whatever

two crafts...one post!

both of these crafts are made of paper.
nothing else.
you have paper don't ya? 
yes.

so...keep your kids hands busy with one or both of these today.
:)

craft #1 

 
cut a bunch of green patterned paper (or you could use plain green) into skinny strips.

i used a paper cutter.
but you could use scissors.

then i cut some of the strips into smaller sizes.... all different lengths.

then start stacking them. 
random order..random pattern...biggest at the bottom....all the way up to the smallest.


 
glue them down until the tree is complete.





 



Add a star to the top, a brown trunk and circles for ornaments and you are done.

i would add glitter but my kids had moved onto another project.
but if it were MY tree....
there would be glitter on the star and all those ornaments.

...................................

craft #2

for this one you need red, pink, white and black paper.

and glue and scissors.
and a pencil or pen or marker.




the shapes do not need to be perfect in any way.
a rough pink circle and a rough red "triangle" will work great.

glue them together.
and add the black eyes and red nose.


 

 

now you glue on the beard.
we cut strips of white from a big piece of white paper.
any white paper will do.
and as you can tell the strips are not cut fancy or even straight....just strip shaped.
cover the bottom of the face completely.



THEN comes the fun part!!

curl the ends of the strip all the way up to the top by wrapping the strip around a pencil.
(you can even use your finger if you can't find a pencil)

and then you curl...curl...curl.
 

 
that picture makes me happy.



 

 

 
so cute aren't they?!!

and it's just paper and glue!

i love art.

 

girls day

the men in my home (and a friend) went to the chiefs/packers game on sunday....Boy's DAY.

so....
we declared it GIRLS DAY at home.

the day before i got tickets to the Nutcracker.
we got dressed up.
we did fancy hair dos....


and i painted their nails in christmas colors.

 

 

and we went to the ballet.
 
we made it through most of it with minimal "when is this OVER?" whispers.

the girls begged to go to Krispy Kreme.
i tried to convince them of the goodness of starbucks but they were buyin' it.
it's probably better they not go in there yet...we'll leave it that as a Mommy Place.


 



not only do i love their donuts....i LOVE their packaging and signage.
fabulous fonts.





then we went to Justice.
they had their own money to spend.
we were there for over an hour.... calgon take me away.
their music is on a short loop and LOUD.  
but my girls were so happy.



next stop: the bookstore.






the girls sat and read for a long time.
i found a few books for a few people on my list....
books are always a good gift.


and last stop was the big tree for a picture.










it was such a nice day with my two littlest girlies.
they were sweet to each other and to me.
we enjoyed just being together and being girly.

and the boys got to see the Chiefs win.
i hear that doesn't happen too much so i think everyone had a good day!

...............................................

i keep forgetting to tell you about something!
i am a crafty contributor over at alphamom.com
come see my christmas craft we made for her.
we'll call it christmas craft #4.

:)

christmas craft #3

ok....

this craft is a bit more time consuming
BUT
all three kids said "that is AWESOME!" when i showed them. 
sean said "it's so creative!"  
:)

i saw one at the hallmark store that was similar but clearly mass produced & i thought "i bet i could make that"
so we did! 

you will need clear ornaments, foam balls that are smaller than the glass ornament, fake snow and scrap fabric. 
i found those all at hobby lobby. 

i did this step apart from when the kids were working.
i carved a hole in the foam that was exactly the size of the top of the ornament where it hangs from.
i used a screwdriver....? it was what i found in my drawer.
the foam is really soft and easy to work with.

it will look like that.


take the silver ornament hanger off the ornament.
make a cone with paper and fill your ornament with fake snow....as much or as little as you want.
this stuff goes everywhere so the cone was the least messy way we found to work.


add hot glue to the top of the ornament... around the top ring.


then you IMMEDIATELY push the foam ball that was hollowed out onto the ornament.
it should be tight... i had to help annie.

we made hats by cutting a circle of black paper for the brim and rolled paper to fit inside the silver ornament hanger.
and hot glued it all together.
there is a close up picture of the hats below.


cut a strip of fabric or felt for a scarf about 12" long.


tie it around the head in a knot.


we cut some "fringe" on the ends.


the faces are painted onto the head before the hats are glued on.
and buttons on their tummies.


and we added a little scrap of fabric or felt for the hat.
(p.s. mine is the one with the really wide set eyes...i like my snowmen that way.  :)


sean


for this hat we hot glued felt around the head and tied the top together.
then snipped the end into fringe.


annie


we watched frosty the snowman tonight on tv.
man....frosty returns was on afterwards....ummm....yuck.
how did that movie become a "classic?"
seriously.

we watched "it's a Wonderful Life" last night.
i cried from the start.
love that movie.
but i fell asleep at the last 10 minutes.
like...i was out cold...missed the best part.

