Finding Mommy

Happy Valentine's Day!

We've been very busy getting ready for Valentine's day tomorrow.  As usual, we waited until the last minute to get going, so our ideas may not be of much help to you for this Valentine's day.  Maybe next year or for another holiday!  Today Princess and I spent quite a bit of time preparing Valentine's for her class.  We started the "cards" a couple of weeks ago, but just finished them today.  As I've done in the past, I like to focus on a skill Princess is interested in learning and gear projects toward that.  She's very interested in learning to sew right now, so I came up with a lacing project that she could make for her classmates.

It looks a bit wrinkled because there's candy inside already.  Sorry!  I made a heart template and then cut shapes out of scrapbook paper that Princess chose.  I then punched holes around my heart shape but left an opening at the top, so it would form a pouch.  Princess did some of the lacing and I helped her finish them up.  We started the lacing in the middle of one side, so we ended up with a cute little bow when we were finished.  I made sure to tie knots at both ends of the opening and at the bow location so that the pouch (or purse as Princess refers to it) does not fall apart.

For her teachers, Princess and I made pretzel treats.  I've made these a few times.  They're super easy and we all love them!  I've done them with both milk chocolate Hershey's kisses and Hugs in the past.  You'll need waffle-shaped pretzels (I've also used the mini pretzels), Hershey's kisses or Hugs, and M&M's (you can switch the colors up for each holiday - we used the Valentine's day bag).  Preheat your oven to 170.  Line a baking sheet with waxed paper or parchment paper.  Spread pretzels out in a single layer.  Place one unwrapped Hershey's kiss on each pretzel and then bake for approximately 5 minutes.  Press an M&M into the center of each kiss and then pop them into the frigde to harden.  This usually takes mine a half an hour or so.  Yum!

At the last minute, I decided we needed something to "wrap" the treats in and came up with these paper boxes.  These were a bit time consuming to make (or at least it seemed that way with two excited children waiting on me), but relatively easy.  The boxes turned out great and the girls had so much fun decorating them.  Princess wanted to make several boxes for her little sister.  So sweet!  But I only had time to make one before starting dinner.  Mouse is obsessed with stickers and went a little crazy on the box she made for her big sister.  I'm glad they enjoyed it so much.  I'll have to make a few more to have around "just in case" so they won't have to wait on me!

Made by Princess for Mouse

Made by Mouse for Princess

You can find the instructions for the boxes here.  I used a piece of cardstock 8.5" x 8.5" for the top of the box and a piece 8" x 8" for the bottom.  The instructions are very flexible so you can make different sized boxes.  Our finished product was a 3" x 3" box, 1.5" deep.  The instructions are for making one half of the box using one sheet of cardstock.  You just repeat the process for the second sheet of cardstock to make the other half.

Our last project for the day, was this cute little hair clip.  The 3/4" snap clips were purchased from JoAnn fabrics and I had felt left over from previous projects.  I made two heart templates and then cut the shapes out of felt.  I used two large red hearts, one smaller pink heart and two strands of embroidery floss.  I first sewed the pink heart onto one of the red hearts.  Then I cut a slit in the red heart I was using for the back (the one without the pink heart attached) for the back of the barrette to poke out.  Lastly, I sewed the two red hearts together with the top of the clip sandwiched between them.  Pretty simple and all hand-sewn.  I apologize for the lack of pictures for each step, but here's one of the finished project.

Hope you all have a Happy Valentine's Day and enjoy spending time with your loved ones.  We're planning a day of pink and heart-shaped foods and activities!

 

 

Paper-mache "piggy bank"

When I purchased my last round of craft items from Discount School Supply, I noticed they had paper-mache piggy banks.  I decided instead of buying them (and you had to buy them by the dozen), we would instead make our own.  Unfortunately, the winter colds have definitely made it's way through our house this year (we're currently in round 2).  On the upside, we've used tons of tissues and I've kept the old tissue boxes to use for crafting items.  So for our paper-mache piggy bank, I used one of the small empty tissue boxes.  We did the project over several days. 

Day One - I first cut a piece of cardboard the same size as the top of the tissue box.  Then I cut a rectangular hole in the cardboard big enough for change to fit through.  I taped this to the top of the tissue box and we were all set to paper-mache.  There are tons of recipes on the internet to make your own paper-mache glue.  I mixed 1 part flour to 2 parts water and added a couple of tablespoons of salt to prevent mold.  After the glue is made, just dip the paper strips (I used moving paper since we have a ton, but you could use newspaper) in the glue and place on the box.  We then let the box dry overnight.

 

 

Day 2 - Another round of making glue and placing paper strips on the box.  Princess tired of this pretty quickly on day 2 and I ended up finishing the box myself.  She is only 2 and most of the time just interested in getting to the finished project.  Again, we let the box dry overnight.

Day 3 - Now that our piggy bank has dried completely and looks pretty good, I recut the change hole through the paper-mache.  Then we painted.  Princess painted more than half of the box on her own before tiring of the project and requesting help.  She also wanted to put money in it right away, but I was able to convince her that first we needed to let the paint dry.  So here are pictures of painting along with the finished project.

 

This Year's First Craft Project

She's only two...I have to keep reminding myself of that as she tells me "Mommy, I wanna do crafts."  So I decided to start on our Valentine's Day cards for our playgroup.  Cute little heart cutouts that we were going to glue tissue paper to.  I also wrote a very short message on the back in dashed letters, so that she could trace them.  (She had a lot of help with the first one.)

     

Princess quickly tired of the writing and gluing the way I had intended.  She had her own idea of how this was going to work.  (She's only two, she's only 2, as there's glue all over the table and she tells me she's now ready for a new craft.)

    

I realize that I have to get over being such a perfectionist, just let her do as she wants, and enjoy the show!  The hearts are pretty cute the way she created them anyway!  For more on where I purchased the items for this craft, please view our arts and crafts page.

One of my weaknesses

Yesterday I received my second set of boxes of recently purchased craft items.  This is my obsession...regardless of the boxes and boxes of craft supplies I've collected over the years, I just can't help myself.  I keep coming up with more project ideas for Princess and of course, they can't be made from anything I've previously purchased.  This time around I was a bit smarter and talked a few friends into splitting up the supplies with me...do I really need a dozen of everything?  So now I still have quite a stack of construction paper to pass off to someone else (I think 280 sheets will last us a while) including a few other craft kits.  I'm very excited to get started on some of these new projects with Princess and she is thrilled every time a new box arrives.  She calls them her "presents" and each new item we pull out of the box is another great adventure.  It's great that she shares in my enthusiasm for such projects!  Can't wait to post pictures of our latest artwork!