Archive for the ‘kid's art’ Category
I am a huge fan of Jane Brocket. I love her books, her blog, and always turn to The Gentle Art of Domesticity when I feel I need a boost in inspiration. I am about halfway through Ripping Things to Do, and really enjoying it.
A couple of weeks ago, after the boys learned that invisible ink was used in the early history of America to pass messages back and forth, I pulled out the lemon juice, paper, some q-tips and a candle. I learned how to make and use invisible ink in Jane’s book and the boys thought I was the coolest mom ever when I showed them how to write secret messages (thanks, Jane!)
The boys used q-tips to write messages in lemon juice, and left them to dry on the table.
After their papers were completely dry, they took turns holding the paper very carefully over a candle (always supervised by me). Jane suggests using an iron, but my boys aren’t quite tall enough to do that safely.
They were so excited, and it was a fun new skill for us all. You never know when you will need to write a secret message.
books, family, homeschooling, kid's art • Wednesday, March 10th, 2010 • 4 Comments »
A new year, so full of possibilities. I must admit, after all the gearing up for Christmas, it is sometimes a bit of a relief when it is finished. I immediately think of the spring coming (though that won’t be for many months here), and new life and warmth. I look forward to celebrating a new year of birthdays starting with all of my boys in the spring.
Thoughts of what to plant, where to plant it, and how much to plant. Dreaming of picnics every week in the warm summer sun, having it be warm enough to let my kids play for hours outside every day. We have serious cabin fever by this time of year. It wouldn’t be so bad if it was just cold, but the wind makes it unbearable.
I’m not such a huge fan of resolutions, but a new year does make me reflective over how I would like to do things this year. Much of this past year was spent physically, mentally, and emotionally recovering from the previous two years. This year I feel a renewed vigor and enthusiasm, and I am excited for the possibilities.
This necklace was a gift from Hubby. It was made by Lisa Leonard and is called Be Still. I absolutely love it, and it is a constant reminder to be still.
Being still is sometimes a little difficult with four children. This year, I want to live in the moment more. Enjoy each and every hug, story, cuddle that I am blessed enough to have. I want to enjoy cooking more, so often it’s a matter of just trying to get a nutritious meal on the table while stopping a squabble, holding a fussy babe and trying to think straight and stir at the same time.
I want to be outside more, and truly enjoy the beauty of the world around us. To visit family more as time goes by so quickly, and the children are growing at the speed of light. I want to lie in the grass and read stories to my children, make them picnics to have on adventures in the back yard.
Then there are the more domestic things that I want to accomplish, such as being more organized, getting some sort of chore system worked out with the abilities of everyone in the family. Being really good about making a big shopping trip and then only going out when we need milk and fresh veg/fruit.
I could go on forever as there are probably hundreds of things I want to do, but my overarching goal is to be still, enjoy what God has given me, and make thousands of new, fantastic memories with my family.
I sincerely hope that you all have a wonderful new year and are able to accomplish all that you want. Happy New Year!
books, crochet, family, food, gardening, gifts, green, home, homeschooling, kid's art, nature, sewing, thrift store finds, travelling • Friday, January 1st, 2010 • 11 Comments »
This year for our tree, we are using only handmade ornaments. The kids have loved working on all kinds of different ornaments. Our oldest made this snowman. This little guy is full of fantastic details, a pointy 3d nose, a separate thumb on his mitten hand. Such wonderful detail and all on a snowman that’s only about an inch tall. I’m so proud of my kids and I love that they have such creative imaginations.
It just really hit me today that we only have 3 days until we leave on a trip to visit some family for the next couple of weeks. I have tons to do, and am just hoping that it all gets done. I am looking forward to being able to relax a little bit though.
I also wanted to let you know that after a few inquiries about how I made my vintage button heart, I made a tutorial here. Hope you guys have lots of fun making them.
