I know I mentioned I'd probably be awhile,
but I can't help but post real quick in between our two camp trips!
Last year, my sister-in-law Kathy introduced our family to the funnest camping activity- Tree Mail! We hang pouches on a string across two trees and everybody puts fun little things in each person's pouch throughout the camping trip. It really is something that the kid's seriously look forward to- a huge highlight to the trip!
This year we have been so excited for Tree Mail again! We just finished it with my family at Redfish and are about to do more with Stephen's family in Island Park. I love, love, love creating things to put in our family's pouches- gets my juices pumpin' for sure :)
I made these fun, roll-up totes for my Mom and sisters to go in their pouches at Redfish- each one was different and they all turned out pretty darn cute! I followed the tutorial found HERE. I was in the process of making them for my sister-in-laws when it was decided that we'd only do Tree Mail for the kids this year, so I guess these two will get tossed into my purse to use as re-usable shopping bags!
I also designed this simple little "Camping Rocks" symbol and created matchbook notes out of notepads from Dollar Tree ($1 for 5 of them- sweet!). These turned out fun, hopefully the kids will think so too :) The back of them has a little pic of a bike and says "Island Park 2012."
I love how these water bottles turned out! I used the printable wrappers found HERE and attached a drink mix and silly straw with paper tape from Target :) One thing about having so many nieces and nephews is that you have to get pretty creative in order to not spend a ton of money on Tree Mail! All of these elements went a long ways for not too much and I love how fun and colorful they are!
I told Taron and Keaton they could pick something to put in the older cousin's pouches. They came across these little prank things at the party store. We came up with the idea that all the teenagers could get one and then they could be trying to prank each other all week! They'll include this simple tag that says "Game On. May the best prankster win :)" It'll be fun to see how it goes :)
This next little idea is what I'm looking forward to most for Island Park...
We'll take a big roll of tickets we've had kickin' around and some simple treats to try a "Random Acts of Kindness" type game. I'll get all my in-laws to be putting tickets in to the kids' pouches as they are kind to each other. They get to choose out of my fun bin below when they get a ticket in their pouch and then we'll give whoever has the most tickets in the end a $5 bill (unless we can think of something more clever in the meantime!). I'll have to update how this one turns out- I hope it will be fun for everyone, even the adults!
I wrote more about the specifics of Tree Mail in this post last year for anyone that's curious. I also have lots of pics from our awesome trip to Redfish that I'm excited to post once we get back again! :)
