Little Elephants: Kids Crafts and Fun Activities

What I'm reading these days

The post office has been good to me recently, and you are now guaranteed that if I have five minutes of quiet, I'm bound to have my nose glued to one of these (not that these mythical moments happen too often recently). Each is so full of inspiring ideas, it kills me. You can count on seeing bits and pieces here that got their start in one of these books.

{unfortunately, this has turned into a wicked-short post as I have a laundry list of things that needed doing yesterday -- including laundry, incidentally. Do click on the images to learn more about these books. I'm hoping to get back into a proper blog groove soon}

Spring-time activities

One of the fun perks I get with writing for Scholastic.com is that every once in a while I get tapped for kids' craft ideas. Last week it was a site called SheKnows. Head on over for my contribution to Kid-friendly crafts for Spring and Easter.

Everybody do a Happy Dance!

Clair Robertson, the blogger-extraordinaire behind Kiddley, is back at it again on her personal blog Loobylu.

It's rather embarrassing how I perked up when I noticed new posts from her in my feed reader.  I'm just sad I was mid-move when she started up again after a year-long hiatus :-)

Do go visit & welcome her back, her sites have been hugely inspiring to me.

So in love with Bloesem Kids :-)

Now that we're settling into the house (slooowly), I'm starting to get the itch to have some creative fun once again. This is especially a good thing since I've got a swap to ship out this weekend!!). It was so hard to even contemplate doing fun crafts with the kids when I was going through the move and working full-time, and packing, and mothering, and wifing... 

I'm so glad that Bloesem Kids is around  and chock-full of creative goodness for me to soak in. I'm especially tempted to try out some of Arounna Khounnoraj's craft projects which are beautifully photographed, and explained in a clear, straight-forward manner (no thinking required!).

If you have creative sites that inspire you, please share, I'm always on the lookout for new perspectives :-)

mini swap no.3 (!!)

Molly is hosting her third annual mini-swap, and sign-ups start on Tuesday morning at 10am ET (do not forget this date & time!). This is a wonderful project where children (and their families) around the world are matched up for a little swap of creative goodness. Do head over to read all about it!

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And a sincere thank you to all of you who have left me notes of sympathy here and by email (and on facebook, and on maya's mom!). I really do appreciate your kind thoughts.

(re)inspiration week continues...

My work schedule is a bit, uh... busy this week so I'm having to continue my stroll about the blogosphere in search of more creative inspiration instead of actually doing anything creative. My idea is that even if I don't ever actually do these wonderful projects, I'll at least have a faint memory of them embedded in my over-full noggin. Whenever the kids are desperate for something new to do, all I have to do is let the echoes of these posts inspire me. I hope they help you, too.

Write, Mama. Write. has shared a sweet heart-shaped Christmas ornament she made with her boy over the Holidays. This is one that looks so easy to replicate, I think the main thing is to have a good heart template -- my hand-drawn hearts always come out wonky & wobbly :-)

tiny happy shared (way back in December!) a link to this great no-sew tutu tutorial. We know a bunch of little ballerinas who would probably definitely like these. I'm thinking this is a perfect project for Maggie and Bjørn to help make.

Amanda (aka SouleMama) has shared the bird calendar her kids worked on all last year that she had printed by Lulu.com to send out as gifts this year. I love the idea of having a quality bound printing of a child's work and already have a number of ideas in mind (Bjørn's been telling me about the comic book he's been working on at school, and Maggie collaborated on a fairy-tale with her best friend last year). Tomas self-published his children's book with Lulu and we've been incredibly happy with the quality so far.

I've you've taken up knitting again as I have, you'll appreciate this bind off tutorial on the purl bee :-)

&, before I head to bed, I'll just state for the record how very much I still miss Kiddley, I hope Claire decides to bring it back one day!

PS ... I was off to bed but had to follow just one. more. link... to DIY Kids, the book that I've just put on order, used to be a blog!

Getting (re)inspired part deux

Continuing on yesterday's meandering walk about the craft-blogosphere...

Amy has posted about paper cuts. Tomas (the husband) is from Denmark, and every time we visit I am mesmerized by the paper craft. We have heart-shaped paper mobiles, tree-shaped paper ornaments, Danish stars on our Christmas tree, snow-flake templates, craft-books, you-name-it. If it's a paper cut, you know I'll be interested. As an example of how happy I was at Maggie's efforts at paper-cutting, I even went so far as to buy her her own craft knife (crazy-sharp) and  cutting mat to encourage her paper-enthusiasm. (this might make me the crafting variety of a stage-mom, I'm not sure...).

