Father's Day card

This was the Father's Day Card that Charlotte sent to her grandfather this year. All of our card projects are painting-based because it's her favorite art activity. I cut out a tie shape from one of the recent paintings, glued it to a card, and voila!




We try to do something handmade for every holiday. Here is a list of our past work:

Mother's Day
Easter
Valentine's Day
Christmas
Thanksgiving

Toddler Craft: Bird Feeders

It's hard to find little projects that are suitable for toddlers. The attention span, the fine motor skills, the fact that you don't really want to fill your house with crap. This one, from Prudent Baby, was perfection.

They got to dump, to stir, to dump again, to stir again, to spoon... And then it got to leave the house and be genuinely useful. BAM!

Mix the gelatin with water.

Add bird seed

Spoon into cookie cutters.

Dry overnight.

Hang.

 If you're a toddler: Assume that the moment after hanging, all neighborhood birds will dive bomb your feeder immediately. Feel confused when this doesn't transpire.

If you're an adult: Pretend that something other than squirrels are going to enjoy the bird feeders.

 

Father's Day

This weekend was late Mother's Day (Saturday) and early Father's Day (Sunday). We had company on Mother's Day and Everett's Naming Ceremony will be on Father's Day so we needed a double re-do on our holidays. Having grown up with a nurse (required to work every other Christmas) and having family on the west coast for a decade now, moving holidays around to fit our schedule is second nature around here.

Last Father's Day I was horizontal on the couch trying not to puke on the rug (thanks, Everett), and therefore B's Father's Day consisted of a very heartfelt high-five. Here was our re-do:

Ree's Eggs Benedict, with a little smoked salmon thrown in for B.

Father & son

Afternoon golf

Mother's Day Card

This the the Mother's Day card that Charlotte made for her two grandmothers. I helped her put her thumbprints on the card and envelope, and then I drew in the stems and leaves. Easy, personal, and springy. Perfect!




I've been trying to make it a tradition to do something handmade for every holiday. Here are links to some of our past work:

Thanksgiving sign
Christmas wrapping paper
Valentine's Day envelope of love
Easter card


  

Flashback: Charlotte's 2nd Birthday

Last summer I took a several month blog hiatus while I was in my first trimester of pregnancy and also enjoying some family vacations. As a result, several milestones didn't make it on here. And since I use the blog as much for myself as an online journal as I do to connect with others, I'll be putting up several posts from last summer.

Charlotte had a Purple Bubbles themed birthday party to celebrate turning two. Whether it's actual bubbles, the bubble game on my phone, or "bubble water" (seltzer), there's nothing bubble-related this gal doesn't like.

Purple Bubbles cake

A mini cake for my mom, who shares a birthday with Charlotte

Cake pop favors

"Charlotte" bubbles banner in the background.

"2" sign was made from foam board, spray painted purple and then spray painted with glitter paint, and hung with a white ribbon (it was actually a bright purple, but it's hard to tell with the lighting here)

Table decorations, including a framed painting of Charlotte's

I ordered four 3' balloons online and had them inflated at the local party store.
Beware though, they didn't all fit in our SUV and my mom had to drive over and help with transport. Oops!

This photo is awesome because it's so out of character for my little stage actress. She was struck with a sudden case of shyness during Happy Birthday.

In the background I attached a picture from each month over the past year so everyone could see how much she's changed and some of the fun things she's done. They were attached to a 6' purple board, but there were too many photos for the purple to be seen. A slideshow of the photos is at the bottom of the post.

 The two birthday girls.
Charlotte is wearing her Giant's cheerleader outfit that Ouiser made her,
along with her Giant's pom poms that we got for her.

Our annual photo spot, painted by Giovanina.

Easter Extras

Last year I brought gold eggs with fortunes inside to Easter dinner. It was such a fun tradition that I thought I'd keep it going this year with more fortunes. I made Jordan's Paper Carrots as the fortune holders and put a roll of smarties and the fortune inside. They came out SO cute, I was so happy with them. Plus, it was nice to have an Easter treat that wasn't egg-related.

This was Charlotte's, extremely appropriate, fortune.

In keeping with the theme, I also brought Shy Bunny cupcakes for dessert.

Easter card

Every holiday I try to send a little something to Charlotte's grandparents and far away relatives. It's a good way to channel both of our creative energy and to bridge the distance a little.

I found an idea for egg cut-out cards that I modified by using some of her paintings. That girl loves her some paint, so all of our holiday ideas basically just involve crafty things to do with her paintings. A lot of times her attention span doesn't exactly show up, or she decides that painting on her arms is much more interesting than the paper, but with the Young Artist's Toolbox that she got for Christmas, we can stretch out the activity quite a bit. (I highly recommend the toolbox if you have any little painters in your life. There are so many tools in there to keep them busy)

To make the cards I just used blank cards that we already had, cut out an egg shape from the front (using a template from the internet), and used double-sided tape to stick a square of her painting to the inside. Don't forget to put the date somewhere on the card

Easy Valentine's Craft

Charlotte and I made some Envelopes of Love to send to her grandparents and uncle for Valentine's Day. The original plan involved scratch off paint and a message and some string to make a banner, but once I got us as far as the cute painted hearts the reality of pregnancy bed rest kicked in and we simplified the plan. It's an extremely valuable skill in the world of DIY to stop when it's still been fun.

I made a heart template, cut 16 hearts out of cardstock, taped them to her art tray, mixed some paint up, and let her paint away. It went very smoothly and I love the way the orange and dark pink color scheme turned out.

After that I made the inserts by writing "Happy Valentine's Day / Here's an envelope of love / Love, Charlotte" with some hearts. I added glitter glue to the hearts, glued the printouts to some red cardstock I had and threw everything into envelopes. Super simple.


