2013 Crafts

So I have decided to delete my craft blog.  I'm just not into doing it any more, especially since I have a hard enough time updating this blog.  I just don't need another blog to try and update all the time.  So, I'll either share the crafts I've done on this blog as I do them, or I'll do a yearly craft post like the one I'm about to do.

 

I'll also try to post where I found the ideas at, but I'm not sure that I'll be able to remember all the websites as it's been a while since I did most of this stuff.  Here goes:

 

Georgia's Tangled Birthday Party-pin the nose on Flynn and the Snugly Duckling sign were clipart images I found on Google.  Other decorations/satchel were things I came up with or saw on different sites online.

 

Gwen's Bigfoot Birthday Party-as there's not a whole lot of ideas online for a bigfoot birthday party, most ideas were things I came up with (some came from the few sites I found with ideas).  Images were clipart I found on Google.

 

Valentine's Chore Gifts-an idea I thought of using the chalkboard vinyl I had, picture frames, and other craft supplies.

 

St. Patty's T-Shirts-my first attempt at making iron on shirts for the kids.  I mixed clipart images from Google and different sayings on Word, then printed them onto transfer paper and ironed them on.

 

Easter Hair Accessories-all hairbows/headbands that I made to go with the girls Easter dresses.

 

Teacher Appreciation Gifts/Tags-Book Flower idea found on MomAdvice.com; Bar None candy bar found on skiptomylou.org, as are all the sayings I used for the rest of the tags that I made.  The school nurse subway art is something I made myself as there aren't really any gift ideas out there for school nurses like this.

 

Chore Chart Helpers-I found the idea here:http://www.thirtyhandmadedays.com/2013/08/organization_tips_accountability_binder/.  I changed it up a bit to work for my kids and the chores I had already been assigning to them. 

 

Bedtime Book Baby Shower-all items made were based off of my sister Diana's idea to do a bedtime book baby shower for my sister in law.  I made the invitations with my Cricut, my sister helped me come up with the ideas for the wording on the back, she found the onesie card idea and I cut them out with my Cricut, and I also used my Cricut to make the name banner.  I made two storybook subway arts for the table using popular kids book titles and some of our personal favorite books.

 

Great Grandparent Magnets-I made these magnets as gifts for Mother's Day and Father's Day.  I made up the subway art with the images on my computer, then printed them off onto cardstock, and used my Xyron machine to magnet and laminate them all at once.

 

Tape Town-this was an idea that I found on a summer fun website...wish I could remember which one.  I let the girls color on smaller boxes to make buildings as I taped off the floor, and then they got out their toy cars and itty bitty dolls and played away!

Beach Birthday Party-I found and based everything for our daughter's birthday party last year off of this idea: http://www.designdazzle.com/2013/06/summer-camp-day-at-the-beach-playdate/.  I made up all the food signs and invites using clipart from Google and different programs on my computer.

 

First Birthday Outfit-I didn't do a whole lot for Genni's first birthday outfit.  I made the yellow yo yo flower in the middle, then sewed it and the two black flowers onto a onesie to match a skirt I had bought for her the month before.

 

Halloween Decorations-The mummies was something I found on Pinterest that only led me to a photograph, but the description on Pinterest said it was 2 by 4's wrapped with gauze and stained with black ink.  So I just kind of winged it and guessed with the size, the stands and the sign.  I used my Cricut to cut the vinyl for the words, and the spiders are plastic spider rings that I cut the ring part off of.  The wreath is also an idea from Pinterest, but I can't find the link.  It's just a metal plate from the dollar store that I painted black, used my Cricut for the lettering, and used Halloween fabric to make fabric roll flowers that I glued around the edges.

 

 Hairbows and Headbands-ahhh the massive undertaking of hairstuff.  It took me over a month to make all of these, but I still have some that I give out for baby showers and family babies.  First off-the headbands.

 

Some of the bows are ones that I've known how to do for years, and some are new ones that I've tried out (and you'd have to look on my Pinterest board of hair accessories (http://www.pinterest.com/gsquadmomma4/hair-accessories/ ) to find instructions because there were so many!!).  If you really need a link to one, let me know and I'll dig through my Pinterest board to find the instructions I used.  These ones are the basic bow, pinched bow, pinwheel bow, and some random bows like yo yo's, pom pom, and felt buttons I bought years ago.

 

Different Felt Bows

 

Fabric & burlap, lace, ribbon & tulle, and satin.

