Valentines Day

                             Happy Valentines Day!!!

                                              ♥

                  Here are some fun Valentines Day crafts and books:

 Home-made Valentine gifts:

You will need

Pink and red construction paper

Scissors

A stapler

Glitter glue (optional)

Stickers (optional)

Crayons, markers, colored pencils, or pens

Stick on jewels (optional)

Paper doilies (optional) 

First, cut out two hearts out of the paper. Next, staple them together, but leave room to open it on the top. After you've done this, decorate the "bag" with the things suggested above. You can come up with your own decorations too. Finally, write Happy Valentines Day! Love/From, (your name here) and fill it with fun Valentines day things, such as:

A Valentines Day cookie 

A plastic, heart-shaped ring

Valentines Day chocolate 

Candy hearts

Valentines Day erasers

Valentines Day stickers

A mini Valentines Day pencil

A Valentines Day bracelet

My favorite Valentines Day books:

Juliet the Valentine Fairy

Fancy Nancy: Heart to Heart

Fancy Nancy: Secret Admirer

Cam Jansen: The Valentine Baby Mystery

Happy Valentines Day, Mouse!

Be My Valentine, Amelia Bedelia

Love, Ruby Valentine

A Flower Fairy Valentines Day

P.S. To see what books these are, click on them.

Chapter 6: A discovery

Charlotte took the hand off and whipped around. Paige was standing there. "I thought you stayed at home." Charlotte said, frowning. "And why did you just-" "Um, I'm sorry, but can I borrow Charlotte for a minute?" Paige said quickly. "Thanks." Paige grabbed Charlotte by the arm and started pulling her away from Elizabeth, Flora, Aunt Olivia, Mama, and Mr. Elkon.

 "Paige, what on earth-" Charlotte started to say, but Paige interrupted her again. "Charlotte, WERE YOU JUST GOING TO ASK HIM IF HE KNEW WHY HE'S ON THE SECRET CODE???!!!" She screamed. Charlotte thought for a minute, then replied, "Well, yes, I think I was, but now that I think about it, I'm glad you put your hand on my mouth so I didn't say it. I just realized that would have been really stupid of me." 

 Paige nodded. Then Charlotte asked, "So what are you doing here?" "Oh." Said Paige. "I decided that I wanted to come over to the surfing classes place, The Splashing Surfers, and fill in a form to start taking classes."
Ding! Went a little light bulb in Charlotte's head. Paige had just given her a brilliant idea!

"Hmmm..." Charlotte said. "That's good idea. I'm going to ask Mama if I can take classes too." So they headed back towards The Splashing Surfers school, and saw Mama and the others standing on the beach. Oh man! Charlotte thought. Jack Elkon had left. 

"Mama, can I please take surfing classes too?" Charlotte asked as soon as they had reached them. "Sure." Mama answered. After Charlotte had filled out a form, Mama asked suspiciously,"Honey, what were going to ask Mr. Elkon?" 

"Ummm..." Charlotte said. She looked frantically at Paige for help, since Mama couldn't know that she was going to ask Mr. Elkon about the secret code. Unfortunately, Paige didn't know what to do either. So Charlotte glanced at the sea, hoping for inspiration. 

Luckily, she did get inspiration. Charlotte pretend to fall on a wave as it crashed against her ankles, and 
Mama forgot about wanting to know the answer. "Oh are you all right??!" She cried, and helped her out. "I'm fine." Charlotte said, and, when they weren't looking, winked at Paige.
         
The next day, Charlotte and Paige set off for their first surfing lessons. Charlotte's plan was to spy on Mr. Elkon during the classes. After an hour, the lesson was over and Charlotte hadn't spotted Mr. Elkon anywhere. Disappointed, she and Paige started to walk back to Aunt Olivia's house.

"Wait!" Charlotte exclaimed. She'd spotted Mr. Elkon, walking into The Splashing Surfers building. "What is it?" Paige asked, stopping. "Err..." Charlotte said. "I, uh, have to go to the bathroom. You go on ahead." "You sure?" Paige replied. "I can just wait for you." "No,no, that's okay, I'll meet you back at Aunt Olivia's house." Charlotte said. "Okay. See you soon!" Paige answered, and left. 

Charlotte made sure Paige was a good distance away before going in. She looked around just in time to see Mr. Elkon turning the corner. Quickly but quietly, Charlotte followed him. Mr. Elkon went into a coat closet. Now what on earth does he think he's doing?? After waiting for a minute, Charlotte tiptoed to the closet door and looked inside. Mr. Elkon had disappeared. Carefully, she throughly touched the floor. Suddenly, a very large loose board flipped open, and there was a slide on the other side. Aha! She thought. A trap door. Well let's see where this leads.

And she slipped down the slide. 



        

Drama

                                                  DRAMA book review

Callie Marin and her best friend Liz are on the stage crew at Eucalyptus Middle School. Callie's the set designer. But things start getting kind of hectic, when Callie meets two cute twin brothers, her crush's X-girlfriend won't leave her alone, the other stage crew members aren't getting along too well, and the faux cannon that Callie's working on isn't cooperating. As if that isn't enough, she and the stage crew can't sell any tickets for the play! 

