Give Thanks Banner

As we were putting the Halloween Decorations away and taking out the few Thanksgiving Decorations we have my daughter said, "Let's make some more Thanksgiving decorations!"  So I looked through our craft supplies and found that I had purchased a pack of foam fall leaves.  I cut out the letters on my Silhouette for "Give Thanks" and let her color them anyway she wanted - she choose to do some in crayon and some in marker.  She also decided to add a sparkly jewel to each letter.  We then glued them onto foam leaves.  I found a coloring page turkey by doing a google search and then printed that out for her to color to have a break in the lettering.  Then I punched holes in the foam with my crop-o -dile and my daughter threaded them onto a ribbon.  Then we hung it up - tada!  It took 3 days of her brother's nap time to get this done so it held our interest for quite a bit.

Welcome Home Steps

Today I cut out some black vinyl on the Silhouette to give our stairs from the garage into the house a little face lift.  I used my Mod Podge Matte Sealer to coat the vinyl and stairs so hopefully it won't peel up after the first few times we step on it.

Ikea Table to Play Table

A few months ago I had my sister stop by IKEA and pick me up a Lack side table ($8 - awesome!).  I had ideas brewing after seeing this and this and this. After months of the kids just using it as a plain old table, I finally got around to modifying it.  I ended up doing an assortment of activities.  They play with their duplo blocks quite a bit so I super glued some duplo plates in one corner.  Then I used my Silhouette to cut a variety of shapes out of vinyl and then stuck it right to the table.  I did a place setting as this table sits close to their play kitchen and they use it quite a bit to stage meals.  I turned the plate into a clock so we could practice numbers/telling time.  I did a small race track (which seems to be their favorite part of the *new* table.)  My oldest has recently got into mazes so I figured it was a perfect way to use some of the Silhouette clearance shapes I got at one point in time.  I cut three different mazes for the center of the track and she can trace her way out with her finger.  All in all I was pretty happy with the outcome and figure if they vinyl starts to peel off, well just an excuse to do different activities!

Felt Fun

I saw this Roll a Jack-O-Lantern Game over at the Oopsey Daisy Blog and thought it would be fun to make out of felt for the kids' felt boards.  I made up several sets of eyes, mouths, noses and teeth to make lots of different pumpkins.  I used liquid stitch to attach the stems and the black and white together for eyes.

Then I still had plenty of orange felt left over to make the Roll-A-Lorax Game that I found at the Smashed Peas and Carrots Blog.  The kids really enjoy this movie and got a kick out of making their own.  Especially when we tried on the mustaches ourselves:)

Happy Halloween!

I saw this and decided to give it a go on our door.  I always see a project and think, "Oh yea, I could whip that out."  This took an hour.  I left a spot on the bottom of the door so the kids could still peek out the bottom of it.  It looked great the first few days.




Then by the end of the month you can see the mummy started to come unwrapped:)  Two looks for the price and time of one.  Our glass door gets a lot of sun in the afternoons and the tape I used on the inside of the door, as well as the streamers modified itself in the heat.  Hard to see from the picture but bright white at the beginning of the month and by the end streamers had yellow a bit, just like a real mummy - ha!

 I got the kiddos involved a few days later as we made pumpkin puzzles.  Saw a good tutorial and knew I had some orange sticks in the craft stash.  We used 5 sticks per puzzle and taped the outside edges to draw our pumpkins.  The we took the tape off and mixed them all up.

When we mixed just the 5 up - each puzzle went together pretty quick.  But them we mixed all the sticks up and it took them a little longer to do an we ended up with some fun faces in the process.

Dinosaur Tails

 After seeing this tutorial Vicki made some dinosaur tales for the grand kids.

They were a hit! Thanks Grandma!

(P.S. -- Amy - prize for you if you can guess where the red fabric is left over from:))

Updated Stools

Earlier this month Vicki made some new covers for stools that were getting a little worn.  She added some new padding to them as well.