adorable acorn people (you can make them too!)

I have gained a reputation as the craft queen on the years we do Thanksgiving with my husband's family (see: ornamental balls, felt Christmas tree ornaments). This year we made little tiny acorn people with wood bead heads. I did the hot gluing of cap, bead head, and acorn bodies for the kiddos. Then we decorated with fine tip sharpies and yarn for scarves. Credit due to none other than Martha Stewart herself.

Spring in my kitchen

Inspired a bit by this blogger's challenge to grow something, anything, delighted with this idea, and encouraged by both husband and enthusiastic four-year-old, we planted some sweet pepper seeds. After watering and waiting and watering and waiting I was secretly beginning to get nervous.

And then one day, in one egg shell planter, it appeared. A tiny bent "u" of a pale seedling stem lifting itself from the dark of the soil.

Since then, new sprouts, new leaves, new growth appears every day. An official count is taken and discussions of where to place so many plants this summer takes place over meals. I am still finding it difficult to imagine these tiny baby plants as sturdy stalks producing large, hollow peppers for our happy snacking. Such a miracle!

Nearby, we watch progress as caterpillars ordered from Insect Lore (thanks, Grandma!) crawl around, hang around, quadruple in size, experiment with their silk strings, and at last begin the magic of encasing themselves in their brown chrysalises, each accented by the glint of metallic gold. As soon as they've completed this stage, we'll pin them up inside our butterfly house and wait for our winged friends to emerge.

And if all that isn't enough, we're growing an onion that sprouted in the pantry. Just to see what happens (that's the crazy wild green thing on the right hand side of the above photo).

Perhaps these projects aren't exactly art – but the beauty of our natural world never fails to amaze and inspire me.

Happy spring!

Christmas gift crafted: chalkboard ornaments!

I found this idea on Whip Up from a guest post by blogger Curly Birds over a year ago. I was originally aiming for the little people shapes as shown. And I had the thought to throw in pets too – little dogs and cats. But then I could not find the flat wooden people and decided to go with flat round discs instead, which made things simpler anyway.

Each one is painted with chalkboard paint and served double-duty this season as gift tags! Every family also got a box of colored chalk along with their individual ornaments to inspire future creativity.

My 4-year-old daughter helped me paint them this past Septembert. My only regret was that we did not paint them on a better surface – perhaps wax paper. Our generous application of paint made little puddles that ended up sticking to the newspaper. When everything was dry, we'd have little shreds of newspaper to pick off! The ornaments were unfinished so they soaked up the paint. I think we did 2 coats on each side.

I am hoping to keep up a similar craft in the future that can involve my little ones. I like the idea of them experience the joy of creating and giving and not just receiving.

Felt ornaments for kids of all ages!

For the second time, I prepared a Thanksgiving craft for our family gathering (anyone remember ornamental balls?). I was inspired by the book Holiday Crafting and Baking with Kids: Gifts, Sweets, and Treats for the Whole Family. Of course, our actual intention was to get the grown-ups crafting too!

Because this involves cutting felt with fabric scissors it is not the best craft for the littles. However, one of my nephews who is only 3 years old was happy to arrange scraps and even glued them himself. The 4-year-olds had mixed interest. The older kids actually really enjoyed it. On the second day of crafting, we even saw some out-of-the-box formats – large rectangles, fringe, tassels, and, eventually fake moustaches!

The premise is very simple – take a felt circle, cut out various felt shapes, and glue them on. The instructions suggest using a hole punch to create a spot to thread the ribbon through. We found it easier to just pinch the fabric and make a small snip with the scissors. The sparkly, fancy, beaded ribbons were a hit embellishment option.

 

craft flashback: Halloween felt board!

My mom dug this creation out of the basement and gifted it back into my life. Once upon a time as a teenager, I made this lovely Halloween felt board for my two younger sisters. During the month leading up to Halloween I would wait until they were in bed and then I would "tap tap" on their door and leave behind a new felt piece and a notecard with instructions. Even though they caught on quickly to what I was doing they still waited in eager suspense every night and startled at the tapping noise. All three of us had great fun with it. Apparently I started it without a concrete plan as my mom recalls bringing me back to the store for more felt more than once!

