I’m sure you’ve seen these boxes and these little paper books. Of course I had to copy and make two boxes for two little friends of ours (sisters). They are such a great idea and super easy to whip together.

I added probably an hours worth of work time to these by painting them. I wished I hadn’t the minute paint brush went to wood, but there was no going back. I did a single coat of acrylic craft paint, so you can still see a little of the wood grain.

Inside are a bunch of goodies to keep the creative mind working. Stickers, scented colored pencils, glue stick, 4 multi-sized paper books, and in the envelope a few smaller envelopes and blank note cards. I would have LOVED one of these as a young girl. I may be doing a more boyish set for my little guy. Such fun!

Here is what we made with our salt dough.

It was such a great family project. Everyone played, even daddy.

See the little Yoda in there.  It’s a mommy/daddy collaboration.  Daddy did a fine job sculpting and I painted. The force is strong with him, don’t you think?

Here is the recipe in case you want to try this out. Very basic.

2 cups flour
1 cup salt
1 cup warm water

Combine all ingredients and knead for 10 minutes (really work those arm muscles). The dough should be soft, elastic and not sticky or too dry. Add more water or flour to get correct consistency. Allow to rest for 30 minutes then roll, press, twist, smash, form, shape– whatever suites your fancy. Place on cookie sheet and bake at 250 degrees for a long long time (2-4 hours, depending on how thick your ornaments are).  They are done when they are brown on bottom and very hard.  When cooled, paint, paint, paint.

TOMORROW:  Ornament GIVEAWAY!!!!! 

I’m flying solo this week with the kids. Really missin’ the daddy right now. It’s times like this that I really count my lucky stars that I have him. He really does so much with the kids and around the house. So, you can imagine how late I’ll be staying up to get a wee bit of crafting in, if any at all.

So the kids and I have been playing, making stuff and organizing. They don’t like the organizing part very much. We did make goey gunk today, and let me tell you, it was goey!

And we had a little horned visitor too. Thankfully, it politely stayed outdoors where it belongs… Meet Mr. H. Toad.

Here is the recipe for goey gunk, if you feel so inclined. It kept my kids busy for about an hour if that’s any incentive.

Solution A= 1 cup white Elmer’s Glue + 1 cup water + 1 drop green food coloring and 2 drops yellow. Stir together.

Solution B= 1 1/3 cup warm water + 4 tsp Borax. Stir together in a seperate bowl until disolved.

Now here comes the fun part. Pour solution A into solution B. Do Not Stir. Swirl around a bit (see first picture). Drain out water and dump the slimey stuff onto your kitchen counter (see didn’t I tell you this was fun?). Knead the goey gunk for a couple of minutes and hand it over to your very excited, eager to make a mess, children. When done playing, store in an air tight container or zip lock baggie. Good for up to a week (depending on how many times it is dropped on the floor and how clean your floor is).

Enjoy!

To start off summer vacation right, we made some *play* dough to smash, form and smash again (with an occasional toss across the room). Yep, ’tis the craziness of my boys. We even made a yummy looking faux fruit salad. I did all the shaping as per instructions from my guys, along with a lengthy discussion on fruits, seeds, avocados, tomatoes and squash.

We made our dough plain white. When it cooled, I seperated it into 6 pieces, then carefully kneaded in several drops of food coloring to make a rainbow of colors.

I hope everyone has a wonderful long weekend.

We went to Lake Havasu City last weekend to see my sister and her family. Super-E thought it a great idea to make super hero guys (and gal) for his cousins.

He drew the pictures and I scanned them onto the computer adding the cute faces of my guys, niece and nephew. Then I printed out the images onto t-shirt transfer paper and ironed them onto fabric. After several mess-ups, I finally decided that the little stuffed super guys turned out best as triangle shapes (easier to stuff with less wrinkled faces).

The kids loved their super-hero guys. They were flying all over the place. We had a great time with my sister and her family.

Today, I spent a good amount of time sorting through a very large pile of notecard swap packages. WOW! Very fun indeed! They really were a treat to sift through. You can see all the notecard goodness HERE. I kind of did a quick dealing of cards, so I am hoping everyone is happy with what they received. They were sent off today, so participants should be expecting packages soon. Thanks to everyone who played.

I am still in the midst of a busy work/school schedule. Two more weeks of craziness to go before I hopefully return to a more quiet and less hectic routine. I am missing my crafting and posting very much, so you will be seeing more of me in the near future.

