No-Sew Knight Costume

For Nathan's Castle party, I decided to make some easy no-sew felt Knight tunics for the kids to wear. In the past knight birthday parties, I used a silver plastic table cloth for knight armor, but thought felt would be just as easy to cut and would last longer for the kids.

I bought grey 72 in. wide felt at the fabric store. I only bought a yard, and it was on sale for $3. It was a great deal! I cut the fabric into 12x36 in. pieces (so I was able to get 6 costumes out of the yard of fabric).

I folded it in half and cut a hole in the middle for the head, plus a slit a few inches down the back so it was easier to put on. (see picture)

To make the fleur-de-lis on the front, I used my silhouette cameo. If you don't have one of these machines, you can cut something out by hand, but I would definitely make it a simpler shape.

I first cut a 10x10 piece of shiny fabric I had leftover from making a superhero cape long ago. I cut a piece of heat n' bond to match and ironed it on the back of the fabric. Then I was able to put it through my machine. Once it cut the material, I just pulled it off and ironed it on. It was very simple.

I cut slits of red and black felt to use as belts. Just tie them around the waist and you have a very simple knight costume for halloween or your next knight party.

my tough knights

No-Sew Heart Garland

I had seen cute felt heart garlands on pinterest and wanted to make one for my mantle.  The ones I had seen were made of hearts cut from felt and sewn together in a line, but I had no desire to cut out a bunch of hearts.  I started looking around and found some pre-cut felt hearts, but they were the peel-and-stick variety.  I thought "I can't sew through those! But wait . . . . I could just stick them back to back around a string and then I could even skip the sewing part! Yes!"

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And that's what I did.  I found these packs of Stick-it-Felt Heart Shapes at a local store and bought a few of them. The packs come with two different sizes of hearts in 4 colors.  I used just 3 of the colors (I didn't care for the hot pink).  I took the paper back off of a couple of hearts, laid a thread down the middle of one and put  the other sticky heart on top. I just continued sticking them to the thread until it was as long as I wanted. The felt hearts have a nice weight to them.  I'm happy with how it turned out.  

My garland is about 10 feet long.  It was not so long at first, but I left string on each end when I first hung it up.  When I decided I wanted some hearts hanging from side, I just made a new strand, tied it to the first one about a heart apart, and then stuck a new heart over the knot.  Did that make sense?  My mind is a little fuzzy tonight.  

I'm still working on the rest of the mantle. :)

The kids really enjoyed helping with this project.  It's pretty simple and they can do it on their own (although I had to lower my expectation that the hearts would be lined up perfectly).  They want to make lots more to hang around our house and their rooms.  

Do You Want To Build a Snowman?

This is a fun and easy winter craft that can be used as a decoration and a toy!

"Do you want to build a snowman? C'mon, let's go and play! . . . "  That tune has been stuck in my head since we saw Frozen last month.  Am I the only one here who's kids won't stop singing those songs?

We made these snowmen as a fun winter decoration/toy.

 I bought three square blocks at Michael's, but you could also just cut your own if you're crafty like that. These squares are a bit bigger than 3x3x3in. Sand them (although I actually skipped sanding because I'm lazy). Paint them white and let them dry.  Now find felt, ribbon, buttons, paint, googly eyes, and other assorted crafty things to make your snowmen!

Honestly, I didn't take a lot of time thinking about what to make each side look like. Since it's purpose was to be something the kids could play with a lot, I didn't want to invest too much time and money into it because then I'd just get cranky with them if they were rough with it.  I'm sure all you crafty ladies out there can make some super cute snowmen.  

The only tip I would have in your snowman construction would be to advise you to use some glue on the ends of the ribbon/lace to keep it from fraying.  I also tried using burlap for one scarf with lots of glue to try and freeze it in place.  I mean lots and lots and lots of glue. The buttons I stuck on with glue dots.

After I had made mine, the kids wanted to make their own. I bought smaller blocks and let the kids create their own mini snowmen.

And then they stacked them all, because that's fun.

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Roll a Monster: a Halloween Art Activity

This is a creative and fun art activity for elementary age kids during the Halloween season.

Last winter during school we played a game we called "Roll a MONSTER Snowman" which the boys really enjoyed.  I decided for Halloween we needed to play again and just make monsters.

We started by deciding what things we thought monsters should have.  The boys came up with the following list: fangs, horns, claws, arms, legs, eyes, nose, ears, and warts.  We made two die by taping paper onto cube blocks, using 'fang', 'wart' and 'eye' twice each, since it is easy to put lots of those things on your monster. 

The boys made a body and attached a head.  We then took turns rolling the die and adding the body parts to our monsters.  The boys loved it!  Nathan was especially happy that his monster had lots of teeth so he could eat people.  (sorry about the bad iPhone photos.  I didn't have my nice camera upstairs with me and downstairs was SO FAR AWAY!!)

