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My friend and I recently threw a ladybug-themed baby shower, and we decided to go with handmade black, red, and white decorations. Instead of buying real flowers, we put together some tissue paper flowers for the table centerpieces. Once we figured out what we wanted to do, they were so simple! Here’s how to make them:

Step 1: Cut circles

First, cut whatever colors of tissue paper you like into small, medium, and large circles.  You can do more than 3 layers if you like. (Ignore the crumpliness and holes in the tissue…I forgot to take pictures the first time I made them, so I took one apart for these instructions!)

Step 2: Layer the Circles

Layer your circles by size, with the largest on the bottom and the smallest on the top. (Feel free to ignore my distracting fingernail polish in these pictures, too.)

Step 3: Prepare Stem

Take one end of a pipe cleaner and curl it up into a small, tight swirl. This will be the center of your flower.

Step 4: Add Stem

Insert the non-curled end of the pipe cleaner through the top of the circles’ centers. The wire should be sharp enough to punch through all of them. Don’t worry if the tissue gets a little scrunched in the process.

Pull it through until the tight swirl you made is nice and snug against the top layer of tissue paper.

Once through, you want to make sure the circles don’t slip down the pipe cleaner. To do this, just tie a knot in the end of the pipe cleaner, and tighten it up against the bottom of the tissue paper.

Step 5: Scrunch the tissue paper

Layer by layer, bring the tissue paper up toward the center to scrunch it into the shape of a flower.

Step 6: Arrange and Display Flowers

We used scrapbook paper and ribbon to decorate glass jars that were saved from my kitchen. They provided the perfect vases for these flowers.

For the baby shower, we filled some jars with flowers, some jars with mints, and some jars with black and red licorice. Here are a few of the baby shower details:

Enjoy!

Carter finally got to open his costume when we met up in Yosemite this weekend, and he ran around exclaiming, “I look like a real hobbit!”

Meet Meriadoc Brandybuck, usually just referred to as Merry:

To make the costume, I followed a pattern for size 3-4 pajama pants and cut them short. For the vest, I got the general size from a pajama shirt pattern and played around with it until it looked like a vest. For the cloak (the easiest part of the whole costume), I bought some no-fray fabric that didn’t require hemming, and I made it very similar to the hooded towel I previously made (how-to here). I added a tie around the neck as well.

Merry, gathering wood for the fire:

Fortunately for Lily, there was enough fabric left over to make her a cloak as well. For a while, she was Pippin…then she was “Fyodo”…then she was Cinderella. : )

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Slideshow Sneak Peak:

If you are an avid backpacker, you probably already have a system for planning snacks and meals for your trips. But, if you are like me, you have done plenty of day hikes and camping, but only a little backpacking. You may benefit from what my husband and I learned about food and food prep on our recent backpacking trip down Hermit Trail to the bottom of the Grand Canyon (and back up)!

Breakfast:

The Plan: Strawberries and Cream instant oatmeal.

What worked: This was great on the day that we spent exploring the bottom of the Grand Canyon (not a major hiking day). It was tasty, easy, and relatively quick.

What didn’t work: On the days that we hiked down and back up, we wanted to leave early to avoid the hot sun as much as possible. We realized that we really didn’t want to take the time to heat up water, sit and eat, then clean up and pack our dishes. We ended up eating chocolate brownie flavored Kid’s Clif bars (We think the bars made for kids taste better than the bars made for adults).

Next Time: Next time, we will have oatmeal on non-major hiking days, & pack something fast and easy like bars and an apple for the mornings we want to get going quickly.

Snacks on the trail:

The Plan: Mini dill pickles, shot blocks, mini chocolate chip cookies from Trader Joe’s, cinnamon toffee almonds, rice cakes with salt, coconut m&m’s, pretzel m&m’s, chocolate brownie kid’s Clif bars.

What worked: By far, our favorite snack was the mini dill pickles. They were tiny (smaller than my little pinkie finger), crunchy, and salty. All that sweating you do on the trail really makes you want to replace your salt. The mini chocolate chip cookies, coconut m&m’s, pretzel m&m’s, & chocolate brownie kid’s Clif bars were also tasty snacks.

What didn’t work: The cinnamon toffee almonds tasted good at home, but we weren’t too excited about them on the trail. Lighter, saltier, and easier to digest snacks were better. The rice cakes were alright, but not that exciting.

Next Time: We will bring the snacks that worked and add some kind of salty home-made chex mix or similar snack

Drink Mixes:

The Plan: Bring 1-qt size packets of Gatorade powder and Vitalyte powder. Add to water bottles as we fill them up.

