Dry erase board countdown (teacher gift)

"Y"

I LOVED this project!

I have a friend who recently had a baby and for her shower she assigned everyone a letter of the alphabet, so that she could display the alphabet on the nursery wall. The idea that each letter would be different and representative on the person who made/brought it.

I got "Y". I thought of lots of different ways I could make a "Y", this is what I settled on.

I went through my paper scraps (I save almost all scraps) and cut tiny lengths of all the favorites. It was so fun to go through. I found paper that Liam's baby book was made from (actually, this is for my friends baby whom they named, Liam!), paper given to my by my father, SIL, husband, sister, paper I have had since I was ten, paper printed by my father on his press, and lots more. So fun to acknowledge the significance of each piece.

 I overlapped them over a "Y" shape that I had traced.

 Then put a white piece of paper over the top to make a crisp edge.

Then put it in a frame made by my brother. I hope that she loves it and that it goes good with the other letters of the alphabet in little Liam's nursery.

Springtime greeting cards

 The robin is always reminds me of Springtime. I am so happy to hear and see many fat robins poking around for their breakfast in my back yard.
I had a few Thank yous I needed to write and a birthday card, so I thought I would make some Springy cards.
The leaves, eyes, wing are cut out, the rest is ripped paper. Branch is drawn.

How to: Make Accordian Fan Decor

 I was in charge of decorating for a church Valentine's Day Party. I LOVE how these pinwheels (I don't even know what they are called? Fans?) turned out.
The two biggest (middle pink, and far right red) were made out of wrapping paper (15 inches wide) I am not sure how many feet were on the roll. We just kept accordian folding until the roll was finished.
All the others were made from poster board. The ones with stripes and polka dots were painted. I only had red and white poster board and just went from there. The biggest ones made from poster board are 3 half sections of poster board.
As far as a tutorial, here would be the steps.
1. Get two regular posterboards (it comes in extra thick, also. Don't get that.)
2. Cut them both lengthwise in half. You will use 3 of the halves.
3. Accordian fold all three sections the same width. I used a ruler and scored the posterboard with a bone folder. I just used the width of the ruler so each of the folds would be equadistant from each other.
4. I stapled the sections together, fanning them out to make the circular shape. I am sure you could try glue, or tape. I didn't think the staples were obvious.
5. To stabalize the fan to make it easier to hang I hot glued a paper plate (with the rim cut off) to the back.
6. Also to stabalize, but also to make it cute, I cut out scrapbook paper circles for the front centers and added a heart on top.
7. I ran into some problems trying to hang them, but then came up with this solution that worked great. I twisted a pipecleaner with the ends together but the middle open so it looked like the eye of a needle (wouldn't a picture be helpful?) and the glued the twisted part on the back onto the paper plate so it only needed one push pin on which to hang.
Vwala!

Handmade gifts 4: family and ornaments

 It has been awhile since I sewed a book. I was so excited about this project. I actually had the idea for it at the beginning of the summer. It is actually one reason our summer was so fun. I kept thinking about the book, so we did super fun things and took lots of pictures all summer, because I knew it would end up in the book.
After binding the book, I put pictures in. One event/outing/vacation per page, then labled it.
The kids weren't very excited about it, but at least I can get it out and prove to them what a fun summer we had if they ever doubt :)

Also, I put all of the Christmas stuff up in the attic today, WITHOUT GETTING PICTURES OF THEIR ORNAMENTS! I also didn't get pictures of the ornaments the kids made for us.
I make them an ornament each year and now it will have to wait until next year to document it. I made Zoe and orange Converse shoe. She loves orange and Converse shoes. I made Liam a dove to signify his baptism this year. I made Lydia an apple to signify her starting Kindergarten. Felix got the alphabet embroidered on some felt because he is OBSESSED with the alphabet. He carried it around for days naming all the letters on it.

Homemade gifts 2: Liam

 I made Liam some fleece black and white checked pajama pants, which he didn't take off the entire Christmas break (maybe a slight exageration). Lydia sewed the little pockets at the ends of this scarf. We got the idea from Family Fun.

Zoe made Liam a personalized bookmark. On the back are the names of all his favorite books.

