Keeping Busy

I have learned a very valuable lesson this month. School time is indescribably important to my little guy. We are taking the month off for the holidays and it has resulted in awful behavior. I have put quite a bit of focus into my growing shop and other household duties. I didn't realize just how much he needs that 1 on 1 time with me each day. Of course, once I figured out what was going on, I made sure to get back to giving him most of my day. We have both been much happier for it too.

Wednesday was birthday night at Awana. We spent some time making homemade birthday hats to wear. They were so easy to make with half a paper plate and were held on with alligator clips.

Pintrest will be helping me quite a bit with craft ideas for our winter break. This snow globe craft is one of them. All you need is a plastic bag, cut up paper, and 2 plates. We have been doing coloring pages and getting through lots of books too. All our moods have been lifted and now our "educational things we did during break" sheet is filling up too. I hope all of you are finding time to enjoy some down time with your families this December too!

Window Quilts

I am going for it! I am making window quilts. I am even hand sewing the blocks, except 1 which is my seam allowance guide. It all started out with Adam running out of window plastic and saying, "I don't want to buy more, every." Well, I was ready with a solution  window quilts. Hand stitching is coming along quite slowly and I will switch to the machine when I need them done more quickly. At the moment I am just enjoying it as a leisure activity. Plus I have had the pieces cut for a quilt for my room for nearly 7 years and now they are finally getting put to good use!

You can see some of the hand stitching on this block.

I think they are going to be great! They will keep us from buying plastic and throwing it away every year, yay green! With the unseasonably warm weather we have been having occasionally  it also means that we can open the windows one day and have the winterized the next. That will be esspecially nice when spring comes around. You never know what the weather is going to be like in southern MN. They will look great too. As for living in the dark...we tend to keep the curtains shut in the winter for warmth anyway, so it still would have been dark.

Some of the finished blocks...can you guess the one that is machine stitched?

Craft Show

We did our last craft show recently. It was a nice day and it was our last mainly because we are going to go pads only in our shop and pads sell great online but not well in small town MN. The big new thing though was that my little guy was selling his confetti at his first show. He even sold his first bag which was incredibly exciting! Below is a photo of our display. His confetti is on top of one of the center boxes.

Fluffy Clouds

Made of soap? That's right! I have seen this activity floating around in the blogosphere and we just had to try it. Here is what you need: a bar of Ivory (that is the only kind that works, it has to be ivory) and a microwave. Some parchment paper underneath might be good too, it saves on clean up any way.

The bar goes in the microwave. Cook till you are ready to take it out.

The resulting cloud, let it cool before taking it out. There was still half a bar in the middle and so of course the man of the house had to see if it would go again. We ended up with 3 clouds this size after re cooking the cores.

Time to play with and break up the cloud into very tiny pieces. Add just enough water to make it moldable and fill some cookie cutters with the gloopy (clean) mess.

Tada! Super fun shaped soaps. They are very light and fluffy and made by Little Guy.

Pattern Organizing

Just a quick pop in to share my new pattern organizer. It holds all of my printed and crafted patterns neatly and they are labeled for easy locating too.

Binder + plastic sheet holders + circle stickers = Awesome and compact organizer!

Valentines

Jayne made some very fun valentines for a couple of his little friends. He had so much fun making them and they were very easy. What we used for this project:

• construction paper
• printed phrases (You melt my heart valentine)
• freezie pops (not frozen, "melted")
• freezie sleeves
• scissors
• glue stick

Jayne cuts out the heart layers

Our crafting supplies

The sayings are glued to the colored paper and the freezies are sleeved.

White heart, freezie, then colored heart glued at the sides to make a lovely freezie pop sandwich.

Jayne models the finished product!

You can find freezie sleeves at thecrazyelephantboutique.com!

Frogs and Popcorn

No, they do not go together, but they do get to share a post! I have a couple of fun pics to share today. Here they are...

Adam made Jayne this super cute frog mask to keep him warm. We are still walking everywhere even though it is winter and this keeps his little face warm...as long as he keeps it on!

