'A' List Crafts...

We've had a few rainy days around here this summer and on those days, I've been trying my hand at doing a few more crafts with miss A.

It is with a bit of shame that I must admit that I've been very lax on the craft front with her. In my defence though, really, up to this point, I think she's been a wee bit on the young side. I couldn't see much point in delving into a craft project where she wouldn't be able to at least partially participate.

During the school year, I take her to Storytime at the library, a free program for pre-school aged kids. There's stories, songs and a craft. While A is kind of hot and cold about participating in the first two, she's adamant in her enthusiasm for the latter. We've brought home untold pipe-cleaner/paper bag/paper plate/construction paper creations. It was sort of eating at me though, that here I am, a self-proclaimed craft enthusiast myself and yet I wasn't holding my own when it came to crafts with my wee girl.

About a week ago or so, on a rainy morning, I finally broke out all the little empty toilet paper rolls I had been saving up, the coloured pipe cleaners and the tote full of other assorted craft miscellany. We made bugs. I forgot to catalogue the experience. To sum up, there was a Mommy Bug, a Daddy Bug and an Avery Bug. Then I took a Premium Plus cracker box and made a bug house (re: cut a door in one side). She was quite content with those for an entire afternoon. Those and the Popsicle stick people I made. Here's the tutorial; take some craft Popsicle sticks and Sharpie. Draw faces and clothes on the sticks. Watch your kid go ape shit over them. Feel like a crafting genius. In that instance, there was a mommy, daddy and two Avery 'poppa sticks'.

Anyhow, today I decided to take all of the little bits of broken and de-labeled crayon and make new crayons. I have seen this on the web a few times in a few different places. So I broke up and sorted the bits.



I don't think the sorting step is actually necessary but ya know, this is just how I roll.



Spray a mini muffin tray with some veg spray and let your kiddo fill up the cups.



Take a moment to admire her handy work.



Pop the tray in a 275 degree oven for 7-8 minutes until just melted. Allow to cool for a bit and then put the tray in the freezer to help the solidifying process along. If you leave them there for as long as it takes you to do a sink full of dishes, that should be plenty.



Once the little pucks are hardened, they pop out quite easily...



...and are as much fun to stack as they are to draw and colour with.

Overall, a successful craft. Here's why I liked it; it was quick, easy, I had everything I needed on hand and little A could do it with me. I also like the waste not, want not aspect to it. It seemed a shame to throw out all those little crayon bits and now we have 24 new crayon pucks :) Other suggestions out there for doing this are to use cookie cutters or candy molds to create different shapes. I think next time I'll try and come up with an option that would make the new crayons a more crayon or pencil like shape as I think those might be a little bit easier to use. Either way, a very cool and practical idea. Gotta love those.

Until later...

I'm Forever Cutting Circles...

I think I might have some kind of manic craft disorder. I can go for long spells where I have no desire for crafting. That would be the low end of the cycle. Then I cycle up to where I am now, in hyper craft drive, where I can't seem to stop myself and leave a pile of projects in my wake. Here's what I've been up to lately.

I volunteered to make a cake for my friends daughters birthday. She was having a Halloween themed party this year, and was looking for a witch cake. After a little contemplation (and research on the interwebs) I came up with this;



Yep, that's all cake. Well, except for the hat brim and ribbon. I had a heck of a time trying to make black icing, so I went with a purple hat and what I like to refer to as a copper kettle for the witches cauldron. Hey, it's cake. It's more important that it taste good (which by all reports, it did). I made the card too. I KNOW. Paper is usually not my medium, but a while back I finally bought the paper dolls cartridge for my Cricut Expression machine (it was a gift if you recall) and I gotta tell ya...it's fun. I never thought I would find myself making cards, but there you have it.

I also never thought I would find myself making wreaths, but in the past week I've done not one, but two. I saw a tutorial this time last year at WhipUp for this ruffly felt circle wreath and my initial instinct upon seeing it was MUST MAKE. However, the thought of cutting a billion felt circles with the tools already in my arsenal didn't appeal. Which lead me to buy a circle rotary cutter recently.



Now I'm addicted to cutting circles. I need project ideas that require circle cutting. Any ideas? I need to justify the purchase of the tool for something other than felt circle wreaths (although I could make a couple more of those too. Quite a quick project to put together, and the result is pretty and satisfying. I'm thinking either one in Christmas colours or another in blues and white to go with my living room Christmas decor). The wreath is almost finished, I just ran out of felt last night. You really do need to buy it by the meter for this project. It takes quite a bit more than you think.



I saw something similar to this at one of my local yarn shops and thought 'Ooo, that's charming.' Yes, I say stuff like that to myself. So I picked up a small wreath at the dollar store and hot glued some yarn balls from yarn stash to it and badda bing, badda boom, you gotcha self a wreath. I'm thinking some small knitting needles or double points might be in order somewhere on there as well.



Also for the aforementioned birthday girl, I knit this matching sweater and hat set for her Build-a-Bear friend Bunny (which I guess would make her a Build-a-Bunny, but I digress). I wish I had thought to snap a photo of Bunny modelling her ensemble. She was quite fetching in her new digs.