Have a fantastic day, I better get back to the laundry and packing.
gifts, home, kid's art • Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 • 10 Comments »
My mom recently gave us this beautiful child size desk. It now has a home in the corner of our kitchen, as our art desk. On top are coloured pencils, glue, rulers, scissors, erasers, and little folded paper books. We also have our Usborne Spotter’s Guides for quick reference and our nature bowl, which from this angle looks empty, but it’s full of rocks and dried flowers and a couple of acorns.
The top drawers are filled with different sizes of papers and the bottom drawer, which came with a metal divider, is filled with bits of string, yarn, fabric and sparkly papers. There are also some crayons and cardboard tubes for crafting.
I deliberately kept it pretty empty so that it is easy to get to all of the materials, and hopefully it won’t get too messy.
Next up is my new farmhouse kitchen table. The photos don’t do the desk and table justice as the lighting in our house is really bad. Since we have lived in this house we have been eating around a small built in table. It has always been tight squeezing all of our family around it, but with the addition of the babe, it just wasn’t working anymore. We were so cramped that I ended up with food from the babe’s fingers all over my sleeve and sometimes in my hair. Needless to say, we needed a better solution.
We’ve been keeping an eye out for a good table and we hit the jackpot when we were at our local thrift store last week. The same day that we found the stool, we found this table. It is almost six feet long and exactly what I was looking for. It was scratched up and one of the legs was loose, but with a fresh coat of paint and some tightening of the legs, we now have a super sturdy, beautiful kitchen table. The best part is that it cost $20, and I can’t tell you how fantastic it is for the six of us to sit around a table and have room not only to eat without chewing on someone else’s elbows, but there’s even enough room to put extra food on the table.
This past weekend, Hubby ripped out the table and painted the walls and tore out some cabinets that cut the room in half. It is so much better now, much more open and the whole space feels so much better, and brighter. I forgot to take pictures of the cupboards that he took out, but I did snap a picture of the wallpaper that was covering the whole kitchen. Let me just say that I am so very glad the walls are now a beautiful shade of antique white instead of this.
Hope you all have a great day.
family, home, kid's art, thrift store finds • Thursday, November 12th, 2009 • 19 Comments »
I love this picture from my daughter. She has really taken off with writing and I just love how when she runs out of room, she just rounds the corner and writes backwards. I’m not sure if you can tell but when she hit the end she started on the next line which says “made this for” and then turns back around and writes Grandma. I do love little one’s writing. It says so much about them, doesn’t it?
I used to write backwards a lot when I was little. I hear this is pretty common with lefties, which explains me, but my daughter is a righty and does this a lot. I love it.
Pretty chaotic around here still, trying to put things back into place after some demo work and lots of painting. Hope to have some pictures on Wednesday for you. Let me just say that I am loving my kitchen now, it’s no where near done and not by any means perfect, but it’s so much better than it was.
Hope you all had a great weekend!
family, homeschooling, kid's art • Monday, November 9th, 2009 • 9 Comments »
My kids love tic tac toe, especially the boys. I often find bits of paper with their games scrawled on them, so I was excited to see this in a book I recently checked out of the library. Green Crafts for Children: 35 Step-by-Step Projects Using Natural, Recycled, And Found Materials is excellent. A lot of kid’s crafts books have maybe one or two projects that I would actually want to do with the kids, but this has a bunch, so many that I’m going to purchase the book.
My six year old gathered all of the sticks and rocks and I helped him tie the smaller sticks into crosses. The boys have been playing with it and are really enjoying it. I love that it is made of natural materials, and love that there was more than just playing a game involved. There was gathering of materials, creativity and time involved in making it, and then the fun in playing it again and again.
