Fall Break Busy-ness

School is on Fall Break this week.

KM and KN are supposed to work on colors and shapes this week, per the request of their teacher.
So here's something I came up with to help with that:

It's nothing fancy or intricate, but can be used to sort by both color or shape.
Obviously, since they are still learning these things, it's best when done with mom, dad, or big sisters' help to let them know the name of the shape or remind them of the color name, or generally reaffirming the lesson.

Here's what I did: I used different colored markers to draw (and label) shapes and then used 4 buttons to match each of the shapes. Boom! Done! Like I said, nothing fancy but it works, and when I first gave it to them (not intending to teach at the time, just seeing if it would keep their attention), they instantly started matching colors, because that's what they are better at of the two, and did so for about 15 minutes straight. So they enjoyed it.

That's all for now,
Jo!

Halloween Hair Bow

KK wanted to be Harley Quinn for Halloween this year. I don't do Halloween- it's all my husband. So he took them shopping and was not fond of any of the Harley Quinn costumes because they're all "Suicide Squad Harley" and not the "Comic Book Harley"- my daughter knows Harley Quinn from Super Hero High (or something like that) which is aimed at children and she's the jester Harley not skimpy Harley. 

She found a generic costume that she liked so daddy bought her that, but it was not the Harley Quinn she wanted to be...

So mom (who never thought she'd be working on Halloween costumes but I knew eventually I would compromise my preferences for those of my children) came up with a plan. This year she is too old to walk in the school's Halloween parade. Since half the school will be in costume, I made her this little Harley Quinn jester hat hair clip to wear. It's not a full costume but she'll still be able to spend time as the character she wanted to be. 

That's all for now,
Jo!

Fall Decor

As things are finally cooling down around here I figured it was time to get some fall crafts going.

So I threw together a few sheets of leaves for the kiddos to pain and then hung them as garland in their rooms.

(KK's and KL's beds, since they have bunk beds theirs are mixed together)

(KM's bed)

(KN's bed, with KN of course- she loves to have her picture taken)

These were super simple. I just free-handed a few pages of leaves and set them up with water colors.
The twins used a cheap store bought paint palette, because the hard paints are harder to make a mess with, the big Ks used homemade liquid water colors I wrote about a while ago but never showed how the colors turned out, for this project I thinned them out a little bit.
After they dried, I cut them out with a little margin to show were stems were painted, and then paired them with varying sized circles cut out of fall colored paper. Punched a few small holes and strung them on fishing line. 

Here's a few of my favorites:
(In order: KL, KK, KN, KM)

KL went through after painting all hers and used orange to trace the stem and veins of them all, some of them were super cool. KK played with mixing/blending the colors and tint by going over areas more than once to darken areas. 

We also colored some store bought sun-catchers with permanent markers because I didn't want to dig out the sun-catcher paint. We tried using regular markers but they rubbed off easily, so we redid them. I hung them in front of the window with fishing line but didn't take a picture. 

While I'm on, here's the skirts I made for coming niece (I was feeling the pink and gray apparently, and the baby's nursery is in elephants): 

That's all for now,
Jo!

Next on my project list is a skirt for another niece's 3rd birthday and I may add a few hair bows to match if I can find the time while the kids are home on fall break this next week. 

New Bag

I've been pretty busy lately with school and baby, but I promise I'm not completely forgotten how to craft... just mostly.

My most recent is a clothes pin bag.

I love my clothes line, I'm pretty sure I can thank the cloth diapers for that. But, a few months ago, when I wasn't using it because it was too humid and I was too pregnant, I was outside watching the girls play and wishing I wasn't the size of a whale so I could take care of the overgrown weeds around my house and I realized there was a whole in my store-bought clothes pin bag. Upon further investigation it was actually completely falling apart and I had forgotten it outside and there was a spider egg sack on the rim too. Yuck!! I'm not really afraid of spiders but I do prefer them outside instead of in- so I grabbed a gallon sized Ziploc and brought in the clothes pins and left the torn and infested bag in the garbage can outside.

And then I scoured Pinterest and found this tutorial.

I found this duck fabric in the clearance section at Hobby Lobby (my favorite place to browse and then grabbed the closest (although not perfect) bias tape they had.

Altogether I spent less than $5 because the bias tape was 50% that day. AWESOME!! I'm pretty sure my store bought clothes pin bag was more than that and didn't leave me with left over fabric to play with.

It came together pretty quickly and soon I was here:

I have a TON of clothes pins and I was worried it wouldn't fit them all, but they're all in there and it's holding just great. (The laundry room isn't completely finished and a task we haven't gotten around to yet, because when company is over we can just close the door.)

Other than that the only thing new on my camera memory card is my beginning of the year teacher gifts.

Every year at Parent-Teacher conferences I give the teachers a bottle of Pumpkin Spice coffee syrup but the ribbon and bottle occasionally change, this was this year's packaging.

I do have a few things planned coming up. My brother's girlfriend is expecting a little girl, so I have a few little circle skirts planned. That's probably the only project you'll see because everything else on my list is repairs.

That's all for now,
Jo!

What's New

Hello, I know I've been gone a while, but I promise I have good reason:

Meet Baby KO. She was born July 1st, late at night, and has been a wonderful addition to our family!! We are all so in love with her.

Since baby is here now I can tell you how I feel about the booby pads I made. Honestly, there fine for day time use but they cannot stand up to overnights. They are too small and don't hold enough liquid to stand up to prolonged periods of leaking, but it happens that way sometimes. Some projects work, others don't quite. Oh well.

This is my newest finished project:

Here are about 20 (and 2 not in the picture because my girls stole them already) headbands made from old tshirts. You can find instructions on Pinterest a million times over for the Celtic Knots. The chevron style ones I adapted from a scarf tutorial (found here).

I know that seems like a TON of headbands, even for a family with 5 daughters. That's because it is, but they were made to give away to Operation Christmas Child, and they all came together in no time. I found the idea one day and made one of each style to try them out (around 2-3 PM) and within about an hour I had made 8 more. Some are sewn together in the back, which takes a little longer; others are knotted, but I think that gives you the opportunity to turn it around and wear that side as the decoration if desired. I made the first 10 out of 2 old camis that had stretched and I no longer liked the way they fit. Later that night (after putting the twins to bed around 7) I cut the strips for the rest, I think I did 6 strips from 4 different shirts and knotted them all together before I went to bed that night. When I came back to it (a few days later) I spent about an hour and a half sewing and knotting the tails together. And that was all she wrote. It was quick and simple and for a great cause.

I also made this patchwork headband, but felt it was a little too stiff to make more of. (Meaning I gave it to my girls to try and KL said too tight):

I also finished a few needle points in the last week of waiting on KO to arrive.
Here is one, I can't find my photo of the other (it was a hummingbird crewel embroidery), this one was bought on sale at Hobby Lobby, like usual, and I've included the packaging in the photo so you can see brand, because I thought about that this time.

Here's hoping it's not too long before I get time to do more crafting again. Now that school is starting back up and even the twins will be in I have hope, but it depends on how much KO wants to snuggle.

That's all for now,
Jo!