Posts tagged ‘children’

For Valentine’s Day, Devona made heart-shaped crayons with a candy mold, double broiler, and broken crayons.  It inspired me to make the crayons with different colored chunks in them.  (Those were always my favorite as a kid.)  I made lots of mistakes & even ended up with ugly brown when everything melts together, but now I have lots of tips to share with you!

Supplies: double broiler (I used a pan & glass jar, but a tin can would be great as well), water for the double broiler, a mold for the crayons (I used a brownie pan with dividers, but you can use candy molds, soap molds, candle molds, or other make-shift molds), broken crayons, knife, cutting board, & a stove top.    Other useful optional items: towel (for drying the glass jar), spoon or popsicle stick (for mixing wax), and oven mitt. Read more »

I wanted to do something lovely with my girls for Valentine’s Day. So I sent them on the scavenger hunt through the house to find all the purple, pink and red broken crayons. Then we put them on the stove in a double boiler made from a tin can, and we melted them down.

Colleen had just handed-down these candy molds to me. We filled them up with the melted crayon mixture, which had turned to a swirly pinkish-purple. The girls were really excited about the whole process. They had no idea what to expect for the final outcome.

When we ended up with these heart shaped crayons they were pretty surprised. I don’t know if they intend to use them for coloring or not. Next time we do this I’m going to make them a rounder, more sturdy shape. We already snapped one of our hearts. And no one wants to be broken hearted because of a valentine!

Since I don’t have a boy around to model for me, Cressida is playing stand-in.

I really have to thank Cal Patch for her book Design it Yourself Clothes for making this draft so easy. She gave me the rules to follow where I was taking educated guesses before. So although there are no youth patterns in her book the explanations included are pretty universal.

This is just a first draft of the romper. I did not take into account how big a diaper is, so the rise is about two inches off. I’m going to adjust my pattern and make one out of a men’s shirt I really like. Wish me luck!

With Clementine Season reaching a close we have accumulated at least 6 crates. Those wooden boxes are so wonderful, and I never throw them out. At the moment I am using them to hold individual projects-in-the-making in my craft room, and will probably continue to use them for that for a while.

There are other ways to use the clementine crates though. I have used them in the past as drawer organizers, since they are so short. I keep my cookbooks in one in my kitchen on top the fridge. And I know that Colleen used them for craft room organization in the past. Since I have more than I need this year, I will probably use the two extra I have for kindling in our fireplace since the wood is nice and dry and should catch fire quickly.

But all of those crates were easy to find purposes for. The challenge for me this year was what to do with the orange plastic nets that are on the top of them. Well, I zigzagged two of them together and sewed a strap onto it. Now we hang all of the bath toys in it for draining. But that only used two! Does anyone else have a creative use for them?

Olivia has been asking for a “kid sewing machine” for a year, ever since she saw one at JoAnn’s around Christmas time when she was 4. I told her she had to wait until she was older, mostly because I didn’t want to buy such an expensive toy, not knowing if she’d really want to use it.

Well, on a routine Thrift Store Trip this past week we saw one in the toy department. Olivia was the first to notice it and into our cart it went. I would have paid $30 for it, even second hand. But this glorious find was a remarkable $1.50! I was certain it wouldn’t work but at that price it was worth the gamble.

We took it home and popped two size C batteries in it and it just chugged along just like it should. It works! It is a chainsitching machine, so it has no bobbin to get messed up. The stitches are not the most secure but it really sews. But the most valuable thing of all is that it has an advance wheel, presser foot with arm, and a foot pedal, all which work exactly the same way as they do on a larger machine. So as Olivia learns to use this little machine, she will be gaining the basic skills needed to use a real machine when the time comes. And with the enthusiasm she is showing for this little toy machine, the real thing is probably right around the corner!

My friend, Mary, let me look through these books she bought at a library sale. I am just OOOh-ing and Aaaaah-ing over some of the projects inside. My favorite book out of the three is 167 Things to Make for Children. There are so many cute knits inside, as well as some woodworking projects I want to try out this summer. The one detail that just keeps me laughing as I flip through the pages is just how short the children’s dresses are! My kids wear shirts as long as those dresses! They do ook cute with the knee socks though.

I have been in the “make-for-me” phase of crafting since the holidays are over and I wanted to work through some of my stash fabric. This wrap skirt from Stitch by Stitch is just awesome, and the pattern pieces are included in the book and uncut! With the right fabric this could look really current, and the length makes it a great choice for winter. I hope I have enough yardage in my stash closet!

This morning I had a crafty get together with my Sister-in-Law Emily and we worked on some wool owls together. Emily came up to Crafty Mart and bought this owl from one of the vendors. If someone knows who it was, please let me know, I don’t have his contact information and I want to link to his shop if possible. (Juniper informed me that this is from threebearsdesign.com)

We loved this little inspiration owl so much we needed to make some friends for him. Using brown, white and orange wool roving we felted up three more owls.

There were two different techniques we used to make them. The first was to felt four ounces of brown roving with soapy hot water until it was a nice firm ball. There is a tutorial on that here, on theartofmegan’s Flickr. Once we had our round owl bodies we needle felted their facial featured and bellies on. You can see the needle felting tool we used in the picture of Emily.

I love these little guys so much. I would love to make a bunch of other animals to go along with our owl. I was thinking mice and bunnies would be good. But it might make more sense to make reindeer for Christmas. I wonder how I could pull that off?

Each year I have plans to make an Advent Calendar with my kids, but it never happens. But when I checked my email this week I found an advent themed edition of Kids Craft Weekly and I found new inspiration to make it happen. There are some really cute projects that use recycled paper items, like toilet paper tubes. But the one that I like the most is the origami paper advent box which from Loobylu.

This might be just the right sized project for me to complete this weekend. Just in time for the first Sunday in Advent.

The floral hairpins that I was selling at Crafty Mart were a big hit. They are so simple to make yourself once you know how to make a YoYo. I was surprised how many people knew what a YoYo was, but didn’t know how to make it so I thought I’d show you for this week’s tutorial.

This is a great craft to do with a child, as it only requires one simple hand sewing technique, the gathering stitch/running stitch. It also only has 3 materials requirements, a needle, a circle of fabric at least 4 inches in diameter, and thread. YoYos can also be used in many different applications, from accessories to quilts, so it might be a good idea to have a basket of fabric scraps next the couch and work away on YoYos for future project, even if you don’t know what it is yet. I am adding seed beads to mine for some classy holiday accessories. Follow the directions after the jump to make your own. Read more »

Well I can take a deep breath now. Oddmall is over and I made my goal, but not my stretch goal. It was a great event, and was well attended, especially for the first half of the day. Andy Hopp was a great host, and his daughter was a really great hostess. I loved watching her bop around in her cat ears and party dress, being friendly with everyone around. She’s five and I could tell that she’s make a great little playmate for my five-year-old.

Colleen stopped up with her husband Jon and son Ian, and she walked around a took pictures for me. I’ll let her write her own post, but I wanted to give my recap on the vendors I bought items from, and the ones that I thought deserved honorable mentions, continued after the break. Read more »