A is for Art...

…kids art.

I love this little corner of my kitchen. 

It's an ever changing gallery of my dear ones imagination.

Actually, you can tell what grades my kids are in by the art they bring home.

I love it!

Owl Costume

I was going to say that this was a tutorial in the title of this post. But then I thought about it. This isn't as much of a tutorial as it is me just saying, "look what I did!"

My daughter loves owls and has an owl hat. This was the inspiration to her costume. We bought the hat on clearance last spring. I got the idea to make this from something I saw on Pinterest.


What I Did:

For the wings:

I bought about 2 yards of felt from a roll (I say "about" because I can't remember if I got 2 or 3 yards as I was also making wings for Hawk-girl)
Quilt scraps (with the same color theme)
Pinking shears
Hot glue gun
Ribbon (Enough to make ties at wrists and at neck or shoulders).

I measured my daughter from finger tip to finger tip, with her arms outstretched. Then I folded the large piece of felt in half and cut a wing shape from the fold.



I cut the "feathers" by just eyeballing them. This was the most time consuming part. I didn't even iron them! If it was a little more wrinkled, I just used more glue.

I started at the tip of the wings and worked in from the bottom. I used the hot glue and it worked so well, the only problem was after doing two sets of wings in a row, my fingers where raw!

Lastly, I glued the ribbon on at the tips of the wings and at the neck. I glued a strip of felt over the ribbon just to be sure it held. If you decide to sew this, do it first! because you wont be able to sew through the glue. I made the ribbon long enough at the neck to take the ribbon over her shoulders, and around to her back to tie it. This kept it from pulling on her neck. It made it like a backpack strap instead. It also made it long enough to go over a coat if needed. Although, none of my kids wanted to wear a coat over their costume and it was only like 40 degrees which to them, is warm enough! Considering it was in the 20s last week, I guess I can see their point. Kind of. I wore my big dawn coat. Cause I'm always cold. 

For the Tutu Skirt:

I needed 6 yards of tulle netting.
An elastic band long enough to fit waist.

I sewed the band first,  I only had white and was wishing I had picked up some black, but I was determined to use what I had on hand as much as I could. So we went with white.  I cut the tulle into strips about 5 inches wide and just tied them in a knot around the band. If you look at the next picture you can see the band and the knots. It turned out really cute and I'm thinking the girls would have fun with a pink one, or a blue one. It would also work for a witches skirt too. So many possibilities!

She loved it and so do I!

I'll Give You a Reason To Cry!

I love having all my kids home for the summer! It's our time! Time to play, time to work, time to learn, time to teach, time to tear my hair out. Wait, did I say that out loud?

The first day I took all 4 of them to Big Town to get shopping done I came home and counted out how many days until school started again. No, not really. But I did ask my Husband to count it out. Which he didn't. He laughed and obviously thought I was kidding.

How many times can I pull the car over? How many times can I tell them, "If you don't stop we will leave all this in the cart and walk straight back to the car, drive the 80 miles home, WITHOUT even the MILK!" Before they realize that Mom would NEVER waste a day, let alone the gas, to do something like that. Nope. I really wouldn't. That would be stupid. So I put up with it. And I bribe. (Candy? Milkshakes? Snow Cones?) It never really does much.

In an attempt to reinforce their good behavior, as a posed to the awful stuff I was screaming about, I pulled an old memory out of my childhood. My dad was a high school teacher and he taught the "skills for living class." Yes, he was the sex ed teacher! One of the lessons I remember him sharing with us as a family was the Warm Fuzzies. Doing good deeds and being kind brings a warm feeling and so each time we do something good we get to add a warm fuzzy to a jar. When the jar is full, we will go do something awesome, like go to the water park. OK, I don't remember the water park being the goal as a kid, but this was something my parents tried to implement and I thought I would try it to. Even though I'm pretty sure it didn't work for them either.

The problem is actually remembering to issue the warm fuzzies. Which are pom poms. So really it's a work in progress. But still! The kids are into it, so we all keep trying. Otherwise Mommy will be checking into the nut house soon.

At this point, however, I'm starting to think I should be taking the warm fuzzies OUT of the jar.

The Tooth Fairy Wears Prada ~ Neon Green Prada

Our Dentist let us in on this little fact and it's such a great one that I thought I would share! This is amazing! 

Did you know,  that the Tooth Fairy has a very extensive wardrobe? And she is particularly fond of color. But, being a fairy, she is adventuresome by nature and always up for a challenge! 

The Tooth Fairy Dives in to get the tooth
and the water changes to the color of  her dress!

