kiddo kraft - FEBRUARY

and - duh-da-da-DAAAA! this is my 100th post!

whoohoo! i don't know how many Courtney's Quests went out before i switched to blogger, but i think it was at least that many. maybe eventually i'll start writing something more serious...or not. ;) thank you to those of you who take a few minutes and read these feeble words and ideas and react with compassion or humor or inspiration! ;)

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so, i need to update my kiddo kraft post from january. i had another inspiration regarding the stone magnets. i made some uber cute valentine's cards for my family with the girls' help:




and then i got an idea to use the fingerprint hearts to make stone magnets for teacher gifts...WITH one creative addition: beads!



isn't this the cutest thing? and, you could give these for valentine's day or mother's day or whatever day! i think the beads make them POP! and are extra interesting. i used aleene's thick glue - it holds things on tight that would otherwise slip off the glue. i like it!

but, that's not the kiddo craft for this month. ;) for this month, i'm channeling another of my old creative projects (maybe because i'm having lazy brain, or maybe because i still think it's cool).

tell me, how many kiddo art pictures or painting projects do you have stacked up in your house? i'd be too embarrassed to show you my two stacks for my kids...but, they're pretty thick. well, when my girls were babies, we did some finger/toe-paintings. and, as cute as they were all by themselves:





i thought i could make them frame-worthy for their baby rooms with a little twist, or square, should i say, of the imagination.

this month's kiddo kraft is: tiled finger/toe-paint art!



(that is leila's fingerpainting when she was 6 months old)



and...


(that is macy's toe-painting art when she was 3.5 months old)




those pieces of art are extra special to me because they were the first time i introduced them to painting (as you can see from the pictures). those particular pieces (above) are hanging in each girl's room.

so, first you need to let your kiddo(s) paint! i used finger-painting paper and blobbed a couple different colors on the page for them to explore with. if you've got a color scheme you're working with, then use those colors! and watch out, it can be messy - but that's the fun part of the craft for the kids!





it's okay if they wrinkle the paper or get paint EVERYWHERE!



after the painting is dry (and the kid is clean), you can begin to cut out the squares. for the 8.5x11 size, i cut the paper into 2 3/4" squares. you'll need 12 squares for one page. 3 of the squares will be cut down to 1" size for the edges.



after i cut them all out, i rearranged them and rotated the squares until i found an arrangement that was visually creative and stimulating. i loved finding different patterns or smudges or little finger or toe prints in the paint! then i chose a coordinating solid-color paper, cut to size (8.5x11), and glue-sticked the pieces on, leaving about a 3/16-1/4" space between the squares.



i bought some frames from garden ridge, and i even made some extras for gifts to family members. i loved how they turned out! it was a super neat way to keep their art in a FUN and decorative way. have fun with that and enjoy life outside the box, or the cave...

hardy har hair

so, maybe we'll have a kiddo kraft this month, maybe not. i had some v-day ideas, but - my computer crashed and sent me into a tizzy. and, not everything is functioning at the pre-virus level yet...some of my files still aren't accessible. :(BUT thankfully, my files are recovered, but, it was a very gloomy couple days in the meantime. ;)

so, until my creative juices get to posting something...here is some hardy har hair:

leila is such a ham - when the camera is not pointed at her. and this was a rare moment of camera performance for her (which lasted all of 5 seconds after each hair style). that kid makes my days worth joyfully living, even with cleaning up potty accidents and wearing snot-covered/crusted jeans.

(2.20.12 update - MACY's hardy har hair:)

my laughter inducers

i love how much laughter my kids bring into my life. i don't think i've ever laughed as much in my life as i do with my children.

for example: this month's fruit of the spirit is self-control, and one of the activities suggested to us was the marshmellow test. and, being quite curious on how my tots would do, i set up our flip video and saw what happened when our 2 and 3.5 year-old faced temptation! it's a little long, but there are funny things that happen throughout the test period.






if you want to see the "official" version on youtube i was trying to model, here's a link: http://youtu.be/QX_oy9614HQ


leila did really well. and if it weren't for her hilarious bathroom break, i wonder how long she could have lasted! ;) we did the test again, and macy did a little better as her sister tried to keep her from eating her marshmellows...but, she still ate them. i think the test is designed for 4 year-olds. and the kids who practice self-control have been found in the long-term to be better goal-achievers and do better on tests and other good stuff. it'll be fun to test macy when she's older!


and my second funny video to share is of macy singing the mulan song. we just saw it for the first time at christmas and the girls love it. it's one of my disney favorites! macy already knows the song and requests i sing it to her often!