 

DID YOU WATCH MY CRAZY VLOG???

the sound was nuts wasn't it?

DID YOU DONATE TO CHARITY: WATER??  

do it.

come on....join us!

it's $10 to change lives!

CHANGE LIVES!!!!

it's real.

BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE IN THE WORLD.

you make a difference.

your heart is big.

you matter.

HELP OTHERS.

:)


don't forget to enter my giveaway (and the others) if you donated!

 

 

christmas craft #1

today's craft is a christmas wreath made out of paper.

we started with a paper plate and cut out the center.
then painted it green with acrylic craft paint.



while it dried we cut  holly leaf shapes out of green paper.
we used heavier scrapbook paper (since i don't scrapbook anymore...)

i drew a leaf and we traced it on the paper a bunch of times.

i helped them along by stacking four leaf sized pieces of paper and cutting them all at the same time.
repeating that process a few times made it go a little quicker.
we used between 30 and 40 leaves on our plate.

we folded them down the center for some depth.

 
we used a hot glue gun to attach the holly leaves.
you could use school glue but it would take longer and may not hold as well.



we glued some with the fold pointed up and some with fold angling down.
nestling the leaves into each other, overlapping each other until the entire green circle is covered.

using a circle punch we made red circles for holly berries.
you could, of course, just cut out some small circles with scissors...but punches are so fun!

we hot glued those in clumps of two or three on the leaves.
talby added glitter to those.



to make the bow we took a strip of red paper.... about 10" x 2" and folded it into the loop shapes.
we hot glued that in the center so it would stay.
then took a smaller 2" x 4" strip of red paper and wraped it over the front of the loops for the center of the bow.
we cut two strips for the ribbon that hangs down and glued it to the back of the bow.
ANd hot glued the bow to the holly leaves.


 

 
i used a small piece of yarn and hot glued it in a loop to the back for hanging.


 
isn't it cute?!!

we were inspired by this one from the Paper Source.
we had all the supplies so instead of spending $19.50 on it...we made it for free!

we sent it in the mail to my great aunt who is 101 years old for some christmas cheer.
and a pair of Santa Claus socks.

:)


.......................

did you have a good weekend?

i am happy to report the remainder of my weekend was CLEAN and decent.
i watched 5 basketball games of my kids.
i got to play with babies in the church nursery.
i took annie to pick our some christmas gifts for her to give her siblings.
i finished our indoor decorations.
craig made sunday lunch....Pancakes. 
i made saturday night dinner....Lynette's Noodles with Ham....one of my kids' FAVORITE meals.
i searched our entire town for peppermint ice cream with no luck....bummer.
we watched home alone as a family last night...with a cozy fire in the fireplace....and had milkshakes after.

so even with the crazy friday that i had....it all turned out ok.
i knew you guys would like that story.
who wouldn't?!
it makes you appreciate ANY day that goes by without cleaning poo off of anything.

 

 

christmas craft #5

talby wanted to show me how to make a poinsettia....her teacher taught her.
i took pictures of each step as she taught me.


1.  cut the corners of the red paper about 6 inches toward the center.


2. fold one side of each corner to the center.



 
3. put all the petals together with a brad.


4. cut leaves out of green paper.


5. open the brad and add in the leaves....re-close the brad.

6. TA - DA!!!  beautiful poinsettia in 3D.  

i love it.
think how cool it would be to make a bunch....in pink and white and red!   
so pretty.

christmas craft #4

we used the felt squares from this wreath craft and cut the squares even smaller.
for this craft the squares were about 1/2 inch by 1/2 inch.



we took two squares together and put a pin through them pushing them hard into the styrafoam ball.


at some point before you get too far make a loop with ribbon and push a pin in it....to hang it later.

then fill it in until it's full.


i made the squares really close together and pushed the pins in as far as i could to make it look like flowers.


annie's hands were smaller so she got tired quicker.....i like hers the way it is too.
 
 
talby's was filled in but the pins not pushed in as far as the top one.

i like this version too.

there is no wrong way to make art.

:)