Syncopated Mama: crafts

Showing posts with label crafts. Show all posts

Needlework and Kids: Sew Much Fun!

Think your kids are too young to learn to sew? Think again! Unleash the fun and creativity in your child by introducing the world of needlework!

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I'm over at Pam Barnhill's site again today, sharing my Needlework & Preschoolers: Sew Much Fun! post that will help convince you it's not too early to introduce even your 3-to-5-year-olds to the world of sewing.

Click on over to learn all the ways needlework activities can benefit your preschoolers along with how to get started, then jump back here to see what types of projects they can begin to create!

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Awesome Preschool Art Resources You Need to Know About

Kids love to explore and create, so let them run wild within the world of art -- using great resources like these to help them navigate through it!

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I'm over at Pam Barnhill's site again today, sharing homeschool solutions for the preschool years. This time, I'm up on my soapbox over the process versus product art debate.

Head on over to read Arts and Crafts with Kids: Merging the Best of Both Worlds to get my take on it all and then come back here to further explore these great resources that will make introducing the world of art to your youngster just a little easier.

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Pinkalicious-Inspired Collage Art

Books become even better when you pair them with fun activities!

See what we did to go along with this month's Monthly Crafting Pinkalicious Book Club theme.

My bloggy pal Hilary over at Raising Fairies and Knights started a fun Monthly Crafting Book Club - a challenge to create activities to go along with some of the most beloved children's books.

We had some great fun last year (see links at the end) and have continued the fun:

January - Ladybug Girl Addition Bugs
February - Giraffes Can't Dance Roll-a-Dance Die
March - How Do Dinosaurs...Social Skills Game
April - The Very Hungry Caterpillar Box
May - Unique Nature Creations

This month, our little group decided to think pink and focus on this book:

Pinkalicious

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Oriental Trading for Easter!

Are you like the Easter Bunny and already hopping around like mad trying to prep for all your family's springtime fun?

We found everything we needed to start our season off right at this exhaustive website - you won't believe what you can find there nowadays!

I was sent free products in exchange for writing a review. All opinions are my own.

Do you remember how much Oriental Trading helped Santa out at our house this past Christmas?

Well, when this fabulous company asked me if I'd like another opportunity to partner with them, it took me only about 1/1,879th of a second to say yes!

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Oriental Trading Company: One-Stop Santa Shopping!

Wondering where to go to find great gifts for everyone on your list? Here's a site you might not have considered before - you won't believe what you can find there nowadays!

I was sent free products in exchange for writing a review. All opinions are my own.

Have you figured out what you're giving your kids for Christmas yet?

G and I were excited last month when we realized that we already had everything we needed for Gv's presents this year.

My mom had saved several of my favorite toys from when I was a kid, so we'd decided to package up my old doll clothes and toy dishes for her to unwrap - making our budget ho-ho-ho-happy at the same time!

But then there was the Santa problem.

No, we don't have a problem with carrying on the Santa tradition at our house, but every year until now, the big "Santa gift" has been easy for us to come up with.

Not this year.

This year, we just couldn't figure out what to have the jolly old man bring Gv.

Then, I got a call from the North Pole:

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Babel Tower Tube Craft

This is a fun activity that we did to go along with our focus on the Tower of Babel Bible story during Gv's Latticed Learning time.

Although this isn't really an independent project for a toddler, it was really cute and I knew Gv would get a kick out of gluing all the bricks onto the tower.

First, I cut a piece of brown construction paper to wrap around an empty paper towel tube. I cut out a few strips of black construction paper and then snipped those into rectangles of varying lengths.

I handed Gv the glue stick and let her cover the paper with the bricks. There were some areas that were really sturdy (with bricks five or six thick!), but I was surprised at how evenly she spaced them, overall:

I wrapped the paper around the paper towel tube and taped it tightly. You'll notice that some of the bricks began to come off once they were bent into a cylinder shape, so you'll probably want to either wrap the whole thing in a towel to hold them in place until they dry, or use wet glue, or do both in order to prevent that from happening.

Next, I took a piece of orange construction paper and wrote "Let us build a tower whose top is in the heavens, let us make a name for ourselves" (based on Genesis 11:4). in a spiral shape with black marker. I cut that out and taped the top of the spiral to the top inside part of the tube. We stuffed some of our handy vitamin-bottle cotton in the top for a cloud effect and stood the whole thing up to admire.

You probably don't even need the paper towel tube for this craft, but I felt it helped to hold the whole thing up steadier, once we were done. Would you bother with that part? I'd love to hear! Either leave a comment below or email me at lisahealy (at) outlook (dot) com.

