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!
It’s the first Monday of a new year. I love to make resolutions, and I usually share them. I’m not really the kind of person who makes “life change” resolutions, so much as I set my goals for the year in January. For three years I have met my January year long goals, so I’m hoping to follow suit this year. 2009’s goal was Clever Nesting, so I’d say that was a pretty successful adventure and I can’t wait to see what 2010 holds for us.
Quilt with Anna Maria Horner flannels
I only have two new goals for this year coming up. For one I want to visit my grandparents at least twice. I’m finishing up the binding on my Nina’s quilt this week and I plan to head down and give it to her in a couple of weeks with Baby Cressida in tow. Hopefully I’ll be able to bring the rest of the family down in the summer time, too.
My other goal is submit a book proposal. I don’t want to give up too much more information, but I’ve been in the brain storming phase for a few months now, and I’m moving into outline phase right now.
So what goals do you have for the year, crafty or otherwise? I wanna know what this new decade has to offer us all!
Colleen and I are going to take a little Christmas vacation from blogging. We’ve been working hard these past two months and some time off is much needed. We hope you all have a wonderful Holiday season and get everything you need, and nothing you don’t want. I’m going to spend the week enjoying these three little Buggers!
Hopefully my mom won’t read this post, because this is going to be her Christmas present. She collects ugly trees, and I usually buy her one, but this year I wanted to make it for her. After a few mistakes I found a method that I really like and I decided to share it here.
Today I was cleaning up the kitchen and I almost tossed out this glamorously shiny purple coffee bean bag. I stopped myself in time, and cut it into loops. These loops I stacked up and twist tied together with the metal strip from the top of the coffee bag.
I fluffed it out and now it’s a fabulous gift bow. I will be making these all month long. Good thing I’m addicted to coffee.
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.
If you’re looking to spend a weekend browsing off the beaten path handmade items and perhaps make some unique holiday purchases you should stop in Hudson this Saturday for Oddmall- Chrishanukwanzmadan “the emporium of the weird holiday edition.” I’ll be there, sharing a booth with Landen Road Designs, representing my etsy shop Templeton Goods in room #2 so find us if you’re up there. It is November 7th, from 11am to 6pm and there are a huge number of vendors represented.
But if you can’t make it up to Hudson, Clever Nesting will be at Crafty Mart, info over there in the sidebar ——> the following weekend in Akron at Musica. Heck, come to both and be certain that you’ve seen every wonderful handmade item available in Northeast Ohio.
My favorite thing about new babies is that they can’t protest when I dress them up as silly things for Halloween. My older girls have opinions now and I can only do so much to sway them, but not Cressida. Cressida can’t tell me that she doesn’t want to be Mr. H Horrible Hair because he’s a boy and she’s a girl. Or that she thinks the green crochet eye-lash yarn hat is a bit too much. Or that Mr. H isn’t magical and all costumes should be of magical things.
For those of you not born in the late 70s/early 80s, this is Mr. H Horrible Hair. The Letter People are a new hit in our house, so even though Olivia and Elise don’t want to be him, they sure are glad that Cressida is going to be.
These transparent votive candle holder decals from How About Orange are on my list of things to do for Halloween. Usually by this time I am halfway done with two handmade costumes, neck deep in candy corn and finished roasting my second batch of pumpkin seeds. But this year things have gotten away from me, obviously, and there isn’t a spooky decoration in my entire home.
I will definitely have time for this, though. I was also thinking about doing it with an orange Gatorade powder container that I have around. We can transfer the face of a jack-o-lantern, like this one I made in GIMP really quickly, and Mod Podge it to the container and fill it with candy corn. I expect my kids will really like this, because they’ll be able to help, and then there will be a pumpkin container full of candy, and you can’t beat that!
You’re more than welcome to take my jack-o-lantern face and use it yourself. Just right click and save it to your computer.
I made these little star shaped hair ties for my daughters to wear this weekend when we go to see the fireworks. They were extremely simple, inexpensive and cute! I used some of the thicker plastic from my plastic bag stash and cut out blue and white stars. Then I stitched them together through a big red button. To keep them secure I glued them together and then attached a hair rubber band to the back with thread.
These took me less than 5 minutes to make, excluding glue drying time. After I made them I decided it would have been better to use super glue than craft glue, so you can take that into consideration if you decide to make this craft.
