Marvelous Mug

A few christmas gifts from my boss ago, i got a set to paint your own mug. I didn't really find a good use to it untill fathers day last year. When toddler and I made a mug for daddy. With toddlers fingers and the paint this gave a cool mug for daddy to use at work.

Now I wanted to do the same for the godfather of baby, but since all the paint was used during the fathers day project (you know how this goes..;)) I had to go out and buy new paint. Unfortunately they don't sell child friendly porcelain paint anymore. So we had to thing of something else... This is what I came up with:

With child friendly finger paint I made a hand print on a regular piece of paper. Then I cut this piece of paper around the shape of the hand and used it as a mold on the mug.

Then I used porcelain markers to place dots around the hand print. Now you can make this as crazy or lovely as you want. But for this mug I only covered the part around the hand print. Unfortunately I have no end result picture of this mug. :(

But fortunately.... I used the same idea for baby's godmother and since she is a big fan of a lot of tea or coffee, she got a very big mug from our local dollar store (Action).

[Insert picture here] 

Clever Clock

So it has been a while since I posted, but I haven't been sitting still with performing Arts & Crafts!

When our oldest one left the baby group at daycare and went to the toddler group, I wanted to make the teachers a little gift. Personally I'm all about usefull gifts and therefore we made a clock to thank the ladies for the wonderful times.

What did we use: at our local dollar store (Action) we bought 4 clocks of €3,99 each. I took them all apart and cut out a piece of paper that would exactly fit behind the arms of the clock. In this clock there was a plastic pin that holds the arms, so I needed to make a hole exactly in the middle of the paper.

  

On this piece of paper I wrote my text (in Dutch) saying: 'Thank you for the wonderful time'. Then I had our little toddler stick punched out shapes onto the paper. I let him stick every clock (he had to make three) in his own pace. In this way it is fun for everyone ;). In hindsight, I think it was a better idea to use a pritt stick, since the paper wrinkled due to the wet glue.

 

Since the paper wrinkeled I had to make sure it stayed flat to the back of the clock (or else the arms get stuck behind the hearts and stars I learned the hard way)... I used double sided tape for that and next I reassembled the whole clock and let it run for 12 hours to be sure that the arms could pass every punched out shape.

 

When our toddler had his last day at the baby group, I told him to give the gifts to his teachers. He was very proud in giving them, saying that he made it ;). And the girls were happy recieving it. They told me that it got a nice place in the kitchen or on the fire place.

On to the next!

Lovely little ladybug

Not all the time I'm doing art projects with my kids, I also make things for them.

My daughter has some troubles getting used to the daycare and there they suggested we bring a little stuffed animal with my scent on it for her. Since I've heared horror stories of kids falling in love with a specific cuddly toy and then losing it, I wanted to make the stuffed toys for them myself (so I can make extra's when I need to). For my son I made a dinosaur and for my daughter I now made a ladybug. I found a cute pattern online, but unfortunately it was only available in Swedish and Google-translate translated the pattern with words as "take 5 grandma's and place them on the needle." Since I only have 2 grandma's ;) I decided to make the ladybug myself from different crochet patterns:

I briefly write down what I did since some of the different patterns used are not mine:

The head and antenna's I derived from this pattern: Bug rattles all in black cotton.

The arms are 8 single crochets in a magic ring, followed by 8 rows of 8 single crochets.*

Then the 'body' of the ladybug is a granny square made to the appropriate size (matching the head) in red cotton. The edge is in black cotton and made by -1 single crochet*, skip a stitch, 4 double crochets*, skip a stitch - and repeat from - to - untill you reach the edge.

The dots are in black cotton and 6 or 8 single crochets* in a magic ring. And the eyes are made of white cotton and are 6 single crochets* in a magic ring.

And voila, within 3 days of hard work I made this very cute ladybug cuddly toy!

* I've translated the pattern from Dutch to US-English, so I used the US crochet terms. 

Special X-mas card for special people

Christmas is coming and to give the care-givers at our childrens day care a special little something we made this X-mas tree ornament.

Before I've started I made sure that I had enough paper shapes punched out, so that my toddler didn't had to wait for his mommy.

I started out with drawing 6 circles with a glass (any other round shape will do) on two different colors of paper. Cut them out, fold them in half and put glue on one side, completely covering it. I used a glue stick (like Pritt) because the stains are easy to remove from hands, clothes or any other object my toddler could get is hands on.                                               

Green circle (about 7cm diameter)

Use a glue stick (is easier to clean)

Then I gave the circle with the glue facing up to my little boy and let him have his way with the circle and the paper shapes. While he was sticking the tiny little shapes onto the circle I made sure the supply of paper shapes kept coming (I needed to, because a lot of them ended up on the floor).

Let's stick 'm to everything but the circle!

When I thought that he was finished with sticking the shapes, or that there was no glue available to stick any more shapes to, I took the circle and gave him a new one. I continued until I had five circles or when he was bored and wanted to do something else. All in all it should be fun. I let him stick five circles full of shapes because I wanted to write a personal message on the sixth one.

Six full circles

One full circle

As you can see in the picture below, I folded the circles after they were covered with little stars, hearts and christmas trees, but I think it is better to fold the circles before adding glue (as mentioned above). In that way I didn't destroy my sons masterpiece and had to glue some of the shapes back on.

Folded circles with shapes on it (bad idea!)

Now glue 5 of the circles together with putting glue on one side and then placing the other circle on it.

Stick 'm together...

...like so

But wait...! Before glueing the circles all together put a piece of string between  the last and the first circle you'll glue.

String with a knot at the end

Place the string as shown

 




















Glue the last parts together and Tadaa! All finished :)

Again, we started early on making these gifts because our main 'rule' is to enjoy our crafting time together.

Have fun!

Christmas card

Let's start with the first post:

So as every year, this year we have to send out christmas cards. And now that they are all send, I can share my design with you. 

First I started with a drawing of a christmas tree and some blank cards. 

Christmas tree template

Blank card

  




















Then I drew the christmas tree on a normal weight A4 paper and taped it to the window. Why on the window? I did this to make sure that I can trace my christmas tree to the thick paper of the card.  (Ofcourse make sure that there is enough light outside or, if you have one, you can also use a bright light in a glass box)

Red balls, green garland... let your imagination do the work!

When all that is said and done, you have the christmas tree on your card. I colored the balls and garland in myself and let my 1,5 year old color the rest.

Let's color!

Ofcourse my little one wasn't limited by the christmas tree and also colored some of the insides. But that is only a nice surprise for the receiver of the card ;)

All finished!

                                                       

It's a good idea to start at the end of the summer when making these cards. Toddlers (at least mine) has a short attention span and is easily bored. We started half way september, and have finished them last weekend (mids of December).

Have fun!

Let me introduce myself

Hi!

My name is Claudia, I live in Eindhoven (the Netherlands) with my lovely husband and two wonderful children. The oldest one is almost 2 years old and the youngest one is almost 4 months old. 

I like to make personalized gifts and cards and really love to play around with my kids and along the way teach them all kinds of new stuff. Now wouldn't it be great to combine those two things and perform some art and crafts projects with my kids? On my blog I would like to share with you the projects that are fun, easy to follow and toddler proof!

See you around!