I love the idea of turning everyday items into something more special and meaningful, such as transforming plain white napkins into unique artwork with a toddler and fabric markers
These napkins are perfect for family meals, cheap and easy to make, and how empowering for little ones to enjoy eating with something they made.
I know it makes my meal more special.
(Project inspired by similar toddler creations at my friend Alissa’s house! Thanks, Alissa!)
Another post in our First on Friday series where we share a new activity from the week season.
We’re not quite finished decorating the tree, but will we every be? I am starting to think the answer is no. We could always sew more, dehydrate more, craft more.
I look forward to many more years of ornament making. We’ve had such a wonderful time decorating our first full-sized holiday tree. This experience has bought us such joy and peace.
More pictures, instructions and inspiration for our ornaments:
+ Bird ornaments (from Skip to my Lou)
+ Beaded wreath ornaments
+ Felted stars, wooden stars, and felt hearts
+ Dehydrated orange slices (try dehydrating ruby red grapefruit for a beautiful pink color!)
Another post in our First on Friday series where we share a new experience from the week.
You may be thinking, “What?! Another craft post?!” I know, I know. We have very limited content on our blog this week. What can I say? That’s what we’ve been up to and we’re having a blast.
Today we tackled some beaded ornaments inspired by a recent Kids Craft Weekly, an email newsletter that features simple, creative and fun projects for kids. (If you’re interested in crafts, you should subscribe. I always smile when I see a Kids Craft Weekly sitting in my email inbox.)
For over a year now my daughter has loved to string things, but until this week we mostly focused on building her hand dexterity and self-confidence by stringing larger objects, such as these fantastic Plan Toy Geo-Beads
At our local craft resale shop I recently found a giant bag of brightly colored (mostly) wooden beads in large and small sizes and had a “we must buy this!” moment (not hard when it was a steal at $3 and supports our town’s senior center).
We started stringing the beads on pipe-cleaners, an easy first step for toddlers. We made simple wreath ornaments and jingly bracelets (with bells!).
(Yes, we’ve been cooking up potato pancakes! We’ve been crafting, cooking and celebrating nonstop. You should see the pile of dishes in the sink.)
My daughter loved beading. She found delight in trying something one way and then taking the beads off to do something else. With the alphabet beads, she liked trying to spell words (such as her name) and giggled as she laced individual letters saying, “S, for [her friend] Sadie! D, for Daddy!”
I enjoyed watching her work and seeing the evolution of her color, shape and size combinations. I found her work always interesting, quite creative and certainly full of beauty. A very special day.
You guessed it.
We’re still working on holiday projects.
Every surface is covered.
Every surface is a mess.
Above: Miss Leyba learning to sew! She always wants to do what Mommy’s working on. So far, so good! Somehow I’m teaching her and supervising her while working on a million other things. Mom’s are so good at multitasking. Or at least pretending that we’re good at it. ;)
We’re having a blast!
Now please excuse me as I have half a dozen birds to embroider, stars to finish, stockings to stitch, pine cones to paint, craft stick stars to mod podge, presents to wrap, presents to order… and we’re busy celebrating Hanukkah too. That’s right, I have some potato pancakes to fry and candles to light too.
December is super-wonderful-exhausting-crazy-fun-busy and we love it.
We’ve been busy crafting over here (as always!). Here’s a glimpse at what Miss Leyba and I have been working on lately. All works in progress!
Mini wreaths wrapped with red shiny thread and bells.
Pine cones painted with silver acrylic paint. Think holiday ornaments. In progress. VERY in progress.
I beg you, please leave a comment answering this very important question: Should we add glitter to the pine cones or would that be overkill?!
I can’t decide. Really. I have no idea.
Miss Leyba would probably say, “Go for it, Mom. We love glitter.”
What do you think?
