Painting with Veggies!

I cleaned out the fridge earlier this week and when I gathered these veggies that were well beyond their prime, I remembered a Toddler Art Party that my mom's group did when our kids were around 18 mos old. The host of the party set up a free painting area and had all kinds of veggies for the kids to paint with. I decided to do this again with Taylor. She loved it!

Basically, I just covered 2 cookie sheets with foil, laid out the cut fruits and veggies on one of the cookie sheets and put puddles of paint on the other cookie sheet. As always, we used our muffin tin to mix our paint colors. Then Taylor chose her fruits/veggies and dipped them in the puddle of paint, then stamped then onto the paper. By the end of her art session she was using the veggies as "brushes" and dragging them in various ways on her paper.

Paper Bag Pumpkin Craft

This was such a simple and fun craft to do with my 3 yr old and would be a great craft for kids of all ages. Here's how we created these adorable fall decorations.

Supplies:

- Orange Paint (I buy large bottles of Tempera paint in primary colors and then just mix the paint to create the desired color -- in this case we mix the red & yellow in a muffin tin to make orange)

- Paint brushes

- Scissors

- Paper bags (2 bags for each pumpkin) - I used lunch bags but you could make large pumpkins with paper grocery bags.

- newspaper

- rubber bands (at least 1 for each pumpkin, but I used 5 for each pumkin - explained below)

- Green cardstock (I used 1 sheet of 12x12) you could also use green paint instead.

Tear newspaper into strips.

Open a paper bag and insert a second paper bag into the first one so you bags are now doubled up. This makes them more durable and if one bag tears it won't show.

Fill paper bag about 1/2 - 2/3 full with newspaper. Press the newspaper down as you go, so that your pumpkin will be "full".

Gather the top of the bag and wrap a rubber band around the top several times, to create the stem of your pumpkin.

Now wrap another rubber band around the top 1 time, then pull the rubber band down around the bottom of the bag as shown. Optional: Continue doing this with 4 more rubber bands and arrange them somewhat evenly around the bag to create the ridges of the pumpkin. I like this step because it gives the pumpkins a more realistic shape and look when finished.

Paint the base of the bag orange.

Leave the pumpkins to dry overnight. Once dry, cut the stem of your pumpkin to the desired length.

Tear a strip of green cardstock and wrap it around the stem of the pumpkin. Glue the end of the paper to the stem. Then tear or cut out a leaf shape and glue it to the stem. If you are using green paint, you would paint the stem green.

Proudly display your new fall decorations!

Gymnastics

This was the perfect way to start our weekend! Taylor had her first gymnastics class yesterday morning. We enrolled her at a local community center in the same class as her BFF. As I've mentioned before, my girl is constantly on the go, high energy and absolutely loves when Daddy flips her in the air and throws her up in the sky. She started doing somersaults around 18 months and even in the womb the girl loved doing backflips. So, of course, gymnastics seemed like the natural choice for her first "extracurricular activity". I also spent several years in gymnastics as a kid and loved every minute of it, so I'm more than happy to share this love with my favorite girl.

There are 6 girls in the class, it's an hr long, every Saturday morning. I thought they would do floor exercises (somersaults and other movement) but they used the bars, the balance beam and a floor track (I think I've got the name of that right!). The floor track is like a long straight trampoline that the kids ran down, jumped down and bounced on. I would have liked to try it! They didn't have that at the YMCA, when I was a kid!

Anyway, she loved every minute of the class, and often ran over to us after conquering a new challenge and shouted "I DID IT!" with an overwhelming sense of pride.

Here are a few pics from her session:

(That's her BFF in front of her!)

We're all so excited to go back next week!

I knit a beanie hat!

I'm so PROUD!!!!

First, I have to thank my wonderful friend Jen, for walking me through this Cecily Beanie Pattern. Jaana, I would've called you (just to spare Jen some pestering!), but with the time difference I would've been waking you up at midnight! Anyway, the pattern itself is fairly simple, even for a first time knitter. But, Jen was pretty adamant about her passionate hatred toward purling. I don't think it's quite that bad. She insisted I had to knit this pattern "in the round" (meaning on circular kneedles for my non-knitter friends) which would eliminate the need to purl to create the stockinette stitch. She even loaned me some of her needles to use. Since the pattern is written as though the knitter is using straight needles, I put in several calls to my dear friend, to ensure I was knitting it right. The whole concept of how to translate a pattern from straight needles to circular needles, is still completely confusing (and unknown) to me. I just did what Jen told me to do and, Lo and Behold, I knit a beanie hat!!!

I used "Berry" Lion Brand Cotton-Ease yarn. I have a fairly small head and the pattern is sized to fit an "average female head", so it's not quite as snug as I'd like it even after one washing and a cycle on high heat in the dryer. But, Taylor is insisting I make her the same hat, so I'm using smaller needles and thinner yarn and we'll see where that gets us. It will either create a hat for Taylor, or another, smaller hat for me. Taylor was sooooo excited when I took her to JoAnn's on Sunday to pick out the yarn for her hat. She calls it "thread". When I first started knitting about a month ago, she would tell me "Sit and play with your thread, Mommy!".

I'm feeling much, much better than I was last week. I still have a lingering cough, but I'm back to the land of the living. I still can't believe how completely exhausted I was. I even tried working on this hat while I was sick, and I literally would knit a few stitches and then fall asleep. So glad to have my energy back so I can catch up on crafting and blogging!

Sick and Tired

There's hasn't been much crafting going on 'round here. I've been hit with a nasty cold. I've been in bed for 3 days with bodyaches and pure exhaustion. It's completely unlike me to stay in bed. I'm a doer. I have to be up doing. At this point, all I'm doing is drinking lots of fluids, getting plenty of rest and eating chicken noodle soup. Nyquil is my new best friend. I went to the doctor yesterday because I wanted to make sure I didn't have more than just a cold. He diagnosed me with "the common cold that is kickin' everyone's butts". So, if you have any inkling that you're coming down with a cold, up your vitamin C, take your meds, drink lots of fluids, do whatever you can to nip it in the bud. This nasty virus is not any fun!

I'll check in again, once I've kicked this thing!

Monogram Frames

I love the collection of magazines by Northridge Media. I consider Scrapbook Trends one of my "luxury" magazines and only purchase it as a special treat for myself. I have fallen in love with their Simply Handmade magazine. I have a link to they're blog in my sidebar and the current issue of the magazine has a tutorial for these monograms. I absolutely LOVE these! I have to make some!

Testing Another Pattern for Lil Blue Boo

Another T- Shirt Dress!

Read on to learn how you can WIN this Pattern!

I was super excited when Ashley of Lil Blue Boo asked me to test another recycled T-Shirt dress pattern for her. This pattern is just as clear and easy to follow as her Recycled Halter Dress Pattern that I tested for her a couple of months ago. But this pattern includes varying sleeve lengths, and variations in the main dress piece that allows for several customizable options as well as tips about seam re-inforcement and top-stitching that make the finished dress look very professional. She also offers even more tips on working with knit fabrics!

For this dress, I used an old USC T-Shirt of Daddy's that no longer fits, and cut up some more of our freebie Lakers shirts. Before I added the ruffle, the top looked like a cute little jersey. I easily could have stopped there, and it would have been super cute! But of course I finished it off with the adorable ruffle and I love it! Now Taylor can show her team spirit all season long, as she and Daddy cheer on the Trojans!

Head over to Lil Blue Boo and enter to win this e-pattern! Also, you have to check out her Paper Doll Dress It is sooooooo adorable!