{Tried it Tuesday} --Sock Puppets

The craft this week was a joint effort between my daughter and I.

She brings every craft, drawing, and how to book from the school library home.  She just loves those kinds of books.  Now I love that my daughter loves making things and creating crafty things just like her momma, but when she gets it in her mind she is going to make a particular

fishy aquarium out of the current book, it's mommy's job to have all the supplies. 

And unfortunately we didn't have corrugated cardboard.

My daughter was devastated and corrugated cardboard is now on my supply list from Hobby Lobby.

I looked through the book and looked for one project that she could create from things I all ready had.  I came across some sock puppets. 

They had a different little take on a traditional sock puppet.  The puppets are made from one white sock (stolen from daddy's sock drawer) and a black glove.  Luckily this momma has tons of garden gloves and could spare one.  Rosie filled the top of the sock with a piece of tissue paper to create the Panda head and then put a rubber band around the ball of paper. 

 Then she cut two slits in the sock to squeeze the pinky and thumb fingers from the glove thru. 

The other three gloved fingers control the head. 

The rest of the work is put into the creativity of making the sock into a Panda. 

She cut two circles from black (or gray which we had handy) felt and 2 squares for the eyes. 

A few scrapes from here and there became the nose and mouth and POOF**  we had ourselves a sock puppet.

 Within 15 minutes, after collecting all the supplies, we had ourselves a puppet show. 

Lil Miss was ecstatic with the cuddly little Panda.

Mr. Panda sang songs, told jokes and made a wierd panda like noise. 

Okay it was some what more of a niegh like a horse, but mommy didn't know what sound a Panda made and lil Miss liked it.   

Even Rosie got some love from Mr. Panda. 

It's funny how a little glue and creativity can create hours of fun. 

Rosie has plans to make a whole family of sock puppets now. 

Come spring I won't have any garden gloves left.  :-)

 

What kind of sock puppet can you create?

{tried it Tuesday} -- a sneak peak

As for all the projects it seems like I am in the middle of about 20 different things. 

Right now I am trying to crank out a fun unique birthday gift for baby girl and a few halloween costumes for the kids.

At least 3 of the kids are going with the Wizard of Oz theme .. or for our family it is more like the Wiz this year.   I am finished with Gigi's outfit.  Can you guess which character she is going to be?

And I love her new shoes!!!  I am planning on using them for christmas and so many other days to make her outfits sparkle!!

So stay tuned for more pics of all the little projects I have in the works. 

Just know I am a crafting fool. 

My fingers are working as fast as I can.

{Tried it Tuesday} -- School Papers Display

The kids bring home papers from school everyday.

What to do with all those school papers?

The math sheets, art projects and constant stream of papers come in the door and plop on my kitchen island after school until I have a huge pile on the island which is ready to teeter over. 

I have a system. 
The papers I want to keep go in a file in the office, cataloged under each of their names. 

 Then when that gets full, I go through them again and pick out 1/2 and stick them
in their school boxes down stairs.  They each have a folder for each year of school and a folder for preschool.  I imagine them all grown up going through their artwork when they were in grade school and thanking their mother for keeping some of their best work.
I dream big! 
Rosie always gets upset if she sees any of her papers in the trash, so when I purge their
school papers I either have to stuff them way way down in the trash can or put alot of things on top like junk mail.  The only problem is that I really don't have a place to
show off their incredible math scores or gallery worthy drawings.
They get put in folders but not displayed.
I saw an awesome idea on pinterest, but was so sad when I realized my refrigerator front isn't magnetic.  I could have taped the frames on or used that amazing blue tacky stuff, but then I have to use my knuckles to clean that stuff of our fridge front.

From pinterest  via www.positivelysplendid.com

So instead I used this picture as a starting point for an idea. 
Yes, an idea.  Nate hates when I have ideas!!
I started with my materials... all of which I had in my craft closet.   

Clothes Pins
Super Glue
Tacks
Pattern Paper

I attached the tacks to the back of the clothes pins with the super glue.
The hard part was done!

I then used my cricket to cut out the kids initials and a cute little background.

I glued these to the front of the clothes pins.

In 15 minutes I was done.  That was all there was to it.'

I then just pushed them into the wall.

I am an eyeballer so I just pushed the tack in the wall.

So far they have stayed in there and only created a tiny hole.

I can live with that.

Instead of creating a gallery for the kids art work on the refrigerator, I used an unused space of wall relestate.  Each of the kids had their own clip and they each got their current work on display. 
My refrigerator stays clean... except for finger prints and the kids can smile and show off their
self portraits or current math tests.

 Not exactly an idea straight from pinterest, but pinterest started the ball rolling.  Maybe my
project will now be someone else's idea for their house. 
You never know.
The kids walked in the door after I had put up the finished project and were ecstatic to see their
work up on the wall.
Score Mommy!! 
Another pinterest project complete.