We made bookmarks

I wanted a simple and quick craft, so I decided to make a few bookmarks. Seconds later Nora joined me: "I want to make bookmarks, too!". She made one for grandma and one for herself. I made three and sent away all of them.



It didn't take us many minutes to make them, but sometimes that's the best kind of craft.

Do you use bookmarks when reading? I often forgot to, but when I got a handmade one in August I started using it and since then there are bookmarks in about half of the books I'm reading (yes, I read many books at a time).

Keep calm craft on ... :-)

Dragons & dinosaurs

Our favourite craft is of the more eco friendly kind. We love to use the things we otherwise throw away/recycle to create new things. I have a box in which we collect stuff to craft and build and play with. We're never allowed to save more "crap" than what can fit into the box, which is a good rule (or else we'd save too many "might be useful one day"-things). Nora often go to that box and says she's about to make one or another thing.

The other day she said "let's make dragons". So we did. I have to help her with the glue gun (it's too hot for her to handle), but else than that she makes most of it by herself. I love to see her creative ideas and how she uses the material to build something new. I made the big dragon, she made the small and much cooler one :)

Shared at KCCO today.

winter holiday

It's Tuesday morning. Nora is on winter holidays all this week and outside it's just perfect weather for such a holiday: snow on the ground, frost on the trees, a little bit of sunshine. Had I not been 9 months pregnant I'd made us something hot to drink, some sandwiches and fruit to eat, and gone out in the nature. Maybe practiced a little ice skating with her too. But, because of pelvic girdle pain, I can only walk to the car and back and not so much more. Next winter, I tell myself. Next winter we'll do those things. This holiday we craft.

Yesterday we went to an "öppen förskola". It's a place where kids and parents can meet, like a kindergarten but still not at all. There's people working there, but the parents stay, and you can talk, play, eat, craft, maybe sing songs together or listen to a story. After coming home I was so tired. Nora was not. I finished a few knittings while she was creating. It was a nice afternoon.

Keep Calm Craft On.

Hama bead snowflakes

"I want to make something", Nora said yesterday evening. That was after a weekend full of play dooh that she got from my dad and his wife. She decided to make snowflakes out of Hama beads. She had a picture of such snowflakes and I was impressed at how soon she figured out exactly how to make them. I think they turned out quite pretty.

This morning she was still in a Hama bead-mood so she continued with the white beads on the star she begun a while back. She was so into it that she didn't want any breakfast (not that she's ever been a breakfast girl - opposite to Magnus and me).



Keep calm craft on.

smoothie, dolls and winter

The last two days it's been snowing. Our car looks like a snowman every morning when I come out. While writing this I chat with my sister. We talk about what we will do in July and look at photos on the Internet of the island Gotland where we will go with our families, my mom and her boyfriend.

But it's Februari now. We drink smoothies with berries, fruits and vegetables. Nora and I make dolls for her to play with.




Keep calm craft on :-)

Trying something new

It's quite long ago I read about Action Pack the first time, but I checked the page out and really liked the concept. However Nora was so little and I thought it was nothing for us then.

But as this pregnancy goes torwards its end I'm finding myself too tired to come up with ideas, let alone do things that require me to leave my chair. Nora, who is soon five, needs things to do though. Recently I saw the Preschool Compilation Issue and felt that was just what we needed.




As most children she loves to play with water and she's also very curious and asks many question. An experiment of some kind would be something for her, I thought, so we begun with oily fireworks. As we were making it we talked about what we were doing and why it behaved as it did. She was really fascinated and the first thing she did the following day when we visited "Open Kindergarden" was to tell about our little "experiment" and how it worked :-)

There are so many more things in this issue that we want to try out. Like the volcano, the pretzel house, making our own butter - just to mention a few. I'll tell you more later about our future adventures in Action Pack Land ;-) (The picture below is a link.)

We need butterflies

When I was little my grandma once brought farfalle pasta when she visited us. With my sister we painted butterflies as an Easter decoration. I thought of those butterflies the other day when it was snowing. I want spring. I want flowers. I want butterflies.

Well, let's make some.


More inspiration to be found at Friday's Nature Table.

Preparing for Easter

Boiling eggs with onion.

Making chickens etc with Nora.

Mailbox

It was just after lunch. We had pasta + something I can't remember, and the pasta box was empty. "Let's make a mailbox" I said, and she was very enthusiastic.



We choose a wrapping paper and glued it to the box, then used tape (a strong one) to put it on the door to her room. While she looked at something else I put a postcard and an envelope (with a little note inside) in the box. Then we played posting and picking up post for a while ;-)

In her window

Christmas -> Out
Springtime -> In



Nora and I made this for her window, I thought we needed some color. I cut the animals + heart from felt fabric and Nora choose the beads.

