Savoring Fall... Living In The Moment...

A little late posting, but this is my favorite time of year... and I want to savor it!  Let's not talk about Christmas yet... There are plenty of things to enjoy now.
So, I am pushing the pause button... and Savoring Fall...

I love it when the leaves change color... they're beauty always captures my heart... I also get excited to wear tights and boots... Silly...  I know...

Going to the Pumpkin Patch... An annual tradition...

Fall decorations... I was lazy this year, and reused my wreath from last year.  Except for the corn... I made it from yard clippings(to change it up I added the leaves this year)...

 I love decorating with nature...  gathering up treasures found on walks around the neighborhood... I can always find them a good home...

I also made a few of these paperback pumpkins... super easy... you can find tutorials for them all over Pinterest...

Together with my found items... they made the perfect center piece for my table.

Making Halloween costumes... always a good time...

This year my son wanted to be Steve... a character from the game Minecraft...

My daughter took it easy on me and went as Super Girl...

We always enjoy carving pumpkins, and roasting the seeds... My sons reached a whole new level of scary this year...

Trick or Treating...  We tried out a new neighborhood this year, and enjoyed how festively the houses were decorated...

And to top it off... The first Eggnog latte of the season...

Happy Fall!

***Jennifer

Sharing the love...

Valentine's Day is here again...  And this year with a little help from Pinterest...  I started with a sneak attack...

 The weekend before Valentine's Day, I started posting valentines on my families bedroom doors...  Adding a couple every day... with the top ten reasons why I loved them...

 Then for the big day... I knitted them these cup cozies, and appliqued felt hearts on to them...

And yes... I incorporated skull and cross bones with a v-day twist...

Some how everyone in the family... (but me)... think they're cool... so I went with it...

I got the cozy idea from here...

The table seemed a little bare so I spruced it up with some fake rose petals...

To go along with my mason jars and cake plates...

For school I found this cute idea... but didn't have the time to print and cut out the cute card...

So we made do... with index cards and foam stickers...  and my sons handwriting...(which I think is more special anyway)

Since Valentine's Day fell on a Thursday this year... I wanted  to do a little something special for the ladies that volunteer with me on Thursdays at my children's school...

So I knit them each a cup cozy too!(In my spare time a.k.a... 2am)... and brought in coffee for everyone...
They were so surprised... and well worth it!

That is how I shared my love...
(with a little help from my friend... Pinterest)
***Jennifer

Handmade Gifts... Pencil Case...

My Daughter came to me the other day requesting ideas for a gift she could make for her friends...


My son of course piped up and said he wanted to make Christmas gifts too! 

Luckily, I had filed away on one of my Pinterest boards this great idea from... One Good Thing By Jillee... using recycled cereal boxes and cutting out nifty pencil cases...
You'll find more recycled cereal box crafts... (and download instructions/templates)... HERE...



This project was so easy and fast to make!  All you need for this craft is...
* a cereal box
*tape
*pencil
*scissors
*Velcro fasteners (I used sticky back dots)

You'll also need to print out the template from this link by makezine.com (just a side note... I found I had to add 1/2inch to the template to accommodate the pencils I planed to use in the finished case.  I added this by cutting the template in half, and then taped an extra 1/2inch piece of paper to the middle...)

Opening the cereal box and laying it flat, I was able trace out two pencil cases...  I made sure to score the dotted lines, it makes folding so much easier...

After following the simple instructions... these come together in a snap!  Love that you can use the printed side, or the cardboard side and add your own drawings...

My kids found this craft to be both easy and fun!  No whining involved... Which is a win my book.

We also had fun filling them with Christmas pencils and erasers...

They are going to have so much fun giving these to their friends...

 

I'm glad I took the time to do a craft together... It seems to often we are caught up in our individual activities.  As my kids get older I feel like time is running out!  I want to make as many memories as possible... and hoard them away for later when hanging out with Mom is no longer cool... and maybe someday they'll think back on their childhood say fondly "Remember when..."

Happy Crafting!

***Jennifer



Crafting For A Cause...

Sorry...  I know I have kind of fallen off the Blogging radar... I've still been crafting, but for an unselfish purpose...  Every year my kids school auctions off class room art to raise money for our school... While I can't usually give $$$... I do have time... So, for the last month I have been treading water while being sucked into an art work vortex...  I was in charge of the three grades(2nd, 4th, and 5th)... Yes, I know I'm a little crazy... and somehow I roped two unsuspecting people into helping me(he he he... little did they know that 3grades= 3ways to lose my mind)...  Here's what the kids did...


Each 2nd grader folded an origami person, and colored in a face to look like them...

Their are two classes... so each picture is a little different...  With pieces of ripped Japanese newspaper, we created the border...





Starting with a big sheet of water color paper... I created a multi- media scenery... The mountains and tree limbs are fabric... the sky and grass are chalk...  and the river is water color (with salt sprinkled on while it's still wet... this gives it a cool crystallizing effect)

The cherry blossoms are tiny squares of tissue paper... placed... one... at... a ... time....



The teacher of one class wanted to be fly fishing... so I fashioned him some lures out of tissue and wire...



My kids go to a Japanese immersion school... we tried to replicate the sign we have outside the school doors...

There is so much going on in these pictures... the photo's don't do it justice... I also wanted to point out there are tiny origami butterflies and birds... If you look back at the first pics, you can see some in between the mountians

On To 4th Grade...

I created two hanging lights (one for each class) ... 

To create the shade, I wrapped a beach ball with jute that was soaked in a mixture of 3parts glue two one part water...  (let me just add that this was after a couple of failed attempts with some jumbo balloons... got to this point... and then they popped!  That was a bad day...)

My wonderful husband attached them to a pendant light....

Each 4th grader folded an origami flower....

I came up with stamen, using beads and wire... so I could attach the flowers to the shades... (my trusty helpers probably didn't think it was so great as they were twisting the wire to make them...) 

The result was perfect...

On To 5th Grade...

Using 1000 cranes folded by both fifth grade classes...  I created this landscape... (if you use imaginative thinking...it's suppose to be sky, hills, and a river)



No two cranes were alike... 

Row by row... I placed each crane... layering them on top of each other... very time consuming...

 

Slowly... a picture emerged... 

So... That is what I've been up to... long days... working non stop...  crafting till my little finger can craft no more...  I am proud to say that all of our hard work (on these art pieces) pulled in almost $1900...  So worth it!!!  The best part of all, was going to the auction... it was 1920's themed... Sooooo much fun to dress up!

Here I am putting on the Ritz...  

Happy Crafting!

***Jennifer