kitchen sink crafts

Last week we took out a book of arts + crafts projects from the library called "Create with Maisy". My son found two projects he wanted to try: "making a food picture" and "paper lanterns". There are now paper lanterns (if you'd like to make some you'll find more here) all over our place now. The project I photographed was the food picture. We live in a fairly small space, so I like any craft project that allows carefree messiness which can be easily vaccuumed. The Maisy book has a different version of this classic project than the one below, which is also very good.

This is such a simple project, you've probably done it many times! I put out some small bowls on the table (a muffin tin would also work well) and some open cannisters of dried foods. Then I gave my son, aged 3, a small 1/8 cup measuring scoop. He could scoop a full measure of any of them into the bowls. This was a really fun part of the project for him. When he was done, I put away the canisters, put a big pad of paper onto the table and gave him some washable children's glue (the kind with the squirty top).

I arranged the little bowls around the paper and made sure everything was in reach. I also gave him a wet cloth to wipe the glue off his hands and left him to it.

Setting up crafts and making them comfortable has become a big priority here: as low stress as possible for both of us. Having a wet cloth next to his work was really helpful. He didn't need to stop to ask for help from me or become frustrated. He knew what to do when his hands became uncomfortably sticky. The other thing I found helpful was only giving him items that could be easily vaccuumed or picked up. If we were in the backyard, turmeric or cinnamon would have been really fun to use, but we used lentils, pasta, bay leaves, rice, pumpkin seeds and other things that are easy to clean up.

Please let us know if you have any good tips for keeping your craft times relaxed and autonomous, we'd love to hear them.

5-minute pinwheel

I found this very easy pinwheel photo-tutorial from Petit Poulou which we pinned to our Windy board on pinterest. To make on, you will need: square paper, hole punch, brass paper fastener, bbq skewer or chopstick and scissors. It took me 5 minutes to make and when I photographed it outside it spun like...a pinwheel ^_^

The only paper fasteners I had were fancy fabric covered ones for some reason, so it looks like I've added a button or something, but it's just a paper fastener. For square paper, I used origami paper — mine is white on one side, so I glue-sticked two pieces together. It looked like they paper was buckling when I did it, but it looked smooth when folded. I used a chopstick instead of a skewer. 

This is the pinwheel blowing like mad.

This shows the fastener wrapped around the chopstick at the back.

This is Windy's pinwheel from Sunny.

sailboat cake

Our sweet friend Lyndsay of cococake did a great and very simple tutorial for a sailboat cake & garland, perfect for Foggy's birthday (which is coming up soon on June 1st).

Lyndsay made this tutorial for you are my fave — you can see more about it on her cococake blog as well. (Lyndsay made cupcakes for our Foggy book launch a couple of years ago, too).

Top image is © cocake, used with permission.

a drawing stuffy

Hi again! Between quite a succession of colds and coughs and the beautiful weather, we haven't had a lot of structured craft time at home for awhile. So we are behind on our weekly posts, but there are several queued up now, so visit again next week for more.

I've been working on some sun hats — moving forward slowly :)

Yesterday I had the sewing machine out, and my son was drawing. I asked him if he wanted to draw on some of my fabric and we decided to make a stuffy. He was planning to make Snufkin, so we found some green linen on my fabric box. However, to nobody's surprise he eventually made a truck and he loves it (secretly, to us, it does look quite a bit like a creature, but that tail is a ramp and those legs are wheels). In a perfect world, we would have had fabric markers around, but our home is quite far from perfect and we used a pencil & felt pen instead. This is how we made it.

materials

· 2 big scraps of fabric
· tape
· pencil, felt pen or other marker
· scissors
· pins
· sewing machine
· needle & thread
· stuffing (you can also use scraps of fabric, yarn, rice or dried beans)

to think about before getting started

· if you're using new fabric, or fabric that's been stored a long time, you may want to wash and dry the fabric first — especially if it will be cuddled by a young child.

· choose a time when you won't be rushed — this will take about an hour to finish and more if one of the steps goes wrong. you could even do one part before school and the second part after school.

· place your iron, pins and scissors out of reach of your child while you are sewing so you can relax while you make. before you begin you can explain the different tools to your child: how they work and how to be safe around them.

· if you are using permanent markers, place a mat under the fabric so you won't mark up your table. the pen is likely to bleed through. we used a washable marker.

to make

1. Take one piece of fabric (Fabric A) and lay it on a work surface. Tape down the edges at intervals so your child can draw without the fabric slipping around too much.

2. When they've completed their drawing, you can use a pencil or chalk to draw a line around the drawing. This will be your line for cutting — leave about 1/2 an inch of space all around the drawing. Before you do this, explain what you are drawing to your child. Draw your line slowly and check with your child as you go so that they are choosing the shape. An older child can draw this line herself.

3. Place a second piece of fabric (Fabric B) under your Fabric A. Use a few pins to hold them together and then cut around your line from Step 2. You will have two pieces of fabric cut in the shape of your child's drawing.

4. Unpin the pieces. By the way, a young child who has trouble pinning may enjoy pulling out the pins and putting them back in the pin box. This was one of my son's favourite parts. Flip the pieces over so that the drawing is facing the inside. Repin

5. Sew around the edges using a 1/4 inch seam allowance. Leave a gap so you can turn the stuffy inside out and stuff.

6. Before turning right side out, cut notches into the seam where there are curves.

7. Turn inside out. You may need a chopstick, tweezers and some patience to get the skinny areas turned out. Stuff. We used a mixture of store-bought stuffing and some old scraps of fabric and quilt batting. You can decorate with scraps of felt or buttons (we didn't).

8. Done! We made some fun videos starring the stuffy, too.