You're What Ties Our Family Together

For Father's Day, I helped the girls with a craft that we could give Daddy.  I used an idea that I got from my friend Beth's son's art work from his daycare that I saw (and photographed) while I was out visiting her.

Things you'll need:
 - any color paper you choose
 - paints
 - paint brushes (or anything to apply the paint to hand)
 - scissors
 - marker to write with

First up is to sketch the outline of a tie.  I just did this by eye (imperfection is the best part of home-made memories) and used the picture I took of the craft as a guideline.  Make it as big or as small as you'd like or as you need so that you can still fit a hand print or two (or more!) on the tie.  After you have the outline, use the scissors to cut it out. 

Next up are the hand prints.  You can do these whatever way you'd like; you just have to be mindful making sure they're positioned so that you'll be able to see a lot of each hand, ensure all will fit on the tie, and of the colors so that they will overlap and not disappear.  I picked purple and blue for the girls so that they'd both show up well.

Next is to add some finishing touches.  I added a 'DAD' to the tie knot, some edging to add some color to the cut out tie, and a super cute phrase 'You're what ties our family together'.  Here's the finished product amongst our very full refrigerator door!

Hop Hop

In the spirit of Easter and having some extra time this morning with Alexandria before her Easter party at daycare, I decided to make a bunny using her feet as the ears to give to her teacher (and to keep one for at the house).  My neighbor gave me the idea when she sent me a similar craft picture the night before that her son had done at school and I thought it was so cute that I had to give it a try.

Things you'll need:
 - Pink paint & a paintbrush
 - Black marker
 - White paper
 - Tiny toes

The foot prints (one of each foot) will become the ears of the bunny, so you want to have them looking and angled the same as much as you can depending on the age and squirmy-ness of your child!  I held Alex on my lap and painted one foot.  I let her stand up on her non-painted foot and then pressed her painted foot down with my hand onto the white paper held vertically.  After washing that foot off in the sink, I repeated with the other foot.

And that's almost it!  After that, I made ears around the footprints and then drew in the face of the bunny.  My neighbor's son had cut out he bunny and glued it to another colored piece of paper to give it some extra color, but we were on a time crunch, so I just left it on the white piece of paper.  Any finishing touches will do and you have a quick and easy bunny rabbit with keepsake footprints in a matter of minutes!

Sharing a Little Love

My neighbor sent me a picture message with a 'not so crafty mama' craft and I decided to take a stab at it for myself.  In the end, I think her version came out better, but it's still capturing the memories that is the most important part of the craft.  I asked for her copyright permissions for the craft and to post!  (Thanks Marla!!!)

Things you'll need:
- Red paint & paintbrush
 - Pink paper (you'll need red paper and glue if you'd like to do layered hearts)
 - Pen
 - Tiny hands

The first thing you do is make a heart.  You can do this the traditional way by folding a piece of paper in half so that both sides are even, by tracing something that it heart shaped (possibly printing out a big heart on your computer to trace), or taking the really easy way out (as long as you have a Cricut) and just popping in a cartridge and having it cut out a perfect heart for your with a few button touches!  Regardless, as long as you have a heart, then you're good for this step.

I didn't take the time to create an 'inner' heart to give extra color or depth, but my neighbor did and I think her's looks sharper than how ours turned out.  After you glue the layers together (if you have them), you're ready for the hand prints.  I prefer to use the paintbrush to apply the paint to Alex's hands.  She's becoming much more interested in this process and spent a lot of the time playing with the bristles on the brush while I was covering her in red paint; very cute!

Right hand on the right, left on the left and you've completed your hand prints.  I had Alexandria do hers one on each side; Marla's however looks neat with the thumbs overlapping...to each is own!  Add a little personal message as a touch and your quick & simple valentines are done!  Alexandria left one of these on her changing table to surprised Daddy with in the morning and then gave one to her teacher at daycare.

One Year Paw Prints

Alexandria thoughtfully (with some extra thought by Mama) got both my husband and I the same frame/kit for Christmas that we could use to make a keepsake for her first birthday.  She bought the BabyPrints - Photo and Baby Footprint Desktop Frame at Babysakes.com.  They have various versions of the same idea, but we thought it would be nice to have a picture with the print.  The frames come in all different sizes, colors and layouts so you can pick whichever you like the most.  We also chose to have my husband's be a footprint and mine be a hand print so we had one of each as a keepsake.

Things you'll need:
 - BabyPrints kit (or substitute using the suggestion in the note at the bottom of the post)
 - Baby for hands & feet
 - Aluminum foil
 - Hardcover book about 8 inches square (I used one of Alex's many board books)

The instructions were pretty good that came with the kit.  You cover a book with the aluminum foil so you have a non-sticky surface to roll the 'printing clay' on.  You knead the printing clay for a few minutes (make sure your hands are clean as any spec of dust/dirt shows on the white clay) and then roll it out on the board.  You might want to keep in mind while rolling what type of shape you'd like the print to end up on.  My rolling came out in circles / ovals, so I just rounded them up a bit after we did the print to make them more uniform.  You could also roll it so that it's more of a rectangle / square shape so you can make even edge trims after you do the print.  Whichever you choose, I would say I rolled it until it was about a 1/4 inch thick or maybe a little more.  There's really no science or trick to getting a level surface, but now that I think about it, I may have been able to press a book on top of it to level it off and make it even; might be worth a try!

As with others, my husband's help was needed for the foot print to hold Alex up over the print.  We did let her put a decent amount of weight on her foot once it was placed on the clay.  With the hand, I sat her on my lap and put her palm down on the clay first while I spread out her fingers and then smushed her hand into the clay. 

