Thoughts of a Grasshopper

I spent my day helping the 8-11 year old girls in our Stake make toys for the animal shelter.  All of the material came from clothes that were outgrown, tops and pajamas and some leftover fleece from other projects. The above toy was the hardest for me.  While the one on the right shows a line of the colors mine ended up mixed and I didn't get that solid line.  Some girls succeeded and achieved the sample and most ended up like mine.  A great, sturdy toy for dogs. As you can see in the picture below, they were much longer than the sample.  They would make a great tug of war type of toy for dogs. The middle toy was for cats.  It was made from shirts and the material was about 1/2" x 10".  The girls chose 8 pieces of material for each toy.  These were simply tied once to knot and they had a bell attached. The toy on the far right (sorry the picture is so blurry) was another dog toy.  It was made of 3 strands of fleece like material....

I had the activity Day Girls over for a day camp at my house.  I'm not good with taking pictures of these activities.  I started off the day by having the girls choose 7 colors of embroider floss.  Some chose 2 colors and had multiple strands with their favorite being 4 strands and the alternate color 3 strands.  I cut the floss into 18" strands.  There was excess but it allowed for a mistake to be made in the beginning and to tie it off an inch or two in.  My thought was if we they were waiting for someone to be done before we moved on, they could work on it.  If we were doing a lesson, they could work on it and I wouldn't mind because they could listen and have their hands busy. (The last paragraph has more instructions.) We had a lesson on the sacrament and the symbolism of the ingredients.  The girls made bread for sacrament meeting.  We had a lesson on the Holy Ghost and recognizing the Spirit.  We decorated cakes.  We pla...

This week for Activity Day girls, we painted rocks.  These are some samples I did to give ideas.  The idea was that they would go and leave them in plain site when they are at the park, library, shopping, etc. to brighten someone's day.  We had a fun night of being creative with paints and enjoying talking and laughing with each other.  After they were done painting they played a game. Fortunately here in New Mexico it is very easy to come across rocks that you can paint.  However, I chose to go to a place that sells gravel and bought cobble there.  I went with a small bucket that is a little bigger than a paint can and paid a couple of dollars for them.  I was able to pick the rocks out myself so I could get smooth, shaped, etc.  I rinsed them off and let them dry.  I put a base coat of white or black on some so they could get right to painting if they wanted to.  Some were left with no background color and they could paint a design...