Last winter when we made the snowman, we ended the game when someone had at least all the parts of a regular snowman. Since there is no regular kind of monster, I just called the game over when it seemed like the boys were losing interest.  We played about 8 rounds.  

After the game was over, the boys wanted to continue making monsters, so we left all the art supplies out on the table and let them do whatever they wanted.  I love watching them create!  

Stamped Penny Magnets

Hi friends!  So you know when you go on vacation and they have those machines where you put in a penny and 2 quarters and it smooshes your penny and puts a picture on it? My kids love those.  We have piles of useless pennies in drawers and this summer I decided to do something with them.  So I took a smooshed penny, put a glue dot on the back, and put a magnet on the glue dot.  Did I just blow your mind?  No?  Oh fine.  But still, the kids enjoy having their souvenir pennies on magnets that they can put on white boards.

That is all for this evening.  Carry on.  

Making Stick Horses with the kiddos

To go along with the “Booking Across the USA” project, I made some stick horses with the kids.  That post was already long enough, so I thought I’d do a separate post here with how we made the horses.  

I took the idea from the blog “Ever Never Again”.  She made these really cute horses for a cowboy play day.  When I saw them I thought “My kids would love those and I bet we could make them together.”  We could, and we did, but it took a while.  

To make these horses you will need:

1. large socks (I bought some cheap ones at Walmart. I liked that they had a different colored toe, because it made the horses look like they had a nose and mouth.)
2. A dowel (I bought inch diameter ones at Michael’s)
3. Buttons for eyes
4. Felt for ears
5. Yarn for the mane
6. Stuffing
7. Glue Gun
8. Yarn needle

The kids started by stuffing their horses.  I happened to have some extra plastic doll beads on hand from an old project, so we put some of those in the toe of the sock to add some weight to the head, but I don’t think it’s a necessary step.  Fill the head to the heel of the sock, then stick in the dowel and stuff around the dowel to the bottom of the sock.  

I handled all the hot glue.  Hot glue the bottom of the sock to the dowel.  Also hot glue some felt triangles to the head to be ears.  This was a bit tricky, but they turned out okay.  

You can either sew on the button eyes or glue them on.  We sewed.  

The kids were able to cut the yarn and sew it to the head for the mane.  Using a yarn needle, they would pull a piece of yarn through the back of the head and then tie a knot.  Did that make sense?  

Later, I found that we didn’t have to cut individual strands, but could just weave a long piece in and out, leaving loops that could be cut and tied later.  Sorry, it’s late and I’m not sure if I’m making sense. 

Maren also sewed some ribbon in her horse’s mane, which I thought turned out pretty. 

This was a very rewarding activity.  Maren especially was really proud of her horse.  The kids have had a ton of fun with playing together with them.  They've been playing horse riding school, making racetracks and having races and jumping over things. So far there has been no fighting with them, so that's good. 

Also, just FYI, Nathan has named his horse "Nathan".  Clever kid, eh? Ah, but he sure is cute. 

"Love at Home" sign and activity

While Valentine’s Day is usually a time for romantic love, I like to concentrate on love in general, since we have little kids in the house.  

I made this sign to help us focus on God’s love for us and the love in our family.  It quotes one of my favorite songs, “Love at Home”. I took this phrase from the last verse, which is one of my favorites.  It says “Oh, there’s One who smiles on high, when there’s love at home.”

I painted a 12x12 board with pink paint and then just cut out the words on my silhouette and applied them.  I drilled some holes in the board and hung it from a ribbon. Not very fancy, but I like it fine.

I talked to the kids about how it makes God happy when we have a happy home, which can be achieved by being considerate of each other and serving each other in our family.  I told them that when I saw them doing something that helps bring love into our home, they could put up a paper heart.  

The kids were very excited to start.  The first morning at breakfast, I mentioned that we still needed spoons on the table, and the 3 older kids all jumped up from their seats and raced to the utensil drawer.  I then explained that we weren’t going to fight over who got to do service, and that it’s also creating love in our home when someone lets someone else do something they wanted to do. 

Originally I was writing on the hearts who had done what to get the heart as a record of the kind acts I was seeing, but I soon found that the kids thought it was some kind of a competition and I kept hearing “I have more hearts than you now!” which was not the intent of the activity.  So I had to explain that when the wall is full of hearts, we are all winners regardless of who did the most kind acts, and also that when you do a kind act to try and beat someone else it doesn’t really count.  Who knew this would be so complicated?  Now we just put up blank hearts, and I hope they have stopped keeping score.  

I think this will be a fun activity for us leading up to Valentine’s Day.  

"Love" blocks

A while back I had pinned this project on pinterest thinking it would be a nice, easy activity to do with Maren someday.  We had a chance to make them on Monday and I think they turned out pretty cute.

