I have been an avid reader of many craft blogs for over a year now and am pretty excited to take this leap. Pretty scared too.... what if everyone else thinks my stuff is crap???? Anyway, some of my favorite crafts blogs that I check almost daily are Angry Chicken, Two Straight Lines, Artsy-Crafty Babe, Soule Mama, Artsy Mama...
I'm not new to the blogging world though... I have kept a "family" blog for over a year. It is mostly about my kids and all the stuff they are up to, and I think only my family and a few friends read it. You are welcome to check it out if you'd like.... Some of you are so adept at blending the crafty blog with the family stuff, and it probably should be that way if creativity is important in your life. But since I started my other blog as a family blog, I felt weird talking about the projects I was up to.... I don't think my extended family cares that much.
So, here is my first project. It's not really all that exciting, but I have to start with something.... oh wait! I guess the picture header is really the first project posted here. It was a gift I made for my kids' dance instructor. She is due with her first baby in March and therefore wasn't able to do the spring production of the Peter and the Wolf ballet that she usually does. (She would normally put on about 4 or 5 shows at different schools for school age children. Last year my daughter played the Grandfather in one, a hunter in two productions and Peter in another, so Peter and the Wolf was a major part of our home for a few months. I even helped out with costumes, making the Grandfather's, Peter's costume and the hunters, worked a little on the duck and the wolf costumes, and helped out with scenery.) So I gave her this little quilt for Christmas. I framed it in a plain white frame, hoping it would coordinate with her baby's room. I was inspired by the mini quilts that Amy Karol of Angry Chicken and King Pod does.
So, finally onto my first project... like I said, not too exciting... it is a Valentine project for my kindergartener, Ethan. He came home from school with two giant paintings of, well, nothing... just colors. So I cut hearts out of them...
...then I created a simple bookmark on the computer, and printed it out.
We then glued a heart to each book mark, so they say "I LOVE TO READ!", cut out each bookmark, covered them with clear contact paper, punched a hole in the top and added a ribbon.
If I was the type of person who actually plans ahead I would have bought a few of the $0.95 books from Scholastic Books each time Ethan brought an order form home, which is like once a month, then we'd easily have 15 books to hand out with his Valentine bookmarks without breaking the bank. But since I am not the planning type I am frantically searching eBay for some cheap new books he can hand out to his classmates.
I'm pretty happy with this Valentine because
- it was E-A-S-Y!
- it was pretty original (I think)
- it is candy free!! Now, don't get me wrong, I like candy, but kids these days are handed candy every time they turn around... the bus driver gives them candy on "pay day friday", the music teachers gives out chocolate in chorus, etc. etc. Just doing my part to keep the cavities at bay!
- it is not too "Valentiney"... perfect for a boy to give out, and gets us far away from the (crappy IMO) pre-packaged Cars or Transformer Valentine's that every other boy will be handing out
If I were to do this again I would do two things differently.... move the "I" down a bit... it is sort of floating around in space up there at the top of the bookmark, and ask Ethan's permission to cut his paintings first. I was a bad, bad mama and didn't do this. He was sort of mad at first, but changed his mind when he saw the finished product.
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