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.  

Pumpkins!

This month Allison and her boyfriend Trent got their craft on with pumpkin carving.  Sorry your Cardinals didn't make it to the World Series Allison!

Halloween paper weaving

Wish I could say I cut this with my Silhouette or by hand but it was a kit. It was fun anyway and new decorations are always good!

Connected by DROID on Verizon Wireless

Birthday Card

This month Valerie made a stamped card for a friend's birthday.  She used markers to color the stamp and then placed them on the card.

Halloween Bookmarks

 This month I made some Halloween bookmarks from a digital scrapbooking kit by Irene Alexeeva.

Glow-In-The-Dark Halloween Shirts

 
 Of course, I had tons of Halloween crafts planned, but sadly, this is the only one that got done.  I made the boys glow-in-the-dark shirts for Halloween.  They LOVE them!  For these, I downloaded shapes from the Silhouette Library and cut them out using glow-in-the-dark HTV and regular HTV (orange and red).  I used my heat press to set.  I can't wait to find more uses for glow-in-the-dark HTV.  It was the best to weed and the most fun to play with!

Creepy Crafty Halloween

Coffee Coffee Coffee!!!

After seeing a Starbucks costume for little kids on pinterest last year I decided that I wanted to be a cup of Caribou Coffee this year!  Luckily I had the help of some awesome people to pull this together for me.  Vicki (my mom) made a pattern and then sewed the wonderful white dress and Gail used her silhouette to cut out (GLOW IN THE DARK!) and make the very professional looking belt which really helped pull this all together so people knew what I was!  And Thanks to Erin as well for the use of the heat press!!  Then to finish it off I wrote all over it with 'things that I stay awake for' as per the Caribou theme.  Overall it turned out great and was a hit!  Thanks Ladies!!  

mummy door and Halloween decor

Chick Magnet!

 So the night before we still hadn't settled on a costume for my husband so browsing thru target we decided some arts and crafts were in order... we made the magnet out of tagboard and then used silver duct tape and construction paper to finish it off... for the final touches we ziptied chicks to the magnet and used tent pole string to tie it together... very manly crafting.

all lit up

finished pumpkins

And of course there was some pumpkin carving - Mine was a minion from Despicable Me - Thanks Pinterest!!!

Upcycled Christmas Cards

This month Kelly went through old Christmas cards and recycled them to make a new batch of Christmas cards.  She cut out a portion of the card to fit onto folded card stock and used a glue stick to paste it on.   She then used the card scraps to make gift tags.