Kiwicrate Review

One of my favorite bloggers recently posted about Kiwicrate.  It's a company that send you a box of themed crafts for your child each month.  I was intrigued and thought I'd give it a try.  We recently dug into our first box.  It was about wind power.  The 2 projects for the month were a wind-powered cars and a wind sock.

For the car there were enough parts to make 2 cars and to decorate 4 different sails.  When we opened the box there was a pair of scissors and a nice little note.  There was a very good instruction booklet and ideas for exploring wind more.  Everything is packed very nicely and of good quality.  For the car there were wooden wheels, heavy foam for the body, thick paper for the sails, colored sticks for the mast, and tons of stickers for decorating.  There were even extra sheets for making your own stickers, which is what my daughter is doing here!  The decorating was definitely her favorite part.  The box also included play dough for keeping the wheels on and precut tape strips.

My son is still too little, but he had fun helping us.

Our finished cars

He wanted to be sure you saw the striped sail!  We used our wind to race them across the kitchen floor. 

The second project was a wind sock.  It was my daughter's favorite project of the two.  It came with nice oil pastels for decorating and lots of ribbon.  She didn't want more than one ribbon of each color, but there was about a yard of 4 different colors. 

The Kiwicrate came with an observation chart.  It has a guide for rating the wind and a place to draw what your wind sock looks like for 7 days.  We've been faithfully going outside to check, but we certainly can't leave her beautiful creation outside!

I wasn't sure if these boxes were going to be worth $20, but she loved it.  Besides enough supplies to do the craft, there is lots of stuff left over for other projects.  It all comes in a nice box addressed to your child.  The instructions are clear and come with great illustrations.  Everything was of good quality.  I think my daughter may be a little big for them (3-7 is the age range), but she still enjoyed it.  We've already gotten our second box about gardens and she's pumped.  If you think your child might like it, use this link, and you can get your first box for $10.  (I also get $10 off of mine!)  It's definitely worth checking out.

Back in business!

So I had the great idea to switch the office/sewing room with my daughter's bedroom.  I thought that I could get it all done in one long weekend.  Apparently that was a ridiculous thing to think!  I've spent the last 3-4 weeks trying to get this project finished!  I had to paint both rooms, clean the carpets, assemble some new furniture, empty both rooms, and fill them up again.  We are all pretty happy with how it is turning out.  I have a small pile of stuff to give away still and a small box of stuff to find places for.  My daughter loves her new yellow room.  I love my new gray office.  I'm going to try to post about it tomorrow.

I've wanted to make my son a bunny shirt for weeks now because he LOVES bunnies for some reason.  This was my first project on my new desk!  Simple and quick.  Very satisfying!

 

Rotten little thing!  He was excited about wearing his bunny shirt and wouldn't stop playing with the fluffy tail! 

I'm very excited to have a clean (for today!) space to be sewing in again.  I feel very motivated to get some things made!  Off to schedule some more posts....

Handmade Holiday Challenge Week 4

Week 4 already!  I got this week's project finished on Sunday, so I've been waiting all week to post it!  I've posted about car cozies before, so this is nothing new.  I finally have one that's going to stay at home.  My little boy is 19 months old and he loves cars!  Couple that with a great sale on Matchbox and Hot Wheels and how could I not make one for him?!? 

Since he's still little, I thought a straight road and a gas station would be enough.  I used fabric paint for the numbers.  I like that it's feely, adding another element for distraction!  I didn't do a great job with centering the letters, so I added the dots to fill the space a little, and I really like them.  They offer something tangible to count to go along with the numbers. 

I added a little loop to the gas pump to tuck the spout? into.  This turned out to be quite helpful for keeping it out of the way when I was sewing it!

Complete with a car that looks kinda like Grandma's.  I think he will love it!

Last year, I decided that I want to make something special for my kids each Christmas.  Last year I made them hooded towels which they still use.  I'm going to start on my daughter's gift this weekend, I hope.  She's 6, so it's a little harder to surprise her.  She's too curious!

How about you?  If you've kept up with me, you only have one more gift to make to be entered to with the $25 gift certificate from Connecting Threads! 



Counting till Christmas

This year we have decided to do a book advent "calendar." We have a regular one that is a little house, but it never seems that fun for everyone. I thought this year, we'd try books. Every night we get to unwrap one and read it. 24 different books in a row. No reading Elf on the Shelf 12 times in a row! I used some books we already had, bought a few new ones, and my sister actually found about half of them for $1 each at the flea market. I figure I can catch some on sale after Christmas to replace the ones we end up not loving or that we grow out of.
All 24 of the books are wrapped and read to be opened. (Do you have any idea how long it takes to wrap 24 little book? I bet my back can tell you after sitting on the floor doing it!) They are all in a basket, along with this Frosty that my little boy LOVES, waiting a spot under the Christmas tree.  Several of my Facebook friends wanted to see the finished list so here it is!

1. The Christmas Story - Jane Werner
2. Christmas in the Manger - Nola Buck
3. Bear Stays up-Karma Wilson
4. The Snowy Day - Ezra Jack Keats
5. How the Grinch Stole Christmas - Dr. Suess
6. Clifford's Christmas - Norman Bridwell
7. The Poky Little Puppy's First Christmas-Justine Korman
8. The Berenstain Bears Meet Santa Bear-Stan & Jan Berenstain
9. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer-Robert May
10. Christmas Trolls-Jan Brett
11. Santa's Favorite Story-Hisako Aoki
12. Olive, the Other Reindeer-J. Otto Seibold
13. The Nutcracker-Rita Balducci
14. The Christmas Story with Ruth Morehead's Holly Babes
15. Frosty the Snowman-Steve Nelson
16. Mouse's First Christmas-Lauren Thompson
17. Christmas Surprises-Lucinda McQueen
18. Little Porcupine's Christmas-Joseph Slate
19. Franlkin's Christmas Gift-Paulette Bourgeois
20. Arthur's Perfect Christmas-Marc Brown
21. Little Critter I Smell Christmas-Mercer Mayer
22. Country Angel Christmas-Tomie dePada
23. Biscuit's Christmas Ever-Alyssa Saton Cappercilli
24. The Night Before Christmas-Clement C. Moore

This is not the order we are reading them in, and it is not all of the Christmas books we have. I left out some that we like to read alot, like The Jolly Christmas Postman. I also left out several that only the baby would enjoy and some that were characters like Max and Ruby and the Care Bears. I think it would also be fun to just do 12 days. You need less books that way! Maybe start small and expand your collection after Christmas...or better yet, books for Christmas gifts! Let me know if you have a favorite that's missing from our family library!

Library Bag

Summertime is here! At our house, this means Daddy is home everyday with the kids while Mommy is at work. I try to encourage activities other than TV watching and playing on the computer. The family has decided that this summer, every Tuesday is library day. They went every once in a while last summer, but my daughter can really read this summer, so we want it to be a more regular activity. To get her excited about it, she definitely needed a library bag!

Of course it's princesses. What else could it be?

She picked this shiny, silky hot pink fabric for the inside. This came from a scrap grab bag I got at the fabric store for $1.

I didn't use a pattern and pretty much made it up as I went. The bag is pretty large (since lots of kid's books are oversized). I used a decorative stitch on the handles, because she loves to "pick a stitch" on my machine. I think she was pretty happy with how it turned out!

"Now can I take a silly one?"

Car Cozy

Last spring, I made a car cozy for my little friend, O. O's mommy asked me to make one like it for a birthday gift. I was happy to do it. The original one I made had a car wash and a gas station, train tracks (O loves trains), and a curvy road. This one is a little more simple.


A road to drive on and 5 garages!

The gas station on the end it the best part. You can't see it very good in the picture, but there is a shoe string attached that you can use to "pump" the gas.

It all folds up nicely and closes with this cute little car button. The cars are snug and secure to bring out to lunch or church or the doctor's office.

My original design was a combination of about 5 different car cozys I found online. This one is very similar to Jill's at Homemade by Jill.

Hooded Towels

I used this tutorial from The Cottage Home to make these cute hooded towels for Lily and Jacob for Christmas. Lily loves hers because it's like her baby brother's. I really like it for Jacob as well because it wraps him up nice and snuggly! He's too big for the baby towels!


It takes one big towel and one hand towel. I got these on clearance at Target for about $3 total per set.

This polka dot material I got at Wal-Mart years ago, I think.

This rainbow swirl is St. Jude material from a scrap bag from Hancock's last year. Lily picked it out of my stash, but didn't know what she was picking it for! I really liked how these turned out and think I will make a few more for them. Now to find 2 cute hooks for the bathroom for them!