This is the sweetest thing I've read in a long time.

BloesemKids was launched in December -- how is it possible that I was so preoccupied as to miss it?! This is guaranteed to be the place to go in 2008 for impeccable design, and gorgeous inspiration.

I happened upon Cheeky Beaks this weekend, and I'm hooked. It was one of those moments where I found myself thinking *I could do that*! And then realized acknowledged that, no, I really can't, and isn't it a wonderful world we live in that there are people walking about with real talent? Do take a moment to click through her archives, there's a ton of loveliness there to discover.

Melissa has posted the cutest House and Car toppers, going so far as to share her templates. CUTE!!

Gabriella shared a link to design your own snow-flake. At first I was irritated with the site, but when I saw my completed snowflake, I'll admit I was hooked. They made my random clippings look incredible!

Ok... I can see my list of inspiring posts and sites is just going to grow-and-grow, so I'm going to break it up yet again. I'll post some more tomorrow, but I'm thinking after that I'll have to come up with a weekly-round-up. If you find any links I ought to check out, please share them in the comments :-)

Getting (re)inspired

It's been such a busy time recently (new job, holidays, round-robin sickness, etc. etc...) that I haven't had much time to sit & read my favorite blogs, let alone post to my own or discover new ones. This past week I carved out a bit of blog-time and I am so happy I did. Here are a few highlights:

Outi completed her ripple blanket recently and it is GORGEOUS! I've been watching this thing grow all year and it is so exciting to see the final result. I am almost inspired to do the same, but the thought of such a drawn out project fills me with dread. Maybe I could make one for Mamie?

Patricia posted about making crepes for her daughter and I was so inspired I hauled out my crepe pan (a gift from Mom years ago) and taught Bjørn how to make them. He has since asked to make them just about daily, and is turning into an eager chef -- since starting with the crepes a week ago, he's added fruit salad, and omlettes to his repertoire. He's also asked if I would teach him to make one new thing each day & I'm happy for the help in the kitchen even if I do get a bit flustered with him so close to the hot stove and with Tor underfoot, wanting to help , too. If you've never checked out Patricia's personal blog, you should. It's a favorite of mine: Good + Happy Day

I've a bit of a love-hate thing for embroidery. Sometimes it can just be a bit too ... precious, for me. Molly has posted a sweet Gnome that I adore. I'm not sure I'd want Gnomes about the house longer than Christmas-time, but this little guy would be a welcome addition to our holiday swag.

This week I discovered A Number of Things, I can not believe I have gone as long as I have without crossing this path before. I'm thrilled to have it in my blog reader now, and am looking forward to keeping up with the creative goodness Alice shares there.

Amy has posted the coolest terrarium, and shares links to plenty related resources and photos to inspire. As soon as things settle down a bit, I think I'm going to have to make some with the kids. Maybe in the spring-time?

Ali posted last week about some stamps she made for a friend of hers. I'm thinking this would be a fun project to do with the kids -- I'd have them draw small pictures with a Sharpie on big pink erasers, and then I would do the carving with our lino-tools. I'll have to noodle over this one, but I know a project is going to come from this!

Oh, my!! My list of inspiring posts and sites is getting so long, I think I'd better break this one out so you actually have time to visit them all! I'll be back tomorrow with more :-)

Sew, Mama, sew!

Oh, my. If you thought I was giddy over the Handmade Pledge yesterday, you have no idea how I reacted when I followed Ashley's prompt to check out the Handmade Holidays over at Sew, Mama, Sew!

They are sharing tips and tutorials for gifts you can make for the holidays every day in November. [did you hear that thunk? 'twas me hitting the floor in a faint]

Six days in and already I've got me a to-do list. First up will be this sweet lunch-bag by Dorie of Tumbling Blocks.

Now, if only my apartment weren't such a disaster and I actually had a few square feet of space to set up the sewing machine... add to that the fact that I'm a novice seamstress... the very least I can do is try. Right?

I took the handmade pledge!

Ashley Hogan posted today on MOMformation about the Handmade Pledge. It's rather silly really ... how excited I got about the whole concept!

Several years ago we did a handmade gift exchange with Tomas' family and it was the most fun we'd had in a long time. Figuring out exactly what to make for who and then figuring out how to actually get it all done in time was a priceless experience.  Much more fun and meaningful than rushing around a mall.

Tomas' mother still displays my sad attempt at embroidery in her home in Denmark -- though I'm thinking in retrospect that it might be out as a belly-laugh inducing conversation piece...

This year I'm up for the challenge of either making things myself or buying handmade.

I can't wait!! Won't you join me?