We had a super-great time this morning sketching up a little family of fairies from a nice little book we picked up yesterday.  Honestly, my drawing skills aren’t anything to write home about, but following the simple instructions in the How to Draw Fairies and Mermaids book (from Usborne), I couldn’t believe what I came out with.

The concept behind my favorite fairies is simple–lay down a few splotches of watercolor (or markers, we tried both) then go back over and define it all with a fine black felt tip pen.  It complimented some of the ideas in the book we’ve been using for our art lessons (and from which I’ve learned a ton: Mona Brookes’s book Drawing With Children–awesome!) in terms of breaking things down into simple shapes and going step by step.

Even Daisy was happy with what she came out with–it resembled what was in the book enough to satisfy her, but had her own cute little ideas too.

Next up I think we’re going for these mermaids:

…or these cute little watercolored fairies:

The toadstool umbrella just melts me!

The husband and I met in southern California, but moved far, far away not long after.  These are from a trip way back in the fall of 2003, when our six year old wasn’t even a year old.  Goodness, how she’s changed…but so much the same!

before:

after:

and here’s our little swinger!

These are so simple and make bathtime a particular treat.  That, and they’re perfect for using up our huge collection of hotel soaps.  You may have some too, but if you’re running low a bar of Ivory soap is perfect!

For each boat you need a bar of soap (just make sure that they’re the floating sort before you start making the boat!), a toothpick or bit of bamboo skewer, and paper for a sail (we used vellum, but surprise, it’s not waterproof!).

Use the toothpick to drill down into the bar a bit until it sticks in vertically.  Cut a triangular sail from your paper and slice two horizontal slits to thread onto the toothpick.  Fill your pinkest bathtub with water (other colors work too) and set sail!

School ends for both children on Thursday (culminating with simultaneous kindergarten graduation and preschool field-day festivities, no less!) and with our beautiful weather and the promise of free time it feels as though Summer is upon us.  Here’s a bit of what we’ve been doing:

With all the yardwork to be done Daisy’s been building little homes for her fairy friends while daddio and I do the manual labor…she furnishes them with quince petals for blankets and soft dandelion pillows for sleepy fairy heads.

Our seeds are sprouting nicely and are being hardened off for transplant.  These are micro-greens, just tiny babies, but the radishes in the garden are nearly ready for snacking.

This is my actual hand feeding an actual giraffe at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo.  They like Wasa crackers…who knew?

I absolutely cannot get enough of this CD. The hand-sewn image on the front is wonderful, but the music is perfect, just perfect.  Try track #5.  Of course, you can’t listen to just one thing all the time, so sometimes I listen to this one instead.  The kids put track 10 on heavy rotation!

I’ve been working on the quilt from the cover of Sugar Sack Quilts, with a few modifications (some polkadots and fine checks rather than all solids, plus I’m planning a scalloped border).

I also managed to get our craft cabinet whipped into shape with a few new bins (we already had most of these) and relocated my fabric supplies to a box under the guest bed.   (excuse the awful basement picture)

Of course, I promptly made a trip to the fabric store and outgrew this box, but at least I tried

What have you been working on and been inspired by lately?

This one comes from the “because nothing is ever good enough the way it is” file, and comes to you courtesy of my oldest daughter Daisy, who came up with this by herself and insisted that I photograph it and informed me that it was unquestionably a ‘blogworthy’ project.  She learns quick, that one!

Materials:

• pieces of sidewalk chalk, several colors
• water
• a rock
• ice cube molds (square, shaped, whatever)

Method:

Smash the chalk with your rock.  You don’t have to completely pulverize it–leave some big chunks for creative effect.

Put the smashed chalk in a cup, bucket, or bowl and mix in a little water to make a paste.

Press the chalk paste into your molds and set it in a quiet spot to dry overnight.

Pop them out and enjoy making some pretty, multicolored drawings on your driveway, sidewalk, or paper!

More chalk-y fun!

• @Kiddio: Kid-Made Sidewalk Chalk Paint!
• @Mad Maggie Designs: Homemade Sidewalk Chalk Recipe.
• @Scrumdilly-Do: Drawing with Wet Chalk.
  

The weather has been so lovely all week that we’ve been spending every day outside.  With all of the playing, gardening, and bike/trike-riding we’ve been ready for an early bedtime and I’ve enjoyed curling up with my computer (or a book, or my little sewing project) for a little evening relaxation.  Here are a few things I found this week (I’ll keep it short because, darn it, it’s too nice to be inside.  You should go outside too!)

@Gingerbread Snowflakes: These punched tin butterflies are just beautiful and the tutorial is wonderful.  Can’t wait to try these with my six-year-old.

@Kleas: I would be delighted to receive a fancy necklace made from these preschooler-made wet-felted wool beads.  They’re so unique and colorful!

@Little Birdie Secrets: I’ve been planning on sprouting alfalfa seeds, and here’s a great how-to!

@Red Bird Crafts: I love the many steps required to create these story-telling stones, and I can’t wait to see what my children do with this novel idea!  (and I’m in love with this blog, so click around!)

@Hungry Mouse: I must try hard not to make these homemade peanut butter cups.  Judging from the pictures my resistance will fail and they will be delicious.  Smores too?  Oh no.

@Skip to My Lou: I love pairing a story with a craft, and Cindy rounds up a nice list of book-and-craft tutorials.

@Goody Goody Handmade: This ladybug pincushion is beautiful and would make for a delightfully simple hand-sewing project (for those warm backyard days–see where my mind is?).  Also considering stuffing it with lavender and adding it to my unmentionables drawer.

@Fuoriborgo: I’ve always been fascinated by frescos, and this feels like another wonderful project for summer.