What worked: Both powdered mixes were good. They replaced the electrolytes we needed to keep going on strong. Also, we were staying super hydrated, and even though the risk of water intoxication was probably small, we still wanted to keep it in mind. If you drink a lot of water without replenishing your electrolytes, your body can suffer from water intoxication (or hyper-hydration), which can cause disturbances in brain function. Replacing electrolytes helps reduce this risk by keeping your blood more isotonic. We set a stopwatch and stopped to refuel every 30 minutes to make sure we drank enough fluids. Not only was it good to drink and eat snacks, but we also got a little rest from our heavy packs!

What didn’t work: They both worked, but we liked the Vitalyte mix better because it had a more subtle flavor, a little less sugar, and more electrolytes.

Next time: We will bring more Vitalyte mix and less Gatorade mix.

Lunch:

The Plan: On Hiking Days: Oranges & mini toasts (like crackers) with small slices of lite sharp cheddar cheese. Exploring Day at the bottom of the canyon: Pasta Salad (cooked vegetable radiatore pasta, stuffed manzanilla olives, sliced black olives, small chunks lite sharp cheddar, foil-packaged ready-to-eat chicken, & Greek salad dressing. All ingredients packaged separately in baggies, then mixed together in the biggest bag to eat out of).

What worked: It was all good! I chose reduced fat sharp cheddar and cut it into thin slices, because I didn’t want my body working too hard to digest the fat and protein when I needed the blood flow elsewhere for hiking. Also, sharp cheddar still has a strong flavor, even when you aren’t eating big slices. The juiciness of the oranges is always welcome during a hike. For the pasta salad, I shredded the chicken and mixed all the ingredients into a large plastic baggie. We ate it while sitting in the 90-degree weather on a warm rock with our feet in an ice cold pool of water at Hermit Creek. It was delicious. I purposely saved the more fatty meal for the non-hiking day. (We did our fair share of hiking around the bottom that day, but not much compared to the long hikes down and up the canyon).

What didn’t work: Nothin’.

Next time: I’ll probably do just the same as I did this time.

Dinner:

The Plan: #1: Ramen noodles with dehydrated shrimp and vegetables, seasoning packet replaced with vegetable bouillon. #2: Couscous (from a boxed meal with seasoning packet) with dehydrated turkey bacon strips and vegetables.  Backpackingchef.com has good information on how to dehydrate meat and veggies.

What worked: Both meals were tasty, and easy to make by adding hot water.

What didn’t work: We have origami style plates, bowls, and cups for backpacking. They fold flat and are super light. To use them, you just fold them into the right shape. They pack well and work pretty well, but we didn’t really like having to clean them afterward.

Next time: When we made the couscous, we added the water straight into the plastic baggie and ate it from there. It was definitely faster and easier. Next time, we’ll bring the same meals, but cook and eat them straight out of the baggie we pack them in.

Our rainbow of water bottles! Ready to hit the road. : )

We took off our backpacks for a minute or two to snap this picture by the top of the Hermit Trail sign.

My pack: It was not nearly as heavy as Tim’s, but it was plenty heavy for me.

On a relatively easy part of the trail near the top : )

Our tent at our first camping spot:

This is my first attempt at star trails. I was too tired to go hiking around to find a view with something interesting in the foreground, so all I got was the stars. For those who don’t understand what this is, it’s a 15-minute long exposure of the stars, and the circular motion is due to the rotation of the earth. Neato. Too bad this picture looks like it could’ve been taken anywhere!

You can’t camp down there without one of these:

A shot of our first camping spot from above:

By 7am, the sun was blazing and a huge black bee wouldn’t leave me alone. He kept hovering back and forth in front of me as if he was trying to start a fight. So, mainly due to the sun, we scouted around and moved our camp to this nice shady spot under a rock ledge. It was great, and the huge bee left me alone.

On our way back up- no time to take off the backpacks here! We were racing the hot sun. : )

It’s amazing to look down and see how far you’ve already come up. In this picture, you can’t even see the bottom of the Canyon where the creek and our camp were.

Only two miles from the top is Santa Maria Spring. There is a small shelter built there with this “restbit” bench.

I followed the bench’s instructions and rested a bit.

Tim calls this picture below “woe is me,” but it’s really, “ahh, shade and something other than a rock to sit on- I think I’ll close my eyes for a minute and block the sun.”

