Jonah Lisa Land

New Sofa Pillows

Spring can be pretty wet, cold and yucky here.  So I recently made use of a snowy spring day to liven up the living room.

I used the log cabin-y "quilt as you go" method shown in greater detail here and written up in the book Patchwork Style.  You basically cut out the batting to the full size of the square, then quilt your pieces one at a time right on top of it without even doing much measuring.  You eyeball it. That's my kinda sewing.

I guess I could have taken a second to straighten the blanket and fluff the sofa a bit. You can still see my butt print!  Oh well.  I really like the homey look.

Some Rainy Day Fun

We had a string of rainy days last week (I know many of you in the midwest have, too).  Spring colds are going around as well, so we've been looking for stuff to do inside.

I hit my own archives and found some great stuff from The Toby Show days that we haven't done in a while.  If the weather doesn't shape up for Memorial Day weekend, consider some of these fun, indoor, rainy day activities for preschoolers and toddlers.

Great Play Dough Recipe

Animal Sounds Matching Game

Family Movie Matinee

Button (and Pasta) Sorting!

I also found some great ideas on my favorite, fabulous idea clearinghouse, The Crafty Crow:

Gnome Catapult Game

Marble Painting

Lentil Pictures and Collages

And, speaking of lentil & bean art, don't forget the old-fashioned, tried and true, rainy day project we all grew up on...Macaroni Art!

Upcycled Pillowcase Doll Bedding

I told you I had a few extra pillowcases.  

Jemima loves her baby dolls and lately she's been enjoying putting them to bed so I decided another upcycled pillowcase project could come in handy here.

With one pillow case and a little bit of leftover quilt batting, I was able to make a mattress and a sheet. There was certainly enough fabric left over for a pillow, too but I already had a small pillow.  

50 cents people.  You can't beat that with a stick.  I think if you know a little girl in the 1-3 age range, a doll bedding set would be a really sweet little gift.  

Upcycled Pillowcase Laundry Bag

This is a really cute upcycled project for the home.  A simple, but very pretty, laundry or dry cleaning bag made from a thrifted (or lonely) pillowcase.  

I have been collecting old pillowcases for a while with the intention of making Amanda's Pillowcase Picnic Blanket from Handmade Home.  I love that thing!  All the 60's and 70's floral sheet patterns just make me feel good.  I even asked my Mom to hit a few Texas thrift shops for pillowcases but wasn't as clear about what exactly I was looking for.  Anyway, I ended up with a few cases that aren't exactly right for the quilt. Fortunately, I thought of this!  

I even like the two colors of embroidery floss that I had to use when I ran out of the darker blue.  Could be a good gift for a friend or a college kid.  You could use kids' pillowcases for camp Laundry Bags, too.

Small Wall Quilt

I'm currently cleaning out my drafts folder of all the half-written posts I never finished.  I tend to use my drafts folder as a sort of reminder of posts that I want to do.  Some are way out of date but there's also a lot of good stuff in there!  So, todays post is brought to you by, oh, about August of last year, I think. 

Sometimes I need reminding.  

Mine is hung right over the baby's crib and it's gotten me through many a sleepless night. 

The design is 100% inspired by the Little Mantra Quilts from Beauty That Moves. They are gorgeous, but alas, Heather no longer offers them in her shop so I had to make my own--though I did buy her Cash Budget Envelopes a while back and I love them!  

Chalkboard Jar Lids

Regular readers know that I love jars.  I have a sizable collection of recycled jars in my garage and I use them for everything--vases, art supplies, projects, leftovers, bulk food storage, etc, etc.

But if you buy things from the bulk bins, you know that occasionally you can forget what the heck small round grain that is that looks a whole lot like that other small round grain.  Until now, my solution was a strip of painters tape with "CousCous" or "Quinoa" scrawled across the top.  Here's my great new solution...

Family Snacks

I love the look and it satisfies both my love of organization and labeling.  I have plans to paint a bunch more.  And just for clarification the undersides are NOT painted since they could come in contact with food.  I did 2 coats and let them dry outside for several days (again, since they come near food I wanted them to really dry and air out).  

