Gratuitous Egg Dying Post

Watching the colors fizz:

Photo Opp for Mom (they really dressed for the occasion!):

Waiting:

Ready to decorate:

Finished Scary Monster Easter Eggs:

Egg Salad Sandwiches for dinner tomorrow!

Three's Stocking in Black & White

More prepping for Three's Stocking:

St Patrick's Day

Two came home from school
worried about having to wear green
or you'll get punched!

You better watch out for those Baptists!
(She goes to a Baptist preschool.)
I've always heard it as "pinched"
so I don't know if she heard it wrong
or if they really said punched
but either way,
I can't pass up a chance
to give my Baptist friends
a hard time.

Moving on...

I hate to admit it
but I used to own
a pair of green lounge pants.

So when wearing something green
suddenly became super important to Two
I gladly pulled my green pants
out of the goodwill bag
and chopped them up
to make this cute skirt:

And ruffled the edges using this tutorial:

The whole thing took about 5 min
and Two should escape any
pinches or punches that come her way.
Safety first!

Christmas in Spring: Three's Stocking

With Baby Four coming
one month from today (wow!),
I am feeling the crunch
to get a few things finished.

Ohhhh, like Three's Stocking.



Totally random I know
but it feels urgent
so I'm going with it.

I learned my lesson from this
and am now focusing on
getting all of the pieces prepped
before putting the thing together.

It's not following the directions,
just a little trick I learned
to save my sanity.

So it's not going to look like much
until it all magically comes together
at the end (here's hoping!),
but here's the prepped yellow felt:

Ho Ho Ho!
Christmas is coming!

Valentine Week, Day 5: Scratch -n- Sniff Paint

Did you know that painting with kool-aid
gives you scratch -n- sniff paint?

I picked out what I hoped
would be pink and red:


Added a little bit of water
to about half of each package,
and used water-color brushes:


Two wanted me to draw shapes for her.



And that's it!
When the paint dries,
it's scratch -n- sniff!

Valentine Week, Day 4: Valentine Ballet

Two was supposed to wear
red, pink, or white
to ballet this week.

An excuse to craft?
Okay!

So first I started with this:
This was my first time using
that E-6000 glue.
It was amazing!
But be warned, if you live in CA,
(which I don't)
it might cause cancer
so make sure you use it outside.
Even if it's freezing cold
and you were too lazy
to put some shoes back on.
Just sayin'.

Anyway, I used glue to wrap ribbon
around a plastic headband
(I get them here)
and a leftover felt heart
that never made it onto
last year's garland.


Here's the best pic I got
of the final product:

Throw in a tutu
that Santa made
(mostly using this tutorial):


And Two was only
slightly overdressed
for ballet:


PS. Here's how Three
spends time at ballet. :o)

I just realized that
he wore red too.
:o)

Valentine Week: Day 3, Kid Made Valentines

I wanted the kids to make
their own valentines this year.
They should get to join
in on the fun too, right?
I found inspiration
in the dollar bin
at Joann's.

3 stamps for $1!!!
Can you believe it?!?

Gran cut up some card stock,
we had a merlot ink pad,
had the kids stamp
the design they wanted,
and hot glued at hershey's kiss
in the center.

Those clear block stamps
are awesome for kids!
Although I must say,
my 4 yr old did much better
than my 6 yr old.
(Probably because my 6 yr old
did not want to listen to directions
because of course he's smarter
than mom... :o) )

The kids wrote their names
on the front too.

$1 stamp set
$2.50 pkg of hershey kisses
=$3.50 for 50 valentines
and some leftover chocolate for mom.
:o)

Valentine Week: Day 1, Garland

When I saw this Valentine's Garland
I knew I wanted to make one.
I took five different sheets of felt
(lime green, yellow, orange, pink, purple, turquoise-
okay, that was six)
and cut out hearts.
Different sizes of hearts.
I used the entire sheet
of each color.

Make sense?
This is what I ended up with:

Then I sewed them together
(and realized I could have done
with about half as many...)

And hung them on the mantel!

Love it!

Quilt for One

So this Christmas became the Christmas
of the unfinished gift.
Not that it was obvious.
But I was getting stressed
and decided that I needed to enjoy the holiday
a bit more and take time to appreciate
the real meaning of Christmas.

(ps. It's not homemade gifts.)

Sooo, I had planned on making jammies
but bought them instead.
No one knew.

I had planned on making
Christmas pillowcases
but put it off for next year.
No one knew.

Give my son an unfinished quilt?
Oh my, never hear the end of it!!!
It was only short the binding, come on now!
And actually, my daughter found it
much more hilarious than my son.

"Mommy gave One a quilt that wasn't finished!"
She told everyone!
"How was your Christmas?" That was her answer!

But all became well today.


One actually picked out the fabric himself
during a pre-Christmas trip to Joann's.
However I of course told him it was for somebody else.
And since he knew about the last CraftHope project,
he totally fell for it.


It's pretty big but not too big.
Good for snuggling or taking in the car.


