After 5 years of being a stay-at-home mom, I found the wonder of mothering slowly starting to get crowded out by the mundane feeling. I realized our world seems to surround people with the negative, and complaining about blessings seems totally acceptable. So I decided to fight against that "normalcy" and focus only on the positive. I look back to my first year as a mom when everything was new and keeping house was fun and I aim to have that attitude again. This blog is my outlet to showcase the daily miracles that surround me in my blessed life as a stay-at-home mom so that I will never forget the wonder of it all.



Saturday, February 12, 2011

Lots of heart crafting

The kids and I made some Valentines the other day.  I can't post them here yet as they will be going to family who follow this blog.  :)  But that got the kids going on hearts and they've been crafting hearts like crazy. 

Felicity and I made last minute (because I forgot) handmade Valentines for her Cubbies Valentine party.  I cut hearts from card stock while she watercolored.  Once the watercolors were dry, I cut those into smaller hearts.  All hearts were hole punched.  With curling ribbon I tied a card stock heart and a watercolor heart together and curled the ribbon.  I added a Valentine message and she "signed" her Valentines by making thumbprint hearts on each one.  I also punched a butterfly shape into each watercolored heart since Felicity LOVES butterflies.  I was bummed that I'd forgotten her party and that these were simply thrown together at the last minute but when I was later going through her goody bag and throwing out junky Barbie (hate her) and super hero printed papers, I felt a lot better about our handmade creations.  Call me old school, but I'd take handmade anything, any day, over the same store bought stuff everyone else has.



I'm a saver of fabric.  I save the smallest scraps, and even stuff that I KNOW is totally trash, I have a hard time throwing out.  I did a lot of cutting the other night (for a project I'm really excited to complete and share) and I had LOTS of scraps in my throw out pile.  I suddenly had a wonderful idea and pulled them out of the trash pile.  I made a pile on the kitchen table, cut large hearts for the kids, dribbled glue all over the hearts and they set to work putting fabric scraps all over their hearts.  When they needed more layers, they haphazardly dribbled more glue all over and continued piling on fabric.  Once they were dry (which took a LONG time), I cut the excess fabric off that hung over the edges, revealing a heart shape.


Hmmmmm....glue tastes interesting.




On a night Zac was working late, I was bathing the baby after dinner and Logan and Felicity wanted to paint.  I told them they'd have to wait until I was finished bathing Kian.  A few minutes later, Logan came running in so proud of himself.  He had set up the dinning room table full of paints and supplies!  All I had to do was cut two huge hearts and they set to work painting.  They also added more fabric to their painted hearts, along with linguine noodles.

This is the kind of mess I don't mind at all.



Mixed medium hearts

Lissy's painted heart

And lastly, we simply used their old artwork to cut hearts from.  I folded the paper and drew a half heart for Logan and was THRILLED when he cut it perfectly!  Normally, his cutting is haphazard as he lacks patience to do slow steady cuts.  I was so excited to see this growth.  Felicity still has a hard time cutting on the line so when we do cutting work that needs to be specific, she sits on my lap and we cut together, my hand on top of hers on the scissors.



We have hearts on windows, hearts on bedroom walls, and secret Valentine hearts hidden away for Monday.  I'm not usually one to really get into Valentine's day, but I have to admit, the kids' excitement is starting to rub off on me pretty good.  :)

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