Halloween Busy Book

So, I'm a fan of busy books (or quiet books as they're known these days) because they are so fun with ENDLESS possibilities. Plus I had one as a child and I remember the fun I had with it. Recently I've been collecting ideas to make one, but haven't decided on quite what theme I want to do as of yet. However, I ran across some adorable halloween themed ones on Etsy which prompted me to want to do one for Tot only with some more age appropriate activities (the one I saw was more of a texture touch book).

Easter Bunnies

So browsing Pinterest can have its good points, and of all the things I see, like, repin, or plan to incorporate, there occasionally comes something that actually gets done.

This Post from Purlbee.com was just so cute and springy that I HAD to do it.

Since Easter was coming on, and my white tulip bloomed I was purely in the mood for some spring, some easter, and some goodwill feelings.

The original plan was to purchase a pack of felt, but as time was marching on, I ended up purloining what I needed from a store I was keeping for a family member (with permission, of course!)

I drew my own template as the one that Purlbee provides was a lot larger than I wanted to go. Then you simply cut 2 of each color (and 2 white for each bunny).

To get step-by-step directions on how to sew them together, you can go to the original post, but it's a simple running stitch. You sew the four layers together on both sides, except the very bottoms and the ears. I used white embroidery floss for the running stitch, but split the six strands in half, using only three strands. The black and pink floss I kept at six strands for better coverage.

The first one I was so excited that I sewed it all together first, but then finding it difficult to get the needle all the way inside due to the smaller size, I started sewing in the eyes before sewing them together so the knot would be on the inside. This one just has to have eyelashes.

Here is a front view where you can see how the nose is sewn around the front edge of the four pieces. Pretty simple stuff.

Instead of using white floss for the whiskers, I used fishing line since I happened to already have a roll. I used the same technique of knotting each side that Pearlbee describes.

Then I discovered that the only yarn I had was red. Umm...not going to work for fluffy bunny tails.

After debating on several differing materials (polarfleece, lace, ribbon) I found these little shiny pom poms stored away from projects of yesteryear. So, I used them instead of making my own.

And here is a shot of all of them showing off that springy feel with the wonderful eastery color palatte.

They were a big hit, and the playing with got started as SOON as or even before they were completely finished.

What are you doing to Easter and Spring up your life?

Quick crafts

In times of need it is really nice to have ready to make crafts on hand. These can be found at a variety of places for fairly cheap, especially if it is a seasonal craft that is bought after the season! But these particular ones below were sent to us by a loving Grandma.

Since the new year started with me being ill, and Tot falling out of her crib for the first time, we needed a bit of a pick-me-up today. I started my declutter resolution (I actually have a calendar so if I can do the whole year it will be fabulous!) and decided to get these made instead of saving them around so they could be put away with the Christmas stuff.

Tot enjoys helping me with anything, and being put in charge of gluing made her day!

Now I could get all worried about how they're not straight or being put in the wrong place, but that would make it not so fun for her. We switched off placing and pressing and she did a great job with most of them. I confess I put the puppy one together though as it kept sliding and not sticking. But, she did the other two and the snowman one all by herself!

It was so much fun seeing how precise she is and how proud of her gluing skills!

Any fun quick crafts lately?

Christmas cookies

Christmas means baking and baking means cookies!
I sometimes go all out, but knowing that the season is getting on, and not feeling very creative in the kitchen, I was happy to take some shortcuts this year. However, I still wanted some nice festive cookies for giving to neighbors and friends, and to fancy up the table after dinner.

So...here are a couple tips to keep it simple.

By using colored sugars, candies and dough, you can have a nice variety of festive cookies without as much effort as making and decorating with frosting.
I used red and green MnMs in my chocolate chip cookies.
I put green food coloring to color one batch of chocolate chip cookie dough, this made the cookies green (my grinch cookies) and they look and taste good.
Using red and green colored sugar to top the peanut butter cookies gives them a nice holiday touch.
Not wanting the trouble of cutting out shapes, I added bits of peppermint (broken up candy canes) to the sugar cookie dough and simply baked them round. They smell and taste deliciously pepperminty, and have a nice Christmas feel to them.
Add in some colored candies and a bow, and you're all set for the holiday gift giving with only half the work and stress!

Fun With Family and Frugal Gifting

I admit I don't like winter. A BIG part of that is the cold. I hate being cold, and I hate being wet. So, snowball fighting is pretty much never on the fun scale for my want to do activities. However, the whole idea of just chucking things at each other for fun seems good. So I was ecstatic to come across the idea of using something besides SNOW to have a snowball fight.

The BEST suggestion was: ROLLED UP SOCKS. (Plus they're white, so it's almost authentic)
They're soft so no owies that icey snow could inflict, they're light so even misfires won't do too much damage, and they're readily available, especially on laundry day (and they would be nice and warm straight from the dryer mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm). Other suggestions were newspaper, styrofoam, or tinfoil.

I'm really excited to try this out, and I'm sure my family will be amenable, so I'll either update or post again when it really happens.

