Valentine toadstool box

 For the first time EVER a kid came home with a note to make a valentine box. Usually the kids just decorate a bag in school to put their valentines in.  I started it for Sam by adding grass and the sort of toadstool top.

 Then she cut out flowers and ladybugs.

 There was some moaning about the cutting out of flowers. It takes some dexterity and she is the worst kind of perfectionist.

But we got there in the end!

Now to see if it actually makes it to school and back. LOL

Kids craft - sun paper

Sammi has been bugging me forever to get out the sun paper. Today I said sure.  First we had to go for a little drive to hunt down some wildflowers.

I do love this craft. That's lace from the sewing room on the bottom right. I wanted a big piece of lace but I couldn't round one up fast enough.

The kids were like oh look! A fish! A butterfly!  They see things I wouldn't see at first.

The new wise craft quilt book has an AMAZING quilt from cyanotype fabric. If only there was enough time to make all the quilts I want to make in the world, right?

S is for slime

Thanks to tv commercials the kids were SURE they HAD to make slime.

They did enjoy it. Mostly.

They did not enjoy when they mixed several colors together and it turned into brown poo. (Told ya so.)

I did not enjoy it finding it on the walls, the couch, the carpets...you get the idea.

Tie Dying Duo

Oh, school is getting so close now! We are meeting teachers, getting schedules and busting out the last of the crafts.

Tie dye. Where I get covered in dye and look like a muppet for a week.

I did the rubber banding.

Grant

Sammi

Models.

Apple stamping craft

With the summer clock finally winding down I've decided its time to get my crafting ass in gear.  The apple themed mantle will be going up soon, so we made some apple fabric to make into pillows.

Grant.

Sammi.

S is for snake

I had grand plans of doing a craft every Weds. I finally got to one.

These took a fair amount of time as the kids needed help starting and stopping each color. They love them though!

The kids have chores every day.  Most of the time Grant requires a lot of supervision. Today his chore was *organize*. When that chore comes up I just choose something that needs to be done that day.  (Sometimes I have them sort magazines, or books, etc.) Today I had him sort the recycling. When we took it out to the toter he looks at me and says "Mommy! Some really terrible breath came out of there."

I am still laughing. LOLOL

Learning to sew

At some point over the last few weeks Sammi has been asking to learn to use the sewing machine.  I had tried and tried to teach her how to sew in Pre-k, but she has a super short attention span and was just not into it.

Wednesdays are craft day on our summer calendar, so in the afternoon we went to work.

Grant wanted in on the action too. I had them both start by sewing on paper.  (Grant stopped at paper.)

Once she was comfortable with paper we moved onto fabric. I bought fabric markers for writing quilt labels near Christmas (from amazon) and she had colored the fabric sample that came with it a month ago.  Then she cut it out before she asked me what to do next, so it sat around awhile while I thought about what to do.  I had her zig zag stitch it onto fabric and we made a doll pillow. She did the whole thing herself!  Including stuffing and finishing the stuffing hole.

This nutjob.  On Christmas break I gave him a mini charm pack I had no use for and he started making a little quilt with it. Just yesterday I finally got him to sew down the binding. (He refuses to take a serious photo these days. Almost 13!)

It's hanging on my new mini quilt wall in the sewing room already.

Success! And an hour with no fighting.

Kids say, kids make

Sam and I are still having craft mornings (and garage sales too) on Wednesdays. This was a Pinterest idea. I had only seen the frank and the pumpkin, when I suggested it she came up with a whole Halloween list of things she wanted to make with paint chips. I had grabbed the black with no idea sad was fumbling when she said, mommy! A spider. Clever girl.

I am in love with these. I grabbed enough chips for the boys to do it too, and they are garland bound.

This boy. This morning was rough. He was uncharacteristically grumpy right out of the gate. I was trying to pee and he was standing right next to me screaming in my ear and stomping on my foot. Then he pops off with "mommy, I like your big butt." And then I started to laugh and forgot all about how awful he had been. 

Easter crafting with the kids

 

Well, I tried mobile blogging again. And this time I cannot rotate the photos. So, all in all that is not a great win for me.

