Modern Plant-Themed 24th Birthday Party

 Hey guys, today I am sharing an event that I actually did not put together, but was a surprise for my birthday last month my family and relatives kindly did for me. I said surprise --allow me to clarify. I knew there was a 'party' but I did not know they had time to decorate and had gone all out for it, so it was a pleasant surprise. If you know me well, you know I hate many surprises, surprise parties included, but I enjoyed this surprise. 

As the balloons show, I turned 2,424. Man, how time flies. The decades just go by faster every century. They chose a plant-ish theme and simple colors, which is perfect for me. My mother even got fancy, practical notebook favors and my grandparents gave me a lovely pot of live flowers that miraculously are still alive as I type. The four balloon popped, so they got creative and used matching tissue paper on a cardboard four, which looked more unique, so it worked out well. I honestly thought that was intentional, so thumbs up for great improv!

I hope you enjoyed this theme idea as much as I did, and look forward to sharing more events soon!

-Lauryn 

10 Simple, Cheap RAK Ideas

Hey guys! Today I am just sharing a quick list of simple, cheap RAK ideas that you can probably make with items from your home or for $1-2 (for a lot of them), depending on where and how you buy your materials. I am not going to describe how to go about creating them since they are pretty self-explanatory and very open-ended. That is for you to decide. These are just some ideas for inspiration, but there are plenty of examples of them on the internet. I also suggest adding a Bible verse to uplift people and share the love of Christ. Some people will write to pass on the kindness and challenge recipients to do an act of kindness in return. I prefer to avoid that since that might stress the recipient out and make them feel like they need to pay for the gift. If they are inspired, they will probably do that on their own anyway. Another item I suggest avoiding unless you know the recipient well is food such as candy since so many people are on such a vast variety of diets. As for the balloon dogs, I will share a tutorial and free printable for that in the (hopefully near) future. I hope you enjoy!

RAK Ideas:

 -Balloon Dogs or Helium Balloons

-Magnets

-Stickers

-Snail Mail

-Painted Rocks

-Kindness Letters

-Flowers

-Practical Pun Gifts (for example: "You are stupendous!" with pens.)

-Banners/Cards/Confetti (there is a free printable sunshine banner here.)

-Bubbles/Chalk/Glow-sticks (or other items that will probably cheer someone up.)

I hope you enjoyed these ideas! I hope you visit again next week for a new post I look forward to sharing with you! 

-Lauryn

Spring Snail Mail Inspiration

Hey everyone! I'm sorry I didn't post last week, I had a crazy past two weeks of working feverishly sun up to sun down on finals every day, and thank goodness they are over. To make up for my missed post I will share two this week. Today I would like to share some photos of snail mail I made during week one or two of quarentine for relatives who live out of state, which I hope give you inspiration for your own snail mail or care packages. I mainly used one pad of scrapbook paper I had for each package and went with the theme. These were themed around spring with pastel pink, light green and lots of florals. I also used Happy Planner stickers, washi tapes, wrote calligraphy with a gel ink pen, made mini bags with favor bags, scrapbook paper and a stapler, made confetti with my heart- and star-shaped hole punchers, and made banners by glueing the cutout paper onto string with a hot glue gun. I also included small gifts like a makeup bag, necklace, gel ink pens, stickers, sanitizer and lotion (from Bath and Body Works), tea samples, photographs, markers, colored pencils, handwritten lists/cards/drawing prompts, mini notebooks, and a handmade Easter paper doll.

I will share another post soon. Thank you for visiting!

-Lauryn

"Bag of Sunshine" DIY Gift + Free Printable Sunshine Banner

Good morning, everyone! Today I'd like to share a recent gift I made with a tutorial for you, as well as a free printable sunshine banner (becuase who doesn't need some metaphorical sunshine right now?). This gift may be hard to put together at the moment with most stores closed and everyone staying in, but this may come in handy after quarentine is over and some of the items you should be able to make at home regardless. I got lucky and happened to have these things already in my house. First of all, here is a list of what I included in my "Bag of Sunshine" gift:
-Sanatizer (from Bath and Body Works that reads 'Stay Pawsitive')
-Stickers (mine were from a pad of Happy Planner stickers I cut out and got on sale at Michaels)
-The free printable banner below
-Sunshine-themed sheet music that I watercolored yellow (found free online)
-A clay sunshine I made with Polymer clay and painted with acrylic paint and clear nail polish
-Some yellow pens I found in my art supplies
-A bag of yellow balloons
-Confetti (handmade)
-A watercolor quote picture (handmade)
-A car air-freshener that looks like a yellow-ish candle (from Dollar Tree)

Now, you could make your own clay with flour and salt to substitute the Polymer clay, and you could use any art media to make a picture or share a quote. I made the confetti with two hole punchers I got on sale at Hobby Lobby a long time back that were star-shaped and heart-shaped, but you could hand-cut the confetti instead if you don't have any hole punchers. I just used plain construction paper (the only kind of paper I had in yellow). Provided you have ink, paper and a printer, you can print the banner below and sheet music. For the banner, you will of course also need string, scissors, and a hot glue gun with hot glue or tape to cut out the sunshines on the printable and attatch them on a string. For packaging, I just used printer paper, a black marker to write the calligraphy with, construction paper, those Happy Planner stickers I mentioned, and I might've used a little scrapbook paper I had although if I did I didn't use much because, like I mentioned before, I didn't have yellow.  As for the other objects I included, these could be substituted for nearly anything yellow. Most of the 'Box of Sunshine' gifts on Pinterest use yellow foods, too, I just try to avoid food gifts generally. I think that about covers everything. Happy crafting!

Here is the printable:

I printed mine on cardstock. I hope this brightens your day!

-Lauryn