Apparently it's also perfect for reading,
One's most favorite activity after soccer.

Would you believe I actually had to make him
put his book down so I could take all those
first pictures! Oh my!


Anyone elses kid just crazy over A to Z Mysteries?
The school library can't keep them on the shelf!

Christmas Mantel

I love my Christmas mantel!
Target had ornament sets on sale Buy2Get1Free
so I got three different sizes of the same ornament,
shoved them onto the hot pink tinsel (?) garland
that used to be on my Valentine's mantel, and viola!
Super cute mantel!

ps. One asked me, "Don't you think it's unfair that Three doesn't have a decorated stocking?" Yup, I do. But I have some time before he'll actually notice...he should have it next Christmas.

Teacher Christmas Gifts

So this post might be a little late to help with teacher gifts.
Mostly because I was late getting to it myself.
Like, the last day before break is tomorrow?

Oh well.

Teacher's don't get much.
They don't get paid much.
They don't always get much respect.

When I taught,
the most precious gift I ever got
was a letter.

I was teaching fourth grade in Seattle
and there was a big earthquake.
We're talking damage to the building,
the kids couldn't even enter the building afterwards.
But the next day a mother wrote me a letter
thanking me for looking after and caring for her daughter
on such a traumatic day.
It was so special to me and I still have it.

And you know what?
It was free!

Never under-estimate the power
of a heartfelt card.

So I made this for Two's teacher and asked Two to decorate it:



Then she cut off the corner of an envelope with fancy scissors
to make a corner bookmark:
(You could decorate yours with scrapbook paper
or a photo of your child...
These bookmarks are great for family too!)


See how it works?

One made one for his teacher too but of course I forgot to take a picture of it before putting it in the envelope.

Remember, special gifts don't
have to be expensive!

Christmas Pin

When you're running late for church
and you still need to get yourself
and a child dressed,
what should you do?
Make a last minute accessory, of course!
This rosette is so easy to make. Plumtickled has a great tutorial here, if you want to see how to make it. This one is made with some leftover fabric from the Christmas Quilt and an old dress of Two's.

Advent Activities

With the apparent flop of the advent calendar
I ended up making some advent activity sticks!

These will be perfect for sticking in the pockets of the advent calendar
...you know, when it's done. :o)
We came up with a list of fun activities
and will do one each day.
Did I mention that sticking one stick in a pocket
will be so much easier than four pieces of candy?
Memories are made through activity!

Supplies:
Jumbo Craft Sticks
Sharpie Marker

I wrote out each idea on a stick...

(click on the picture to enlarge and see my list)

...and then put them in an appropriate order.
Like, putting up Christmas lights shouldn't wait until Dec 24th !
Some activities, like Two's preschool program
need to fall on a certain date, but everything else
was pretty willy nilly.

I also made sure to put in a few acts-of-service activities too.
My favorite?
Driving around to different Salvation Army Red Buckets
with the bell ringers and putting money in!
This was always a special thing for me as a kid.
My mom always told me about how the Salvation Army
were the only people that went to the front lines
in WWII to reach my grandad and the others to help them
and give them supplies and encouragement.
So the Salvation Army definitely means something special to me.


For other advent activity ideas, try here, here, or here.

Technical Difficulties & a Christmas Flop

Due to some technical difficulties
(like my computer filing Sunday's picture in October...
what's up with that?)
and some crafty difficulties
I just posted for the last three days!

Christmas Flop #1
(yes, it needs to be numbered, it's not alone!)
The Advent Calendar:

How many times have I said I hated it?
Here and here, to name a few.

Well, guess what?
I still hate it
and I'm stuck on the particularly involved Dec 10th.

Embroider this 1/2cm section.
Change thread.
Add these three sequins.
Cut out the piece.
Change thread.
Attach to the base square.
Find the next felt color and coordinating piece.
Repeat.

AWFUL!

It makes it soooo involved,
literally HOURS for each square,
and I'm just really not enjoying it.
You know what that means?
It's time to stop!
I'm not quitting, just changing my strategy.

Oh yeah, and deciding I don't care if it doesn't get done this year.

The new strategy is to prepare every single piece individually
ahead of time so that when it's done,
making the squares is really just a matter of assembly.

Make sense?
Here's where I got stuck on Dec 10th:

(See why the love/hate? They're still so cute!)


And here's the blue felt that I have now completely prepared:


It doesn't look like much, but every
piece has its embroidery and it's sequins
just waiting to go and already
I'm feeling so much more energized about it!

Stay tuned for tomorrow's craft
which makes it completely acceptable
that this one is currently unfinished!

December 9th

Let it SNOW!

I really need to get going on
my advent calendar.
I've been meaning to
but lately I'm just so tired.

Growing a person is hard work!

No more excuses!
Even if I do one square a day,
it still won't be finished
until Nov 25!

And we all know
I will not be completing
one square a day.

So to get the ball rolling again,
Let it SNOW!



This little bonus square
fills in the top quite nicely, don't you think?

This is going to be so cute!
I can't wait for it to be complete!

48 days until Christmas!