 

I only managed one Easter craft with the kids this year. I am not gonna lie - my attitude is still shitty over here.  The drudgery of sick kids and housework is weighing me down like the Brooklyn bridge. It's a miracle even one craft was done. Heh.

Walmart has (or maybe had, we bought these ages ago) craft eggs with their Easter crap. Lightweight but with a paintable finish. They also had a chalkboard version. Right next to it was this years Paas kits, one of which had vintage style decals in it.

 

I had the kids paint the eggs with water colors, then I rubbed on the decals. In my imaginary world I manage to get modpodge on them to protect them and ribbons on them to hang them from the tree. In my real world they sit on the counter.

This all pink egg is one of Sammi's.

 

I am not sure who made the green one, but the stripes are Jack.

 

I quite like them actually. They have the feeling of dyed eggs, but will last from year to year.

 

I've realized Easter is this weekend and so I better post the Easter decorations tomorrow, eh?

 

Or maybe I should just eat more Cadbury mini eggs...(really I am eating a greek yogurt in an effort to eat healthier. This is not helping my mood y'all.)

Egg carton bells with the kids

I have one more little Christmas tree to show you, but Jack is down hard with a virus (negative flu test though), so I am running like a chicken these last two days!

On Monday the little kids and I made some Christmas bells out of an egg carton.  I feel like I had another idea of something to make with them, but I have forgotten it already. (And I was at the craft store last night darn it!)

One of Sammi's bells.

And one of Ginty's bells.

Maybe we should break out the gingerbread houses today since we are all home and it's snowing a bit!

Halloween ornaments with the kids

I have a lot of ideas for Halloween crafts I want to get done with the kids this year, but this 7 days straight of rain has seriously bummed out. The sun is FINALLY shining again this morning, so we are headed outside to sit in it for as long as I can possibly force the children to do so.

 I did manage to get one thing made - foam spider webs made with a kit that was at Target last year, picked up at Goodwill this year.

 One from Grant.

 Very nice ones from Jack.

And two from Sammi.

For the littles I cut the yarn up - tying it around these things was challenging, no way kids age 4 could do it, at least not in my house!

It's almost time to start the Great Pumpkin series around here, a Halloween post every day starts Saturday!

Now I am off to dress the kids and GET OUT OF THIS HOUSE!

Vintage strawberry pipecleaner people

We still needed a little bit more red on the strawberry tree, so when Megan mentioned that she had some vintage strawberry people ornaments on facebook I knew that was our last craft!

 

 They are not very photogenic because their heads are heavy.  I could have done this two ways - add a head or use the strawberry as the head. I figured using the berry as the head would mean embroidering faces and the kids can't quite do that.

 They have flower hats and are holding different things.

 Getting faces on those slippery beads was a challenge for both Sam and Jack.

At least our tree is done! And with a day or two to spare.

Now I need to remake French door curtains since one of mine has shrunk 8 inches after Jack spilled milk all over it.  Never ends, does it? LOL

*I didn't make the berries, I had some vintage fabric berries in the stuff I used for Valentine's Day.

Makin' more strawberries

Our Christmas in July tree was still feeling naked, so more strawberry ornaments were in order.

I cannot for the life of me find the link I used to make these paper strawberries!  Here is another pattern though. (There are a million tutorials out there for them, which I clearly ignored since mine are more triangular. I closed mine with brads, but using ribbons makes a lot more sense, d'oh.)

Fairly quick and easy and super cute.

The kids made cupcakes using some berry themed Martha Stewart craft stuff I have had for years. The nut cups have a strawberry flower on the bottom.  This is just the old pinterest "make a cupcake with a Styrofoam ball" craft.  Sammi's are pink.

Jack's are white with a cherry on top (which was a hot glue mess! do not try to have a kid hot glue something on top of very fluffy glitter).

Then they decided they wanted sprinkles, which lasted about 10 seconds before arguing started.

Or frustration in Jack's case, because he was convinced he could do this with glitter and well, glitter on top of glitter does not work in that way. He sorted that out fast enough (for himself) and declined the use of beads as sprinkles.

The tree could use some bows or something, which I had better hurry up with because Christmas in July is Friday!