Have you seen those fancy pillow kits they sell at JoAnn Fabric? Probably other places as well. It includes pre-cut fleecy fabric and that’s about it. I loved the idea, but not the price, so I bought some festive fabric a few weeks ago and this afternoon we tied up some pillows!

Eve learned how to tie knots and got lots of practice!

Lex was busy working on a book, but once he saw how cool this project was he joined in our knot tying activities.

I didn’t take step-by-step photos, but the project is super easy! Start by measuring whatever pillow you have laying around. Then lay out two pieces of fleece and cut them to a square a bit bigger than the pillow. I had about 4″ extra inches all around. Then measure 4″ all the way around (mark it with chalk or something) and then cut fringe from the edge to the 4″ line. THEN, tie the top fringe to the bottom fringe in double knots. This is the most forgiving project ever. You can use 4″ or 3″ or 5″ or whatever. You can have evenly spaced fringe or let your five year old do the cutting and get all sorts of different widths. You can have perfectly sized squares to begin with, or just roughly the same size. Whatever! That’s the kind of project we like best around here!

I love this boy!

When we were done I sent Eve off to take pictures while I started dinner.

Princess stickers on her pants.

This was one of a dozen or so she took. I’ll spare you all of them, especially the mouth open down the throat shot! Funny girl!

There are the pillows! We made three total total.

Happy cuddly kids!

While I spent the afternoon working on my resume and largely ignoring my children, they spent the afternoon working on tin can robots and largely ignoring me. A win-win situation (until the bedtime battle :/) Lex got the idea from a crafty magazine he has. I think it’s the last craft in the magazine he hasn’t done. He’s been asking for a few days if I would get out the hot glue gun, but I just see all sorts of ways that could go wrong so I’ve been putting him off. Today I remembered some glue dots I had in my craft supply, so I broke them out and fortunately they worked well!

Little tinkerers, hard at work!

Lex’s creation, “Can Man” has a crane and a light on top, a “problem solving” mode, and if you look closely you can see eye brows over the nut eyes. Clever boy.

Eve built her robot and then decided it needed to be tucked away for safe keeping. I talked her in to letting me take a quick picture before she put another pint container on top and taped them up.

A few other pictures from the weekend…

We did the “Haunted Office” Friday night with Rosy. The kids worked hard on it and we all had fun. Then we un-haunted it so Rosy could have an un-haunted bedroom for the weekend and snuggled in for a movie night.

This is the note I was curious about. When the bucket tipped the note fell out.

“Tricked You!” Funny boy.

Saturday morning Lex and I saw a beautiful sunrise! Unfortunately it disappeared quickly. Lex tried to get a picture but this is all he got before it was gone. We agreed to enjoy the memory of it. :)

Snack time!

They are always so proud of their snacks when they make them themselves. They are often so proud they want to take pictures!

I asked Alan what we should do with the awesome Lego costume now that Halloween is over. He decided this would be a good idea. Hilarity ensued, of course.

Lex got off the bus Thursday afternoon talking about a great project he saw some kids in school doing. Apparently they were spread out throughout the school, wherever they could find outlets, so Lex saw several throughout the hallways.

This is actually a project I’ve seen on Pinterest and other places around the web and thought it would be fun. I think it’s even more fun that Lex found the idea and ran with it.

After snack they both found cardboard and glued on some crayons. Then, while the glue dried, Eve swept the floor and Lex did his homework. Sweet! Then it was time for the hair dryer.

I learned pretty quickly that children cannot hold a hair dryer still and have a hard time conceptualizing the path hot air takes and its affect on dripping wax. Fun for all! :) I helped Lex and then Lex helped Eve.

Both projects came out really well. Lex was thrilled! He brought them both to school for show and tell on Friday. Now they’re taking up space on my counter. Fun for all ;)

Every Monday after school we drive over to our local farm (one of many in this area!) and pick up our CSA share. Our farm happens to be situated high on a beautiful hill and has a great view (see here and here and here for more beautiful farm pictures). Two weeks ago Eve started talking about how she would love to bring paints and paint a beautiful picture. Lex loved the painting idea as well. Boring mommy suggested we take a few pictures with the camera and use them to paint at home. No dice, boring mommy! Last week they were both disappointed that I didn’t bring the paints and I reminded them that if they want to paint they need to bring the paints. This morning Eve woke up and almost immediately reminded me that it’s Monday and we need to pack the paints for our trip to the CSA. With my help she packed up a bag and put it in the car before school. I’m always running around on Mondays so if it didn’t get in the car early it probably wouldn’t get in at all!

When we got to the farm there were a few logistics to figure out, such as the fact that we don’t have portable easels (hardcover books from the car made acceptable stand-ins) and the ground was damp (turns out little kids don’t care about that!). So we climbed as high was we could, right by the wonderful swings, and settled in with the watercolors.

Settling in, getting comfy, time for painting.

The view is pretty amazing.

I entertained myself by playing with camera settings (and checking email, FB, blogs, etc.) I like this setting. The colors look more vivid. Someday I’m going to have an awesome camera and know all about such things.

I went back down to the barn, collected my CSA goodies, picked some herbs and flowers, loaded the car, then went back up to wait with them.

