preschooler made presents: tie tacks & pendants

 

The buddy is in a co-op preschool and I was lucky enough to teach the last lessons in December before they took a Christmas break. We made some fun presents for the parents. Tie tacks for Dad and a necklace pendant for Mom.

Each child got a little bit of sparkly grey sculpey clay to mash down (on a piece of aluminum foil) until it was thin.

They took turns cutting out a star shape with a small fondant cutter (probably about 1/2 inch across that's my hand not the kids)

Then they helped me stamp the first initial of their parents names in the star (I debated doing the child's name but decided against it).

I baked them according to the package instructions and then glued a tie tack backing, or a small circular ring to the back of them with E600 glue.

The thing I love the most about them is the little fingerprints left from the kids as they smashed the clay.

enjoy!

mother's day hot pads

So I waited to post these until after Mother's Day because my mom occasionally visits my blog, but then it got crazy and now it's

Tuesday night? Alas, I'm still posting because I thought they were fun, and the Grandma's (and great-grandma's) loved them.

I was going to post a tutorial, but there seem to be lots already out there, and well, my seam binding capabilities are clearly lacking . . . so I'll leave it to the pros.

I will mention though, that I was going to have the buddy paint on the fabric for the back, and was so glad I decided to use permanent markers instead. It worked so much better! I cut the squares out first and had him decorate them and then after the hand prints dried I sewed them all up. Tada! I had him do a couple extra ones too that I will eventually sew into some hot pads for me too! (yeah right!)

The Buddy's Calendar

We sent the grandparent's 2011 Calendars for Christmas using the template I made here.
We tried to do a variety of simple crafty projects for every other month, and then just put a picture on the other months. He was really into the glitter. He wanted to glitter EVERYTHING! I also forgot to tell him to keep his coloring to the top portion on the first one and it got a little wild. Since I wanted them to be able to write in the bottom portion we had to reprint that one. Not a biggie. I did learn one lesson though: the little buddy doesn't like me micro managing him. huh. weird. joking. (about it being weird, not about him not liking it). I think I need to back off a little more and let him do his thing. That's hard for me when we're making something for some one else-but I also don't want to destroy his confidence in his own creative abilities. A fine line. I ended up letting him pick colors and placement while I directed the theme for the most part.

When I went to get it bound they said the couldn't have it done for several hours-and I needed to get it off in the mail that day- so I used two rings instead.

This was a potato print I cut and the buddy stamped.

finger print shamrocks . . .

finger print dots on cupcake papers . . .
We did a little glitter under some of the pictures . . .
simple stars and stripes out of construction paper . . .
stickers . . .
glittered handprint turkey and a little marker . . .

fairly simple. It would have been fun to make an extra one for us to keep!

already tuesday?

This month is seriously flying by. Sorry about the lack of posts.  Some easy fleece hats we made yesterday with monograms. I used this Martha Stewart tutorial, which I must say was more confusing than helpful. But it gave measurements and that's mostly what I needed anyway. The little buddy helped me paint on the monograms (we just used acrylic paint)-the gifts are from him after all. If I'd had freezer paper like I thought I had it would have been more helpful. I planned to do freezer paper stencils, but when I pulled out the freezer paper I realized I'd bought parchment paper instead. Alas. I hot glue gunned them on-letting the glue dry for a few second before pressing it on. It didn't work great-some parts were all the way cool and didn't stick, other parts were too hot and I had to cut them off with my exacto knife. But, they're alright, and the little buddy loves his! I used grenouille font in caps at 400 pt in word-made them outlines and cut them out-which, again would have been perfect as a freezer paper stencil. 

Freebie Friday-Make Your Own Calendar

So I want to have the little buddy make hand made gifts for the grandparents. But I want it to be something useful, not something that will get tossed or forgotten, and something made by him, not me. Unless I come up with a better idea than this before we get around to it, this is what we will be doing . . . decorating a Calendar for the grandparents! Print your own here.

A few other fun ideas:

*Paste pictures on each page
for drawing prompts:
*draw a squiggly shape and have them make something out of it (that was always my favorite in elementary school)
*make a collage for each month using magazines, etc.
 *do pictures of the family members who have birthdays in that month
* To finish i: staple it, put in a folder in page protectors, cerlox bind it, or even frame them.

I think this will be a great way to introduce time and calendars to the little buddy in a more formal way!

I'm also pretty excited about the new poster I just put up in my shop-check it out!

Freebie Friday- Editable Recipe Dividers & Cards

After gathering some great recipes the last couple of fattening days. I thought I would provide a way to write them all down nice and neat. I already posted the recipe cards, but this time they are better. THIS TIME YOU CAN TYPE YOUR RECIPE IN! The same is true for the dividers-you get to write in whatever you like! Then you can organize things you're way-with as many as you need. Fun fun.

They could also be fun put in a recipe box (modge podge an old one?) and given as a gift with your favorite recipes. Or just send a favorite Christmas recipe with the homemade goods as neighbor gifts. The possibilities.

Anywhoo. The only downer to making them editable is that I can't just link them up-scribd isn't a fan of editable fields apparently. Oh, and the other downer is you can't save the edits. That means you have to type it in and print it out immediately because it won't save what you typed. Alas.

So here are you're options: email me at yellowmum (at) gmail (dot) com and let me know what you want-the cards, the dividers, both . . . your Christmas wish list. (joking). I'll send them as soon as I can.

Or, don't worry about the neatly typed look and download the empty dividers here and recipe cards here and write them in by hand. 





Sorry for the weirdo freebie. Email me so you can Enjoy!

mother's day magnets

We're getting our grand Mother's day gifts ready to send off. The little buddy and I used some Crayola air dry clay and cut these out with mini cookie cutters. We pressed the little buddy's finger prints into the centers-the idea was to make hearts with his finger prints (you know how I like that). After they dried we painted them. I painted them with a clear coat of finger nail polish to make them water resistant. If I had it to do over again I would probably use a polymer clay instead of the Crayola clay. The air dry clay is a bit brittle-hence the broken one when I was gluing on the magnets.

a book for grandma

I had a friend ask me to bind a book for her to give to her friend who is a new grandma. (are you confused yet?) So I designed the inside "art", cut down some paper, printed the lines on the pages, and the inside info, folded, punched holes, sewed, glued, glued some more, and some more, lots of pressing, and more cutting and gluing and wala. . . a "Grandma's Memories of Your First Year" Book is complete. Total time: a few hours each day for three days. I haven't bound a flat back book since I took bookbinding at BYU three years ago. It was fun.

ABC flashcards

My little son started learning his letters a couple months ago-so I made him an ABC book. I had looked around but couldn't find anything with good big letters. I guess I just knew what I wanted and the easiest way to get that was to just make it. I was at the store a few weeks later and saw ABC flashcards- so I thought I would use the same basic graphics I had used for the book and make them into flashcards instead. They turned out well enough that I'm using these as part of a gift for a birthday party we're going to this week. I think I spent too much time making a little box for the cards to go in, but hey, now I have a template!