Category Archives: kid fun

I hope you had a great Christmas.

Things were a bit bumpy around here for me. The first post-separation batch of holidays. It was a trial navigating them. But I have survived, as I always will.

I was a little down realizing, since my kids are so young and I’m manless, I wasn’t sure I’d have a gift to open. Which isn’t about the gifts I was just more sad about what I had lost and realizing I’d have to fill my own stocking. Lame pathetic thoughts like that.

But my best friend came to my rescue, as good best friends do. She took my boys out and had them choose something for me. When she brought them back that night she said “Your boys know you well” and I was so proud. The kids were all secretive and “Don’t come in here Mom!” while they wrapped things. Putting them under the tree with a “It’s nothing special going on in here” and such. It was cute.

So on Christmas morning I opened these great gifts.

Wesley chose the tea mug. Which is an amazing pic for me. I drink tea constantly, love it out of big mugs and the quote nails it too.

Nate chose the polar bear. I was a bit puzzled when I opened it and when I looked at him he was soooo incredibly excited and blurted out “Because you like bears Mom!!!! Right!!!!” He was bouncing up and down and everything. It was the sweetest thing ever.

Bear has been the centrepiece at every meal since. I think it might be a bookend because I know they were shopping in the bookstore, but I’m not 100% sure. It’s definitely a super sweet gift and a story I’ll remember.

From Nate to Dr Horrible in about an hour.

Wesley has had a Captain Rex costume for a while. I swear I’m raising the bar way toooo much on myself. My kids think I’m some sort of crafty Wonder Woman who can whip up anything. And while I love to try and get a kick out of creating different things they’re getting pretty sophisticated in their requests. I’ve managed R2 D2 and Darth Vader, a monster, and a ghost once but that was literally the whole white sheet with holes trick.

We’ve been watching a lot of Dr Horrible. We listen to it in the car. We watch it all snuggled on the couch. We randomly sing it without the music.

One time while watching it I said “That’s it, I’m dressing you guys up as Dr Horrible and Captain Hammer this year, for real” Nate said “Let’s do the wedgie part!” And thus my motivation was kicked into overdrive.

I grabbed some red fabric at Fabricland and one of Nate’s t-shirts. I traced out the shoulder and neck bit of the shirt and then just sort of went with tapering and a length I thought would work.

With some buttons from my stash, bits of velrco, some stretchy gloves stolen from a neighbour and some black fabric . . . voila! Evil Dr Horrible. So out the door I went about an hour from my project starting to head to my friends for a backyard fire with Captain Rex and Dr Horrible in tow.

Captain Hammer is next, oh and some other Clone Wars guy.

Happy Halloween!

Hope you had a fantastic Halloween. I couldn’t find my modified prom dress that goes with my Tooth Fairy costume so I whipped up a cute plush tooth instead (complete with Mollie-eqsue face) . . . but I know it’s here somewhere.

I had a great day at school, considering it was Halloween. Sadly, with it being on a Wednesday we’ve still got 2 days left to see how crazy it’s really going to get.

My classroom runs on it’s own little time table because I teach a small special education class so I don’t see much of the school, we have our own kitchen, bathroom and we use the fenced in Kindergarten yard for recess but today I happened to catch a glimpse of the gym teacher and I’m so glad I did. Best. Costume. Ever!

We were so busy at home this evening I didn’t even snap a pic of the kids! Wow, mom fail.

Stuffed magazine

Apparently, not only has this publication been around for a while, but it’s only published twice (?) a year. But I have to tell you it’s the cutest magazine, full of such eye candy.

I had one in my hand during one of my cross border expeditions but I passed on actually purchasing it. I regret that now. It’s hard to find now since it’s published in January, and I’ve found it once here in Canada and it was $15 which just sort of breaks my brain and I can’t part with all that money for it.

I did find a download for a bit cheaper online, well I think it was $10 so not *that* remarkably cheaper.

I tried to be a cheater pants and take screen shots of parts of it but they seem to be onto that sneaky trick. You’ll just have to trust me it’s a super fun magazine. Find a copy and flip through it.

