It seems kind of silly when your child spends most of her time at the children’s museum craft table. Can’t she do that at home? With all the cool exhibits to jump and play on, she picks paper and markers?
She is an artist at heart. Plus, she didn’t have a Tooth Box and the whole crafting section is about dental health this month. The Tooth Fairy will be pleased.
I’m at another Get The Craft Out this weekend and working on a basket. It’s made out of recycled magazines and not quite as easy as I thought it would be.
I brought a few knitting and crochet projects that I haven’t even gotten out yet. Hoping I get a little better at this. Finished pic to come soon.
A few weeks before my daughter’s birthday she put three stacks of 8 1/2 x 11 paper — stapled journal style — on my desk. Two were 24 pages and one was 10 pages. “Mom, these are books for you to make for my birthday.” It wasn’t really a request, and it was too sweet to be a demand, but the message was clear. I tried hard to come up with something meaningful, but lets face it, there were a lot of pages to fill!
The day before her birthday she started asking all sorts of questions about the day she was born. When did I start labor? How long was I at the hospital? What exact time was she born? All those questions gave me an idea.
I wrote down the story of her birth when she was four weeks old. At one point I was planning to post it to the blog, which was the “mommy blog” trend at the time. However, it seemed too personal to share for some reason. Yes, I know that must sound odd from someone who has been sharing her life online since 2003.
The book turned out to be much smaller than she had requested — eight 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 pages. She was surprised when she saw it. I had hoped that she would read it immediately and we’d have a special mother/daughter bonding moment, but that was not the case. You see, we also gave her the game Brave. She was infinitely more interested in Merida and her mother than our story. Also, I think she was disappointed that my book had no pictures.
Oh, well. I’m sure she’ll read it eventually. In the meantime, I’ve still got those blank pages on my desk. Now that the pressure is off, maybe I’ll come up with a way to fill them. After I help Merida up and over the waterfall, of course. Seems I’m the only one in the house who can get her to do a triple jump.
I’ve been thinking a lot about binding journals with crochet. This was my first attempt. I have a few other ideas in my head. Paper is from recycled grocery bags.
It’s another year of handmade Valentine’s Day cards. I’m still trying to keep things simple and fun for my daughter. We have less to make this year (only 22!), which is good because it was a struggle to get through all of the (34!) pencil cards last year.
I enlisted some help from technology for these. She wrote her Valentine’s Day message once, I scanned it, printed out a bunch of little versions, and glued them to the back of these cute heart-shaped notepads. I told her that she could decorate them anyway she liked and she chose to just color in the hearts. That was fine with me. We knocked these out Sunday morning and have plenty of time for her to make a few special cards for friends and family.
notes: I found the notepads at Target in the seasonal aisle. Here are cards from past years:
Are you making Valentines this year? Share in the comments!
I was headed to the craft store this morning and realized I forgot to print my 40% off coupon. I really didn’t want to drive all the way home so I asked the cashier if she could just use it from my phone. “No problem!” she said. Awesome.
Think of how much paper we could save if everyone who had a smart phone gave up printing coupons!
I don’t like posting without a picture, so here’s the little frame I bought today. Isn’t it cute? Perfect for a little girl who likes pink and little purses.
We are doing very simple Valentine’s Day cards this year. I wanted to keep my daughter involved in the process, but between preschool and nature school, she’s got over 30 classmates. Even though she loves crafts, I can’t imagine her staying interested in such a
We picked out Valentine’s pencils together and we used what we had for the cards. You’ll notice that she didn’t use any of the supplies I gathered, but chose her own stickers and pencil for the project — such crafty independence!
Using the big scallop paper punch, I cut out a bunch of flowers. I told her she could decorate them anyway she liked, but she had to make sure she put her name on them. Once finished, we taped them to the pencils.
We started this project early and she’s been doing a few a day. We’ll see if they get finished by next week or if I’ll have to make up the last few.
What do you do for Valentine’s Day cards? Buy or make? Include candy or not? Is your child involved in the process?
from the archives: handmade valentine’s cards, valentine’s day heart bunting, tiny crochet heart pattern
Winter break + snow day = a very long time away from nature school. The kids will be studying the Northern Cardinal when they finally return and had homework over the holidays: choose either the male or female to study and make an ornament for the class tree. My daughter chose the female, which we learned is not the brilliantly red colored bird usually depicted as the cardinal.
I let her do this mostly by herself. I printed the template on cardstock and she cut out the pieces, colored them and glued them together. I helped her pry them apart so we could add the top feathers, legs and string and then we re-glued them together.
This was another exercise in letting go for me. I resisted trimming the blue template lines that are peeking out of the edges and adding more brown feathers. When I suggested a little more brown, she said the cardinal is “a little bit snowy.”
pattern template: I downloaded Purl Soho’s Simple Sewn Bird Ornament pattern for this project. Since we used paper and didn’t need a seam allowance, I just used the interface template. I printed the original and a mirror image for the other side. Paper, string, raffia all from the stash.
Wow. This time last year I was doing the same exact thing: cutting out pictures for my daughter to paste on paper. It must be the official start of the holiday direct mail season.
Last year we put all of the shapes together in a single envelope, which created a lot of mess. She’d dump all of them out just to find one or two that she wanted. This year we are sorting them by category to make it a little easier.
Now that she’s using scissors, this is even more fun for her. Of course, we’ve created a whole different mess of scraps on the floor, but who cares. It keeps her busy and she enjoys it. I just need to remind her that we only cut paper and not hair!
envelopes: My daughter loves writing little notes and was cruising through my stash of envelopes. I started saving the ones that come with all of our junk mail. She’s got a nice supply now and that’s what we used to sort her cutouts.
catalogs: Did you know you can cut down the amount of paper that gets delivered to your mailbox? I’ve had good luck with Catalog Choice. Only problem is when you order something new, you get put on the mailing list again. At least we’re putting the catalogs to good use!
Today was another slow day. I feel bad for my daughter. She’s getting bored with this mama-isn’t-feeling-well business. I tried to make today all about her. Most of the morning we hung out on the living room floor. She did her thing and I worked on another charity blanket square.
After lunch, the sun came out, and we spent some time on the deck planting seeds. She painted this little flower pot in school for Mother’s/Father’s day and her teacher put a packet of marigold seeds in it.
We planted a few in the pot and some other small containers I found in the garage. She was having so much fun that I decided to make some paper pots so she could keep on planting. Toilet paper rolls cut in half also work well. You can just drop the whole thing in the ground when it’s ready!
It was a good, but tiring day. I am ready to be feeling better and back at my sewing machine. Those upholstery sample totes are calling my name!
stash: Acrylic yarn from my stash. I don’t remember where I got my PotMaker. I’ve had it a long time. It’s just like this one.
