A Valentine and an apron

"Look what I made Monday" was not only too long a title, it wasn't all inclusive, since we have two people who could claim to be "I" here, so we've changed the title.

Valentine

I showed Calvin how to fold paper in half, draw half a heart, and cut it out to make a heart shaped Valentine. We completed one actual Valentine today, the one pictured here, before he spent the rest of the morning practicing the folding, drawing, and cutting talent. I have a feeling we'll be seeing more of that in the future. On the other hand, if I want to get any more Valentines finished I may have to break out the Cricut to get the hearts cut.

The finished Valentine is, of course, for Mouse. He wrote it all by himself, sounding out all the words, with only a little spelling help (the "ou" in mouse, and the surprise e at the end of both "mouse" and "mine"—the surprise h at the end of "Be" was his on concoction after that).

An apron

We've been going for a 40s or 50s sort of look in our house as of late (more on the re-decorating later maybe) and in perusing some fun idea driven websites I came across these aprons. I have yet to do any pattern sewing, and that's a good thing, because I had no pattern for these aprons, either. Thankfully, I did have my Godmother, an accomplished seamstress, visiting for a weekend to give me a lot of tips and tutuorials. She takes credit for the pattern we eventually worked out using a little bit of math and a lot of Calvin's scrap art paper, while I did most of the pinning and sewing.

I love the fabric and I love the look. The final product was going to have pockets, but I've decided that there are a few other changes I need to make, toom, so I Plan on making a second apron from the same general pattern that will be a little broader across the chest, a little shorter on the neck piece, and a little less wide around the middle. Minimal tweaks, really, seeing as that we started out with no pattern. Thankfully I have enough fabric for a second try. I'll add pockets next time.

Snowmen and Valentine's Wreath

I'm looking for structure in life. I don't know if I'll ever find it, but I'm starting here. Calvin and I do a lot of crafts, many of which are just crafts, like drawing, painting, or pasting, not tutorial worthy work, but just fun crafts. This will be our day to share them.

Snowmen!

This, by the way, was Calvin's first shape creating project with scissors (as opposed, that is, to shape destroying).

Valentine's Wreath

I got the original idea here, on Skip to My Lou, and then I adapted it to fit my own vision. This was the first project I made with my new sewing machine! That means it's easy, easy, easy. And this one actually has a how-to.

Supplies: 16 inches of 52" burlap fabric, matching thread, wire hanger.

1. Cut burlap down the length into four 4" strips (so you have four 4"x52" pieces).

2. Pair the pieces, laying one piece directly on top of another, front to back (not facing), so that you now have two pairs of pieces. Pin the first pair carefully and sew together down the entire length just slightly out from center, then again down the entire length slightly out from center, leaving a place in the very center to insert the hanger. Repeat with the other pair.

3. Use plyers to completely straighten hanger, then bend in a small hook at the one end. Insert the hanger through the first pair of strips and push it on, gathering it as you go, until half of the hanger is covered and half uncovered. Fold hanger into a 90 degree angle at the half way point, then slide the other burlap strips onto the other half; once it is all the way on, bend the other end to hold in place.

4. Bend hanger into the shape of a heart and wind the ends together. I had to add a few stitches to get the burlap to lay properly, then I added a white ribbon for hanging purposes. Tada!

Bookbag craft

Here is another one of the homemade gifts we gave at Christmas—hand painted canvas book bags. A little clichéd, I know, but when I saw the bags on sale at Joann's I couldn't pass it up.

Supplies: Canvas bag (or apron, etc.), fabric paints, pipe cleaners, sponge shapes, brushes, and fabric pens/markers.

1. First we made our stamps. Depending on who is doing this craft you could simply paint right on the bags, but with my three year old helper I decided that shape stamping would work better and we made the necessary shapes out of pipe cleaners and sponges. For flower stems I twisted one pipe cleaner into the shape of two leaves, then wrapped them around another straight pipe cleaner. For the grass I cut a pipe cleaner down a bit, then folded it in half to make two short blades of grass. With both of the stem and the grass I folded up one tip to use as a handle. For the flower heads we used a heart shaped sponge, and for the center just a dab with a paint brush.

2. Once we'd made our shapes I poured the paints onto small dessert plates, one color to a plate, and we dabbed our shapes into the paint, using a brush to make sure they were well coated before applying them to the canvas. We ended up with quite a bit of color mixing, of course. I allowed the bags to dry overnight before painting the second side, which I decided should have Calvin's adorable little hand prints, and he decided should have a few more shapes as well.

