My son's February project for school was making a Valentine's Day box for their class contest. We tried to think of something completely unique. We came up with making a camera. It was a fun project to do together. Here's hoping he wins.
I found instructions for making a little camera box online so made up the boxes to go to each of his classmates. They may not fit in everyone's boxes, but think the cuteness outweighs that fact.
We just winged it on the Valentine box using cardboard boxes of different sizes, spray paint, duct tape and a juice can. We added a long seatbelt type strap to look like a camera strap. I ordered a blinking bike light to use in the flash. Should have gotten a black one...but guess red is ok for Valentine's Day. We printed out a picture of his class to have in the viewfinder on the back. Also printed out camera buttons and the lens front.
Here is a printout of the Valentine boxes. They fit the Fun Dip perfectly.
For my twins' Valentine's this year I took the oh so ever cute lollipop through the Valentine idea and added the pretzels. Not my best work, but fun and quick.
I have been wanting to take time for myself to post to this site more...yet somehow time vanishes. I keep saying "yes" to helping with big projects at my kids' school. Don't get me wrong, I love being able to help and this year I'm at least taking on projects that I only tend to do while they are sleeping (last year on the way home from the big mother/son event I got coerced into chairing my oldest son said, "Now will you finally pay attention to us?"...so I had to rethink things, as that broke my heart.). I've had a few jobs for non-profits, some invite jobs too. Nice things that give me a little feeling of worth (isn't that awful to say? Guess I have the 7-year itch of being a stay-at-home mom...but I wouldn't change that for the world).
So I'll start off small, but with a big thing that has been a part of all my family's lives for the past few months. The movie "Frozen". From seeing the movie as a family, then taking one of their teachers to see it, to seeing the joy the kids got from learning all the songs, to sharing that with their friends and viewing just about every YouTube video related to Frozen...it's been so fun. A friend gave my boys the cd and it was all we listened to for weeks (now we switch it up with One Direction and Pharrell's "Happy". Yes Oscar night was a battle between "Happy" and "Let It Go" in our family.). They still thank Nancy every time they see her.
My one twin, Hudson, just loves Olaf. Owen loves everything Elsa and Anna. I was on a hell-bent mission going to City Hall at Disneyland plus talking to customer services at any Disney based store we visited to have them make a unisex shirt with the whole cast on it.
I mean really, they couldn't put something like this on a t-shirt?
I spent hours designing one for Owen, as I promised him a shirt. But when I submitted it to the website to make I got a phone call that they don't mess with copyright issues with Disney (don't blame them). The customer service guy was so sweet and felt so bad for all my efforts that he went online searching for us too. I ended up finding one on RedBubble.com and spent a couple of hours shopping their site. So excited to get our package of 10 t-shirts tomorrow (yes, I went a little crazy...but these are unique, fun shirts for the whole family). I've also been designing a few ideas to post and sell on the site (will give updates when I go through with it).
Anyway, back to Frozen. I saw this saying while perusing RedBubble and just loved it. So it was my last addition to the twins' room (I still have yet to update my post to when I first decorated their room...but that will be coming when all my free time opens up and I start putting up all the posts I plan to put up). I just love the saying and loved the smiles the boys got when I read it to them.
We got Frozen on DVD yesterday and will cherish it. When the three boys argue I remind them of the message of Frozen. It makes me miss my sister, makes me think of my nieces. It just brings me smiles. It also brings tears...of joy. Hudson cannot stand when I cry, it makes him really sad. So trying to explain that they are tears of joy is hard. It makes me laugh that after hearing the song nearly a million times that I still am emotional about it. I've tried to take "Let It Go" and make it my new mantra (a work in progress).
If you have some time and want to see a little montage of the boys singing some of the songs they love, here it is:
And, my goodness, if you haven't seen the movie...go see it!
My nearly 8 year old son, Emmett, has really gotten into reading this past year. I am so
proud of him and love that he loves it. My favorite thing is to hear him laugh, and when
he started reading the "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" series I got to hear him laugh a lot. This
week we were driving in the car and he had a couple of his "Diary" books with him. He
was saying that it might be a good idea to have a book mark for each of his books since
he had trouble remember he was on page 112 in his one book and another page in his
other book. I'm hoping he is not mortified by it, but I've made him these bookmarks.
Hopefully I'll hear a giggle from him when I give them to him. His 3 year old twin
brothers have already caught a peek and they had quite a chuckle.
I just finished making my third quilt this year. I made one for my older son's school auction and replicated it for an end of year gift for his teacher (the other quilt was for my twins' preschool auction). Here is Emmett and his teacher after she opened it.
It was a labor of love. We took photos of all the students making the letters. Then I photoshopped the background out. Then printed on fabric for the first time. Then got to sewing. Time consuming, but happy with how they turned out. We also sold the alphabet in poster form (the principal even wanted one for her office). I've gotten quite a bit of use out of the letters. I made name plaques for the students for end of year gifts. I'm almost thinking I should make the alphabet into a font.
This was the first one we auctioned off
Here's the label I put on the teacher quilt
Here's the framed alphabet
Color poster
And here's what I made for each student in Emmett's class for the last day of school
ANOTHER END OF YEAR TREAT FOR THE CLASSMATES
And thanks to Pinterest, I also made these for Emmett's classmates and for a last day of school pool party. They are Nutter Butter cookies made into flip flops. Let summer begin!