Topic 2: Most people are trying to frugal up their Christmas this year, and I've found a few ideas that sounded like something really fun to recieve that I wanted to share with everyone searching for that great idea of their own.

In a card, include a sheet of origami paper and directions to make a simple project. The ideas for these can be printed out online through various sites that teach origami, or you can check out a library book and copy a page for your recipients to enjoy. You can make almost anything with origami, so it's simply a matter of finding a subject you like and sending it on!
How cute is this bear: from Origami-club.com which is simple enough for kids and beginners to fold!

Or if you want to be more challenging:  a rose from Origami.com



Speaking of libraries...need a gift for someone who has it all? Why not broaden their horizons with some suggestions of books to read from their local library? It would be more meaningful if you have read and enjoyed the book, but would hold interest for the recipient as well. If you're unsure what their local library carries, you can usually find the catalog online, or through Worldcat.org  If it's a younger person you're sending the gift to, include an application for their own library card (usually found on the library website)

Let's face it, everyone likes getting letters instead of bills and junk. Give yourself the gift of return for only the cost of a stamp. Include in your letter/card and self addressed stamped envelope in order to encourage their reply. All they'll have to do then is respond and drop it in a mailbox, eliminating several things that could delay or stop a return letter, like finding addresses, envelopes or postage. You could even include some stationary with prewritten questions if the person REALLY needed a nudge. Who knows, a friendship going stale could be just waiting to blossom!

Fun for little hands

Christmas is so fun for little ones. What could be MORE stimulating to them than all the bright lights, colorful decor, and oh so playable knick knacks that come out. They really don't understand why all these fun things are not to be touched! I wanted to involve Tot as much as possible so in order to keep me sane and her happy we are having a toddler christmas this year. That means, only knick knacks that can be placed up high are gotten out (many left in storage) and no ornaments on the tree, just lights and garland.
It also means lots of play with soft dolls, christmas coloring books, christmas plastic toys (old stocking stuffers and fun games with christmas theme that are stored away until the season starts). AND it means that she gets to play with her own nativity. She spent hours playing with the magnetic one that her Great Grandma got her already

But she mostly liked turning the figures on their sides and then saying: "He's falling! He's falling!" This decidedly irreverant behavior towards the Savior's birth was grating on my nerves after the 20th time she dragged me over to see all the nativity turned on it's side. So my solution was to buy her a set of figures that she could move around and play with. Perhaps the "falling" would run it's course and she would actually listen to the story.

I found an old wooden hand carved set that used to be sold in the Lillian Vernon catalog at a second hand store and purchased it. We got all the nativity pieces, and some wooden blocks were thrown in as well.
She LOVES them, and has been moving them all around and playing with them. This time if they fall over she gets upset and cries instead of laughing and showing me. She is so happy to have one of her own that she can handle. She still isn't that interested in the story, but that will come with time and repetition. The important thing is that she is associating fun and Christmas and gets to have lots of fun with her nativity while Mommy's stays safe.

Christmas tree chain

Another idea stolen from Pinterest was this simple Christmas countdown.
I knew that this would be simple enough for Tot to try and super simple and cheap so we did it!

She was so pleased with it that she carried it around until one of the strips tore in half. We simply glued it back together, but she decided to go ahead and leave it hanging up from then on (at least until naptime, who knows what fate awaits it next!)

You simply need paper of differing colors (or not!) We used construction paper, because I had it on hand. I cut 1"strips from one and a half sheets of green (11 1/2 X 8 1/2 regular letter size) simply lengthwise across the paper. If you used shorter strips, you would have a smaller tree, longer the larger the tree.

We needed 1Yellow 6Red and 18Green for this project. (A perfect 25 to count down to Christmas).
I decided that since we already had ample advent calendars that we would simply put it all together at once (although you could start with it together and take it apart as well).

Tot enjoyed gluing even though she always wanted to shut it instead of opening it. However, my couch and carpet loved that. Yes, we are gluing on top of a library book instead of at our table. Never fear, we were neat enough to NOT glue on the book, however the laminated cover would have been simple to wipe off should any glue have overflowed onto it. Nevertheless, I do not recommend crafting on books, especially ones that aren't yours.

After gluing, I put them in place and then she squeezed it together to hold until the glue stayed tacky enough to hold it. This was her favorite part.

She had lots of fun. I let her make the circles, but she didn't quite grasp that she had to turn the paper and kept making a bunch of teardrops instead. But, I simply quietly and discreetly fixed them when she was busy with the next piece. Plenty of time for that later, the important part here was to encourage her to have fun, follow simple directions, and to MAKE something!

Pinterest Christmas Windows

Like many of us, I get a lot of my ideas from Pinterest.
Whether or not any of these pins actually get tried, or just dreamed about is sort of a luck of the draw.
This particular pin intrigued me and I needed to try it out for our windows!

