Reconnecting: bows & arrows

We just returned from a 3 week trip to Utah.  It was wonderful to be with friends and family, but I must say, it's good to be home.  It was a busy 3 weeks as we attempted to see everyone and do everything that we had missed out on over this past year.  Hiking, swimming, family reunions, Park City, Bear Lake, sailing, games, shopping, biking, visiting, running, eating out, play dates, over nighters, birthdays... we somehow managed to pack it all in!  I don't know if anyone else does this, but by the end I felt like I had reconnected with everyone... except my own kids.  And this became obvious by the end when the kids were behaving worse than I had ever seen them.  Lack of structure, lack of sleep, an overdose of family of friends and an underdose of their own mother left them fighting, talking back, whining and disobeying more than ever.

So a few days ago we all finally reconnected by working on one of my favorite projects I've done with them: making bows and arrows.  I've realized that doing crafts, projects or games with my kids is how I connect with them best.  And these have definitely been lacking over the last few weeks.  It was so nice to finally sit down with the older three and work on something that we were all excited about again.

I found the tutorial for these bows and arrows on the blog You Craft Me Up.  It was surprisingly very simple and we were able to put 4 bows and 8 arrows together in one afternoon.  Even with the breaks I had to take to feed Will, keep him happy and get the kids a snack.  And the best part?  All of the supplies only cost me $16!  That's $4 per bow and 2 arrows.  I made one each for John, Dan and Joe, and then one set for John's friend who is having a birthday party next week.  A pretty sweet deal, if you ask me.

 
We made one change to the tutorial we followed: I didn't dare let the kids shoot the sticks around with nothing on the end.  Knowing kids, one of the arrows would find itself in someone's eye.  So I taped a piece of the foam to the end.  It could still hurt if it was shot at someone at close range, but at least it won't cause permanent damage.  I would recommend having a rule to not shoot at people, either way.


On Daniel's bow we taped a piece of PVC pipe to it to rest the arrow on when he shoots.  He was having a hard time aiming the arrow, but this made it very easy.



The kids couldn't wait to show the neighbor kids their new weapons... sometimes I wonder what I would be making if I had a girl... a doll? a skirt?... But I'm pretty happy making bows and arrows for the time being :)

Beach robes and summer vacation

I first saw these beach robes on my friend Jessica's blog, Mumbo Designs, almost a year ago and knew at once I had to make them.  I bought the pattern online from MADE and picked up some large, colorful towels from Ikea the next time I was there... and then they sat on my project shelf for almost a year! Well, today I bring you the finished product at last.  When the weather turned warm and we became frequent visitors of the beach (and the kids continued tripping all over their towels on the way back to the car) these robes moved to the top of the project list.  Now the kids can dry off, warm up and continue playing without skipping a beat.



And as for our summer vacation... you may have noticed I am kind of taking a summer vacation from this blog.  Back in May our family went on a "digital diet" for a week... a break from all screens (movies/TV, computer, phones... except for my allotted 1/2 hour after the kids were in bed... unfortunately some e-mails do need to be answered and bills paid).  And what a wonderful week it was!  I guess it was a little too wonderful, because I haven't fully gone back.  Instead, we have been swimming, playing at parks, going to the beach, hiking, jumping on the tramp, reading, tending to our garden, riding bikes, and soaking up the summer sun.  That combined with feeding and taking care of the baby just doesn't leave much time left in my day.  BUT... I love getting new ideas from other people's blogs and created this blog as a way to share my ideas.  I just might not share them quite as frequently as I once did for the time being.

Let's hear it for summer!

Family pajamas

When you have no use for hand-me-down sheets, turn them into pajamas!  My sister-in-law recently gave me a set of twin bed sheets that her son had grown out of.  We ended up not needing them so I decided they would make some great summer pajamas for the kids.  And there was even enough fabric to make some for Pete.

Introduction to tie-dye

On Memorial Day we went over to my friend Alison's house, and she invited us to do tie-dyes.  We might just have to make this a Memorial Day tradition, I LOVE how they turned out.  A great way to give old shirts with stains a face lift.



The older kids all huddled around as Alison demonstrated how to make them.  She bought her dyes from Dharma Trading Co. and followed the instructions on their website.



John and Dan were more than excited to wear their shirts.  They wanted to put them on as soon as they had been washed and dried.  Then they insisted on wearing them to bed, and Dan even pleaded to wear his the next day.  We might have to make some more of these.



Tie-dyed onesies could make a fun baby gift.  But we'll be keeping the ones we made for Will :)



I was super excited how my Moosejaw shirt turned out.  Pete had just recently bought this shirt for me, and I went and got some bleach on it the first time I wore it when I was cleaning the sink.  I was so mad at myself.  So it got the tie-dye treatment in an attempt to cover up the bleach stain.  And now I think I like it even more than before!

Family Home Evening board using transfer paper

This has been on my list of projects to do for more than a year now.  And I finally got around to it!  A Family Home Evening board.  We'll no longer be scrambling around come Monday night deciding who is going to do what.  You can buy these, but they're much cheaper to make.



I started with a piece of wood.  My friend was getting rid of this and asked if I wanted it.  While I didn't need another Christmas decoration, I knew I could use it for something else.  Perfect!  Any old piece of wood will do.



I have yet to use vinyl letters.  I'm sure they would have worked well for this project, but I didn't want to spend any money if I didn't have to.  So I decided to layout everything on the computer and then trace it on to the board.  This made it so I didn't have to measure anything and saved a lot of time.



Then I printed this out, taped it on to the board, which I painted white, and slid some yellow transfer paper between the printout and the board.



Then I traced the letters with a pen.



And they showed up as a light yellow on the board.  So simple!



From there I painted over the large letters with black paint and drew over the small letters with a thin permanent marker.  Then I screwed some hooks into the board, drilled a hole in 8 small circles, and wrote our names on the circles.  I was going to paint the circles, but I couldn't decide what color to do.  So to keep it from sitting there for who knows how long unfinished, I did a quick job with the names, knowing that I could paint over them later if I wanted to.



I'm looking forward to more organized family nights!

Mother's Day gift: homemade bookmarks

I knew I wanted to get my mom a book for Mother's Day.  I recently read The Pearl by John Steinbeck (has anyone read this?).  Not really a fuzzy, warm, feel good book, but a great story with a great message.  So I got that and decided to have the kids help make some bookmarks to go along with it (kind of a repeat... oh well... these are new and improved!)



The kids each designed one bookmark.  Then I scanned them into the computer and printed them with colorful borders.



I got them laminated like I did last time at Kinko's, then cut them out.  This time I cut out a little hole at the top and tied some embroidery floss on.



For some reason having cute bookmarks makes me want to read that much more :)

Mother's Day gift... garden markers

Living away from family forces me to be on the ball with things like Mother's Day gifts.  Normally I would be whipping something together the night before, but now I have to actually plan ahead so it has time to get there.  This year I tried to think of gifts that were thoughtful but also useful.  Gifts that the kids could help with but that wouldn't just clutter up the house.  My mother-in-law loves spending time working in the yard, so we came up with the idea to make garden markers for her vegetable garden.




I wanted to keep it as simple and natural looking as possible.  I cut the wood and nailed the pieces together, John wrote the letters, Pete used a wood burner to trace the letters, and Dan stained the wood.



I think they turned out pretty cute!  I love little kid handwriting.  I can't wait to see how they look in her garden.



Now I want to make some for our garden!