Now that it is thoroughly documented I am going to turn it over to my daughters to play with!

upcycled wrapping paper

A crazy messy art experiment with my older daughter (then just 2 years old):

Cleaning out and refreshing my art room (more on that soon) led to upcycling the giant painting into wrapping paper and a matching card for mother's day:

from the artist-in-residence

A few abstract pieces from my 4-year-old sweetie!

what I'm reading right now

If I am not actually crafting, I am doing the next best thing: reading about crafting! I can't get enough of new project ideas and beautiful inspiring photography. Here's what I have perusing these days:

Scrap Republic: 8 Quilt Projects for Those Who LOVE Color
I got this free from a friend at work what passed it along from someone else. How fabulous is that? And you know that I just loved loved loved the colors. I am very interested in doing patchwork in the more traditional sense this next quilt. I basically did large blocks of fabric on my first quilt, which was a really good place for me to begin. However, I am very interested in experimenting with piecing together individual blocks and then combining those. This book is all about using up scraps so I may wait until I have some more projects completed before I get serious about any of these quilts.

 Sew What You Love: The Easiest, Prettiest Projects Ever
I got a gift card to a book store for Christmas and treated myself to this beauty. I love that it does not have a narrowly defined focus. There are purses, skirts, home decor items, toys – all with beautiful photography and patterns. I felt validated in my purchase after Amanda Blake Soule mentioned using the book on her own blog!

The Rhythm of Family: Discovering a Sense of Wonder through the Seasons
Speaking of Ms. Soule, I indulged and bought myself her latest book, The Rhythm of Family. There is a chapter for each month with essays and projects meant to be done with your children. Some are of the gardening bent, some of the art making bent, some of the kitchen creations bent. My older daughter and I managed to make one of the ice wreaths, similar to these seen on The Artful Parent, with the help of our freezer. We'll have to try to go more natural next winter when it is actually below freezing outside! I love nature and I am inspired by this book to slow down and enjoy it more.

Make the Bread, Buy the Butter: What You Should and Shouldn't Cook from Scratch -- Over 120 Recipes for the Best Homemade Foods
This is not exactly "art" but it is all about "making." The author of this book does an analysis on whether or not things are worth making the old-fashioned and homemade way or not. She compares the cost, the hassle factor, and, of course, the results. The best part of this book is her writing. She is absolutely hilarious. I would recommend reading the book simply for the chapter on chickens (for the eggs), maybe followed by the chapter on goats (for milk for making cheese, of course!). Both had me laughing out loud. I am working on perfecting my own hummus based on her recipe and have great plans for bread and perhaps a few other recipes.

Now, onto some actual making!

my claim to (blog) fame!

I was honored to be included as a guest poster on The Artful Parent  which just happens to be one of my all-time favorite blogs. Jean is taking a bit of a sabbatical from her blog this month and asked if some of her readers would be willing to submit posts. How lovely of her to share her space.

Here's my post on our valentine cards – a current work in progress.

Spoiler alert: Grandmas and aunties might get a sneak peek of their future valentine mail if they check out this post!

party hats!

When my 3-year-old daughter found out we were hosting a party at our house she insisted on making party hats. You don't have to ask this crafty mama twice to get a new project going. I especially love taking her idea and running with it.

We used the template from Jones Design Company. It neatly fit on a letter-sized piece of paper. Their instructions called for hot gluing them shut. This template from Oh Happy Day gets a little fancier with a tab that inserts into a slot. I especially admired the cool poms and fringe she made from crepe paper but we did not end up going that route.

I let my daughter choose the color paper for each hat. After I cut them out she painted them. We came back later to assemble them and choose various items to serve as pom poms and attach ribbons. I loved that we used items that we already had on hand to decorate. It was fun to be creative with the stuff I have stashed for just such a project. My favorite topper was probably the shapes we bent out of pipe cleaners. We made our ties with two pieces of ribbon. I think elastic would have been more comfortable for wearing but we did not have that on hand.

My daughter's pom was salvaged from a headband that didn't last long.

Tah dah! The hats await the guests.

autumn leaf suncatchers

A special shout out to Turtle Magazine for this craft idea!

