Library Lego Fun

The girls entered their first Lego competition this week at the local library.  They were both excited to bring in their pieces.

Luca’s Airplane

Nollie’s Trike

I absolutely adore our local libraries.  They definitely offer so much more than just books.

ps. If you are in town, go down to the main branch and vote on your favorite Lego creations.

Valentines Day Art

While I was busy making my Coffee Art, the girls were making some collages of their own.  I gave them each one of the small canvases from  Dollerama some glue and a bunch of pink and red items from the craft cabinet.  Paint, glitter glue, beads, feathers, pom poms, jewels, buttons, glitter etc.  We killed some serious time at the table creating.

I hung them on the wall as soon as the mass amounts of glue dried.

 

I Heart Coffee

I think my new wall hanging is just the best because: a. I made it and b. I really do love coffee.  I've been dreaming about this project since I bought a batch of crappy coffee beans from the bulk bin about a year ago.  Its no surprise that I can't throw anything out so the beans went to the craft closet until I could come up with a use for them.

I used one of the small canvases from Dollerama, the ones that come in a 3 pack.  A little paint, a little glitter, some hot glued beans and voila, you have a piece of art.

The best part was that I got to enjoy the beautiful aroma of coffee while I did this craft.

Maybe I'll have to make a few more.

Nollie's Christmas Embroidery

This is Nollie's first embroidery piece that we have hung on the wall.  Its a tree with no leaves.  When she was done stitching she needed to staple it to a piece of paper, staple garland around the outside and cut off the excess paper & fabric. It was entirely her creation and I love it.

Styrofoam Balls & Pipecleaners

The girls found a bag of Styrofoam balls in the craft supplies this weekend.  They opened them up and weren't sure what to do with them.  After watching them attempt to cut the balls and seeing there scissors slide off I suggested they use pipe cleaners to stab into the Styrofoam.  They were delighted and it kept them busy for probably an hour making creations.

 

 

When You Can't Cut, You Tape

Nollie came in the kitchen yesterday to find me cutting fabric on the island. I've been cutting little squares out of my fabric scraps to potentially make a quilt.  "Can I cut some fabric for the dress you are going to make me tomorrow"  She has been bugging me about making her a dress for quite some time.  "Sure" I say handing her my bag of scraps, hoping that this will hold her off from asking me to make her dress right now.  She takes it to the table and gets some scissors from the drawer.  "I need some cardboard too"  She says.  I bring her a old flattened cereal box from our craft supplies.  She looks at me with a bit of disgust "Not that kind of cardboard, the kind that is the colour of cardboard."  So I cut the front panel off the box and hand it to her with the inside up so she can see the "cardboard colour", she seems satisfied.  I watch her as she lays a piece of fabric down and puts the cardboard on top like I do with my quilting ruler and tries to cut along the straight edge.  My heart nearly melts, she has been watching me enough to know how it works, so cute!  I go back to the island and continue my cutting and before long I hear her cry out in frustration "Its not working!  The scissors wont' cut the fabric"  I knew that was coming, her scissors are not sharp enough to cut fabric.  "Can I use your knife?"  (my rotary cutter that I am using right now), um no and no, 4 year olds don't need a round blade on a stick, it is too sharp, I'm using it right now and it is MINE!  So I say "No Nollie, it's too sharp."  "But, my scissors aren't working and I need to cut some fabric for the dress you are going to make me tomorrow."  "I'm sorry but, no you can't use my cutter".  Meanwhile Luca is running around trying to save the day and get Nollie a knife from the utensil drawer, a butter knife, no not sharp enough, a steak knife.  Nollie didn't appreciate her thoughtfulness.  She sits for a bit and then says "I need some tape."  "Sure" I reply and she goes to get some tape from her craft cupboard.  I start firing out suggestions, thinking about how taping fabric may also not work.  "You know, you can do something completely different, you can glue some of the fabric scraps onto the cardboard to make a collage."  I get the disgusted look again from her "I need tape."  Ok, fair enough and I just let her be.  I came back later to find this:





 I sat down to watch and she asked me to help.  She gave me pieces of tape and told me exactly where to put them and when we were finished we had these:

They are pieces for her dress we are going to make tomorrow....

All Tied Up

I've been finding little treasures like this all over the house.

Nollie has always loved to tie things up.  Initially if she found a belt or a watch that wasn't attached to a person she would wrap it around and through itself so many times that it looked like a ball.  She's now moved on to tying anything she can find.

I have started giving her a shoelace to play with and she will sit quietly for half an hour or more and just tie it up.

If there are beads about she will add them.

Look at this little diddy she did on her dress strings.

 

I'm happy to encourage anything that will keep the kids busy. This doesn't seem to be a fleeting obsession so I'm on the look out for ways to keep her excited with knots.  She's a bit young for a knot tying book so I guess I just keep her occupied with an assortment of items to tie up.

Ladybug Craft

Here's a simple little craft that I did with the girls the other day at home.

On white paper draw a large oval with a line down the middle using a felt marker. Cut out a half circle for the ladybugs head and a bunch of small circles from black construction paper. Have the child glue on the head and spots onto the lady bug. You could also use black stickers if you have some.

While they are busy gluing place corn syrup into a container and mix in a couple drops of red food colouring.

Let the kids paint away with the coloured corn syrup.

Finished Products.

The corn syrup will give the pictures a shiny textured look when it dries. These take a long time to dry completely, I would recommend leaving them for atleast 24 hours before touching the painted areas.

