Crafting Time – Part 5

Yes, seriously – Part 5 and still counting!

We once bought packages of this metal “sheet” that came in rolls and made these reliefs with it. They adorned everything from birthday cards to tags for gifts, and were real pretty to boot!

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This goes down as the weirdest craft ever conceived. B and her BFF sat on our porch one day after school and made these guys out of sticks – and chewed gum… ya. They do look kinda cute, though.

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Often our party invitations became craft times as well. This one is for one of A’s bday parties when she was younger. We had a stock of funky fonts (thanks to Gramma!) and pics back then to use. It was always a fun part of planning a party.

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Don’t let these plain old popsicle holders (from the dollar store, because we needed so many) fool you – these are works of art. We used to spend one day after school was out and go down to Granville Island and pick out all kinds of fresh fruit and make our own popsicle combo’s. The flavors got more and more interesting as time got on.

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Sometimes crafts are done “to” us. This is one of my Hubby’s brothers’ crafty gift at Christmas one year. He made these cards, inserting family faces into actual game shots, for the girls (soccer and baseball) and Hubby. There were even all kinds of made-up stats on the backs! They were a real hit, and a great Photoshop craft.

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Another “done to us” craft. Hubby’s bro (again) photoshopped each of the girls (and their friends – this was from B’s grad) into a published shot – Miss Universe, and I think A’s was a professional baseball game. Crazy fun! I really gotta learn photoshop…

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More, again, to follow, one day. Including crafts given to us by others! Stay tuned. Again.

Crafting Time – Part 4

Yes, Part 4! I’ve put only 6 crafts per post because I personally can’t read past two or three paragraphs without coming to the end of my own attention span – I’m giving you all the same courtesy . Who wants to read a post that’s 50 photos long?! So, here we go one more time.

Yes, even our pumpkins get downright crafty! One year we eve had one with little white lights poking all around it. These ones are an owl and an… anteater?? Can’t remember. We’ve had some pretty impressive ones around here, though. I’m pretty sure I remember these templates being in a Martha Stewart mag.

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It’s a bit hard to tell what this particular craft actually IS by this photo… We bought dollar store colored sponges, cut them into strips and tied 6 or so together to make water bombs! Then we put up barriers, like the trampoline on edge, and bombed each other away. They also made good, fun, wet, baseballs to hit with a bat for a splash. And far easier to “fill” than those fussy water balloons!!

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This craft was a great birthday gift for our then-4 year old niece/cousin. B painstakenly drew out the Dora and then her and A decorated away, front and back. She got to wear it the whole day – the whole year!

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Nothing is safe from a crafty soul – not even breakfast. With tubes of raspberry sauce and spray-whipped-cream, anything is possible!

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“Craftiness” around here not only includes food, but also clothes. B bought this “Gr 7 Grad” dress during our trip to Paris, and then sat and sewed on row after row of matching colored beads around the bottom rim and top collar. Way to go, B! It was a very rewarding craft – she was so proud of it on her “Grad” day.

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I can’t remember what we did with these after we went to all that trouble to make them, but at any rate, here they are! I’d found a dough-bead recipe online and away we went from plain round to super fancy. Dough-beads were fun to make, that much I do remember.

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Keep tuned for more craftyness!

Crafting Time – Part 3

And more! See other blogs as well, Crafting Time – Parts 1 and 2. These are still from the pre-teen, early teen days when we had less homework and more spare time .

Sometimes a lazy Sunday afternoon turns into “creative time”. This craft led B to create an entire fishing game with all the fish she made from construction paper and crayons. We all got to take turns fishing in her pond. That didn’t sound right…

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Grama taught the girls many, many different card-making ideas. They also made a loom out of a cardboard box to do something (I can’t remember, but I think they were friendship bracelets). There was no end to this crafting weekend. B even got up early – on her own! – to keep going. Shocking behavior.

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Do cookies count as crafting?? Over the years we have baked DOZENS of sugar cookies. We have DOZENS of cookie cutters and DOZENS of special toppings from all sorts of special sources. We even have a number of great frosting recipes from plain sugared to hard-rock meringue.