You'll see that once you buy a can of Chalkboard Paint (comes in spray or brush on, and green or black) you will be amazed at the number of things that you decide just must become miniature chalkboards. Tabletops, bedroom closet doors, dresser drawers, placemats.  All strong contenders.

Real Tools

Huck's preschool had a woodworking table for a while and it was a very popular area of the classroom.  So much so that it prompted him to ask for his own set of "real tools" from Santa this past Christmas.  A small tool box and a variety of smaller sized hand tools at our local hardware store rounded out a nice little custom tool kit for him.

He's got a small tape measure, a level, an adjustable wrench, a set of pliers, a carpenter's pencil, screwdriver, a hex set and an 8" claw hammer.  I'd like to get him one of those old-fashioned hand crank drills, too.  And he could probably use a set of safety goggles but our local store didn't have any child-sized ones.  I think I spent around $40 total for the whole kit put together?   

What is it with me and kits?  I do love a good kit!  

And like the many other kits I've put together this has great gift potential not only for your own kid but for their friends birthdays as well.  

Huck loved it (especially the hammer with his name on it) but he didn't have much chance to use it until winter, and the incredibly rainy spring, was over.  With the sun finally shining, we recently gave Huck another new gift to get his carpentry going.

A stump.   

I know.  Our generosity knows no bounds.  We put a big stump in the corner of our play area outside, tossed a few shims and bits of scrap lumber beside it and let him hammer, measure and pry to his little hearts content.  He digs it.

In fact, my dad will be glad to know he does prefer this to embroidery.

I imagine his "projects" getting bigger and bigger. And that's fine with us. The dog could use a place to get out of the afternoon sun anyway.

....................................................................................................................

Ice Treasures are another fun summery project kids can do with their real tools.  

Subscribe to my feed!

Cheap & Easy :: Homemade Knitting Tower

Knitting towers, knitting mushrooms, knitting Nancys and knitting Neds.  Corking, or French knitting as it's sometimes called, is a very old-fashioned craft for kids.  Kids can start doing it as early as about 4 or 5. Basically, as soon as they have some patience for sitting and good fine motor skills.  

It's a great quiet activity for a sick day, when younger siblings are napping, or Mom is having a Calgon moment.  It would probably work nicely in church, a waiting room, or on a long car trip, too.  Give it a shot and see if it's something that speaks to your little people. 

You can buy some pretty neat knitting towers--like this double-sided tower and this mushroom tower.  And check out Spoolknitter, a very cool Flickr group of people who collect old fashioned knitting Nancies.  We didn't want to spend any money or have to wait, so we made ours with 4 popsicle sticks, a TP roll and some masking tape.  Very simple. 

I wanted to get a shot of Huck working on this but never seemed to have my camera handy. I also wanted to do my own video tutorial for it but, honestly, I have other things I need to be doing right now besides figuring out how the heck to do that.  So, here's the knitting tower video we learned it from and a photo tutorial that also good.  

Finger Knitting (how-to here) is also very fun. In fact, I prefer finger knitting but Huck likes working on the tower better. 

Knitting is one of the only activities that uses the left and right sides of the brain simulanteously.  In Waldorf education, all children are taught to knit in first grade.  It's believed that knitting is good for the development of finger and hand muscles needed for writing and also for math skills.  I have no idea about all that, but I do know this much...when Huck is working on his knitting tower, he's not talking.  

And those are some priceless minutes in my day.

Dyeing Play Silks

Last one in is a rotten egg!  Just about any blogger who does kids crafts and toys has done these.  But just because they've been done a gazillion times over doesn't mean they aren't still cool. 

Play silks are another one of those Waldorf-y open ended toys that I love.  They can be used as canopies, capes, sword scabbards, wigs, blankets, water, grass, snow, flags, wings--whatever your child can imagine really.  

I tried to add a new dimension to this project and had planned to dye them using natural dyes from plants, foods and spices from the kitchen.  You know, turmeric, spinach, blueberries, saffron, beets, etc.  Sounds cool, right?  It didn't go great.  It's not that these things don't work, it's just that they don't work well.  The colors are very soft, and they generally aren't light fast or color fast so they fade either over time or after one washing.  Not good for something sticky little children will be playing with.  It's also much more time consuming.  Take my advice and don't waste your time.

