Frozen Inspired Tulle Bow

I already showed you what I made for my oldest for this weeks's Spring Fling at school. My youngest chose to watch Frozen (as if it would ever be anything else), the problem- neither KK nor KL know what the coordinating attire is for Frozen... 

KK decided she wants an "Elsa cape" and I thought, "I could pull that off, just a little tulle" then I thought... "I'm already working on 2 dresses and a cross-stitch (that I haven't touched in over a week) plus never-ending laundry and dishes and caring for 4 kids... let's start a little smaller"...

A hair bow it is- but I had already bought the tulle and have never made a tulle bow before- enter the internet with its boundless ideas and tutorials. I checked out a few pictures and realized I was worried for nothing! Now there are a thousand tutorials on how to do this so  I won't be super thorough but I'll still give you the run through. 

The supplies (thread not shown):

First I created a loop from the tulle, using a zigzag stitch on my sewing machine on both colors: 

Next I folded the tulle in half across the long side: 

Then, I layered them and ran a basting stitch across the cut side (not the folded side). I apparently don't have a picture of the layers stitched together but I do have pictures of them pinned before: 

Blue on top

White on top

Now decide which color you want on top. I liked the blue but KL loved the glitter in the white and wanted it to be seen as clear as possible. 

Next pull your basting stitch, gathering the fabric like so: 

Then stitch the gap closed (I forgot to take a picture of this until after I was all done, sorry): 

I ran the stitch through all but the top most layer and you only need to go up about an inch. Chances are likely you will cut down the tulle so you don't want to go too high and have to cut through it. 

Next I added a snowflake button (first stitched through and then hot glued to secure sides) and  and then cut it down some because it was 6 inches across and my little KL is very petite, honestly it looked huge on me. I made it 4.5 inches because the snowflake was about an inch and I didn't want it too close to the snowflake. 

Here's the finished product: 

I think it turned out pretty cute and KL loves it! (She would've been much happier with a cape, but it will do for now.) 

That's all for now,
Jo!

December Crafts

In no particular order, mostly because I don't remember what order we did them in, here are some of the crafts we did in December :)

Cardboard Christmas Trees:

These were so easy and turned out adorable. Take a cardboard box you have lying around (especially if it's Christmas season) and cut it into triangle. Then simply glue strips of paper onto it. we stuck with green and red colors predominately, with the occasional blue and yellow per request. When they were done with it I used a couple washi tape strips to cover the bare spots. So simple right?!?! We ended up stringing them (as you can see) and hung them on the window that the tree was in front of. We called it our own little tree farm.


Coffee Filter Snowflakes:

Another simple craft! Simple water paint coffee filters and then fold and cut like snowflakes! They turned out so cute and kept my girls busy for about an hour (and that was just the painting!). We hung them from an old baby gate across the stairs so we walked through them every time we went up and down the stairs. (The littlest K girls loved to stop and stand in them while being carried down the stairs.)

Rudolph Wreaths: 

 These were my parents' craft with my K girls, and one for my nieces, technically. But I helped with the execution! Aren't they adorable? And KL was too cute holding the eyes over her own! These are a little more complex if giving every step but very basically: they are 6 in x 12 in strips of tulle knotted around a Styrofoam wreath. Skewers and hot glue hold the eyes and foam antlers along with the red nose (which were Styrofoam balls painted red- the eyes are unpainted but given a black pupil). The ribbon was just tied around (because the kiddos wanted it).

and the last craft that me and the K girls did together...
Snowman Slime:

 You can see even the littlest Ks got in on the play (and loved it)! 2 Tablespoons each of water, liquid starch, and glue- that all it takes. The original recipe I saw said 1 cup of each but I thought that would be way to much of a mess. It takes a little kneading when you first mix it before it gets to full slime-y goodness but it's so much fun after. We added a little blue, silver, and gold glitter along with snowflake shaped glitter (you can see a few in the close up picture) to give it the winter feel. They played with this so much and were quite upset when I decided it was time to throw it away. It will probably make a reappearance though so fear not!

That's all for now!
-Jo