John the Owl

Just a little update on the "Lola Owls"...I9 finished his before the holiday. Check out this boy's skilz.

Look at I9 go! He just went right for those tight turns on the eyes.

and beak!

Finished side...then he sewed up a backing...

and stuffed him and hand sewed him up- with a tight little whip stitch. How cool is that? His name is John. John the Owl!

R11 was distracted with the gifts she was making, but hopefully we'll see a finished Lola from her as well. I9 received his own sewing kit for Christmas. I'll share what's in it very soon- in case any of you mamas of boys want to try it out!

PS- sorry for the blogging break...we were out of town, then back in town and Dan was doing some laptop maintenance for me including a full back up to our server and the installation of Office 2010 along with the usual updates. So, Happy New Year! I'm back in bloggy business!

Holiday Cheer

We finished our cards! Most are on their way. Holiday cheer for family and friends. Every year I contemplate my infatuation with hand made cards. They are time consuming and sometimes more expensive than you think they will be. Occasionally they add to the stress of the holiday. But in the end, as I suspend time and sit with my paper crafting, I remember...I do it because I really like making them! Maybe not all the stuff that goes with it, but the actual sitting down and handling paper and doodads? VERY high on my list of fun things to do with my time. Also, now that R11 is a serious crafter, we have fun working together. Last year I used watercolor my kids had done and cut the sheets into smaller elements for the card. It's fun to piece together things the kids have done for our holiday cards. I'd better start thinking about next year...

I thought you might like a peek at this year's design.

Scrap fabric, cardstock in handsome Christmas colors, stamps, ink and tape...lots of tape both single and double sided. R11 helped me out this year- she drew the template for the tree and helped to cut the fabric. She also cut the paper after I measured where to cut.

How fun are these fabrics? My personal favorite is the evergreen with cardinals, but that one in the middle with the gold holly? Mmmm....

I think my favorite part about this card is how the fabric changes the whole card. Plus, I luv the texture of the fabric with the paper. This was an idea from Art Projects for Kids from last year that we made into a whole larger piece of art last year. But I went back to the cards and thought about how to change things up with the fabric. Very satisfying results.

And there you have it...Dan and I just celebrated our 16th anniversary- more on that next time and the week before Christmas is always so busy. Next year I'll start earlier. Sure I will. I say it every year. Now if I could just keep a decent address list. It would go that much faster.

Merry Christmas! Remember, there are 11 more days to celebrate this season!

Doll Apron Design and Gift

R11 and I are putting together gifts for two of her girl cousins. The request was for American Girl craft kits, but R11 and I put together a pretty good plan to capitalize on the cool parts of the kits while adding more to them. I'll share the full contents of what we are calling The Knit Kits in another post when they are finished, however R11 has been working hard on making one of the elements for the kit. Check out her hard work below.

She started with some sketches for her design- look at those measurements. Swoon- goes her math teacher!

She made the pattern- R11 dislikes using big commercial patterns, but she enjoys making her own. It'll be fun to see if she can manage to design more complicated things as she gets older.

She lined the cotton fabric with interfacing so that it would be stiff like an apron.

She did fabulous work sewing on the bias tape. We've had a very busy project week- homeschooled kid at work!

Molly models what she has so far- looks like a nice pinafore!

Molly has a strap now- R11 went with thick elastic so it would be big enough to fit over the doll's head and still sit up high on her chest.

The original plan called for a pocket and here it is- topped off with bias tape and it has two sides. That is one fine looking doll apron.

The finished apron. Doesn't it look sweet?

We are hopeful the apron will be enjoyed by her cousin. R11 did a great job with design and implementation. Included in the kit will be a set of fabric markers so the giftee can decorate the doll apron if she chooses. It brings me joy to watch R11 create something. She's been a busy girl this week!

Sewing Camp December

We had Sewing Camp December on the 18th this past Sunday and I had been excited to share our Fab Felt Holiday Craftsy Class by Betz White with the girls. We chose the Poinsettia Brooch project and it was a lot of fun to try. If you've never done a Craftsy class, I highly recommend them. Once you purchase the class it's yours forever to review and try and ask questions. More on these a bit later as a certain holiday is upon us and a certain girl will see more of this on Sunday. ; ) For now, here's the link to the Craftsy home page so you can see the classes they currently offer with prices and instructors. If you click Betz's link above, that will take you to her blog and she offers a link to her Craftsy classes for $10 off. In general the classes are about $30. They have samples of each of the classes and introductions to what you will learn. Once you register, you'll get emails on sales for the classes. I took advantage of a buy one, get one free this holiday season.

