Posts tagged ‘children’

Boy, it’s been a while since we posted a good ol’ tutorial. But man does life get away from you when you’ve got a Kindergartener. Now we’re two weeks out from Christmas Break. How did that happen? So, since it’s almost Christmas Break, that must mean it is almost Christmas. And therefore we are decorating the tree!

This year I am having the kids slowly add ornaments throughout Advent. I thought it was a good alternative to just getting all the ornaments out and rushing through putting them on the tree. The bonus of doing it this way is we are making a bunch of new ornaments instead of just using the same ones we’ve always used. This tutorial will show you how to make the “wrapped candy” ornament pictured in the middle of my tree over there. It’s a very kid friendly, and almost free project using things commonly found in your house. And, they’re very cute! Read more »

Played in Playroom

Just in time for winter (OK so it’s been done for a few weeks, but it’s hard to take a picture of a playroom since it always looks like a bomb has gone off in there) we finished the basement playroom.

We painted the cinderblock walls with waterproof paint and sealed the floor with garage floor epoxy paint. Then we repaired a good deal of damaged drywall with mold resistant drywall and put up vinyl wainscot on the walls. Our total cost for materials is in the $700 range, and the time put into it is about 30 to 40 hours.

Then we brought our step 2 play structure from the backyard and put it down there on top of foam floor mats. I hope to get a used Wii from craigslist to put down there with our hand-me-down TV, too. Basically, I’m going for “indoor play world.” Now when I say, “go play downstairs!” there is something for them to do.

Oh, yeah and our treadmill is down there, too, so I have no excuse not to run this Ohio winter.

Remember the hat I made for Olivia, and then promised to make her a matching sweater? Well, here it is!

Sorry for the quick-before-school photo!

It’s not perfect, but it’s complete. And that is really saying something. This is my largest finished knitting project to date, which shows that I have really grown comfortable with the craft, since I don’t like doing frustrating things for a long time. I am looking forward to gifting some really lovely hand knit items for Christmas this year.

This is a big one. My daughter is a Daisy Scout. My mom was my Girl Scout leader for 5 years, and it is one of the best memories I have of childhood. We learned to build fires, camp in 3 feet of snow, ride horses, sew, and change the oil in a car. I would work on badges in my free time just to fill up my sash (did you keep that, mom?).

And now it’s Olivia’s turn. The craft for this week is one that might make me tear up. I get to sew the troop number and Girl Scout badges on my daughter’s first vest.

Last night at our meeting we worked on the Promise, and learned to finger knit using those fun little knitted loom loops. Some of the girls really got it quickly! Olivia made a bracelet/headband for her doll, Rachelle. If anyone out there in Crafty-Land has some Girl Scout activities experience, let me know, I want to make this experience fun for everyone.

Does anyone out there remember the Girl Scout Promise? Three fingers up!

Yes, it took me forever to wash the tie dyed socks. I had put them in a strange load, the rugs and sheets, in case the dye bled. I had to wrestle them out of the corners of the fitted sheets.

I like how the band on each sock lines up so well. It makes them look like a pair. My husband, Rob, tied off this pair by wrapping the two socks together in the rubber bands. I think these are cute, but the overall tie dyed effect would be more apparent on larger socks. I’ll remember that for next time!

We used Dylon fabric dyes. The color was amazingly vibrant. I will absolutely use this brand again. My friend Mary remarked that it was a shame to dump the dye in the drain after the socks were done. I should have planned to dye more things! I would have loved to dip dye my bedroom curtains or a shirt I rarely wear. Next time… next time.

Akron Trick or Treated tonight. It was great fun. Just for holiday spirit, here’s some pics of our pumpkins.

It’s the Totoro.

The Cat

The Dalmatian

Happy Halloween!

Here is my awesome Elise, modeling her big sister Olivia’s witch costume. I had so many ideas for how to sew this costume, but in the end, Olivia’s opinion had to win out. She wanted the basic black, broom carrying, hat wearing witch, and I had to push for the frilly tutu. I didn’t want to make just a plain black frock.

It ended up being a good challenge though. I had to sew with stretch velvet for the first time. It wasn’t as hard as I feared, once I got going. Gotta love my serger! We’ll be trick or treating twice this weekend, so this should get some good use. And I made the velvet top separate, so we can use it as a church outfit shirt later. I love the irony of wearing a witch costume to church.

The other two girls are wearing clothes from the dress up box. That was a blessing since I’ve been working on the basement so much I haven’t had a lot of sewing time.

So what are your plans for the weekend? Any moms or dads dressing up? If all goes well, I might have a costume for myself to post here, too.

My girls all celebrate a birthday in a four week period, so rather than have a party with friends for each girl I decided it made sense to have a party with all of our friends and their families at once. To eliminate the arguments on what the theme should be I just chose a generic theme that I thought would be fun for everyone, including our boy guests.

The theme we was Silly Socks, and the invitation read as follows (it was a last minute party so I invited people on facebook, lame me):

Come celebrate our kids’ birthdays. Elise Turns 4 on Sept 21st, Cress turns the BIG ONE on Sept. 29th and Olivia turns 6 on October 21st. We’d love to have you all over for a party and a pot luck dinner. I’ll make a main dish and the cake, you can bring your awesome family, a dish to share and wear some silly socks.

Please don’t feel obligated to bring gifts, we have a small house! But if you really want to bring something for the girls to open, a gift of silly socks would be great, they can wear them with their school uniforms.

I had planned to make a sock shaped “cake” of cupcakes, but I didn’t have a board big enough to hold them all, so we ended up just eating pink and purple cupcakes. Everyone wore their silly socks and played in the living room while we chit chatted and ate yummy food.

Then after dinner we tie dyed socks to party favors. It seems like an ambitious project to tackle with all these kids, but after tie dyeing t-shirt at VBS with 50 kids this summer I felt confident it would go well. Moms and Dads helped rubber band the socks, and kids chose which color to dye them. Then as everyone was heading out the door I rinsed out most of the dye and dropped the socks into zip lock baggies with some home care directions. Everyone was pretty excited about them.  I’ll post the final sock pictures early next week, as my crazy life schedule has prevented me from finishing washing or drying the socks! Stay tuned!

Olivia loves the color red. So I thought I’d knit her a hat to wear to school in the fall to go with  her adorable school uniforms.

I sort of just made this hat up on the fly using techniques I’ve learned in my Stitch N Bitch group and from the Tech Knitting site. Plus, I finally learned how to do a yarn over, and that made the lacy stripes which were kind of my inspiration for wanting to try the hat. I wanted to do a small project to see how it would look and knitting a swatch just sounded boring.

Now Liv wants a sweater to go with her hat. Which I could do because the yarn (Bamboo Ewe in Geranium) is all over the place at Jo Ann’s. I could easily find enough to finish a kid sweater. If I did it, I’d do the yarn over motif at the hem and the cuff to match the bands on the hat. I think I see some inspiration happening and an expensive trip to Jo Ann’s in my near future.

Cloth bags by TerreMum.etsy.com

Sending my daughter off to school with a packed lunch was going to get really expensive. Even though we reuse resealable plastic bags at home, it’s not really feasible to expect my 5 year old to remember to bring home her ziplocks when the lunch monitor is throwing all the trash away.

I imagine this happens to a lot of people who bring a lunch along, even occasionally, that you don’t want to haul around a plastic sandwich bag after the sandwich has been eaten from it. Enter, the reusable sandwich wrap. It’s perfect for bringing along, as well as a more attractive way to wrap up your BLT. And making it is simple. So simple, I would call this project a novice sewing project. You just need to know how to thread your machine, and change the stitch to zigzag. Read more »