Merry Christmas!
By mom4life | Category: Activities with Kids, Creating a Home, Family Focus, Home Crafts, Kids Crafts, The Journey of Motherhood | Posted Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Our two oldest kids are home from school and we have been really loving the lazy days that provides us. Thanks to Pinterest, I have been inspired with some fun new ideas, crafts and traditions. I will share some of my favorites below and encourage you to see all of the ideas I saved here.
In order to spend the most time with my family, I will be taking a blogging break for the remainder of the year (my assistant may write up a post or two if we decide to have any product sales). Until I write again in 2012, Merry Christmas!
Psssst: if you missed it earlier this year, you can see the digital Christmas card that I created here. Then I linked that card to our family slideshow video (also shown below).
Activities and Crafts:
-Recycling socks with holes into the most adorable sock snowmen you have ever seen! I now have a special place to put all our socks with holes for making more snowmen 
.
-Gathering up past photo Christmas cards, hole punching them and connecting them with two book rings. Each night the goal is to pray for one family using these cards as prompts. This is a great way to continue to enjoy photo cards from year to year!
-Making peanut snowmen tree ornaments.
-Making snow globes out of baby food jars, glitter and small plastic toys.
-Making a new Christmas Card holder using a wooden embroidery hoop, wood glue and clothes pins.
-Curling Ashlyn’s hair using strips of cloth.
-Teaching Hunter how to play Monopoly (and finding out he LOVES it)!
New traditions:
-Using the free Jesse Tree advent devotional from A Holy Experience.
-I wrapped up 24 Christmas and/or winter themed books and from December 1-24 the kids took turns opening one to be read.
Purchases:
-A $12 oil pan at WalMart to make a great magnetic surface for fridge letters as well as a drawing surface for dry erase markers.
Baked goods:
-These oreo truffle balls were unfortunately VERY GOOD .
-I am wanting to make these healthy peppermint patties!
If you have not read it year’s past I will leave you with one final Christmas reflection. Wishing you peace, joy and hope this Christmas!
((hugs))
Do Together Craft: Easy Wreath Ornaments
By kristinabjornbak | Category: Activities with Kids, Home Crafts, Kids Crafts | Posted Monday, November 28, 2011
Christmas is rapidly approaching. Usually, this is the time of year that I bust out the paper crafts with my kids, but this year I thought we could make some ornaments. Enter these adorable, easy, and super cheap wreaths. This is truly a do-together craft, as some steps the kids can do, and some steps the adults or older kids have to do, such as the hot glueing. Even better, these little wreaths are fully customizable. If you have four kids doing this craft, you will have four completely different wreaths. Even better, if you are a sewer or crafter, I can nearly guarantee you have the materials needed around your house. Can you say, “Scrap busting time!” If you aren’t a crafter don’t worry! The materials for this craft are very inexpensive.
Hair Accessory Holder Tutorial
By kristinabjornbak | Category: Home Crafts, It Worked 4 Me | Posted Monday, July 18, 2011
My hair ties, clips, and headbands are always getting lost. I find them in drawers, under the bed, closet floor, behind furniture. After several attempts to keep them organized, I decided to make a hair accessory holder. You can, too! It’s quick, easy, pretty, and a great way to use up scraps of fabric, ribbon, and ric rac.
Materials needed:
- cardboard
- ribbon or ric rac/rickrack
- fabric scraps
- glue gun and hot glue sticks
- scrap batting (optional, but a nice touch)
Step one: Prep your cardboard. You can really use whatever you have around the house as long as you trim it to the size you want. I used an empty cereal box, but because I wanted it a little more stiff, I glued the two sides together using just plain white school glue. Place your cardboard on top of the batting (if you are using any). I used a very small amount of glue to just hold the cardboard in place. Also, since the batting I was using is very thin and I want my holder to be kind of puffy, I doubled the batting over to use two layers. Trim, but leave a decent amount extra. This will eventually get folded to the back.
Step two: place your fabric face down on your work surface. Place your cardboard+batting on top. You should now have a sandwich of fabric (face down), then the batting, then the cardboard. Trim the fabric, but like before, leave extra on each side.