Halloween Decor (total $7)

 I really, really, really wanted to decorate for Halloween this year. The problem was that my budget didn't allow for many purchases, and I have very few decorations from years previous.
I was pretty proud of my ingenuity on this project. Wreath: grapevine wreath ($1), black spray paint ($3), creepy crawlies (some found around the house, others $1), burlap ribbon (old rice bag $0, had paint $0)

 Mimi and Pa bought us pumpkins when they were here. Black paper bats (have had that heavy black paper forever! $0)

 Pipe cleaner spiders I made a couple years ago ($0)

 Black crow ($1) wish I would've gotten more of these. Spray painted pumpkin turned out fun!

 Man eating pumpkin! Shoe, sock, jeans (had them $0)!

Had spider webs from last year, pipe cleaner spiders, skeleton garland in window (part of the creepy crawlers $1 pack, strung on ribbon I had).
Not pictured, orange string lights (previous year $0)
Do like how many times I put $0 ? I liked it too. I was pretty happy with the decorations and how it turned out. The kids had a lot of fun putting it together with me. Many of the bats have fallen down and the cobwebs are no longer up thanks to the wind that blows through there.
I found most of these ideas on Pinterest. Which I pinned to my Halloween Board.

Paste paper!

 This is one of my favorite projects that always ends up with such beautiful decorative paper. Simple enough that anyone (except two year olds :) can help.
This paste is a mixture of 2 1/4 C. water combined with 1/3 C. white flour. Mix and let sit on the counter for a couple hours. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly for ten minutes. You want it to end up the consistancy of heavy unwhipped cream. Let it cool completely. Strain. Add paint.
We used cheap acrylic and it worked out just fine. I let each of the kids choose their own colors, then we all shared. The paint lightens a little as it dries, so make it good and bright!

The next part is the fun part. You can fingerpaint the goo all over the paper, experimenting with amounts, textures, designs, and patterns. You can get some really fun results. Some of our favorites included making designs with a serrated knife, my wedding ring, a clothes pin, and then sticking two pieces of different colored paint together then pulling apart.

 This is Austin making some artsy paste paper which he later used for the cover of his book.

Beautiful results. Next I will share some things we make out of them!

valentines

I sewed the paper heart onto the cardstock.

Photo tags

I am sure I saw this idea somewhere years ago and never thought I would use it. But this year it surfaced and I did it. I made gift tags with the kids pictures on them. It is so fun for them to find their gifts with their faces smiling at them.
I used old photos that I had laying around. So some of them are of the kids years ago. I think I will use them over again. I just put them on the gifts that are from us, so they know who they are from.

Birthday Invites

So, preperations are underway for Liam's birthday party. I am so excited! I love throwing a party with a theme.
Liam wanted a Harry Potter birthday party. We decided for the invitations to make the envelope look Hogwarts-ish. I had some sealing wax from awhile ago that we used on some heavy papered envelopes that we made.
The invitations inside were written with white crayon on white paper. There was a clue explaining that to "reveal the secret messege" they needed to use a dark colored marker. It worked well, and was cute to do something "magic".
Stay tuned for more Potter themed birthday ideas.

Spring inspired cards

Card #1 One rick rack flower, one mixed paper and one quilled.

Card #2 The yellow ones are rick rack flowers.

Card #3 The colors didn't turn out well. They are much more vibrant than they look here.

Card #4

Card #5

Card #6

Card #7

Card #8

Fishy valentines

The girls both made these fish for their valentines this year. They turned out so cute. We found the idea on familyfun.com

Baby shower invitation

This in one of the baby shower invites I made for a recent shower.

simple valentines

I *love* Valentines Day! I love pink and hearts, etc. I love to make valentines and always have. Here are some I made this year.

Christmas Cards

Some Christmas cards I made. The red one with a gift is a pop-up. The snowflakes were printed on my fathers printing press a couple years ago with silver ink. I outlined and embossed the black snowflake with white, and the white card with silver.

Zoe's birthday party invites

Zoe is having a tea party birthday so I try to stick to the theme at any cost. These invites I decorated, but she decorated a couple too. We tried to do it together. There is a little pocket in the back that helps the "lid" slide in and out. I love how these turned out.

I am so annoyed but everytime I downloaded this photo, it changed it to a verticle format. You get the idea.

Cards

None of the paper is handmade (by me). I just threw together some cards for some birthdays and thank you's. Here are a few.