Miss M was so pleased with the snugglies I’d made for her and her brother that she asked if it would be ok for her to make one for her teacher’s daughter who is celebrating her first birthday today.

Of course!

On Wednesday after school we went on a mission to the fabric store. All the way there, we discussed her plans. They were quite elaborate. When we arrived, she headed straight to where we usually look, where you can get pre-cut pieces, and have fun with color and pattern for not a lot of money (’cause Mama’s cheap like that). I cut her off & introduced her to the bolts of fabric that were there to explore  — you’d have through I was the most amazing Mom at the look on her face.

She chose the brightest pink fleece, and a soft cotton in the brightest blue and fuschia.  Her smile was enough to quell my worries that this might be a bit, um… bright for a one-year-old.

Next up, we strolled past the ribbons, and buttons until she saw what she had to have for her blanket. A super soft teddy bear applique — a must have.

My girl also wanted to applique the baby’s name, but I was a bit worried that that would over-complicate what I’d hoped would be a simple project, so I steered her (yet again) to the iron-on letters. Yay me. She was pleased with this solution.

The actual sewing was easy peasy. Deciding where the appliques would go required Dad’s diplomatic intervention. Yay Dad.

[Please excuse the poor quality of today's photo. I couldn't find my camera, so grabbed the kids' and clearly must have clicked on something I shouldn't have to make it so blurry]

I’ve been wanting to experiment with paper maché for a while now and made the mistake of mentioning my interest to the kids the other day. It should be noted that my kids are not the ones you want to mention stuff to in an off-hand way if you aren’t ready to take action. They JUMPED at the idea.

“Mom! We have everything we need, don’t we?!”

Well, yeah, but…

Miss M instantly knew exactly what she wanted to make and how she was going to make it.

So. Out came the balloons. I hate blowing up balloons. I’m always scared they’ll pop on me, and I can never tie them right. It’s an in-born failing of mine. Shockingly, I prevailed & managed to blow up three & actually tied them off without too many tears of frustration.

Next up was the fun part. We cut & shred a bunch of old papers. Saved me a trip down to the recycling bin. We then covered the table with more paper to protect it from inevitable spills. (like that worked…)

The last supply we needed was paste. I haven’t done paper maché anything since the first grade and I vaguely remembered dipping paper into a water/glue concoction, so that’s what I made, just mixing one part craft glue to two parts water. I have no idea if that was the “right” thing to do, but it worked out ok. Usually, I’ll have read up on a project before diving in, at least enough to know what’s involved.

It took a surprisingly looooonnnnnggg time to cover our balloons in paper. Very wet paper, I might add.

{This is the part that you might want to skip}

I set our masterpieces in process out on the balcony to dry. We live in Northern California where winter = rain. I’m sure you see where this is going. The balloons came back in the next morning to spend another 24 hours drying indoors with me chasing the baby every time he got close enough to them to say “Boo!”

Today they were finally dry enough to attach fins. I’m hoping this project ends soon. It’s stressing me out.

The kids were very quiet after breakfast this morning. Almost too quiet. In fact, so serene was my household that I actually enjoyed a second cup of coffee while it was hot.

If I were a thinking person, I might have worried a bit. Luckily, the olders were using those incredibly creative minds of theirs to do sweet things.

My Man B busied himself practicing piano (with headphones on!), and writing thank you notes to our incredibly generous friends who gave him their keyboard, along with all the widgets, and whosits needed to make it play.

Miss M created this family of magnetic paper dolls. All of the parts are interchangeable, and she has plans to make accessories for them all — books, shoes, bags, ribbons.  I had a roll of magnetic tape lying around which she cut sections off of to stick to the backs. Now we have a lovely, and ever-changing tableau on the fridge.

Poor Maggie is home sick with a cold. The worst thing for a kid is being home when they don’t have enough energy to do all the active things they usually like to do. Today was full of “what can I do?” moments. Luckily, my girl spotted the plastic tray our apples had come in this week and asked if she could do something with it. (more…)

This morning I showed Miss M the paper quilt that Tiel over at TskTsk had posted. I started to tell my girl about how I’d like to do a family project like this. One where we all do a paper quilt along a specific theme. She nodded, and skipped off to our craft cabinet (a re-purposed buffet).

She had no interest in doing a group effort today, but was totally up for doing her own thing.

I still think it would be fun for each of us to make a collage either creating along a specific theme, or maybe using the same papers or palette… I’ll have to think this one through a bit. Once done, the (master)pieces would have to be displayed together. Natch.