(if you want to know what song she's singing, you can see a video of it on youtube:
http://youtu.be/ZiLOVazwnWM)





my silly, sweet, funny, keep-me-on-my-toes, precious girls who make me laugh! they are such a joy!

kiddo kraft - JANUARY

I don’t know about you, but my fridge is a piece of art in my house. I didn’t say PLACE for art, I said PIECE of art. Yes, it is a place for art, but, it’s also usually chunked up with pictures of friends/family, inspiring things I’ve printed out, pictures my kids have drawn, meetings/schedules, cooking ideas, and MAGNETS galore!

I feel really silly now that I describe this and I have no photo-evidence to show you, because, well, you see, with the new year, I got a little bit of the pick-up bug. And since it’s so easy for my fridge to become overwhelmed with treasures, I tackled it and toned it down 5 notches. It’s still FULL of all those wonderful things, but it’s organized now – for the moment (it never lasts long). btw, i blame my GRANDY for the obsession with covering the front of a fridge. haha! you should see hers - but, it's not as bad as mine! ;)

(yes, this is the cleaned up version! lol and notice my dishwasher doesn't escape either!)

To hold up all those wonderful fridge treasures, you need some strong magnets to handle the piling of new things over old things. Not to mention, the Chinese delivery magnet isn’t that cute or that strong.

Therefore, the kiddo kraft of the month I’d like to share with you is: STONE MAGNETS.

I've done this craft three times with different groups: once with my family, once with a gaggle of teenage girls on a church retreat, and once with my MOPS (mothers of preschoolers) group. And, they’ve all liked it. And, I’ve done it with my kiddos – while making some alongside them, too.

SUPPLIES:
-JOANN’s clear stones – found in the floral area. My grandmother and aunt discovered that they liked those best because they were clear all the way through and the picture shows up better without iridescence.
-cardstock, any color your heart desires
-stamps, with SMALL (<1 inch) designs
-ink – the Stazon brand dries quickly and is not water-based, so it might work better. But I’ve used just plain old inkpads before, but they need to dry
-colored pencils, markers, gel pens, crayons – or whatever you want to color with
-magnets – the circular strong ones (they are usually cheaper at hobby lobby – and with the 40% off coupon, it’s a good price)
-glue – hot glue, aleene’s, something strong – but QUICK drying, or else the wetness could seep through the cardstock and blur your inking (been there, done that) AND clear lacquer or Diamond Glaze glue for gluing the cardstock to the glass stone.

PROCESS:
-stamp your desired design several times on construction paper with some space in between them. You want to do it a couple times so that you can choose the best one!
-after it dries, color it in however your creative juices so stir you. Don’t just think about the design, try coloring in the background only – see how different the looks can be! Let it dry if you use gelpens or markers!

-chose one of the clear stones and place it over your colored design and trace around the stone. Cut it out!

-using your choice of CLEAR glue for the glass, dab a big blob on the stone (enough so that it’ll spread and cover the entire surface) and press it onto your cut-out and dried design. Press down on it to watch the glue spread and cover it all – you don’t want any missed spots. You can wipe off any excess that squeezes out. And let it dry.
-after it’s really dry, glue your magnet onto the back of the cardstock. Now, sometimes it matters which side of the magnet to leave facing out – so make sure you test your magnets to know which side will be attracted to the fridge!

TADA! You have a cute, personalized, original mini-artwork to hold up all your fridge treasures!

When I was doing this with Leila, she actually used a greeting card to color and made it into magnets.

There is a caution to these magnets though – I do not allow these to be within kiddie reach, because, if they are dropped enough, they will break! (been there, done that)

'cause a noodle mustache is how leila rolls!

'cause princess clothes over monster jammies is how macy rolls!

happy day! blessings & happy crafting!

courtney's quest: wading in the current

wow - i happened to notice that my last official "'Courtney's Quest" was several years ago! yes, i know that i have blog posts, but something other than my kiddo kraft, my kids, or my emotional outbursts about our adoption process is hard to find. it seems as though the Quest's focus has been diverted! the underlying current of it is still there, but it's not put into actual, visual WORDS!

so.

