Sewing

In the last few months, I've done a few easy sewing projects.  I made our family Christmas pajamas this year, after finding the most simple instructions possible!  These instructions are FABULOUS!  So easy - no pattern required! LOVE that kind of sewing.  Patterns tend to flummox me.  These were easy peasy.  Basically two seams, and an elastic waist and you are done.  The kids loved them, and I just paired them with a tshirt from AC Moore.    I did tweak it a bit, to make a nightgown for B, who preferred that.  I basically just cut a triangle, sewed it together, sewed it to the shirt, added a ruffle and attached belt. 

Then I did valances for K's new room.  Very simple, and K helped me. 

She seemed to be interested, so I decided we would both do the Learn to Sew tutorial through Crazy Little Projects.  We went to the fabric store yesterday to pick out fabrics for the first few projects.  We are both exited to try out her projects, and learn how to sew.  This week - burp cloths.  Will be perfect as our next door neighbors recently had a baby.  Will let you know how it goes....

Quick and Easy Gift

Saw this awesome tutorial and thought I would try it. They are fast, easy and cheap.

1) buy a few 1/2 yards of fleece in different colors/patterns
2) cut them into 6" widths (the length of the fabric)
3) sew 2 of them together right down the middle (just eye-ball it)
4) cut fringe the whole length (making sure you don't cut through the middle)
ENJOY!

That's it. So easy. When fleece is on sale, you can make these for less than $1 each! The girls are making these for their friends. They have helped me sew them and are cutting all the fringe. Have fun and try lots of different patterns/colors together!

For more ideas, visit WORKS FOR ME WEDNESDAY!

Still a few Days Left

If you celebrate Hanukkah, or are celebrating with someone who is, you MUST make these. They are in the current issue of Family Fun, but I can't find it on their website.

Anyway, they are so easy. They whole container of Fig Newtons took about 20 minutes to turn into these awesome dreidel cookies. Four simple steps:

1) cut fig newton into point on one end (save the pieces, they make a great snack!)

2) outline the cookie in white icing

3) try not to mangle the Hebrew letter that you copy from the magazine in blue icing

4) stick half a pretzel stick in the end

Voilà! Aren't they so cute? We got so many comments on them, and sooo easy. So get out there and treat your friends to some quick and easy Hanukkah joy!

Advent Calendar Just Like Mom

In the 70s, my mom made an advent calendar out of felt that we used every year when I was growing up. A few years ago, my Dad and I searched the house and couldn't find Mom's calendar. I was bummed, but made due with other stuff. This year, I decided I would make my own.

Of course, I decided this abourt 4 days before December 1. Not much time. But thanks to my friend Kathy, and the Dollar store, we got it done just in time. My calendar isn't perfect by any means, but I think its cute, and looks a lot like Mom's. I did cheat and use about 6 ornaments from the Dollar store, which I may replace before next year. Each day, a child will remove an ornament from the grid, and add it to the tree. The star goes up last, on December 24th.

We did this free hand with random felt, glue and string. Very easy. Enjoy!

Advent Fun

I posted about this last year, but still love it, so here it is again. An Advent Joke Tree. This is a fun and easy craft that will take you less than 1/2 hour and your kids will LOVE it. All you need is a single sheet of 25 jokes (each joke on its own line), a piece of green construction paper, an exacto knife, and buttons or small plastic jewels.

All you do is form the construction paper into a cone and tape it together. You may want to cut off the bottom to make it stand even. Then make 25 slits in the sides with an exacto knife.
Then cut your jokes into thin strips (leaving white space on the front or back end). Then attach a small button or jewel to that white space.



Next, slide the jokes into the slits of the "tree", pulling from the inside to help. The inside will look like this.
Tada! An Advent Joke Tree.
Each day you child can pull a joke and read it. Then will then repeat it to all their friends at school and be the hit of the playground!

Fun Easy Craft

I got a bunch of these bottle caps to try the bottle cap necklace that is all over the blogosphere. They are super easy, and I think they are cute. Really takes just 6 steps.

1) put caps in small frying pan and heat up for about 5 minutes. This allows you to peel the wax/plastic thingy from the bottom.

2) using a nail and hammer, make 2 small holes in the side of the bottle cap.

3) find images on line and print them out at about at the size of 1".

4) cut out the images and glue them in the bottle cap.

5) cover with either a plastic disk, or with diamond glaze

6) thread string through two holes.

