American Girl Club - Julie - Week #1

Welcome to 1974!

For night one of American Girl Club for Julie we started out the night by listening to the song Gladrags and Handbags.  (CLICK HERE for lyrics.) In the book Julie's mom owns a hip craft and resale shop in San Fransisco called Gladrags, which is named after the song.  After we listened to the song I gave them a little tour of my own little "Gladrags" store.

In my "store" I has...a fuzzy foot rug, jean purse, smiley face balloon, Disco shoes, mini bean bag chair, melted plastic snowman, macrame tree wall hanging, pillow from some pants I wore in the 70's and some Bonnie Bell Lipsmackers. (My favorite invention of the 1970's is Lipsmackers!  LOL)

And in case you missed it when I said Disco shoes! LOL

It's funny how things like this find their way into my house!  LOL  Some friends in Las Vegas gave these to my oldest son years ago to wear to crazy shoe night at AWANA.  The girls thought these were hysterical!  They all had to try them on and clomp around in them!  :^)

On the table I also had pictures from the 70's and a Felicity doll.  After I went through all the items with the girls I asked them what Felicity had to do with Julie?  It took them a few minutes and a little coaching from me to realize that their stories take place 200 years apart!  (1774 and 1974)  Then I talked to them a little about the Bicentennial of the United States.  We will be getting back to that celebration again in a few weeks.

I also had my daughter stand up and I showed them her outfit...

Doesn't she just look adorable in her halter, head scarf and jean purse?

So finally it was time for our craft...And what else could be possibly have made?  LOL

Oh yeah baby...I present the 1970's Fuzzy Foot Rug!

This was another thing that is just too crazy.  My daughter and I went out Saturday and bought the fake fur to make these.  I was going to ask my husband to draw out a foot for me.  Then that night we walked into the dollar store and they had this...

Can you say "perfect pattern"?  LOL  So each of the girls traced this on the back of their fur and then they cat it out.  Super simple and SO cute!  

 One of the girls cutting out her rug.

My daughter with her rug.

Since we only had one pattern to trace around the rest of the girls worked on the second craft...PET ROCKS!

The girls had a lot of fun making their pet rocks.  I explained to them that "real" pet rocks in the 70's were just plain rocks that came in a cute pet carrier type box.  (CLICK HERE to read more about pet rocks!) But, then of course kids would just find rocks and decorate them.  (I still have my pet rock!  His name is Herbert!  LOL) So the girls decorated their rocks with Sharpies and stick on googley eyes.  

For snack we had zucchini bread!

 Yummy!

My vegetable hating daughter giving her opinion of zucchini bread!  LOL

I looked online to find out why zucchini bread was so popular in he 70's.  Basically what I read was that during WWII when people planted Victory Gardens everyone realized how easy Zucchini is to grow.  As time passed people became more and more creative with the recipes they developed to cook the zucchini.  In  the late 60's early 70's as women started entering the work force they were looking for easy and nutritious recipes. Zucchini bread, carrot bread and banana bread were thought to be healthy breads/desserts since there was not icing.  And it was much easier to make than yeast breads that had to be kneaded and raised.  I thought all this was really interesting! 

One last picture! It is not that often that we line them all up for a posed picture! We just had to get a pic with all of them with their crazy rugs!

  I love these girls!!!

Happy Homeschooling,

Jamin