Day 90: Happy Easter!!

Hope the Easter Bunny was good to everyone!  He sure was good to our family, in two houses even.  The girls were so excited.  I have really gotten into the holiday spirit this year, making multi-colored pancakes for every holiday imaginable!  Today was no different.  We started the morning with neon green, blue, pink and purple pancakes.  We spent the afternoon/early evening in Thompson with Grandma Lustig, Mike's parents and his sister and brother in law.  With dinner, we had a fruit salad with edible flowers, with which, craft was born.

Last weekend, we were going through boxes and boxes of stuff and I found frosty "laminate" paper that I thought "ohhh, that would be cool to make bookmarks with this fall.  Well, today, as we were leaving Grandma's house, I was thinking in overdrive to come up with a craft for tonight.. i am noticing a trend here, i am not planning as well as i used to be!... and as we climbed into the van, I thought "omg, flowers!" so I went running back to grab the edible flowers.

When we got home, I pulled the laminate sheets, a 12x12 white cardstock, and markers out.  I cut the cardstock into 2x7inch pieces with  my handy paper cutter from Christmas (thanks, Mike, again!) and let the girls at them with markers.  When they were done, we added flowers to them, and laminated them together.  After they went to bed, I added floss tassels.  Now i am wondering if the flowers are going to mold/dissolve, etc.  Time will tell, I guess!

oh, btw, the shaving cream flop eggs- here is a picture of them after i cracked them hahaha.  I guess it worked, just not on the shell! :-p

Day 24- Birthday medallions

Well, today ALMOST broke my resolution.  We had a minor catastrophy at our house when Coraline lost her blankie this afternoon.  I realized at 2:30, shortly before naptime, that Blankie was NOWHERE to be found.  I frantically called all the stops I made today and no one had seen it.  I laid her down for a nap without it, and she would NOT sleep!  I called Mike, in a panic, asking him "WHAT DO I DO?!?!?!" and he said "Take a deep breath, let her cry, do your craft with the kids, and if she isn't asleep by the time you're done, go look for it."  So, that reined me in enough that i was able to focus, somewhat on a craft until C finally fell into a VERY short sleep.  The good news is, I got the kids in the car, drove to McDonalds- 25 minutes from here- and found it, in the parking lot, covered in snow, run over a few times, with a hole in it.  But, I was able to repair the hole, wash the blanket and there is no sign of the near disaster.  I wish I had a camera to show how happy she was to see her blanket after 8 hours!

So, back to craft today!  I decided to make a medallion to go on the top of Iris' birthday cake with her.  I found this website http://www.scrapbooksetc.com/theme/occasions/birthdays/sweet-sixteen-birthday-crafts/?page=2 that gave me the idea, and I thought, "Wow, that is cute, fold some paper into an accordion, fold it to make a circle, and then glue stuff on top of it!  That is totally doable!!!" ummm, wow, this was SOOO much more complicated than I thought it would be!

I found a Youtube video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0XCWHsGj5Q, and HOLY $#!^ what have I gotten myself into?  I quickly realized that Iris would NOT be able to do this exactly with me!

Let's do the supply list quickly:

1) paper 12x12 and accent paper
2) paper cutter
3) glue stick & liquid glue
4) Shishkabob skewer

I altered our medallions from the video because I couldn't get 1.5 inches to work!  It just didn't want to stretch that far with 1 sheet.  So, I made them 2 inches wide and glued two pieces together then followed the directions.  With 2 pieces glued together, I didn't have to glue the centers together first, it made it loose enough that it laid down on its own.... I gave iris her own 2 inch strip that i let her accordion fold on her own, and decorate as she felt fit.  She liked coloring the "squares" she made.  Then we glued hers together and stuck the square paper center on the top.  Iris' was a bit harder than my circle because her accordion didn't really fold down well, as you can see.

At this point, Coraline woke up from her nap and was TICKED.  So I loaded the kids in the car and went back tracking to look for the blanket so we didn't have time to finish Iris' medallion completely.  She had asked for the gold sparkly foam sheet on her medallion, so I cut a gold sparkly "4" and glued it to the big medallion.  Once that stuff was dried, I flipped it over, cut a skewer to size, and glued it into one of the "peaks" of the accordion.  I hope that we will remember to take that with us on Saturday to add it to her birthday cake!

The nice thing is, I was able to have Iris to put some effort into mine as much as possible, gluing what she could, etc.  I have been trying hard to keep her involved in everything.  It came be hard, but it isn't impossible.  I learned one really valuable lesson today: things aren't always as easy as they first appear!  YIKES!!!!

Oh, and in totally unrelated news, I have learned to make crocheted flowers!!! :)  I am working on finishing a scarf for Iris, I will take a picture when done.

Day 6- BIRTHDAY TIME!

And, it's already time for the first birthdays of the year.  Mike's sisters both have a birthday on January 10th, so logically we made birthday cards today, the first of MANY I am sure!  Divide and conquer: one kid for one aunt, one for the other, one adult helping each.  Boy, having that extra set of hands really makes it nice- especially when Penny FREAKS out about everything, I know three doesn't get any better, but this two stuff is for the birds!  I keep hoping that she will get it through her head that screaming and yelling aren't going to do anything productive for us!  But, alas, we still end up with a temper tantrum almost every craft day.

Anyway, I digress, we made cards today, and overall, they turned out really well.  I am already starting to be able to use scraps and left overs from other projects, though I am still buying stuff.   Today's big purchase was a "medium" hole punch to finish the eyes of the owls.  It came in handy for the birthday cards.  Iris is really thriving on making paper crafts.  She is learning how to use scissors now and really enjoyed punching holes in paper.

I am so thankful that my wonderful husband bought me all this crafting stuff for Christmas!  Googly eyes, sequin, beads, pipe cleaners, a paper cutter (which I got to use today, and I LOVE it!), pom poms, ribbon, and much more.  It has come in such handy already, though I am sure that I will be emptying my supply much quicker than I care to imagine this year.  I have a 25% off EVERYTHING purchase @ JoAnns and a 50% off coupon for this week, so, time to hit up the crafting store this week!! :)

   

 The final products, pretty happy with them, honestly!

Peace, Love, and Crafting!

Day 4, OWLS!

So, while looking for craft ideas a few days ago, I came across this adorable paper owl on Pinterest.  A quick (and relatively inexpensive) trip to Jo-Ann's today, I came out with a phenomenal amount of paper crafting supplies.  These itty bitty paper brads, googly eyes, large 12x12 scrapbook paper (on sale for .20!!) and some fun 8.5x11 paper for "wings", oh, and a stamp and ink pads.
I spent a lot of time trying to figure out a good pattern, which is infuriating when you're sitting at the table with a 3 year old asking you every 15 seconds "Mommy, when is my birthday?" "What are you doing?" "Why are you doing that??" UGH!  But, eventually I got it figured out.
Of course, Penny freaked out, she wanted to do it all by herself.  Then she let me put 1 wing on for her and decided she wanted to do the other by herself.  After that, she wouldn't do anything but pencil mark on her owl.  Oh yeah, and she ripped the wing that I put on for her, straight off.
Iris on the other hand enjoyed making her owl.  She wanted to pick out the color of the brads, the color of the owl, the wings, the stamp, the marker, etc.  She managed to help me put the wings on, glued the eyes and beak on.  She really enjoyed it and was proud of her final product.  She is looking forward to helping me finish the 14 other owls tomorrow.
We have decided to use these as her birthday invites.  I am going to write on each wing "Look WHOOOO's turning 4!"  Can't wait to see the finished product.  Maybe when I get them ALL done, I'll take another picture and update this one.  But so far, they are turning out well.