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Fun Felt Sandwich Gift

I've shared with you many times how much I love making personalized gifts for others (babies, toddlers, preschoolers, family & friends, and even my hubby!), but I also love to receive homemade gifts and truly appreciate the time that goes into creating them.

Gv recently celebrated another birthday and she received many fun presents, but one of her favorites is this set of homemade felt sandwiches that are just so cute, I had to share them with you.

First of all, check out the adorable gift bag my talented friend made:

Not only did it serve as the wrapping for the present, but it stores the gift, too! I have got to ask my friend how she made this, because I bet it's something that even I can tackle with my sewing machine.

Once Gv opened the pouch, she pulled out two plates and two sandwiches, all constructed of felt:

One sandwich looks like slices of bread (stuffed a bit to make them puffy) and contains cutout felt pieces in tan and purple for peanut butter & jelly:

The other sandwich is a a burger and composed of a bun (complete with sesame seeds drawn on) and has all sorts of cutouts for the meat patty, lettuce, cheese, tomato, pickles (she even drew little details on these slices), and condiments:

Even though the bread and bun pieces are stuffed with a bit of batting, there's no sewing involved in this project at all. Like the plates (which encase a piece of cardboard), the bread pieces are held together by glue‐gun glue and all of the sandwich innards are just cutout pieces of felt.

Gv has already spent hours playing with this new toy, and has even discovered my drawer of felt scraps and has been "making" other things with those pieces, too. I thought about cutting them up with specific purposes in mind, but when she takes a random triangle‐shaped piece of pink felt, sets it on top of a full gray sheet, and brings it to G declaring she made him "cake," I realize that it might be best just to leave everything alone and let her imagination take charge.

Do you enjoy receiving handmade gifts as much as I do? I'd love to hear - leave a comment or email me at lisahealy (at) outlook (dot) com.

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Not sure jelly would be my choice for a burger addition, but whatever floats your boat...

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Colorful Campout, Games & Crafts Edition

Like I said last week, I'm going to tease you a bit with these party details, mainly to avoid creating a bazillion‐page birthday party post and share everything in a more manageable way.

Today's focus is on the games, crafts, and other activities. Last year, I wasn't really concerned with having any activities. I knew Gv would be fully occupied with sitting on the lap of guests and soaking up all the extra love, along with wandering around the party site and exploring the everyday things she found there. I did make sure to include some paper and markers last year, because I knew that her older cousins would appreciate having something crafty to do for the party's duration.

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Patriotic Decorations to Make with Your Little Sparkler

I was thinking that we'd reached the stage in the year when holiday crafts take a back seat to the flurry of summer activities, but then I realized it would be fun to have something up in the way of festive decorations over the next couple of months and that using a patriotic theme would satisfy both Memorial Day and 4th of July, so we got ourselves all star‐and‐stripy and now we're set!

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Frugal Photo Magnet Gift Idea

For Gv's first Christmas, I created this gift for our family. It was perfect for her inaugural year, but even though I wanted to continue to making personal presents each Yuletide, I elected to keep things a little simpler this time around.

So I made these fun photo magnets out of holiday cookie cutters. I figured turning something like this into a magnet would work well because it was small and would still give everyone a chance to see Gv's smiling little face on a regular basis. Even if people didn't put magnets on their fridge (I didn't used to), then they might still stick them on a spare fridge or freezer in the garage, the washer or dryer, or onto a file cabinet.

These little trinkets weren't too difficult to make, either. The hardest part was figuring out what size to print the photo out at (I just did this on my home printer). To do this, I measured the cutter openings and then resized my chosen photo using the basic photo editing software that came on my computer.

I was able to fit six photos on each page of photo paper. Then I just set the cutter on top of the photo, traced around it, and cut it out.

I slipped the photo into the cookie cutter and then put a few dabs of hot glue around the back edges, just to make sure it didn't fall out of place after I got the magnet on.

I'd made magnets in the past using inexpensive magnet paper for the printer, but I knew that wouldn't be strong enough to hold up these cookie cutters, despite the fact they were made out of lightweight plastic. I'd planned to get this paper in the hopes that it would work better, but I decided to first try to use a bunch of free magnets we'd gotten in the mail.

You know the ones. Local businesses send them out with their cards attached, or they come on the front of the phone book each season (who even uses a phone book anymore, anyway?) I'd always held onto these magnets to use in my classroom (I'd glue all sorts of classroom signs and printouts onto the tops, which didn't cost me a dime!), so I had a pretty decent supply to work with.

