Making

There is always some level of "making" going on here.

Always.

I try to be generally productive MOST of the time, but the craving to make something (usually a big mess!) is always tugging at me, and a few times a week I set aside everything that SHOULD be done in favor of a little time to MAKE something. 

Good for the soul, I say!

So I'm showing off a few recent creations.

The week of Halloween, Emma's class carved this pumpkin.  The teacher did all the actual carving, but the kids voted on which shapes she should use, and then they graphed all their answers.  Pumpkin math.  Anyway, I commented on him when I picked Emma up from school because he was on display outside the classroom with this little sign.  Emma informed me that she HATED him because he had a bad name.

Sharp Tooth.  His name was Sharp Tooth.

Emma wanted to name him "Cinderella", but she was the only one who voted for that name.

With eleven boys and only three girls in her class, I'm not sure how she thought "Cinderella" would win, but she was a bit of a sore loser about the whole thing.

At the kindergarten Halloween class party they painted mini pumpkins.

With non-washable paint.

I seemed to be the only Mom in the room who was concerned about them getting paint all over their costumes.  None of the other parents indicated that a little paint on a costume would impede the ability to trick or treat, in the DARK, on a holiday that's supposed to be, you know......fun.

But I still maintain that washable paint would have been a more prudent choice.  :-)

And no.  We didn't bring our mini-pumpkin home.  No amount of Halloween cheer could possibly persuade me to put a wet, painted pumpkin in my van to roll around on the way home.

I'm a real joy on Halloween. ;-)

But if we WOULD have brought ours home, this guy could have craved him right up for us!

(And we could have named it "Cinderella"!)

A good four days after Halloween was over I still had a little pile of craft supplies sitting on my kitchen counter.  I gathered a few things with grand intentions of making these in early October, but they never got done.  I figured I was the only one who knew (or cared!) that we were off schedule a bit, so we went ahead and worked on some post-Halloween decor.  A package of black plates from the dollar store yielded a woven spider web....

....and some black cats.

(And I still have enough plates left over to serve appetizers at our next party!)

This next one was a cute idea I found on Pinterest.  We made a pointillism tree using Q-tips.  This wasn't one of our more fun art sessions.  I was a little controlling.  :-(

I try to work on that and let her be free and creative, but sometimes my desire to have things look a certain way ends up getting the best of me.  I felt bad when I went to bed this night because I regretted reminding her a million times to keep all her dots inside the circle.  I asked her the next morning if she had FUN making this tree with me and she said no, not really.

So, THAT night, I set out all the paints (no Q-tips) and told her she could paint ANYTHING she wanted, ANY way she wanted to.  I wanted her to have FUN with me.  She told me she wanted to paint a "secret" and wouldn't let me see it until it was finished.  This is how it turned out.....

HA!  Goofball.  I think sometimes she likes learning to do things a certain way after all.  It eased my guilt a bit.  Pretty sweet girl.

Last week Daddy came home from work early one day and we decided to have a Play-Doh contest.

I started the whole thing by making this pumpkin, then challenging the rest of the family to beat me.

(Because I feel the need to be competitive when it comes to modeling clay.)

Daddy's entry was a snake who just ate a mouse.

Max's entry was a blue horse.  The horse won.  Naturally.

No vegetable, no matter how finely crafted, can compete with horses in this house.  :-)

This is what Emma did to Daddy's snake.  Gross.

And a few minutes later he looked like this.  Gracious!  A little hostility!

Then again, I rather agree that the only good snake is a really, really DEAD snake!

This was a cute little "H" craft that Emma brought home from school a long time ago and it has been hanging on the microwave door.  I can't seem to move it to the art bucket.  It's just too cute.

Too bad I can't figure out how to get this next one rotated.  Emma and I read a few books about bats because she studied nocturnal animals at school.  One day, all on her own, she drew this bat, then proceeded to go get one of the books so she could label it!  I was super proud of her writing!  So, here's a sideways bat with fur, ear, claw, and wing!

I was in the craft store one day with a coupon that was about to expire, and they didn't have what I needed.  I wandered around looking for a fun fall craft so my coupon wouldn't go to waste.  There wasn't much fall stuff to choose from, but the Christmas stuff was already out in full force, so I caved and bought this cute little kit for felt trees.  It was only a dollar, and it provided well over an hour of entertainment by the time we arranged all the circles by size and color.

