Anthro Inspired Snow Scene

It's no secret that I spend a little too much time in our local Anthropologie. I try to slip in by myself whenever possible, but it's fun even if I have to bring the girls, because they love it too!

Last time we were there, Lissie kept pointing out the little deer-and-trees-in-a-cake-stand-displays scattered around the store. She really, really wanted to buy one, but they weren't for sale. And who am I kidding? They probably would have been out of my seasonal decorating budget anyway!

Here is a picture of one of the ones we saw at Anthropologie:

This is really simple and cheap to put together if you already have a cake stand. Which we do. Remember our terrarium? It didn't do well (but at least it didn't stink the second time the plants died!).

And on the bright side, that meant that our cake stand was available for seasonal crafting.

I'm pretty sure we have a plastic deer, but I couldn't find it, so I bought one at Michael's, along with some gold paint, fake snow, and tiny trees. I borrowed one of the larger pieces from our set of tree blocks, but you can buy those at Michael's too.

I painted the top of the deer gold. You could definitely skip this step, but we like things shiny.

Holiday themed snacks are always a plus when doing something like this.

All you really have to do is arrange everything in a pleasing manner on the base of the cake stand, and sprinkle it with fake snow. Ours is obviously not to scale, but all of the taller trees were too tall.

And, the finished product. Easy peasy. Even with two sticky handed little helpers.

Happy (Homemade) Easter!

Every year, about a month before every holiday, I make the same ambitious declaration: "this year, I'm making all of the gifts." We're kind of laid back about holidays, and gift giving, so it never seems like that big of a task. So I put it off until the holiday is four days away, realize there isn't any time to make most of the things I'd planned to make, and place a bunch of last minute Amazon Prime orders.

But not this Easter. Not because I planned better, but because Easter falls on a Sunday. And since it was Thursday when I realized that Easter was this Sunday, there wasn't time to order anything. So I was stuck.

Fortunately, I wasn't a complete slacker this year. I'd already made this little Popover Sundress for Maxine,

and another Lazy Days skirt for Lissie.

I was planning to make fabric buckets for the girls to serve as Easter baskets, but I've never made one before, and they looked too complicated to tackle for the first time with a looming deadline. Instead, I used this tutorial to make a little Sleeping Beauty drawstring bag for each (little) girl.

Ariana, the cat lover, got a little Owl and Pussycat bag.

We filled each bag with a few goodies. I didn't mean to do so many little dolls, but found the gnomes while Ariana and I were making the butterflies. The little purses came from different grandmothers. Do all grandmothers collect lots of tiny purses, or is it just the ones in our family?

Pastels for Lissie, and lots of red for Maxine. It's her favorite color. Had you noticed? Lissie's purse was bigger, so Max got the baby gnome. She loves it, as predicted. Let's not discuss the "branch with berries" I embroidered on the belly of one of Max's gnomes. At least we know why that one was packed away with the craft supplies!

There was a little surprise for everybody at the top of the stairs too. Ariana stayed up late and made a bunny for each girl, and left them there with a little note. Lissie noticed right away that the handwriting was not mine or Brad's, and decided it must really be from the Easter bunny. I wondered if she would also notice Ariana's trademark "X" eyes, but she didn't seem to make the connection. She was thrilled to finally know whether the Easter bunny was a boy or a girl. Who knew it was such a burning question?

After our low-key Easter morning, we headed out to the country to visit some friends.

The bow and arrows were not an Easter gift, but Lissie just got them this weekend. She recently became interested in archery while reading Robin Hood, and my father happened to have a youth set that he bought years and years ago for Ariana. Ariana never used it, but Lissie has been having a lot of fun with it!

Maxine got to hold the quiver,

and help collect the arrows.

She didn't seem to think it was nearly as fun as shooting them!

Fortunately, there were lots of other fun things for a three year old to do.

So everybody was happy.

Easter Color Matching

I can't seem to find it now, but I swear I pinned a similar activity last fall, which was trees cut out of green paint strips. I don't know what happened to it. But fortunately, it popped into my head a few months ago when I saw this bunny shaped hole punch on clearance at Michael's.

I bought it, and somehow managed to not lose it while waiting for Easter. I also managed to remember to grab extra paint sample strips last time I was at the paint store. I know some people think it's wrong to take extra paint strips, but I buy so much paint that I don't feel bad about it.

I got Eastery pastels in a few different shades.

