crafts with felt

Today we continued in our crafting. I bought felt the other day so we decided to do a few Christmas ornaments. Both kids were excited and used needle for the very first time. Patrik didn't have time to finish his star but Katrin finished hers and it looks awesome! She did such a great job and can't wait to put her star on our Christmas tree.
I made a gingerbread man. I downloaded a template from this blog and plan to do more in the upcoming days.
Bring on the Christmas magic!!

craft on

Lately there is a lot of craft work happening over here. Last week kids went crazy with the rainbow looms. We don't have the kit with a board and a hook, just the elastics but kids didn't mind at all. Katrin was having a lot of fun doing different color combos of the bracelets and Patrik joined her as well.

Ivo has started building shelves for Katrin's room last week. He is so handy this man of mine! So happy for his creativity and craftmanship, this way we can build custom things and have them exactly as we want. We are going to do shelves on both sides of the window and they will be connected by a bench.  I can't wait to see the final look, the whole room will change so much by adding the shelves.

Kids love building as well. Of course with Lego.

And this weekend they spent so much time building stuff from perler beads. I bought them in summer but kids haven't done too much with them back then but this weekend they went almost "nonstop". The collection of their creations is now twice as big as on the photo from this morning.

What have you been creating lately?

the cutest minibook ever

When Katrin came from kindergarten today, she gave me a gift. She made this precious little minibook all by herself. I just love it! She is so creative, this my little girl. We did a few minibooks together before and it seems she loves this kind of craft, her creations amaze me every single time. It seems she's definitely got a little bit of her mommy's love for scrapbooking. I adore all the misspelled words so much. This is one of the cutest gifts I've ever got, that's for sure. LOVE.

the coolest mug ever

On Friday we had a firm party with a gift exchange. I got a gift card to Starbucks and decided instead of buying coffee or latte and filling myself up with extra useless calories to buy a mug which can be customized. I asked kids to draw pictures for me. So now I have the coolest mug ever and just looking at it will always put a smile on my face during my long commutes from work. Each of the kids had a half of the insert paper to draw on, Patrik went for a Jack Sparrow and Katrin for a picture of herself outside with flowers and birds. I love it!

getting ready

Tomorrow is Halloween! Kids have been preparing for this big day for quite some time now. They are wearing costumes to the school tomorrow as well. I took this photo of them two weeks ago when they were trying their costumes for the first time at home. Since then they have been wearing them almost daily.

We carved pumpkins on Thursday and finished the decorations outside today.

Ivo was helping Katrin to carve her pumpkin, I helped Patrik with his. They drew the faces my themselves.

We made the milk jugs ghosts for the outdoor decorations this year. Ivo made holes into them today and put the lights in. They are so cute! We all love them.

Katrin drew this adorable Frankenstein, it makes me smile every time I look at it.

Patrik was taking photos of his creations as well. I love how he tries to document everything on his camera! It seems he's got his storytelling genes from his mom. It makes me so very happy! I love you, buddy!

 

Happy Halloween!!

:: boo ::

Every day Katrin comes from kindergarten with plenty of drawings and little crafts. Today she brought home this drawing plus a few more. How cute are these skeletons?! I just love her creativity.

our thankful tree

On Monday I posted about a thankful tree project we've just started doing. We keep the circle tabs next to the tree and every day we add little notes on the branches of our thankful tree. Katrin usually draws cute little pictures but she wrote notes as well. We are all loving this project and will definitely keep it on our to-do tradition list for upcoming years.

After Thanksgiving I plan to put all the circles on a metal ring and keep them. I know we will treasure these little notes forever.

a new tradition

I've decided to start a few new family traditions. We have never celebrated Thanksgiving before. It is not a Czech holiday and so far we haven't felt like we have to take over all the holidays celebrated here in Canada. But with children growing here, we have decided to give it a try and slowly get into holiday mood as well. I don't think we will do turkey and all the stuff, we are going to start slowly and each year will add a little bits to the celebration. For this year we will go simple with a thankful tree.

I got the idea for this thankful tree on this blog. Yesterday we got some branches outside and today I bought a circle punch and will dig out some fun patterned papers. Kids are both excited to create their own thankful prompts! I'm really looking forward to see this whole project coming together. Will post photos then.

little project

As I mentioned earlier this week, I ordered a wrong size photos (instead of 5x7 I ordered 4x6, there were 4 photos on each sheet) for the office tags album. Ivo picked the right ones up yesterday so those 4 albums are finally done, wrapped and ready for my family as Christmas gifts. I know there will be more people willing to have photos of us than the amount I have so I decided to use the "wrong" size photos and try a little project. The photos are 2x3 inch large, I adhered them to a long piece of paper (3 inch wide) and was folding the paper after each photo. On one side there are 8 photos, from the other side 7 as I adhered the space of the eight photo to the cover. It was easy, fast and I love the result! And I know my aunt will love it too.

