Sweater Weather

It's fall in New England!  It's a beautiful time of year with the mums blooming and 

the leaves changing colors.  We've had some beautiful weather, so it's given us the chance to be outside enjoying all of the beautiful colors fall has to offer.  I drive by this tree on my way home from school each day. It was so pretty, I couldn't resist taking a picture.

These trees are in my yard. The orange, red and yellow leaves are just beautiful this time of year. I'm enjoying their beauty now because pretty soon we'll be working hard to rake them all up.

Raking's not as much fun as when I was a kid raking and jumping in all of the leaves.  Now it feels like work to clean them all up.

Of course once fall comes and the leaves change color, it gives me something to be happy about; sweater weather.  I don't mean wearing sweaters, I mean sewing and crafting with sweaters. Yay!

  I love recycling wool sweaters and coats for crafts.  I made this wine sweater as a thank you gift.

I also made a fairy tale zombie from wool for Val's Fairytale zombie swap. Little Red Ridinghood went off to live in California with Chrissy.  I miss her sweet zombie face.

  I just love wool sweater crafting, so bring on the sweater weather!

Creative Kid

I have to say this is another duck tape post but, I'm a proud mama.  My kid is incredibly creative and crafty.  She amazes me with what she can do.  This summer we've had a good time crafting with duck tape and her creativity has shown through.  She has the vision and the creativity and with my years of crafting experience together we figure out how to do it. 

 Look at this 3-D Hello Kitty purse she made.  She created the front and back and I helped her figure out how to make and attach the sides.  It turned out awesome!

 Then she moved on to make an apron for herself.  She even put a tag on it that says Duck tape extraordinaire on it.  I think if you can make that apron you've earned the title. The plan is to use this apron as an art smock at school this year.  It was the last thing on the school supply list we needed to get but she made this one instead, so now we are officially done our school supply shopping.

 On a play date with a friend my daughter made the amazing Alice in Wonderland apron I'm wearing. Her friend made a duck tape skirt out of black and white check tape.  I just love the apron I'm wearing.  She included dice, a red heart and a red rose that is dripping paint (I helped fold the rose petals and she stuck them on.) I think it's so darn cute and incredibly creative(again proud mama talking here!)

 Today's duck tape project was flip flops.  We watched this video here to see how they were made, then worked on making them together.  They turned out cute, and yes she wanted them to be different so that they matched all of the colors from her apron/art smock.  After making them she's decided they aren't as comfortable as her regular flip flops and has decided they should be a decoration instead.

With all of this duck tape goodness I decided to make something useful for myself.  I made this little receipt keeper for my purse to hold all of the messy receipts that end up in the bottom of my purse.

Go For the Cup

 It's Olympic time. I think the rest of the world is glued to the Olympic coverage on TV but not me; I am stuck on duck tape. This week we decorated a shirt, made mustaches, and made a trophy cup from duct tape. We have had so much fun with it!

We put duck tape on BBQ skewers then cut out a mustache shape. They're cute and fun! Here are some of the cousins making silly faces with our duck tape mustaches.

E.(in the green shirt above) turns 9 this weekend.  He wants to make duck tape mustaches for the party.  They're also planning some backyard games for the party.  My sister asked me if I could make a duck tape trophy to give to the winner of the obstacle course race.  I like a craft challenge so I agreed. I was happy with how my first attempt turned out.  It's made with paper, a paper bowl, cardstock, an empty duct tape roll and some grey duct tape. It took me a few hours to finish it but I enjoyed making it.  It's fun to be doing some crafting again.  Seriously who knew something as simple as duck tape could be so versatile and fun!

This is the duck tape flower shirt my daughter made.  She wanted to try duct taping on a tee shirt.  I ironed over the duct tape to make it stick more. I'm still not sure how it will hold up with an active 8 year old wearing it, but I think it looks cute!

We have so many things to post, I just need to take time to find the pictures and write the posts.  Maybe I could unstick myself from the duct tape long enough to get that started.  Let's hope, though my mind runs wild with the things I'd like to try making with duck tape!