Step three: Fold the extra batting and fabric to the back of the cardboard and hot glue into place. Don’t try to do this with white glue. Trust me, it doesn’t work.
Step fou: Arrange ribbons or ric rac on top to get a feel of where you want them. Leave extra on each end. Fold the ends to the back, hot glue the ends only into place. Add an extra bit of ribbon at the top for hanging.
Ta-da! Now, hopefully, your hair accessories won’t get quite so lost.
Not feeling crafty? You might like the cute handcrafted felt hair clip holders by Giddy Giddy that Mom 4 Life carries.
Kristina is a stay-at-home mom of two boys. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in English and spends her down time sewing, baking, doing crafts with her children, and experimenting with recipes with her husband.
Customizable Flip Flops
By kristinabjornbak | Category: Home Crafts, It Worked 4 Me | Posted Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Summer is here again and everywhere I look I see the (roughly) same pair of inexpensive plastic and rubber sandals. You can find them at different stores, often for under $3 in a wide range of colors. Who wouldn’t want to have some?
Well, me. I don’t like them. Not that I’m opposed to color or flip flops, but the plastic/rubber thong part (the part that goes between your toes and up over your feet) grabs at my skin and cuts me. I have the scars to prove it. Fabric uppers aren’t so bad, but are often much more expensive. On a whim this year, I bought a pair of the cheap flip flops to the tune of $1.98, and got to work making them something cute and wearable. You can, too! Here’s how:
Materials:
- Cheap thong flip flops
- Knife or sturdy scissors
- Grosgrain ribbon or strips of fabric
- Hot glue
Step 1: Remove the thong upper.
Turn the flip flop over and find the bump/knot/nut that is securing the thong upper in place. Use a craft knife or a pair of sturdy scissors to cut the thong free. Remove thong part and discard.
Step 2: Make the toe loop.
Make a small loop with ribbon or fabric. Make sure it’s long enough that about two inches stick up, plus enough to make a knot on the underside. Thread the ends through the toe hole, but don’t tie yet.
Step 3: Thread the ribbon.
Estimate how long a piece of ribbon or fabric you will need. Add a bit to that because you will be knotting the underside and you may have measured wrong. You can cut off the excess later. Tie a knot in one end of the ribbon. Thread the other end through one of the side holes, going from the underside up, so that the knot is on the bottom. Give your knot a test tug. If it pulls through, the knot is too small. Because of this, I added a small bit of extra scrap ribbon to the ends to give the knots more bulk without them being too big.
Thread the unknotted end through the toe loop and down through the other side hole. Do a test fit on your foot to see how much of the ribbon you’ll need to pull through.
Step 4: Place your knots.
After you do a test fit, you’ll want to knot the ribbon/fabric on the underside of the shoe to hold it in place. Do a final test fit to make sure it fits correctly.
Step 5: Add your glue.
On the underside, pull the knots slightly so the that the cavity under it is exposed. Fill the cavity with hot glue and pull the knots back into place. Trim off any excess fabric or ribbon on the underside.
Step 5: Secure the scrap
If you used an extra bit of scrap to beef up your knots, you’ll need to secure that those on the top. Just a bit of hot glue between the main layer and the scrap will do it.
Slip on and enjoy!
As a final note, to give credit where credit is due, I did see the wonderful Key West Flip Flop tutorial over at The Mother Huddle. Although what I made was completely different, I did learn the knot and hot glue trick from there, so a big thanks to her!
Kristina is a stay-at-home mom of two boys. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in English and spends her down time sewing, baking, doing crafts with her children, and experimenting with recipes with her husband.
Button monogram craft: DIY
By mom4life | Category: Creating a Home, Home Crafts | Posted Monday, June 6, 2011
In a previous post I gushed about how much I have enjoyed using the website Pinterest. I want to show you a project I recently completed that was fully inspired by a Pinterest find which I had tucked away in my “to make for the home” board.
The instructions on how to create this button monogram craft comes from this Do It Yourself website and this was the image that kick started me:
Want to make one of your own? Here’s how:
