Another Activity Mat!

Ok, I couldn’t resist…I made another activity mat! On my husband’s side of the family we draw families instead of individuals since there are so many people (Adalynn will be grandchild #18 with #19 not far behind!). The family we drew has three little boys in it, so I knew that I wanted to make a car mat. Obviously I’m not going to do a full out tutorial since I already did one, but I just wanted to show off a picture and talk about some of the changes I made.

So this time I added some train tracks, a police station, WalMart, and a train depot. Overall I think it’s pretty awesome. I guess we’ll find out for sure if it was a success this Sunday when they open it!

So what do you think? What would you add to yours?

Family Tree {tutorial}

This coming Friday my family will be celebrating my husband’s grandma’s 90th birthday. That’s amazing! Her actual birthday is on Sunday, Christmas Day (fun fact..it’s my birthday too!). When we found out that there would be a big party in her honor my husband came up with this amazing idea for a gift for her. After all this, this is the woman who always answers “oh still fat and sassy” after you ask her how she’s doing. She actually asked for no gifts, but we simply couldn’t resist! I have to give the credit to my husband because it was truly his idea. I just executed it. I think my creativity must be rubbing off on him.

This would make a great gift for grandparents for birthdays or anniversaries.

Supplies Needed:

• Plywood or other flat wood (we just happen to have plywood at our house)
• Wooden leaves (I found mine here..they have tons of options!)
• 3 shades of green paint
• Brown spray paint
• Red acrylic paint
• Sand paper
• Drill and jig saw
• Wire
• Gold paint pens…1 thin and 1 medium

Step 1: Ok well first you’ll need a full list of your grandparent’s descendants. Make sure it’s well organized so you know who belongs to who. Now, your grandparents’ children will be the branches so you won’t need leaves for them. In my case this means there are 5 branches. From the branches will hang their children (the grandchildren). Now I chose to include spouses with mine. So grandchildren’s spouses hang from the grandchildren, and great grandchildren hang from there, in order of age. Does that make sense?

For example, my in laws are Art and Mary Jo. Their names are on the branch. They have eight children. So they will have eight rows of leaves hanging from their branch. Our row will look like this:

Adrian
Brittany
Mackenzie
Adalynn (we chose to include our unborn baby since she’s part of our eternal family)

Step 2: Once you’ve got the family figured out, lay out the leaves on the plywood and draw a tree to fit. Trust me when I say you’ll want to use the leaves while you’re drawing the tree. You need to make sure you have enough room between the branches. Make sure to make marks where you will drill holes for the wire for the rows of leaves.

 

Step 3: Cut out the tree. I had my incredibly talented husband do this part. He actually used a thin blade that is meant for curves on this to make it easier on himself. He then drilled the holes I had made marks for. We are using a thin wire so the holes didn’t need to be very big.

Step 4: Spray paint the tree brown. I know I didn’t say sand it yet. Just trust me. Let dry.

Step 5: Ok now you’ll bust out the sand paper. I went over all the edges and sanded them. Not only did this smooth the edges, but it gave the tree a nice worn look. Obviously if you don’t like the worn look you can sand before painting, but I think the worn tree actually made the leaves and writing on the tree stand out more.

Step 6: Grab your red paint. Using a stencil or free hand, draw a heart in the middle of the tree where the branches all come out from. Make sure you do several coats to make the red really stand out.

Step 7: Write the grandparents names in the heart with the medium paint pen. I chose to put a “+” sign instead of “and” because I thought it would fit better with a tree (like their names are carved in it). Then write the children’s names on the branches with the same paint pen, including their spouses if they have them. Start on the left with the oldest and go around to the youngest.

Step 8: Now for the leaves. Sorry, but apparently I didn’t take any photos of these next couple steps. On each of the leaves (except the ones that will be the bottom of each row) drill a hole on the top and bottom. On the ones that will be the bottom (Adalynn in our family) the hole only needs to go in the top.

Step 9: Now for painting the leaves. The grandchildren will be the darkest green, spouses the medium, and all the great grandchildren the lightest green. Let the leaves dry.

Step 10: Grab the thin paint pen. Start writing names. Make sure you have correct spelling! I had 75 leaves to write on…phew! Make sure you have the right names on the right colors too!

Step 11: Cut small strips of wire. Insert the wire through the back of the holes to connect the leaves to the branches and the leaves to each other. Use needle nose pliers to twist the ends down.

Step 12: If you want, give the tree a shot of sealant. Attach a couple of picture hangers on the back. Then get ready to give the gift of a lifetime! I have to say I’m just bursting to give her this gift! I know she’ll love it.

I'm linking up here:

Social Responsibility

Ok so this is a topic I’ve been mulling over for awhile and I didn’t quite know how to put it into words. I think I’ve got it figured out and I wanted to share with all of you.

A few months ago we were still in the heat of summer. Some of you may have heard of the wildfires going on here in Texas. Some of them got awfully close to home (a particularly large one was about 45 minutes north of here…my firefighter brothers actually went and helped with that one). People were a little nervous…and understandably so. We hardly had any rain all summer, making perfect conditions for fires. But what most people don’t know is that grass fires are very normal for that time of year and happen all the time. They very rarely turn into the wildfires we hear about on the news (trust me…I come from a family of firefighters).

Anyway, what does this story have to do with social responsibility? Well in the midst of all of this, I was on Facebook. An acquaintance (who also happens to have a blog and quite the social media influence) posted that there was another fire reported at a certain intersection of the local freeway close to our homes and that a local children’s hospital was being evacuated. Of course this instantly caused a panic among all who read the status. However, there were a few problems with her words. First of all, the children’s hospital (which is literally around the corner from my neighborhood) is not located at that particular intersection of the freeway at all. In fact there is a completely different hospital there. Second of all, when I probed further (because I was instantly skeptical), she had never even bothered to verify if the statement was even remotely true. She had overheard it and just assumed it must be true. She caused an unnecessary panic among people who were already nervous.

It really got me thinking. We bloggers, social media savvies, tweeters, etc. have a responsibility. We have a responsibility to be aware of what we are posting and be aware of how it might affect others. This makes me think of all the different celebrity death hoaxes (among other things) that are growing in popularity on Twitter. All these tweeters just instantly retweet without ever bothering to check the facts.

So what am I trying to say? It’s important that we think before we act. Now we may not always be in the position to cause a panic like my acquaintance, but we do have people watching what we say. We need to be responsible. We need to be spread positivity. We need to give credit where credit is due.

So how do you think you can be more socially responsible? Have you ever had an experience like mine?

Handmade Gift Exchange

This past month I had the fun opportunity to participate in Craftaholics Anonymous Handmade Gift Exchange.

My partner sent me this awesome drawn canvas of a tree that looks like a heart has been carved in it with my husband’s and my names on it. How cute right? Plus a super cute Christmas tree made from wine corks that I’m sure took lots of effort. She has a Facebook page/shop where you can see the other fun things she makes.

I decided to make my partner  a memory board. The tutorial can be found here. Since she lives with her boyfriend plus another male roommate I chose fabric that wasn’t too girly and would look nice most places. Hopefully it’ll be great for hanging cards, pictures, notes, etc. Here’s a picture of what I made her:

I’m so glad I participated and I look forward to doing it again next year!

Colored Pencil Holder {tutorial}

Like I said last week, I am trying to make as many present as possible. So this week I have another tutorial for a great stocking stuffer for the budding little artist in your life. My daughter has become obsessed with coloring (she’s coloring her Doodle Bear as I type this). I want to make a little holder for her to be able to carry some of her colored pencils around without them getting lost. I’ve seen a few things like this around the web, but to be perfectly honest I didn’t use one particular tutorial. I just kind of made up my own.

Supplies Needed:

• Fabric ( I used patterned for one side and white for the inside)
• Sewing machine
• Thread
• Coordinating ribbon

 

Step 1: Cut the patterned piece of fabric to be 16” x 10”. Then you’ll need to cut a piece of white fabric (or whatever inside fabric you’re using) to also be 16” x 10” plus another piece of white 16” x 6 1/2”. This will serve as the pocket.

 

Step 2: Hem one of the long edges of the 16” x 6 1/2” piece.

 

Step 3: Place the larger white piece down and place the pocket on top with the unfinished edges matching up.

 

Step 4: Cut two pieces of ribbon to be about 17” each. Find the middle of each piece and press down. Place folded edge of the ribbon on the edge of the white pieces, with the strands going inward (refer to the picture). Pin in place.

 

Step 5: Place the right side of the patterned piece down on the right side of the white pieces. Sew together, leaving about 2” to turn right side out.

 

Step 6:Turn right side out. Press the edges down, making sure to fold in and press the hole left. Sew a finishing line about 1/4” in from edge.

 

Step 7: Now it’s time to sew the lines for the pencils. I just laid mine about and figured out how much room. I think I had about an inch in between each line. Make sure to draw a line or little notches so all your lines stay straight. I only sewed to the hem line a the top of the pocket, not all the way to the top of the pocket simply because I thought it looked cleaner.

 

Step 8: Place your colored pencils in, roll up, tie with the ribbon, and place in your artist’s stocking! This was super easy and I’m so excited for my daughter to open it.

 

I'm linking up here!