My view from the car. Do you see the kids up there? :)

After a few minute I was bored (I have the patience of a gnat!) but they were so calm and peaceful. Diligently working on their pictures. Discussing what they saw and how to draw it. Lex made outlines and then filled in. Eve painted with a broad brush (literally!) and was a bit abstract. Lex threw around words like “outlining” and “layering” that he learned in art class and tried to comment on the differences in their painting techniques. “Mine is more detailed and yours has more colors,” he said. She took every comment as a critique (she can be touchy like that sometimes) so I jumped in and explained that everyone has a different style and no style is better or worse than any other. We talked about different artists and styles. My knowledge in that area is just a barely-there wisp, but I was able to bring up books we have with different styles of illustrations and I think the point was adequately made. I may find a few art books in the library to further our discussions. I considered painting with them, but we didn’t have an extra book handy and I didn’t want to sit on the wet ground.

Eve gestures to the sweeping landscape as her verbal stories unfold.

Hard at work.

Big beautiful scenery!

Like I said, I amused myself by taking pictures. Now you have to look at them!

I did a little swinging too. :)

Lex’s finished piece. He is standing in front of the view he painted, with the barn in the lower right corner of the picture and his painting.

Eve’s pieces are more abstract and she included everything she saw at any point. As usual, I wish I could include her stories with these posts, but of course I never could so you’ll just have to enjoy the pictures and imagine the stories.

I waited patiently and after an hour and a half we packed up. Lex had finished one and Eve had done one and nearly completed her second. I rushed her a bit at the end (I felt guilty but really we had been there so long already and I was cold and bored!). They took them into the barn and proudly showed Chuck, the farmer/owner. He and everyone else in the barn oohed and aahed appropriately. :)

Then home we went, wet works of art drying in the back of the car. Happy family.

(I just noticed that it’s October 5th and I’m just now creating an October photos folder, and I only have 15 pictures to put in it, four of which aren’t even for me. I’m slacking here! ;) )

I had a realization recently (again) that our afternoons go more smoothly when I have something planned. Not necessarily an outing, but a plan. Some days we go out but many days we all want to be home. I’ve started trying to be a bit more proactive, or intentional as the mommy-blog world talks about, with my afternoons. As a result of this decision, we’ve done several fun craft projects recently.

Family Tree
I found this idea from a blog I read, written by a local mom. It’s fun to see her pictures and sometimes recognize where they were taken. She has lots of fun little kid ideas. I modified the project, of course. For our afternoon I got out big sheets of paper and all of our stamps and ink. We haven’t used the stamps in quite awhile. The kids were super excited to come home and find this project setup.

Everyone loves stamping.

While they stamped away I drew a tree branch on my piece of paper.

My bare branch. I am always so nervous to create. I marvel at how fast and easy the kids put ink to paper, while I hem and haw and hesitate, fearing it might come out different from what I see in my head.

Then I asked them to use green ink and make fingerprint “leaves” all over the branches.

Little green finger print leaves.

Lex wanted to put his whole hand down, but I had to stop him. The ink isn’t washable (they had colorful fingers for awhile!) and I really wanted my project to turn be nice. :)

Then I had them each pick a color and put one thumb print on the big branch. The idea being to make little birdies sitting on the branch. One for each of us. I had Alan do his thumbprint when he got home from work.

After awhile Lex and I moved on, but Eve persisted with the stamping, turning out several sheets that look a lot like this one. All full of detailed, intricate stories.

She has no hesitation in creating!

The next day I got out the paints and paint markers and we did more creating.

This is Eve’s painting. A bunny in a field with white flowers.

While they painted and thought and deliberated on how to finish my Family Tree. How to make it look “right.” I didn’t have right size googly eyes, like the sample I was following, and we didn’t do the paint smudge and I was afraid to do anything for fear of wrecking it. Finally I put pen to paper and finished it, putting the sample out of my mind and coming up with a few idea of my own. I was super excited about how it came out!

Our Family Tree!

Perfect, right? Wrong!

The kids were oohing and aahing as I showed them the finished product. Then Eve made a comment about her little blue bird and Lex made a comment about his big blue bird and I suppressed a bit of very strong language as I realized I had written the names wrong!!! ARGH!

More heming and hawing. I pointed out the mistake to the kids, who would have noticed momentarily anyway, and told them how frustrated I was about the mistake. They were both so sweet and kind and came up with lots of idea. I tried one fix that didn’t work then I tried Lex’s suggestion of just making the branch bigger. That worked. If you look really close you can see the pen names through the branch, but only if you know to look for them….. hmm… disregard that last sentence and take a look at my finished PERFECT Family Tree!

Finished! The first step to my downstairs bathroom remodeling. :) (I know decorating the walls should be the final step to a remodeling project, but I do things a bit differently over here.)

Then the kids finished their paintings.

Lex made a deep sea picture. I think I like the lantern fish best. :)

When we were all done Eve took the job of cleaning up the paint. It took her almost an hour. Can you guess why? :)

Eve “cleaning” the paints. Seriously though, when she was done things were pretty clean!

I have to go get the kids off the bus now. I’ll save my other recent craft project, a bit of Halloween fun, for anther post!