Nature Words

This is a simple craft for a pretty day.

As a family we collected leaves, stones, dead flowers, sand, and sticks.  It was really fun to find creative ways to use the nature finds to write the girls' names. Nola and Kira loved seeing their names in a new way - all day Kira said "My name is beautiful!"

This Moment

Part of SouleMama's "moment" post.

Yum

Every piece of fruit I make turns out cuter than the last, and I just can't stop.

The patterns are from this Japanese craft book that I borrowed from a friend.

I can't understand a thing, but the illustrations are so good that it doesn't matter.

I have lots and lots more things to make...stay tuned for progress reports.

Features

After taking a few months off from blogging, I felt so welcomed back by Birthday Girl featuring our pond party.

But wait there's more... Forskollararen and One Pretty Thing both featured our snowman craft.

Thank you!

Sharing Projects

I am always looking for new ways to preserve, display and share the girls' artwork. I can't wait to try this creative idea by guest blogger Suann at Design Sponge and make a collage of the girls' craft projects to turn into greeting cards.

Spiffy New Banner

Check out my new banner! Thank you Holley Maher - you rock and make me a spiffier blogger.

I'd love to know what you think...

Crafty Birds - Making a Pine Cone Bird Feeder

Materials:

Pine Cones

Peanut butter

Bird seed

String

Knife

Step 1: Wrap a 12 inch piece of string around the top of the pine cone. 

Step 2: Slather pine cone with peanut butter.

Step 3: Sprinkle bird seed over peanut butter.

Step 4: Hang pine cone - we hung two on our feeder and one in a tree.

As the girls were patiently waiting for birds to come to the feeder...

A squirrel ate the pine cone in the tree!

Weekend Fun

Picnicing (the first of 2010)

Cake Making

Car Washing

Dreaming of Crafts

When I checked on the girls last night before I went to bed, Kira rolled over and shouted "I want to make it." My sweet little Kira was dreaming about crafts!

Crafty Birds - Making Snowmen/girls out of Cotton Wool

Last week the girls were so sad that their real snowman melted. Today we decided to make snowmen that would always be here...

Materials:

Plastic juice bottles

Large cotton wool balls

Felt (we used left-over felted wool sweaters)

Glue

Scissors

Paint brush

A kid or two

Step 1: Fill bottle with an inch of dry rice and replace cap.

Step 2: Paint bottle with a generous amount of glue.

Step 3: Unroll cotton balls and cover bottle.

Step 4: Cut out a scarf, a carrot, 2 hats, and 7 stones (per snowman).

Step 5: Glue hat together.

Step 6: Glue hat, scarf, eyes, nose and mouth onto snowman.

I think they look like an old married couple, but the girls insist that they are twin snowgirls. So sweet.

My Happy Girls

Recycled Sweaters = Valentine's Kitties

For Valentine's I made kitties out of felted wool sweaters. To see the girls' happy little faces and joyful squeals made every stitch worth it. They took off running down the hallway with their kitty tucked under their arm - it was a precious moment.

K is for Kira

N is for Nola

For more embroidered fun I made hearts using a tutorial from Woolnest.

Tucked inside the pouch was a scroll that Eric made of special words for each girl... 

Nutty

Observant

Loveable

Artistic

Kooky

Inquizative

Rambunctious

Affectionate

The Big 3: A Pond Birthday Party

For their third birthday party Nola and Kira asked for purple fish, butterflies and a frog... a pond birthday party was in order.

I kept the cake simple with cut-outs of the girls from the invitation.

I made party hats with Holley's cute paper characters.

There were many copies...

Attached to the light fixture was a pink pom-pom extravaganza complete with fluttering butterflies.

The kids decorated butterfly wings with crayons and sparkly paper.

A pond party has to have a pond. Eric and I made this one out of 3 yards of felt - it covered the entire room and the kids loved it!

At the end of the party all the kids 'fished' for their party favor...

Purple fish - I lovingly hand-sewed 20. Phew.

The guests put their fish in little to-go boxes...Thanks for Coming!

And a huge thank you to Russ Loyd for many beautiful pictures.

Happy butterflies - my favorite! xxx

The Big 3: An Invitation to a Pond Birthday Party

How do you combine your daughters' very specific requests for a birthday party with purple fish, butterflies, and a frog? We had a pond party!!

The girls' super cute invitation was desiged by the uber-talented Holley Maher.

Holley also created our sundae party invitations, which I'm told still grace many Nashville fridges.

Hello Again

Family illness, the passing of my dear Aunty Jean, birthdays/holidays, as well as some general crafty fun has made my time off from blogging longer and longer. But, after many complaints (I didn’t know you all cared so much!) I’m back!