craft
Check out the new bedroom!
Saturday, April 3rd, 2010 | Uncategorized | No Comments
You know how when you get a great idea, and that great idea grows with more great ideas and then you find yourself stumped on exactly how to make that great idea a reality? I’ve been stumped for a while now. My kids bedroom began with great ideas but after the first several steps, cool though they were, I was at a stand still. The things I envisioned for the rest of the room either didn’t exist or I needed more man-power and time than I had. This past weekend it finally all came together!
Picture 1 is the view from the door looking in, there are glow in the dark stars on the ceiling. I have a cloud/raindrop window treatment planned but its not made yet. To the left of that picture is the kids closet which has another castle curtain and to the right is the kids chest of drawers (small as most of their clothing is in the ikea baskets and shelving in the closet).
Picture 2 is from standing in the corner with my back to the chest of drawers. You can see a glimpse of the castle closet but from this view you can’t see how the top tabs of the curtain are made to make it look like the top of a castle wall. The tree here is from the pet dept at IKEA and is meant for cats to climb on. It has a series of small shelves which the kids are using to put all their stuffed birds, monkeys and other appropriate animals in.
Picture 3 is my oldest son’s lower bunk. He has his magnetic wall to the right and his flickering castle lights at the head of the bed. I still need to make him a kingly sign for over the head of his bed
Picture 4 is the top bunk where my daughter sleeps with her fairy land in the ‘clouds/forest canopy’
Picture 5 is down below my youngest’s loft bed which is the ‘forest floor’ where the guinea pigs reside and I plan to add some lights under here and change the bean bag chair/stuffed animal storage to allow for more room in their nook under here.
Picture 6 is a closer picture of my youngest son’s bed here just under the tree tops. He LOVES the color green and chose this perfect tree/leaf printed bedding from IKEA. I found this 5′ circular green netting canopy in the outdoor decor section at IKEA and I just used some green thread to tack it up and billow it to be the tree top.
The ‘Wall of Love’
Saturday, April 3rd, 2010 | Uncategorized | No Comments
Sometimes I get these ‘ideas’, sometimes they go as planned and often they don’t. The other day I was at the grocery store in the office supply aisle (its an addiction) and I saw one of those items that immediately causes me to think ‘I love this so much I need to think of a purpose for it!’- heart shaped post-it notes! Right up there with new colored pencils and the perfect journal is my affinity for notepads, and if they are colored, shaped, and patterned well then its LOVE. I brought them home with the plan of having them available to my budding writers to jot down things they love and add them to the sliding glass door (aka dry erase board/command central) whenever they felt the whim. I figured over the course of weeks we’d have this lovely wall of positivity. The positivity is there but it didn’t take weeks, my kids took the idea and ran with it….for about 4 hours in one sitting! Note after note, giggle after giggle and only occasional requests for spelling help (would have been a good idea if they had asked a time or two more) and now we have this lovely ‘wall of love’ right next to where we eat our meals and do our daily school work. I often find myself standing there letting my eye meander about from note to note and smiling at the sweet hand writing, phonetic spelling, and heartfelt thoughts. This is one of those projects that didn’t go as I planned- it went better!
(click the pictures if you want to see them bigger and read some of the notes)
An awesome blog full of great ideas!
Thursday, February 18th, 2010 | Uncategorized | No Comments
If you haven’t checked out this blog link yet let me humbly encourage you to do so. Val is so full of great ideas, amazing recipes and beautiful pictures and instructions for all- check it out!!!
Creativity blooms in a bed of boredom :)
Sunday, July 26th, 2009 | Uncategorized | 1 Comment
Its amazing what kids will come up with when you allow a little boredom. This Sunday while we napped the kids were up and allowed to ‘play quietly’. With a few props from around the house and some pipecleaners from their craft bin they made their own fishing game. I was quite impressed! Right after these pictures were taken Bayus ran in with a new batch of fish he’d just made.
Happy May Day!
