Create-Celebrate-Explore

Teddy Bear Picnic Party Invitation

The twins are having a teddy bear picnic for their birthday party this year.  They also requested we have bees too.  I'm not quite sure where that request came from, but now they are having a bears and bees party ... picnic style.

The invitations are going out this week.  They would have gone out last week, but my initial idea of handmade jigsaw puzzles were ... let's just say ... thwarted by a pair of 3 year olds wielding paint brushes and a bowl of water.

I think these turned out much cuter than the handmade jigsaw puzzles anyway.

I had been carrying around these canvas book covers for years.  When I say years, I mean we've moved house 3 times.  I had initially purchased them to use as class gifts when Jay was in elementary school.

To use them as the cover for the invitations I hand drew and painted a bumble bee to match the one I did on the photo board and printed it on transfer paper to iron onto the front of the book cover.  Then using a fabric paint pen added the smaller details.  Inside I put a little felt bear peeking out of one side and the invitation with a map of the party location on the other side.

 

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Teacher Appreciation Day

Teacher Appreciation Week was the 3rd - 7th of May, however the twins pre-school decided to hold a celebration today.  I absolutely adore the 3 teacher's who take care of my little ones.  They have learned so much from them, they love going to school and so that's all I could ever really ask for.  And I was so happy to learn this morning that next year their teacher's are moving to the big kid room with them.  Marisol and Flynn will be over the moon.

Last week the teacher's had a wonderful idea of supplying the parents with a list of their favorite things - just in case the children wanted to bring in a little gift.  One of the things I've always dreaded is giving Teacher's gifts.  The teacher's may look after your children day after day, but how well do you really 'know' them.  What is their favorite color, flower or snack?  So you wing it and get them something you secretly hope they will love like a gift card or homemade cookies.

The teacher's lists of favorite things read a little like a grocery list, so I decided to make each of them a special Teacher's Market Tote. 

Inside each tote was some of each teacher's favorite things.

Tote 1:

• Jasmine candle
• 7-Up
• Organic chocolate
• Target gift card
• A bouquet of flowers (with purple, her favorite color)

Tote 2:

• Peanut M&M's
• Dr. Pepper
• Borders gift card
• 2 bouquets of pink roses (in different shades)

Tote 3:

• Water bottle
• Bananas
• Red oven mitt
• Beverly's gift card
• Red carnations

To make the tote:

• Double over your fabric
• Cut out a large rectangle - I used an old tote bag as a guide for size
• Turn the fabric inside out and fold.
• Iron the side seams, then pin them
• turn over the top (about an inch) iron and pin that too.
• Sew up the side seams
• With the top section of the bag sew top and bottom (for added strength) around the turned over seam.  I used an over-edge stitch at the bottom and a straight stitch along the top.

If you want to add a little design to the front, like I did, you need to do this after the 2nd step above.

• Using a template, cut out the shape you want on a different fabric.
• Make a t-shirt transfer or use a fabric marker to write your message or add a picture.
• Use an over-edge stitch to attach it to the front of the bag - BEFORE sewing up the side seams, then you can continue with the rest of the steps.

Handles:

I used an old scrap of white fabric to make the handles, so if you do this:

• Fold the fabric in half.
• Cut a wide strip (approx 3.5 inches)
• Iron the strip.
• Fold in half again (length-ways) and iron again.
• The new strip should be a little over an inch wide.
• I then cut this strip in half to make shorter handles, but cut wherever you want depending on the length you want the handles to be.
• Straight-stitch around the strip.
• Attach each side of the handle to the inside of the tote by stitching an 'X' and then a square around it.

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Chiara Consiglia

Have Kids Wear Their Artwork

You have already seen how we display the twins artwork at home, but recently they have done some artwork that I have been so proud of that I thought it would be great to display it in a new way, and in one that they could show off.

Marisol drew this picture of a princess back in December.  

We were stuck on a plane for what felt like forever as it was in line waiting to be de-iced.  To keep her amused, and knowing that she had just recently taken on a love of drawing people, I asked her to draw a Princess, then she used stickers from her sticker/coloring book to embellish her drawing.  I was so proud of her.  She must have made about 5 or 6 of these as we sat there.

Then, one day last week whilst I was sitting at my desk in the office, the twins both sat on the floor to draw beside me.  They had used stencils once or twice previously, but Flynn really took a liking to an alphabet one. 

This was what he drew:

I had been stock-piling plain white t-shirts (long and short) recently in assorted sizes when I had found them on clearance and thought this would be a great way to showcase the kids artwork.

So after doing a little minor editing of their drawings on the computer, I printed each onto t-shirt transfer paper then ironed the image onto a plain shirt.

I decided that Marisol's needed a little bling though, afterall it is a princess shirt.

The end result:

 

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iVillage ... MSN Lifestyle Canada