Without The Web

Our internet air card died last week and I have spent the last week without my favorite addiction. I was nervous but it was actually no problem at all. Knowing the internet was not there I did not feel the pull to just check one thing and then get stuck staring at the screen looking at all the cool things I could be doing but not actually doing them. I'm not sure exactly what I did in the last week. Work on the house? Nope. Spring cleaning? Nope. My sewing machine did make a few appearances on my kitchen table and I managed to finish this cute little apron for Nollie. Of course we had to make a batch of cookies as soon as it was done to test it out.
I'm glad to be back online and excited to keep crafting.

Change of Plans

I was just working on a post about making new friends and about scrapbooking and when I read it it sounded like I took my Debbie Downer pill this morning (wah, wah, wah). I decided I didn't want to post something where I was feeling sorry for myself and so I will just post this.

The more you practice the better you will get!

Happy Thoughts

All Things Colourful

I've been adding a lot of colour to my life lately. I guess I'm getting tired of the winter white & brown outside and dreaming about spring. Here is a taste of some of the colour in our house.

We coloured some rice this week. The girls had fun as we danced around the kitchen shaking the rice in a plastic bag to mix the colour in.

Both girls enjoy scooping the rice from one bowl to another, it keeps them busy for up to an hour. Yes it can get messy, I just have to keep my ears alert to the sound of rice being dumped on the floor or table and then we're done. Anyway dry rice is much easier to clean up than sticky cooked rice and the cookie sheet catches most of the misses.


I made some colourful ice cubes, and then.....

...we got to watch them melt and see how the colours changed when mixing together.

I sorted my buttons. They look so much nicer in separate colour jars rather than all mixed together. Seeing them all lined up like this makes me happy.

I hope you're adding some colour to your day.

Headband Finished

I finished my headband this weekend. It feels so good to finish a project, I should remember this feeling (I'm not much of a finisher). I am happy with the results, it looks really good, if I do say so myself. I did end up taking it all apart and restarting it after the first weekend. I really should have started with a practice knit of just a little swatch to get the hang of knitting before starting a project. The first attempt looked really shoddy and the perfectionist in me couldn't handle it. This is part of my problem with finishing things, I figure if I can't finish it properly why finish. I learned a lot from this project. How to tell a knit from a purl by looking at them rather than counting the 100+ stitches to figure out where you should be. How to un-knit and fix a mistake. How to use markers when knitting and of course how to cast on, bind off, knit & purl. It's a wonderful hobby and I think I will keep it. I love how portable it is, I could take it to playgroup, I knit in the van on our drive to the city and I knit in my rocking chair while Curt played video games or we watched a movie, and I didn't have to pull out a ton of stuff and then put everything away later, just place my yarn & needles in the basket & I was done.
I'm planning out my next project now. Marilyn brought over some yarn that used to belong to Grandma B. It's dark brown and I think it will make great cushions for our living room couches.

Note: Its really hard to take a good photo of yourself. If you have any tips please let me know.

FutureGirl 2009 Challenge

Check out this post at Futuregirl's blog. She is Challenging herself to not buy any new craft supplies for the whole year and use up only what she already has. She has given herself a buffer budget of only $24 for the whole year to spend, what? Maybe she can inspire us to use a little more of what we already have and add a little less to our own stash, whatever it may be.

My real goal would be to have my crafting supplies as organized as hers so I could see all the stuff I have and get using it.

Scrapbooking

I started scrapbooking again, joined a bunch of girls that get together every couple weeks. I know the only way I will get any scrapbooking done is to get out of the house. At home I feel like I should be working on closets or putting up trim boards or just hanging with my kids & husband. It would also be difficult to find a place at home to work, especially with the kids awake. I already had lots of "help" from the girls getting ready to go out, pulling paper out of the folders and everyting else out of the bin. I mostly spent the evening sorting through photos & getting organized but I think the next time I will be ready to power through some pages. It's just nice to get out of the house & meet some new people. I'm looking forward to the next one already.

I'm opting out of writing about the solar tubes that went on the roof on Tuesday. I'll post a photo & give an update when they are all working properly. Why is it that every project we do has problems the first go. Hopefully we can get it figured today because there's no chance of getting up on the roof with the snow that fell overnight and the wind gusting at 50km/h. They got hot though, really hot.

The Story of My Scarf

I've been wearing this scarf all the time lately. I'll put it on to go outside and then just not take it off. This scarf is the one and only knitting project that I've ever taken on, it took me 3 years to complete. Over 5 years ago (not sure when exactly) I decided I wanted to knit. I bought some yarn and needles and printed some basic knitting instructions off a website. I didn't have a pattern but instead just started to knit. I felt like I was getting nowhere, I would knit & knit but the scarf wasn't getting any longer. Eventually I just put it down & didn't pick it back up for about a year. This is when I decided the scarf was much too wide (I was practically knitting a blanket). I took it all apart & started again this time less like a blanket & more like a scarf. Now I'm not much of a finisher so at some point I put the knitting down again. I did finish the scarf however it was three years after I originally started it. I have not even tried to knit anything following that.

I'm now getting the knitting bug again and I've bought some more yarn, got a knitting book from the library and have a pattern picked out. I plan to get started this weekend. I'll let you know how it goes. Hopefully it doesn't take a long as the last one.

New Addiction

I have a new internet addiction. Its www.etsy.com. I've just discovered this site "Your place to buy and sell all things hand made" Why would you ever want to buy a gift at Walmart again? This is a place for crafters to sell the things that they've made with each person having their own store within the site. Some of the most amazing items can be found here. Please check it out if you need to buy a gift, want a treat for yourself, are looking for some inspiration on what to make or want to sell your own crafts. I hope to one day have time to make a few things and open a shop here. In order to do this though I would have to get off the computer, stop looking at all this great stuff & start crafting myself. Anyway just thought I'd share......