Natural Family Crafts

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Seasonal Window Art- Cardstock cutouts with tissue paper

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Window cut outs. Adapted from a craft idea in All Year Round. These are cut out of cardstock, then tissue paper is glued on and they're placed in the window. I used an X-acto knife over a self healing mat that I usually use for cutting quilt squares. I photocopied the shapes from the book, adapted them as I wanted, and cut over the photocopy onto the card stock, folded in half.

With the flash you can see the cardstock part.

One for us, one to share in May.

Roosters in our front window.

My friend Rachel reminded me of the importance of seasonal traditions. Then our kids grow up with a sense of belonging to the family; "Remember? We always did ___ in the spring" "We always had ___ for snack on snow days" We're still establishing our own traditions here, I think that changing these cutouts in the windows will be a nice addition to our family traditions.

I'm loving this book, All Year Round, for beautiful simple traditions. There are so many ideas for rhymes, art projects both for adults (this one I did during nap time because of the X-acto knife involved) and children, stories, and traditions. They make it clear that it's better to only do a few simple ones and not burn out rather than try to do them all and feel frazzled.

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Easter Baskets

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I'm opening up my Etsy shop again for Easter this year. I'm planning on staying open for about a month or 6 weeks, then going away again. Carrin at Down to Earth Toys usually has my dolls, and she stays open year around ;)

I had a fun time putting together items both in baskets, and as basket stuffers for little ones who already have a treasured Easter basket.

Want to make your own?

Then I took pictures as I did the carrots, bibs, and silkies, tutorials coming soon:

Easy way to dye a play silk
Make a stuffed carrot!
Make a washable cotton bib

Wooden eggs are available at Cherry Tree Toys. Shipping is kind of steep, but that's understandable since they're heavy. Little ones love the 'heft' of solid wood eggs, and love collecting them in baskets over and over again.

Are you making your children things for Easter?

Sam saw me making this batch of dolls (and I just sent some to Carrin over at Down To Earth Toys too) and he was smitten with this little green one. "Ba-uh-beee" he says, and he made up a sign of patting himself under his chin as 'baby'. He sleeps with Baby (still in our bed, you can see ~grin~ ), and usually comes down stairs with Baby in tow. Hannah never really attached to any stuffed toy, though that hasn't stopped me from making her quite a few ;) It's neat to see this little guy as he gets his own preferences and personality. He's 15 months now, it goes by so fast!

So come visit me on Etsy soon! I'll be listing more, I have 10 baskets/stuffers in total, I think. Then I'm going to get those leather baby shoes up as well, I just need to take individual pictures first.

Part of WFMW

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Attention Games by Barbara Sher

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Attention Games: 101 Fun, Easy Games That Help Kids Learn to Focus

A friend lent this book to me, I was really impressed with the quality of activity suggestions in the book. The author, Barbara Sher, is an occupational therapist but the attention games in the book are great for any child. In our fast paced world, many children are rush-rush-rushed and have a short attention span as a result. In our home we value taking things slow, and these activities are a nice intentional way of slowing down and working on attention.

The suggested games are separated by age group. I liked that this book didn't talk down to its reader, and it had fun original games that children realistically would enjoy. There were some well known activities (paint a fence with water) that are good to be reminded of, but lots of new ideas that I enjoyed reading about.

In the 1 to 3-year-old section I was reminded about how fun ping pong balls are to play with. We promptly went out to Target and came home to play the ping pong ball game: Placing a coffee can on the floor have your child stand over it and drop ping pong balls into it. We didn't have a coffee can so we used an cashew container.

The book describes how the attention for this game is focused, and that the game encourages hand-eye coordination, as well as learning about weight, movement, size, shape, and sound. Beyond that, it's a great deal of fun to chase bouncing ping pong balls around the kitchen ;)

We expanded the game to feeling the difference between the heavy wooden eggs that thud and the light ping pong balls that bounce all over. We placed both in an egg carton (because what child doesn't want to play with eggs in a carton?) and Sam has taken the cashew jar lid off and put it on at least a hundred times in the past day.

There is a section for 3-6 year olds, 6-12, and teenagers. I read through the teen section also, thinking it might be hokey but there were neat ideas in there too. I liked the focus on being positive, an area that most teens need encouragement in. One of the activities was List Your Options which encouraged thinking through different options and choosing the most effective response rather than acting impulsively (I still need this reminder!).

Another was Accentuate the Positive, in which you write down a list of people who you come into contact with each day, then next to their name write down a positive characteristic. Another good reminder for me too; even the most difficult people do have something good about them, and life seems nicer when I remind myself of this.