Jayne is always asking for "special" popcorn. I put candy in his popcorn once and now he always wants me to do something special with it. He has decided that this is his favorite. Stove top popcorn, a little salt, and bits of dried apples and pears. Healthy and delicious!

Water Bottle Craft

I originally found this idea on pintrest, which I recently caved into joining and have found that I love. The pin was from a blog post, here is the link: http://www.pinkpistachio.com/its-not-a-glitter-wand/.

Jayne adds goodies to his bottle (Fiji water bottle)

The project is so easy and Jayne had a lot of fun picking out mini items and beads to go inside. All you do is fill half a plastic bottle with water, put in all your water safe goodies, fill it the rest of the way, and seal it shut. We put in plastic beads, vintage mini animals (on hand from my mom), and some cut up curling ribbon. You could basically put in anything though, as long as it won't be damaged by the water.



Jayne watches everything move

This is a great craft project to make and worked on Jayne's fine motor skills to make it. It is fantastic for in the car and other quiet times. Jayne suggested making one for the day care boy today; he's nearly 15 months. We don't use things that have bottles very often, so it took about 15 minutes just to find a bottle. We ended up making his out of a small Pepto Bismol bottle. It worked great! It is smaller for his little hands and is seriously durable. Jayne felt great making something for someone else and the baby was all smiles playing with it.



Festival is Coming

Dress #1, check!

The festival of trees is coming up quickly! Tree pick up time is in less than a week now. This year we are doing a Barbie doll theme. I am putting My holiday barbies on the tree, easy, and the other Barbies that I was going to donate are going to get handsewn, by me, gowns and join the tree as well. I have 1 of the gowns done already, shown. I am so happy with how it turned out. It is my first time sewing barbie clothes with a patern, on a sewing machine, and with satin. It didn't take nearly as long as I thought it would and it turned out so cute. I really need to get sewing though and finish the res of them up. We still need to flesh out our idea though. We have not come up with a topper or garland idea yet. We aren't as on top of things this year as we were last year, but I think it will all come together in the end!

P.S. For those that are unfamilliar with the event, Festival of trees is a fundraiser for Hiawatha Homes, who provided homes and care for those with mental handicaps. We are donating everything that goes on our tree and the tree will be sold as part of the fundraiser. This event generally raises enough for them to run for the entire year!

Sprucing Up My Pillows

The decorator pillows on our couch have seen better days. Now that is putting it lightly because one has ripped open across the whole zipper and the other has ripped open from side to side across the center of the pillow. They have been that way for a few weeks now and I finally got around to making them new again. I took 2 of our no longer worn shirts and turned them into pillow covers. It is as easy as sewing a square and they look so fun on the couch. Plus one is from a play I did in high school and it is fun to have the tee out where I can enjoy it. I also like not having pillow fluff sticking out all over my couch too!

Last Night's Show

The weather was nice! We got to be in the shade and we didn't even need to put up the tent. Adam was able to come with me and that meant an evening of grown up time for us. It was really great! We saw lots of adorable kids and made some "interesting" sales. We will be showing at the Zumbrota Block Party again next month on the evening of the 18th. I am looking forward to it!

 

During our down times we discussed our upcoming birthday. That's right, The Crazy Elephant turns 2 next month! We have decided to take a look at our pricing, so you will notice some changes there (some up, some down). There will be a new line launched. We will be doing 3 shows, 2 days at Rolling Stone and 1 day at Zumbrota. There might be more happening, but that is all we have planned so far. I look forward to sharing our birthday with all of you!

Zumbrota Block Party Tomorrow

I will be showing at the Zumbrota Block Party tomorrow night! The event is on the main drag in Zumbrota, MN. It runs from 5pm to 8pm. That means the heat should be down a little. I will have tons of freezie sleeves, including new colors and have restocked my tissues with some new prints. Come check us out and save on shipping!

Let Me See...

Jayne and Adam have been crafting...with LEGOS! They certainly make some interesting things together. I had to share this "functional" creation. It is a pair of glasses and the part that goes on your ears can actually open and close. I love how Jayne can go creatively with legos and especially that he can take them apart and start again so there is no continual purchasing like there is with crayons.