Puppets and a summer mantle

So since my husband is in the Navy, we don't live near our family. We still want our daughter to recognize family when we visit, though, so I came up with this idea to make "puppets" to play with. I printed out a high resolution picture of each person, laminated it, cut it out, then put it on a labeled popsicle stick.



To show the size of them



We made puppets of two grandmothers, two grandfathers, my husband, Aubs, and myself. The others we either didn't have high resolution pictures of, or we didn't have time to make this time around. We'll get those done next time :)

Also, I got the initial part of our summer mantle set up-- there are a few touches that I need to finish, but at least I got the basics put together!









It's bright and cheery and I got some brightly colored touches in there, so I'm happy. I need to stick a tea light in the lantern on the right, I need to hang a little garland (maybe nautical flags?) around the mantle itself, and I'm going to make a couple of little candles in some shells for a cute touch-- after that, we should be done this time around!