Hands & Feet Rudolph

When pondering what to get/make for Alexandria's teachers at daycare, I figured a cute little arts and crafts project would be perfect to give them along with a more traditional gift card.  I ran across the idea for this somewhere along my internet travels and wanted to give it a try.

Things you'll need:
 - Paint brushes
 - Brown paint
 - Google eyes (or you can draw them on) - I found a large bag at Walmart for $4
 - Red paint (or you can use a red puff ball...which I didn't have for this)
 - Sharpie or black marker
 - Piece(s) of paper
 - 2 hands and one foot :)

First things first, lay out all of the paper in a paint-proof environment.  This time I used the kitchen floor because I had the help of my husband to hold the stamper!  You pretty much just need the brown paint, a paintbrush, and the paper at this point.  I had my husband hold Alexandria's foot in the air while I painted the bottom brown.  (Of course you have to notice the toe curl from the tickle!)

From there, you use on hand positioned at the top of the heel mark to the left and the other to the right.  To be completely honest, I have no idea if it would look better with the thumbs in or out.

I pretty much just grabbed a hand, stamped it wherever it fell and proceeded down the line.  We made four, so it was an assembly line of paint, stamp, re-apply paint and stamp.  One hand at a time, obviously wash in between, and try to keep as tight of a hold as possible on the stamper!!!  My husband was definitely a huge help in this craft.  I will say that Alex does a lot better with the paint/stamp method now than she has in the past.  Here's a picture of the outcome after stamping.  As you can see, they all look different :)

After they dried, I added a little smirk/smile right above the toe line with the black permanent marker, added two google-eyes right where the heel part starts and a red circle nose.  Again, with the nose, I used paint and just applied it really thick so it would cover the brown, but I did see someone who used a red puff ball that also looked cute.  Here's the final product!  The teacher's loved them and we have one proudly displayed on our fridge :)

I hope everyone enjoys the project and has a happy holiday!!!

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!!!

A few notes about me...

I'm a married, full-time working mom of two.  I have a gorgeous step-daughter Emma (born in 2004) and a beautiful little lady, Alexandria who was born on New Years Eve in 2009.  My husband circa 2008 is my rock and will even assist in my craft attempts with the girls if I ask nicely; although I try to do a lot of the crafts during my solo time with the girls.

Between keeping up with work, life, and activities - I realized that I had very little time to do crafts with the girls in addition to not ever feeling like a very 'crafty' person (thus the blog title!).  I've always loved to scrapbook, but stared in awe of the pages people put together in the magazines and wonder how in the world I could ever have that 'vision' or 'artistic look' to my pages.

At some point I realized that the outcome didn't matter; it was the experience of making a memory and storing that memory that mattered most.  Thus, the crafts that I do with my kids (and my scrapbooking pages for that matter) may not be publishable pieces of art, but they created lasting memories, fun experiences and I chose to share those moments with you in hopes that you can make some of your own.

My Family: Emma, Myself (Mama), Alexandria, and Rob (Daddy)