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The girls were taught by an old friend babysitting them once how to KNIT! They each started a lovely scarf and worked on them for quite some time… although they never quite finished. I think we still have the half-finished scarves on the needles in a bag somewhere… Still, it was fun for them for awhile.

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The girls really do get creative when they have time to be “bored”. On this particular day B decided to start making all kinds of people out of wire, then proceeded to make playground equipment for them and a pet turtle! They’re “polly pocket” sized.

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The girls went crazy one summer with these window stickies that you do on a sheet of plastic, then transfer to any glass surface. We STILL have them sticking to our old car windows! This one was too pretty to hang up – I wanted to keep it “for all time” in my scrapbook.

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Again, more to follow… Yes, we do a LOT of crafting around these parts. We could have OWNED a Michael’s by now.

Crafting Time – Part 2

More of the craftiness we had going on here when the girls were a bit younger (pre-teen to early teens). They still craft now, at 14 + 17, but their crafts have definately become more elaborate (read “EXPENSIVE”).

One day we had walked all the way down to the beach, and had decided to collect all kinds of rocks while we were there to paint and glue. The critters turned out pretty cool, but I think we should have used better glue than the hot glue sticks as the weight of the rocks was too heavy for some to stay together. We added magnets to the back and had them on our fridge.

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A few times we sat with a pad of paper and designed all sorts of silly clothes. Come to think of it, those times were all in ferry lineups… But it was fun! And some designs were completely off-the-wall. This is one of A’s sheets from when she was very young.

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We had these magnets on our fridge for ages. We had pressed tiny flowers, glued colored tissue and the flower to the back of a clear “rock” and added a magnet. Beautiful! I think our last one just recently broke (the magnet-to-tissue bond isn’t great if you pick up the magnets many times over).

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Shrinky Dinks! The girls and I did these ages ago – can’t remember what in the world we did with them… This past Christmas Tt drew a bunch of mini B/W pictures and we shrunk them and made earrings for all the girl sisters + cousins. They were actually a big hit!
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These cute little felt mittens on a ribbon adorned all our Christmas gifts one year. We wrote “to” and “from”‘s on the back of each mitten. Of course, they coordinated with our wrapping paper and Christmas tree theme .

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We (meaning the girls, really) painted these bird houses, although I’m not sure why – we’ve never bought bird food… They so suit each girls personality – A is colorful and bright, B is thoughtful and precise. We have them outside now, which I hate to do for the potential wear and tear!

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More to follow! We have not yet even BEGUN to craft… Mwuahhahaha.

Crafting Time – Part 1

The most “random hits” I get here are people looking for either things to do with teenagers (see post) or homemade craft ideas, so I thought I’d post some of our oldie but goodies.

When the girls were young, we used to do 1 or 2 crafts a week together. They thought I was sooooo smart to know all these crafts just “outta my head”, but frankly I’d just buy a Martha Stewart Kids mag once a month and figure it out on the fly… (They still think I was just being real smart!). WELL, thank goodness for scrapbooks – here are some photos of a few of our efforts:

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Beady critters and people and things of all kinds were a favorite past time for awhile. We even had a big book of all kinds of things – including little 3D shoes! They could become keychains, car mirror hangy things, earrings – you name it. B made this one, and I kept it in the scrapbook.

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A bit of a fuzzy pic of a pic from my plastic-covered scrapbook, but they’re soaps. We made them for Cmas gifts one year with molds we found at Michael’s (where else?!).

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Gingerbread houses DEFINATELY count as crafty – especially when you turn it into a contest . We did a few back then, and now I started doing them with the boys (see blog). We even have a cast iron mold from Lee Valley.

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One day A + I decided our “craft” would be to plant some mini flowers in a bunch of molds. They all died, but she went on to plant many a bulb with Hubby, even though she confessed she does NOT like bugs. Or dirt.

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We didn’t get a photo of the actual craft – this is the drawing that’s in our scrapbooks. We did little bejewelled t-shirts! They were a lot of work even for B + I, and prompted A to say (in fun) “This is the WORST day of my life!”. Such a drama queen.

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There are always other family members willing to craft, too! Aunts + Gramma all have their own interesting stamping and card-making materials that are fun for crafty visits.

Stay tuned – more to follow!