Painted Jars for Tealights

These are not nearly "perfect" because I let my kids paint them, which was both a great craft project, and sweet way for them to welcome a new baby that was born to friends of ours a month ago. I'm still learning to let go when it comes to crafting.

Assemble art mats (to protect your surface), empty and clean baby food jars, other large jars, and paints.

Paint them.

Take pictures without getting paint on your camera. This part is tricky.

Once they dried, I popped in some battery-operated tea lights to test them out.

Lovely. And they go with my color-scheme for the baby shower!

You can see my attempt for an ombre jar in the back.

I've also spray painted baby food jars to create gold vases, that was a more professional look, but less kid-involved. Plus I turned baby food jars into kid sippers for a birthday party.

Jessica

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Cherry Blossom Flowers: an Egg Carton Craft

Sometimes my kids are begging for a quick and easy craft. Something they can do in the 30 minutes between finishing breakfast and leaving for school. (You can check out my morning launch pad that helps smooth this process, and my tricks to save 10 hours a week, so I actually have time for crafting with the kiddos.)

Yesterday, my almost-4-year-old, wanted a "special" craft, so I looked into my craft box (my craft supplies are not as organized as they once were, but I still have a to-do box), found an egg carton, and looked on Pinterest to find inspiration.




Enter this pin, originally from Snapguide. It's an easy to follow picture tutorial, but the basic rundown is: cut out the egg "cups", slice each one 4 times and trim to create "petals", paint.

We chose pink, orange and red, so at least the colors go together well.

I might have time for another baby food jar craft, like last year's mother's day vases, or teacher appreciation pencil vases.

Jessica

Linking up to the Spring Pinterest Challenge with Young House Love, Bower Power, Sparkle Meets Pop and Red Bird Blue

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Crayons plus Craft Paper equals a Kid-friendly Tablecloth

Easiest table setting I ever did.

Who knew I had so many different types of crayons?

Run a stripe of brown paper down the center of the table.

Add crayons and children.

Done!

I also (later) added candles, food, other people, dishes, etc. 

Oh! And my 5 year old wrote people's names above their place settings so it worked as a place card too!

The kids loved getting to draw on the "tablecloth" during dinner, and it certainly kept them occupied longer than usual so we could have a wee bit more adult conversation before they needed our help.

Jessica

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Letting Kids Paint Their Own Pottery (a continuation on my journey of letting go)

Remember a few weeks back when I shared my attempt to let go and just allow my kids, mostly my baby, to develop at her own pace?

Wel, I might have harbored a secret hope that once I blogged about it, she would instantly start walking, just to show me.

That did not happen.

So I'm back sharing my take on crafting and kids.

First- They are KIDS. Let them just do it for Peet's sake! Oh so often I see moms trying to "fix" their kids craft projects, spruce up their art, just make tiny adjustments to make it look better. Let it be. Let them color outside the lines, choose their own paint colors, glue something to the table.

This is an area where I think I excel.

About a month ago we did paint your own pottery, and I shared a 3-piece bowl with my 3 year old, and let my daughter do a bowl of her own. Then she made a penguin, I made another bowl, and my son made a mug, which is not pictured because it has turned into his "morning milk" mug at the breakfast table.

Notice how her bowl and mine are almost the same? Totally not on purpose, and I think hers (with purple on the outside) might even be better:)

I let my son do the insides of the 3-piece bowl and I tried to Kate Spade it up with the polka dots on the outside. 

I love these things. It captures my kids' skills at a moment in time (and my skills as well!), and it just wouldn't be the same if I doctored them all up to make them perfect.

What do you think? Should we "help" our kids create more aesthetically pleasing crafts?

Jessica

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Teacher Appreciation- a Pencil Vase

I signed up for a few too many commitees at my daughter's new school, but the one I'm so excited about is the teacher appreciation committee.

We provide lunch for the teachers twice a year plus snacks on parent-teacher conference days.

To brighten up the teacher break room, I decided to make some very teacher appropriate vases.

Here is what you need:

a glue gun

a jar ( I used a jar of peaches from my chicken and peaches dinner)

Lots of pencils (This jar took 29)

Of course I purchased the #2 Pencils on Amazon, because you know how I like to save 10 hours a week by using them:)

Just line up the first pencil very carefully, and hot glue it on.