 

Korker bows, puffy looped, ruffle ribbon, and princess (the only FREE instructions I've ever found-love that she did them!!  http://grosgrainfabulous.blogspot.com/2012/09/grosgrain-disney-ribbon-sculpture-giveaway.html.  Stay tuned for Anna, Elsa, and Olaf bows from the movie Frozen, coming soon!)

 

Sheer fabric, fabric pigtail (meaning I made two of each), and twisted fabric bows (which are the same kind I made for the Halloween wreath).

 

Lots of flowers of all different kinds, and a final picture of them all!

 

Halloween Costumes-I didn't sew them this year, just added some stuff.  Grace I sewed sleeves on, and made a tutu for; Georgia's I sewed some tulle onto the skirt; Gwen's I sewed some tulle onto the skirt; and I just added Genni's in cause she's too cute!

 

Fall Crafts-I found the Pumpkin Patch idea here: http://www.gypsysnook.com/2011/09/trio-of-pumpkins.html; the turkey craft here: http://www.u-createcrafts.com/2010/11/creative-guest-2x4-turkey-by-craft.html; and the wreath here: http://myblessedlife.net/2012/10/fall-wreath.html.  All of them were fun and pretty easy to make.

 

Christmas Crafts-the snowman idea I found at a craft store called Porter's in Rexburg, Idaho, and I couldn't resist-I love snowmen!  The Christmas ornaments are a kit that can be bought at http://25daysofchrist.com/; it was a fantastic advent activity for our family this year, really helping us focus on the true meaning of Christmas; the stocking hanger was based off of vinyl that I found at Porter's in Rexburg, Idaho as well...my husband cut the wood, and put the knobs on, but I did the rest for it.  The tags were something I made on my computer to go with the Christmas gifts we did for the girls teachers at school.

 

Christmas Dresses-so I decided to finally take my sewing "skills" a step further last year and actually make something that the girls could wear (besides Halloween costumes).  I found two really cute women's skirts at Good Will, went and bought each girl a Christmas themed shirt that coordinated with the skirts I bought, then I measured it all out, cut off the excess from the shirts that I didn't need, then added the amount of fabric from each skirt that I needed for that dress.  I also used Christmas themed ribbon as the sashes.

 

That's it!!  I know this post was super long, so maybe from here on out I will post the crafts I've done as I do them.  Thanks for taking a look...making things sure means a lot to me.

Genni's Hideout

Shortly after Christmas, Genni found herself a new hideout...under the blankets on our blanket rack!!  What a silly, Halloween outfit wearing, chocolate faced little girl!

Christmas Morning

Before I get into our Christmas morning, I wanted to share this cute little thing that Gwen did early in December.  We have this little felt nativity hanger with foam characters that velcro onto the felt manger.  It used to be our advent countdown, but this year we bought an amazing LDS ornament countdown (25daysofchrist.com), so we set the felt one up for the kids to just play with.

 

Gwen really got into the true spirit of Christmas this year...it was really cute to watch and listen to her.  She decided we needed a bit more in the way of decorations though, because shortly after putting up the Christmas decorations, I found this hanging up in multiple places around the house.  I couldn't agree more.

 

Our little family Christmas turned out really nice.  The girls slept until a decent time-7 am.  They get up at 6 for school, so sleeping until 7 was fantastic.  They were super excited to see what Santa brought and open presents as they waited patiently in our spare room to go see everything.

 Once we said go, it was a mad dash into our living room to see all the goodies!!  Genesis got a ride along ladybug from Santa.  She wasn't too sure about it, especially since her little legs couldn't quite touch the floor on both sides, but she thoroughly enjoyed ripping everything out of her and everyone else's stockings.

 

Santa listened to Georgia very well and brought her a bunch of Frozen toys-Olaf the snowman, Sven the reindeer, a Kristoff doll, and an Ana doll.  This girl squealed so loud I thought my ears would shrivel and drop off my head!

 

Grace didn't get Hello Kitty stuff from Santa like she asked, but she thought what she got was just as awesome (or even better).  She got a Fur Real Friend puppy, and would NOT part with it for anything-even when Genni cried for it!!  She took him/her for walks for the next 15 minutes, letting Genni go through her stocking for her.

 

Gwen got some how to draw books, a sketch pad, and some sketching pencils.  She was so excited to have gotten some art supplies, and to have received some things that she was very interested in and loved to do.  She went right to work drawing a monster from her How To Draw Monsters book.

