Junior Giants

For years, my friends with older kids have been raving about the Junior Giants.  It's a free (!), non-competitive, values-based program affiliated with the San Francisco Giants baseball team. The participants develop baseball skills simultaneously with four bases of character development: confidence, integrity, leadership, and teamwork.  I am a big fan of non-competitive sports for young children and I love that this program emphasizes the importance of developing good character, both on and off the field.

While the program serves ages 5-18 in some California communities, our local league officially starts at age 7, so Trevor was able to participate for the first time last summer.  He loved it.
 

As you can imagine, I took a lot of photos during the season!  It was hard deciding which to put on the layout, but I eventually picked these four.  I used the Junior Giants logo as my title and added some ancient Jolee's stickers under my journaling.

Just a few more months until Trevor starts his second season of Junior Giants!

Scrap-Related Podcasts

I really enjoy listening to podcasts while I clean or do other mundane tasks.  My favorites, not surprisingly, are scrap-related podcasts.  

This is my absolute favorite podcast.  Each week, a panel of 2 or 3 guests join hostess Noell Hyman and producer Izzy Hyman to discuss all sorts of topics related to scrapbooking.  The guests frequently include the biggest movers and shakers in the industry.  The almost 200 episodes cover a huge variety of topics.  

I don't do digital scrapbooking, never have done digital scrapbooking, and never plan to do digital scrapbooking, yet I never miss an episode of The Digi Show.  I am fascinated with learning more about the one part of the scrapbooking world that is completely foreign to me. The regulars (Steph and her cohosts Katie Nelson and Peppermint Granberg) have such a wonderful rapport and the guests always add a lot.  

Capturing Magic

Steph from The Digi Show runs a second podcast, Capturing Magic, which is about Disney scrapping and memory keeping.  Sometimes the topic doesn't appeal to me (for example, I don't do cell phone photography at Disney parks... or anywhere else, for that matter), so I skip it, but I do enjoy this podcast when the topic is relevant to me.

My most recent addition to my podcast list is Scrap Owl.  It is a new podcast with only a dozen episodes but I've enjoyed listening to it and look forward to seeing how it develops and what direction hostess Renee Robbins takes it.

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There are a few other scrap-related podcasts that I listen to every once in a while if the topic really catches my eye.  I'm always on the lookout for more!  Do you have any scrap-related podcasts to recommend?  I'd love to check them out! 

Star Wars Crafts

We've been doing a lot of Star Wars crafting around here.  I am not a Star Wars fan AT ALL.  I tried watching the movie as a kid and ended up leaving after about 45 minutes because I thought it was so boring.  I've tried watching it several times since and my opinion hasn't changed.  Ugh. Unfortunately for me, Trevor is a huge Star Wars fan.  And since I am a good mommy, that means I've been doing Star Wars themed crafts every time he asks.

It started with Trevor asking my help in picking the proper materials to decorate his Build-a-Bear bunny's plain white t-shirt.  He showed me his design (the title Star Wars with a carrot and a broccoli as space vehicles).  I helped him slide cardboard between the front and back of the shirt and showed him how to trace his sketch, which he then colored with Sharpies.  Here's the happy crafter and his Star Wars clad bunny.

The back of the shirt has the bunny's name, which is Bun.

The next time we went to the library, he found The Star Wars Craft Book and immediately flagged about half the projects.  Sigh.  As soon as we had a few minutes, we made this Yoda stick puppet.  Unlike Bun's shirt which only required my supervision and advice, Trevor wanted this to be a joint effort.  In this case, that meant Trevor picked the colors, traced the patterns, and then told me to cut out the felt pieces, which he glued in place.  

Trevor has big plans to make the rest of the Star Wars projects, so expect to see more very soon!

Snake Cake and a Future Project

Trevor's Cub Scout Pack held their Blue & Gold this week.  Since we're relatively new to this Pack, this was our first Blue & Gold with them.  (We attended two different Blue & Gold celebrations during Trevor's Tiger Year, one I planned for the Pack we left, and one with the Pack that temporarily took us in.)  So it was a surprise to us when each of the boys was asked to bake and decorate a cake for a silent auction at the Blue & Gold.

Trevor wasn't sure what to make, so he and I sat down at the computer and scrolled through a bunch of images of decorated cakes, seeing if anything would inspire him.  He fell in love with this image of a snake cake.  It seemed manageable.  We'd bake a bundt cake, cut it into chunks, and arrange them to form a snake's body.  Then Trevor would pipe the frosting, add marshmallow eyes, chocolate chip nostrils, and a fruit leather tongue.  With a plan in place, we bought our supplies and waited until the big day.

We ended up having to have a much shorter snake than Trevor had planned, due to the fact that all completed cakes had to fit in a 13 x 9 inch cake box and we hadn't made a template ahead of time to test for size.  Oh well.  Despite being a bit stunted, it was still adorable.  Here is the Snake Cake just minutes after Trevor put it on the auction table.  Two bids already!

Here's a closer look from the top and the front:

Trevor was thrilled with how his cake turned out and proud that it brought in a good amount of money for the Pack. 

The cakes were fun and dinner was very tasty, but the highlight of the Blue & Gold was seeing the boys who had made rank go through their ceremonies.  Trevor and six other boys in Den 1 were awarded their Wolf.  During the ceremony, a red paw print was painted on their right cheek to signify their achievement.  

  

When a Cub Scout earns a rank, he receives a corresponding pin to give to his parent (traditionally, his mother) as an acknowledgement of the role that (s)he plays in supporting him through Cub Scouts.  Steve and I share Cub Scout parent duties, but I'm the one who gets the pins.

I've been storing my pins with our other Cub Scout stuff and wasn't sure if I was supposed to be wearing them or displaying them somehow.  After a quick search, I found a tutorial to make a pin necklace that looks great and seems easy enough for a sewing novice like me.  I love that it incorporates both the Cub Scout and the Boy Scout colors, with room for all the pins as Trevor moves up the ranks.  I have high hopes that in about ten years I'll be adding an Eagle pin to my collection.

Pam's Sketch

A few weeks ago, the fabulous Pam Callaghan sent a sketch to all of the Contributing Artists at Ideas for Scrapbookers.  Here's her sketch:

And here's what I made:

I kept most of the elements from the sketch, including the tags, hearts and journaling strips.  I added two photos to the three in the sketch and did some flipping and rotating.  

To see what the other designers made, head over to Ideas for Scrapbookers!  Each layout is completely different!