The Owl Shirt

I got the idea for the Owl top from an online friend of mine, Karen. Her daughter Kate is such a cutie, and Karen made her an Owl shirt, so I wanted to try make one for my youngest daughter. And she in turn got her idea from this website, Lil Blue Boo, who also made the Owl top.

I thought about doing it with fat quarters, but I couldn't find the right colors, so I just copied Karen and cut up some old clothes we had. I cut up a pair of Target leggings, a Gymboree Imaginary Friends top, and found the blue buttons in my craft drawers. I used blue because my daughter has blue eyes ;o)

I do wish I had a different color top to put this on, but I am happy with it still. I wasn't able to find a solid color black or pink top at Target, and I didn't want to use any of her current Gymboree or Gap tops to sew it onto either.

And before I show you the photos, please know that I did this with a VERY uncooperative 3.5 year old. Her top might look somewhat dirty as she was rolling on the floor where the cats lay, having a fit. One of the photos you'll see her neck thrown back, she was crying and very upset with me for making her take photos. Oh the drama of a 3.5 year old, it never ends.





You can sew it with a sewing machine, but I like the whimsical look of sewing it by hand. It adds a bit more character to it, in my opinion. I might even make another one in different fabrics! I love it, I think it looks adorable.

2nd Grade Projects

My 8 year old twins just had their final project of the year due on Monday. The assignment was to create a model of an insect of their choice. My son picked the Bulldog Ant, and my daughter picked the Monarch Caterpillar. Parents were allowed to help, but didn't have to. I did decide to help a little.

Check out our handiwork:




For the Ant, I cut out pieces of styrofoam and stuck them together with toothpicks. My son cut the legs, antennae and eyes out. He also did the painting himself. I did put the legs in the Ant. He also did the "rock", made out of brown and black play-doh.



For the caterpillar, I did the construction because it used all hot glue. My daughter did cut the legs, antennae and eyes out, but I glued it for her. She found the sticks, made the chrysalis, and pasted the leafs onto the inside of the box.

It Was "TuTu" Easy

I got the crafting bug today!

I have been wanting to make my youngest daughter a tutu, but never got around to it. Well today at wal mart, I decided a good way to spend a rainy afternoon was to make it! And it was so easy too! It took me maybe 1.5 hours.

If you want to make your own, you will need:

Approx 2.5 yards of satiny ribbon
5 yards of tulle
Large coffee can, the big giant ones


When you purchase tulle by the yard, it is folded in half. Cut at the seam, so you have 10 pieces of 39x27" tulle and lay the rectangles on top of each other.

Roll up like a toilet paper roll, and get out your measuring tape. Cut at 5" increments till you reach the end of the rolled up tulle. If you have extra end pieces, just put that aside. Also, no matter how much you try, there will still be un-even ends and sides, but that doesn't matter here.

Now you're going to take your ribbon and measure around your daughter's waist and tie a knot at each end of the measurement you made. Usually it works that you have a 20" tail, then a 20" waist and then another 20" tail, with two knots in between.

Tie your ribbon around the coffee can. You may have to double up the ribbon, this is ok!

Take one strip of tulle at a time (after you have un-rolled it) and fold it in half, like a "U". Push the folded end under the ribbon and put the loose ends through the folded end. Like this (except I did mine the opposite way):




Pull the tulle nice and tight against the ribbon and continue doing this with each piece of tulle till you reach each knot. I like doing a pattern, but you can do whatever you like. If the above method is too hard, you could also just tie the tulle around the ribbon.

Here is what ours looked like:



It's just a quick picture, I didn't have time to un-fold some of the ends of the tulle for the picture, oops! I am also going to trim the ends a bit, but other than that, I am ery happy!

A closeup:



If this is too confusing, I will add more instructions later! Just let me know.

Busy Day

Today so far I have:

Washed and dried 4 loads of laundry
Made two turkey pot pies and cooked one huge pot of turkey soup. Froze the rest of the carcass to make another pot later this week

Made one batch of chocolate chunk cookies
Cleaned out the litter box
Gave my youngest daughter a bath
Cleaned up the back yard
Filled a hole the dog dug
Took out the trash
Cleaned up my bathroom

I still have to knit my daughter's hat tonight, but that will take only a couple hours. All the other kids have one, so tonight I make hers. We've had a busy day!!

Look What I Made!!

I have been wanting to attempt "Curlies" for awhile now, and just recently got up the courage to do so. Yes, I was scared to try them because I thought it would be too hard to do.

I have to say, at the risk of tootin' my own horn, that I am very very proud of myself!

I will do things a little different next time, curl the ribbon a bit tighter and cut the pieces just a tad shorter, and remember to add that piece of white ribbon I forgot, but all in all, I am very impressed with myself. It feels good to get the crafting bug in my system again. And now I don't have to spend a fortune and buy other ones like this on Etsy. Hooray!!! I think I will make them a bit fuller next time too, or maybe use a thinner piece of doweling to curl them.

