Crafting

Here's some crafts I've been making over the last couple of months:

I saw the idea for this colored clothespin matching game to practice fine motor skills here.  I had the box in my wrapping paper stuff and I had the card stock strips already cut because they were left over from a project I did probably two years ago! (I am a hoarder of all things that "might be usable down the road," not like those people who hoard trash or anything, but I couldn't see throwing away all these good paper strips.  And then voila, there they were just waiting for this craft...I love it!  Michael on the other hand does not seem to see things the same way I do :)  

I Mod Podged all the paper and pins when I was finished in hopes of making this last.

For some reason I thought this might be a little tough for Wes, with all the colors and patters and pinching the pins, but he had no problem figuring it out.  I'm now keeping this in my car for a restaurant activity.

I saw the idea for these mugs here and thought they were so fun!  Wes just moved up to the bigger kid (potty trained to 3 1/2 year old) class at Sunday school, so I wanted to take his old teachers a little thank you.  I bought the mugs at Ikea and used my chalkboard paint.  It was tough to get the lines straight on a curved mug, but they still turned out cute.  I included some cookie bars and a few pieces of chalk too.  His teachers really seemed to appreciate them :)

And another chalkboard paint project I was doing (which was actually my own idea, though I'm sure not original) was painting some flower pots for Wes' CBS teachers.  As I've mentioned in previous posts, Wes can be very "spirited" (ha ha, love that saying!) and his teachers are so patient and loving and are such wonderful examples of Christ's love that we just wanted to tell them we love them too.  I forgot to take a picture of the finished project, but I painted the bottom half of the pot with chalkboard paint then used my glue gun to add a ribbon around the pot (hiding the uneven paint lines).  Then we bought some pretty begonia's at Trader Joe's to put in the pots.  I wrote "Begonia's" and "Love, Wes" on the pot in chalk.  I though it would be fun to write on the pot the name of whatever flower you were keep in it.  I would change mine often, since I can't keep flowers alive very long :)

Next up are some baby shower gifts:

I sewed these pacifier clips (the pink one in the middle is for Cora) for my friend Jamie (she was actually my next door neighbor growing up) and isn't finding out the sex of the baby, so I made her ones that were gender neutral.  Here's the tutorial, but I modifed it quite a bit by using ribbon instead of fabric so I eliminated the interfacing and just slid the overall clip on to the ribbon loop, added the velcro and then just sewed the whole thing up.  I enjoyed this little project and since Cora will take a paci every now and again, we were definitely in need of one of these.

Another chalkboard project! I saw these unfinished door hangers at Michael's and thought they would be a fun baby gift too.  Good for the nursery door, or even to hang over your doorbell, just change the words to "Shh..the baby is sleeping." Ahh, the beauty of chalk!  Jamie even said she was going to hang it on her bedroom door which I thought was an excellent idea!  I'm going to need to make one for myself :)

This is the last little gift I made for Jamie.  She's doing her nursery with burlap accents, so I wanted to embroider "Jesus loves me" on burlap, which is Wes' favorite night time song, and it even calms Cora down. (I think because she heard it so often while in the womb.)  Anyway, after I embroidered it and put it in the frame, I thought it looked like a fourth grader's "my first embroidery project" so I enlisted the help of my mom and her embroidery machine to make one a little more professional looking:

 I loved how this one turned out!  I hand embroidered the red heart just so I felt a little better.  My hand embroidered one will be going in Wes' room, since he really loved it (and didn't want me to give it away as a gift anyway :)  I love crafting, but with two kids (and no craft room), it sometimes makes me more crazy than  I already am.  Plus being a perfectionist doesn't help.  Lord, help me to know my limits!