Craft Dictator

It’s birthday crown time again folks.  The preferred theme declared by almost 4 year old:

Team Umizoomi!
Yay!  Awesome cute little math pattern cartoonies from NickJr.  Totally doable!
I’ll get some plaid, cut up some triangles.  It will be great!

Then 2 days before the boy’s birthday, we have:  Mo Willems’ Pigeon?

Complete with bus and hot dog.

Yep, those crooked circles and drawings were the perfect items for a birthday crown.  I really did want to make a Team Umizoomi crown.   But after contemplating how long it would take me to get the details just right, I opted for a simpler crown.  He really was only going to wear it for one day.  And in the end, he was perfectly happy with our favorite pigeon in addition to a dinosaur tail thanks to Miss Running with Scissors.

How has life come to craft dictating?

Craft dictatorship has come from the fact that while I know that I have fiberfill somewhere packed in one of the 4 tiny closets in this place, I needed to buy another package with the fabric for the dinosaur tail or else spend 3 nights searching for it.

Same thing for birthday candles.  I picked up another pack and somewhere there is a 4 candle hiding.  Most likely I’ll find that somewhere around the 9th birthday.

Craft dictating happens because even though it’s been over 2 weeks, I’m pretty sure there is some part of Thanksgiving leftover still in my fridge.

Finally, craft dictation is neccesary because while you put all this time and effort into birthday planning, a little boy wants one thing and only one thing – to play on the ipad all the time:

December has come upon us and in addition to not starting any xmas shopping or decorating, I am completely unprepared and idealess about the whole thing.   Mailing presents to family out of the state only moves any holiday deadlines for me up sooner.

While I continue to be in awe of all the awesome crafting for the season, I can’t help but wonder about the moms that make and blog about the utmost perfection of their creations and wish I could really be a robot.  Then at least I would be able to get more done.

Xmas ornaments coming soon.

Me: “Well, what do you think about your crown?”

4 year old: “Well, it fits.  But Pigeon’s missing the train and airplane.”

That last comment brought to you by Pigeon Love Things that Go.

A costume only a 3 year old could think up.

Who hasn’t been seen made revamped recycled or whatever any type of Harry Potter costume for fans of all ages.
The movies are too scary so we’ve never let him watch any.
The books are too long and I’ve never gotten around to reading him any.

What we do have is this:

I’m am so glad that Halloween is over because the month and a half plus I have been working on trying the figure out how the hell to make a Harry Potter Lego costume is time that I will never get back!
Does anyone else feel like Halloween is a nightmare for costume making?  It’s like a wedding.  You spend all this time planning creating for one day then it’s over and trashed.
Still, I am slightly amazed I was able to turn this:

Into this:

With not a damn minute left to spare before Halloween.
Be safe and have fun tomorrow. We’re expecting to get rained on.
Here’s more Lego Harry Potter in real life, coming to a door near you!

Oh! And we can’t forget Hedwig!

more like angry hacky sack

So we got one of those ipads a while back and I am dead set on not spending any money on apps.  I NEED those apple credits for music.  But once my husband discovered the free version of angry birds, so did a certain little 3 year old boy.  And hey, when you keep scrolling on one of the versions of the game, there’s a link to the Angry Birds plush website where you can buy them.  Really, twelve bucks?   “Mama, there’s a red one and a blue one and a green one and the black one……..”  Then the light bulb goes off and I remembered that I needed to get around to making one of Care’s wonderful recreations and thank god she has a tutorial.

Only her tutorial requires an agreeable sewing machine and something about a free motion foot which I am pretty sure I can’t get for my model.  Anyway, I wanted to make them smaller and I used felt instead of fleece.  And instead of fiber I used rice as a filler. Which now I wonder if that’s a good idea with a toddler.  I imagine little rice grains everywhere from a busted blanket stitch.  Or it’s actually heavy enough to knock over other small objects.

This little guy will greet another little guy with his breakfast cereal.  And more to come, just you can’t just make one.

Damn it’s late.  Happy Friday!

Not a last minute Easter craft

There are these moms that work full time and then come home and cook and clean and raise kids and then blog about whatever they blog about.  I think they are lying.
They either have maids, or nannies or stay at home husbands cause there is no way they have the time to sit around and blog with having to do all that stuff.

Our crafting has become less frequent and definitely takes weeks to complete than the previous “hey I can whip that up in a couple of days” kick I used to be on.  And cards. 
We seem to only be on cards lately cause I am not making little felt bunnies to mail to over 25 family members who may eventually just trash them away anyway.

But the “baby boy” is now bigger and everyday wants to “do crafts!”  So while at daycare, they do daily art projects and everyday at pickup “Looky, I made” comes out of his mouth and a large painting/drawing is plopped into my hands.  
What am I going to do with over a month’s worth or art? 
We decided to send it to family for Easter.

Taking various pieces:

We used an egg shaped cookie cutter (you know, the one bought to make cool bento box lunches that I never got around to making) to trace eggs and then mama cut them out.