And I really like the drawings!
Note to anyone reading this review: READ THIS BOOK! IT'S GREAT!!   

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http://www.amazon.com/Drama-Raina-Telgemeier/dp/0545326990/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1357089323&sr=1-1&keywords=drama+by+raina+telgemeier

Tea Parties

                                       
Here are some ideas for tea parties:

Doll Tea Party: Use a shoe box, a stack of books, an upside down bowl, or a chair for a doll table. Decorate your doll table with a few paper doilies, or a piece of pretty fabric for a tablecloth. Use pillows for doll chairs. 

For doll-sized refreshments, put a small plate in the middle of the table and fill it with small chocolates or candy, berries, mini cupcakes, mini pretzels, mini cookies, or nuts. If you don't have a tiny tea set, you can make one with play dough or salt dough. My mom has a recipe for salt dough on her website. Click HERE for my mom's salt dough recipe. 

More suggestions for doll tea parties: Make tiny invitations and hand them out to friends, (make sure to remind them to bring their dolls!) ask everyone to dress up their dolls for the party, ( and themselves, too!) and make mini party favors for the dolls, like tiny bracelets, tiny stickers, tiny thank you cards, tiny colored rocks, or anything fun and tiny! (To make colored rocks, just paint rocks in bright colors.)  

Stuffed Animal Tea Party: For stuffed animal tea parties, just do everything you do for the doll tea parties, except for stuffed animals! 

Paper Doll Tea Party: Draw a tea set on paper and cut it out for your paper dolls. Then draw some refreshments, cut those out, and put the tea set and refreshments on the top of an old spool of thread or jar. 

Nancy's stocking

                   
                       Here is the Christmas stocking I made my doll, Fancy Nancy. Like it? =)

                                     P.S. I got my hair cut, as you can (sort of) see!!

Merry Christmas!

                                 Merry Christmas!! 
Merry Christmas, everybody! Here's a fun Christmas post:

Gift ideas:
For a baby: I always make the Christmas presents I give, but I couldn't find any suggestions for Christmas presents for my baby sister. Well, I finally came up with my own suggestions:
                                    Knit or sew a tiny teddy bear 
                                    Knit or sew a blankey
                                    Make a rag doll
                                    
Sorry! That's all I could think of. (I'm making my baby sister a tiny teddy bear.)

  Ideas for kids presents: Glue pretty buttons on a plain round box bought from Michael's. (It will make a nice jewelry box.) Decorate a plain notebook with buttons, glitter, stickers, ribbons, or rhinestones.(Maybe even decorate a matching pen.)

 Make a bunch of bracelets, rings, earrings, or even a whole set of jewelry. Decorate a notebook with a picture of a Lego guy or an action figure on it. Make a coupon for free back rubs from you for your mom or dad. 

Make a nice picture frame out of card board. Buy a blank book and make it into a coloring book, a joke book, or a story book.

Sew a doll Christmas outfit or dress. Knit some fun, decorative mittens or pot holders. Make a Christmas snow globe out of a clear jar, using confetti and glitter for the snow. Decorate a T-shirt with iron-ons, and the help of a grown-up. 

Christmas books: Here are some great Christmas books!! 

The Tomten by Astrid Lindgren

The Tomten and the Fox by Astrid Lindgren

Christmas in Noisy Village by Astrid Lindgren

The Night Before Christmas told by Jan Brett 

Holly the Christmas fairy by Daisy Meadows

Stella the Star fairy by Daisy Meadows

Paige the Christmas Play fairy by Daisy Meadows

Cheryl the Christmas Tree fairy by Daisy Meadows

(I think you can probably get all these books at your library)

Chocolate candy cane Christmas cookies: Mm!
Ingredients: Your favorite chocolate cookies, vanilla frosting, peppermint candy canes.
Directions: Spread vanilla frosting on one cookie. Crush up some candy canes, and put some on your cookie with frosting. Place another cookie on top. Dee-licious! 







                                    

Make a fairy box of secrets!

Instructions on making fairy box: Making your fairy box is very simple. All you have to do is decorate the shoe box with things you think a fairy would like, such as glitter, confetti, pretty wrapping or tissue paper, fairy stickers, colorful beads, ribbons, rhinestones, hand drawn pictures of fairies, or even a couple of Silly-Bandz. The main thing is to make the box pretty and fairy related. 

"Secrets" to put in your box: You don't really have to put "secrets" in your fairy box. You can always just put in your fairy things, or craft supplies, or whatever you want. But I put  my fairy wand, pretend fairy magic, and a little notebook that I call my fairy spell book in my box.

To make the pretend fairy magic, just put confetti in a small plastic jar or bottle. I labeled mine "Zoe's Fairy Dust". If you don't have confetti, just cut up tiny pieces of colored paper.  For the fairy wand, wrap a plain pencil in glittery ribbons, until you can't see the pencil anymore. Glue a glittery cardboard star on top of the wand. And you can use a pretty notebook with the words Spell Book on it. 

Have fun!  
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