Works For Me Wednesday

I do a lot of Christmas crafts with the kids during the holidays. It is a great way to spend time with the kids, plus the kids get their creative juices flowing. I enjoy it too, and always try to find something new for us to do each year. It really Works For Me, and we have a lot of fun in the process.

Some of our favorites are making snowflakes out of plain white paper, though I was thinking this year I might let the kids add some white glue and glitter when they're done cutting them, just to add some pizazz. Some years we do paper chains for Christmas decorating. And we always decorate a Gingerbread House too.

Here is a blurb from a post I wrote the other day about Christmas crafts with the kids:

"With the Christmas season, comes Christmas crafts. The kids and I are big on crafts. One of my favorite websites is MakeStuff.com. Over the years, I have made quite a few of the crafts on there. These are our two favorites, Bakers Clay and Cinnamon ornaments:


Cinnamon Christmas Ornaments
Recipe 1:

The recipe that I use is

* 1/2 cup ground cinnamon,
* 1/3 cup applesauce, and
* 1 Tbs. Tacky glue

Mix in bowl and stir until well blended. Work mixture in hands for three minutes to form a ball. If it is too dry, add applesauce, if too wet, add more cinnamon. Knead ball on cinnamon-sprinkled surface until it holds togehter well. I roll this out and use cookie cutters for the shapes. I also use a drinking straw to cut a hanging hole. These can be air dried for 24 to 48 hours. Turn several times. They can also be baked in a slow oven.


Baker's Clay Ingredients:

* 4 cups flour
* 1 cup salt
* 1 1/4 - 1 1/2 cup water

Mix together and knead until smooth. Add food coloring if desired. Make shapes and bake at 300 degrees until set and golden (1/2 hr to 1 hr). For a more golden appearance, paint with a beaten egg when it is almost done baking and looks dry. You can paint with egg twice or three times for a darker golden color. Don't use egg on colored dough. For colored dough, paint with shallac or laquer after baking. If cracks appear, patch with some slightly moister dough and continue baking. Christmas Tree Ornaments: Kid Project!

Making decorations with Baker's Clay is limited only by your imagination. It's just like working with clay!

1. Make shapes.
Two of the easiest decorations for kids to make are the snowman and the teddy bear:
Snowman - roll three balls ranging in size from small to large. Attach head to belly by "scoring" lightly (make very small scratches in surface of clay) and brushing with water, then press the two pieces together gently. Attach belly to bottom in the same way.
Teddy Bear - roll two balls, one small and one medium. Attach as above. Roll four small cylandar shapes with flattened ends for the arms and legs. Attach to body as above. For the ears, pinch the top of head with thumbnail.
2. Wire hook - Use needlenose pliers to bend the end of a 2" piece of wire. Insert straight end of wire into the top of your shape, leaving the hook and about 1/4" showing at top.
3. Bake - Place shapes gently on cookie sheet. Bake at 300° until set and slightly golden.
4. Paint with a beaten egg when almost done baking for a golden look.
5. For colored decorations - use food coloring in the dough. (Don't use beaten egg on colored dough.) OR, simply paint with acrylic after baking and cooling, then use shellac to seal. You can also shellac a plain ornament, and then spray with gold or silver spray paint for a sparkling appearance.

If properly sealed with shellac, your ornaments should last for years. Be sure to store in a dry place.


I really enjoy making them, though I would have to say that the cinnamon ones are my favorites. They are so aromatic, and look darling on the tree. We usually do gingerbread and tree shapes, and hang them with a red ribbon.

I am looking forward to making these with the kids. I'm itching to make them, but to make it more special, we're going to wait till after Thanksgiving. I've found that if I over-do Christmas, I get burnt out, so it will wait. But that's ok, right? It gives us tons of fun stuff to do in December. We get to decorate gingerbread houses, make cookies and candy, make cinnamon oranements, decorate, go see Santa. It will be a fun month! I can't wait, it is my favorite time of the year!"


We also do the Gingerbread Ornament crafts too, but we have to be careful not to leave those out, or the dog will eat them. And who can forget my Candy Cane Hearts? The girls and I made those over the weekend. We had a lot of fun.

Christmas and Crafts

Now that Halloween is over, I start to think more and more about Christmas. I still haven't taken down all my fall decor yet, just so I don't get tempted to put up the Christmas ones. I think we'll be decorating after Thanksgiving this year. That will mean a trip to the storage unit for me, because we have no room in our house to store the Christmas bins. Yes, I said bins. I have about 5-8 HUGE rubbermaid bins (I purged a lot when we moved here, so I can't remember the exact amount that I have) full of Christmas decorations and decor, and that's not including all the trees. We have a four 2 foot ones for the kids, and I have a 4Ft tree, a 1 ft tree and a 7.5 ft tree! Remind me to tell you all about the 1ft tree another time, I have a great story about it.