We cut a 2x4 to the desired lengths and sanded them smooth.  She wanted hers all the same size.  I wanted mine different sizes.  I had found a cute pad of valentine's papers at Target along with some coordinating embellishments.  We put Mod Podge on the wood and smoothed the paper over it.  When it was dry, we sanded off the edges of the paper that were too long.  Then I got to use my new Silhouette Cameo to make some vinyl letters to go on the blocks.

I offered to make hers some new bigger letters once we saw that they looked a bit small on the blocks, but she said liked them that way.

Maren took her set of blocks up to her room for a valentines decoration and mine went up on the mantle.  I hope she'll keep them even when she's all grown up and remember the time we spent together.

Christmas Project - Sing LOUD!!!

The other day as my husband and I were going through some things left unorganized from the move, he pulled out from the pile a large blank canvas and asked "how many times have we moved this now?"  Because you see, many, many years ago, while I was a senior at college and before I was married or even dating my husband, I took a beginner's oil painting class just for fun.  While buying supplies, I had found this canvas on clearance for a great price and thought "Hey, I should paint something big someday." So it was a fair question.  We have moved that canvas many many times and stuck it back in a storage spot many many times.

But not this time! No, I was determined to put it to good use and justify the trouble of moving it across the country. It was a great deal after all.

We love the movie Elf around here, and last Christmas when I had seen in an etsy shop a print of one of our favorite lines, I knew I had to have that quote hanging above my piano at Christmas time.  I was surprised I had never thought of it before.  I didn't want to pay money for a print and then have the trouble and cost of getting it framed though, so it didn't happen last year.  Now I had the perfect thing to paint on my giant blank canvas.

And Voila!! Quote.

And a close up

Obviously it's not perfect.  For example, I am all too aware of the huge gap between the first and second lines, but unfortunately I can't fix it.  Some might suggest that I should have sketched it out before I started painting so such a thing would not have happened.  What an odd concept.  Some of us prefer to wing it and live with the consequences.  I've thought about adding some holly or something in that space but I'm afraid if I keep adding things it will just end up ruining it.  Opinions?  I guess I could redo it on a different canvas, but it'd be hard to beat the price of the first one.

Kids' Book Club - "Joyful Noise" by Paul Fleischman

This summer we decided we wanted to do a summer book club for the kids with our friends again.  The only problem was that we were really busy, and moving, and people were on vacation, so we didn't quite do as much as we had originally hoped.

We started by getting everyone together and discussing dates for book clubs and which books we were going to do.  The kids' input was considered, but they mostly just played while the moms talked.

We decided to try and get together every 2 weeks to discuss the book and do related activities. Each family was in charge of hosting one book club at their house and planning the activities for that book.

The books we did this summer were a book from "The Riot Brothers" series, "Joyful Noise", one of the "Geronimo Stilton" books, and "The Borrowers".

We were in charge of hosting the "Joyful Noise" book club.  I admit my kids did not choose this book, and they were not that excited about it, but I was excited.  It's a great book of poetry, written for 2 people to speak different parts out loud at the same time.  It was difficult at first for the kids to read in rhythm with another person, but they ended up enjoying the challenge.

We started the book club with a poetry reading of course.  We took turns saying the poems with a partner and then we talked about which poems were our favorites and why, etc. . .

Since the poems are all about bugs, I had planned some simple bug related activities.




The first was an art project.  We talked about symmetry and then with a black oil pastel we drew one half of a bug.  We then folded the paper and pressed down to make a complete bug.  The kids had fun filling the outlines in with bright colors.

After the art project, I think I had planned to do some kind of bug movement games, but I don't think those ended up happening.  Instead we skipped right to the treat.

The kids decorated cupcakes with candy and pretzels and sprinkles to make bugs on top.  They each made a couple so they would have one to eat right away and another to take home for another time.  The kids had a lot of fun with this activity.

It was a good book club.

For book club activities we've done in the past, click below:

"A Pizza the Size of the Sun" book club

"Cam Jansen" book club

"How I Became a Pirate" book club

American Girl Doll Apron

Maren had a slumber party with 2 of her cousins last friday, and she wanted to do a fun craft.  Since all of them have American Girl dolls, we thought it would be fun to make something for them.  While browsing on amazon, I noticed they have craft kits for making doll aprons, and I thought "Hey, that would be fun!" but I didn't want to spend $15 a kit.  I was thinking of how to make aprons easily so the girls could do a lot of the work, and I remembered a "simple sewing" Klutz book Maren found at a yard sale that has a "dish towel apron" project and thought I could do the same sort of thing with washcloths for the dolls, which would be a lot cheaper than buying the kit.  Now aren't you glad I explained all that?

