It's Been Busy...

Hubby came home, we moved 1200 miles to Washington (state, not DC), we moved into our new house on post, and I had our 2nd baby.
The house is slowly coming together but my workroom hasn't been touched yet; it's full of boxes and there's no telling when I'll be able to start unpacking. Last night I was able to make 2 necklaces and a bracelet while nursing Liam on the couch so yay for multitasking.
With some luck I'll be back to crafting soon. Happy holidays!

Unbreakable (I hope)

Dorian can't leave a crayon in 1 piece. I don't know if all kids have a phase like this, but I'm hoping this one doesn't last too much longer. This morning I sat him down with a pack of crayons and a coloring book; instead of coloring he decided to break every. single. one. My frustration gave me an idea: crayon pucks.

First you'll need a mini-muffin tin and 4-5 boxes of crayons (I got 24 packs for 25cents at Target). Start out by taking the paper off all the crayons. Next, break up each color into 1/2-1 inch pieces and put them into the muffin tin, while keeping the colors seperated.







Now put the tin in the oven at 225° until they are melted, about 7-10 minutes. Once melted take them out of the oven and let them cool. After the tin is no longer hot put it in the freezer for 10 minutes.









Finally, turn the tin upside down and the crayon pucks will pop out. Now your kids can't spend drawing time snapping crayons in half and you don't need to spend more money on thicker crayons.

Quickie Craft

So I just noticed that I never published this post. Posting it now...

My husband is a few thousand miles away so we're always thinking of ways to keep him in our son's thoughts. I saw popsicle stick puzzles online where a woman drew a jack'o'lantern on the sticks and gave them away. Since I have tons of pictures of Walter (hubby) and Dorian (oldest son) I decided to make a puzzle using one.
I took 5 popsicle sticks, glue, and a picture. I cut excess backround off the picture, laid out the sticks, rubbed a thin row of glue on them, and put the picture I chose on top. Once the picture was dry I used my rotary cutter to cut the sticks apart. Then...all done!

Just Add Water Paint Pages

When I was a kid I had coloring books with colored dots on the page. I'd swipe a wet paintbrush across the dots and I could paint the picture. A month ago I bought one for my son but it was a big let down. The colors were pale and pictures were printed on each side of the page so the water being used on one side ruined the other. I'm always looking for new craft ideas (thanks to Pinterest I'm finding tons) and I found this post on making watercolor paint pages earlier this week.

I made a Joann's run and luckily the one near my house has a good selection so I was able to find watercolor paper and watercolor paints.

The watercolor paper was 9x12 which is a little big for my 3 year old (he tends to make smaller pictures) so I used my rotary cutter and ruler to cut the pages in half so they'd be 6x9.

Once I had some cut I laid them out so they'd overlap with only an inch at the top of each page showing. This isn't necessary but it was much quicker to be able to make a bunch at once instead of one at a time.

Next I added a dot of paint, starting with red, to the top (or bottom) of each page.

After I was done with red I did the same with all the other colors.

After I finished adding all the colors all that was left was to let the pages dry. Once dry they can be used with a damp paintbrush. Dorian loves playing with these now. Next time I make a batch I'll need to do it after I put him to bed since the entire time they were drying he was asking every 5 minuutes if they were ready yet.

Here he's using one of the full 9x12 sheet I originally made (he decided he'd rather swirl the colors together than make a picture).