Shake Your Mind Jar

Lexy and I are working on putting together a Calm Basket to help her when she has big feelings.  We found this idea on pinterest and thought it sounded cool.

We gathered our ingredients:

Plastic jar (we used an applesauce jar)
2 cups warm water
4 T. glitter glue (we used blue)
2-3 drops food coloring (we used blue)
extra glitter
bamboo stick/old spoon/whisk for stirring
hot glue

Put glitter glue in the jar.  Add the water and stir thoroughly.  Add food coloring and extra glitter and stir again.  Replace lid and shake jar, glitter should swirl and fall slowly to the bottom (add more glitter glue if it falls too fast).  Remove cap, put a bead of hot glue around the inside of the cap and replace cap.

American Girl Doll Sleeping Bag

Lexy is asking for an American Girl Doll for Christmas this year and has asked if I would make her a sleeping bag for her doll.  After looking at some ideas around the internet this is what I came up with...

You will need:

Two coordinating fabrics - will cut 13" x 38"

quilting batting

small amount of poly fill

Coordinating ribbon or bias tape

coordinating thread

Cut two coordinating fabrics and one piece of batting - 13" x 38"

Stack the two fabrics (right sides facing each other on top of batting and pin

Sew around two long and one short side  - leaving one short side open

Trim corners and excess fabric around sides

Turn right sides out - with batting in middle

Measure down 7 1/2" from open end and stitch straight across

Measure across and divide into 3 or 4 even sections - sew down almost to line

Put a little poly fill (stuffing) into each section - to make pillow

Round corners of open end and use ribbon or bias tape to close opening

Fold opposite end up to bottom of pillow (outside fabric on the inside)

Sew each side closed

Turn sleeping bag right side out

Chore Chart

Chore charts change so often as the kids grow or as kids are added.  I came up with this for my two girls but soon I will adapt it for three more.  We have a family dinner/meeting every Sunday to discuss our words, chores and plans for the week.

 1.  Words we are working on as a family.

2.  Weekly chores.  Kids pick one each week.  On our cleaning day (Sunday) they are responsible for cleaning this room as well as their bedroom.

3.  Daily chores.  Kids pick two each week.  They are responsible for doing these without prompting.  Some new ones will be added when we add kids (light helper, bath helper, line leader, etc.)

4.  Discipline chart.  Kids must move clothespin down a notch when told to for discipline.  This starts over each morning unless "grounded" has been reached. 
  

These chore cards list what needs to be done in each room for cleaning day.  The number of the listed chores that need to be done depends on the age of the child.  The initial sticks are used to fairly choose who picks their chores for the week (new ones must be chosen each week) first or to help when there is an arguement (who gets to pick the show to watch, who gets to pick a book at bedtime, etc.).

Hair Bow Hanger

Lexy's collection of hair bows were over taking her room and growing by the minute (thanks to me) :-) So I came up with a solution that I think works well!

I started with these...


a 5x7 picture frame
scrapbook paper
letter stickers
ribbon
paint
hot glue gun

I painted the picture frame. While that dried, I cut 3 lengths of ribbon with pinking shears, I made one ribbon longer than the other two. With the longer ribbon, I made loops (to hold head bands) and sewed them with a sewing machine. After the frame was dried a cut the scapbook paper to fit the frame and used the stickers to spell "BOWS" and put the frame back together. I then used the hot glue gun to attach the lengths of ribbon to the bottom back of the frame.

and I ended up with this...

Cute Lexy Outfit

I found a tutorial for using old hole-in-the-knee jeans to make new long shorts with a ruffle bottom (here is the tutorial... http://24-7-365.blogspot.com/2010/03/ready-for-summer.html), I decided to not only attempt those but to make a matching shirt and hair bow too! Keep in mind I have NEVER sewn anything more complicated than curtains and my monsters.

SHORTS:

TOP:

HAIR BOW:

All together it looks like this...

I don't think I did too bad!! AND Lexy liked them so much that she wore them to school the next morning! I'll have to work on the shirt applique thing since there was some puckering.

Doggy Party

For Lexy's 6th birthday party she asked first for a Halloween party, then an under the sea party...finally settling on a dog party.

I made these invitations (using scrapblog.com)...

We used blue, green and purple as the colors. Decorations included paw print balloons tied to dogs, paw prints down the middle of the table and dog pictures taped to the back of each chair...

I made dog ears and collars for each guest (and painted their noses black)...

We made a dog house out of a washer box...

Opening activity - coloring page with a dog house , the kids drew pictures of their dog and then showed everyone. Then we had big sister and two friends give everyone ears, collar and a black nose.

Games:

Feed the dog - threw dog biscuits into bowls at different distances.

Dog Trainer Says - growl, bark, wag your tail, walk, sit, lie down, roll over, jump, stay, beg, shake, etc.

Doggie Obstacle Course - jumping thru rings (hulas), over the chairs, around the tree (fake tree that they pretended to pee on), sleep in the dog house, eating dog food (see below).

Goodie Bags - bubbles, mini frisbee, noise maker, dog food (cocoa puffs and pretzels).

Present: Yep, a dog!

Apple Pie

On one of our family fun days this summer we went to a museum. One of the exhibits was a scaled down house and in the kitchen someone had made pretend apple/cherry pies. The girls loved the idea and wanted one for their play kitchen at home.

So this is what I did...

I found pie plate (ours is really a cake pan b/c all I could find was glass pie pans and that WAS NOT happening!

Then I found some clearanced apple fabric. I cut two circles out (used my pan as the guide) and then sewed them right sides together leaving a small opening. I turned the piece right sides out and filled it with dried beans. I then sewed the opening closed.

After that I got a piece of brown felt (the one at the museum used foam but I couldn't find that in brown) and cut a circle out of it with pinking shears and cut diamonds in it to make it look like the pie crust. How cute will they look rolling out their pie crust with a rolling pin!


All put together it looks like this...

I'd like to find some other fruit fabric to make more "fillings" and make different "crusts" for variety. The girls are going to have so much fun with these and look so cute "making" their own pies!