Sources:

Attention Games at Amazon or your library might have it
Ping pong balls I got at Target- I think it was $1.43 for 5 of them. Amazon has 144 for $19.99 right now- which would just about make my kids' week if I brought those home!
Eggs from Cherry Tree Toys
Scarves (there's a catch-the-falling-scarf game in there too) from Thai Silks. I'm dying some silkies later this week- I'll post on that too.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Scripture on my Walls

I decided that I didn't need to wait until I learned calligraphy or could afford the beautiful scripture artwork to decorate my walls with verses I love. Our house is a kid-friendly collection of second-hand furniture, so this works with our miss matched decor.

A trip to Hobby Lobby started with on-sale posterboard and ended in the scrapbooking section. I'm not a scrapbooker, so it was fun to check everything out.

We settled on stencils, a calligraphy pen, and ink pads called 'chalk' to go with the stencils. By then the kids were done being in the craft store so we didn't notice at the time that the pen was black, not brown to match the ink pads.

Flower stencils. Am I seven years old? ~smile~

First we cut squares out the off white paper, made lines to keep our words on track, and did the verses (so that we could flip over if needed because I messed up). Then we rounded some of the corners, and cut 'matting' out of the poster board to mount the verses onto.

They're up above our kitchen table.

⁴ Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. ⁵ Whoever receives one little child like this in My name receives Me. (Matthew 18:4-5, New King James Version)

⁵ If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. (James 1:5, New King James Version)

But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”

(Joshua 24:15, New King James Version)

⁸ Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things. (Philippians 4:8, New King James Version)

Thursday, February 4, 2010

We're Happily a TV Free Family Part 2

This is a two-part post on the hows and whys we don't have a TV in our house.
We're Happily a TV Free Family Part 1

So, what do we do without TV?

We encourage imagination
My kids find plenty to do without the TV on. I think sometimes parents put the TV or DVDs on for their children thinking that they need to be entertained constantly or because they feel guilty about not having every minute be 'quality time' with their children. I don't mind letting my children observe what I'm doing while they do their own thing. They may protest a bit, and in that case I put them up on my back in the Ergo or next to me on a chair. There is no boredom, and they love to get mom's attention even if I'm chopping veggies at the same time.

Without movies and television telling them what to think, kids eventually learn to make up their own fun. My kids naturally mimic what they see us do, which is preparing them for the future. They both will turn anything into a baby, soup, vacuum, or phone, because they have a chance to watch what I'm doing over and over, and this is how they process it. They try on different rolls; Mommy, baker, carpenter.

(Sam turned this carrot into a baby, and carries it around and pats it as such, as soon as I gave it to him)

As husband and wife, we have more time to communicate. We plan and dream and explore unconventional options because we have time to think about and discuss them. It's so easy to get distracted by the TV and then have little time for anything else. Goodness knows it's easy enough to get distracted by the internet, so we keep that in mind too. For us that meant having a laptop that can be closed and put away, and honestly is a little bit cumbersome to use with the little keyboard and screen and dinky speakers.

My husband and I play checkers, chess, and Chinese checkers together often after the kids are in bed, and we can't wait til they're old enough to learn how to play. (Right now we do a lot of imitative 'jumping' on the checkers board, though). We sketch out future house plans, talk about the realistic-ness of having a milk goat, try new recipes, read, hubby has learned to play the guitar... We end up doing lots of things that busy families are deceived into thinking they don't have time to do.

Especially reading; I've so enjoyed the world that has been uncovered since I started reading nonfiction regularly. Don't worry if your husband isn't a reader, mine isn't either unless it's technical manuals, military strategy guides, or WWII history. He usually plays the guitar while I read, or I read while the kids play near me on the floor. I read and then summarize, read out loud parts that are fascinating, and we discuss the ideas together.

Some books that specifically have shaped how we live and will raise our family:

We enjoy planning fishing trips, talking about politics, working on hobbies (sewing and knitting for me, model rockets and hunting for him, fishing for both of us). Even though we live in an apartment right now, our children are still exposed to a variety of different activities, which I believe will help them to have a take-charge attitude with their own lives.

We've learned that with just a little more creativity, we don't need to own the ideal home to come up with plenty of things to do. Living {temporarily}in an apartment (or in the city, or during the winter in Montana) doesn't mean that we just give up and turn on the TV because we can't send the kids outside to play, don't have the money to do everything we'd like to, or because we have two small children who need to nap. We take advantage of the sidewalks and go on walks when the weather cooperates. We use our little kitchen to the fullest extent. The dining room/kitchen table is covered with craft supplies, or house plans, or fishing tackle the better part of the time. We take advantage of the lack of lawn mowing and house maintenance that we have right now, and can spend even more time on hobbies, learning, thrift shopping, and exploring the area.

A good dose of optimism can help you see all the great things that available to you wherever you are. Excitement is contagious, and rather than having children who are bored and need television to entertain themselves, they too will be overflowing with ideas and activities, as they imitate your enthusiasm for life.

Some TV free activities:
Modelling Wax
Make felted wool balls
Make an ocean scene in a bottle
Bring the outdoors in with a Nature Table and Forcing Bulbs

What things have you learned or done because you turned the TV off?

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