Sew-Free I Spy Bag!

I have been wanting to make an I spy bag for a while because for obvious reasons - they are so neat! I would be entertained by them, and I think they are a neat sensory and discovery experience for toddlers. However I am poor college student [which if you ever read my blog you hear me woe about many a time] and not just poor in cash flow, but poor in time. If I simply had to make one I-spy bag, NO PROBLEM. I'd bang one out on my sewing machine in my typical ... atypical fashion of ignoring tutorials and improvising as I go. However I am [or was until I moved again] a one year old teacher who has 11 wonderful toddlers to stimulate, and I am not looking for the kind of stimulation that comes from fighting, snatching, biting, and crying over one cool new toy! yuck so I had to bang out AT LEAST 5. I've been taught that 5 is a good rule of thumb for how many duplicates of a popular toy you should keep in a classroom to avoid fighting, without excess. 

So as I was purusing Pinterest I saw this!

 I have seen similar things before, but what caught my attention in this sensory bag from Plain Vanilla Mom was the duct tape all around the edges. DUH MOMENT! I went to wal-mart at once and bought the funnest duct tape I could find along with the rest of the necessary supplies to create these little beauts:

Yes that's rice! I don't have money or time to go to specialty craft stores for perfect little useless microbeadies [I believe that is the technical term]. Had to take what wally world, and my pantry, had to offer!

 Uhhmmmm... let me explain....this is me adding glitter cause...well...let's be real I just love glitter, ok? 

 Here is where I would take the picture of the things in the bag [above] and using clear packing tape to attach! Or you could also make a duct tape pocket if you want, but I like the clear packing tape personally.  

Where's the turtle? 

This is EASY PEASY let me tell you! For all of those intimidate by the fancy sewn versions of I-Spy bags, or if you have to be like me and be a factory for I-Spy bags, duct tape is the way tot go. Easy, and I think it looks really cool to! THe only down side in my opinion is I like the texture/ feel of fabrics, and in a perfect world I would've liked to make each bag a different color, shape, and texture fabric so they would get that extra sensory experience .. but this is the real world, and my kids are just gonna have to handle the tough love of duct tape! 

Also I made sensory bags and bottles...but maybe I'll save that for another post...yes I think I will. 

Nature Painting

So I was going through my old pictures just now, and decided to post this art project from last year that I did with my kids, and I never posted. 

Nature painting: a super simple and fun painting project I did with my kids a year ago. 

I just had the kids bring in a couple pine cones, leaves, and pine needles. This was easy cause they were always trying to bring these things inside anyways. Then I Put the pine cones in red paint, the oak leaves in green, and the pine needles in blue and they took turns painting paper with each unique medium [I also wrote each item in coordinating marker color so you could see which item made which texture]. Like I said so simple, and it was such a good sensory/exploratory activity for them. 

I love the way that looks!

Oh ya, forgot to mention, make sure the pine cone isn't fresh and sharp! This was in summer and there were bunches of old frayed pine cones that did not have any prickles on them.

Until next time!

p.s. Check out my Linky Party page to see where I link up this kid friendly craft. 

Pinterest

So I haven't blogged in ALMOST a year. I moved to Kentucky, got a full-time job, new boyfriend, was living with my distractedly adorable nephew, and blogging was the furthest thing from my mind. I am back in Florida for an undetermined amount of time, and soaking in the sunshine.

If anyone is reading this and wondering, why the sudden jump back into blogging, well I'll tell you! I had pretty much given up blogging; can't tell you why, it just lost that spark. I have, however, gotten hooked on Pinterest [who hasn't?] and I noticed that pictures from my post Mess Free Art had been pinned. Oh my goodness how exciting for me that people have seen that and pinned it! Well that is what brought me here, right now, typing up the first post this year. Do not know how long this will last, or what exactly I will post about, but I am doing it for now!

Yay, excitement and joy!
Angelyn

Two skirt transformation!

Ahhhh I'm a terrible blogger! But I did make a pretty awesome skirt this last week that received some compliments at church today so I will be sharing it with you today.

Actually it was a combination of 2 pre-made skirts to a new and improved single skirt.

