Teacher Gift

I love the idea of using chalkboard paint for teachers gifts since it goes with the whole teacher thing, ya know. For my preschoolers teachers I painted small pots and put some flowers in them.  Then she got to write her name on them and hand them to her teacher. No pictures since those were made at midnight the night before and the morning of I was up at the crack of dawn having a garage sale while my husband took the kids to school.

Luckily this tray didn't sell in that sale so that I could re-purpose it. Nice thing about collecting stuff is that you don't have to run to the store for things like end of the year teacher gifts. So I painted my cute Melissa and Doug pizza tray (do you guys keep the trays, cute but take up way too much space) with chalkboard paint, had my 1st grader write on it and then filled it with stuff I had at home.

 I took paper clips I had and glued buttons on them. And I printed out some personalized note cards courtesy of my Heather Ross book. Love that thing!

Thrift Store Finds

How many kids does it take for me to have no time to craft? 4. Everyone says 3 is the hardest and after that it doesn't matter. I was fine with 3 but 4 is killing me. I have had time to do a few things but then to take time to actually take pictures when you are wrestling 4 kids? Nearly impossible. And then I have to get them up here on the ole blog? Very impossible.

I have been up to a few things but no pictures to show for it. Instead I will show you some amazing finds from yard sales last week.

I got a dozen perfect condition retro ties for $2! I can never say no to amazing ties!

This old OskKosh trunk from 1915 for $25. No there isn't a 1 in front of the 25. Even that would be a steal. It has 5 drawers so we are going to use it as a dresser. And it came with wooden hangers. I looked it up online and saw it could sell for over $600. I am sure those are way better condition than mine. Mine doesn't have the locks anymore but still, such a steal!

I also got a couple of vintage wooden doll cradles. They are super cute. They were marked at $1 each. I couldn't pass them up. When I went to buy then the lady asked if I would take both for $1. Uhhh, ok...

American Girl Doll Clothes

Of course since the party was an American Girl party I had to make some doll clothes for the birthday girl. And since her dad wears scrubs to work I thought I would make some to match.

 And a skirt.

The skirt was just a simple square. It turned out really cute. Corduroy picked out fabric and trim. I used a tutorial for the scrubs and it turned out super funky. It looks OK on the doll but the pants are too short in the waist and the arms are super crazy. Does anyone have any AG tutorials that are tried and tested and like? I have a feeling I will be making a lot of doll clothes in the future...

American Girl Clothes

My 7 year old was invited to an American Girl doll party. Of course that means a matching dress right? I was determined to use what I had on hand. So drapery fabric it was.

the top had a cute lace trim that you can't see under the sweaters

And if big sister gets matching doll clothes then little sisters need some too. For theirs I went through my giveaway stash and ripped out zippers so I wouldn't have to make a trip to JoAnn's.

And while big sis was at her tea party we had one of our own.

And Ady may have put on a "show" for us reciting random things for hours making us sit and listen to pure nonsense. Do your kids do this? I think we may have a theatre kid on our hands.

Princess Tea Party

My 5 year old wanted a princess tea party. I am not a girly person so I snuck some green in with the pink with some peas. I just got the Heather Ross book with her prints available to use as I wish so I used them in any way I could. Funnest book ever!

When the girls arrived we had princess dresses hung up ready for them to play dress up if they didn't already come dressed up.

 Then we took pictures

and made a craft

Games:
pop the pea(with balloons)
Hide the pea ( put a golf ball under 1 of three pillows and had the girls sit on all to see which one had the ball under it)

Once it was decided the were all princesses we sat down to have a little tea party.

Heather Ross print on the napkin holder

Heather Ross print on the chair backs with girls tutus on the bottom

scrapbook paper was used for the placemats, crowns were found in the $1 section of JoAnns, made the wands, borrowed lots of the fancy dishes to make it fancier!

tea pots from TJ Max

And once it was determined they were on sufficient sugar highs we played royal ball freeze dance.

Book Party

My oldest said she wanted a mermaid party months leading up to her birthday. Then about a week before said she wanted a book party. Hard to fight that request. I would much rather have her celebrating her love of books!

 Here is where I found the invites

source here

The girls decided to dress up as their favorite book character. Corduroy dressed as the princess and the pea. Ady dressed as Nellie Sue from "Every Cowgirl Needs a Horse".

 I decided last minute to dress up Milo as a character from Cordy's favorite book.

he's the baby brother in Crafty Chloe. Everything's better with googly eyes.

When the party girls got to our house we did word searches and other fun things found on the Junie B. Jones website. They we made heart bookmarks

source here

and had a book scavenger hunt. I put clues in books placed all over the house. Then we read Corduroy's favorite book, "Crafty Chloe". I think it might be my favorite book as well. Then we wrote our own books. I had words they could pick out if they needed ideas to get started. Like animals, colors, and crazier like, silly, upside-down...they loved writing their books.

Corduroy requested a Crafty Chloe cake.

So I made a Crafty Corduroy cake complete with googly eyes and a macaroni necklace.

Some of the goodies the girls took home came from these sites:

source here

source here

Robot squishy

Here's a picture of a robot taggie/squishy/noise makey thingy I made before Milo was ever born. It hangs from his car seat and he loves it. It crinkles when you play with it. Ady actually helped me design and sew it. And for the belly I had her scribble and then I sewed over her scribbles. You can't see the belly but it looks very roboty.

Craft Fair

I got the itch to start selling again so I did a local craft fair earlier in the week. I made a few new items and my girls had fun testing them out for me.

updated Dr. kit.

Crowns and Masks

I helped with my girls Halloween parties and had to bring something for the bags but couldn't bring food. I couldn't handle adding to the amount of pencils or vampire teeth I knew they would be getting so I decided to make something I knew they wouldn't be getting. Felt is cheap and I have boxes filled with scraps.

And in case you were wondering, I drew the crown myself and just sewed up the back, no elastic or velcro. There are a ton of good mask patterns online if you just google them.

Clothespin Family

My family and I just threw a surprise "100" party for my mom. She turns 60 this week and celebrated 40 years of marriage earlier this year.

I made a clothespin doll for everyone in the family. It was pretty tedious and took forever but sooo worth it.

Getting started...

 The granddaughters drying

The bride and groom, my mom and dad

 The siblings

The whole family with grand kids

And then I had to take individual family pictures, starting from oldest to youngest

And here they are on the cake