I've also been stash busting. I threw together this trick or treat bag for Miss A out of stash materials. I inherited this rather hefty orange canvas that I wasn't sure what to do with, but it came in handy. I've also made two of these and two of these but they are going to be gifts, so I'll just leave that as a teaser.



Finally, I finished this quite some time ago and have been meaning to throw it up here, but just haven't gotten around to it. It's a little cloth book that I put together for Miss A and was mostly assembled for her first birthday. It's genesis dates back to, hmmm, 2006? when I cut out all the pages and the letters.



I used the left over material from A's crib set to make the covers and remnants out of my fabric stash for the letters. I wish I had been able to do a little bit better job of outlining the letters, like say machine embroidery or something, but after four years, I just really wanted it completed so the quick and dirty route seemed to fit the bill.

And that pretty much sums it up for the time being. I'm currently caught up in a flurry of Christmas projects that I'll be gobsmacked if they're done on time. Every year I swear I won't do this to myself and then do it anyway. Guess I'll go pick one to work on for a while. Until later...

Counting Down...

So let's just take care of business right off the hop. There have been requests, so here she is, in all her knitty glory. She's right at the perfect age where all of the wonderful knitty stuff that she received for her shower and some of the items I made many moons ago in hopes that one day someone tiny would model them for me now fit. In the next few A related posts, I hope to showcase these lovely items. First up is this little pink bolero knit by one of my blog-free (and therefore shall remain nameless) Knit Nite compatriots. Adorable.

Little A is eight months now and just so damn smart it blows me away. Thus far, we have mastered feeding oneself finger foods, sippy cup, rolling over, being adorable and infectious giggling. We're moving onto standing. Got places to go people. I think she just got over a bit of a growth spurt too, cuz she was grumpy grumpy grumpy (in addition to not sleeping) and my efforts were all for nought. At some point, the most valuable pearl of wisdom about parenting that I ever heard (which came from my sister-in-law) crossed my mind; just when you think that you can't take it (it being whatever may be going on at that moment) any longer, it'll change. And so it did. That happy, ever laid back and contented baby has returned. All's right with the world again.



Now this. All I can say is Ididit Ididit Ididit Ididit. Little excited. It's my advent calendar. I actually frickin' did it. I started and finished the sewing yesterday, in between naps and feedings and playing-withs and diaper changes and instructing the father-person to keep an eye on the offspring. I even have handmade ornaments, though only about a half dozen or so, so far. I still need to attach some numbers to the pockets, but I have all of the supplies and hope to get that piece of the project done tomorrow.

How it'll work is that there will be an ornament and a treat in each pocket, (and as wee one gets older, a little card with a Christmas related activity on it, ie. baking cookies, going sledding, make hot chocolate, read a Christmas book etc.) and the ornament will go on the little tree there (the one with the green lights on it...the other is a salt and pepper shaker. There is a top and bottom half. It's wonderfully cheesy) and the treat will, of course, get eaten. For now, the treats are purely for the constable's enjoyment. He is a big kid himself, after all.

The greatest thing about this project? I had all of the supplies in my stash. I've had the Christmas fabric for years and have been waiting for the perfect project to break them out on. The canvas backing I bought with another project in mind, but never got around to it. And the empty wrapping paper roll...well, that's pretty self explanatory. Actually, it's only temporary. I've misplaced the wooden dowel that I know is around here somewhere.

Anyhow, I'm pretty pleased with myself. It's very Christmas-crafty, but I'm okay with that. I think I may be entering that phase of my life. My most immediate phase needs to be sleep though, so I'm off. Until later...

An Inch an Hour, Two Feet a Day...

*If you know the album and group from which today's post title comes from, I will give you 1000 coolness points.*

Alright, I'll admit it. I have my cranky pants on today. We've been here in Nova Scotia for two years, although this is our third spring. And try as I might to hang in there and be optimistic, today, as of this very minute, after what seems like an eternity of rain and greyness, I loath springtime on the East coast. Loath. It.



Everything I do these days, I do in little chunks of time, which doesn't come as much of a surprise. The fact that these little chunks add up to actual progress does somewhat. During my morning reprieve from mothering duties (yay for predictable naps) I spent some time in the craft room getting reacquainted. I hauled out the spinning for a brief interlude. Didn't get very far, but it was kinda fun to play with an old toy. I also dabbled in fusing plastic. More about that in another post.



In addition to the Clapotis and the little cardigan I've been working on in the knitting department, I just couldn't seem to resist the urge to cast on a sock. The pattern; Paraphernalia (Ravelry link). The yarn; Kertzer On Your Toes 4 Ply. Liking the cabling quite a bit. I've been wanting to knit this for about a year or so, but I don't know if it's just me or what, but the pattern seems to be messed up. What I ended up doing to make it look like it should and what the pattern tells me I should be doing are not one and the same. In reading others descriptions of this pattern, no one else seems to have encountered any problems. The pattern is translated into English from another language (Dutch perhaps? I wasn't paying attention), so perhaps that's where the problem lies. In any case, once I got a rhythm down, they seem to be progressing quite quickly.

And now little miss is awake. Perhaps not so predictable after all, as I was expecting to get a whole other hour out of her. Off to 'enjoy' another dreadfully dreary and blaseh day. Yippee.

Until later...