Anyway, on to the project.  And forgive me for being lousy at giving adequate instructions, but you can probably figure it out by looking at the pictures, right?

I bought bright pink washcloths at WalMart for $1.88.  I also bought matching ribbon and some fun iron-ons.

First, we sewed ribbon on one edge.  (except I don't have a picture of this because the first time we made one I forgot and we ended up using iron on tape to stick the ribbon on later.  But sew it on if you remember)

Next, we folded it up about a third of the way and sewed down the sides and sewed 2 pockets.

Then I flipped it over and folded the other 2 corners down and sewed diagonally to make a pocket to slide the tying ribbon through.

To finish it off we ironed on some flower decorations and put the ribbon through.

Ta-da!

With guidance, the girls were able to do most of the sewing on their own.  I did the sewing down the sides because the thickness made it a bit tricky.  Maren also thought it would be fun to buy matching hand towels to make aprons for themselves, but we just didn't have time.

"How I Became a Pirate" Pre-K Book Club

I started a summer book club for my 4 1/2 year old daughter and some of her friends. We're meeting once a week through the summer. Each time we will read a book, do a few activities, and have a snack. Yesterday was the first meeting and it was FUN!
We read the book "How I Became a Pirate" by Melinda Long, illustrated by David Shannon. The kids all repeated Braid Beard's (the pirate captain's) instructions as though they were the crew.
A pirate crew needs proper attire, so we made ourselves some pirate hats following these instructions.
Next we played Captain, Captain, Pirate (Duck, Duck, Goose) on the trampoline.
A sword is very important to a pirate, so the children all painted a sword made out of the free paint sticks from Home Depot. I used a large paint stick for the blade and glue gunned half of a small paint stick for the hilt.
In the beginning of the book, the boy Jeremy Jacob is making sand castles when he notices the pirates approaching the shore. We made sand castles out of rice krispy treats. This was really fun. I spread out a rectangle of Press 'N Hold paper on the table and gave them each a good amount of Rice Krispy treat to play with. I greased their hands so it wouldn't stick to the treats. They molded and snacked.
The whole morning was really fun!

Super Spy Identification Cards

Well, 6 months later, I finally got around to making the spy I.D. cards for my daughter's friends that I had planned to make last year after her Super Spy Training Party.  Maren and Joshua were playing spies this morning and couldn't remember their spy names from her party, so we found the paper we had written them on, and I was feeling bad that I never made the cards (or had her write thank you notes - oops.  December is a busy month . . . )  So this morning I went a little crazy and made cards for all the partygoers.

Do you ever get a picture in your head of what something should look like and then spend way too long trying to get it to look just right?  Yeah.  That's what happened to me.  I generally try not to spend a lot of time on things that might be going in the trash after a short while, but I just couldn't help myself.  I couldn't find anything online that looked like what I wanted and so I had to invent it myself, and it took way too long.  I used a business card template on Pages and modified it to fit my needs.  I found images of a barcode and fingerprint on the web and used them to make it look a bit more official.

The front of the card has the agents real name, code name, and Super Spy Strength.  Maren had fun coming up with spy strengths for her friends.  Some Spy Strengths she thought of were laser beam avoidance, disguise design, voice disguise specialist,  silent sneaking, and equipment specialist.  The back says: Agent has been trained at the Super Spy Advanced Training Camp, November 2010.  This license authorizes agent in all covert operations.  Agent's ID is to be kept secret at all times.  Use code name in all communications.  I ran the cards through the laminator.

My kids really like theirs, and hopefully they'll keep them for awhile, because I'll be mad if they don't.

update 10/2012:

I've had several requests for the template for these. I made these cards in Pages, but have tried to converting it to Word so it's easier to share.  I'm not sure how well this will work, but if you want a copy to edit, try clicking here for the front and here for the back.

Paper Treat Holders with Window

These are really easy treat holders to make if you want to give out something a little fancier than a plastic bag. 

First, I cut 12x12 pieces of cardstock into three 4x12 pieces.  Next, to mark where I needed to fold the paper, I gently scored the paper with my paper cutter, being careful to must make a light line and not cut too far through.  You could also just mark with a pencil.

Make one line at 4 1/2 inches

Another at 6 inches

Flip it around and make one at the other end at 1 1/2 inches

Fold along the lines

I used a square punch from stampin' up to make the window.
Punch a square on the 4 1/2 inch side

Flip it around and punch another one from the other side
to make a rectangular window

Fill a bag with treats.  I used Wilton treat bags that are 4 inches wide, but you could
also just use a sandwich bag, folding and taping in the sides 

Fold the paper around the bag and staple
(You could also punch holes and tie with a cute ribbon

Add whatever tag or embellishments you like.
Sometimes I add a cut out at the bottom by the window and that looks cute too.