Lissie and I punched the bunnies out sideways along the edge away from the text. Max did a few, but the hole punch was too stiff for her to manage easily.

Maxine is pretty good with colors, but some of the gradations are subtle, so we only did one or two cards of each color for her.

This is more for the younger kiddos, but I wondered if Lissie might enjoy sorting the subtler colors, or all of the bunnies from cards of a single color. She didn't. Of course, I can't guarantee interest at any age. Maxine thought that a making "bunny stack" was a better way to use these guys!

I have a feeling that these will be popping up in crafts and couch cushions for months to come.

Gnome Baby

I am guessing that most of my readers are already familiar with the wonderful book Making Peg Dolls by Margaret Bloom, of the blog We Bloom Here. Well, she recently celebrated her third blog-iversary with a week's worth of giveaways, and I had the fortune of winning giveaway number three, which was a darling little peg gnome baby in a heart shaped pouch. It came in the mail the other day, and is so cute that I had to take a couple of pictures to share here.

Isn't it precious? It was made by MamaWestWind, who writes Chocolate Eyes, which is another one of my favorite blogs. She also has an Etsy shop where she sells her beautiful creations.

I haven't shown the girls yet, because I'm saving it for Easter, but I know they're going to love it.

In Perpetuity

I don't know why I've been doing so many little wooden crafts lately. I think I love that they are quick to get out, set up, and put away. They also don't require a lot of space while you are working on them, and can often be finished within a few hours. I guess I actually do know why! They're perfect for me right now.

I saw a darling little perpetual calendar on Pinterest recently, which linked back to the Mamaroots blog. If you're not familiar with that blog, I suggest you get over there and start reading! Her calendar was a little different than mine, with unfinished wood blocks and a sweet gnome to go with the month: Mamaroots: Weekending and September Beginning.

I decided to paint my month blocks, because I just learned how to use watercolor paint on wood (not that it's difficult--you just paint it on!), so why not make everything rainbow colored?

I got a bunch of these unfinished wooden rectangles from a thrift store, in with some math supplies. I wasn't sure how they'd be useful for math, so I've been using them for crafts instead. These are wider on two sides, so I couldn't fit four months on each block, like I'd originally planned. I think it worked out well with two months per block though. The little card stand the calendar sits on is another thrift store find.

The small number blocks came from a craft store (Hobby Lobby, I think), and they also sell sets of stamps with all of the months and numbers 0-9. Which was perfect. Much better than my original plan of buying two alphabet sets of stamps (uppercase and lowercase), and stamping on each letter individually. I had enough trouble keeping the month stamps straight. I think that the other method would have been a perfectionist's nightmare!

I didn't plan on the cards. I bought these seasonal post cards by Ruth Elsaesser forever ago, when I was homeschooling Ariana (she graduated last year!), and sort of tucked them away and forgot them. I rediscovered them recently, and think they're perfect for this.

Lissie is in charge of changing the numbers each day, the months each month, and the little postcard pictures whenever she is ready for a (seasonally appropriate) change.

Things to Make for Preschoolers to Do

Whatever crafting I do typically involves sewing. Clothes or quilts, by hand or by machine, little felt things, that's what I do. But once in a while, I like to try something different.

I found these cute little boxes in the unfinished wood section of Michael's. I can't remember what I was actually there looking for, but did you know they have all kinds of different sizes and shapes of boxes available? I had no idea. This particular one has a drawer, and a lid that flips up to reveal a small mirror. 

It's probably intended to hold jewelry, or hair accessories, but I thought it would make a cute portable dollhouse.

I kept the outside natural, and Lissie helped me paint fun colors on the inside, like a little surprise when you open it, then we sealed everything with beeswax polish.

Max loves it. The people basically seem to hang out and eat a lot of mushroom soup.

I also found some unfinished wood flower pots, and had these flat wooden spoons--you know, the kind that used to come with the little cups of ice cream from the ice cream truck? I hated eating ice cream with those. It always reminded me of being at the doctor's office.

I've seen a million variations on this, but the spoons came in a pack of way more than I needed for anything else, so that's what I used.

I sanded the flower pots, but the idea of sanding 24 tiny wooden spoons didn't sound appealing, and I left those as they were. I used watercolor paint to paint the bottom sections of the flower pots, and then painted four spoons in varying shades of each color I used for the pots. 

