Christmas

Here's a few quick projects I did for Christmas:

This was the delivery men and teachers' gifts. There was a label that said "Warm wishes" (get it, it's full of warm colors).  The teachers' were a little more personal with my kids picking out specific gifts for their teachers that fit the theme, including nail polish for the the girl teachers and Carmex and hand warmers for the male teacher that also serves as a crossing guard. The basic fillings were a few packets of apple cider mix (in place of the normal cocoa packets), hand warmers for the delivery men, some Juicy Fruit gum, yellow and orange Starburst (my husband was so excited a bought a big bag and planned on getting rid of all the yellows and orange so he was left with his favorites), and fruit flavored Melt-Away mints. After we got the the big stuff in we just packed the candy in to fill it.

Here are the bows I made this year for my nieces- presents, gingerbread men, and Christmas trees.
It's almost becoming tradition for me to add to their bow collections on every occasion.

I apparently forgot to take a photo of my neighbor gift.
It was nothing too fancy because I forgot about them until about the 12th. I had been saving bottle caps to spray paint green and make a tree for the girls anyway, so we glued them to a canvas instead of paper and one went to each family. The decorated their trees with some simple jewel-like stickers that I bought marked down from Wal-Mart and topped it off with a foam star (from the same pack as the ones used for the Christmas tree bows).
I also made a more adult craft for them. I took some cubed glass ornaments (left over from last years teacher gifts) and filled them with green and red crinkle cut paper that they make for gift bags. Then I added their initials to personalize them. I used glittery alphabet stickers I thought were cute. Both of these came together pretty easily, and went over well with the neighbors.

Now here's just a few cute photos from Christmas break so far.
A round (or 2) of Reindeer Ring Toss (KK is too old to get her picture taken while wearing the ears) :

 And a few enjoying their Christmas gifts:

That's all for now,
Jo!

Niece's Gift

I told you all I was working on a skirt for my niece, so here it is, a mixture of a circle and circle square skirt- square over circle, with a rick rack trim because she's as girly as they come... when she wants to be. I think the rick rack on both layers brings them both together nicely and pulls out another color from the birds.

As you can see, I also made a few hair bows and a shirt to match.
I will say the colors in this photo don't quite do the pinks justice. You can see on the sleeve of the shirt how close the shirt and bird are; and you can see how the darker berry pink works with the birds on the skirt but for some reason all together it just doesn't look right in this picture.

When I make my family gifts I tend to buy something to match because I make it because I love it- and them, but I don't want it to be thought that I make it because I'm cheap (believe me, this skirt wasn't cheap). So I looked for a shirt to match this skirt, and I couldn't find ANYTHING!!! The cream base and autumn colors just aren't common for little girls. I did find one shirt that was a cute cream with a lace chest overlay, but it wasn't in her size (in any of the local stores, I checked). So as I was taking a piece of the fabric with me to every store to try and match, I finally found this plain pink at Hobby Lobby, but it was just that- plain!! So I used a little Heat N Bond to make it match!
(Here's a close up:)

And here's a close up of the bows:

A simple folded fabric flowers. She tends to prefer pig tails, so I thought I'd make one for each side.

That's all for now,
Jo!!

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.