July 2011

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scrunch painted paper washable markers

This is a super easy project for rainy or sunny days. This can be done by any kid old enough to grab a washable marker! (And not immediately stick it in the mouth.) It’s fast so you can work with several kids at the same time and each can do several pieces and experiment with different techniques and colors.

First scrunch a piece of tissue paper into a ball. (You can experiment with other kinds of white paper, we actually used exam table paper in these pictures. Tracing paper works well too especially for younger kids, because it doesn’t tear as easily as tissue paper.)

Pick out a few colors of washable marker and scribble all over the ball, getting as much color on the outside and in the cracks as possible.

scrunch painting tissue paper

Carefully open your wadded paper ball and smooth it out with your hands. See how the color is now randomly distributed all over the paper? Scrunch it up again and color again using the same colors.

tie dye paper

Open, scrunch and color again. About three times gives a good amount of color. (You can also color the whole ball with one color per scrunching.)

wadded paper dyed with washable markers

You can stop at this point and use a warm iron to flatten out your paper. A smaller piece can simply be glued to a little larger piece of contrast color paper and hung as art. A larger piece can be used as wrapping paper or cut up for other projects. Laminate it and cover a book or a journal.

spray water on scrunch painted paper washable markers

If you want to go one step further . . . take your flattened out paper outside. If it’s raining you can experiment with holding it flat on a cookie sheet for a few seconds or holding it vertically and see what happens to the colors! Don’t keep it out too long or your colors will run away in the rain! Bring it inside to dry. If it’s a sunny day, use a spray bottle filled with plain water to squirt your paper, put some rocks in the corners and let it dry in the sun. This project even works in the snow! Lay your artwork on a cookie sheet and let fat flakes fall on it for a few minutes or throw a loosely packed snow ball and then shake off the excess snow. Water softens the colors for a different look, as seen in the first photo above taken before ironing flat.

Enjoy!

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monster stuffie supplies, wool felt, buttons, zippers

This started out as a project to make monster stuffies. The boy and I had done some sketches several months ago, so I pulled those out and made patterns. The girl and I pulled out colors and colors of wool and rayon felt, the jar of buttons, snaps, zippers and other odds and ends. The original idea called for using a functioning zipper for the mouth which would create a belly pocket. This took a little thinking but it wasn’t all that hard. I had hoped this would be easy enough for the kids to do a lot of the work. The wool felt is pretty thick to sew through so they did parts of it but some of it was just too hard. We stuffed the bodies lightly with poly pellets and wool stuffing.

We each made one stuffie and it turned out that we each chose a different one of the three patterns I had made. The girl stayed true to the original monster theme but the boy’s morphed into a caricature of Spider-Man and mine turned zoomorphic and became an owl. For some reason we have had a lot of owl “sightings” lately—Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole (an excellent movie by the way), a non-fiction book about owls from the library, the kids have been hooting at the neighborhood owls, and when we went to get the girl her first backpack, she chose one with a cute forest scene, complete with . . . owls.

Happy Monster:
monster stuffie character wool felt button eyes and zipper mouth

Intense Superhero:
Spider-Man inspired zipper pocket stuffie

Silly Owl:
wool felt hand sewn owl stuffie with zipper pocket belly

This was a fun project and I think we’ll make more of these to give away as gifts. I’d particularly like to find some patterned wool to turn into felt to use on these stuffies.

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swim skirt

The kids are taking two weeks of swim lessons and they needed goggles and a swim cap for the girl. Goggles I can see getting a good bit of use out of and they seemed like a good incentive for the boy who was a little cautious about swimming in a pool. We generally have our summer water fun at the beach.

Frantically looking around the house for a bit of swimsuit material to make a cap from lead me to the little skirt that matches the girl’s swimsuit. I found an adult size swim cap pattern on the internet and sized it down to fit her head. I made myself sew a rough draft from part of an old tee shirt. There was so little fabric in the skirt that I had only one chance to get it right. I even had to undo the seams in order to have enough fabric rather than simply cutting the seams off as I would usually do when repurposing. I managed to eek out the pieces, sewing up the cap using the elastic and lycra waist trim to finish the bottom edge of the cap. The sewing itself turned out to be quite easy and I’m glad I decided to be frugal because I think the matching cap turned out much cuter than anything we could have bought.

Voila, my bathing beauty!

toddler, little girl swim cap

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paper hat worn by cat

Paper hat made in the “French style” according to the boy. He had just finished reading a version of the fairy tale, Puss in Boots, with lots of froofy clothing. Hat modeled patiently by Duke the cat.

plumber's tape and water bottles

I have these small water bottles that don’t leak when they tip over and are just the right size for the kids. Unfortunately with much use the lids no longer screw down tightly. On a crazy whim I pulled out the plumber’s thread seal tape, read the box (it is food-safe), and wrapped a length around the threads of the bottle. I screwed on the lid and tested it out. Super, watertight once more. They’ve been through the dishwasher twice and I haven’t had to replace the tape yet. I think they’ll make it through the rest of the summer.

hand knitted lunch bag

I knit this “lunch sack” from a pattern I found on Ravelry. The pattern was written to be knit flat and then sewed up after. Although I don’t mind sewing, one of the things I like about knitting is the ability to create shaping without having to sew seams. So with a little math I converted the pattern to knit in the round, preserving as much of the original details as I could. It turned out pretty well although it is a little too stretchy to hold a full water bottle and a piece of fruit. But it would be just fine for a sandwich and a snack.

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Last year we built a 4×8 foot raised bed for vegetables and herbs. I’ve been cooking with some of the herbs for at least a month now. It’s wonderful to walk out and just snip off what I need, rinse and chop it right into the pot.

Small leaf basil and curly parsley, we also have dill and chives

fresh basil and parsley from the garden

zucchini and summer squash picked small at around 5-6 inches, delicious fresh or cooked

fresh zucchini and summer squash garden

In a few more weeks I hope to have peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers from the garden as well as blueberries and strawberries from other spots in the yard.

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heirloom primroses – probably been here since the house was built

yellow primroses

baby squash – planted last month

young yellow squash

the first Stella D’Oro daylily – planted last year

stella d'oro daylily

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