Another Crafty Day....

Creating with Ardyn can be trying on one's patience, extremely interesting, unbelievably funny, and sometimes you get some really hilarious pics like this one. She was loving the adhesive. She couldn't get it to work (and if I tried to help, I got tantrum behavior) but she loved pretending to use it to stick hearts together. She loved bits of paper and if I cut her different sized hearts she would crumple them, stack them, and turn them every which way. Towards the end she got pretty angry at everything and just started throwing stuff on the floor. I just let her go hog wild and took pictures. LOL.


While she was doing all the destruction she could, I made some neat snowflakes and a heart for her windows in the play room.


Here's a cute pic of her bird feeder, which I hope attracts birds soon. It's RIGHT at her eye level. This evening I scattered a piece of bread (torn into crumbs) out into the yard hoping to lead them to the area.


We are also working on taking care of a plant. I thought she might like one of her own that we can water together. Right now she could care less, but maybe someday she will get it. In the meantime we can have some fresh oxygen in there. LOL. I plan to make a neat tag on a stick to put into the plant, once I get to mom's to play with the cricut.


Today we did some coloring too, she was thrilled when I drew her some "blues clues" pawprints. I didn't even get the main circle for the paw done and I had her attention, and as soon as I got one blue toe drawn, she said "A Clue! A Clue!" and then I finished and cut them into round circles for her and she drug them around her playroom.

While she was occupied with crayons and clues, I colored several of the characters from Sprout's Preschool Musical On A Stick, and then cut them out and laminated them. She started her nap and I plugged in the low temp glue gun and adhered craft sticks to each one to make them puppets like in the musical. I still have a few to done, but here is a WIP photo or two.


Last night I got my scrapbook inspiration pages all filed, and categorized, and labeled. I adore this expanding folder. It's perfect. Compact, travel worthy, and has the EXACT number of categories I had already chosen. I got super mega lucky.




My page planners also arrived today.... Let the Organizing begin!


Last night I started to read "The Creative Family" By Amanda Blake Soule. I so far really do like it. I have to admit that already, most of the projects that she has listed, I have not only heard of, but also already done. But I do like that she has recipes for "natural glue" and homemade dyes. Interesting already. I have already made MANY pairs of recylced t-shirt pants, and that is one of the first crafts in the book, in addition to a crayon roll (Which I think most every crafty person has heard of or even owned in their lifetime.) What I find the most interesting, is that she seems to very easily convey things that my mind is already thinking, and especially those that I cannot put into words. I get alot of crap from some people about how I am "so lucky" to have so much time to do crafty things. I agree that I am lucky to stay home and spend time with my daughter. But even BEFORE I was staying home, even back when I was working and volunteering all over the place, I STILL found time to be crafty, because it was an important part of who I am and an important part of making me feel whole and relaxed. I was raised and taught that creating and being crafty was a part of life. We didn't BUY Valentine's, we made them. We didn't buy cookies, we made them. Alot of this was because my mom was a stay at home mom (for the early part of my upbringing) and we needed to be resourceful and save money. Another piece of this was that my mom was not only brought up creatively, but WAS creative, and she felt that was an important part of her life, as well as mine.

I love that Amanda talks about how it is your duty and responsibility as a parent to convey a creative atmosphere and assist your children in excercising their creativity. She says that it is your JOB as a parent to make the time to be creative with your children. This struck such a cord with me. I think that even if I HAVE done the majority of the crafts in this book, there will still be plenty of things to learn and plenty of crafts to do and share.... AND that this book will inpire and encourage me, and reinforce the fact that being creative is an important part of my FAMILY's Life, not just mine, and that doing creative things is NOT selfish. Reading this book has so far made me feel like I have a friend in creativity. I hope that it continues to impress me and interest me.

Well, that's all I know. Having tacos tonight and have laundry to fold and wash.... And will be browning 3 pounds of beast to make chili, tacos, and vegetable beef stew in the next few days!
Everyone have a Great weekend!

UPDATE" After Ardyn went to bed I made my first 3-D paper snowflake. It was so much simpler than the damn thing looks! Check it out. I was lucky enough to have some blue cardstock on hand (since everything is at mom's!) and had just enough to make this. Isn't it cool?