A Little One on One Time

Today I was thankful to get a little one on one time with Hannah, my little crafter. Much of her crafting is self guided and involves paper, glue, scissors, tape, crayons, colored pencils, and markers. She enjoys this type of activity and I'm sure it fosters her creativity but sometimes it's nice to see her make a more advanced project.

She needs to make a presentation at school tomorrow on making or doing something. She likes playing with her dolls so I thought it might be nice to help her make a doll pillow. I figured it would be much easier to talk about something if she had just completed it and it was fresh in her mind.

I gave her the freedom to choose the fabric and thread color. We did have to talk about why we choose a particular thread color. She cut the piece out using my sewing scissors. I pinned it together and she helped me guide it through the sewing machine. I left stuffing the pillow up to her and she loved it. She decided when it was just full enough. I finished off by hand stitching the open with a little bit of help from her. What a joy to spend time with my girl and expose her to a new skill.


She is so proud of her creation. I think I will be finding it in her bed for many nights to come. Hopefully we can remember to get it out and take it with us in the morning!

Flower Girl

I keep thinking fall/winter is coming but we keep having really warm days. I found this little project and thought we would take advantage of the fall colors that are out there before they get freeze dried soon when winter comes. We cruised through the vegetable garden, flower beds, and yard and picked up our miscellaneous pieces.

Hannah had fun ripping and cutting apart the flowers and then sticking all the piece to the crown. We fitted the crown on her head and then she couldn't get enough looking at the "pretty crown" in the mirror.

She wasn't willing to give out a real smile today. This is the best I could get.

For those of you with boys, I'm sure some leaves and grasses could make for some nice "manly" crowns.

Daddy is the Hero Today

Yesterday was an absolutely beautiful day here. As they said on the news today, April can be kind of funny. It is supposed to be 80 degrees today and there's chance of snow by the weekend.



I saw this tutorial for making a kite the other day and wanted to try it with Hannah. Her contribution was to decorate the paper before I turned it into a kite. It was very simple and I already had all of the stuff around the house. I was able to keep it up in the air better than Hannah is in this picture but I'm sure the several feet height difference that I have on her makes a difference.

When we moved here there was a swing set in the yard. We spent a year or so mowing around it and then decided to move it out since we didn't have kids. We were given a little kid swing so I took Hannah "out back" to the swing set several times this winter and spring. She noticed her swing the other day when we were feeding and has been asking for it ever since.

She managed to talk Daddy into bringing it back into the yard for her. I would have to say that she has one of the tallest swing sets in the area. I think that her Grandpa used to swing on this set so it's been around for awhile and I don't think it's going anywhere soon. Maybe she'll be able to talk her Daddy into attaching a slide to the side of it some day.

Once the swing set was in the yard my kite was long forgotten. I did eventually figure out to put her swing at a height where she can get herself in and out so I don't have to run over there every minute while I'm feeding Helena.

She doesn't know to give anyone a "thumbs up" but I think she's giving her Daddy her approval for a job well done.

How We Spend our Days Part 3

This is admittedly a little late but here is a craft project we worked on for Valentine's Day. I didn't actually get a picture of our finished product but you can go here to see what we were shooting for. I used a potato to make a heart stamp. Hannah hasn't quite figured out how to stamp. It's more of a stamp and smear. Any of the ones on the paper that actually look like hearts, I made. They ended up being flowers in the end. Hannah helped with the assembly by picking out the buttons to go with each one.

Stamping only lasted for so long before she wanted to do finger painting...so we did.

This play doh was made in desperation one day when I for the life of me could not find the store-bought stuff anywhere in the house. It turns out it was in her basket of books. She is pretty particular about putting things back where they belong but I guess she thought the play doh needed a new home. I think I've shared the recipe that I got from Kari before but in case I didn't here goes.

Play Doh

2 1/2-3 c. flour

1/2 c. salt

1 Tbs. alum

2 c. boiling water

2 Tbs. oil

food coloring (I like cake decorating food coloring paste for more vibrant colors)

The last time I made it, it seemed to sticky and I had to add more flour. Add what you have to to make it a nice consistency. This play doh is much softer than the store-bought kind and can be easier for little hands to use.

Hannah likes to pretend to eat it but she has quickly figured out that it does not taste very good!