Needless to say, I've had a jump start on my holiday decorating since early October.  :-)

I was afraid if I put these away I'd forget all about them by December, so they've been hanging over the kitchen table for weeks.  (Uncle Joel, you're real proud of us, right?)

Last Friday we baked up a STORM.  I had workmen here all day working on a project with the house, and it was super cold outside.  Max started a fire in the fireplace, and my helper and I spent the whole day in the kitchen.

We made FIVE kinds of cookies, and assembled cute little trays to deliver to the neighbors.  We wrapped great big bows around them and made little tags with fall leaf stickers.  I didn't know at the beginning of the day that this project was going to get so big, but the idea just grew as the day wore on.

The frosted fall leaf cookies were our favorites.  We also made ginger snaps, snicker doodles, magic cookie bars, and chocolate white chocolate chip.  YUM.

Saturday morning I made a book bag for Hayden to take to a birthday party for one of the girls in his choir class.  I love these sweet fabrics.

That night while Hayden was at the party, Daddy and I took Emmie to Chilis for dinner.

MEMORIES are some of the most fun things to make!  :-)

This week Ems and I worked on turkeys.  We water colored the feathers onto heavy watercolor paper using crayon resist for the feather markings.  Then we cut the other parts out of construction paper.  We practiced cutting, gluing, painting, and drawing.  We worked on this one a few nights in a row right before bedtime.

See?  Seasonally appropriate.

It does happen occsionally.  :-)

Operation Bird Brain

The Kiwi Crate theme for May was birds.

It could not have been more perfect, as it arrived in the midst of our hayday with the chickens, and birds were a huge topic for conversation and research around here.

We love, love, LOVE the Kiwi Crate.  A box delivered to my door once per month with every single (high quality) supply I need to make crafts and learn about a particular project.  It's fab.

This month we added sparkles to our bird wings.  Because we are, clearly, very fancy.

Daddy helped sort sequence, and I fired up the glue gun.  It was a family affair, the blinging of the wings.  A wing bling, if you will.

We also made a bird nest out of yarn, and decorated eggs to snuggle inside of it.

Our mask has interchangeable beaks.  So we can adjust our bird mood.

Feeling woodpecker-ish?  BAM!  We've got the beak for that.

Oh, I love this girl, and her outrageous spirit for creativity.

Fairy Fun

Over Spring Break I had fun making some fairies for Emma.  I bought a pattern off of Etsy to make this pink fairy and her little felt tent.  Emma named her "Pink".

She proved to be a rather addictive habit.  Fairies need friends.  So I began to improvise.

I made "Bluebell".  And a little toadstool too.  For fairy tea parties, of course.

Then came "Strawberry".  (Emma was highly creative in her naming process.)

We were on our way to a flock of fairies, and the ideas just kept rolling in.

"Dandelion" was our final fairy.

Too bad Spring Break was only one week.

I could have kept going, and going, and.......

well, you know.  They were fun.

I'll be back tomorrow to show you a fun way to play with fairies.  :-)

Birthday Blog Bash Day Four

Happy Day Four!  Today Hannah's gift is....Wall flowers!

Or, more accurately, door flowers.

When Hannah returned to college after Christmas break, Emma and I sent her with a sack of snowflakes we had watercolored to decorate her dormroom door.  Now snowflake season is over....we hope!....and the girls need something more spring-y to adorn the door.

When I saw this fun technique, I knew we could have some fun procuring posies for our birthday girl.

First, you get shaving cream from the Dollar store.  And you spray.  And spray.  And fill a tray.

Then you get set for some foamy fun.

You can frolic in the foam a bit.  It smells yummmmmy.

When you're ready, you sprinkle paint on top of the shaving cream.  (If I were to do this project again, I would use washable paint.  I'm not sure whey that wasn't glaringly obvious on this first go round.)

We chose happy colors for our paint.

Then, you take a stick and swirl your colors around real good.

Next, you take cardstock and lay it on top of the shaving cream.  We pressed down lightly to make sure every part of the paper was covered in the shaving cream.  Carefully lift the cardstock, and set it aside for about a minute.  Then, use the ice scraper that Oma left at your house last December to scrape the shaving cream off the paper.

(Make mental note - again - to use washable paint next time.)