Background: When I worked at Old Navy I bought an XL little girls silver tulle skirt. A coworker asked if I was using it for my Halloween costume...no I just thought it was cute =/ I wore it once then made the mistake of drying it. This made the tulle pucker and not pretty anymore.

Well I hate throwing things away, so I was thinking about how I could repurpose the skirt. I wanted to A) make it more adult like and B) hide the partially ruined tulle. I was digginf through my mommy's scrap fabric and found a blue satin skirt she had already made. Very plain but I loved the color and asked if I could have it.

I decided that I wanted to make a high waist-ed skirt with the silver tulle hanging down several inches beneath the blue skirt. I got to work removing the waist bands and finding a material to use as lining. 

From here I recreated the pattern of the blue skirt, which was 6 trapezoids 6.5inches at the top, and 7.5 inches where I wanted the new lining to end. This would provide a place for me to attach the silver skirt to. 

I sewed the lining together then simply attached the now waist-less tulle skirt to the bottom of that. Some scrunching and gathering needed to happen but not a lot so I just did it as I went on the sewing machine. 

From here I had to sew the new lining to the blue skirt, which I did with a tight zig-zag stitch along the edge to hopefully avoid fraying in the future. The folded it down about 3/4 an inch and sewed a pocket for the elastic. 

What do you think of the end product? 

As a self critic I would like to say that had I taken the time and effort to figure out how to re-do the skirt with a zipper that fit my waist exactly, it would sit alot prettier. However I am admittedly not a patient perfectionist who would rather settle for pretty good than stress myself out for "perfect" 

I also realize I'm not good at writing tutorials since I am a do it and figure it out as I go kinda gal, but if you have any questions about my...interesting methods feel free to leave a comment or e-mail me and I'll do my best to clarify! 

Until Next time. 

Stories from Daycare

No my blog is not looking liek what I want it to look like, and I just haven't put m uch time in it to be honest, but I should keep posting anyways, right?

So today while sitting downand watching the kids play outside, one little girl came up to me with a stick and started running it through my hair! "T--" I said "What are you doing?" then she looked at me with a very serious 2 year old face and told me "I Comb your hair!" I laughed and thought it was too cute to tell her to stop, so I let her continue 'combing' my hair, and when she was done, she looked me over and I asked how I looked, she said "You look booful."

I love my job.

Happy Memorial Day - Patriotic Flower

I woke up feeling crappy today, so I didn't do anything to celebrate Memorial Day. I did however Utilize some of my new craft supplies to make a pretty patriotic flower!

These 5 conveniently pre-cut 4x4 quilting squares were among the fabric scraps, and I like the way they look together. It's a pretty subtle patriotic theme with some stars, and red white and blue hues. 

 I tried 2 methods of making petals, before deciding on the one I wanted, but I'll post pictures from both.

 1st method you fold square into triangle, and then fold it again to make a smaller triangle. 

 Then you make a running stitch across the open edge of the small triangle. 

 After you pull together, you should get this pointy petal result. 

 The second method I tried you fold the square into a triangle just once, then sew a running stitch along the 2 open edges. 

 When you pull tight, you should get a more round petal.

 They turned out about the same sized, and both methods are super easy! 

I chose the more pointy petal. Just repeat the process for the other squares, attaching as you go along. 

 I glued a felt square to the back so I would have something to attach a pin, or headband to.

 And finally added 3 red white and blue buttons to the center to complete the patriotic look! 

I know those instructions are absolutely tragic! Hope you get the gist of it though; it really is so simple. I got the inspiration from THIS blog, and she gives much better instructions. She did a slightly different method with circles, but since I already had squares, I made squares work! I'm still trying to decide if I should make it a hair pin, or head band...

Happy Memorial Day everyone! My thoughts and prayers are with those who have died protecting my freedom. Thank you troops who are currently fighting for this country. 

Until next time. 

UPDATE:

I decided upon putting it on a headband, and I'm happy with my decision. Good thing about hot glue is that if I change my mind and REALLY want to make it into a hair pin or other, I can persuade the hot glue to relese my flower from the headband. 

I know I look like a gross hot mess in these pictures, but focus on the pretty flower headband. It was 1:00 a.m. so probably not the time I should attempt being a model. 

Yes, I am literally that tired that I can't even come up with a title.