So I just did what everyone else does and dyed them with good old fashioned Kool Aid.  That's right, KOOL AID!  The stuff our mothers used to feed us?  It works great as a color and light fast dye!  So well in fact, it ensures that I will never, ever, ever feed this to my kids.  The silks pictured above were dyed 2 YEARS AGO and they are still this vibrant! 

I used the instructions from Make Baby Stuff.  I liked how Amber's came out a very solid color instead of mottled like many I've seen online.  The secret is using a larger dying vessel that allows the fabric to spread out a little and really swish around, rather than bunch up.  I also liked that she didn't use the microwave oven for hers, just very hot tap water, because I have a smallish microwave that doesn't have room for the whole larger dyeing vessel thing.

Anyway, get yourself some white vinegar, the supplies listed below, load up a page with Amber's tutorial and get busy.

RAINBOW SILKS

The silks are 35 x35 8mm Habotai silk scarves from Dharma Trading Company--a great source for dyeable silk and cotton.  $3.75 each.  

For the dye I used 3 packets of Unsweetened Kool Aid for each scarf in these flavors: Lemonade, Orange, Cherry, Lemon-Lime (green), Blue Ice Raspberry, & Grape. 

My total cost for 6 play silks = $27

Approximate cost online = $50

STREAMERS & BELTS

8 x 54 8mm Habotai silk scarves from Dharma.  $1.45 each.  

For the belts I used Kool Aid and just put the belts into the dye bath along with the 35 x 35 scarves.  BUT...I waited and added them a little later so they are a much lighter shade than the scarves for a little contrast. 

For the streamers I used Kool Aid but only 1 packet in order to get a soft pastel color.

For the wand I used a branch from when we pruned the chokecherry bushes out back and some little eye screws ($1.99 a box at the hardware store).  

Cut the stick to desired length, sand the ends a bit, screw hardware into one end, thread the silk through and tie it in knot.

My total cost for 2 streamers & 2 belts = $10

Approximate cost online = $40-50

A great accessory to go along with playsilks is a set of large wooden clips.  We got ours from Birchleaf Designs on Etsy.  

I sound like a broken record, but put a set of clips and a set of silks (rolled up individually and tied with ribbon or twine) in a thrifted basket and you've got yourself a fabulous handmade gift for your child or to take to a birthday party.  Besides being open-ended, play silks really grow with a kid.  I'd give this to a 2 or 3 year old as well as a 7 or 8 year old.  

Child's Sewing Basket

I've been doing so much more hand sewing and knitting this winter that the kids have become very interested. Huck asks for bits of yarn and my knitting needles all the time.  Okay, most of the time it's to tie up a bad guy or use as a sword, but I could just tell he was ripe for this.  

I set him up with his very own little sewing basket and showed him how to do a basic straight stitch.  He likes it.  If left on his own he makes rather long stitches so he runs out of thread (embroidery floss) pretty quickly.  But I plan to let him draw on some fabric (you tape it to a drawing surface and just use regular pencil) and see if he can follow the lines with his stitches, which may solve that issue.  He also doesn't know how to thread the needle yet but that's next up.

 

Obviously, due to pins and scissors and such, the activity requires some ground rules and supervision at first.  We also have a dedicated spot for Huck's basket when he's not using it to keep it out of Jemima's reach.

Along the lines of my Collage Kits and Upcycled Field Bags, I think this will make a really wonderful birthday gift for kids in the 4-10 range.  

I picked up the basket and wooden hoop at the local thrift shop for $1.50.  From my own sewing stash I included a few different colors of embroidery floss, some pins, 1 tapestry needle, small balls of leftover yarn for finger-knitting, and a bottlecap pincushion (pictorial tutorial here).

The only thing purchased new was a $3 pair of small thread scissors.  The whole thing cost me less than five bucks.  Might be a bit more if you bought embroidery floss.  I just cut out small "spools" from recycling bin cardboard (1" x 2" with a notch on each end) and wound lengths of floss from my stash around them.

If you wanted to make this a more substantial gift, you could also include a small bundle of fat quarters or a Knitting Mushroom or Knitting Tower.  

We made our own Knitting Tower out of recycled materials.  Works like a charm and is a great way to remind kids to hit the recycling bin for creative inspiration!