Posts tagged ‘children’

Here’s one of my i-can’t-type-well posts. I found the pattern for this jacket in a bag of handed down linens. It was cut out of a grocery bag and only had the words “5/8 inch seam all around” written on it.

After a little puzzling it out and I came up with this jacket in a 3-6 month size. I graded it to a 12-18 month and made one for my sweet Cressida.

We are a couple of weeks away from Kindergarten here at our house. And the rest of the country is getting all of their ducks in a row to waddle back to the big pond of school. We have a bunch of  school supplies to purchase, like crayons and stuff like that, but there are also items we need that can be bought handmade or second hand. I’ve been looking around the interwebs and wanted to share some of my findings with you!

Terre Mum has lots of eco-friendly items in her shop, mostly food related. But if you’ve got to pack a lunch this year, absolutely stop by her shop for one of these great snack bags. I especially like that they are just linen lined with cotton, which doesn’t help keep pretzels from going stale, but will keep chemicals from leeching onto your Kiddo’s snack. I am definitely buying a few of these.

Made By Rae has a great pattern for a Toddler Backpack on her site which I would love to try  to make. For the seamstresses out there, this would be a great way to help your Kindergartener feel personally invested in her first day of school. Picking out the fabric for your own backpack is one step above picking out the first day of school outfit.

Olivia has to wear a uniform to her school so I have been looking for cute belts and socks to give her some freedom of expression. That’s how I stumbled upon Ivan and Mary and this Alligator Belt in her shop. I love the little alligator and how it reminds me of the preppy school polo shirts. What a perfect belt!

And since lunch seems to be the one thing I am most obsessed about (I’m so worried about my child eating her food at school!) lets look at lunch bags. Deerpath Designs‘ Personalized Lunch Bags look adorable. And, the one I’ve featured here already has my daughter’s name on it! Taking into account the prices for bags I saw at Target today, $21.99 is very reasonable for a handmade bag.

I hope everyone’s transition into the school year goes great, no matter what grade your kids (or you!) are entering. And if you have, or you’ve seen, an awesome handmade item that’s great for back to school you’d love to share, please leave a link in the comments.

I have always thought it would be fun to have a Photo Gallery of post-craft hand pictures. Like the time I was using a knife to carve into wax and cut into my thumb but there was a bunch of wax in the cut so it didn’t bleed (OK maybe not that one). Or after making my magazine coasters how I had a ton of dried glue all over me. It’s sort of like the hand picture could be a project in itself.

Well, these hands are dyed with fabric dye. Really really badly. This summer’s craft at Vacation Bible School (which I did not pick but was left in charge of executing) was to tie dye 50 kids’ shirts in five 20 minute long groups. Let’s just say that after changing my gloves 15 times only to find a new hole in all of the available pairs I gave up on the gloves and went for the bare-hand approach.  The only way to recover from hands this blackened is to go swimming in a chlorinated pool, by the way.

So, if you have some crazy hands after a project consider taking a picture. And if you do, let us know you did it by posting the pictures in our Flickr pool.

Our flower gardens are in full bloom. And if you have  little girls, like me, then all of the floral bounty is probably turning their imaginings to the subject of fairies.

This dish, filled with water, became the paddling pool for some fairies on our dining room table this week. I let the girls cut the flowers from my hostas before I trimmed them down to use in decorating the pond. They also clipped some lamb’s ears, some pink flowers (I don’t know what they are!) and some of the petals from my day lilies. The day lily petals made great boats.

The bonus feature for this “craft” is that it makes a wonderful variation on a center piece. The flowers remained vibrant for about 5 days before I needed to remove them from the table giving us plenty of time to enjoy the arrangement, and plenty of time for the girls to retell Thumbelina around the dining room table.

Twice this summer our family has attended Music in the Meadow, which is a free family concert at Howe Meadow in the Cuyahoga Valley. I can’t say enough praise for this event. It is on Wednesdays from 5:30, music starting at 6:30. Most people pack a picnic dinner and spread out a blanket and watch the show.

Music in the Meadow Photo Credited to CVNPA.org

If you come at 5:30 there are kid-appropriate activities including giant bubbles and frisbee golf. There are also music related crafts, which encourage kids to play along with the concert. We’ve taken home a easter-egg maraca and a wooden framed drum the past two times we came.

So far we’ve seen HeartBEAT Afrika, and another band which I can’t find the name of for the life of me even though I’ve been searching for 30 minutes! Next up is Copus Hill, a Bluegrass band on July 28th. If you’re looking for something free to do this summer, this is it.

Summer time with a 5 year old means it is time for board games. And as much as I like to play Candy Land, there are only so many times I can play before I get completely bored. So I’ve been getting back to the board games I played over and over again as a child, and at the top of that list is mancala.

I was getting ready to compost this egg carton when the idea struck me that it would make the perfect mancala board, so I started to it immediately. It’s a simple project requiring a paper egg carton, newspaper, mod podge and some beans. Read more »

My Dad lives really far away, in Austin, TX. Which is great when we get a chance to visit him, because Austin is one of the coolest towns to visit. But it is awful when Father’s Day rolls around. Yesterday I was able to talk to him on the phone and plan a fall trip out to Texas. But I was not able to remember that Father’s Day was coming until the Monday before, and therefore ran out of time to get him anything, even a card to send.

So I did the next best thing. I sent him a digital card. But I didn’t use of the many online card makers, instead I let my kids draw pictures on our computer with the Wacom Tablet and laid out a card in our photo editing program. Then I sent it  to his email box with instructions on how to cut it out himself to get a 4×6 card. The blue field on the top gets folded over so that the card will stand up on his desk.

I love you, Dad. Wish you were closer.

We have been having a great time at the beach. And we even had some sand castle success. It was my Sister-in-Law Emily’s birthday this week, so we made a sand castle cake.

I’ll, sadly, be back on my regular routine. No more chances to build an ultimate castle, but that’s OK. I have a sewing room to get home to.

Chugga, chugga, whoooo, whoooo.  My son LOVES trains.  Until a recent thrift store find, he didn’t have a toy train.  We just used yarn to tie together cars and used popsicle sticks, paper strips or wood blocks as track.  He still sees everything as a possible train or track (even lined up breakfast cereal!)  So last weekend my husband suggested we use foam board packaging to create yet another train.  The inspiration was our tractor book which has wheels that move.  So my husband drew & cut out the train cars.  We used a nail to punch the wheel holes and used brads so the wheels can turn.  Our next rainy day project is to paint the trains.

Once again, thanks a million Cal Patch. Her book, Do It Yourself Clothes , is just awesome. If it weren’t for this book and the principals I learned in it, Olivia wouldn’t have had a costume for her international festival. I waited until the last minute, of course, and my plan to buy a brown hoodie and whip stitch fur to it fell through the cracks when none of the three stores I shopped had any brown hoodies.

Instead I bought some brown fleece and used a hoodie Olivia wears all the time and the directions from Cal’s book to draft a quick pattern. It only took me an hour an a half to make the costume from pencil to sewing machine. And she loved it. Three cheers for Cal Patch! Hip Hip Hooray! And seriously, if you sew even a little bit, go buy her book!