*SOAP MONSTERS* Tutorial

Here is a craft that is toddler and tired mommy friendly. We have a 2 year old son and a 3 year old girl and they LOVED this. Plus our poor wallets loved the price too.

Easy to find supply list:

soap (any kind, but I used glycerin for a easy cut)

glue (regular old white glue will do)

pen

knife

some google eyes

When dealing with toddlers who can pick a fight about whose 'whatever' is whose, I went ahead and drew a O for Olivia and a C for Cody on the back. Toddlers!

Then just give your little sculptor a pen and let them draw their creature on the soap. For an older kid this could be a very cool piece of art, mine just went bananas. 

If your kids are young like mine, you'll have to do this step yourself.  Just interpret the monsters shape and cut it out. The glycerin soap was sooo easy to cut. If you have an older kid this could be done by them with a butter knife.

All cut out! The kids REFUSED to have their picture taken during this craft. Not even the bribe of marshmallows and hot cocoa could persuade them.

Glue some eyes on and get your monster play going. Being a gal who HATES wasting, I just clumped up the extra soap and used it for hand washing at the kitchen sink. Us poor badgers waste not and want not.  =)

Thanks for reading!

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Yo-yo nuts: how one yo-yo sparked my sewing insanity. (tutorial)

                          


                            My first encounter with a yo-yo was an old blanket my mamaw had. It was a hundred or more of these beautiful yo-yos stitched together making a blanket with colors, textures, and patterns in a fanciful design.


                          
                           So here is my tutorial on the yo-yo for those who may not be familiar with this sewing staple.

First start with a small swatch of fabric. Find something to create your pattern on, I just used a throw away plate.  Trace and cut out.

If you've read a few of my blogs this fabric might look familiar to you. HERE is the blog it came from.

Anywho....

Cut the circle out and hand stitch a running or basting stitch the whole circumference of the circle. Make sure you don't tangle the thread.

This is what it looks like after you apply the stitch. Now it is time to GENTLY tug the thread.

Now you will have this little pouch. Primp it into shape and tie it off at the end.

And there you go! 

By the by...hand sewing is usually avoided because some find it hard to thread the needle. I knew how to hand sew and machine sew for awhile before I figured out what this little fellow was:

I had NO CLUE this was a needle threader. So if you are reading this and had no clue either, don't feel bad.    ;)

All you do is push the flexible wire through the needle eye and put one end of the thread through the wire. Then pull the flexi wire and thread through the eye. I have to give a big *praise the Lord and pass the biscuits* to this invention. 

Rambling, sorry. Back to the yo-yos. Here is my pile I made in one afternoon:

These little cuties have a 101 uses. But these specific ones were made for the locks of my special brown headed badger.

Using the yo-yos and a few extra crafting materials I made these:

She is SO happy I am including her BFF Cheetah in the blog. 

Here are some pink yo-yos I made and Cheetah sneaks in my picture again!

I will have a few more blogs showing the MANY uses of this awesome sewing project.

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The Mexican Two Step

This one is easy and WEIRD. Tonight I was wanting something sweet and different for dessert and thought back to an episode of Top Chef when they made a Mexican inspired dessert.

Miss Olivia LOVES to draw on those legs, and she said her baby, cat baby had to be in the next blog. So here is your 15 minutes cat baby!

Back to the dessert. This one is BEYOND easy. Just make any box of chocolate pudding and add chili powder and cinnamon. No measurements, this is strictly according to how much your taste tells you.

So why the Mexican Two Step? When I told my husband what I was making he said 'I'm not eating THAT. It'll give me the Mexican two step!' 


Excluding old fuddy duddy, daddy. I love that these two kids are willing to take a walk on the weird side every now and again.






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Summer Series: My fantastical romp with ZIPPERS!

Zippers, zippers, and zippers!

Right now we are penny pinching. Today a local church was having a hot dog and rummage sale. Since the church is only a 10 minute walk from our home, I walked all three baby badgers over to have lunch and support the church.

I was not wanting to buy anything except the hot dogs when a bag caught my eye. It was filled with at least a hundred zippers of every color. I really needed ONE zipper so I asked how much, the kind woman said one DOLLAR for the WHOLE bag! My crafting brain almost seized on me, SOLD!

I could not believe the deal I found. At that point I was on such a craft high I over looked my onry toddler Cody stuffing hot dog (including sauce) into his shorts pocket. There is something about a fresh craft find that makes everything OK.

So as I sat at the park while the kids got even MORE dirty I thought about the endless projects. I decided to challenge myself. I am going to do a summer series where I make several tutorials using these fabulous zippers.

I hope to get started this weekend on the first zipper tutorial and I will keep doing the zipper blogs until summer ends or I run out of zippers. 

Now I need to mention my model for this blog. This is Uncle Harvey. Uncle Harvey has been my cat for the last 12 years. I had him before my husband and kids. He is a fat cat who is currently retired and HATING it. He was a outdoor cat in his younger days who enjoyed fighting and catching mice. Sadly Uncle Harvey got into a pretty major fight with a dog last year and he is now retired from the outdoors. That is why he always looks a little annoyed.

Special thanks to my zipper model: Uncle Harvey!

Stay tuned for some awesome zipper fun!

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Cooling off in the heat by freezing a lizard and rat: toddler fun!

Yea! Back to blogging, so let's just dive in. In Kentucky it has been HOT, so I came up with a quick, easy, and for us poor folks: FREE project. 

Go in your kids room and find some silly plastic toys. I found these two lurking at the bottom of the toy box.

Grab two cheap plastic containers. We had these  down in a drawer. I thought about using an old baby wipe box, either way I'd pick something you wouldn't mind if it cracked in the freezer.

Now, in the words of Olivia 'Drown that rat!'

The lizard pictures seemed sad, like the animal lover in me wanted to save him. 

Now pop those puppies in the freezer 6-8 hours.  

They had been good toys.

Now the fun part, run hot water over the plastic cup and pop that puppy out. On this day is was 95 degrees and we welcomed our fun game.

We imagined that the rat and lizard was trapped in the ice age, and we had to save them!

I am just in LOVE with this pretty little girl and her princess hair.

My red headed stranger took the task of rescuing the lizard. 

After an HOUR of cooling off with this free, fun toy we busted them loose using the smashing method. 

FREEDOM!

I think this summer is going to be HOT so I hope all of you stay safe, keep cool, and have FUN this summer. 

Special thanks to the poor lizard and rat who sacrificed themselves for this fun.

And even more special thanks to the two toddlers who inspire me, challenge me, and who have stole my creative heart; Olivia and Cody.

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