When you scrape the cream off the paper, a beautiful swirl of color is left behind.  It looks like tie dye, and it's gorgeous!  And smells great!

(But doesn't wash out of clothing.  Okay.  Let it go already.)

Let the paper dry for a few hours, then cut it into pretty shapes to send to Sissy and Lindsey!

We also made some stained glass flowers, inspired by a stained glass cross we made for Easter.

We are super crafty during birthday week!  :-)

Too bad sunlight doesn't shine through the dorm room door.  Look how pretty these are when they catch the light.  I especially love the tulip.  Sissy may need to hang these in the window instead.

Happy Birthday, Sissy!

All The World's A Stage

We recently subscribed to a new thing called KIWI CRATE.

Once a month a new box will come to our door filled with supplies to make special projects.  We got our first crate last week, and I tucked it aside, knowing it would make the perfect activity for after Nana and Papa's big party.  Sure enough, we came home, pulled it out, and had a wonderfully relaxing evening full of creativity and design.

The theme of our first crate was fairies.

Score!

She set right to work making fairy paper dolls and dressing them in fancy outfits.  Everything we needed, right down to the scissors are markers, came in our box.  Easy Peasy.

I knew she would love the craft concept, but even I was amazed by how long this kept her attention.  She worked well into the night making dolls, and got right back to it after church on Sunday.

(The crate also came with supplies to make a magic wand and a flower headband.)  I was super impressed by the quality of the supplies in the crate, and she clearly enjoyed the variety of materials available to her.

She even asked me to make a prince charming and a knight in shining armor.  I was very excited because, of course, I was dying to get in on the action.  :-)

One thing led to another, as it usually does around here.

First, she had the idea of gluing sticks to the paper dolls to make puppets.

"Use the popsicle sticks that don't have any popsicles on them," she said.  Okay!  The boys got plain sticks, but we decorated the fairy princess sticks with pink glitter.

Then.

She sent her Daddy to the garage in search of a box.  A box we could cut into a stage for our new puppets.  Buzzard found us a good box and we decided to spray paint it.

But we didn't have any spray paint, and we were feeling impatient.

So we decided to use craft paints we had on hand.  It started out one color.  Then we added another.

And another.

And a backdrop.

And a few scallops to the top.

So basically, it started out a "simple craft", like they always do.  Then I felt it escalate, and before I knew it, I was on a mission to create something that would make Shakespeare's Globe blush with envy.

I cut out some of the cute clip art from the Kiwi Crate paperwork and made a few additional puppets.

And I let the budding Thespian raid my fabric stash to pick out something for a curtain.

The only two things I purchased for this project were the dowel rod to hang the curtain ($.60) and a package of foam shapes to decorate the outside of the box ($2).  Truth be told, I think it would have looked cuter without the stickers.  However, I was wallowing in a bit of guilt over not allowing her to help paint the box, and I wanted it to be "her" project.  Applying foam stickers is a less messy proposition than slinging non-washable paint, so I was ALL ABOARD with the stickers.

And again, it kept her happy and occupied for a staggering amount of time.

TA-DA!  A Sunday afternoon "impromptu" project....turned day long crafting marathon.

This could quite possibly be the best part of owning a new Epson printer.

I loved my new printer to begin with, but who knew the box held such great promise??  Ha!

I especially love the backdrop she designed.  It was all her.  I love how there is a toad there for all the princesses to kiss!  And flowers with sparkle centers because everyone knows that fairies live in sparkly places.

So, my week has consisted of many puppet shows.

Followed by brief intermissions and more and more and more shows.

So many, in fact, that I found myself needing a seat filler, just like at the Academy Awards.  I finally had to suggest we construct a little audience to watch her productions.  This proved to be a willing crowd with quite a lengthy attention span.

This whole process was unexpected and seriously fun.  I stand amazed at her artistic little mind, and I just get more and more excited by her boundless creativity.  She's already gotten hours and hours of use out of her new puppet theater, and my favorite part is that every time I walk by it, she's concocted some new set of fun.

I'm new to Kiwi Crate, but if every month sparks this many ideas and assures this many hours of constructing and designing, I think we're in for a fun ride!!  I can't wait to find out what next month's theme will be.

And if you plan to visit my house at any point in the near future, get ready.

HAVE WE GOT A SHOW FOR YOU!!!