Alphabet Blocks

Our niece and nephew came to visit for the weekend {ok, it was the weekend of July 24th} and you know what that means....CRAFT TIME!!

In my church I was called as Camp Director for the Young Women. I have been so busy with that, running around, getting things ready, that by the time our niece and nephew came up I was drained. I had NO idea what craft we could do with them. Then it dawned on me ~ one of the activities we will be doing at camp is making alphabet blocks. Just like with the rag flip flops, this was one that I have not ever done before, so I was going to take this chance to try it out and see how it went.

First we went to a local hardware store and purchased some 2x2 pine. My husband took it and cut it all into square blocks. Now that we had a huge pile of blocks we needed to sand them to get rid of the rough edges and round the corners.

We have this perfect piece of lawn next to our town house so we spread out there in the shade and got busy. Bentley {my mini schnauzer} wanted to be out where all the action was as well. It was a perfect day for a craft outside. As I am sure you can guess I have a quite a selection of colors for spray paint. We put some old carpet tile squares upside down to use as our surface ~ the underneath side was perfect for what we were doing.

Uncle Paul did the spray painting.

Then Bailly and Gabe got to take turns painting any colors that could not be sprayed on. Paul had the idea for some crazy spatter look for his blocks, Bailly wanted to use white and purple, while Gabe wanted to use all the colors that the others where using. I was worried about his turning into some kind of colorful mess, but I actually really like how it turned out.

Look at the concentration on their faces.

We had other things planned for the rest of the evening so we set the blocks out to dry.

The next day we got out a stamp set that uses paint. All you do is add a little bit of paint to the alphabet stamp instead of ink. Paul used a brush for his and I didn't have time to finish Bentley's blocks. Look at how fun they turned out. They were both really excited about their craft and we always love having them up for the weekend.

Rag Flip Flops

Girls Camp is a time when the Young Women in a ward get together, with the leaders, and do a summer camp. It has always been one of my most favorite activities. The memories from my camps when I was in Young Women's have stayed with me. I love singing around the camp fire, hiking, being in nature and the crafts/activities that our leaders had for us were always great.

This year, being camp director, my goal was to make sure that everything we give the girls will be things that they can continue to use once they are back from camp. These things will be a subtle reminder of their time at camp, the Spirit they felt there and the memories they made. We also asked the girls what things they would like to do {and would like NOT to do}. It was mentioned that they wanted to do rag flip flops.

Me, myself and I have never made them but I could not imagine that it would be too hard. I called up my cousin {she is a sewing/quilting machine} and we talked about how I could go about it.

Here it is......

Find any scrap material you have lying around or get a couple of quarter squares from your local fabric store. The scrap will need to be made into 1"x8" pieces. You will also need scissors, a ruler and a pair of flip flops.

1st Step: I took all my material and cut them into 8" lengths.

2nd Step: Then at the top of each I cut in about a 1/2". Then I tore the fabric where I had cut it. There you have it, a huge pile of 1"x8" scraps. Each flip flop took 29 strips. Depending on the length of the straps on your own flip flops ~ you may need more or less. Make sure to tare enough strips!

3rd Step: I went down the strap and tied all the fabric strips in double knots. I'm sure you could do a single but I felt the double knot would hold better and it made the ends just a bit shorter instead of having so much fabric hang off.

There you have it. Camp Flip Flops!!!