Little man used glue stick to glue eggs onto blank card stock (on sale 50 pack, 3 for $10, while supplies last @ Michael’s)

Then we cut up some of that annoying green grass ribbon for easter baskets and glued that to the card too:

Insert candid photo of boy taken on only sunny day in weeks at the park (I’m sorry, those photos with the Easter bunny are scary) and:

There goes 3 weekends of crafting out into the mail.

Well, it actually went out earlier this week but I didn’t get a chance to post until now, which title clearly states, “Not a last minute easter craft”

Perhaps not the snazziest card, but, hey, you can only expect so much from a 3 year old.  I’ll get him whipped into shape for mass craft production eventually.

Have a wonderful weekend!  Enjoy!

“Don’t you be stealin’ me gold, lassie!”

I don’t know what the hell that is supposed to mean.  I don’t know what a leprechaun says.  Short of googling quotes from the movie, I already had to spell check leprechaun in the first place.

Anyway.  Valentine’s day crafting was non-existent and my family is all “Hey, you have this little boy, right? Can we get some pictures?”  So, after finding a leprechaun beard craft to go with the Dollar Tree’s hat (re-sewn to fit a 3 year old, cause all they sell are adult sized ones,) we have this:

Well, that’s the extent of it along with a repurposing of an old valentine’s day card idea with stamps,

It’s raining shamrocks over here!

Well, really it’s just raining.  All the time.

Here ya go, Grandma.  Thanks for keeping me on my crafting game with subtle guilt.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day.  May the luck of the Irish be with you all along with multiple pints of your choice!

“No, we are not getting a Pillow Pet™ !”

Says me with crying little boy in cart as we push our way out of Fred Meyer.

Oh, Fred Meyer.  Why do you torture my son so and force me to publicly look like a bad mommy.
Anyone from the Pacific Northwest will sing the praises of Fred Meyer, a basic superstore where you can nab organic food in one section, some Converse shoes in another and pick up a new sofa lounge while you are at it.  Often cheaper and cleaner than Walmart, without the exposing yourself to people of Walmart. (Please click for long time scariness!!)

It is also one of the main stores that carry:

Pillow Pets™.

If you have not heard of them already, it’s a pillow, it’s a pet.  It’s a Pillow Pet.™  Basically a soft stuffed animal shaped like a pillow.  I know, brilliant, right?  It’s not like he’s seen it on television.  I guess it is my fault for teaching the boy how to read words.  He is obsessed with this Pillow Pet thing even though he has never laid a hand on it.  “We go to Fred Meyer and buy a Pillow Pet” is often what comes out of his mouth upon waking up in the morning.

The other people in the store are like “Come on lady, it’s only a stuffed animal.”  And at only $20 bucks it’s not like it will put us out or anything.   I just don’t like them.  Please don’t be offended if you own one.  I understand they are suuuuuuper soft and comfy.  But he’s only 3 and he already demands that we must buy Legos from the internet, I can’t give in to every wide eyed want that catches his fancy.  My solution?  Focus on another obsession:

Nintendo DS.

Ah, Nintendo DS.  Another thing that we don’t own but is often shared with the boy by older kids who are looking for a way to get a 3 year old off their back.

So here’s the Kirby pillow:

Yeah, I know I made a pink pillow for my boy.  What can I do, the damn thing’s pink!  And fabric came to about $5 bucks so it was a cost effective solution for never having Pillow Pets™ mentioned again.

I still go to great lengths to avoid the Pillow Pet isle every time we go to Fred Meyer, though.

Does it ever stop raining?

That may be what I ask myself with a new move to rainy PDX.

In celebration of that, I have been meaning to post a new year’s tutorial and giveaway.

Stop dreaming of rain mobiles priced $25 and up!  And make one yourself.

If you don’t want to make one (take’s less than an hour depending on your speed) then throw your hat in for the the giveaway of this one.

Here goes:

Make a cloud image on white felt and cut out:

Hand stitch (or machine sew) to another uncut piece of white felt:

Leave a bit at the end to stuff with fluff, make sure you push into the poofs for extra fluffy cloud!

Sew up and cut out your cloud:

Start cutting out raindrops for 3 – 6 or however many you like.  You will sew 2  raindrop cutouts together:

I’ve picked rainbow colours here with matching thread but you can you use greys and blues like this one here.

After drops are stitched, use coloured thread to attach to bottom of cloud.  Use white thread to attach for hanging  and you are ready for action!

Guaranteed to brighten your day rain or shine!  Total cost of supplies is under $3.

Also these instructions can be modified to make yourself any mobile you like be it balloons, stars, animals or any other similar to one you have already hearted on etsy.

Please leave a comment to win this little happy cloud by Monday January 24th and thank you in advance for reading.

I really want to share craft with everyone and it shouldn’t have to be time consuming (I know you all have real lives!) nor should it break your wallet.  Those $20 – $30 etsy purchases really do add up people.  Save your cash for food or your kids college fund for god’s sake!

Sending all the best wishes to everyone for a rich and crafty 2011!

….. .  .   .    .     .

And the winner of the mobile is:

85 – Karen Chartier!

Thanks so much everyone.