New Author!

I am really excited for the newest member of our team, my sister-in-law, Janelle Eyring.  Janelle is very talented and is extremely creativity.  I can't wait to see some of the things that she has been working on.

A Tribute To Cardboard

"3 -2- 1, BLAST OFF!" Yesterday my son told me that we should get in a rocket ship and fly up in the sky to find the moon (it was a cloud covered night). So since we pretty much live in his imaginative world all of the time, I decided I would try to make that possible for him. I stopped by an appliance store's recycling bin (FREE) on my way home last night and made this rocket ship for my little astronaut.

I've gotta tell you, we LOVE big cardboard boxes!

When I was in junior high, I saw an episode of Out of the Box on Playhouse Disney (while babysitting, of course!), and fell in love with cardboard boxes! I frequently dream of having my own preschool and having a whole closet full of broken down cardboard boxes so we can use them whenever and however we'd like.Earlier this summer, my nephew and I built a ship to sail the seven seas in!

Seriously so fun and so cheap! Next time you cross paths with a huge cardboard box, take it home and find a way to play with it!

Turkey Toes!

I watch some toddlers during the week and I'm always looking for fun crafts, especially during the holidays.  I came across these Turkey Toes from Chasing Fireflies

and also this really cute turkey template from Alpha Mom.  You can get the template that I used HERE.  Go to their site to get some more great templates for a coloring page, centerpiece, and a crayon holder.

I combined both ideas, added a large baby food jar and the clearance candy corn from Halloween and WALLA a fun but easy toddler craft!  I printed the template out on card stock and had the kids color the template first.  I cut it for them since they are still pretty young and tend to have too many oops moments.  They then filled up the jars with the candy corn which helped them work on their small motor skills.  Then they glued the turkey around the jar and the small turkey on top.

This can be done really cute if you decorate the lid (to hide the fact that it is a baby food jar) with twine or ribbon, mod podge, and paper.  With my minimal preparation this project was a great Thanksgiving toddler craft.  

Halloween Candy Bag

A few hours before I took my son out for all the Halloween festivities I realized I had nothing to collect candy in for him.  I knew I could have gone simple and just done a grocery bag or it's equivalent but I had a lot of orange fleece left over from Alex's costume so I gave a bag a try.  I didn't have a pattern but I'd seen enough tutorials for bags on the internet I knew I could figure it out. Granted it isn't the best sewing job but I whipped it together pretty fast.  This was also my first time every doing appliqué so don't look too close on the picture. For some reason I can't figure out what settings to put my sewing machine to make a good stitch.  Please let me know if you've done appliqué a lot.