Who could be more inspiring than my little Super-E. He decided last week that we needed to put something on the front door to welcome spring. He came up with this tree in bloom with fruits, flowers and leaves.

He had very specific instructions as well. It should be “kinda biggish”, have lots of colors and be made out of a lot of fabric and buttons. He’s always scheming on ways to get his little grubby hands on my buttons. And since he has been bringing it up, for the last FIVE days, I knew I’d better get to work.

I cut everything out yesturday and he very carfully placed the pieces exactly how they should be. Then I spent this morning sewing it all together. I cant wait till he gets home from school so he can see our creation!

He has me pretty high on a pedestal as “One who can make ANYTHING!”, so he has a few more projects in mind for this weekend. His wonderful ideas are exactly what I needed to slowly push me out of my funk.

These were made by my Super-E, with just a wee bit of help from mom and dad. You know, some of those folds can be a little tricky. He discovered origami while home sick at the beginning of the week. Picked it up in a flash and has been busy creating little paper objects and creatures. We used this book to help with the creations. Klutz always has the best books for these kinds of things. I already have a few of their books and love them!

I see these bright paper objects scattered all over the house and they make me smile.

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!!!

I spent the afternoon with my little Super-E making Valentine’s for his classmates. We opted to make them instead of buying. No candy either. I figured the kids would probably be getting enough as it is.

We made little ice cream parlor themed crayons using melted crayon wax and candy molds. When it came time to pick the color of crayons we’d be using I had to gently guide my little guy to pick pretty colors. Originally he was picking dark greens, blues and purples. So, I would say something like, “Don’t you think red could be like the cherries on an ice cream sundae?”, “Doesn’t this orange remind you of orange sherbert?”, and “Doesn’t this green look like mint ice cream?”.

Finally, after getting a little frustrated with me, he sighed and said, “Mom, I like any color you like.” Spoken true like his father’s son. We ended up compromising. He picked three colors and I picked three.

E was so excited when we popped the first batch of crayons out of the molds. I got a lot of wows, cool, and an awesome. We also made little notepads and added erasers to make a nice little bag of treats. The notepad idea came from THIS great tutorial. Unfortunately, I didn’t follow it all the way through. Someone was getting cranky and it wasn’t little Super-E.

I thought I’d use a few posts to share some of the gifts I made and swap goodies I received over the month of December.

First up, for my aspiring little chef, I made this apron. I love the fabric with its “Paris Metro” design. The pocket has a cup, bowl and coffee cup applique with painted accents. Can you see the fast action stirring that he is demonstrating? Who needs electric beaters with this kind of super amazing speed!

Along with his apron he received the following three books for inspiration. All three are very kid friendly with wonderfully illustrated instructions and all are written by one of my most favorite vegetarian cookbook writers, Mollie Katzen.

And lastly, I made a little zipper wristlet with the same “Metro Paris” fabric. It’s for a youngish and much more fashionable friend of the family. I hope she liked it.

At my work, we are required to do one “on-call” shift per month. Tonight is my night. It is 10pm right now and I could be called into work at anytime. OH the agony!! I was already called at 6pm to go ahead and come in at 7pm then called right back 5 minutes later to be told “never mind”. Talk about taking one big dive into the depths of misery to be shot right out into glee! Still, I suffer much anxiety from this whole “on-call” business.

To keep the anxiety of possible impending work at bay, I cut out tons of little shapes today so that me and my Super-E could make MONSTER BAGS and tonight I have been sewing them all together.

It actually didn’t occur to me that this would be a great activity to do with my little guy until he got home from school today and squealed with delight at the thought of making monster faces. He quietly worked on his faces for almost two hours!

Here is what we came up with:

He arranged the faces for the green and yellow monsters on the bottom right, all by himself, and he helped me with the rest. Didn’t he do a fabulous job?!?! They’ll make great trick-or-treat bags don’t you think? Two will be sent to my niece and nephew, 2 given to friends and 2 for my guys. I don’t know how my little super-E is going to pick his. He may want them all for himself.

In case you want to try these out, they are made out of fun fur, furry fleece and craft felt. WARNING: Small little bits and pieces of fun fur and furry fleece fuzz may plague you forever. Seriously! The stuff sticks to EVERYTHING.