I think they are adorable, and the kids LOVE them. Very easy to personalize for anything they want. If you have a kid that I know IRL, expect to get some of these. We may make a bunch for Halloween too!

Easy Peasy Knitting Project

So we went on a fabulous RV vacation last weekend (the kids didn't have school thurs, fri and monday!) that I will share with your soon. While we were gone I made two really cute scarfs that were SOOO easy, and probably took about 1-2 hours each. The girls love them. I just used this yarn:

Just one ball and it makes this:



Isn't that so cute? B got pink and purple and K got black and white (her favorite colors). They are so soft and warm and easy as pie. I highly recommend. To make the scarf (directions on the ball) you just cast on and knit knit knit. Nothing to it!

Can't wait to get more of this yarn to make some more!

disclaimer: nobody is paying me anything or sent me anything, or knows anything about this review!

Making Xmas Gifts

K started a knitting class last week, and is hoping to make some scarfs for Christmas gifts this year. That got me thinking that I should get all 3 kids involved in making some presents. We are going to do these to start.

1) Marbled Paper (with shaving cream!!) We did this years ago, and ended up losing all the papers we made accidentally. Will try this again. Directions here.

2) Bottle cap necklaces. I think these are so cute. We made a few this weekend and will be working on more. Great gifts for the girls to give their friends! Cheap too!

Any more ideas?

Quick and Easy Halloween Wreath

Have seen a bunch of cute halloween wreaths in the blogosphere and decided to try a quick one myself. Picked this up for about $6. I had the wreath form. Bought the ribbon, skulls, orange stuff (bath scrubbers) and used the netting from the bag of small skulls. Took about 10 minutes.

Lots more halloween coming up!

More Easy Necklaces

Made these for the girls' teachers as a end of year gift (along with a gift card, of course). Thought they turned out cute. Just glass tiles with pretty scrapbook paper and some Diamond Glaze.

Sorry the pictures are so dark.

I felt so Amish

After being inspired by Jane's blog, I decided to have some fun with the girls (while Big Man was napping). We took a simple container of heavy cream and had a blast. First we made whipped cream. Using the Kitchen Aid (and a bit of sugar and vanilla) the girls LOVED their homemade whipped cream. They both said it tasted like melted vanilla ice cream. Then we took the same container of heavy cream, put it in a rubbermaid container, added a bit of salt and shook. After not to long we had Butter! They thought it was soooo cool. The whole thing took about 10 minutes, and they loved it. Gotta love fun, mixed with science, and snacks!

Hydrangea and Butterflies

I saw this awesome wreath, and knew I had to do it. It took a lot of scalloped circles, but was done in less than an hour, while I watched the girls ride their bikes. I think it came out great. May make another one for my office. Have seen it done with old book pages too and think that would be cool.

Springing Up All Over

So in an attempt to bring on Spring, we made these fun wreaths this weekend. They are so cute, and took maybe 20 minutes each! Highly recommend! Found the idea here. Got the foam bunny and chick at Goodwill for $1.00 each.

They are now brightening up our front door and my office (cube wall)!


Think it will bring Spring any faster?

Killing Time

3 snowy days =

lots of fuse beads (occupied the girls for nearly 3 hours!!)
TONS of cookies for the bake sale that is hopefully still this week
Spin Art
Make and explode a volcano
roller paints
sparkly marshmallows
melted candy cane hearts


hmmm...more days to come (tomorrow for sure) - what next?

Valentine Crafts

Had been seeing this adorable wreath on the blogs for a while. So this weekend I ran to the fabric store while the kids were at Sunday school and grabbed some cute fabric. And in about 1/2 and hour me and the girls made these cute wreaths:



It was really so easy. While the kids were at gymnastics, I sat in the observation deck and cut (and ripped) the fabric into squares. Then we just glued and poked them in. The girls loved it, and I think they are cute!

Crafting it Up!

I have been doing all kinds of crafts for Christmas. And there are so many great ideas to be had online. My favorite one is One Pretty Thing. It finds all the best ones from the whole webisphere and puts them together. Great ideas every day - without having to visit millions of blogs.

Of all the things we have found, so far we have made this:

• gorgeous ornament wreath - so easy
• awesome Christmas joke advent calendar - the kids will LOVE this
• christmas tree made out of ornament balls
• these awesome snowflakes - fast and easy

Lots more to go!

