hand painted kids ceramics

You may think that I don't exist anymore, but I do. And, whether by my choice or forced by my 4 year old, we are still doing plenty of hobbies. But, I'm 8 months pregnant and am still behind on Christmas even though it is mid-January. Here is one of the Christmas crafts that we did in December that would be good any time of year!

I

Buy some white ceramic mugs from the dollar tree. Buy or borrow some tubes of enamel. They're sold next to the acrylic paint in the craft store. We bought a couple of tubes only to come home and see that we had several colors already in our stash- I just didn't realize there was a difference between acrylic and enamel.

The tricky part is that you're not supposed to serve food off of the enamel, so only paint the outside. If I did it again, I think I'd also tape off a rim where your lips go. Turn the teacups or mugs upside down and let the kids have a hay day painting. Then, follow the directions on the paint container to set the paint. I think it was to let it dry for 24 hours, then you bake it in a 350 oven for 30 minutes, making sure to put the cups in before you preheat and leave them in while the oven is cooling. After it is set, I'm pretty sure it is supposed to be dishwasher safe and everything!

I think this project isn't just cool for kids, but could be really fun for adults, too. Like, you could make your sweety a personalized, hand painted mug for Valentine's day. We used ours as gifts to grandparents and all of Elisabeth's preschool teachers. They loved them!

Coming soon...

Here's what I've been scheming about lately... Um, sorry this post is a little bit illegal because I closed my search windows before giving proper shout outs to the creators of these beautiful nursery. (but to be honest, I probably have only about 10 (awesome!) blog readers and I don't think you'll report me to the internet police if there is such a thing. If you're really interested in accessing it, you could click through the pictures to the original source and play with the URL till you get to the actual post. again, sorry)

I promised myself I would not try to do any nesting till after Christmas, and here we are! I have two months to turn our nursery into something totally yummy like these. Which one is your favorite?

Hair Clip party

A couple of weeks ago, I threw a big hair bow party with a couple of friends. Basically, I told them to bring their ideas and supplies and we would just teach each other.  I bought 50 alligator clips from hobby lobby, purchased five different colors of organza from JoAnns, gathered my three boxes of assorted hand-me-down ribbons, made fondue and cheesecake squares and waited for the fun to begin.  Beforehand, everyone kept asking me if I was going to teach them all how to do stuff like tie bows and I started getting nervous about my original plan, so I hit the internet for some great ideas. We didn't need them, anyway: these ladies were full of great ideas and tricks! I regret not taking pics of everyone's bows before they left, but I did get a couple at the very end. Good food, good friends, good fun, and we all went home with a couple of hairbows for the kids (and ourselves :)

Here is a list of the roundup I did for hairbow tutorials:
How to Make Fabric Flowers from Organza
Singed Flower Tutorial
Scrunch Fabric Flower Pom Pom Headband
Making Flower Pins
How to Make Secure Full Korker Hair Bows
Molly's Sketchbook: Rose Barrettes
Lovely Hair Clip Flowers
Quick and Easy Fabric Headband
Make it Do- Valentine Hair Clips
Make it Do Gift: Felt Poinsettia
a Scrappy Strip Rose
Pointsetta headband tutorial

I hope you enjoy this little list of tutorials!
PS- sorry about the lame photo. It's difficult to take decent pictures at night in my basement! Just use your imagination... :)

Activity Days Etiquitte dinner

One of the most fun things that I do is work with the Activity Day girls at our church. These are 8-11 year old girls and we meet twice a month for an educational, enriching, or just plain fun activity. In the beginning of November, my co-leader, Joyce, and I had lots of fun planning out this fancy Etiquitte dinner. We put our heads and resources together and put together this set up. It was really funny because they're doing construction in our room and the light bulbs were dangling from the ceiling, so we had to get pretty creative with our own lighting etc. I thought it turned out great, though!

Mint lemonade

I don't know about you, but Iowa's been in a nice, warm indian summer. As a last horrah to summer and warm weather, the girls and I made this mint lemonade for a BBQ at our neighbor's house. It was really delicious! Here's how:

Mint Lemonade

ingredients:

a handful of fresh mint leaves

3 Tablespoons lemon juice

3/4 cup sugar

water

ice

Lemon slices (would have been really cool for an extra garnish.)

Boil about a quart of water. While it's heating up, wash your mint leaves and pick out a few of the prettiest ones. Set those aside. Now, tear up the rest of your mint leaves into quarters or so, just not smaller than the holes in your strainer. When the water starts boiling, take it off the heat and throw in the mint leaves. Stir. Let it sit for 1-2 minutes. Now, pour the water through a strainer into a pitcher. Add lots of ice. Now add the lemon juice and water to taste (I just estimated how much I added. This is a great excuse to get to taste it early!). Add more ice till it is cold enough and filling up your two quart container. Add the reserved leaves back in and if you have them, the lemon slices. Enjoy!

Pink afghan

One of my best friends from high school just had her first baby, a girl named Hannah.I've been working on this afghan for a couple of months now, on and off. It's basically like a giant granny square. Except you'll see from the last picture that mine is a lot more crooked. But, really, crocheting is a great way to keep your hands busy while you're driving in the car or watching a movie. Once you get into the rhythm of it, you really don't have to pay attention to it that much. Plus, they make these sweet and soft little keepsakes. 

Someone made a blanket like this for my first daughter when she was born. She was so attached to it and it went with her everywhere. So, when my second daughter was born, I made one for her, too, so that my first daughter wounldn't have to give hers up. (I'll have to admit, my second daughter has never shown interest in her purple afghan, but just in case they decide to try to fight over one of them some day, we'll be prepared.)  

So, for this third daughter, (yes, we found out it is a girl!!) I'm going to make another one. My first two daughters have pink and white and purple and white. But, after the two that I made this year, I really want to do cream instead of white.  So, what color do you think I should put with the cream? I was thinking of a buttery marigold yellow or maybe a warm green like the one I did for my nephew. What do you think?

Guest Post on 320 Sycamore and Painted Glass stone magnets

I did my first guest post today at 320 Sycamore- it's a great blog, mostly about home decorating projects. My post is What I love about Iowa. It was so nice of Melissa to let me post for her! I'm especially loving the comments people leave for her about how they love Iowa and the midwest, too! Hope you enjoy it!

The Nana Visit:
So, my wonderful, amazing mother came into town and watched the kids for a couple of days while my husband and I had a little getaway in St. Louis. It was wonderful. The kids had a blast, too. My mom is an artist and a writer and a just-about-everything-elser (except a mathematician) and she kept them so busy! The did art projects and went to the store and painted pottery and made homemade erasers and got completely spoiled. Here is one of the projects that she did with them which I love. They started with the glass rocks that you can get from the Dollar Tree. She bought a little set of enamel paints. The kids painted a layer on the back of each stone and let it dry. Then they painted another layer and let that dry. Then, she painted a final solid coat on top of that. At this point I can't remember if she painted it with some sort of topcoat or not (sorry). Then, she super-glued some magnets onto the back.
We have some big magnet boards for the kids to hang their artwork on when we finally end up moving and redecorating their room. I think these will be so perfect there!

 Also, my Dear Mother stayed on for a couple days to help me tackle a couple of bigger projects. And, she picked us some beautiful wildflowers. Thanks, Mom.