Happy Valentines Day!

Valentines day: This year we made fast, easy Valentines cards. I gave the kids red paper and white paint, white, pink,red and purple crayons and we started crafting.
The aim was to make heart shapes with circle foam brushes, but that lasted only as long as my demo!
They then had fun using their hands, bubble wrap, and anything else they could find that would make a pattern on the paper.

After the cards dried I cut them into heart shapes and we wrote all the fiends names on them.

The other craft I made with Ady is a heart garland. This was great fun. We first drew the hearts onto watercolor paper with crayon and then used watercolor paint to paint over the crayon and now she is old enough to keep the paint inside the heart shape.

After they dried I cut them out and we strung them onto bakery twine.

They look so much like spring that I will leave them up for a while.

Crochet cowl

 
I am starting to fall in love with crochet again! It has been so long since I have done this that I am taking my time and teaching myself again. Lion brand has a great section on learning to crochet.

 Here is a cowl scarf I made last week. I used the very bulky Wool- Ease Thick and Quick yarn form Lion brand and it really was great to see just how fast I could see progress.

I found a great free pattern here.

I love it, but know that I have a LOT to learn. Not only do I now have an excuse to get stuck on the couch watching really , really bad TV, I also get something in exchange!

I already purchased new yarn. The next one I will make will have less stitches as to make the scarf more snug around the neck and will be 100% cotton . I find myself getting very itchy by the end of a day.

Monkey pajamas

Ady is really outgrowing her clothes too fast. I turned around this last week and she was out of PJ's that are warm, cozy but not fleece. This girl can really overheat so flannel it best for her to sleep in!

A few years ago I bought two pieces of Sock Monkey flannel by Moda, in a great quilt shop in New Hampshire.
I was immediately pulled in by the monkeys and thought that she would love them.  I now realize that they could be scary to a little girl. She took two days to agree to try them on and the good news is that she now loves them! Phew!
I did not have enough of the fabric to make a matching top but I found a soft long sleeve t-shirt on sale and i think the color matches very nicely. To make sure she will be able to wear them for a while, I added a three inch seam allowance to be let out as needed.

As for a pattern, I just traced around a pair of pants that fits her and added here and there to make them roomy for sleep time. I also added the elastic band in a separate piece in stead of folding the top over. I think this helps with the fit in the waist.