Felt Food for Hungry Caterpillars

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle is one of the little buddy's favorite books. So when I came across this post a few months ago on Once Upon a Thread featuring felt food from The Very Hungry Caterpillar I immediately wanted to do it. But then I got thinking about all the time it would take . . . and it went to the back burner. Today the little buddy asked me to read him the Very Hungry Caterpillar. He kept talking about it so I casually got online and showed him the felt food. He got so excited about it and of course said he wanted it. So I asked him if he wanted to help me make some. He sat on my bed for an hour and helped me pick out the felt colors, and put the pieces on top of each other while I cut them out. He lost interest in helping as soon as his caterpillar was made though-off he went talking to his new best friend.

Seriously he has spent the entire day playing and talking about them-that always makes me feel like a good mom. He even took the ice cream and his caterpillar to bed with him :)

Most everything I cut free hand so I don't have any patterns, and some of them didn't turn out that great, but if you want to make your own and have questions I'd be happy to help!

Freebie Friday: Monogrammed A to Z Cards

I mentioned these monogrammed cards a couple of weeks ago, and still think they are fun and versatile-especially if you don't mind cutting out with a craft knife. Although, sometimes I feel like I'm the only one without a silhouette machine and a lot of the things I spend hours doing (and enjoying most of the time) have become effortlessly achieved with it, alas.  I really would like one  . . .  someday. So, if you have a silhouette-go make some fun cards and think of me.

If not, come print a monogrammed card and cut it out old school, use double stick tape or glue to add some dimensional paper or fabric underneath. Then mail a sweet note old school (through the actual mail) and make someones' day!

*A few helpful hints:

• only print the page with the letter you want on it-not the whole document. (Use the print range menu in the print dialog box)
• See other printing suggestions here

• For the cards like "A" or "O" or "P" where there is a piece completely cut out of the middle, I just saved it and stuck it on with double stick tape where it "should" go.
• If you're new, or old, at cutting with a craft knife, this is a great tutorial.

enjoy!

banner cards

It's been too long since I made cards without using some sort of computer element. I had a really hard time figuring out where to start and what to do. I finally came up with these. But I still feel like something isn't quite right. I think I just need to sit down and turn out a bunch to get back into the rythmn of handmade cards. That always works best.

*I used a 1 1/4 inch hole punch and folded it over with double stick tape to make each bunting "flag" worked great-a little big though. I wished I'd had a smaller hole punch.

Freebie Friday: Page Planner

I used to make lists, lists, and more lists. I still do, but not as many. All those lists started weighing me down and I started to feel like I was suffocating under them. So I stopped. But then I was forgetting things, and not being as productive, and kind of floating around lost. I didn't want to go back to the lists and endless lists though. Seriously. What to do.  I needed something to give me a week "planner" at a time, but with my specific needs. I didn't want a real planner-too bulky yet not organized enough. I tried a 3 ring binder-yet again too bulky. Small notebooks? Not organized enough-too many pages to go through-where did I write that down? The things is I needed something portable-to take with me on the go-but also fast-my phone takes too much time (although if I weren't so visual it might be a good option). I also needed something with everything for at least a week on it. All the plans so I don't have random scraps of paper all over with blog posts lists and new recipe ideas. This was my solution: A one page weekly planner that I can fold up for on the go, but cram everything into and have an overview of the week plus my menu, shopping list, goals, and time with the buddy all lumped together. Kind of still lists, but not as hodge podged, and I don't write down "should do" things only "going to do" things.

click on picture for larger image.

Two caviats to this though-I'm very visual and I'm kind of a fly by the seat of my pants sort of girl, so this is trying to give me a little order-most of you are probably way ahead of me on this one. The other is I like to write small-as in 1/8 inch small. So this works for me. I've made it into a two page format for those of you who don't like using a magnifying glass to decipher your "not" lists.

Click here for the ONE page planner (my printer has a no-print margin on the bottom hence the run off on the right--still works for my needs though).

Click here for the TWO page planner

zazzle-yep I did

So, I finally made myself a zazzle account. My etsy shop is geared towards printables and graphic design, and I didn't want to mix that with my fine art stuff. I also didn't have the time to find a professional printer and figure out all that stuff to sale them myself. Zazzle seems to be the perfect solution for now. We'll see how it goes. Wish me luck! For now I only have my shoe watercolors in there. Should I add paintings too? I can't decide.

Easter Dress

I wasn't planning to make an Easter dress for the little sweetie until I pulled out my patterns and saw this one that I believe was my grandmothers (I borrowed it from my mother). Isn't it fun? I'm going to make it out of pink gingham. Classic. I love those chubby little legs showing. Now it's just to decide lace or white collar? 

Freebie Friday: Gold Coins

The little buddy loves this pirate book we got from the library. The line that is used over and over and over is "where there's a gold I be goin'." But alas, when we play pirates we were fresh out of gold. When I was at Joann's this week I saw those plastic gold coins and almost picked some up. But, then I figured I could make some for free, and since I'm trying to cut out all those cheap little things that we end up throwing away eventually I figured that this was the way to go.

Get the gold "coins" here. (I made six by gluing them back to back and then laminated them).

I also thought they could be really cute as a cupcake topper with a chocolate cupcake made into a "pot" with the little gold coin sticking up. Kinda fun. Anyway, enjoy!