You then let the prints sit for a few hours and then flip them over based on the instructions so that the backs could dry.  Personally, I let them sit just the way they were for a day because when I tried to flip it over, some of the clay was sticking to the foil and I didn't want to ruin it.  I think we let them sit for about 4 days and I flipped them back so that the print was facing out after a day of the back facing out.  After it's dry, you assemble them in the frames and are done!  Now they provide double sided sticky tape for this which does NOT work, so I'd try to use something more permanent to stick the print to the matte they provide so that it stays on better.  Here's the final product!

Because the hand print was larger than would fit in the white matte frames they provided, you can see the brown piece in the print side of the frame that separates the glass from the print.  The white mattes they included in the kit covered some of the hand print edges, so I just didn't put them in.  I'm considering painting the brown piece white so that it contrasts better with the other side and doesn't look dingy!  After that, all I have to do is find an empty wall or table top on which to display them!

**NOTE: If you'd like to do this without buying a kit, I suggest using Crayola Model Magic as it is the same consistency and has the same drying effects as the 'printing clay' that came with the kit.  You'd just have to find a frame that you could use that had some depth on one side so that the hand/foot print would have room to fit behind the glass.

Personalized Calendars

One of my husband's favorite gifts every year for his birthday is the personalized calendar that I make for him.  While you may be thinking, 'Oh, this isn't all that crafty,' you are correct; however that's why I'm a 'not so crafty mama'! :)

With all of the options available across various websites, I'd have to say that I like Shutterfly's utility the best for putting together the calendar.  I've used Snapfish in the past and that has also worked well.  It also helps that I already upload all of my pictures to that site to share my pictures with family (another not so crafty post to come!), so they're readily available to add to our calendar.

The theory for pictures that I use on the calendar goes like this; for every month on the calendar I'm making I use pictures taken during that month from the current year (ex. for our 2011 calendar, I use pictures from June 2010 on the June 2011 page).  This at least keeps some consistency with the calendar and provides a reflective reminder of where you were this time last year; our 2010 December calendar shows me as 9 months pregnant and pictures from Alexandria's birth!  Now I'm no longer 9 months pregnant and Alexandria is about to turn 1 in a few short weeks; how times change...

Enough nostalgia for now and back to the calendar.  I thought I'd list a couple of the tips and tricks I use to get this thing put together.

• Decide early whether you actually want to see some of the designs on each of the pages or if you strictly want to see all pictures.  I've gotten 1/2 way through and changed my mind, so it's a time-saver if you want it to be consistent throughout to make up your mind early.  Below is a picture from the back of our 2010 calendar where it shows you the picture part of every month.

• Do one month of pictures at a time.  This helps with keeping only pictures from that month on the month that you're focusing on.  Emma loves helping me pick the pictures we should use and figuring out where they should go on the calendar, so even your kids can be involved in the activity.
• Save pictures from the months that you didn't have room for to add to various holiday 'days' on the actual calendars day portion.  I love adding some of my favorites on random days throughout the months.
• Add in all of your family birthdays, anniversaries, and even vacations if you know the dates.  It makes my month in August when I see a week filled with pictures from last years trip from the beach representing the week we're going to the beach on the new calendar.  (I also enjoy putting goofy pictures of my husband on the day of his birthday to give him a good laugh!)  See below for an example of the what the top/bottom of the calendar looks like and how there are images on the dates.

 

• Add other personal dates to the calendar to add pictures to.  I've added dates for Alexandria's due date, my husband and I's first date, Alexandria's 1/2 birthday celebration, Trick-or-Treat night, etc.  Anything you want can be added.
• Don't forget you can zoom the photos so that you make sure you can show the part of the photo that you want to focus on.  This is especially useful for the pictures on the dates since they are small, so you'll want to make sure that you zoom (crop) in on exactly what you want to see.

The best part about all of this is that next year when you go back to make edits, the website saves your dates to reuse on the new calendar which is a BIG time saver!  Some even saves the pictures so that you can reuse the pictures you chose for people's birthday's last year on the new calendar without having to add them all individually again.

Now, I should probably get back to creating the one for 2011 since I'm behind on getting it done!!!  Feel free to comment with any questions if you get stuck.

Fall Bumpkins

Recently my girls and I went to a pottery painting store to make some Christmas/Birthday presents for Daddy.  While browsing the store's website to get some ideas before going (since I'm not so crafty!), I came across a plate with a pumpkin on it...a 'bum'pkin!!!  Now I thought this was beyond adorable and something I had to do (just not in public in the middle of a store)...and so it became our at home project.

Things you'll need:
- orange and green washable paint
- paint brush
- paper plate (unless your child will stay put long enough to paint their bum!)
- whatever you'd like to put the bum on - we used white construction paper
- a paint proof location and a tiny bum :)

First I poured some paint onto the paper plate and spread it around.  Unfortunately you can't tell in the picture how quickly I had to do this while Alexandria started unrolling the toilet paper!

Then I put the paper plate with paint on the floor next to 3 pieces of paper.  I'm not sure there's an 'art form' to getting this accomplished, but I sat her bum on the paper plate and smushed her down a bit.  After that I picked her up and plopped her back on the floor on top of a piece of paper.  You'll see in the pictures that the bottom of the bumpkin (near her legs) isn't quite as round it probably should have been.  My only resolution to this would be to hold your child between your arms with their legs up and get only bums to stamp on the paper.

Next we cleaned up because I'm not sure anyone wants their child running around with a wet paint orange bum while you're trying to draw on the stem!  The stem was simple; just a quick brush stroke and you're done.  BUMpkins!!!