@Make and Takes: Our garden is planted, and these craft foam plant markers are next on our list!  So cute!

I’m so glad you liked their little house!  Here’s a bigger picture, if that helps.  It began life as a house-shaped CD storage unit from Michaels, although I never exactly intended to keep CDs in it.  I painted the inside walls a cream color (outside is green with pink trim, Daisy’s choice), and I added some textured green paper as flooring and roof shingles and a favorite patterned paper on the solid back wall.  The pipecleaner family fits well, although we’re working on a little furniture for them.  I’ll keep you posted…

We have plenty of craft supplies (that may be an understatement!), and most plentiful of all seem to be pipe cleaners (a.k.a. chenille stems), beads, and yarn (oh my, the yarn!).  Thankfully, this project uses all three (plus anything else you’d like to throw in!)  This is the family we made, the dad is the turquoise one with beads for pants, I’m the tall one with pink legs and crazy skirt, and the children are ballerinas with hair long enough that you can really cut it !!!!! (emphasis is that of my six year old :)  [my apologies in advance for the awful pictures...hopefully you can make out enough to get the idea!]

Materials:

• yarn cut into 2″-10″ lengths (depending on how ‘cuttable’ you want their hair to be)
• a large bead for the head
• pipecleaner cut into approximately 3″ and 8″ pieces
• optional: felt scraps, silk flowers, pony beads, fabric scraps, glitter, etc.

Method:

Fold the longer pipecleaner in half and lay the yarn inside the fold.  Slip the large bead onto the loose ends of the pipecleaner and push it up tightly against the yarn.  Twist the pipecleaner a bit to keep the bead in place and form a neck, then put your short piece (arms!) in and keep twisting to make the rest of the body.  Leave the last couple of inches untwisted (legs!).

You can add all sorts of goodies to give the dolls personality.  We took silk flowers apart and slid the blossoms up to the waist as little skirts, or glued them on their head as little flower fairy hats.  We also cut little fringed skirts out of felt, and turned this little girl into a mermaid with a slip-on felt tail (two layers of felt glued around the edges to make a pouch for the legs to fit into).

More ideas with pipecleaners:

@Preschool Playbook: Add Cheerios to make a simple bird feeder

@Whimsy Love: Twist a few sparkly ones into the most awesome of tiaras

@Croqzine: A snippet of pipecleaner makes a ‘needle’ for a cute sewing card

@Just Tutes: Love these butterflies made from beads, pipecleaners, and (my favorite!) clothespins

@Let’s Explore: Daisy’s into origami, although her fingers haven’t quite caught up.  These cute origami bunnies (kitties?) seem like just her speed.

@Whimsy Love: I knew that there must be a simpler method for DIY screenprints, and she found it!

@Adventures with Mimi: Create your own backyard bird buffet with snack-o’s that you’ve got around your kitchen.

@This Little Project: Yummy little bird’s nests for your pet Peep.  Might be a bit of marshmallow overload (just kidding–can you really have too much marshmallow?)

@Painting Pink Pajamas: You know that we love clothespins, and I just adore this little clothespin gator.  The possibilities are endless!

@Frugal Family Fun Blog: These field guides will be great for camping this summer.  I’m thinking birds, footprints, other signs of wildlife?  Will hopefully reduce whining at mile two.

@Craft Jr: Fun little Spring-y fingerpuppets made from crafty mainstays (I’ve got more pom-poms and googly eyes than I know what to do with, so this surely makes our project list!).

@Glittergoods: Must try this scratch-foam printing, since I just love printmaking and this is such a kid-friendly technique!

@Let’s Explore: Speaking of which, I love Amy’s idea for making simple monoprints.  See?  Three printing links.  I love it

What were your favorite posts around blogland this week?

We go through paper like crazy in this house and, although I keep a lot of particularly special masterpieces, a lot of it goes into the trash recycle bin.  I can’t promise that we’ll be rescuing all of our crafty leftovers from the trash, but this was a fun way to turn some of it into some pretty new paper.  As an added bonus we threw in some seeds left over from last year’s planting.  If you write a letter and send it to a friend, then they plant the paper and keep it moist they’ll sprout a lovely little garden!

Materials:

• Scraps of paper or old artwork (ours was mostly white and pink copy-weight paper with a sheet of red construction paper thrown in for good measure).  The color of the paper will dictate the color of your finished piece, so choose wisely!
• Seeds (we used morning glories and daisies)
• Screen mold (mine came in a kit a lot like this one, or you can improvise).
• Sponge
• Blotting paper (optional)
• Old towel

1. Fill your blender about halfway full of water.  Tear paper up into approximately 1″ pieces and add them to the water.  Leave a little room at the top so it doesn’t overflow!

2. Put the lid on and pulse the blender a few times to chop the paper up.  Then hit puree and let it go until it’s all pulpy. It won’t be totally smooth, but you don’t want to have whole pieces of paper in there. Add the seeds and stir with a spoon to distribute.

3. Fill your sink with a few inches of water (I used a dish on the counter since our sink is really deep and hard to photograph) and put your paper mold in.  Pour the paper pulp in and swirl the screen around in the water a bit to distribute the pulp evenly.  Lift the mold straight up, let the water drain, and set the whole thing on a towel.

4.  Use your sponge to gently blot and compress the paper, wringing a bit more water out of it and into the towel.  Once it’s pretty dry, peel it off and lay it on the towel.  You can use your blotter paper to remove more water, or just leave it here to dry for a bit.

It has a beautiful texture as is, but if you’re looking for a bit more refined flatness, feel free to press it with a warm iron once it’s dry.