Back to school prep

I have a bit of a Mabel’s Label’s addiction.

Just a little one. I have oodles for the kids and I have some ‘Mrs K’ ones for school. They’re super awesome, they stick to anything and our 13 letter last name fits, even with first names!

Nate starts JK this year, the all day everyday program. Aside from it being absolutely mind blowing that my kids will both be in school all day, I’m a bit worries about how Nate will do since his birthday is December 23rd, but I suppose he’ll cope. It’s going to be an interesting first week of school around here. I’m usually pretty pooped that first week and then the kids will be going full days for the first time. I think there are going to be lots of quiet evenings around here that week.

Anyhow back to the reason for this post, so I was tagging the boys shoes and I did a whole ‘right is red’ thing for Nate since I have blue and red shoe labels for him. They sell some Preschool Shoe labels now, but since I have a stash I was just working with what I have in a fun way. I also bought and tagged some cointaners for them to use. It’s going to be a HUGE adjustment to make 2 lunches and 4 snacks . . . *sigh*

I also married all my Mabel’s Labels into one of the fun little zip locks they come in and then I’ve kept the rest for all that trip money and other fun stuff that will need to be sent in this year. I also keep all those bill return envelopes for that purpose too.

Friday Create Along

Woohoo, I’m finally done the messenger bag!! Well . . . one of them at least!
I was zipping along all fine and good when I realised I may have done thing wrong with Wesley’s bag. So I laid it aside and started in on Nate’s to discover where I’d messed up. I found out, finished Nate’s, spent some quality time with Mr Stitchripper and Wesley’s bag and then I sort of wandered off to do something fun. Yeah I’m like that.

I’ll get Wesley’s done this weekend, Nate loves his. I used the same Japanese fabric I used when I made his little back pack so he likes it since it’s a bag “like Mommy and Daddy’s” but still like the little backpack he really likes.

I suppose I’ll get a double action shot too.

Next up is this Flores Clutch from I Think Sew. I’ve wanted to make it for a while and have owned the pattern for ages so I think I’ll set to it now! Take a peek around the shop, there’s some lovely PDF patterns there and they’re really affordable and delivered by email!

It’s a busy last week of school, lots of celebrations, parties and cleaning up but I’ll sneak in some sewing time.

Instagram on Canvas

A little while ago, Easy Canvas Prints contacted me and asked if I’d like to review a product. I choose to go with a picture canvas. I uploaded this Instagram picture of Nate, it’s one of my favs. At first I was worried that the resolution or size would be wrong and the site would yell at me but all went well and I love the finished product!

It’s an 8 inch x 8 inch canvas and it’s going to make a really great keepsake of his first year at soccer. It’s a great size and goes great on the wall or just on a table top.

You can choose the colour on the edges of the canvas, or to have it mirrored from the front image. I choose that method and because of the effect (It’s Walden, X-Pro II, or Hefe, I can’t remember) and the black border and it turned out really well. My hubby said it looked ‘grainy’ but I explained that’s because of the Instagram filter and also the textured canvas. I love how it turned out!

It came packaged really well, I was a bit worried since it was traveling all the way up here from the US but all was well. I suppose I’ll need to order another one so Wesley can get some canvas love too!

What was I thinking!

So I commited to making messenger bags for my sons, and I will. However, last night I got cutting out all the fabric and there’s 30+ pieces for each bag!! Batting, interfacing, lining, exterior . . . oh my!

It’s Thursday night, here’s an phone photo of how far I am. Guess I’ll be revealing next Friday. Fingers crossed I’ll have 2 done.

Friday Create Along

I’m going to tackle one, hopefully 2, of these messenger bags from Michelle Patterns.

Wesley asked for a bag like that, probably because Mommy and Daddy have messenger bags. So of course Nate wants one too. I’ve taken their colour requests and if I’m lucky I can get both finished this week! I’ll let you know on Friday how far I get.

Sometimes . . .


when I’m buried in larger projects and I just want to make something fun start to finish I do just that.
The other day was one of those days, so I made these.

Technically I suppose Chewie should me much, much taller than R2 but hey, fingers only vary in size a teeny bit.