 

After the girls had enough of looking through their stockings and playing with their toys from Santa, they asked if we could go open presents.  Each of the girls took turns opening things, marveling at what the others had gotten, and screeching in pleasure at what they had received (we had to ask them to stop the screeching about 7 minutes in).  Once Genni got her baby stroller from Nana and Papa Sessions though, it was all over for her.  She refused to come open any other presents, and ran her baby doll around the house, occasionally stopping to pick something up from a stocking and add it to the stroller.  Rob and I took turns opening her gifts for her since we couldn't get her to come over to do it herself.

 

She did end up coming over once we opened her tunnel from Grandma and Grandpa Congdon though.  She played and played with that for almost an hour, bringing toys in with her, and even trying to bring her stroller in.  Eventually she let her sisters come in with her as well.

 

We had a wonderful month of Christmas, from talking and learning about the life of Christ every day (the ornament set came with scriptures, picture links, and video links-it was so awesome!), imagining Santa and his reindeer preparing for their long night of visits, and playing together with all the toys and games and books we each got on Christmas morning (we had to wait until the day after Christmas to watch movies though-our TV gave up it's life on Christmas Eve!).  One of my favorite things about Christmas is all the time we have to spend together as a family, and this was definitely a fantastic family Christmas.

Christmas Eve

This was the first time in the last 4 years that we had Christmas at home.  Usually we get to spend it with either my parents or Rob's parents, but we were under the impression for so long that we would be moving in December, so we figured we wouldn't be able to have a Christmas vacation that year and we spent Thanksgiving with my parents instead.  Since we knew we wouldn't have any family around to celebrate with us, we invited our friends from church, the Escalaras, over to have some Christmas fun with us.

 

Both families made things to contribute to dinner that night, and we had quite the feast.  The kids ate pretty quickly because they knew that after dinner, all the fun would begin. 

 

The first thing we did after dinner was make Christmas sugar cookies for Santa.  It's something we've done every year and the girls love it.  We have a ton of Christmas cookie cutters, and the kids each picked out one or two to use while we rolled out the dough.

They had a lot of fun taking turns with different cookie cutters, making as many cookies as possible.  After using up all the dough, we played Christmas Bingo (with prizes-whoop whoop!) while we waited for the cookies to bake and cool.  The kids loved playing bingo and eating the marshmallow bingo markers too.

We decorated the cookies with lots of different colored icing, sprinkles, M&M's and chocolate chips as soon as we were done with Bingo.  Each of the kids decorated three or four cookies, then were allowed to eat one of their masterpieces.  We set them aside, read The Night Before Christmas, and then our friends left for the night.  I wish I had taken more pictures of all the fun the kids had with their friends, but even having a few to remember that night is great.

 

We talked about the true meaning of Christmas with our kids before bed (something that we had focused on all month long as well), and they each picked out a cookie for Santa and put it (along with some carrots) on the Santa cookie plate.  We have a tradition where the girls each get to open one gift on Christmas Eve-their Christmas Pjs!!  And after donning their pjs, our exhausted little kiddies went to bed, excited to see what the morning would bring.  So grateful that they had such a good time, and that we could share that special night with some great friends!

Christmas Dresses

The girls love having a special dress to wear to church around Christmas time.  Usually we try to buy some matching ones, or even just buy them a holiday dress.  This year I thought it would be fun to try and make them their dresses.

 

So I used an idea my sister had found on Pinterest, used some women's skirts I had found at Good Will, bought some long sleeve shirts to go with the skirts, altered both, and made each of the girls a dress with some holiday ribbon as their sashes.

 

They turned out pretty cute.  It was fun to do, and the girls loved them.  All in all a good experience-and the girls looked beautiful!

 

The Girls Talk To Santa

Santa showed up to our ward Christmas party a few weeks before Christmas, and the girls were so excited to have the opportunity to talk to Santa about what they wanted for Christmas.  I love that our ward has someone come in to play Santa since the lines at the mall to see Santa are always huge and not worth standing in. 

 

We had to wait for a little while, but the girls finally got their turn, and each had their own special requests:

 

Georgia wanted everything and anything to do with the Disney movie Frozen.

Grace wanted everything and anything to do with Hello Kitty.

Gwen wanted art supplies and Monster High stuff.

Genesis wasn't too keen on sitting with Santa, but lasted long enough for us to get a picture of all the girls with him.  We went home and it was all they could talk about for days.  Thank you Santa for making these sweet little girls so happy!

School Photos

Just wanted to share the girls school photos (and the ones we took of Georgia and Genesis).  They've changed so much!!