One day last week my 3-year-old daughter ran out the door to greet me while I was still getting out of the car with this magazine in hand, very excited to show me a craft we could do together. The instructions are illustrated so non-readers can understand it so she was busy shouting out all the things we need to use ending with "and of course those scissors."

"And of course" is one of her favorite phrases these days.

The instructions call for pressing fall leaves and crayon shavings between waxed paper, placing the creation in a frame, and hanging it on a window. They used craft foam for the frame. I took a couple of pieces of cardboard (again, validation for squirreling this stuff away!) and cut out the inside leaving a rectangular frame. Then I used the inside and cut out of that. I repeated this twice more so we ended up with a total of four frames of descending sizes.

I decided to skip the crayon shavings and opted for a more natural look with just the leaves. I was pleasantly surprised at how beautiful they do look with the sun shining through them.

While my older daughter (age 3) did enjoy collecting the leaves and arranging them, this was a craft that included a lot of steps only for adults. I got the frames cut out while she was napping but didn't quite get the wax paper pieces cut out. It would have been better to get that done ahead of time.

 Dad stepped in offering "craft back up" when baby daughter started crying.

So much prettier than I expected!

magic wands

What can curving, knobby sticks collected on a recent park adventure become? Magic wands of course!

 We painted the sticks, let them dry, and tied on ribbons and streamers of any length requested. At last my pack rat ways with bits of ribbon have been validated!

Tah-dah!

story stones – part 2

I told you I was going to get back to these. And I still want to do some more! The idea originally comes from Emily Neuburger of Red Bird Crafts.

This go round the baby was content in her chair so I could make some of my own. I was trying to think about what kind of things would help my older daughter use the rocks to tell stories. I did a few of the weather. One of the beach, mostly because I wanted to use the frayed end of the blue fabric as water. Together we did a bird and a flower using a button. I did one of my daughter and grandma made another to represent her favorite blanket.

you blogged it: paint party

Painting with kids in a large-scale fashion is something I've done (inspired by The Artful Parent, one of my favorite blogs). However, the mom bloggers over at Couturier Mommy take it to a new level with their annual paint parties.

We were inspired to do a little outdoor painting ourselves. The oversize cardboard canvases came from the purchases of furniture and a television. Never let a good box go to waste!

Two halves of a box propped up together became an easel. Then it became a house to be painted inside and out. Then artist children ended up with paint in their hair!

you blogged it: story stones

We recently enjoyed an extended visit from the cousins. I assisted my mom-in-law with finding some great craft inspirations for keeping the kiddos (minus the two babies) busy.

Now I get to share our "you blogged it, we did it" stories!

One activity we did was story stones. I first found the idea on one of my favorite craft sites, WhipUp. Full credit goes to Red Bird Crafts as seen on both Etsy and in the blog world.

We hand selected the best rocks from a heap at the nearest landscaping supply place. We filled up a bucket for a mere $2! The stones aren't polished or anything but they were a good size for this craft.

Ours ended up being a bit more influenced by the characters and illustrations already adorning the fabric, but that's ok. Only the adults were wielding the fabric scissors so it worked out better this way. The kids were more than happy to select the perfect rock and spread the Mod Podge out. The googly eyes were a fabulous and funny touch.

 I hope to revisit this craft soon for myself and use more abstract fabrics to create shapes that could be used in storytelling. In fact, I was reminded of one of the final pages of the super-cute children's book Penguin. Everything Penguin "says" is drawn as little pictures. It's a lovely picture book that has become a favorite at our house. May it inspire your own story stone adventures!

My husband made this cute one!

fresh homemade garden art

And now the great reveal! Here are my mini stepping stones on display in the garden. Ooh la la!

And my favorites:

This one is my favorite. I used seashells, coral, and other beach finds that I have saved from past trips to the ocean. At last I am validated for saving boxes of bits in the basement!

This one features buttons, beads, and a vintage clip-on earring courtesy of my great-grandmother.

This is one that my toddler daughter made. I love how free form it is!

PS I should note that the garden itself is a work in progress. Unfortunately, the part that shows up in this photo is the section that I pretty much stripped out last summer and haven't added anything new to yet!