Got Duct Tape?

 Duct tape, who knew it could be so much fun?  We bought several rolls of printed duct tape last summer, but never got around to using them. My daughter went to a craft camp offered by the local school district.  One of the girls at the camp brought in purses that she made using duct tape. We thought that was very cool so we pulled out the rolls of duct tape we had and started to create.

 Look at how proud she is of her crafts.  I helped with the purse but she made the matching bow and wallet herself.

 Here's another look at the goodies she made.  I just love that polka dot duct tape!

 This is the cheetah print hair bow I made for myself.

We had so much fun with the duct tape that the next day when we had the little girl from next door over for a play date, they pulled out the duct tape and created some more.  I just love the penguin bag my daughter made.  She made the main part of the bag and I taped it together using the last of the polka dot duct tape.  I wouldn't have been brave enough to put those patterns together but I'm glad she was because I love how it turned out.

This was my first try at making a rose pen from duct tape.  There are so many cool colors and prints of duct tape available; the possibilities are endless. I've been amazed to see all of the things people have created using duct tape.  I've seen some very creative items made with just duct tape. We've been having fun with it and I'm looking forward to trying to make a few more things with the duct tape.  Have you got duct tape? What is the most creative thing you've seen made of duct tape?

Long Time, No Blog!

It's been a very long time since I have blogged anything. Yes, long time no blog, but I'm happy to report that all is well, we've just been very busy.  We sold our house and moved into a new house.  We're still getting settled in and getting use to our new town.  We moved about an hour from our old home which means a shorten commute for my husband, a new school for my daughter and a longer commute for me.  The new house is amazing(more pictures to follow in another post.) We love it!  The buying and moving processes were wracked with huge headaches and stress so we're glad it's over and at this point we have vowed to stay in this house for the next 20 years in order to avoid a repeat of the horrible time we had.

The new house has a paved driveway.  My daughter had fun drawing with sidewalk chalk.  This is a picture of Love Bunny(see this post to see who Love Bunny is.) Doesn't she look so young in that post!  Time really flies!

 Our dog Chunk even got into the drawing action.  He kept walking across the drawings, leaving colored doggie prints all over the driveway. Chunk is adjusting to the new house and seems to like it.  I think he really likes having us at home during the day now that it's summer time.  He'll be sad when we head back to school at the end of August.

I'm still unpacking my craft supplies so I haven't done much in the way of crafting.  I hope to get unpacked and remedy that this week.  Hopefully I'll have some crafty goodness to share soon. I hope all is well with you.  I hope to venture out into blogland and catch up with everyone very soon.

Thoughts for Spring

These are my thoughts on paper this week. Can you tell I'm thinking of spring? We had some unusually warm weather last week so now I'm itching to see flowers blooming, trees budding and my feet in flip flops.

With this last warm spell I've been pessimistic about it lasting. It's only the end of March and we had very little snow this winter. I keep expecting a big snow storm, but hoping it won't really come. May spring be here to stay!

These are my thoughts on paper for today.

An Owl Package to Make You Cry

My daughter has swapped along with me for the last few years. She loves swap mail! She knows the drill, you wait until Mommy gets home from work and has the camera in hand to open the package. She even reminded me that I usually snap a picture of her with the package.

After posing with the package, then it's time to dig in to see what's inside the package. She was excited to find an owl bag stuffed with tissue paper and more goodies!

Look at all of the things Julz (and Barb) sent. As I mentioned before my daughter has lots of swap experience but she was so cute about this package. She started to tear up and made me stop taking pictures until she cleared her eyes. She loved the pillowcase for her travel pillow(Barb made her an awesome Florida pillowcase and travel pillow when we met them in Florida a year and a half ago. She still uses that travel pillow all the time!) They also included owl paper, owl cards, an owl craft. an owl pouch, an owl purse and our favorite . . . .

This owl picture, painted by the talented Julz! Don't you love it? We do!!! Seriously, I LOVE this picture! It's already on display. Thank you Julz and Barb for enough owl love to make us cry! Awesome package! Thank you!!!!