This is just the first of many projects out of this book that we will be working on, you guys should definitely check it out if you can.
family, home, kid's art, nature • Thursday, November 5th, 2009 • 9 Comments »
A couple of weeks ago I was brainstorming for ideas for decorating my girl’s room and making paper flowers was one thing I thought of. Last week I saw Lisa’s paper flower tutorial which is great. There are also some paper flowers in Green Crafts for Children which is a fantastic book. I ended up using Lisa’s tutorial as a base but used tissue paper that was 8" x 8" instead of 8" x 16". I also rounded the corners for more defined petal shapes. I love how they turned out and my daughter had a lot of fun making a bunch. We made enough to fill a silver bucket for her dresser (I’ll show you all the finished bouquet as soon as her room is done). You should definitely give these a try, there are so many variations, and they are inexpensive and quick to make. They were a huge success.
family, gardening, home, kid's art, nature • Monday, November 2nd, 2009 • 8 Comments »
My kids were thrilled when I told them that this year, instead of using our normal christmas tree ornaments, we are going to do a homemade tree. I should have known that they would jump to it straightaway. For a couple of weeks now they have all been making ornaments out of paper, crayon, coloured pencil, markers, and plenty of cutting and glue. A couple of days ago my six year old said he wanted to make one out of fabric. He worked it all out on paper and showed me what he wanted. Apart from ironing and threading needles, he did it all, including using the sewing machine for the first time. He loved working on it and was so proud when it was finished. I just love the art my kiddos come up with and this was no exception. It will definitely have a proud place on our tree this year.
family, kid's art, sewing • Thursday, October 29th, 2009 • 10 Comments »
It’s a very rare time when Hubby and I get a day by ourselves, but my mom generously offered to watch the three bigger kids while we took the babe and went off for the day. As anybody with kids knows, sometimes it is really hard to get an adult conversation in while they are still awake. Since the babe doesn’t talk yet, we were able to spend the whole day talking, while we were actually awake enough to think straight. We drove 40 minutes away to a town that has a few nice things to do. On the way we saw this fantastic barn and some gorgeous trees (most of the ones where we live went straight from green to dead because of all the snow, no autumn colours).
We walked around the historic downtown for quite a while and stopped at a local brew pub for a quick lunch. It was so nice to be able to get out in the fresh air, it was a gorgeous 70°, and do lots of walking and talking. After some more walking we went to a bookstore where we were able to leisurely browse through some books and magazines until I almost jumped out of my skin as a mouse scurried by my feet. I do not like mice, I do not do well around mice, mice are not my friends. I have an irrational fear of them and seeing this little guy put me on edge. They say that the best way to face your fears is to jump headfirst, right? I’m seriously considering going to a pet shop to hold the mice because I really do not like being controlled (through my fear) by these little guys. Anyway, that’s another story…
On the way home we saw a bunch of buffalo, they are truly magnificent creatures. Then we passed one of the windmill farms near us. Some people complain that they are an eyesore, but personally, I think they are beautiful and calming. I often think it would be nice to grab a blanket and a book and sit in the middle of a windmill farm. Not really a possibility, but still.
Oh, and on Sunday I tackled one little project. I hung some art wires (well, cotton yarn) for the boys to hang some of their artwork. I’ve been meaning to do this for some time, but I just never got around to it. Now for less than a quarter, the boys have somewhere to arrange their never ending supply of artwork, and it adds some nice colour to their walls as well.
I’ve got lots planned for this week, so it if goes according to plan, I’ll have several fun things to share with you.
family, home, kid's art, nature • Monday, October 26th, 2009 • 7 Comments »
Yesterday I started a new project. I knew this crocheting business was going to be addicting. Now that I can do a granny square without looking at the pattern, I am finding it very easy to fit them in during the day. They are so quick and easy, and I can put them down and pick them up and know right away what to do next. This is perfect for my life with four kiddos, I don’t waste time figuring out where I stopped off, and I see fairly immediate progress, all good things.
These are the materials for this project. I decided to go for some brighter colours and a cotton yarn as I need this to be a little sturdier. I’m hoping to have it done in the next few days and I am excited to show you all. The top photo is the way I arranged my materials, but I like how my daughter did it much more.
crochet, kid's art, sewing • Saturday, October 10th, 2009 • 5 Comments »
