We've been crafting...

just of a different sort. Take a trip to Big Lots and pick up the $2 Martha Stewart craft kits and you can too!

diaper bag for dolly

One of Kate's favorite books to read is "Little Mommy". The little girl in the story takes care of her dolls just like a mommy would. Kate loves reading this and then pretending to be a little mommy to her own baby dolls. I'm very excited (and a little bit nervous) to see how Kate responds to there being a real baby in the house. I'd been given advice to have a few special gifts just for Kate when the baby comes home. I thought this would make the perfect "big sister gift". Her very own diaper bag complete with supplies for dolly: a sling, diapers, wipes and case, bib, burp cloth and bottle. I saw the idea here (along with the sling tutorial) and was able to use scraps of fabric I had to sew everything. I used the basic template for this shoulder bag and adjusted the measurements for a little girl. The diaper tutorial I found here, as well as the little wipes case. The bottle I found at the $1 store and I'm afraid that might be the favorite item out of them all! Either way I hope that Kate will have fun being a "little mommy" to her baby dolls and hopefully won't feel too left out when I've got another baby around to take care of!

Animal Puppets

I found these pictures on my computer and thought I would share these easy puppets with you. There isn't much to write about--I saw some in a Land of Nod catalog and they looked easy enough to copy, and they were. I used felt (try and get the good stuff with some real wool in it) and drew patterns on paper before tracing and cutting out the fabric. I gave these to a few of Kate's little friends for Christmas as well as my nieces and nephew to go along with the puppet theater. The possibilities with these guys are endless!

Old McDonald

Kate loves animals. Some animal noises were some of her first words. She loves looking at pictures of animals, trying to find cats and birds out the window and singing Old McDonald. I saw a tutorial for a fabric barn or dollhouse a while back and decided to make it for her birthday. I can remember having these types of fabric playhouses when I was little and thought she might like the idea that it could also be a purse. We gave it to her on Saturday and she has loved it. She lines the animals up in her barn and makes their noises. She carries it around and says she's going shopping with her animals. It's been a lot of fun. I'm especially happy that she likes it because it wasn't the easiest project to do. Now that I've done it once, the next time will be a lot easier (if there is a next time) but if you attempt this project and get a little frustrated, just know I did too. :) It was nice to be able to use fabric I already had making it a somewhat "free" birthday present. There is just the time part... it did take some!

Puppet Theatre

This was a fun and easy project I did for my nieces and nephew for Christmas. I got the idea and instructions from the Bend the Rules Sewing book and it basically consisted of sewing long, straight lines. I think my favorite part of this puppet theatre is that it rolls up into a nice compact bag. I'm becoming more aware of the amount of "stuff" kids can generate, so it's nice to have something that doesn't take up a ton of space! This is the first project I've done from the book and the instructions were really easy to follow. Maybe next year Kate and baby sister will be getting this for Christmas...

meet Lucy

Aka "dolly". This gal has been on my project list for a long time. And I'm so excited she's finished! I've been reading the Wee Wonderfuls blog for some time and love the dolls she makes. So when this pattern came up for sale, I couldn't pass it up. The pattern was really easy to follow, just a lot of steps and quite a bit of hand sewing involved. There are still more clothes to be made but I think I may take a break for a little while! I'm really happy with how it turned out. I worked with a wool blend felt for the first time {as opposed to the cheaper polyester felt more commonly found} and I really noticed a difference. It made me want to find some 100% wool felt. Felt is kind of addicting. I'm already thinking about all of the things I want to make with it! For now it's off to a tea party with Kate and Lucy. You're all invited :)

High chair for baby

Kate's baby, that is. I'm not sure who is more excited about this doll high chair makeover, Kate or me. I found this little chair on craigslist for $5 and it was too cute to pass up. Especially since they sell wooden high chairs at Pottery Barn Kids for $50! I spent $3 on a quarter yard of oilcloth fabric to recover the seat (and still have plenty of fabric left over to make place mats, lunch bags or bibs. Oilcloth is great.} I put on a coat of white paint with leftover paint from another project and voila! A new doll high chair for $8! I was thinking of stashing this away for a Christmas present but considering Kate is all over the house, it's pretty hard to keep things from her. Plus she has already taken a liking to it and likes to put her baby in the "baby high chair".

Alphabet Magnets

I’ve been looking around for some magnets for our fridge that Kate can play with—but my search hasn’t gone very far. I remember seeing the idea to make your own on The Purl Bee and decided I would give it a try. I found business card magnets on eBay, 26 magnets for $2.50. Don’t go to Staples, they want to charge you $15 for 50 magnets. Then I just used scrap fabric I had around. One side of the magnet is sticky, so you stick the fabric on the sticky side, trace the letter on the back and cut it out with pinking shears. The trickiest part was drawing the letters backwards on the back of the magnet so they turned out right on the front. Kate seems to have taken interest in them. Although she doesn’t quite get that after taking them off the fridge you’re supposed to put them back on. Alas, another thing for me to pick up off the floor!

Crayon Roll

I’ve seen these crayon rolls on a few different blogs and finally got around to making one myself. It was really simple and quick. It rolls up nice and neat and seems perfect for throwing in the diaper bag for trips or church. Kate still doesn’t quite understand how to “color” but today she liked pulling each crayon out of its slot and trying to put it back in. It’s also a great way to use up scrap fabric. I used this tutorial.

