked in a bin ready to go!! Whew!

 

This is the craft we decided to make:

 

Don't mind the colors - it's just kind of a sample to see if they would work.  I'm sure the girls will make them WAY cuter! :)

 

I bought little 6x8 canvases at Michael's, they came in a pack of 5.  Then the girls will put the lettering and temple wherever and however they want.  Make sure to seal the letters first by painting over everything with white.  (It makes the letters look really clean when you pull them off.)

 

Then the girls can paint however they want. I bought a bunch of fun, bright colors.  After everything dries, peel the vinyl off and embellish!  Super easy!

 

We are also making some cute bracelets with colored braiding cord/twine and beads.  I will update with pictures after camp. 

 

UPDATE 6/26/13:  Here are some of the canvases that the girls made...

 

 

And a couple more...

 

 

I love how they are all individual.  They had fun and did a really good job!!

 

 



I am also in charge of the camp awards.  I found a cute list online and made up some cards to go with them that we can fill in at camp. 

 

 

My absolute favorite is the Big Red award - for the girl with the brightest sunburn!! Haha (That's bad, huh?)

 

If you would like to print these out to use, here is the download PDF file.

 

I made them kind of small, because I was using the regular-sized candy bars and didn't want them to overpower the candy.  Hopefully you can make them bigger.  If not, just leave me a comment and I will upload some bigger ones. :)

 

Oh and I purposely made 2 of the Mentos awards, because I am giving those to the youth leaders.  They get to decide who gets each award and I didn't want them to have to do their own.  Make sense?

 

Happy camping to me!! Haha :)

Girls Camp "Blow Dryer"

I am helping with our church's girls camp this year!  I am so excited!  I have never even been to girls camp before, so this will be a new experience for me. :)

 

As I was looking around the internet for cute ideas, I came across these camp "blow dryers".  Someone was selling them on etsy, and I couldn't believe it because they would be sooo easy to make!

 

So I made my own.....

I don't know if you can read it or not, but it says:

 

Camp Blow Dryer

No electricity required!

Fully Automatic!

 

Instructions:

1.  Blow full of hot air.

2.  Aim at hair and release!

 

Okay, so I thought this was hilarious!  We are having camp at a campground somewhere instead of the usual place and there are no showers!  No electricity! No cabins - nothing!  Some have already complained about not being able to do their hair, so I thought this would be so perfect.  I'm mean, huh?

Here is what you need:

Small treat bags with zip tops

1 bag of large balloons

Blow Dryer instructions - download PDF

 

That's it!  Just print the instructions on cardstock and cut them out. 

 

Place a balloon inside of each bag and staple the intructions to the top. 

 

(I know, you didn't need the explanation - it's soooo easy - but just in case...) haha

 

I will probably put these in the girls' goody bags, or even in their packets on the first day of camp.  They would be cute as a pillow-treat/gift as well. (I obviously have no idea how this goes down.)

 

Have fun and Happy Camping! :) 

All you need is LOVE...

I made a couple new Valentine's Day signs last weekend.  This first one was a piece of scrap wood I had out in the garage, and I have been wanting to use these Beetles lyrics forever!

I painted the wood black around the edges.  Then I glued on some scrapbook paper with wood glue.  (The sign was bigger than the paper, so you can see the line where I tried to merge the two.)  oh-well. :)

 

I made the lettering on my Silhouette using Bosshole font for the LOVE, and Eutemia I font for the rest.

 

Then, using a sponge dipped in a black stamp pad, I shaded the edges all around.

 

That's it! Super easy - I love it!  I think maybe the wording could have been a little bigger, but I wanted the LOVE to really stand out.

 

 

The next sign I made, I happened to find tucked away in my craft bin.  Who knows how long it had been there??  It's amazing what you can find that you didn't remember you even had! haha

 

I bought this wooden frame at the craft store & letters for the word love. (Obviously, haha) 

 

I added some more scrapbook paper and glued the letters on with Gorilla glue.

 

I was worried that the letters would pull right off the paper, but they seem to be holding up pretty well. I really like these colors, too - very non-traditional.

 

I put this sign up above my kitchen cupboards & the other one will go on the new built-in shelves we're working on. (I can't wait!!) 

 

Until later -

Thanks for stopping by!

Fall/Thanksgiving Decorating Ideas

I was about to take down all my fall decorations, and decided I would take some pictures of a few things I did this year.

I really like decorating for fall because everything looks so earthy, and the colors are perfect in my house! Yay!

Last year I bought a TON of artificial fall flowers at Michael's on clearance, so I needed to figure out what to do with them this year. Haha :)

These two are exactly the same, but I put them in different rooms, so it turned out okay. I just filled a glass container with mixed nuts, and stuck a bunch of flowers in. I think next year I'll put one of these in a metal bucket instead.

 

 

This is a sign I made last year. I got the inspiration for the lettering HERE. I had an old scrap of wood that I painted & then Mod Podged some cute scrapbook paper onto it. Then, I added the vinyl (white contact paper) and the twine. The acorn is actually white contact paper that I sponge-painted the color I wanted - it totally worked!!

(I used the same lettering but added it to a plate for my sister-in-law's birthday.)

I think I actually bought the vinyl for this - then just applied it to a ceramic tile.

 

Well, these are just a few ideas of things I've made for fall. Most of my fall decorations were purchased. Maybe I can find some cute ideas for next year? :)