10 Tips For Planning A Summer of Fun

Have you ever had summers where you find yourself in late August finally having some fun and regretfully feeling like you just let the summer slip through your fingertips? I definitely have. There is something so bittersweet about having a great Labor Day weekend and realizing fall is coming and you didn't have a cookout, didn't go to the beach or lake much, didn't go camping, see friends, take a roadtrip, roast a marshmallow.

Here's the recipe to avoid all that guilt. Plan your summer now. I always find that there is nothing that helps me enjoy life as much as having things to look forward to. Having a fun outing or trip to look forward to always makes the every day must-dos feel much less burdensome to me. It's a great time to pull out the calendar and start planning in fun events for the summer months.

1) Start with your vacation and holiday plans. Maybe your family has an annual trip or tradition you take part in each year. Schedule those in first.

2) Check out local community celebrations. Many of these are free and family friendly. In the area where I grew up there is a parade, rodeo and fireworks weekend in every city within a 10 mile radius at some point over the summer. Every city has their celebration: Strawberry Days, Pioneer Days, Steel Days, Onion Days, there's no shortage of fun things to do. A great way to enjoy your local area.

3) Look for free concerts, outdoor movies, etc. Online you can usually find a community or city calendar for your area. You will find all kinds of events available nearby especially throughout the summer. Many parks, beaches, piers and mountain resorts will host free public events.

4) Look for free talks, classes and workshops. Many business will host bike repair workshops, talks by specialists in different areas, and offer other free learning experiences to the public. The summer is a great time to take advantage of these opportunities.

5) Plan a little roadtip or campout. In most places in the world you don't have to go too far from home to find a great little camping spot or an interesting historical town or new neighborhood to adventure to. Find inexpensive lodging and enjoy a night away from home.

6) Plan to host a party at your home or a local park. Most people longingly wish they spent more time with their friends, but very few make the effort to plan something. If doing something at your home sounds like too much work, a potluck at a park can be accomplished with just a little planning and perhaps reserving a pavillion for your group. No housecleaning or slaving over a hot stove necessary. Plan something. Your friends will thank you and you'll be glad you did. Summer gatherings with friends are those summer events you remember.

7) Schedule in nature time. Find hikes or nature walks in your area you'd like to explore. Think about an evening hike to enjoy a sunset or get up extra early to catch the sunrise from a beautiful peak. Make sure you are prepared with water, food & emergency needs and you let someone know where you'll be then enjoy the fresh air.

8) Visit an amusement park. Rekindle the spirit of your child inside with a silly day at a local amusement park. Nothing says summer like the crowds, the cotton candy, the roller coasters and paddle boats.

9) Organize some craft activities. The warmer weather is a great time to work on craft projects that require drying time and can be done outside. Paper mache, wood projects, dying fabric, creating concrete garden tiles and many other projects are very conducive to warm summer weather and you can make the mess outside instead of indoors. Get your supplies in advance and make something fun.

10) Plan a sleep out in your backyard. This was one of the most memorable things we did as kids in the summer. When we were younger we would make a blanket fort on the deck off of our kitchen and sleep under it. Once we got the mattresses outside it was hard to get us to come back and sleep in the house again. Plus I think we just dreaded the idea of dragging all the mattresses and blankets back in the house and putting them away. Later my parents built a covered deck at the back of the yard and I remember an Independence Day sleep out with movies and late night fun back there one year.

Hope these ideas will sparks some creative ideas and help you plan a summer full of fun this year. What are your must do summer activities and family traditions? Are you doing anything new this year? I'd love to hear your ideas to help inspire our future summer plans. Have a great Thursday!

image by kalanicut

Wedding Favor Tags in Plum, Green & Ivory

The sub-title to this post would be Simple DIY Project, Painful DIY Experience. Something that should've been so simple, became difficult on every level for a constantly unraveling stream of weird situations.

I've been working on a little project for a dear friend's wedding the past couple of weeks and it's one of my favorite kinds -- Tags. They went into the mail just a few days ago. I love mixing and layering papers to give a wrapped gift just the right punch. Tags are also a great way to make use of all those little scraps of pretty paper you have left from bigger projects.

So when my friend said she could use some help with favor tags for her wedding I was pulling an Arnold Horshack (how about a little Welcome Back, Kotter reference for ya!), hand in the air, yelling "Me! Me! Me! Me!" offering my help.

The first step was to plan out what the tags would look like. I came up with a scheme that would layer three sheets of paper. The tags would measure 3" wide x 4" long. Then the next layer would be 2.5" x 3" and the top layer would be about 2" by 2". On this sheet would be the little printed favor message from the bride and groom.

Next I was off to the stores to shop for pretty papers where I learned a helpful lesson. Most stores don't have stock of more than about 20-30 sheets of any one specialty paper pattern. Since we needed over 200 tags, finding enough paper to make all the tags required choosing different green patterns and then trips to three different stores to find enough sheets of plum card stock. If you have more time, you can pre-order paper in any quantity you need and avoid the big search. Lucky for me I am in an area where I can hit several craft and paper stores within a mile or two of each other.

Once I had paper in hand I could make final decisions about how they would look together and how I would layer them. Then I sat down at the computer and designed a little message and figured out the right size to get as many on one sheet of printed paper as possible. I used two different fonts to give it some character and chose a dark purple font color to contrast nicely with the cream.

Then I put the file on a thumb drive and took the file to the office supply store to have it printed on heavy ivory paper. The trick was that I had to go to three different office supply stores because two were too busy to print 18 sheets of paper for me. Crazy.

My next mistake was heading to the copy shop with my document saved in Word format. Once I found someone who could print it for me, they opened the file and the layout was totally wonky due to the font I chose that they didn't have. I learned this last summer and I'm not sure why I forgot but you should save your file into a PDF file so that nothing is distorted. Lesson learned, again.

Once back at yet another copy shop, as I was reviewing the budget for this project I bagged the purple ink idea. Color copies would be almost $11 and black and white would be only a couple dollars. Since I was already going to be over budget, I dejectedly went with the black and white.

Although the woman at this copy shop was so wonderful, hours later when I got the papers all cut up and was at home glueing them I realized she'd copied the text onto the flat back of the more expensive paper I'd requested. So I paid extra for the pretty textured paper surface to be glued down and the printed surface to look like normal, plain ivory paper. What a drag...

While I glued the three layers together, I would've liked to use foam squares to give them more dimension. When I thought about the fact that these tags would be mailed to the bride stacked together and probably smooshed along the way it seemed like they would be more damaged if they were dimensional than if they were flat. When I considered the additional cost and time for foam squares, that further convinced me to keep it simple.

Unfortunately I think I erased the photo of the final product. The photo above is just the papers sitting on top of each other before anything was glued. I did glue them centered one on top of the other layer. Although that makes perfect sense, based on the photo above you might think I did some weird abstract glueing thing.

One could do a lot of different ribbon options with these tags. The bride is using beautiful purple raffia. Another great option would be a silver metallic ribbon. A beautiful little silver metallic flower with pearl center would be a fun addition too.

So while I took great joy in this project for my beloved friend, I can't believe how many weird things happened in the course of this project. It was bizarre. I'm most happy that I finally was able to get them done and in the mail to her. I'm wishing the happy couple the most amazing wedding weekend and future life together!

Here are some links to other tag projects:

Sassy Gift Tags
Holiday Gift Tags
Pretty Tags From Etsy
From The Kitchen Of Tags

photo credit kalanicut