Bean Bags

Kate’s been into throwing things lately so I thought I’d sew her a few bean bags to throw around. I used 6 inch squares of fabric and lentils for the filling. I had good intentions to make lentil soup a few weeks ago and never did. At least it served another purpose! Kate had fun throwing these into the pot this morning and feeling the texture of the beans. I love fast, simple and free toys!

10 Minute Family Book

I debated if this was even worth posting since not much "craftiness" went into it--but I liked the idea when I saw my friend, Ruth's, book so I thought maybe it would interest someone else as well. We live far from all our family. The closest family is in Washington D.C. about a 7 hour drive on a typical day. We miss them all. We want Kate to know her family members so this seems like a great idea to make sure she stays familiar with their faces. It's also great for keeping her occupied for long periods of time when she needs to sit still (church, airplanes, etc.) She seems to look at it a lot longer than most of her books.

It's easy and cheap. You could get all fancy, scrapbooky with it, but I'm not too into scrapbooking anymore. Just glue pictures, add captions, laminate and hang on a ring. It's really cute to watch her as she studies everyone's face!

Purl Bunny

These purl bunnies look a little more like purl aliens, but they were fun to make. It's one bunny that flips over to show a face on each side. I got the free pattern over at The Purl Bee. They have lots of great, free patterns and tutorials on their website. I want to make the fabric ABC magnets next and my knitting skills could use some refining. My almost-complete first knitting project is collecting dust in the closet! Kate had fun playing with her new bunny friend today, even if it does look like an alien!

Playsilks

A set of playsilks have been on my wish list for Kate for some time. {Never heard of playsilks? Click here} I’ve been meaning to buy them for her but keep putting it off because they aren’t cheap! I saw this idea to buy plain white silk squares and dye them your self using kool-aid for half the price and knew I could pull that off.
It really was very simple. Here is the basic idea: Step 1: Soak the silk in a bowl of cool water and a glug of vinegar. Step 2: Use a wide mouthed jar and mix together your packets of kool-aid (I used 3 of each color) with 1 and ½ cups of warm water and 1 Tbsp of vinegar. Step 3: Put the jars in a pan of water about 1-2 inches high and bring to a simmer. Step 4: Once simmering, put 1 playsilk in each jar. Step 5: This is the only tricky part. You let the silk “simmer” and absorb all the kool-aid. Stir occasionally to even out the color. Once the silk is done the water will look clear and diluted. Step 6: Remove the playsilks from the jars and rinse in a bowl of cold water. Step 7: Hang to dry.
A few notes: I bought the 30x30 inch squares. The flavors of kool-aid I used were grape, cherry, lemon and lemon-lime. I’m still looking for an orange or blue kool-aid to dye one more silk. The trickiest ones were the grape and cherry flavors and I read a few places that most red dyes can be tricky. For some reason the kool-aid takes a long time to absorb and it seemed that the color kept rinsing out when I rinsed it. I ended up running the red silk through the washer (by itself) on the rinse cycle to get out any extra color and it still looks pretty vibrant. They are for Kate’s Easter basket and hopefully they will be used for all her imaginative ideas once the creative play thing kicks in. For now I think she will enjoy playing peek-a-boo and dragging them around the house. Oh and taking them “in” and “out” of whatever toy box they may be in. Thanks to her new “in” and “out” game, all of my shoes are now “out” of the closet and “in” the laundry hamper.

Let's Play Mail

I can’t take credit for this creative idea at all. I saw the idea both here and here. It’s a “mail center” for Kate to play pretend mail. She won’t get the concept of it for at least another year or two but I saw the idea and found the mailbox and couldn’t wait! I got the little red mailbox at Target in the $1 section in the front of the store. It was around Valentine’s Day… so they may be out by now, but I hear you can get them at Michael’s as well. To make the pieces stiff I used pellon, which is just like a really sturdy felt. It was behind the cutting counter at Joann’s. I used scrap fabric and embroidered the sayings, names and stamps. You could make these really fast if you used a fabric marker instead of embroidering. I enjoy having something to do while I watch TV, so I didn’t mind embroidering. I also was very minimal about how many postcards I made. I plan to make more “pieces of mail” and envelopes too, but I think I’ll wait until she actually wants to play mail. Right now she’s into taking the pieces out of the mailbox and putting them back in. She’s also fascinated by the Velcro. I used sticky Velcro to hold the names and stamps in place. This was very simple, fun and inexpensive. We try not to spend too much money on toys (especially big, tacky, plastic ones) so this provides some new entertainment until winter is over and we can go outside! And then hopefully next year she will have fun “sending mail” to all her favorite people. Because, unfortunately, many of them live too far away!

For my lil' Valentine

One of kate’s favorite toys to play with are balls. She is figuring out how to throw them and chases them all over the house. When I saw the homemade balls that Alicia made with this pattern, I thought it would be a quick and easy Valentine gift for Kate. Of course I couldn't wait until Valentine's Day to give it to her {and we will be out of town} so she had fun chasing it around the house today while I cleaned the kitchen.