(writer's block)

wow.

so that's why there haven't been any Quest postings! just kidding. just need a second for the juices to start flowing in the right direction.

-

i went swimming monday in my street. okay, not so much swimming as wading, but still, one doesn't usually need a boat to travel on pavement. apparently the sky decided to release all 5 or more inches of rain that it had selfishly hoarded last year and back-door drop it all over town yesterday morning.

the thunder and lighting were fun to watch...in the safety and comfort of my home - behind walls and snuggled in my slippers. but it didn't stop. at first the rain drenched us and poured in sheets off our roof into quickly filling street gutters. but it didn't stop. then the trashcans (thankfully they were emptied before the storm) began being knocked over and were carried away in the current. but it didn't stop. then the water stopped draining and the streets began filling. but it didn't stop. as the water rose, driveways became angry streams emptying their deposits into a overflowing pool of dark, cold, turmoiled water. but it didn't stop. then street curbs disappeared, as did front lawns. but it didn't stop...until it stopped raining. ;) but it wasn't over then.

even after it stopped raining, water kept flowing and seeping from all the places of the earth that were regurgitating from the over drowning. the damage was done. it took several hours for the water to recede and the soaken trees and roofs to stop crying.



(source: www.yourhoustonnews.com)

after living in a drought for over a year, it was a blessing turned into a curse. we weren't prepared for it. too much of a good thing was as detrimental as too much of a bad thing - in this case.

i'm thankful for the rain. we needed it. maybe not everything at once...but i'm sure the ground didn't choke on everything that fell from the sky yesterday and some of it did feed our thirsty trees and foundations (etc.).

i actually waded out into the dark, earth-debris-filled "river" to save our trashcan from floating down the street. but fear (and cold rain) stayed my legs from venturing too far out to help other less fortunate trashcans. [i will admit, the thought of alligators crossed my mind - don't laugh TOO hard at me!]

there i was, red raincoat on, leggings pulled up, flip-flops held tightly to my feet by my frigid toes [yes, i live in texas and i wear flip-flops in january], glasses thoroughly caked with rain droplets in the middle of a dirty street swelling with water and angry at itself for being trapped. what was i doing out there?! saving one runaway trashcan?!


so - here's my application: one can't help but think about the world - standing in the current - what the world is telling me to do, not do, accept, ignore, be PC about, embrace, etc., etc., etc. if i get out of my house and jump into the trouble, i'm gonna get dirty. i'm not inside where it's safe and comfortable; i am putting myself in harm's way. others will peak out their windows at me and question my sanity and probably say things about how dumb/weird i am. some may call out to me and tell me what i should be focusing on instead and "helping" me be safe/normal.

BUT...

I DON'T WANT TO BE SAFE! there is work to be done! hands to be dirtied! service to do! a rescue mission to join in on! truth to be spoken and demonstrated! the LORD to be followed! isn't that more important that being comfortable/safe and not worrying about the troubles/bad things/dirtiness mucking up and ruling the world?!

i'm ashamed that i wasn't brave enough to get over my silly fears and recover some of my at-work neighbor's trashcans. i was instead looking back over my shoulder to my house and thinking about that i should go back inside where it was safe, dry, and my children were watching me from the window. here's the thing though - THEY WERE WATCHING ME! they saw me take care of OUR stuff. if i'm gonna be in the water, i need to be committed and not only look after my interest, but others. (think beyond just a trashcan here.) i can't just go out there and serve at 50%, or what i can offer cause i'm busy with other stuff. half-way or self-focused devotion is par for the course - nothing remarkable - the norm. not only because God has called us to more than self-focus (which is a good enough reason), but because my children are watching and learning from me.

i don't want to just being in the current when it's easy, safe, convenient - i want to do it when it's dirty, cold, lonely, ridiculous, hard, counter-cultural, and downright loving!

love,
courtney
aka - trashcan surfer

p.s. there were reports of alligators in some of the flooded areas (near the bayous). ;)

merry christmas! part 2

so apparently macy needs an opportunity to share christmas blessings too. ;)





translation: "the angel said, don't be afraid. i bring you good news of great joy...that will be for all the people...for all the people" luke 2:10ish

translation: away in a manger & i got chocolate on my pants & craziness & MERRY CHRISTMAS!

translation: wish you a merry christmas & happy new EARS!

merry christmas from MACY! :)

merry christmas!

merry CHRISTmas from leila. ;)