Crafty Tuesday - Peace ♥ Love ♥ Dye

The little girl that I babysit for brought over a tie dye kit last week and asked if we could do it. My first thought was "What?", second would have been "I will be cleaning up that dye for days", third was "Jessie, embrace your inner hippie and go for it!". So that is exactly what I did and although I only used 1 color to try out how the kids would do it went surprisingly well. I would do it again (I am a true glutton for punishment). There were a few examples of different ways to do the dying on the back of the package. I thought for sure they would pick a starburst or swirl but no they chose to just crumble the shirt and put the dye on that way. Maybe that is why I thought it went so well b/c they chose the easiest one to do :)

The shirts had to sit the rest of the day and then I had to wash them. My girls asked "Are they done yet" like 10 times. The next morning I showed them their handiwork and both Piper and Violet decided that this was something that they wanted to do again. You can never have too much tie dye can you?



The girls almost got lost in our grass it is so tall :)

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Crafty Tuesday - Silhouette

Last week's Team Up Thursday got me motivated to attempt a project that I have wanted to do since I saw it last summer at my girlfriend Julie's house. A silhouette of our kids to hang on the wall. Today was as good of a day as any right? I lined them up and took a few mug shots :) You will notice that there are only 2 girls done and that would be b/c Ruby doesn't fear me yet lol :) That baby will not sit still for anything so I will get her another time - right.

I cropped the pictures so that the heads would be as large as possible.

Then I printed them out on our b/w printer. While I was downstairs (where the printer is located) I went to gather supplies.
Black card stock - check
Large white sheet of poster paper - check
X acto knives - hmm...missing
Ring, ring
"Matt, do you know where the x acto knives are?"
"They're not down stairs?"
"Nope"
"They might be in the garage"
I wandered around for the next 20 minutes thinking "If I were my husband putting the x acto knives away where would I put them?" Never finding them we went to Michael's armed with my handy 40% off coupon to buy my own knive.

Now is where the project starts to gain steam :) I carefully cut out the pictures



Taped them to the black card stock and cut that out



Taped to the white paper and put in some really cheap frames that I got from Michaels (9.xx for 3). I wanted to get them from a thrift store but yesterday they were $4 each at Value Village and up to $8 each at Goodwill.



I love them and so do Piper and Violet. As a huge added bonus I even used my quilting mat to do my cutting on. It doesn't ever get used for sewing anymore but at least it isn't sitting unloved all the time :)

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Crafty Tuesday - Happy Mother's Day

Yep, I started to do this project back then. By starting I mean receiving the pretty pink one from Piper's preschool Mother's Day celebration and getting the idea to make 2 more. Then it took awhile to buy the canvas b/c they weren't on sale and you know I am not paying full price for them. When I got the canvases home they sat for a bit waiting for me to dig out the paint from the basement. Violet was easy but our little Ruby - she kept her fist clenched so what was a mama to do? Her feet that's what! These have been done and "drying" on my desk until today when I pulled out my glue gun and completed the 1 month long craft project and glued on some ribbon to hang them. This could be a record even for me. Now, let's see how long it takes to get them hung :)

Left to right
Ruby, Violet, & Piper

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A Fairy House

After we went to the Fairy Festival the girls haven't been able to stop talking about the little fairy houses. Piper asks if we have fairies and why don't they have houses. Today we rendered that. We scavenged our yard and both of our neighbors yards so we would have enough to make the house. Seems as if everyone is keeping their yards REALLY picked up this time of year, twigs and bark were hard to come by :)

Here it is. Not as pretty as the ones at the nature preserve but they had better stuff to work with, just wait until you see the one we will build for our fairy's summer house. Crafty in a sort of outdoorsy kind of way :)

While looking for the twigs and bark we came across a turtle near our dock. It was a big one. I didn't have my camera back there so it is only in our memory. The girls thought it was pretty cool. I am sure Piper will tell her teacher about it tomorrow b/c they are studying turtles this week in school.

There were 2 girls that made that house but one of them had a red mark on her foot and had to go in the house. Yet she thinks that she wants to go camping lol :)

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Crafty Tuesday - Valentine Cards (2010)

The list came home last week with all the little one's names from Piper's preschool class. Monday while Ruby slept I cut out enough heart shapes for her to make cards for each one of her friends. There are extras b/c Violet will want to make some for her friends too.

We got a little bit of a start coloring on Monday b/c there was no school and ballet was also cancelled due to inclement weather. Piper ended up wanting to color in the My Little Pony coloring book after only 2 or 3 so put aside the heart project until today. Thankfully the party isn't until next Friday b/c at this rate it may take that long to get these made.

Originally I had thought about making a little heart lollipop by gluing 2 hearts around the sucker but unfortunately the lolli stick isn't long enough to really make it work so on to plan B. If I continue posting the crafts we do around here you will find there are a lot of plan B's.

Day 1 - sunny and optimistic

Day 2 - dreary day and baby girl is not into this project



Although we are not done with them all here is the final product that her and I put together. Inside of each heart "pocket" there is a Sweet Tart sucker, a princess tattoo, and a little girlie notebook. Boys will get a rockstar tattoo and a sucker. Remember when we just got little cards?



Girlies ended up putting on their ballet clothes so that they could dance, dance, dance. That was fun to watch!

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Crafty Tuesday - Crochet Anyone?

First I will be honest and say up front that I didn't make these today, just posting about it. I also will add that like so many projects that I start to do they are intended to be much more than what I end up with. If you have 10 minutes to check out this video it is what I meant to make. I loved how the lady in the video said that crochet wasn't her forte. I don't have a forte so I continued watching. Lucky for me I can do a simple chain stitch so this wasn't over my head.

With 3 little girls asking for my attention it would have taken me nights to make that so I cheated and made 1 strand instead and called it complete. I think it is pretty cool looking and our girls got the 1st 2 that I made b/c they were hovering the entire time wanting to see what I was doing and begging to have them. They didn't technically make it but they helped by choosing which beads they wanted.

End products...



I really do love that necklace in the tutorial and might have to make one another day :)

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Crafty Tuesday - Valentine Tree

There is this awesome blog friend, Kimberly, who does these fabulous craft projects every week and I want to be just like her. Since that is not possible I have just decided to set Tuesdays aside to do projects with our girls and document them for eternity on the blog since they normally play with projects until they are destroyed :)

This weekend hubs and I switched out the girls playroom & bedroom. Not much extra room but enough for them to have a small "doll changing area" in their bedroom that they did not have before. I also was taking down the very last of our "winter" trees. I will just call them winter but they really were our Christmas decorations that I was too lazy to take down before today :) The girls love the bigger silver one so I let them keep it in their room until Valentine's Day (or whenever I get the ambition to take it out now).

Project: Valentine Tree (hee hee) Decorations

This is Matt and I




and the artist herself


If you saw Piper yesterday she was probably wearing that heart shirt. I kept it hidden in the basement so that she wouldn't just wear that for the past month. She picks out her own clothes but I control what goes in her closet lol :)

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