The free magnets were all large enough to use with these cookie cutters. I just set the cutter on top of the magnet, traced around the outer edges, then cut it out with plain old scissors. Finally, I ran a line of hot glue along the top edge of the magnet and then set the cookie cutter down carefully on top.

Voilà! A cute little personalized gift for everyone to open and enjoy.

And this idea doesn't just have to be limited to Christmas, either. You could easily make one for any birthday or holiday gift, just by using different cookie cutter shapes. I'm actually thinking that it would be the perfect present for Mother's Day, so if you're still scratching your head trying to come up with a great personalized present for Grandma, this might just be your salvation.

I even think this could work for an annual gift, because family and friends could easily enjoy displaying several photo magnets of Gv as she grows each year. I'm already on the hunt for some great cookie cutters that have simple shapes with large openings. I've found some great possibilities, like:

this set of 50 animal shapes
a colossal set like this one that includes all sorts of holidays as well as an alphabet
or just the alphabet and numbers
or just a simple group of fun year round shapes
or maybe even these sets of flowers, hearts, and stars

If you use your own free magnets, you can see that this project can cost less than a dollar a present, but even if you have to buy magnet and photo paper in addition to the cookie cutters, this idea will still come in at less than two bucks a pop, which is great for those times when you have a heart for giving to a zillion people, but a pocketbook that can only handle a handful (think of favors for a child's birthday party, or even a wedding!).

The one thing I was disappointed in with this project was the quality of the colors when I printed the photos out. We'd been having printer/ink issues and I'd thought everything was all sorted out, but the colors still came out a little wonky when I went to make these gifts. By that point, I didn't have time to have the photos printed somewhere else, so I just made the best of it.

Sigh. I miss my old printer. I'd had this one for years and it printed perfect photos, but our house was hit by lightning a couple of years ago and the budget just didn't allow for this gem to be replaced. I'm hoping to get another in the future, though.

Are you still trying to come up with a great gift for this Mother's Day? Or maybe you're looking for a frugal, but personalized wedding or birthday party favor to send home with your guests. With the variety of cookie cutters out there, this idea really lends itself to several different occasions ‐ which one do you like best? I'd love to hear - leave a comment or email me at lisahealy (at) outlook (dot) com.

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Easter Fun with Your Little Bunny

This week while we were celebrating all things green and rainbows, I happened to glance at the calendar and realized that Easter was just around the corner. That meant that Gv and I spent all our free time creating new decorations so we could get them up in time to enjoy around the house.

After having so much fun with so many of our Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine's and St. Patrick's creations, I decided to repeat many of the art techniques we'd used before, as well as introducing a few new ones to the mix.

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Toddler‐Made St. Patrick's Day Decorations & Activities

St. Patrick's Day has always been one of my favorite holidays. It's around the same time as my birthday, my favorite color is green, and as I've said before, I absolutely love rainbows.

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Toddler‐Made Valentine's Day Cards (& What You Can Do if You're in a Pinch)

We've been attending a weekly playgroup since the new year began and even though most of the kids are all preschool‐age or younger, we moms thought it would be fun to have them trade Valentine's cards with one another.

I knew Gv would enjoy making them herself and just had to figure out the best way to go about it. I decided to print "Happy Valentine's Day! Love, Gv" onto plain sheets of card stock paper. I then handed her several sheets of heart stickers and a box of crayons before settling back to see what she'd do with it all.

It was very interesting to watch her process of first applying all the stickers to the paper (I was most amazed to see that she seemed to generally space them out so that they pretty much covered the entire page) and then using her crayons to draw on top of that.

When she was finished, I used my nifty fancy‐edged craft scissors to cut them all out (although pinking shears or even just regular scissors would work, too) and then added the names of the recipients.

We received a message saying that two new friends would be joining us the next day, so naturally we wanted to make sure they had their very own Valentine's Day cards, as well.

The only problem was, we'd already used up all our heart stickers, so I had to come up with an alternative idea that would be both quick and easy.

I grabbed some index cards, drew a heart with some markers, added the standard greeting, then handed them over to Gv so she could add her personal touch. I really liked the idea of using index cards, so I might just use them (blank ones like this are best) for next year's cards.

Do you prefer homemade Valentine's Day cards, or fancier store‐bought versions? Have you thought about letting your toddler help create the cards? I'd love to hear! Leave a comment here, or email me at lisahealy (at) outlook (dot) com.

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