So, what our dentist does with his little one, is this: He has her put the lost tooth in a glass of water. Plain old tap water will do. Then they leave it for the Tooth Fairy on the night stand. We do it too now, and I swear, it has always worked! The silly little fairy has to dive into the glass to get the tooth, and this gets her dress wet! Well, as it so happens, her clothes aren't very good at holding their color and the water in the glass changes to the color she wore that night! It's been different every time! 

We like to leave a hand towel on the night stand for her to dry off on, and there is always a little stain. But don't worry, it comes off in the wash. Now, don't you just want to try it? See what she will be wearing the next time your little one looses a tooth! They will be thrilled!

Summer Days Are Here Again!

Summer Vacation Day 1.

               Sleep in   (CHECK!)

My little angels are big enough to not come in my room when they wake up before me on a Saturday. (LOVE!) At that point I had Bunny in bed with me, but we still managed to stay half asleep until… wait for it… 9 AM!!! I know! Right?

So here are some things I'm gonna try to do this summer with my bunch! (I'm so excited! So excited that they are all watching Kung Fu Panda so I can tell you about it! LOL!)

First: we have the word of the day! I pick a word, print it up, hang it on the fridge and we talk about it, use it, love it! Today's Word:

Waning, like, I can see they're excitement
for mom's summer activity is waning! 

 Next: I got this off Pinterest and just logged on so I could put the source but I never pinned it! OMG! It must have been back when I had no idea what I was doing, like yesterday! No really, if this is yours, because I didn't change anything, please let me know, tell me your blog address and I will give you all the credit you truly deserve! Cause this is Awesome! When I printed this up and taped it to the fridge the kids saw it, read it, and declared this to be the best summer ever! Now lets see if we can do it!

And lastly: We can't have all kinds of crazy fun without helping out. And my kids need to learn to help out! I'm going crazy here! So this I saw on Pinterest too, and also didn't pin??? I don't know what was with me??? But this one I retyped and so this is our list of jobs the way I want them done. And what I like about it is that it's not, "your turn to do it!" it's things we all have to do. And the day is broken down, so once we get the things done in the morning we can do the daily activity above, or go to the pool, or take a hike and then I can say, "Ok, it's time for afternoon chores!" And it's all right there on the fridge. No arguments. (Please work, please work, please please please!)

Now, Let the summer begin! I'm just so excited!!! 

Fairy Wings and Lovely Things

We had Bean's birthday party yesterday. Something about a little girls party that makes me go nuts-o. But before you know it, she'll be trading fairy wings for ipods. She'll not want to spend 2 hours drawing a flying unicorn for "pin-the-horn-on-the-unicorn," and would rather spend the time texting her friends and wondering which boys would even come to a party for her (My guess would be ALL of them!). No, the little girl moments are fleeting and I wanted them to be full of memories for both her and her friends.

Can you say, "Mini-Me?" 

For how far away from town we are, we had almost all ten girls who were invited come. And they all played so well together. My 11 year old ran the whole thing, instructing and coaching the crafts, starting the games keeping the peace, most of the time. The only one who gave her any problem was her brother. But he's three. So what can you do?

Here are some of the highlights that I'm rather proud of. Enjoy!

The girls love making paper outfits with the Klutz books. They have all 3 Paper Fashion books, including the Fantasy book. They set to work for the past week making fairies to hang all over. I dug out my floral shop extras and made some arrangements to hang around. We also made fairy flower lights by cutting up a milk carton into flower shaped cups and sticking them onto christmas lights. I got this idea from pinterest.com. Although, Nil's flowers looked much better than mine! You can see her's and how to make them here.

Bean's Unicorn with one horn.

Bean's Unicorn dressed as a proccipine. 

I love how this shot turned out, with all the little girls with their wings and the sun coming through the window. Very fairy like. 

 More Fairies 

Baby Bunny enjoying her cake and ice cream! A lot! 

Our party favors were also a pinterest find. Form one of my favorite bloggers. Instead of your usual gift bag full of dollar store brakables. I made a "bug jar" for each girl and I spent the night before the party catching fairies in the wood beside the house. For as cold as it was, there were quite a few!

All in all, it was a lot of fun and a sucsses. Now if just blogging about it could have been! My 3 year old just cut a big chunk on my hair off!!!! AAAHHH!!! But now I have a great idea for my next blog! 

Fairy Box Craft

The following craft is from the Usborne Book 50 Fairy Things to Make & Do. Which you can order from www.edcpub.com or www.ubah.com. I love there books and used to sell them so I had to put in my plug! :o)

My very soon to be 9 year old wants a fairy party and we are getting most of our crafts and activities from this darling little book that my sweet mama-in-law sent us. So thank ya, G'ma!

Hope you can read it!