Winter Art - A Family Night Activity

Last night, we gathered around the table as a family and did Christmas/Winter art. 

Wendy's watercolor trees

Isaac's watercolor snowman

Clara's acrylic paint ornaments

Nathan's pencil drawing shepherds

Nahan's pencil drawing Christmas trees

Amelia's acrylic paint snow scene

Amelia's acrylic paint snowman

 

A New Fall or Thanksgiving Wreath

I was inspired the other day by something that I saw on Pinterest.

Here is the original for sale on Etsy for $40.00.

I knew that I had most of the necessary items at home to make this wreath.  

I had some fall leaf garland and an old grapevine garland in my decoration box.  I knew I had some dark brown burlap from another project and some hemp string in my craft box.  After gathering my supplies and my glue gun, I got to work. 

First, I had to make the grapevine from a garland into a wreath.  I determined the approximate size I wanted it and then began to make a circle.  I used the hemp string to keep it together.  Then I made the burlap flower - more on that below.  Finally, I finished it up with some leaves from the old garland.

Here is my finished project.  I would still like to make a little banner that says "give thanks", but I haven't gotten that far yet.

I've never really made flowers from fabric before, but I found that the easiest way for me was to slightly fold the fabric alternating from the front to the back to make a "flat" flower.  To make more of a "round" flower, I folded to the front.  My burlap flower consists of 2 "flat" flowers and 3 "round" flowers of different sizes.

DIY - Dry Erase Paint Chip Calendar

I found myself with a little time on my hands this past weekend, so I decide to finish a project that I started a few months ago.  I originally found this idea from a pin on pinterest.

I picked up a poster frame at my local grocery store, you can get one almost anywhere.  I bought a 18x24 frame.  Then I went to Lowes and picked up some paint chips.  You will need a total of 35 paint chips.  You can do an hombre effect and get colors that all match or you can do what I did and mix it up a bit.

The other things you will need are a circle punch, double-sided tape and a ruler.  If you want to line the back of your calendar with a piece of fabric, you will need that too.  I did not choose to do that, instead I just turned over the paper that came in the frame and worked from that surface.

Here are the colors that I chose, minus a color.  I just realized that one is missing from this picture.

Figure out what order you want them to go in and make sure they are going to fit on your frame.

If you want to, punch a circle out of the top of the paint color where you can write the date once it's made into a calendar.  I strategically placed my punch over the writing.  At this point, you could also round the corners if you wanted.  I liked mine as they were.

Once I had them all punched, I did a dry fit just to check out spacing.  If you look carefully, you'll notive that a few of my middle brown chips got circle-punched a little off.  Be sure to hold them tightly when you are punching them.

Now it's time to attach the chips.  Use some double-sided tape and start at the bottom.  Measure from one edge and find the middle of your background.

Take your color that will be in the middle and place it in the middle of the poster.  Since my poster frame was 18 inches wide, I centered my middle color over 9-inches.

My spacing was about 1/8-inch between each color.  Work from the center over the edge.  Line up the ruler on the bottom of the poster to keep the swatches level that way.  Now start from the middle and work your way to the other edge using the same technique.

Once you have the bottom row completed, measure in from the side and make tiny marks all the way up the side of the poster.  This will give you a guide of where to put your edge pieces.  Do this on both sides and then put your edge colors on.  

Then you can put your other pieces in.  Start with the middle color and attach the whole column.  Then, just work your way up from the bottom working hard to keep everything lined up.  If you want to measure everything out, you can.  I just found that it was easier to eyeball the middle pieces once I had the sides lined up.

Once you get all of the colors in, put your frame back on and admire your work.

Figure out where you are going to hang it and put it up!

Find a dry erase marker and fill out your month.  I had just purchased a bunch for another project, so I stole one from there.

dry erase quiet books for church (or other quiet times) customized to your needs!

the other day i was cruising around on pinterest and came across a pin for dry erase quiet books.

you can make these books for anything.  it doesn't have to be for church stuff.  you could print pages with a child's name to help them practice writing, or it could just be coloring pages or whatever.  the possibilities really are endless.

here is my version and what i did.

all you need for this project is

1. a 3 ring binder
2. sheet protectors
3. dry erase markers or crayons
4. pictures from the friend magazine (or anything really)

i had plenty of random 3 ring binders hanging around as well as some sheet protectors.  i had a few dry erase markers, but they were the fatter kind, so i grabbed a pack of skinnier ones while i was grocery shopping.  I also picked up a 3-ring binder pocket to hold the markers.  for an eraser, i just used a folded paper towel.

for the pictures, you can either round up your old friend magazines and tear out the pages or you can print them from the friend website, which is what i chose to do.  the easiest way i found to do this is to:

• go here and click on the issue that you want to print from.
• at the top of the page near the month and year of the issue, click on the download button (see below for a picture).  click on the download button and choose a .pdf format. this will download the whole issue to your computer in a .pdf format that you can scroll through the pages and print the ones you want.   when you are done, just erase the .pdfs from your computer.

• print as many pages as you want.  i printed the coloring pages, hidden picture pages, and the fun stuff pages.  you can do as many as you want.  i did about 2.5 years worth to make 4 good sized books.

once you have them printed, put them in the sheet protectors in your binder.  i sorted my pages according to age level.  my youngest only has coloring pages in her book.  the other books have a couple of coloring pages but are mostly filled with activity pages.

my finished books

in the original pin, she had also purchased dry erase crayons.  i didn't see any of those at the grocery store, but you can pick some up on amazon here.

**Update 07/27/13 - went to staples and picked up some of the dry erase crayons and they are awesome! definitely worth looking into getting some of those if you are going to make a dry erase book for a younger child.

i did a test run of the dry erase coloring book this past sunday with my youngest.  she did great with it but i think i will definitely look into the dry erase crayons.  i was a little worried about her drawing on herself or the church benches and hymnals with the markers.

i didn't bring the other books for the older kids because as a rule, we don't allow the older kids to draw and such at church.  they will get to use their books for general conference sunday and stake conference.

fun kids crafts

i decided it is time to do some crafts with the kids. So, i got on the oriental trading company website and found these fun crafts. i am sure the kids will love to make them and they will serve as nice little family home evening activities as well.