The first finished poinsettia- we did not have fusible webbing to attach the printed fabric to the petals first.

But some of the girls tried Tacky Glue and it worked fine- love this color combo and what a great button!

R11's brooch- I love the button in the middle. She forgot her printed fabric, but she was going to give it a go. There is hand sewing involved to make the leaves curved and then you use glue for assembly.

These are the materials we used minus the fusable webbing. I chose to go with the craft glue as well and just a little tip- for VBS I used the Discount School Supply craft glue which is Tacky glue in an old fashioned paste type bottle- with the stick and everything. You know how Tacky glue will gum up a squeeze bottle! The kids at VBS hate it so I use glue dots with them now, but it's perfect for home crafting. FYI- kids these days have issues with liquid glue! Too many neat alternatives for them to bother. What a shame!

My almost finished brooch- once dry I will sew the middle and the button to the flower. I was missing a petal- that's what happens when you start with a partially used template. I was missing a petal and did not know it. More of the green leaves show when you use all six, but it's tricky to get them all around at first.

We watched the video together as we assembled to get started and it was great instruction. If we needed to see a part over we could do that later and one camper did just that. I'm looking forward to using this format again not only for Sewing Camp, but for other times as well. I love that we can access the class anytime and from our home. We can do the project along with the instructor or just watch to get an idea of what to do before beginning again later.

Next month we'll be having two Sewing Camp events- one is a snow and sledding party with the opportunity to make pillowcase dresses for girls in third world countries and the other will be a normal project day - the project remains elusive at this moment.

This has been a terrific opportunity to gather R11's friends for an activity they all enjoy. It's a much cheaper option for sewing instruction and her classmates are her friends. The moms are on board and it's been an activity so worth our investment of time.

Sewing Camp November

It's been a while since I've blogged about Sewing Camp, but we've been busy. In November we met on the 19th and we made some Lola Owl Bags. This was a fun project- perfect for young sewing enthusiasts and we even had I9 join us this time. He's been sewing his own angry birds like crazy and we were missing some of the girls so this was a great day for him to join us on camp day.

Broken arm girl is working on sewing a wing- it gets a zig zag stitch over and over to make the decorative stitching around the wings.

Does this make a really fine looking Lola or what? I love her fabric choices!

E is our finished project friend. She goes home and finishes up anything she didn't get done during camp. She sent me this photo of her finished Lola Bag.

I9's color choices-  he worked on "guying up" Lola.

R's Lola- she's almost ready to assemble into a bag. My bag will be the opposite- the brown is the owl and the green will be the wings. I try to do most of the projects (but not all) just to get some practice in while working with the campers.

Yesterday we had our December Sewing Camp and some of the girls worked more on Lola and we even added Max, which I'll share with you next. This week we plan to finish up the Lola Bags as part of our Project School week. Hopefully we'll have some finished bags to share soon!

Five in a Row Update

J6 is my only student left in Five in a Row. R11 and I9 are doing some Beyond Five in a Row this year, but I have just one little rower left and I have to say...he's a very different sort of rower! He's not really into the notebooking/lapbooking although he will do some. He does copywork just fine, but he is more of a doer! This has sort of changed things up in our homeschool this year. Instead of doing the lapbook or a 3 pronged folder for each title, I'm doing a 3 ring binder with sections this year- much like Mrs. Lambert suggests in her manual. I try not to get caught up in how much he produces. He's doing everything he needs to do and we are having a grand time- even if it looks different than it has before! So, rather than showing you a post here and there, I will share some of the things we recorded for several titles.

R11 and J6 took orders for the Moonjelly Cafe night during Night of the Moonjellies. We had a great time serving up some summer fun.

White board moonjellies- he worked on these as I read the book. It's a family favorite!

Isn't it fun when big sisters listen and draw too?

He made a sign for his Moonjelly Cafe.

We use Draw, Write, Now- all of my kids have responded well to this program and it makes an excellent copy work source!

I combine the drawing techniques from the work book with copywork from the FIAR book itself. The handwriting paper I create using StartWrite.

He really liked the book Down, Down the Mountain- this was a first for me because we didn't own the book before and it was not available for borrowing. Book sale to the rescue!

He does enjoy using an atlas. Here is the young Mr. J working on a map of Michigan- yes, I know...who lets their first grader do handwriting on the floor? Me...I guess.

