Last year I posted about the tradition we have in our family to do Cool Summer Days, a summer activity calendar. The response I received to that post was HUGE. There’s been several links to it again this year. Today I’m going to show you how to sew your own calendar for your family. You can find easy, fun summer activities for the calendar on my post here.
Supplies Needed:
1 piece of muslin or other background fabric 36 x 22 inches (one yard of fabric cut down the middle. You don’t need the whole width)
Scraps of colored fabric for the ice cream scoops and words
Scraps of brown fabric for the ice cream cones
Scraps of muslin for the backing to the ice cream cones
Heat ‘n’ Bond LITE or stitch witchery
Ice Cream Scoop and Cone Template
Cool Summer Days Template (click here for the pdf file for the templates)
Fabric Paint
Step 1 – Trace the ice cream scoop and cone templates thirty times on the back of the heat ‘n’ bond (the part that doesn’t have the glue).
Step 2 – Cut around tracing marks (not right on the marks) and fuse the scoops with a hot iron to the back of your colored fabric and the cones to the back of your brown fabric (see photo above).
Step 3 – Trace the “Cool Summer Days” words to the back of the heat ‘n’ bond making sure they are backwards (see photo above). Iron the glue side to the back of the colored scraps of fabric.
Step 4 – Cut out all fabric right on the tracing lines.
Step 5 – Peel the paper backing off the cones. Place cones with glue side down on the muslin scraps. Iron with a hot iron to fuse them. Cut out.
Another easier way to do the cones would be to fuse the muslin and brown fabrics together first then trace the cones on the muslin fabric and cut out. This would save you cutting out the cones twice. I didn’t think about that until I was done doing it the hard way. ☺
Step 6– Using a zigzag stitch sew the top edge of each cone. This finishes the edge of the cone that will become the top of the pocket.
Step 7 – Layout the ice cream scoops onto the muslin or background fabric piece (36 x 22 inch) one line at a time six scoops to a line. Pin in place. Before pinning the next line lay a cone under a scoop so you get the spacing just right (see photo above). Iron the scoops to the backing with a hot iron.
Step 8 – At the top of the calendar layout the “Cool Summer Days” and iron to fuse.
Step 9 – Using whatever decorative stitching you want on your sewing machine sew around the edges of each ice cream scoop and the words. I used a wide zigzag stitch and stitched down the middle of each letter. On the scoops I used different stitches: straight, zigzag, buttonhole, etc. to make it more interesting.
Step 10 – Pin all cones under the scoops with the finished edge of the cone at the top by the scoop. Using a zigzag stitch sew down the two sides of each cone leaving the top edge open to create a pocket (see photo above)
Step 11 – Finish the edges of the calendar by either turning to the back and creating a small hem or by sewing a colored binding strip to encase the raw edge (see photo above).
Step 12 – Finally number each cone 1 – 30 using fabric paint. You’re done! Hang somewhere in your kitchen or family room to be used all summer. In each pocket place a strip of paper with an activity idea on it. Each day of the month corresponds with a number on the ice cream cone. Each morning pull out the slip of paper to see what activity is planned for that day.
There was a giveaway associated with this post. The giveaway has ended but I have opened the post up for comments again.
READ! When it is too hot and humid outside, and everyone has had their fill of the kiddie pool, we lay in the cool living room — Mom on the couch, kids all around — and read great books aloud. Mom usually falls asleep mid-chapter. 🙂
What a fun give-away! (I love your blog!)
This year I’ve made a bird bag with a birding field guide, a clipboard, paper and binoculars so we can identify and record where we found various birds as we’re out and about!
The best part of our summer is spending hours in the garden and raspberry patch. Then making all sorts of yummy treats with the bounty of our harvest.
What a fantastic idea! We kids and I love to go to the beach during summer. We love finding sand crabs and interesting shells. Then we usually make art projects with the lovely shells we find.
My kids are still quite young, so our favorite activity is simple: blowing bubbles!
Wow. Wow. Wow.
I can’t believe you made one of those, let alone two! You are my hero. I think I found your blog through PYP, by the way.
Um–favorite summer activity… eating ice cream cones or popsicles! Camping and eating smores! Having friends over for an impromptu bbq! 🙂 Coloring with sidewalk chalk, playing in the sprinkler… Summer is so fun!!!
My favorite activity is to read with my children. Now, we read all year, but we can really get some use out of our library cards in the summer.
