What are you going to be when you grow up?

A couple of years ago I went to a Once Upon a Family home party. It was amazing and I just about purchased everything they offered. Luckily, I couldn't afford everything. What I did purchase was a handprint book. The idea was that every year when my kids were starting school, I was going to put their handprints in the book and write down what they were going to be when they grew up. Sounds easy enough. Guess what? That book is totally empty and my son is going to be in second grade. He had two years of preschool and not one handprint is in that book. The pages are totally and perfectly blank.

Good intentions, right?

Last year, I was disappointed with myself for missing the opportunity to start a great tradition. I was totally excited about what I came up with. It is a realistic way to capture the moment and future aspirations. I scoured the craft stores looking for a small chalk board AND some chalk. The chalk part was a little harder to find than the chalk board.

On the morning of the first day of school, as I was snapping the obligatory before school pictures, I asked my son to fill out the chalk board. I had written "When I grow up I want to be..." and the rest was blank. I asked him to write his name below it and the year. As you can see, I had been doing a lot of crafts with him last summer. He meant that he wanted to be an artist kind of painter;)

So much easier than filling out yet another scrapbook. Just takes a second and a push of the button to capture.

Other pictures I take on the first day of school are:
All his school supplies lined up,
Him with his backpack on walking towards his class,
With his teacher,
The classroom and any notes on the board,
Little brother,
His lunch,
His name tag on his desk...etc.

I'd love to hear what your must do pictures are for the first day of school?
Anjeanette

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Edited to add the picture from this year. He wrote that he wanted to be "Like my Dad". Melted hearts for sure!

Old Backpack Make Over

Does your child want the latest and greatest themed backpack? If you are like me you will look at the licensed backpacks and think they won’t hold up for a full year of use. They just aren’t made to last. This makeover is part of my son’s request to have a Clone Wars backpack to go along with his lunch bag and thermos. This has turned into a make over of an old backpack because my sister sent him a brand new dinosaur backpack. Which he also loves. I already had what I needed for this make over so I forged ahead. This will be a fun backpack for any other time.

1. I ran into a snag with this project. They don’t make Clone Wars Fabric or at least I couldn’t find any around here or on line. You can get vintage Star Wars Fabric but not Clone Wars. I found this space fabric to cover the straps with. You don’t need a lot of fabric for this. A fat quarter will be more than enough.

2. Measure the width of your straps. For my Jansport backpack I cut two 5 inch wide strips of fabric. I doubled the measurement of the front side of the strap, added 1/2 inch for the thickness and another 1/2 inch for seam allowance.

3. Fold down one edge of the short side and sew.

4. Fold down the opposite side and sew. You will want the finished size to be 12 inches end to end or however long your need it to cover your strap. I am leaving a space up at the top of the strap uncovered to make it easier to sew the tube to the strap.

5. Fold wrong sides together and sew down the length of the fabric to create a tube. Turn right side out.

6. Slip the tube over the strap. Position the seam on the tube with the underside of the strap where the center stitch runs down the strap.

7. Position the bottom of the tube at the point where the strap starts to taper. Sew along the stitching you made when you sewed the end of the fabric.

8. Sew the top of the tube just as you did the bottom.

9. The original strap to the backpack already had a seam sewn down the center of the strap. Follow the same line to stitch up the center of the strap.

I love how simple this is and how it turns a plain backpack into something so much more. With all the fun fabrics out there, you could really have fun making over your child’s backpack. Oh, if I had a girl I would be getting those fun dot patterned fabrics. You know the ones where it is circles inside of circles in fun bright colors. I could seriously go to town. Boys on the other hand are more subdued and are more likely to like it if it has their favorite Character on it.

This concludes the strap make over

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On to the front side.

I looked high and low for Clone Wars fabric and could not find anything other than sheet sets. Even the pattern on the sheet sets were too large for what I had in mind. Since I was not to be swayed from my end goal, I purchased some printable fabric. You can get this at a fabric or craft store.

1. Go on line and do a Google search “Clone Wars pictures.” Save several images. Some of them won’t be high enough resolution for this. Use your photo editing software to crop and resize the pictures. Test out the resolution by printing them out on plain paper. I printed out 3 options and let my son choose which one he liked the best.

2. Follow the instructions for printing on the fabric. You will be amazed at how well it turns out. You have to let it dry for 24 hours and then peel the backing off and rinse any excess ink off the fabric.

3. Once the fabric is dry cut a piece of Heat N Bond sew or no sew webbing to fit the back of your picture.

4. Iron on to the back of your picture according to the package directions.

5. Once it has had time to cool use a straight edge and rolling cutter to trim the excess fabric off.

6. Unzip the main compartment of the back pack and slip it over your ironing board. I then slipped a cutting board into the pocket behind my image to eliminate bumps from pocket dividers inside the backpack.

