Girls Camp 2012~ our camp

What an amazing week I had at Girls Camp.  I laughed, sang, cried, sang some more, and hiked.

As I've said in a previous post our theme was the general theme for the youth this year, Arise and Shine Forth. Our stake had each ward randomly draw a song title from a hat and that song title was then our ward's theme at camp. We also learned three more songs to sing as a whole group while at camp.

Each night at flag the ward in charge sang their song as part of the flag cerimony. It was wonderful to hear each ward sing their song and help bring the spirit into camp. 

Our ward's song was Lighthouse in the Night and so we went for a nautical theme. Here are a few things I did to cute up our camp site. 

I found these cute hooks at Michaels in their dollar bins. I hung quotes I had printed out on them on a couple of trees in our camp site. 

These were the girls mailboxes for their secret sister gifts. One of our camp leaders made the fence and the cans to hang on the fence. 

Another one of the camp leaders had her husband make this lighthouse to be placed at the entrance to our camp site. All the stars you see stuck to it represent an act of service one of the girls provide. Each night at flag each ward would turn in how many stars their ward had gotten for the day and we would see the grand total for the camp for the day. It was a great motivation for the girls to look for ways to help out while we were there.  And yes it actually lit up at night, very cool. : )

This is our wards flag that one of our YW designed and did. Amazing.

 The Saturday before camp actually started we headed up to set up tents and pop up covers and cots so that when we got up there on Tuesday we could get right into what they had planned. So I took the opportunity to measure off where I wanted to put the pennents and then went home that night and glued on the pre-measured twine all the fabric I had already cut out. I LOVED how it looked and so did the girls. 

This was a huge impact with little effort. I had gotten four 2yd pieces of fabric adn pinned it up inside the pop up with corsage pins and then tied it back with some cute ribbon. Will be doing this again next year for sure. 

inside that big pop up I strung more of the pennents.

I also made this banner for the front of our large pop up, unfortunately it didn't survive the wind very well. Although it did make it three days before three of the letters blew off. 

 here are the fabric streamers I did I love the effect and the pop of color it brought to our campsite. My husband said it looked like it should go in a circus tent, I can see that but it worked for this as well. 

We were blessed with sunshine all week and it was beautiful. Unfortunately we were also blessed with really strong winds. When we went back up on Tuesday we had lost a smaller pop up cover which was mangled by the wind, and a tent. The wind was so strong that it blew the tent into the campsite across the way, two cots and four storage bins included. The cots had actually ripped through the side of the tent on it's way over. Seriously crazy wind. Luckily we didn't have any more damage the rest of the week, unfortunately other wards did. 

But wind aside it was a wonderful week and I am blessed to have been able to go and experience it with the young women of our ward. 

returning soon

I wish this is what our camping looked like : )

Sorry for the lack of posts as of late but I've been full steam ahead with girls camp and getting my family ready for the week while I'm gone. I will be at camp all this week but will have some fabulous pictures to post when I return. 

Until then, Happy Camping!!!

Camp treats part 2

I've been debating wether to post these yet or not because I don't know if the women I'm going to camp with read this blog. I don't think that they do so I'm going to risk it. (and if you are reading this please pretend to be surprised when you receive it at camp)

I've been wanting to do a bottle cap necklace for a while and this seemed like the perfect opportunity. You can see where I found my idea and the lighthouse charm on my older post here. 

Of course I had to package them up cute to give : )

Next are my YCL treats. I used freezer paper and cut out the words, then ironed them on the pillow cases and painted in yellow. I added iron on gems to the shine to make it a little sparkely. 

 

And of course you need a mint for your pillow. These are peppermint patties sandwiched between two scallop punches in a pretzel rod bag. 

I loved using this camping paper, isn't it cute!!!

I got my craft gable boxes from Hobby Lobby and used some of my camping paper to cute them up. Inside is the pillow case and mints. 

front

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Love the pennants

all ready to go!!

This is another treat for the girls at camp. I have one more to do but it's dipped marshmallows and I want them to be fresh so I'm waiting to do them the day before we leave. 

I used my Stampin Up die cut to make the shape of the purse, added a paper handle and flower and I think they turned out pretty cute. 

Inside each pures is a package of gum. My husband asked why I couldn't just put the gum in their buckets. Two reasons, because it's me and this is how I would want to receive it. 

I'll be sure to add a picture of the marshmallows when I get them done. 

But that does it for all my fun things to give. 

I'm linked up at Whipperberry

Camp treats

I've working like crazy to get everything ready for camp and I'm not even the camp director or assistant. (I can only imagine what their days are like) Don't get me wrong this has been the best kind of crazy, doing fun crafty things. I've got the first two of my treats for the girls done as well as my Secret Sister gift (not shown). As leaders we're doing Secret Sisters between us and we're each taking a day to do a gift so we only have to think of one (X4) instead of four gifts to give. So I guess it's not really secret but anyway still fun! 

Today was starting my pillow cases and they are looking stinkin cute!! Can't wait to post those. But for now here are my first two treats I'm bringing. 1x8 bags filled with lemon heads topped off with a pinwheel. 

And these cute cookie monsters

more to come soon!!

Happy Camping!

Zombie First Aid

We all  know that the girls have to certify each year for girls camp and part of the certification is first aid. We also know how boring (but important) those classes can be. This year our sister ward had what I thought  was a FABULOUS idea to make first aid fun. Unfortunately it didn't quite all come together and work out but I thought I would share the idea because it could have been a fun way to do first aid. 