Some of the colors could have used a little more variation (I'm looking at you, yellow and orange!), but Maxine doesn't seem to mind. She likes to use them for counting "one, two, three, four, SEVEN! One, two, three, four, SEVEN!"

Pinterest: Sometimes Good, Sometimes Bad

Are you on Pinterest? I love it. You can see my boards here. My favorite thing about it is having a place where I can find and collect all of the things I see that inspire me. I've been "collecting" bedroom images since I opened my account last year, and now that we are (finally!) getting around to redoing our bedroom, I love that I can just go to that board and see everything in one place.

But this post isn't supposed to be about my bedroom. This post is about how many of the boards I create on Pinterest turn into giant "to do" lists. I already blogged about making these cute little dolls, and the pouch babies inspired by these that Lissie and I made here.

I didn't blog about the mash up of these and these that I tried to make. I tried on three separate occasions, but I couldn't get the wrapping right, and it drove me crazy. I'd like to try these again sometime when I have more time and more patience.

More recently, we tried making "calm down" jars. We've had the book Peaceful Piggy for a couple of years, and it's a much loved favorite of both girls. In the back, they give vague instructions for filling a jar with sand and water and watching it settle. But, we don't really have a good source for sand nearby, and I knew the water would get scuzzy after a while. So I went looking for alternatives, and it turns out that the book Moody Cow Meditates (which we don't have, but is in my wish list) has a glitter version. And you know how we love our sparkles!

Not wanting to reinvent the wheel, I turned to that treasure trove of crafty things, Pinterest. I found a few recipes that looked promising, but this post on Momma Owl's Lab was my favorite. It was six different recipes! With notes! They already did all of the work! What could possibly go wrong?

We gathered our supplies:

We mixed, then we shook, and

all of the glitter floated up. To the top. Very fast. We used two variations of the recipes I linked to above, so I assumed the glitter was the culprit.

So we tried again, with different glitter, and

got the exact same results. Thinking maybe it was the corn syrup we used, I went to the store and got glycerine to try. By attempt number three, I was not happy, and poured out the glycerine-glitter mix before I took any photos, but it looked just like this:

So, that was frustrating. I am still not sure what went wrong, but I definitely needed a calm down jar for myself after that! I think we'll try a completely different recipe next time. I have seen some that use glitter glue. It seems like a lot of people had clumping issues (which was why I went with a plain glitter recipe), but we'll see.

Of course, sometimes things do work. Maybe it's not a craft, but just a good thrift store find (or this case, Estate Sale Warehouse find). I pinned this art supply caddy a year ago, but old soda crates aren't that easy to come by around here. I finally found one though, and for a cool $12.50, it was all mine!

It doesn't quite erase the sting of failure, but it helps.

Winter Swap: Goodies

I'm so excited about all of the lovely items I received in the swap that I just had to take pictures of everything to share here. It's like I got a box full of all of the things I would love to make if I knew how!

Most of the toys will be going to Maxine. She loves playing with little dolls and gnomes and things. I know she'll adore this fox:

And these little guys are all so cute, aren't they?

This one has a removable hat and beard!

 And look at this happy smile.

 Of course, they'll need somewhere to sit and eat:

And who knows what this might become?

Isn't this little play mat darling? It wraps up, which makes it the perfect size to stash in a purse:

I'm really excited about this "swisher" too. Maxine just asked for one like Lissie's the other day. Lissie's is from Sarah's Silks, and it's nice, but the quality of this handmade one is so much better!

And this crown to wear while she plays with it all:

Won't this angel will look pretty hanging in Maxine's room?

Don't worry, Lissie won't be left out! This pillow is perfect for her. Maybe a nice, warm pillow on her shoulders or forehead will actually help her relax for once.

 And this sweet fairy necklace has "Lissie" written all over it:

I think a few of these will be fun to use with our elf, Christmas. Can't you see him hanging in a window with this star some snowy morning? If we ever get any snow, that is.

And these?

Bowling, perhaps?

I think one morning he might be "sleeping" in this little bed:

And isn't this adorable? Its a little bunting that you can write on with chalk! I wonder what kind of message "Christmas" might leave on here?

We also got two pretty dyed silks; one red, one green.

And last, but not least, I'm keeping these for myself!

I feel like I should be sending thank you notes to everybody who participated, but I can't, because I don't know who anybody is. I hope that if any of you are readers of my blog and see this post, you'll consider yourself thanked. I love everything!