Day 7- Creating Memories

I was talking to my sister-in-law last night about this crafting goal for the year.  I was telling her things that I have done, our failure, and my favorite so far.  She happened to mention that one of her more favorite things to do with some of her younger clients is a memory box to put photos in.  Well, that got me thinking, it would be nice for the girls to have something to keep some of their smaller projects in, as well as pictures of the numerous crafts we are going to do this year.  So, ANOTHER trip to JoAnns (which, I needed some stuff to finish these owl invites) and I had everything we would need, plus some.

The fun thing about this project was that it was truly a free for all.  No paint, but everything else was a free for all, stamps, stamp pads, markers, crayons, colored pencils, marbles, peel n stick foam, sequin, beads, nylon cording, wooden stars, pom-poms, you name it, i let them have it!  And Penny LOVED it!  She had so much fun.  I gave her a glue stick and let her go.  One of the only crafts so far that has involved no fits!  She was free to do her own thing, and she loved it.  Iris enjoyed it too, her tendency for lines was blatantly obvious.  She was more willing to ask for help gluing things on, but she was very particular about how she wanted things done.  She wanted specific colors on specific things in specific places.  The kid knows what she likes!

On a side note, I realized today, I am happier than I have been in quite awhile.  I feel inspired and motivated.  I haven't felt like this in a long time.  I walk into some place like JoAnn's, or Pat Catan's, or Michael's, and I want to try new things.  Yes, my life has begun to revolve around crafting.  I am constantly thinking about, planning, scheming about new craft projects.  Pinterest has become my new best friend.  My hands have all but fallen off from punching holes, cutting paper, gluing ridiculously small pieces, pushing brads, etc, but I am happy!  I am loving the amount of quality time I am spending with my kids.  I love how inspired and excited they are EVERY morning.  They talk about their craft project at breakfast every morning.  They talk about it until we make it, and as soon as we do, they can't wait to show Mike.  And once he sees it, talk turns to the next craft.  It has brought us all together as a family, and I love it... though this blog is KILLING my bedtime!  I just hope that maybe, at some point this year, I inspire someone to sit down with their kids/grandkids and make something.

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 5-Splat

It was bound to happen, I knew the day would come.  My only hope was, it wouldn't day be on the fifth day of this year long quest... We had a dud.  A big, slimy, sticky, purple, dud.  My aunt, uncle, and cousin were due in around noon, so after hurrying up and cleaning the house, I decided to get our "art" out of the way today.  I wanted to do something that didn't involve sitting around the table (the owl project yesterday has me tired of sitting in my seat at the table).  So, I started searching, and I found this really neat "slime" idea.  http://www.ourbestbites.com/2010/09/kids-in-the-kitchen-slime/
Huh, Slime, new, different, get the kids involved, let them mix, pour, and create, and it is something I can pull out on quiet days.  Or so I thought.  I got my water, I emptied our glue bottle- we had EXACTLY 1/2 cup left- I went downstairs and pulled the Borax out of the laundry room.  I was SET.  So, I measured everything out, called the kids in, and we started adding.  I was encouraged, it looked like the pictures.  The girls wanted purple, so I set to work making purple with blue and red food coloring.  Heck, it even turned PURPLE!  This was looking good!

And then, we got to the "You might think you messed up because it's so loose.  Just keep smooshing!" step. Oh, what a mess!  We smooshed, and we smooshed, we stirred, kneaded, smooshed some more.  And eventually, when I finally thought my arm would fall off from smooshing so much, it formed a ball!  Ahh, sweet relief!  Great, we have our "art" done, now we can play with it for awhile.  I put the ball back in the bowl for about 5 seconds, turn around to get a paper towel, look back, and it is liquid once again!  UGH!  So, by this point, my family is here.  My cousin starting trying to help me "doctor" this substance that is looking more and more like the You Can't Do That On Television slime by the minute, just purple.  No matter what we do, it is just liquid as soon as you stop kneading it.  So, I am left with a bag full of purple slime that will likely never see the light of day, a bowl that may be permanently crusted with a glue, borax, purple food color mix, and purple... all... over... the.... kitchen.  If I thought that mixing this stuff was hard, yeah, the scrubbing of the kitchen that came after was FAR worse.

Chalk one up to learning, I will NEVER make "slime" again.  But, the kids had a BLAST squishing it between their fingers, and getting to help make it, so I guess, all in all, it wasn't a total failure...   But, I think you can understand why I am NOT posting the recipe here.... 