The idea was to have a zombie attach and then teach the ways to treat the injuries. This is how I envisioned it going. 

Prep: assign someone (or two or three) to be the zombie attacker (I would recommend leaders)

assign those that will be attacked their injuries and how over the top you want them to go with their dramatic attacks. (again use leaders) have their clothes torn, bloodied if it goes with the wound. 

Have the 5th yr girls assigned a year to teach (4th, 3rd, etc.) because each year is a little different in their requirements. 

Have someone there to do "make-up" and wounds.

                                                        (I had a snake bite on my arm)

For the activity: have the girls meet on one room all together say your opening prayer and take care of any business. The girls (except the 5th yrs) won't know that a zombie attack is planned so while their starting their first aid class have someone run in the room in ragged, ripped cloths, yelling about a zombie. The 5th years would then lead the girls out to find the first victim and depending on the injuries  one 5th yr would stay and say all ?yrs stay with me and we'll try to save her. Then another 5th yr would take over and have them follow her to find other victims. The leaders would be placed around the church or park laying on the ground moaning or what ever would be appropriate to their injury, and a  5th yr would stay behind with their assigned younger year. The zombie could then go around and scare or mix with the girls. The more dramatic the leaders and 5th yrs are the more fun the whole activity would be. 

I hope someone will be able to use this, I'd love to hear if you do and how it went. 

Maybe next year we can get it together to make it work out. 

Have fun!!

Girls Camp 2012

Our camp theme this year is Arise and Shine Forth like the general youth theme for the church. This year for camp they have incorporated a lot of music and our ward theme is based on the song we were given. Our ward was given "Like a Lighthouse in the Night" so we are going with a nautical theme. I am not a camp director but of course want to help any way I can so they gave me the job of decorating camp. 

I found some really fun ideas that I am going to do. 

We're doing a navy, red, yellow, light blue color scheme so I'll find fabric in those colors and just do this between two trees like in the picture, maybe to create a little privacy between whom ever we're camped next to. 

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We have a lot of those Pop-Up shade covers at camp and we have a huge one about this size that we place over the tables where we eat. I thought this would be so fun to add a little glam to camp. I won't be hanging tissue poms mostly because it almost always rains at camp (yes even here in Vegas) and they wouldn't hold up. But I will do the banner and curtain sides.

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How fun would it be to have a mason jar chandelier hanging in our pop up. Both these would be easy to do and really fun. I of course would have to use battery tea lights but I think they'd work just as well.

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I would decorate the mason jars for it to look like this

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I am going to make a ton of these cute little guys to string between tent, trees, and anything I can find. I will make them out of fabric so that if (when) it rains they won't be ruined like paper would.

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And this would be fun to have hanging on a tree to leave notes or reminders. Easy to make too, dollar store platter and chalkboard spray paint.

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I thought these were super fun and am going to hang one over each tent door. 

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We are even having a lighthouse made to go in camp, I can't wait to see it done. We are also going to have a picket fence and on the fence we'll hang the cans the girls decorated for their mailboxes for their secret sister gifts and any other special notes. 

I also was able to help design our T-shirts for our ward. They wanted to do a subway art on the back of our red shirts and so I went to work and came up with this.

for the back (printed in white)

and for the front (small in the corner)

 

The girls have also already gotten together and made PJ pants in a cute nautical print. 

And while I was perusing Pinterest one day I came across this, hair tinsel. I LOVED it and thought how fun it would be for all the girls to have some red hair tinsel, so I've got some on the way now. 

(this is just the random picture they had to show what it looks like in hair)

and this is the color I got from Hair Flairs

I love to do some small things for the girls at camp to let them know I love them too, so here's a couple things I'll be doing for our girls. 

 I thought this would be a cute way to give cookies

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I of course won't be doing Halloween print but I found a fun camp paper to use, add a little treat and super fun. 

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And these are a perfect camp treat, smore's marshmallows.

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Our girls who are YCL's this year will camp with the stake and I always want to include them so I do a little something different for them. I loved the idea of pillowcases with "Arise & Shine Forth" on them, mine will be a little different, I want to make the "Shine" sparkle and the sun maybe only half like a rising sun. I'll post when I get them done. 

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And I am all about the packaging so I loved this idea with the gable box and their name on the front. I'm going to do a plain white gable box and cute it up with some of the camping scrapbook paper I've got but still do the mini pennants and add their name across the front. Add a little treat and the pillow case and it's something fun.

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We also decided that we would like to do secret sisters among the leaders so I've been collecting ideas to do for my SS.

I love the bottle cap necklaces and with "Like a Lighthouse" in the bottle cap I thought it would be perfect to give to always remember camp. 

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I even found this lighthouse charm to add to it. 

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I made these little card kits for a Christmas gift this last year and thought they would be fun to give as a little gift using my camp paper or nautical colors. It's six 3X3 cards and a few Hershey nuggets. 

I loved this idea of a little pedicure kit. Super cute. 

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Each year we're given a new "sister" ward to get to know. Before camp we do some certification together as well as some fun activities. This way the girls grow their circle of friends at camp. I thought it would be fun to give our sister ward a treat while we're at camp. These would be perfect. I'll use lemon heads and red hots and put a fun lighthouse on the top, stick them in a sand bucket with a huge bow and their you have it. 

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I am SO excited for camp this year and can't wait to get started on my projects. As I finish them I'll post my pictures but this gives you the general idea of what I've got swimming around in my head. I'd love to hear what fun things you do for girls camp so please share!!