3. I finished this craft by writing on the bags with fabric markers (after they'd dried over night again). Done.

Christmas caroler craft

We are now back from our (irresponisbly unannounced) holiday haitus, a break that was from the computer only, not so much from life. As it turns out my biggest issue with keeping up with the blog over the past few weeks wasn't at all a lack of things to post, but rather a need ot keep said things secret. Crafting is fun to post, when it isn't meant as a gift for someone else who happens to visit the site on a regular basis, like the grandparents.

The Christmas holiday to us is a lot about tradition, family, and showing others that you care, sometimes through gift giving. In previous years we have included Calvin in both the gift giving and getting, but this year I thought was the right year to really get him involved in a more active way, and something about having him pick out gifts for us to buy so he could give them to others just didn't sit well with me. Instead, we decided to have him make the gifts he gave so that they would most truthfully be from him. I scoured the internet for general ideas and gave Calvin a rather long list to choose from. In the end we made wine charms for the men in his life, and painted book bags and a Christmas Caroler decoration for the women. I will post about the others later, although as crafts they are pretty straight forward, and here I will tell you about our Christmas carolers because they were the biggest hit of all.

Christmas Carolers

The idea for this craft came from a Disney kids idea guide; they had made a caroler out of a tube, pretty much as I do here, and set it on a mantle. Calvin and I expanded on the idea by making our carolers three, and giving them a base and a snow scene. Here's how we did it.

Supplies: cardboard tubes, paint & brushes, construction paper (light peach for faces, and mitten and snow colors), marker (black), colored pencil (petal pink), children's socks, raffia, cotton batting, styrofoam sheet(s), craft glue & brush, hot glue & glue gun, snow flake punch.

1. First we collected our paper tubes. I actually took wrapping paper tubes and used a saw to cut them down to size—about the size of a paper towel tube, a toilet paper tube and something inbetween, but the wrapping paper tubes were thicker and stronger. Then we painted our tubes, using a different color for each caroler, and gave them an afternoon to dry.

2. While Calvin was napping I cut the construction paper (actually I used scrapbooking paper) in the necessary shapes—ovals out of the peach and mittens out of three other colors. Then, after his nap, I drew the faces on the ovals with a black Sharpie and Calvin used the colored pencil to give them pink cheeks. Calvin put dabs of glue on the faces, used a brush to spread it around, then I adhered them to the tubes in the proper places.

3. To make the hats we cut the ribbed portion off of each sock (Calvin was actually able to do this while I held the sock), folded one end back and tied the other with raffia. Calvin did the folding and cutting and put the hat on each little caroler. I did the tying, and I added a dab of hot glue to each raffia knot and a line of hot glue under the edge of each hat.

4. To make their books we found some unused double-sided music (you could also print some off the web), and folded it in half lenghtwise. I held the paper while Calvin cut out each book from the folded edge. We glued the mittens to the music first, then to the tubes, Calvin again applying the glue and using a brush to spread it around before I did the attaching, holding it in place until it adhered well. Now are carolers themselves were done!

5. To make the bases I used my chef's knife (it will never forgive me!) to cut 1 inch thick sheets of styrofoam down to the size I wanted—I think about 12 inches by 5 inches. Then I posed the carolers on the sheets and traced around them, then used a butter knife to cut along the traced circles, making a groove wide and deep enough to seat each tube down into the styrofoam about 1/4 inch, then I lined each groove with hot glue before sliding the caroler into it.
We used cotton filling to make the snow; Calvin pulled it apart and I added dabs of hot glue just before he pressed the pieces to the syrofoam base. Lastly, Calvin used a snowflake paper punch to cut flakes from papers in dark blue, light blue, and sparkly white, then he pressed them onto dots of hot glue I added to the top of the cotton. Done.

 

Gingerbread train!

I'm always looking for fun winter activities, especially the kind that make the holidays merry and bright, but it was my mom who thought to grab up this adorable gingerbread train and give it to Calvin for Sinterklaasavond. He'd been asking to put it together ever since, but with a long list of other chores and away-from-home activities, like going to the store and finishing our Christmas shopping, we just finally got to our train building a few days ago. The wait was worth it, though!

He kept calling the frosting "glue"

Mmmm....almost good enough to eat, but we'll just stick to sniffing.