My blog keeps crashing in Internet Explorer, and it turns out the problem is the follower widget. So, I’ve temporarily removed the widget. I’ll put it back up once Blogger resolves the problem, which you can read about here.
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Johnny and I went on a shopping outing to Staples this week, armed with $6.00 of Staples money from recycling two ink cartridges (if you didn’t know, Staples now gives $3/cartridge for any brand of printer ink). Rather than use it to buy something sensible, we came home with these Crayola paint brush pens and some chocolate (Ghirardelli Luxe, currently free after mail-in rebate – so you do pay for the stamp – and highly recommended by our household).
The kids are loving their new paint brush pens. I love them because they feel like they’re painting but there’s no mess and – if they do draw somewhere they aren’t meant to – the ones we got are washable and so will come out of anything. The effect is somewhere between a paintbrush and a marker, so it isn’t exactly like painting with real paint. The brush is made up of individual bristles, so it’s different from other paint markers I’ve seen that had a flexible foam tip. The pens cost nearly $1 apiece, don’t have a ton of paint inside, and are non-refillable, so it isn’t something I would buy all the time, but they’ve been nice as an experiment in new artistic media. Here are a couple recent masterpieces: Johnny:
Emma:
Now for a question: Does anyone know if it’s possible to get something like this that is refillable that still allows for a fine point the way these do? I’ve seen refillable paintbrushes before, but they didn’t have the beautiful fine point you get from these paint brush pens…
Growing up, my mom had an organizing container with three or four dozen little drawers, all full of buttons. I remember spending hours pulling the little drawers out of the container, dumping out the buttons, and counting and reorganizing them. The memories (and the fact that I FINALLY have two children who keep non-edible objects out of their mouths!) inspired me to purchase a bulk buttons set and a plastic organizer (designed for jewelry beads, I believe). I’ll use some of the buttons on clothing and in crafts, and in the meantime Emma and Johnny are loving their new buttons – even if the buttons wind up less rather than more organized at the end of their play sessions!
Welcome to my blog! I’ve been following ABC & 123 from the beginning, and I’m looking forward to visiting the other blogs that contribute to this amazing cooperative blog run by Katie and Katie! I’m a SAHM to Emma (3) and Johnny (17 months), with a baby girl on the way. Before becoming a mom, I taught high school (French and Spanish) and then went back to school for a PhD in Medicine. Emma was born as I was finishing my PhD, and I enjoyed taking care of her so much that I decided to stay home with her after I graduated. Thankfully my husband Mike was able to find a good enough job that this was possible for us! A lot of things I learned in grad school are actually very helpful to life as a mom – I know how to research things I don’t know, and writing a dissertation requires patience and dedication (just like motherhood!) My blog title is inspired by things I love: being thrifty, crafts, and – best of all – being a mom. I love making things with and for my kids, and that is what this blog is mostly about. Here are a couple of my favorite educational posts from my blog: As for picnics, we try to eat outside as much as possible during the spring/summer, and our favorite picnic foods are watermelon and corn on the cob (I spent the first not-quite-seven years of my life living on a corn farm, so corn is near and dear to my heart!) Since we have a baby due this summer, we’ll be staying near to home, but we’re lucky enough to have several family members visiting us! Thanks for visiting my blog, please leave a comment so I can be sure to visit yours! If you have an idea of something you’d like to see on this blog, I’d love to hear it! I found this activity here and on at least one other blog, but I couldn’t remember where and didn’t know what to search for – so if you think I may have seen your post, please let me know so I can link up! Update: Here’s one of the other places where I saw this activity, thanks April for helping me find it! Basically you draw random squiggly lines on a sheet of paper and color in however you want. Emma and Johnny really enjoyed this activity; they actually spent a couple days finishing their artwork! I helped Johnny color his in, which was very relaxing. Our house is a bit torn up right now (switching to a new heating system as the previous one broke – something we knew might happen when we moved in and thankfully something that happened AFTER rather than in the middle of a long cold winter) so I’m very grateful for quiet table activities like this one!
Is it just me, or is Johnny’s hair getting lighter every day? Here are their masterpieces – as I was scanning them in Emma noted that hers actually is not finished, so I guess she’ll be working on it some more! Emma’s:
Johnny’s: I drew the lines on Emma’s using a permanent marker instead of a plain black marker, which is why the lines on hers look so much bolder. We just colored these in randomly, but I could see this being a nice add-on activity to a lesson on complementary/contrasting colors or color wheels. You can also try to color in the squiggles to look like different objects or animals (sort of like finding objects/animals in clouds). I’m also thinking of having the kids make a few on cardstock to turn into cards. Check out the Let’s Say Thanks program: you choose a card, type a message, and your card is delivered to a deployed U.S. serviceman or woman. Xerox prints the cards, which are then mailed in care packages put together by Give2TheTroops.
I finally followed through on my monthly goal of making some maternity clothes by finishing this top (made using this pattern) last night. This is actually the shirt I had started when I wrote my goals post – it only took me 20 days to sew up the shirt I cut out… Overall, I like the pattern. I do feel like it fits a little big – even though I was between two sizes and chose the smaller of the two to sew up. So if I use the same pattern again I’ll be making a smaller size. I think I’ll also bring the neckline in a little – toddlers plus a loose, knit kimono top equals sleeves getting yanked off your shoulders very easily. This is by far the most comfortable maternity top I’ve ever worn, thanks to the cut as well as the super-soft knit fabric I made it out of. I got the pattern at JoAnn’s during one of their 99 cents for Simplicity pattern sales. If you didn’t already know, JoAnn’s usually has sales where they’ll sell patterns for 99 cents, one or two brands at a time. I’ve never seen Vogue or Burda patterns that cheap, but if you’re willing to go with the less-fancy brands it’s a great deal. After watching me drool over sergers for the past decade or so, Mike bought me this one as a combined Mother’s Day (May)/Anniversary(June)/Birthday (July)/Baby (hopefully July but, given my track record, more likely August) present. It arrived last week, but thanks to some rather unfortunate home-falling-apart incidents, I didn’t get to play with it until last night when I used it to sew up this shirt. I’m completely in love with my serger – I can finally sew easy hems on knits, and the side seams look so nice and neat with minimal effort! Now to figure out a way to keep my anything-with-a-motor-obsessed 17-month-old away from the sewing machines… The work of one three-year-old, left alone for three minutes:
… Still, a vast improvement over yesterday (she and Johnny emptied their toy chest and every single article of clothing from their dressers while I cooked dinner) This morning’s destruction even brought some benefits:
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