I hope I will be able to post my December daily pages soon. I'm working on the album every day and it is coming nicely together. Both kids wanted their own albums too so I've created 5x7 inch mini books for them as well. They are having lots of fun and I'm happy they've got the creativity from their mommy.

a gift

Today I've received a gift from my very talented friend Danielle Donaldson aka wish bliss studio in mail. I'm in love with the prints! The details on each of them are just amazing and I so love the colors. Lately I'm in love with teal color so the print home sweet home is just perfect (and also because our house is going to be in a similar color as on the print!). I can't wait to put them into frames and hang them later in our house. Thank you so much, Dani!!

December daily :: day 1

It's here! The month all of us have been waiting for. The month of merriment and joy, peace, love and happiness. The most wonderful time of the year. This holiday season is going to be very special because we will celebrate Christmas with our family. We haven't seen them for 2.5 years. It will be our first Christmas since 2001 we spend together and it's going to be the very first Christmas for kids to celebrate with their grandparents. We really can't wait.

 

Journaling (will be handwritten under this photo):  The two of you couldn't wait for December to come so you could finally open the first window of your chocolate calendars. It was the first thing in the morning both of you thought of. You let the chocolate melt in your mouth and a pure happiness spread over your face. Yesterday we pulled out some of the Christmas decorations and decorated our apartment a little bit. It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

This December is the first one I'm doing  December daily project. I'm going to keep it very simple and focus on photos and words. I'm really inspired by Molly's album from the past 2 years, I love her style. Since I don't print my photos at  home, I'm not going to post my pages here daily, will do it probably once a week. This double photo will go on the daily page for day 1 and I'm going to add some journaling underneath.

credits: Ali Edwards - everyday twill, Katie Pertiet - last call chat freebie @ designerdigitals.com

Let's celebrate this season in love and happiness.

another craft project

Every Tuesday Katrin and I go to the local library for a story time. While she is listening to the stories librarian reads to all the kids, I always take a magazine and look for some inspiration. Today I borrowed Martha Stewart's Whole Living and saw this cute simple project made from a ribbon.

Directions from the magazine (I took a photo of it since it is available only for reading in library):

• cut ribbon into three 6-inch strips, form each into a loop. Stack the 3 loops into a snowflake shape and glue at the center. 


• punch out 2 cardstock snowflakes, glue together and glitter. Glue at the center of 1 side of the ribbon snowflake. Let dry. Repeat for opposite side if desired.


• to hang the ornament, stitch a silver bead to the top of 1 ribbon loop, then thread it with cord.

So after we came home, I grabbed a leftover ribbon, a button and tried to make my own version. It is not as fancy as Martha's but it still looks cute hanging down.

I don't have a snowflake punch,neither have I a glitter or a proper glue. So I simply took a needle, thread and a button and project was done. Simple and easy. I might to add little pearls on the ribbons though. I plan to do several sizes from different colors.

I will try to do this project with Katrin as well but instead of ribbon and needle, we will go for paper strips and glue.

I also saw these cool ornaments on tumblr, can you believe they are made from toilet paper rolls? These are so fun!

crafts for little hands

It's freezing outside so Katrin and I are doing some crafts at home. She loves to try new techniques and she is over the moon when she can play with a glue. I copied the angel from a Big Book of monthly ideas on a cardstock and then she played with it. I love it, her angel girl is so adorable.

The second project was stamping. I cut a sweet potatoe in half and cut a shape of a star (well, I tried ;) ) and let Katrin to play with it. I'm going to include this one in my December daily project. I'll be using the other side for journaling.

Tomorrow I plan to do a  paper chain with her and if I get walnuts, we are going to do the turtles.

Do you have a favorite craft for kids? If yes, please share with me.

December daily :: journals

I was thinking about a place for journaling, kids drawings or little notes for my DD project. Some days I will journal on the back of the daily pages but I wanted to add some more space as well. When I was going through my files on computer, I came across these Reflections journaling cards by Ali Edwards and decided to use them for the album.

I still try to keep the album in simple clean lines. I can't wait for December to come!

December daily :: adding more details

On Saturday I bought a scallop punch and played a little bit with the patterned papers inside my album. I really love how just a little fun detail of the edge of the paper can change the whole look.

I'm a minimalist while scrapbooking so I think I'm going to keep this project in simple lines as well.

I also added the collection card sheets and cut them to 6x8 inch. I saw Ali using them a lot for her projects and I like that you can insert some little stuff into them.

This little red reindeer was attached to Katrin's pj's we bought on Saturday, I plan to use it somewhere in the album.  Last week we went to Walmart and in the office section I saw these clear pocket tabs, I just love them. I'm going to use them for kids drawings etc small stuff. I attached it directly to the back of the day card (they stick by themselves and are repositionable).

Sorry about the poor quality of the photos, it's raining for several days in row and the light here is so poor. I can't wait for a sunny day to come!

Ali posted a list on her blog where everyone participating in this project can write a link to her/his blog. It is an awesome idea and I can't wait to browse others blogs for more inspiration.