Father's Day

Happy Father's Day (here is what the kids made for Gary for his office)

Old Socks

Here is what we do with our old white socks! Upcycling into snowmen (snowgirls). Kami and Rian's friend Emily came over for a visit during the Christmas holiday and we whipped together these crafty snowmen. Super easy - no sewing and not overly time consuming for those with shorter attention spans. Their insides are stuffed with a small ziploc bag of beans to give them a little weight and the rest is fiberfill.  We cut off the socks just around the heel, stuffed them and then used a rubber band to close the top. Hot glue was what we used to keep the little fabric hats on and a piece of white embroidery floss was tied around their neck to give them circular snowball shape. After the body was done the girls went to town decorating faces and putting little scrap fabric scarves around their necks. Here is a pic of the finished products.

GWO 2010

Girls Weekend 2010 was a great success! This was the 12th year we girls have been getting together to enjoy a fall weekend together. This year we got to attend Kami's last soccer game and cheer her and her teammates on! Saturday afternoon we packed up the car and headed to Holland MI to enjoy the Holland Farmer's Market and the many unique shops along 8th Street. On our way back to Grand Rapids we stopped at Los Aztecas for a Mexican dinner. Once back to my house we got started on this year's craft - French Memo Boards. I'm amazed every year how amazing each person's craft turns out! Great job ladies. Sunday we gathered back together for lunch before everyone headed on their way back to their homes. It was great having you all here and I look forward to next year's GWO!  Here are some pictures that capture a small portion of our weekend. (by the way if you have other pics you wanted posted here for all to see please e-mail them to me!)

Sew much to learn...

My latest "hobby" the last few years has been to learn how to sew. What I love most about it is that it accommodates my short attention span and provides countless opportunities for me to try new projects. I am self taught therefore how I sew is probably incorrect in many ways yet it "seams" (pun for my mom!) to work for me. Awhile back I checked out a great book from the library that had some simple quilts patterns and well written instructions showing how to piece the pieces together. I modified this one pattern to fit my interests and the result is my first quilt project. I call it the Pink Baby Blanket. Since I have a lot of scrap fabric (mostly with pink in it) this project was a great way to use up some of these pieces rather than throw them out or let them continue to collect dust. Here is a picture of my finished project. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out and hope to try something like it again in the future.

Crafty Crew

I recently saw pictures in a magazine of some super cute cards that could be used either for Valentine's Day or for Spring and I thought "I can do that". So the girls and I gave it a try and here are pictures of the process:

Supplies:
large cup cake wrappers, small cup cake holders, green construction paper cut into strips for stems and leaves, glue, markers or washable paint.

Also you will need two sheets of coordinating paper to make the card - fold one piece in half and cut the second sheet in half and glue it to the front of the first folded piece. (below you can see the dark pink on top of the light pink card)

1)After cutting out the stems and leaves glue them to the card.

2) color or paint your cup cake liners as Rian has done here. Then glue the large one on top of the stem and the small liner on top of this to make the center of the flower.

All Done!