Then keep working your way around the jar, occasionally glueing from the right and then the left, to make sure it's even.

At the end, space out the last few evenly, so your aren't left with a gaping hole 3/4 the size of a pencil:)

Tada!

Any crafts you are working on lately?

Jessica

Thanks for stopping by! 

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I link to these awesome parties:

Monday: DIY Showoff,  Thrifty Decor Chick, Home Stories A to Z  Tuesday: Nest for Less,  My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia, Centsational Girl Wednesday: Savvy Southern Style Thursday: House of Hepworths, the 36th Avenue,  Crafty, Scrappy, Happy Friday:  Serenity Now, Tatertots and Jello

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2012 Year in Photo Collage

I spent January 1st this year creating our 2012 family photo collage.

I know, like with kids is always exciting, right? This year I did a few more pics of the grandparents, my mom and dad each with the baby, my grandma with my 5 year old...

Each year I try to just get a quick essence of what the year was. Was it like 2011 with a trip to Israel for my husband and I and Disneyland with the kids? Or 2010 when my sister got married so we have a ton of those pictures up. 

I find these are some of my favorite ways to remember each year. We hang them in our upstairs loft with our other yearly photo collages, but here is my 5 year old modeling this year's collage.

Then she wanted to make her own. So we took the Toilet Paper art canvas from her room, and I let her do whatever she wanted. I'm guessing she is in love with her baby sister since that's the focus of her collage. Plus I love the shot of the rainbow cake pops there from our 1 year old's rainbow birthday party.

How do you commemorate each year?

Jessica

Thanks for stopping by! 

Please feel free to follow me with all those nifty buttons in the sidebar:)

Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or RSS Feed

I link to these awesome parties:

Monday: DIY Showoff,  Thrifty Decor Chick, Home Stories A to Z  Tuesday: Nest for Less,  My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia, Centsational Girl Wednesday: Savvy Southern Style Thursday: House of Hepworths, the 36th Avenue,  Crafty, Scrappy, Happy Friday:  Serenity Now, Tatertots and Jello

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Paper Snowflakes

Nothing says winter more than paper snowflakes, especially when it finally starts to rain and I'm home with sick little ones, whiling away the hours until I can justify putting them down for a nap.



Plus, since I'm obviously in a rainbow birthday party theme (it will end eventually, I promise), I made some in a rainbow for you.



I followed intstructions from instructables, apparently 6-sided snowflakes are totally the thing, and 4 and 8 pointes snowflakes are out!

Here is my picture tutorial for a 6-sided snowflake.

1. Take a piece of construction paper and scissors to start. Easy so far, right?



2. Then fold in one corner to create a triangle. If you unfolded it, the paper would be a square. Skip ahead if you started with square paper:)



3. Cut off the excess. (I used these for the paper chains you see on the mantel above).



4. Fold corner to corner to make a smaller triangle.



5. Now for the tricky part, fold this triangle in thirds. One side in (about a 60 degree angle)



6. Now the other side.



7. Next, cut off the tips, this will create your points, so experiment with what you like, sharp and pointy, or rounded.



8. Now you can just cut in on the sides in whatever pattern you like, I just go freeform with lots of triangles. Snipping off the bottom will create the shape in the middle of your snowflake.



9. Unfold (perfect job for a sick 3 year old) and you are all done!

Hmm, maybe I shouldn't have numbered this. 9 steps seems like a lot, but I promise, once you do it once (or twice) you'll be able to whip these babies out in no time.

*caveat* if you are spatially challenged, you know who you are, then don't try this with a certain granddaughter, you'll just be frustrated. Just saying:)

Jessica

Thanks for stopping by! I love to keep in touch. 

    

I link to these awesome parties:

Monday: DIY Showoff,  Thrifty Decor Chick, Home Stories A to Z  Tuesday: Nest for Less,  My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia, Centsational Girl Wednesday: Savvy Southern Style Thursday: House of Hepworths, the 36th Avenue,  Crafty, Scrappy, Happy Friday:  Serenity Now, Tatertots and Jello

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