Our lunch: oranges and little toasts with cheese. mmm…

Tim made these “gloves” out of his socks for each of us. On the way down, we realized why the expensive trekking poles have cork handles…the plastic ones give you blisters! The athletic tape kept peeling off of our hands, so Tim cut some holes in his socks for the way back up (yes, they were used, but probably at least dunked in the creek and hung up on the line). They worked pretty well, and they made me feel like some punky kid in an ’80s movie.

8 hrs later and we finally made it up to our car! Tim took off his shoes and socks to reveal his anti-blister, sore-ankle treatment…and his sock tan, haha…

Gary and Ruth drove 4 hours to come meet us at the top for Mother’s Day. Awww. They also bought us dinner, and I don’t think I’ve ever eaten that much at one time…and still not been full. I usually split a plate with Tim and let him eat “the big half,” but not this time. I ate every last bit of my food, and Tim and I came back an hour later for more…and I still wasn’t full. I probably burned 1,895,673,548 calories on the hike.

This is the El Tovar lodge. We saw pictures of it from the early 1900s, and it pretty much looks the same now. It was pretty nice. We got an awesome breakfast there- my favorite part was the bright pink prickly per syrup. Yum.

This moose was huge, but of course you can’t really tell in the picture. I have never seen an animal so big…

Click to see: Grand Canyon Photos I of III: Flowers and Landscapes

There used to be a camp set up at the bottom. A few remnants can still be see, and this old cold cellar is now used as a storage room. The history of the trail and camp is really interesting to read about.

We read that some of the “tents” with glass windows had been burnt down, and this must’ve come from that. There was a lot of thick glass that seemed to have melted into the surrounding rock.

Since Hermit Trail is not easy to traverse, and mules do not go down it, Tim and I were wondering how all of this huge equipment got to the bottom. We read in the trail guide that there used to be an aerial tramway from one of the points at the top of the canyon. That explains all the huge metal cords, wheels, & pulleys.

Lizards everywhere…Tim wanted to catch one and I said, “they bite, don’t they?” His reply was, “yeah, I’ve been bitten before: they just have little razor teeth.” I know I used to catch lizards as a kid, but even “little” razor teeth don’t sound so great to me. He stopped his chase because he didn’t want any poor lizards to lose their tails just because of him.

Tim pumping water through the filter from the super cold creek:

He tied rope to a rock, then wedged it into the crag like a cam (a piece of equipment that you use for rock climbing).

A self-portrait at our new shady camp spot. : )

Our stuff hangin’ on the line.

Burning the ends of the rope to keep it from fraying:

Ahh, ice cold pool. Here, my toenails still look normal because of my nail polish. Right now, with the polish off, they look more purplish-yellowish-black. Too much info?

The best thing about swimming in super cold creeks is laying on hot rocks when you get out. We ate our lunch on this big rock by this cold, refreshing pool. It was wonderful, and it made me feel like it was summer with the blazing sun and cool water to stick your feet in. (Or, your whole self in Tim’s case…90-something degrees was still not hot enough for me to dunk my whole self in this cold water. Wetting my shirt and bandanna was enough for me!)

Don’t worry, he knows that it’s not smart to go under a waterfall…He was only there for a second or two : )

Tim’s frog friend: These guys get super loud at night. It sounds like a herd of sheep. Seriously.

Hello, Mr. Frog.

They were BFFs until the frog jumped away for the last time.

A big, pretty moth:

The view from our tent:

I spent the 2nd day hiking around in flip flops in hopes that my toes would stop hurting for the climb back up. It kinda worked…we cut holes in my shoes and all was good.

Shiny, pretty mica. (sheet silicate minerals):

Click to see: Grand Canyon Photos III of III: Hiking and Camping

Pretty light in the late morning:

Hiking through the slot canyon toward the Colorado River:

Near the top:

This picture was taken in the early evening when there was a nice barely-warm breeze blowing, and all the grass and flowers were swaying…ahh, so nice.

We waited at this spot for a while to see the sunset, and we didn’t get much. It was still a pretty view, though. : )

Views from the lookout behind the Bright Angel Lodge: These next two were taken after we got up to the top and were back in civilization.

There was a wider variety of flowers at the bottom than we expected to see. I’m a little sad that we didn’t get a picture of the most characteristically Arizona-ish flower, though…There were cacti with brilliant purple flowers on top. But, apparently, I was too busy admiring them and forgot to take a picture. : )

There is life other than lizards and frogs at the bottom of the canyon!

Click to see: Grand Canyon Photos II of III: A Day at the Bottom of the Canyon