7. Confession time….. Originally I wanted to sew around the edge of the picture but realized I wouldn’t be able to sew the bottom edge with my machine. I decided to use the no-sew Heat-N-Bond thinking it might be enough to hold the image on the back pack. My gut told me that I needed to sew the image on after ironing it on. The printable fabric and the backpack fabric are very different. The bottom edge of my image started to come up right away. The bottom line here is that you will still need to sew around the edge. The Heat-N-Bond made the picture fabric stiff and didn’t seem to go into the backpack fabric at all. The lesson here is…..Don’t let it win! :)

8. Hand stitch in an “X” pattern all the way around the image to hold it in place. Because there is no way you will get this far and not have it work!!!!

All in all, 1/2 yard of material was about $2.50 and, with a 40% off coupon, the printable fabric was something like $6.50 for 10-8.5 x 11 inch sheets. I cut off the bottom portion of the sheet I printed on and will use it for a smaller project down the road. I had the Shrinky Dink sheets from a previous project. Go see my "Clone Wars Backpack and Lunch Name Tags" post to see how I made the tag on the upper zipper. All in all I spent less than I would have if I had bought the cheap licensed backpack and recycled an old one that is still in GREAT condition. Many backpacks out there will run close to $30. I spent less AND I have left over printable fabric sheets for lots more projects down the road. Because I bought 1/2 a yard of fabric I have some left over for something else………….a book cover or a reusable snack bag or something.

It wouldn’t be hard to restyle it again in the future. I would just remove the picture on the front and recover the straps again. The one thing I LOVE about suede bottom backpacks is that they last FOREVER!!

Katrina

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Clone Wars Backpack and Lunch Name Tags

This year my baby is going to Kindergarten. Sniff, sniff. Actually I am excited for him. A few weeks ago we were at Target and he asked for a Clone Wars lunch bag, thermos and backpack. I am using Shrinky Dinks, because we have some left from previous projects, to make name tags for his lunch bag and back pack. This year is going to be fun, exciting and a little scary for him. I wanted to do something special for him. It is also fun, exciting and a little bit scary for me to have both my boys out of the house all day every day.

1. You will need to find some simple drawings that you can trace onto your Shrinky Dinks. I found this coloring sheet of R2-D2 on line (Google “Clone Wars coloring pages”) and sized it down to 4 x2-1/2 inches to make it a better size for a tag. Remember the final size of the tag will be 1/3 the size of the original drawing you start with. On the left is the tag that came on the Thermos. It measures 3 x 4-1/4 inches.

2. Use colored pencils to trace your line drawing. I suggest you use two sided tape to keep the Shinky Dink from moving around while you trace and color the line drawing.

3. Color in your line drawing with colored pencils. I used my son’s Lego R2-D2 to get an idea for coloring him in.

4. Add your child’s name at the bottom. I put his first name and last initial. I used block lettering similar to how “Star Wars” is written. For extra pop, I outlined my block letters with black.

5. Cut off excess Shrinky Dink material and round the edges. Use a hole punch in the center of the top (not too far from the edge).

6. Bake the finished drawing to shrink it.

7. Add a jump ring and clip to your tag. You may need to use a split ring to hang it off the handle, like I did here. The zipper pulls were too chunky to hang the tag off of.

My son is not confident enough to make his own yet. He does not like to write, color or draw because it doesn’t turn out just so. However,this would be a great thing for an older child to do. Tracing a line drawing makes it easy to get great results. I simply followed the shading pattern for the clone trooper helmet. There are very little drawing skills needed for this. If your child has trouble with tracing lines, then you can trace the image and let your child color it in.

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Along with making a tag for the lunch bag, I also make a tag for inside the backpack. This tag has my son’s name on it as well as my phone numbers in case of an emergency. I don’t like putting their names on the out side of the bags, even though they will never be left alone before or after school.

I decided to keep the Clone Wars theme for this tag. Though, you don’t need to go that far. However, it wouldn’t be as fun to share if I had just left it plain. ;) I got my image by doing a Google search on “Clone Wars images.” Some images are not high enough quality to print out so be sure to save a variety of pictures.

1. Resize your image to the size of a business card. Make it just smaller than the dimensions on the package of the pouches. You need at least 1/4 inch all the way around for the pouch to seal closed.

2. Make the contact info tag the same size. Mine says “This bag belongs to: child’s name. If found please call 000-000-0000 or 000-000-0000.

3. Use a glue stick or double stick tape to stick your picture to the back of your contact info. This will help when positioning them in the laminating pouch.

4. The laminating pouch has one side that is covered with adhesive, remove the protective paper and stick the sides together.

5. Punch a hole in the top and add a clip. Clip the tag inside the back pack.

I know that usually less is more. However, I don’t typically do things like leave little messages in their lunches. I am far more likely to add the occasional treat. He was excited to see me making them.

Some times those little treats are extra incentive for getting through what may be a hard day. When my oldest is having a hard morning and isn’t transitioning well, I will put a little something extra in his lunch. I then let him know that if he gets it together and goes to school with out a fuss, then he can have a treat at school. Some times I will tell him what I put in his lunch and some times I call ahead and let his teacher know he is having a hard morning and that I have sent a treat to help redirect him. It is a small thing but sometimes a fruit roll up has saved the day. Some times he just needs to take his mind off of the thing that is upsetting him. The time it takes to open and eat a fruit roll up is generally all he needs to regroup.

