Cousin Camp!

A few months ago my sister-in-law Amelia mentioned doing a Sewing Camp for the cousins in the summer.  So we planned a few days to get together and made it happen a few weeks ago.  We had great fun! At first we were going to call it Sewing Camp, but we did do some other things, so we ended up just calling it Cousin Camp.  Each of the three of us mom’s planned a couple projects for the kiddos, divided up the meals, and got everything else ready we needed.  Day One we started with a free tour of Sweet’s Candy Factory. Which of course the kids were all in heaven. The alluring Amelia. After that we went home to work on painting Library Totes.  I had wanted to make my kids some for a while, and the perfectionist in me wanted to do it while they were sleeping so they were just how I wanted, but I need to let that go sometimes and let them have a little fun.  If I had covered all the free space with freezer paper, they would have been easier to not get paint in unwanted places, but I didn’t—you live and learn. The last project of Day One was making thank you cards. There was also lemonade treats made with lemons and part of a candy stick, with the wrapper on.  You squeeze the lemons before cutting in half to make more juice, make a hole, and stick half a candy stick inside with the wrapper to act as a straw.  The kids thought it was pretty cool, fun, and sour ;).  It was! That night we had the pleasure of viewing a fun puppet show put on by Alli, Katie, and Bailey. Day Two we braved making skirts or pajama shorts.  We also made super easy tissue pouches (I have a tutorial HERE). They also made a Smash Pad—it’s like a kid-friendly scrapbook using a composition notebook and decorating it cute.  Like this: You use a large headband elastic to keep it closed, and the kids just glue fun things or pictures in it and can write a bit about what happened as well.  The last day, Day Three, we just had one last project which was sewing a pillowcase.  This was a fun and easy project, but I don’t have any finished product pics.  Oops! To end off Cousin Camp, we headed to a dam and threw rocks in.      What we were sure to do: -Not overschedule and keep it a pretty loose schedule.  We made sure the kids had plenty of breaks, snacks, and play time.  What we learned: -We should have started with the easier projects first and worked our way up to the pj’s and skirts.  You should have heard us moms—I think we sounded like we were teaching our kids to drive.  It was actually SO funny.  “Ok, sew…SLOWER!  Ok, not so fast.  Go.  Go.  Ok, slower, now STOP!”  It was pretty comical to listen to us, but maybe going over the basics of using a machine a bit before we started would have been beneficial, even though most of the kids had sewed a little bit previously.  -My boys had sewn before, but Carson didn’t think he liked it until now, although Sunshine always has.  The boys were just as into it as the girls, which was really fun.  It was a fun three days and I’m so happy we did this.  Thanks so much for suggesting it Amelia and thanks so much Laurie for letting us use your new beautiful home!!!  I’m wanting to do something similar with my sisters and sister-in-law if they are up to it!  The kids all had so much fun doing this and it was fun to teach them a skill that will be fun for them to have.