Friday, May 1st, 2009 | Uncategorized | 2 Comments
Check out the web album for pictures of our lovely day including a picture that shows what happens when you cross a 4yr old and a may pole 
For more information about May Day click here.
Gingerbread-mania!
Monday, December 8th, 2008 | Uncategorized | No Comments
Today we are home and the kids are enjoying decorating Gingerbread People. Last Friday we went to a puppet production of ‘The Gingerbread Boy’ put on by Thistle Theater. They do a Japanese style of puppetry that we always enjoy and their excellent production inspired a lot of Candyland and Gingerbread play around the house this weekend!
How to have an art easel when you don’t have unlimited space…
Wednesday, November 12th, 2008 | Uncategorized | 5 Comments
Bayus loves to paint, like really really loves to paint. Every time we are at a children’s museum he is at an art easel. Every time we go to the open art studio at the local Tacoma Art Museum, he gets comfortable with an art easel. I’ve been battling the desire to get him a painting easel with the practicality of not wanting to clutter up our space with more stuff. He’d want it out all the time and I wouldn’t, nor would I want to drag it in and out of a storage location several times a day.
As an answer to my desire for less clutter and my desire to let him have creative open space I came up with our own painting area- and he LOVES it! I went to a local office supply and bought 4 suction cup clips (there is a painting above the one showed that is hanging to dry- we used scotch tape until I bought the clips so technically this step is optional). I used a suction cup shower organizer (purchased at a local hardware store I think, I’ve had it for a few years as I used to use it with our large aqua doodle mat on the opposite side of this glass door) to hold 3 jelly jars of paint (lids can be purchased at your local grocer, do not fill paint jars just an inch will do for most three year olds)- instant painting ‘easel’!
I challenge you to not look at your sliding glass door as just a door but instead a great easy to clean wall 
We also use ours with the dry erase markers during ’school’ time and like I said previously we had a aqua doodle mat hanging on it from suction cup hooks. What do you do with your glass door?
Feeling crafty…..
Thursday, September 4th, 2008 | Uncategorized | No Comments
I’ve been sick in bed for the past few days and so the kids have been enjoying some extra free time to craft on their own, read books and play outside. They have been getting quite creative both indoors and out. Outside they have begun gathering materials in the yard and clearing an area behind the storage house/shed for their ‘clubhouse’. I’ve been overhearing lots of discussion on the clubhouse including future improvement plans, supply needs and secret handshakes. Inside they asked to needlefelt with me and came up with some amazing creations of their own (especially considering their age and it being their first time working with needlefelting). Elias made a tiger and Hannah made a brown squirrel to go with the gray squirrel I was making. Bayus ran and found nuts from the kitchen (almonds) and search for acorns in the backyard to feed the little squirrels. I learned how to needlefelt from a friend and amazing teacher and crafter named Hastings, the kit I used I ordered from a friend and owner of The Blue Ladybug. Needlefelting is done entirely with natural sheep wool, some undyed and some dyed. We’ve worked with wool before with wetfelting when the kids were about preschool age (they made wool balls) and they really enjoyed a picture book named ‘Farmer Brown Shears His Sheep’. I went ahead and reserved it at the library as a refresher for them on the wool process, plus its an adorable story and Bayus hasn’t heard it yet.
What happens when the kids get ‘quiet’….
Thursday, September 4th, 2008 | Uncategorized | No Comments
Every once in awhile my kids get really ‘quiet’ and my mama antenae goes up and I must check on them. A few weeks ago Elias brought a robot book home from the library called ‘Cosmo and the Robot’ I declared a quiet time after our day of errands (including the library) and was awoken from my light nap from the sound of defining silence broken by the occassional sound of cardboard boxes being dragged down the hallway. I stepped quietly out of my room to spy on the action and found a full ‘robot factory’ going on in the kids room! I had to lay down the law about no paint in the bedrooms so their creations had to wait for their final pictures until this morning when I did allow painting to take place in the kitchen. Enjoy the pictures and remember to let your kids raid the recycle bin now and again- its always fun to see what their imaginations come up with with a little inspiration from a book!