NICE! I never saw this, as I only started reading your blog in the last few months. This is a wonderful idea that my girls would love. We would definitely use it all summer. As a homeschool family, we need a good new activity every day!
Our favorite summer activities include: swimming, reading, playing at the park with friends.
Thanks!
Our local movie theater offers kids movies once a week for cheap, cheap, cheap! The cool, dark theater is a nice place to escape the summer heat (and popcorn, drinks and candy are cheap too!)
You are the best mom ever…honestly. 🙂
My kids love “bonfire”. Cooking hotdogs and marshmallows around the firepit.
Oh…and we love popsicles with a good book. Now there’s a shock!
Lovely giveaway!
Our favorite actives are going on hikes, blowing bubbles, making our own ice cream, and playing in the summer rain!
What a great tutorial and giveaway!
We love to play at the pool. Other than that we stay indoors because it is so hot here in Texas. We actually will be doing school (homeschooling) this summer to catch up from when I had baby #4.
oh this is such a wonderful idea. If I don’t win, I will have to figure out how to make my own! Sorry not a seamstress here! We actually don’t have too many summer activities that aren’t just normal. We spend more time outside, in the garden, on nature walks, camping. Oh there’s the fire pit and hotdogs. (we do tin-foil dinners more) Parties, and fun.
going to the water park!
Playing in the pool & jumping with ice cubes on the tramp…love you blog!
Honestly, laying on the grass just talking is my favorite thing! It’s the closest I can get to feeling barefoot and carefree!
Playing outside and enjoying the sunshine. That means jumping on the trampoline, digging in the sandbox, sliding down slides, and playing in the sprinkler. Tons of fun!
I would LOVe to win one! It’s so cute and looks like a lot of work. I love to take my kids to museums and then have a picnic lunch with them outside.
Your etsy shop is so cute. I posted your sale on my blog today. Hope it’s okay.
Found your blog through google, I was looking for a crayon roll, i made one last year for my kids flight to san diego, and with that it was awefull!!!! Your tute is awesome and looks PERFECT!!!! Thank you for that. Our fav summer activity is going to the river and walking the trails,we love to “paint” pictures on the driveway,and run through spinklers!parden and camp!! were pretty simple!
Oh my…I think this post is an answer to my (literal) prayers. I have been really scared for school to get out. My son needs structure and a lot of planned activities. This would be perfect for him. I would love to be entered into the drawing.
Wow what an awesome give-away. Our favorite summer activity is going to the old drive-in to see a movie.
What a great giveaway!!!! Our fav activities are bubbles and books… this would be great to get out of the summertime “ruts”;) Especially since I am having a baby any day now!
I have always loved this idea that you have with the calendar. In the summer we like to go swimming, and visit family and friends, go camping and to family reunions. Would love to win!!!!
Oh! Oh! Oh! Me! Me! Me!
Oops. What I meant to say is that my favorite summer activity is reading to the kids on the porch. And then after I read a few chapters they all leave me in peace and I take a little nap. (Occasionally I am so lucky.)
We live in Arizona so of course one of our favorite activities is swimming. Both of my young children think that they are fish. I love your idea of a summer fun calendar. Its a great way to change things up.
I’ve seen this idea on several other sites and love it! We love to study a country each week and make crafts, cook food, do projects that go along with the country.
Oh, baby! I really hope I win, because I’ll never sew one of these myself. The second I touch a sewing machine, it breaks. I make my husband sew on buttons in our house.
Our favorite summertime activity: In Idaho Falls, it’s going down to the greenbelt and feeding bread to the ducks, geese, small birds, and squirrels, then taking a walk around the falls. It’s very refreshing.
We love to sit at the park and watch the kids play or put the blow up pool in the back yard and let the kids have fun in the water.
My family is asleep and I’m sitting down to start our “summer schedule.” I was looking for ideas and found your blog…and then I saw the “Cool Summer Days Calendar.” Talk about divine intervention…it’s perfect! It would help structure my water days, nature days, garden days, and our favorite…backward day. We wear our clothes backward, eat breakfast for dinner, play board games backward (finish to start), etc. It’s a wacky day.
Thanks for sharing your blog. I’ve added it as a favorite. Happy Summer!
That is a ridiculously cool idea!
We spend many days at the park, in the yard or at grandma and grandpa’s house (since they have that lovely invention called “air conditioning”).
