Crafting with the Munchkins- Valentine's Day Hearts

Thursdays are my day off, so this last Thursday, instead of baking like a crazy person like I normally do, the kids and I did a Valentine's Day craft.   Two points for me right? I know it's just a craft, but it beats letting them eat their body weight in whatever dough we may be mixing up at the time.

Anyways, I don't know where I saw the example of this craft at, but it's simple and fun.  Here's what you need:

crayons

cheese grater

wax paper

iron

scissors

thread

First let each kid picked out 3 crayons. Why three? I haven't a clue, it's the first number that came to my mind.  Pick as many as you like. 

Next peel off the crayon wrappers and grate the crayons.

Once all the crayons are grated spread one piece of wax paper on the table and have the kids sprinkle the crayon bits all around the wax paper.

When they like how it looks cover with another piece of wax paper and use an iron to melt the wax.  I found that fast, quick swipes over the wax paper melted the crayons without spreading them around to much and mixing the colors into an ugly brown.  The kids loved watching the crayons melt and spread around into neat color patterns.

before melting

After melting

Then all you have to do is draw hearts on the paper and have the child cut them out.  String them up and hang them in the window, or in Lilly's case on your wall. 

 Cute right?

I may have used the covers of my chicken magazine to secure the thread.

Again the duck is from one of my magazine covers.

Stitches.....Not the Knitting Kind

I could make this into a really drawn out story about my weekend, but instead I'm just going to give you the facts. Lex was running around my parent's Honda shop and ran into a display.  He hit the bridge of his nose and got  a pretty deep gash.  Well I'd call it more of a divot. It was really deep and gross. Anyways, I was called, and we met up at the emergency room.  Two X-rays and a bazillion superficial questions about the state of my beautiful boys little face later, my son had 3 stitches and a bruised face.

Before the stitches. The cut doesn't look so horrendous in this picture. Lucky you.

After the stitches.

I am so proud of my little man.  He didn't scream and cry when the doctor put the numbing medicine on. He just balled up his fist, trembled and  little tears just slid down his face, but he didn't squirm or try to move. He was so brave.  It just about tore me to pieces. I have one amazing little boy. Now if only I could keep him in one piece.

Update on Fingerless Mitts

Yesterday I wrote a post about some fingerless mitts I am knitting up and selling at the local coffee shop.  Well, after looking at them some more I decided to edit the pattern a little bit and change a couple things about them.  Here is the new and improved mitts. 

I decided to shorten the cuff and lengthen the thumb and fingers.  I also changed the width of the fingers so they fit a little more snug.  What do you think of this new design? I'm actually quite proud of it. Which do you prefer? The longer mitts or the shorter ones?

Old longer mitts

New shorter mitts

Knitting Stuff.....For Sale

Lately I've just been knitting stuff up for no reason whatsoever.  Basically I'm just knitting so I don't kill people.  I knit up a couple of these adorable chunky baby hats. (doesn't Ren look adorable?) I knitted it because it was a new stitch pattern I hadn't done before, and it was cute.

If interested this hat is for sale for $10 and is a 0-3 month size.

I have been looking at all the patterns on Ravelry for fingerless mits.  There are about 30 bazillion. So I just just took bits and pieces of ones that I like and came up with this.

I really like the eyelet  section on the bottom, thumb, and top.  I may play around with the length a little, but all in all I'm pretty pleased.  I will be knitting up a slew of these and selling them.  If you're interested in a certain color let me know, or you can find them at Joanna's Dealicious Treats starting on Monday for $10 a piece.

Snow Forts and Sledding

This winter weather has been insane.  Cold one day and then rainy and 50 degrees the next.  We were lucky enough to get about 4 inches of snow last week, so my husband persuaded my kids to build a snow fort with him on Sunday.  My kids are 5 and 3 1/2. Guess who ended up helping with the fort? Yup, me.  After much to long of alternatingly sweating and freezing, the fort was done.  It was worth it.  The kids loved playing in the "cave" as they called it, and sledding down the huge mound of snow.  Days like this almost make me like snow.

The entrance to the "cave"

The cave with it's posh sky lights.

The Sugar and I may have gotten in on the sledding as well.

Holy Crap, Could I be Stylish?

I've just  finished knitting up the second thing in a week for myself. I'm feeling kind of selfish. Anyways, I received a gorgeous pea coat from my sister, and needed something to go with it. So there's my excuse.  I went to Ravelry and saw a pattern for a cowl like the one they've been selling at Gap.  I got the pattern, changed a few things, and knit this little beauty right up.

I don't think I've ever looked this fashionable! Cute right? I may or may not be wearing my frog pajama pants in this picture.  Basically this cowl is just one big loop that you double up and put around your neck.

Does my forehead always look this long?

You can't see it well, but the cowl is knit in seed stitch. Which means you alternate between knit and purl so it looks bumpy. (Bumpy? Sorry, that's the most technical term I could come up with right now.) 

The changes I made to this pattern were slight. I increased the number of stitches cast on from 131 to 151.  I wanted the cowl to be a little longer, and I used a size 11 needle instead of a 13. Mostly because I didn't have a 13 and didn't feel like buying one.  Also I only knitted it until it was 10 inches wide instead of 15.  I'm a small person and didn't want this thing covering my head.

Skiing and Slippers

I've been wrestling with myself about what to put in this blog post.  I thought about wtiting how great Christmas was spending with all my family, and blah blah.  But I decided against it because 1) it would take about 20,000 words to describe how much I love being with my family (I'm talking the whole fam. All 13 of us.) and 2) It might get a little boring and it would probably make me cry.  So I've decided against it.  All I'm going to say is I had a great Christmas, I love my family, and my kids are the cutest little skiers in the world.

This was Lilly's first year skiing.  That is her little Ski School Vest.

In knitting news, the pair of slippers I made myself 2 years ago now have holes. Terribly sad, but I found this adorable pattern for new slippers on Ravelry and HAD to make them. Since I'm a dork, and didn't do anything on New Year's Eve I ended up knitting the whole thing.  It was a really easy and fast project.  I felted  them yesterday and am now anxiously awaiting them to dry.  Super adorable right?

Gosh I love knitting. I would seriously probably go crazy or kill someone if I didn't knit.