A "craft-o-licious" week

This week, like most of the country, we got lots of snow! With lots of snow comes lots of inside time and school cancelations. Because I am like a walking baby time bomb, I can't take my kids out in the snow and ice (plus, it is too cold) so we have lots of time to find fun things to do.

For my oldest son's first school Valentines, we decided to use his favorite skill - cutting. With a agglomeration of papers cut into irregular shapes, paper mache was the course to take. We layered a small pasta bowl with plastic wrap and used book order forms (you know the ones like from Scholastic) and made a great mess. For the paste, I used 2/3 c. warm water and about 1/4 c. white Elmers' School glue.

With having to obviously heat the house, there was no worry that the bowls wouldn't be dry by the next day for the paper towel layer. Once the paper towel layer was ready, we painted. Mason had to get some action with that too. It is amazing how much paint one can find on new wood floors in 9 min. of a two year old painting.


To fill our bowls, I saw a really cute idea in the Feb. issue of Family Fun. It caught my eye right away as it involved cutting. I feel as a mommy that I really have to nurture my oldest son's creative side as he is by nature analytical and exact. This was fun to do and it involved steps so it was perfect to work on each day of our long snowed in week. Our final product...two homemade bowls filled with conversation hearts and friendship blossoms.

I think they are cute and they were fun to do. Maybe next year we'll decorate clay pots a bit earlier and grow grass in them and "up" our creativeness with the friendship blossoms. That would involve dirt and cutting which is always a good thing in this house.

I couldn't be outdone by my children so I found something new to do too. I'm seriously in love with Amanda Blake Soule at Soulemama and am obsessively (in a good way) reading through her books. In the past, I've tried to be one of those great paper and pen memory book scrappers but alas, that is just not me. When I saw how she using fabric and string to make memories last, I had to do it. Like now. Since I am so proud that my newly 4 year old can write his name, a h-u-g-e deal for him, I embroidered it so we could always gaze at it lovingly on our mantel. It was so fun. Fast. I got to use a needle and wool...mama happy.
Oh and one more thing...I did get to finish my last custom until I'm ready for more when Logan is here and settled! Shorties too! Plus, I got to work on something to stock. Fun again. I love craftolicious weeks.

Ok, sorry, the end.