Crafty

I love crafts! But I never make time for them anymore. I love chalkboard paint and found some in the garage last week! 

I have been wanting to paint everything with it! But decided just to paint on our pantry door.

We are the 3rd owners of our 50 year old house. So a lot of things have been re-painted or just need a good remodel. Our kitchen is totally usable and fine but not exactly our "dream" kitchen. Regardless I'm totally thankful for it! 

Anyways the kids were actually playing together last week and I decided to get to work! Doing a "home project" by myself is really made me nervous. Even if it was only paint! Bryson is the handy man around here. So I gathered my supples: chalkboard paint, paint brush, measuring tape, level and a pencil. I made my marks, made sure everything was straight and level and began painting. I probably did 4-5 coats let each coat dry for about an hour. 

I'm very happy with how it turned out! And excited to write many messages on it too! 

Hope your week is lovely! 

Creative Week

I'll be the first to admit being a stay at home mom is hard!  I tend to get stuck in my "to-do list" mode and sometimes forget to actually enjoy time with Violet.  A few weeks ago in my Spring Motherwise bible study we had a  speaker that gave us great ideas and tips to help our little ones play and learn.  I was so encouraged and inspired to start new playing ideas with Violet!! They were so easy, cheap and sounded like fun! 

As I have mentioned before, Violet loves "Projects!!!"  Whenever we get a progress report home from her mother's day out or from a Sunday at church, they always comment on how her favorite part of the day was "Art".  Having an amazing artists for a husband,  I feel I must incorporate creativity during the day with our kids! A few weeks ago we had a couple of rainy yucky days, so I took this opportunity for us to explore the great indoors.

Getting messy with Acrylics

We have several paintings that Violet has created, but I myself have never sat down to watch her paint.  Well we didn't have any "kid friendly" paints, only acrylics!  We got a little messy and it was amazing to watch Violet create and get SO excited about what she was doing! She really knew what she wanted to do and is so particular on where her color palette is when painting! It was really cute!



Art Masterpieces

We have these hung on the fridge and she loves to walk by and say "project" with a huge proud smile on her little face. 

Tray Lunch

I love this idea!! A simple and fun way to let your kids eat, just put their food in a muffin tin or ice cube tray.  Seriously Violet thought it was the coolest invention ever. 

Cool Kid





On this particular day we enjoyed on our porch at her play table for a little picnic.   I also gave her a toothpick to pick up her food with, which was another hit! 

Water Color



Since the acrylics were so messy, I picked up a water color tray for kids.  This was another fun activity for Violet to just explore her colors and do something different.  I love this painting! I need to find a frame for it!

Noodles!



This was another play time that is learning and fun! Simple pipe cleaners and a colander! Violet kept saying "noodles" okay actually she says "nooney".  But this little idea gets their hands moving to work those fine motor skills and is just different activity than usual.  I have even punched a bunch of holes into a piece of cardboard and we use pipe cleaners or a shoe string.

These were really fun and simple ideas! I hope you other moms out there will give some a try with your kids! 



Projects

At mothers day out and during church (usually) Violet will bring home a cute little craft for us! We hang it up and she is so proud of her work! She walks by, points and talks about the project. It really is cute.

It has been so much fun to watch her be creative! I try for us to a "project" a week. I keep it simple. We collect leaves and glue them to paper, color a picture or trace our hands. The best part is every time I ask "do u want to do a project?" she says "yeah, dada?" because she likes to give them to Bryson when he gets home.

Today, she drew with chalk. She didn't like the texture of the chalk on her hands but quickly got over it when she saw how easily she could draw with it. We then added stickers. Heres how it turned out:

Advent Jesse Tree

A few weeks ago a group of friends and I got together for an ornament exchange.  It wasn't just an "regular ornament" exchange, but it was for our very own Jesse Tree.  Honestly I had never heard of a Jesse Tree, but was more than happy to make a few ornaments to bring to a fun girls event! I signed up for the easiest ornament I could find on the list:

Day 21: A Brick Wall

After finding out that  Advent Jesse Tree is way to countdown to Christmas, starting the 4th Sunday before Christmas Day and ending on Christmas eve.  The word Advent means "coming" or "arrival". The Christian Church focuses the Advent season on the celebration of the birth of Jesus.  The Jesse Tree is a simple example of the genealogy of Jesus, it tells the story of God's plan starting with creation, continuing through the Old Testament and then to the coming of Christ.  Each day of Advent you add an ornament to your tree. The ornaments represent a prophecy foretelling of Christ and/or can represent a person in Christ lineage.  There's a book (I have yet to buy) that goes along with the ornament giving a bible verse, short commentary and devotional for each day.  But until I get that book, my family each night will be doing online readings together.  I'm excited to start this family tradition! I hope we keep it each year to teach our children about Christ and to remember what this time of year is really about.

All the girls did an awesome job on their ornaments! We each walked away with 25 each, one for each day of Advent! It was really fun to see what each person created:

Jesse Tree Ornaments



Today is Day 2 of Advent and it's never too late to start a tradition. So go ahead and start the readings and maybe next year you and some friends can make the ornaments too! 

House Arrest

Since Sunday we have been on house arrest! Violet inherited her father's allergies and bad bad bad allergies they are!  It seems since last fall every couple of months she gets a runny nose, a nasty cough and congestion.  I feel so sorry for her, because at this age there is little you can do, especially at night when all she does is cough.  We do nasal saline drops, benadryl, humidifier, steam/shower treatments during the day and tylenol. But man, it's hard to have a sick child and it's only allergies!

Today is the first day since Sunday that she has not had a fever and is acting more like herself.  I was a bummed she was so sick because there were a few things already planned for the week: Church/Sunday School, Mother's Day Out, MOPs , dinner with the CYP posse, and a lunch picnic with her mother's day out class.  Though it was nice to have a slow week and not having to rush through the day to be somewhere, I had to be more creative with our time at home.  We read a lot more books, played pretend, watched the rain, snuggled, and (only because she was sick) watched more tv than usual.  Violet has been really interested in letters lately (she can identify a few of them) so with leftover felt I had from ornaments, I made these:

Good ole fashion flashcards! Though she thinks it is more fun to show me the card and say the letter, it's a start! I ran out of felt and still need to make the last 6 letters, draw the corresponding animal/thing she knows in sign language on the back and hanging them in her room so she can see them...we'll see if this last one actually happens. 

Anyways I'm thankful today she is feeling better and praying for a more restful night for all of us.

Pom Poms

If you remember in an earlier post, that we made most of the decorations for Violet's birthday. We didn't want to spend very much for decor, but wanted something festive. I had seen these Pom Pom tissue paper flowers before so my crafty friend Nikki and I had some fun making them.

What you need:
-Tissue Paper
-Floral Wire
-Scissors


1. Stack 8 sheets of tissue paper. Accordion fold (aka fold like a paper fan you would make when you were little), creasing with each fold

2. Wrap an 8 inch floral wire in the center of tissue paper. With scissors trim tissue paper ends into rounded or pointed shape(we did both)

3. Gently separate each layer of tissue paper, pulling away from center one at a time, until....



Bry joined us after putting V to sleep and we ended up making about 20 of the poms!


They were super easy to make and added the perfect touch to the party! We finally took them down last week, but I saved a couple to make the laundry room a little more colorful :)