   

Design Love: Painted wrapping paper

This is what about 3/4 of our Christmas presents to others look like this year. I saved all of Charlotte's paintings from over the summer and used them to wrap up presents. It started out as a green initiative since it seems so wasteful to just throw away all of that paper (well, recycle), but I'm really happy with the results. It's so sweet and personal that everyone gets a little piece of her artwork, plus the addition of the baker's twine and the handmade gift tags (cardstock, red paint, and glitter glue) give them the perfect Christmas touch. My initial inspiration came from Pinterest, obviously.

 

And when I ran out of paintings, I still used the initial gift tags, which I'm in love with.

Thanksgiving Kid Craft

Charlotte and I made a few of these Thanksgiving marble paintings to send to her west coast family members.* Since they only get to see her a few times a year in person (though more over Skype), I try to keep them feeling not as far away by sending art projects around the various holidays.

I printed and cut out the letters to spell "thanks," lightly glued them to the cardstock with a glue stick, put the paper into a shipping box and we were off. Once the marbles were dipped in the paint and inside the box, we taped it up and shook, shook, shook.

Let it dry, peel off the letters, punch some holes, tie the ribbon and voila. One Thanksgiving picture to hang on the fridge, the wall, a door knob, etc.

It was a great 2 year old project - I was able to prepare plenty of it ahead of time and just leave the fun stuff to her. After we did two of them, she hit her limit, but that was fine because two were all we needed. 



* Apologies for the poor photo quality, I snapped this picture with my cell phone and forgot to get a better picture with the camera before I packed them up for shipping.

**This post was featured on Craft Gossip - thanks so much!**

 

Homemade Watercolor Paints

Last year Feather Nester bought Charlotte a bunch of art supplies for Christmas, one of them was watercolors. We used them for a while until they were getting worn down and run together and then we turned them into a bathtub activity instead.

We finally burned through all of the paint, but luckily Martha Stewart knows how to make more! And since we only use them as a bathtub activity now, it was a stress-free experience on getting them to turn out right. It was a great activity for her to help with, only four ingredients and very simple to make.

Our color palate ended up a little monochromatic thanks to a lack of red food coloring and SOMEONE grabbing the yellow food coloring and adding half the bottle to the blue paint, thus making more green. But again, the bathtub won't care so neither do I.

Highly recommended for you to try at home!

  

Pinterest

Oh dear. So very addicted. This is so much better than any other social media distraction that has entered your life in the past five years. Name your passions - food, crafts, technology, photography, design, travel, cars, fashion, history - they have it.

It's hard to fully explain until you're on it. Just picture a bulletin board of all of the best ideas that your interests have to offer. And then a way to click on your favorites and say "yes, please, put that on my bulletin board too!" The internet and its abundance of ideas is massive, and this is the first organized way to not forget all of those great things that you find.

It's such a beautiful way to fuel all of the hobbies in your life, the stuff you never make enough time for. Something just for you that has nothing to do with other people or what they think or what they want. Just a place to collect all of the stuff you love most about life. 

Here's my page. Go make your own and celebrate YOU.



     

Young Picasso

Yearly Family Album

Some time last year B commented that he really didn't like the fact that digital pictures have essentially eliminated photo albums. He wanted to have a bookshelf with all of our pictures from over the years that our kids and guests could flip through. Not have them all huddle around a computer while we say "oh we went on this trip 20 years ago, let me pull up the folder, hold on..."

It wasn't long after that that I learned that both Ouiser and Feather Nester make annual albums. Ouiser's is a family album and Feather Nester's is for her daughter, whose birthday is near the end of the year.

So I set out with vigor last November and made the whole yearly album and thought it was going to be the best Christmas present B has ever received and nearly ordered it before I realized that the month of December hadn't happened yet. Oops. OK, so the album can't be a Christmas present, but I made it anyway as a family memento.

It was a really interesting process for two reasons. First of all, it finally gave me a good system for organizing our photos. Now I do it chronologically. There's a folder labeled "2010" and within that folder are 12 additional folders for each month. SO simple. Also very easy for album making.

The second benefit was that it made me realize that we had a really great year and had a lot more adventures and trips and memories than I think I realized. It was so wonderful to flip through the finished product.

The album ended up being about 90 pages long and I waited until I had a 20% coupon plus free shipping at Kodak Gallery and saved over $30 on the order. Again, if you haven't received any coupons, add the finished product to your cart and let it sit there for a while, they'll email you coupons to encourage you to finish the order.

Here are a few of the pages. Apologies for the poor picture quality, I had to scan them and the book didn't lay quite flat enough for perfect quality.

This is the first page - the cover is a blue linen with a cut out square so you can see part of this picture.

Photo Speech Bubbles

B's sister turned 30 a few weeks ago and since she's about 8 months pregnant the celebration was less of a kegger and more of a great dinner with friends. Because she couldn't celebrate in the drunken style a new decade deserves, I wanted to add something a little fun to our dinner to spice up the pictures. I saw a tutorial on Oh Happy Day a while back on making chalkboard speech bubble signs, which gave me the idea, but I just used black foam core board, acrylic paint, black duct tape, and dowels (all from Michael's) and put together 8 signs for about $20.

It was the perfect party project - low impact on your time and high impact on your pictures. I get horribly bored with seeing the same pictures all the time so I'm always looking for something fun to do and this was great. I have one blank sign left over so I might use it for Charlotte's 2nd birthday this summer.


The signs said:
Kiss!
(Picture of a heart)
It's a Girl!
It's a Boy!
I'm older
I'm younger
I might be drunk
R U Looking @ my ASS?
(Abbreviated not to be trendy but because all those words wouldn't fit on the sign)

Birthday gal

 B and I are divided on whether we're getting a niece or a nephew.

Cousin pic