Tension rods are wrapped with garland and ornaments hung with ribbon.
I decided that since my valances covered the tension rod anyway, I could simply drape the garland to make it prettier. The ornaments were hung with fishing line because I want to add cottonball snow later when I find the time, and also I had it handy whereas I didn't have a lot of ribbon.
It was so simple, and only took about three hours, but would have been less had I not had to juggle the kitten, the 2 year old and the cat all around while I was stringing and hanging :)

I did the first window in red and green with gold accents. I took the picture before I straightened out the fishing line and got them all hanging evenly, so whoops!

The second window was silver and white. I was going to add blue accents, but couldn't find any dollar store ornaments in blue, so it will either not happen, or maybe I'll be lucky later in the season.

And a closeup of the gorgeous snowflake ornaments! :)

What I learned:  Cats and hanging ornaments don't mix well. I would make them shorter next time and not quite so handy to reach for little hands and paws.
Still it gives an overall cheer to the windows, and while I don't think it would hold the lights (my original plan) it may just be enough.

Advent calendar

Remember the paper modeling post from a few days ago?

I found a great little advent calendar shaped as Santa's workshop from Delta 7 Studios! It was relatively easy to cut and glue, and to get color on it, I simply traced all the lines and colored the backside of the paper that I printed out on my black and white laser printer.

Next time I'll make it a lot easier on myself and alter the pdf files in photoshop first so I can simply color the printout, but for now, I think it turned out great!

Tot is super excited about it and loves to carry it around by the chimney.
This is going to be her secondary one for fun, as I've made up a great advent with scriptures and activities to do day by day in December. I'm super excited!

Turkey Handprints

We've all seen the turkeys made out of handprints, whether they're painted, cut out of colored construction paper, traced, stamped, or just freestyled on the paper.
Sometimes, you just can't go wrong with tradition!

Tot had a LOT of fun with this one. She adores tracing her hands (and I adore the cute little handprints left behind) so it was a breeze to get her to pose her hand all in a circle for our turkey.

I'm not ready to let her go all out with paint yet, so we did ours in crayon, but there's so many different ways you could go with this one, you really can't go wrong!

We did two papers with her hands traced. I colored her turkey, and she made the masterpiece below. She is BIG on circles right now, so she filled the page.

A wonderful and fun November afternoon!
What Tday traditions are on your plates this month?

Fall Fairy Halloween Costume

For Halloween this year, Tot went as a Fall Fairy.

I made this costume from scratch and it was actually kind of last minute deciding on how everything would come together. But it turned out really pretty and she is having lots of fun with it in all the Halloween parties.

I actually bought the wings first, great find from the dollar store:

Pardon them being red in the picture, I forgot to take a picture of the orange ones before I bent them into leaf shape:

I just used my fingers, but you could use pliers to bend the wire if you want a sharper crease.

Then, I needed to figure out the dress portion of the costume. I decided that I did NOT want to go with tulle. I was just tired of working with it, slippery and scratchy, and cold, and I dreaded putting together a tutu, so we went a different way. Luckily, I found this secondhand dress after scouring everywhere for a suitable costume. 

The dress was several sizes too big for her, which allowed me to easily alter it and make a fairy shift. The colors were absolutely perfect and gorgeous to boot! It's a nice soft velvet which is easy to alter as it doesn't fray. 

First, I measured and pinned where the dress fell (measuring up from the hem so I wouldn't need to redo it) under Tot's armpits, and across her chest for the neckline.

Then, I cut a diagonal line connecting the two points (I did this on each side of front and back) And cut the remainder off the top. 

Then I folded the dress sideways (matching the side seams) to be sure the cuts were even for front and back.

With the remaining material, I cut out some rectangles that I used for the sleeve/strap of the tunic.

I cut it long in order to add elastic in for the look I wanted.



Then to the sewing machine! I once more used a lettuce hem as I thought it would be quicker than trying to do a regular one. It would add to the frilly, nature like look of the dress as well.



To do a lettuce hem, you need to set your machine to a narrowish zigzag, and small stitch length.

Then, stretch the material as it is going through the machine, the longer the stretch, the more it ruffles. I find it easiest to sort of pull the material to the left as it feeds through.

Here is my finished hem, nice and frilly. The stretchier the fabric, the better the frill.

After sewing in the sleeve straps, here is what the altered dress looks like:

For some reason, I forgot to take a picture of the sleeve after putting in the elastic, but it's super simple, all I did was sew up the strap sides and sew the elastic into the top and bottom seam, that naturally gathers it and looks super cute!

Next, I took a packet of cloth leaves I'd gotten at the dollar store, and started hand stitching them to the hemline. I probably could have machine stitched them, but I wanted to have as little stitching showing as possible. I put the yellows all around the hem, and alternated reds above every other space, then added a yellow every other one above that. I also stitched a couple to the neckline where the sleeves joined in.

Lastly, I hotglued some of the leaves onto a headband for Tot's headpiece.

And there you have it...the CUTEST fall fairy ever! :)

What are you going as for Halloween this year?