We started doing this in our old neighborhood…it’s called “water park” day. You invite friends over and tell them to bring their swimming suits and any baby pool, sprinkler, or water toys. By the time everyone is there, your kids have an entire “water park” to play in with several pools, slip and slides, and sprinklers. A popsicle is a must at this water park party too!
We love to do anything outside … playing stick-ball has been a fun favorite as of late.
VERY creative! Thanks for sharing. Even if I don’t win this giveaway, I’m determined to make my own calendar, which is too good to pass on. Hooray for mommies!!!
In our family we try to do something different together every Saturday, but our favorite thing is to hike the nearby gorgeous mountains, which surround the Salt Lake Valley. Both our kids and ourselves are fascinated by the cool findings, it can be a flower, a bug, a funny tree trunk or just snow in July. Plus we all get that much needed exercise that we can’t fit in everyday.
I dont expect you to post it to Australia.. but I LOVE IT!! And since I do both Christmas and Easter advent calendars.. this is an awesome addition to the year.
And since it is winter here currently.. I will have plenty of time to think of activities to go in the pockets!!
Hey I could even use it for winter as icecream is cold:)and I need to think of indoor ideas 🙂
our fav activity is swimming and as it is christmas in summer here we go to lots of parties and eat outdoors alot
My favorite thing to do with my kids is camp outside in the backyard in a tent!
My kids love the chance to “camp” in the back yard. You can do almost anything you would do in the mountains, and it’s a whole lot less work!
My kids are bored… remember I’m your sister. 😀 My kids love exploring our yard and planting a garden, I mean watering the garden, nothing like a sprinkler
Yes I will use it this summer but I will definetly use it when my kids get older. My favorite summertime actiivty. Is swimming!! we love to play dibble dabble. One person dives across the pool with a little piece of bark. SOmewhere on along their swim they let go of the bark and then the people outside of the pool look for it. When you find it you yell dibble dabble.
Or another activity I love is to go horseback riding around on trials. It is fun to ask questions about nature to each other.
of I forgot to add when you see the piece of bark you have to jump in the pool and grab it. This can be the hard part. Once it is in your hands you yell dibble dabble. Once you jump in other people can jump in after you if they want.
I love this chart! What an amazing idea!
One of the best things about summer at our house are the perfect, lazy evenings. Sometimes we bbq in the backyard, sometimes we eat ice cream and read stories on the trampoline, sometimes we’re having too much fun to stop and eat so we order pizza with our neighbors and eat it in the front yard while we keep playing! Oh – and in the summer you can never eat too many otter pops!
Oh, I LOVE this!! Thank you for giving one away. 🙂
Growing up, we would always play make-believe, and create a library in our living room with our books and with homemade library cards.
When we were a little older, we would write and stage and videotape our versions of fairy tales. We show them now to our fiances right before the wedding, just in case they need an “out”. 😉
A couple of years ago my mom made my boys a teepee out of PVC pipe and scrap material (I can’t sew worth a darn!). It’s adorable! The boys and I love to put it on the grass in the backyard, take snacks and make up stories where they are always the hero in the end! It’s such a blast!
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All of our very most favorite summer activities are all encompassed in one summer day, the 4th of July! We enjoy lots of different activities throughout the summer, but can anything compete with one day filled with parades, BBQ’s (with ‘bomb pop’ drinks of course), water fights, a birthday party, and fireworks? I especially love to watch my kids watch fireworks. I don’t know that I have actually watched a firework display since I became a mother. I get to watch a whole gammet of reations from all of them. The oldest smiles and giggles, our little boy likes the fireworks a lot but, enjoyes watching the fire trucks put out the brush fires a lot more (we live in the desert can you tell), and last year our baby slept through the whole thing 🙂 I can’t wait to see what happens this year, it’s the best!
Love this idea! My 3 boys (and now baby girl will come along, too) love to hit all the parks in the mornings while it’s still “cool”. We rotate parks and have surprised ourselves by finding several “new” ones each year.
What a clever idea. My kids are always begging for something to do in the summer. I usually keep my activity idea papers in a plastic baggie. This project is so much cuter, and harder to misplace (I’m still looking for my activity bags from last summer!) Some of my kids favorite activities are to have a lemonade/rice crispy treat stand, play clothespin tag, and draw with sidewalk chalk.