We've watched computer videos, used Google Earth, made stop motion animation videos, and he reads to me all the time- all of these relating to FIAR. I think we'll step it up some after the new year- just to cover some other skills, but all in all it's been a great year so far. My last first grader!

Co-op Fall 2011

Time for a semi-annual post on what the kids did at Co-op this semester. E13 took soccer and FLL- since those two are not represented in pictures here. He loved the soccer class which provided a great time for group play. He loves soccer and just aged out of the youth program. I am hopeful we'll see this one next fall as well. Outdoor classes are best during the fall. The weather is much better than the second semester which begins in February.

I9 took Land of the Ferris Wheel, Home of the Popcorn which was a class on US States. He adored this class. He also took Bible Drama and performed beautifully on performance night having memorized his various lines.

J6 took One Small Square. J6 is a nature kid and loves to be outdoors. He loved this class and the teacher did a terrific job. They even got to make paper which was a highlight for J6. (see those journals above)

J6's other class was Stories and Cooking. They read stories and cooked/prepared matching snacks at every class. I9 used to take those classes to and they are a great offering for the K-2 set. When the class was over he had a whole recipe book full of the things he helped to make.

R11 took a tissue Paper Flowers class. What is not to love?

This is her arrangement which now adorns the top of my TV (yes, we have a TV which can accommodate things on top...which tells you we do not live in the world of the flat screen.). They made one to several flowers of a type each week. Didn't her flowers turn out superbly?

I helped Dan to teach his FLL robot class and I was a helper in the Hand Quilting class. The girls did a great job making coasters and pillows.

One of R's friends made this great log cabin pillow and it's the same on the other side (many of the girls did the piecing only on one side). She was also able to make the lap quilt there. Keep in mind this was all hand done- the piecing and the quilting. Nice job girls!

R's other class was Flower Pressing. This class was amazing for her. It was great fun to see all the projects she created this semester.

This was a great semester for co-op, as usual. The kids love Monday afternoons and so do I- such a low key program compared to others I've heard of out there. I help to chair the committee which oversees and organize the co-op and after the holiday it will be time to start putting together information and class requests for the spring. How many of you all participate in a co-op?

Christmas Crafting

We've been busy like bees over the last week or so working on Christmas fun. The kids and I had two days in a row the first week of December devoted to making Christmas crafts as a group. I offered up a chalk drawing the first day at our homeschool group event which was enjoyed by the younger crowd. The next day we participated with our 4H group and I had the kids make the textured tree project we did last year. Some of the projects were very creative. I learned that the events are back to back every year. I think next year we'll do the homeschool group and skip the 4H event. Simplify! Besides, I don't even know what to do with all this stuff!

Clearly, this one wins the prize! It's a lantern made from recycled bottles, doodads, and Christmas lights inside. Batteries make them shine in the bottle and the tuna can on the bottom hides the batteries and switch box. So clever! We have three at our house now.

All of my kids enjoyed the beading!

We have a wreath for the front door.

This was also a hit- wrapping wire and beads around the candles. We have some nice accents around now.

I also have some really fine swags of greens to put up- not sure where! But it was fun to see the kids enjoy the process of putting together some traditional holiday decorations and now we get to use them. We are getting the tree this week- behind on this one this year- we ended up sick after our big lego finish so here we are!

You all might enjoy some posts over at Simple Homeschool- there's an article on a Christmas Bucket List that I think is a terrific reminder on how to stay stress free during this season. Just a couple weeks left really until the big day. Enjoy staying focused on the Advent of our Savior.

Sleeping Bags for Dolls

Once R11 recovered from the initial incident involving her arm, she began to craft again! Prior to Thanksgiving, she started a making a sleeping bag for her American Girl dolls and it was ready in time to take a guest on the road with us! Usually her projects are one day affairs, but occasionally she goes for a longer one. This one was pretty much made in one afternoon.

Sewing machine operation with her cast went pretty well. Her left arm made a good weight to hold things down. Thankfully, she is right handed and since this picture, she's had the cast taken off. We are down to a brace which she's worn a week and a half now.

It has two layers of felt so it's nice and fluffy. She chose not to fill it with stuffing.

Note the seams across the fabric in the bag- just like the real bags. Dan discussed with her what they are for and how it helps the bag to be a good insulator.

All set and a perfect fit!

Glancing at a recent American Girl catalog, she calculates she saved herself about $25. I love to watch her creativity at work!