Still want to make these: boa feather tree - the girls will LOVE these!, memory ornament - isn't that the best idea!!, awesome ornament for some new babies friends are having,

Happy to get betting my crafting groove on again! That's what works for me this Christmas! For more Works for Me Ideas - visit: http://www.wearethatfamily.com/

Cool Project and Website with Lots of Potential

I thought I blogged about this before, but I can't find it. Last year Tonya at Currently Crafting had this awesome idea to make a book. She used this awesome free site - Scrapblog.com - to design the pages. Then she printed them out and mounted them in blank cardboard hardback books she bought on Oriental Trading. Such a cool idea.

So I totally stole it and made a bunch of these for Christmas. I used the great free photo editing software at Scrapblog to put the kids into the stories in the books. Big Man got one about a silly Caterpillar, the girls got one about princesses (thanks to the great Disney pics I had of them all princess'ed up!), and I did a few with superheros for some favorite little boys. They came out so great and the kids all LOVE them. I thought I would it here. I am working on some more for some upcoming birthdays. They are fun to make and come out great. Here are some pics of the one I did for Big Man.



Scrapblog is a great tool for other things too! Party invitations come to mind. You just create a page and then can save it as a .jpg to print. Here is what the .jpg looks like:





As you can see, I used their free tool to cut around an image of Big Man. Then I used their clipart to put in the bench, the butterfly, and add the speaking bubbles. Really so easy, and doesn't it look great?

I am using it now to write a book with K. She is writing the story and we are typing it out in the program. She drew pictures for it and we scanned them it to use as the background. Then we can use all the "stickers" and other clipart they have on scrapblog to embellish and build the pictures for her story. It is great. I will probably post more details on that soon, but wanted to share this great site, and a great idea.

If you don't want to use photos - you don't have to, you can just use their clipart, like Tonya did.

Crafty Weekend

Over the weekend, I worked on a few crafts projects I've had stewing in my head.

First, shrinky dinks. Do you remember these from your childhood? I used to love them, my husband had never done them before. Anyway, I recently read a blog that showed that any #6 recycleble plastic is shrinky dink plastic. This is the plastic containers you get from salad bars and stuff like that. I wanted to make the girls a special something to think of me while I am in Paris. So I used shriky dink paper to make some charms like these:

Aren't they cute? Just cut out the plastic, color on it with sharpies, punch a hole, cook for 1 minute, and wala! I plan to put them on a necklace or bracelet for the girls. I am also doing an Eiffel tower charm.

I also want to make the girls personalized Disney autograph books for our trip in November. I know it is early, but I was too excited to work on these. I really wanted ones where they could get autographs on one page, and have room to attach a picture to the opposing page. Here are a few pages I have started.

So that's what I have been working on, how about you?

Signs of Spring?

Last weekend I decided we would do some decorating for Easter. Not being a big fan of eggs, I don't do the whole colored hard-boiled egg thing. Hard-boiled eggs are gross (as are soft-boiled, poached, scrambled, etc). The only things eggs are good for are making non-egg things like cakes, cookies, pasta, etc. But I digress. My parents apparently weren't big egg fans either, so we always blew out the eggs before coloring them. For the uninitiated, blowing out eggs is where you make a tiny pin prick in both ends of an egg, hold it up to your mouth and attempt to blow the entire inside of the egg out the little hole (without holding the egg to tightly and breaking it). Its really a crazy idea when you think about it, and should only be tried by an expert. Anyway, a good friend gave me a box of 18 eggs, so DH and I went to work. We got all the eggs blown open (I think only 1-2 broke but we can use those too!) and the girls loved coloring them (we did it while Big Man was napping). We had never done it with them before, so it was quite a treat. Here are the fruits of our labor:

We also decorated a tree out front with plastic eggs:

I have to say I do NOT like Easter being this early!! It makes you think it is Spring, when we could still have some COOOOLLLLDDD days. And the girls can't wear cute Easter dresses (unless they put a turtleneck under it!). Oh well, maybe Spring will come soon this year? There have to be some benefits of global warming.

Cool stuff to Make with Cardboard

This is just the coolest website. http://www.mrmcgroovys.com/ideas.htm


I can't wait to get some cardboard boxes and make some of these. Of course, the hubby will probably make me wait until after our home construction is done (it would be nice if it would start!). I particularly like the castle and the pirate ship.