Oh my gosh, I would LOVE that calendar! I’m SO not a seamstress.
My favorite summer activity is escaping the Arizona heat and going up to Utah to visit family. They live in a tiny town – perfect for just sitting on the porch and listening to the wind in the trees!
That is such a cute give-away. I love having a good old fashioned water fight with our kids. We always end up having one during our Family Reunion, and it is always a lot of fun.
Oh, how nice! This looks so neat, and I am not a sewer so I hope I win!! My family and I love to spend time outside. It doesn’t matter what we do as long as we are doing it together. Our most favorite is lounging in the shade. We bring out a big quilt and hang out. A lot of times we read on the quilt. Anyways, I absolutely love your blog. You are really and truly an inspiration to me!!
Ohh! That would be SWEET to win this! (You are so creative!)
Our favorite family activity in the summer time is going to all of the wonderful Metro parks in Columbus. It’s like you aren’t in the middle of the city at all! Plus, if you go in the evening time, it is nice and cool. 🙂
Strawberry picking!
We like to go camping as a family – good old fashioned tent camping with dutch oven cooking. My critters are good to get up and get their chores done early and then they can play the rest of the day: slip and slide, seimming in the pool, swimming in the river, fishing, building forts, climbing trees etc. We also spend lots of time in the garden.
Ooooh, that calendar is so pretty! I love it!
I think our favorite summer activity is going to the hills to go trail riding (horseback).
Play outside with water. I can fill up a small tub with water and pull out some normal toys or ponies and the kids will go wild!
the grandchildren will be here for a large part of July, what fun to have this. I have a 3 ring binder that I have collected activities in. mostly from magazines and websites. if i had to pick a favorite it would be cooking together any time of year. I use the bread machine a lot to make dough and then we knead and shape rolls, breadsticks, etc. shaping a King Cake and sprinkling it with colored sugars was one of our favorites.
i LOVE this! my favorite activity in the summer with kids is running through sprinklers and then eating popsicles on the lawn. good times. thanks for the giveaway!
We like to make our own popsicles. Sometimes we just use kool-aid, other times we look around for fun recipes, or we make up our own.
What a cute idea! Living in AZ one of our favorite summer time activities involves water, lots of water 🙂
Great idea! I am always looking for some way to have the summer time activities written down and in one area! You did it! Our favorite summer time activity is of course swimming or going to the beach! Hope I win 🙂
This is such a sweet idea!! Our favorite summertime activity right now is geocaching – we tried it last summer and all my kids (15yo down to 5yo – baby doesn’t know better) have so much fun with it.
Our favorite summertime activity going on walks to the park and having picnics!
That is so cute. I love to that you can use it summer after summer!
During the summer we love to garden. My daughter likes to help plant the seeds, play in the dirt, and water the plants. We also collect bugs (then set free) to observe.
Our favorite thing to do in the summer is go to all our local favorite spots (Liberty Park, Silver Lake, Gateway, swimming pool) Thanks for all the great ideas!
Kirstin
I found your original post from last year and was planning in my head how to do it with my kids. Thanks for the directions. I love your blog
Oops! I sent it too soon. This summer my kids are raising baby chicks, growing a sunflower hideout, playing in the sprinklers and learning to cook
aubril@gmail.com
I forgot to leave my email in my last reply. Another idea for summer is to make a puppet show then video tape it.
Thanks so much for your blog. I love it and find so many ideas, every time I stop here.
My favorite summer activity with my kids is the pool!! We soak up as much warm weather as we possibly can, storing it away for those long winter months!
What a great idea!! I love it!! SOO cute!! And I love that you made an extra! We love the downtime of summer. We love hiking and camping, swimming, reading, bonfires and late night movies projected onto a sheet at Grandma and Grandpa’s… Ahh! Summer!!
Our favorite activity is making up dances to go with our favorite songs. We use pop songs, kiddie favorites, musicals, Disney movie songs, classicals (like Peir Gynt), and old time sillies. Then we perform them for the family. We sometimes do individual dances, and other times we work together and try to make it syncronized. It is super funny to watch either way. It is even more fun if you add a water fountain from the hose or sync the beat of the music with the bounce of the water from a sprinkler under the tramp. Fun times!
Thank you for sharing. I love all your ideas they are wonderful!
I made mine this week and LOVE how it turned out! Thanks for sharing all the info!!! 🙂