 

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.

 

Day 3, a day late.. oops

Well, I failed, a day late on my post, but we DID craft yesterday.  Actually, it was a lot of fun, save the total meltdown Penny had because I wouldn't let her pour the paint :/  Once she got that out of her system, she loved "smashing" the paint.

The Set Up, so clean given what we were doing!

We painted suns, by simply cutting a white circle out of paper, pouring red, yellow, and orange paint randomly on the paper, covering it with plastic wrap and "smashing" and "pushing" the paint around until all of the white paper was covered.  After the paper was totally colored, we pulled the saran off (ok, I did, VERY carefully, and QUICKLY disposed of it in the trash!)  Then, I gave the girls each a toothpick, told them to stick the tooth pick into some paint that I poured onto their plates, and to make "Rays."  I put Rays in quotes because we are talking about a two and three year old.  Penny had a different idea about where the suns rays are.

 But, in the end, I think I can say the turned out awesome.  I love how they each turned out.  I wish Iris hadn't gotten tired 3/4 of the way around the sun, because I still like her sun more than mine.  I love Penny's abstract sun, it looks like the sun is letting off flares.  Mine seems boring in comparison.

I hope that missing yesterday's blog didn't ruin me for the year!  But, I kept up the main part of the goal, I made an art project with the kids!!  The idea for this project came from: http://mrskarensclass.blogspot.jp/2012/01/lets-fly-to-moon-or-jupiter.html with the help of my friend Patty.  Loved they link, THANK YOU!!!

Day 2- SUCCESS!

I am so excited!  Today's craft, water color Popsicles turned out to be a HUGE success.  Minimal preparation was required, as in, I took 10 minutes last night and filled an ice tray and dropped a few drops of different colored food color in each tray, stuck sticks in the trays and froze them overnight.

My 3yo paints at school almost every day.  They do this really cool technique where they wet both the paper and the brush, it turns into really beautiful paintings.  I was hoping that this would turn into something similar that she would enjoy just as much as she enjoys painting at school.

I must say, I was leery at best.  I was wondering if it would really work.  I thought it may not end up coloring on the paper at all, but I was presently surprised today when I got them out of the freezer, they worked SO well!  The kids had a blast, and I enjoyed them too.  Here are a few pictures of the finished products.  Quick, easy, and FUN, I will have to remember this one for summer time!
Still formulating tomorrow's craft, not sure what to do, but I am sure we will have fun.  I just want to give a prop to http://factorydirectcraft.com/factorydirectcraft_blog/ice-painting/ for the idea for today's craft.

Day 1

So, today began Craft Year.  I put a lot of thought into today's craft because I want to be able to repeat it on December 31st of this year.  This way, I will be able to show the progress the entire family has made over the year.  A problem that I am running into is that it is hard to find a craft easy enough for a two and a three year old to join in on, but one that is also unique and interesting for Mom- aka me.  I found a cool New Year's dragon on Pinterest, my new best friend, and with some help from my wonderful husband, it was fairly easy to do, even with a screaming two year old!

All we did was take 1 cardboard egg carton, some acrylic paint, a few pom-poms, googly eyes, a large jingle bell, and some 1/4" elastic.  I cut apart the egg carton and let the kids paint the cups.  After painting was completely, I poked holes in the egg cups to string them together with the elastic, and attached a jingle bell at the end.

It is sort of hard to see here, but you can see in the red one behind that they are strung together with elastic.  I turned the first one on edge to be the "mouth" of the dragon.  Once I attached the construction paper tongues, pom poms, and eyes, here are the final products.  Note to anyone who may try this at home, the only way I can get pom-poms to stick to anything is by using hot glue or super glue.  I know that the super glue is going to end poorly one day, with me glued to SOMETHING haha.

On a slight side note, I am realizing quickly that Penny, my two year old, is just TOO young for many of our crafts.  She loses interest quickly, and gets VERY mad when I don't let her do things, like pour paint into cups, or use scissors-- does she think I'm insane?!  I hope that it gets better throughout the year.
And finally, this is the "before" picture.  My crafting supplies, laid out on our small dining room table, on January 1st, 2013.  I hope to take an "after" picture at the end of this year.  I am already trying to figure out where I am going to put my soon to be acquired supplies!  I think my 31 rep is going to LOVE me haha.  Peace, Love, and CRAFTS!-- Kara!