Anyway, with the Christmas season, comes Christmas crafts. The kids and I are big on crafts. One of my favorite websites is MakeStuff.com. Over the years, I have made quite a few of the crafts on there. These are our two favorites, Bakers Clay and Cinnamon ornaments:


Cinnamon Christmas Ornaments
Recipe 1:

The recipe that I use is

* 1/2 cup ground cinnamon,
* 1/3 cup applesauce, and
* 1 Tbs. Tacky glue

Mix in bowl and stir until well blended. Work mixture in hands for three minutes to form a ball. If it is too dry, add applesauce, if too wet, add more cinnamon. Knead ball on cinnamon-sprinkled surface until it holds togehter well. I roll this out and use cookie cutters for the shapes. I also use a drinking straw to cut a hanging hole. These can be air dried for 24 to 48 hours. Turn several times. They can also be baked in a slow oven.


Baker's Clay Ingredients:

* 4 cups flour
* 1 cup salt
* 1 1/4 - 1 1/2 cup water

Mix together and knead until smooth. Add food coloring if desired. Make shapes and bake at 300 degrees until set and golden (1/2 hr to 1 hr). For a more golden appearance, paint with a beaten egg when it is almost done baking and looks dry. You can paint with egg twice or three times for a darker golden color. Don't use egg on colored dough. For colored dough, paint with shallac or laquer after baking. If cracks appear, patch with some slightly moister dough and continue baking. Christmas Tree Ornaments: Kid Project!

Making decorations with Baker's Clay is limited only by your imagination. It's just like working with clay!

1. Make shapes.
Two of the easiest decorations for kids to make are the snowman and the teddy bear:
Snowman - roll three balls ranging in size from small to large. Attach head to belly by "scoring" lightly (make very small scratches in surface of clay) and brushing with water, then press the two pieces together gently. Attach belly to bottom in the same way.
Teddy Bear - roll two balls, one small and one medium. Attach as above. Roll four small cylandar shapes with flattened ends for the arms and legs. Attach to body as above. For the ears, pinch the top of head with thumbnail.
2. Wire hook - Use needlenose pliers to bend the end of a 2" piece of wire. Insert straight end of wire into the top of your shape, leaving the hook and about 1/4" showing at top.
3. Bake - Place shapes gently on cookie sheet. Bake at 300° until set and slightly golden.
4. Paint with a beaten egg when almost done baking for a golden look.
5. For colored decorations - use food coloring in the dough. (Don't use beaten egg on colored dough.) OR, simply paint with acrylic after baking and cooling, then use shellac to seal. You can also shellac a plain ornament, and then spray with gold or silver spray paint for a sparkling appearance.

If properly sealed with shellac, your ornaments should last for years. Be sure to store in a dry place.


I really enjoy making them, though I would have to say that the cinnamon ones are my favorites. They are so aromatic, and look darling on the tree. We usually do gingerbread and tree shapes, and hang them with a red ribbon.

I am looking forward to making these with the kids. I'm itching to make them, but to make it more special, we're going to wait till after Thanksgiving. I've found that if I over-do Christmas, I get burnt out, so it will wait. But that's ok, right? It gives us tons of fun stuff to do in December. We get to decorate gingerbread houses, make cookies and candy, make cinnamon oranements, decorate, go see Santa. It will be a fun month! I can't wait, it is my favorite time of the year!


*I am going to try to have at least one Christmas related post a week. I said "try", but I really love Christmas, so this shouldn't be a problem*

Candy Cane Hearts

I made these with the girls this afternoon. It is such a fun and easy craft to do. You do need adult supervision though, because it does require the use of a hot glue gun. I apologize for the sideways pictures, I was in a hurry to post and didn't realize I hadn't rotated them.


First off, cut yourself about a 5-6" length of thin red ribbon


Tie it into a cute little bow


Here I recommend using individually shrink wrapped mini candy canes, but I have not been able to find those for years, so unwrapped ones will have to do for now. Take them out of their little plastic bags/wrappers. If you have the shrink wrapped ones, leave the wrappers on, it works better.


Arrange the two pieces together into the shape of a heart, and hot glue. You don't need a lot, just enough to keep them together.


While the heart is cooling, cut yourself another length of ribbon, and tie it into a loop, set aside.



Now you want to take the glue gun and place a small drop of hot glue on the front of the heart, and place the bow onto it. Let it cool for a few seconds, and then flip it over and glue the loop to the back. Cut off any extra ribbon off the ends of the bows and the loop. Let cool and then flip back over.


And here is your finished product!

They look adorable on your Christmas Tree. I've made countless ones over the years, one of my favorite and easiest crafts to make. Enjoy!