Finding spring

Yesterday it felt like spring. We've still got snow, but for the first time for one and a half month it was just above freezing point, it was sunny and very windy. Nora, Zam and I went for a long walk. Zam sniffing on the spots of yellow snow ... and Nora and I talking about pigs. She loves stories about pigs at the moment.





Our main project this week is to throw Christmas out and to re-organize our home. Magnus went back to work yesterday, but he's been at home since the week before Christmas so during that time I've worked a lot and not cared about our home at all (except for Christmas decorating). Now I want to bring some spring, or at least winter without Christmas decoration, to our home. Nora and I changed the curtains in her room, and she played with the Christmas curtains for a while, pretending they were blankets. We made a little decoration for her window and then we planted seeds and vegetables to have in one of her windows. We only planted things we could find in our kitchen - we'll see whether it grows :-)





Zam thought we were boring.

Soap felting

Nora and I tried to felt soap.



Well, I felted soap.

She:
Put liquid soap in the water
Put wool in the water
Put liquid soap on a soap bar and rubbed it
Took a bath

Tote bag

This week at craft café:



Made by me and Nora. Beautiful? Not so very much. Fun to do? A lot. Useful? Very. Nora can carry her things or her library books in it. She could hardly wait to show it to dad :)

Nora's drawing book

I guess it's already quite obvious that Nora loves drawing and painting. I want to show you her "drawing book" that I bought in January. Drawing books are such a great way to save drawings in a nice way, I think.



She's not always using this book when drawing. I guess I pull it out once or twice a month (because we tend to forget it). Sometimes we draw together, sometimes she's drawing alone. The illustrations above are from last winter until this summer, I think. The one down to the left is, according to Nora, me. ;-)

Photo by Nora

I talked the other day about children & photografing and I want to show you this photo Nora took last week. I haven't done anything with it, except putting it in a digital frame and added text, but I really like it. It's abstract and colorful and there's movement in it too. It could have been relaxing, but it itsn't. Something is happening there.

draw around, around

I was cooking and Nora was bored + hungry + tired. That's when I came up with the idea of drawing around her.



We had a roll of paper (from Ikea, but any roll of paper will do, wrapping paper would have worked fine too) and some crayons, pens and pencils. I instructed her to lay down. She didn't want to (as I said, she was tired and hungry and not really in the mood for anything), but as soon as I explained what we were about to do she was positive. After following her body with a red crayon a first time she was hooked. She wanted me to do it again, and again, and again. I had to continue cooking, though, so I suggested she'd draw around objects. I showed her how to and she begun looking for things to draw around. (Green lines in the picture below.)

Fairy garden

Ever since I was little I've been fascinated by fairy gardens. I decided it was time for me and Nora to make one that she can play with. I explained the concept to her and she helped me find materials. I made suggestions ("we can find sticks and use them as trees"), but let her decide where to put the "trees" and "stones" etc. It was also her idea to create a wooden fence for the horses. I made a little pond. She wanted a swing, so I made her one. In a shell we made a little bed.

Acrylic paint

Nora has her own crayons, pens and pencils, but that doesn't make it less interesting to borrow mom's aquarelle or acrylic paints. Sometimes I let her, but only while I'm next to her (as they aren't "safe" for kids). Also I'm sure she'd use ALL of the paint if I didn't stop her. Except for that there are no rules and I let her mix colors and paint as she likes.



I love her technique of using two brushes, one in each hand. Maybe I should try that too? I can always learn so much from her. Being a child she's not so prejudiced on how to make things. I "know" how to paint, and that might limit me in the creative process. Nora makes things I haven't thought about doing (because I already know how to do it the "correct" way). Letting her use my art material is fun for her, but also worthwile for me as I see my own things in a new way.



She's so concentrated. While painting she's making a funny sound, like an old door slowly opening. Her dad had the same sound when he was a child.

Let your child be the photographer

Now that most of us have digital cameras and it doesn't matter if it gets a little crazy or the photos are not so good (fingers in front of the lens for instance) and you also can directly see the result, there's nothing that prevents that children make photos. I got my first camera when I was seven years old, a simple inherited one, but I was so happy. At that time, of course, there were no digital cameras and I always had to think about the cost of developing the film. I've always thought that everyone has a camera (except very small children), even if it is a simple one. Imagine my surprise when I met my husband and he said he never owned a camera. Never.

I didn't give a camera to Nora and am not going to do it in a long time, but yesterday we went out and photographed, and she had (under my watchful gaze so that she would not drop it) borrowed my little camera. She's made all the images in this post. (And yes, I have chosen the best. There were a bunch of little fingers in the way on some of them too.)



I give instructions ... and she is photographing