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First Day of School Boo Hoo Breakfast Tradition

Our Grandmother is an amazing woman. From what I understand, her mother was just as amazing. Grandma has told us how on the first day of school, she would send her 4 boys to school. After she dropped them off, she would fly right to her Mother's house for some love and support. Her Mother would have a wonderful breakfast all cooked up. Grandma's sister would end up at their Mother's house too after she dropped her boys off at school. Their Mother knew they would be upset and in need of a shoulder to cry on or someone to laugh with. And she was always ready with her love and an amazing meal.

Two years ago when my oldest son was going into kindergarten, Rebecca had just moved back to Arizona. I invited Rebecca and our older sister as well as our Mother over for breakfast. We all dropped our kids off at school and ended up at my house, where I had prepared a nice breakfast. We sat around the table and laughed and cried. We talked about what it was like at drop off and how our children did (and how we did). It was a wonderful way to spend the morning.

Last year, both my sisters had to work so they couldn't come over for breakfast. But I did gather with a few of my friends at a local coffee shop for some shoulder crying and yummy treats. We talked about how our children did and how we did.

This is totally something I want to continue. I think as women and mothers, we need to support each other. I had a little one crying in my lap last year so there wasn't much boo-hooing from me. But this year, I'm not sure. I would love to be surrounded by women I care about and help support them on their day too.

Anjeanette

Plastic Canvas Snowflake Picture Ornament

Years ago my Mother-in-Law made us all plastic canvas snowflake ornaments as part of a 12 days of Christmas care package. We decided we wanted to share this pattern with you. I wanted to add a new twist to it. In this family we LOVE photo ornaments, both making and getting them. Hint Hint!! My tree needs some cousins on it this year. I thought this would be so cute with a picture in the middle. Even better, my photo ornament is a pin, so it can be used in other ways as well.

Here is Nana’s ornament taken apart. I wanted to show you how hers looked with the white thread. She used a white yarn that has a shinny silky thread running through it. If you look closely at the top picture you can just make it out. That shinny thread adds to the look of this ornament. White with a silver thread running through it would also be nice.

1. Here is your basic template. You can buy squares of plastic canvas or a larger sheet of it. Simply cut out the above shape out of your plastic canvas.

I wanted you to be able to see what I am doing so I used blue embroidery floss for this tutorial. In reality you would want to use something thicker than embroidery floss.

2. Hold the end of the floss to the back of your project. It will get hidden by the stitches you will be making. For this you will need something like 4.5 yards of yarn for each half of the snowflake. I used an entire hank of embroidery floss which is 8.75 yards total.

I suggest you cut yourself a 4.5 yard length of yarn. Thread it through an yarn needle and position your needle near the center of the yarn. This way you will only have to pull half the length of the yarn through the canvas at any given time.

Follow my directions for working in one continuous string around the ornament.

3. For the most part I am going to let my pictures explain the steps.

4. You will always bring the needle back up through the starting hole as you work each corner of the X. This will make a loop around the back side that will be identical to the front.

5. Down again through the next hole and then back up through the starting point.

6. Each corner will go like the picture above. Stitch from right to left inserting your needle through the holes that the arrows point to.

7. Still working from the same starting hole now stitch towards the center of the canvas. Follow the arrows from left to right.

8. After you finished the stitches towards the center of the canvas come back up through the starting hole. Insert the needle down through the hole shown above to the right of where you started.

9. Now put the needle back through the top of the same hole you just went through and pull it through. Bring your needle back up to the top of your canvas and go down through the hole to the right of the one you just went through.

10. Work your way around the next corner of the X. These are the hands of my 5 year old helping me out with this ornament.

11. Here you can see that we have gone all the way around the next corner to the opposite side of the next section. I have pulled the needle up through the starting point to repeat the above pattern with this side. Work your way all the way around the ornament in this fashion. The last thing you will do is weave around the edge of the side you started with.

12. Now to secure the end. Put the needle up through the bottom of the hole that you did your last loop in as shown above.

13. Insert the needle behind the decorative stitches and pull it through. Put the needle through the hole indicated by the arrow above and repeat this process. Simply snip off the end of the yarn.

14. Now follow the same pattern and make another one.

15. Place the X’s you just made one on top of the other as shown above.

16. To secure the halves together simply pull the corners of the back X forward to lock them in place between the sides of the top X. It will look like the picture above when you are done.

Now to make the picture part of the ornament.

1. Roll out Fimo or Sculpty clay (the kind you have to bake for it to harden). Roll it out to a 1/4 inch thickness. Use a cookie cutter shape that is no bigger than 1.75 inches in diameter. Bake according to package directions.

2. I edited this picture using Photoshop elements. I removed the background (I wanted the background to be a crisp white for this) and cropped the picture into a circle shape. I resized the picture down to 1.5 inches (the inside diameter of my cut out clay). Once I printed it out, I used my 1.5 inch circle cutter to cut out my picture.

3. Paint Mod(ge) Podge over the top surface of your clay shape. Press the picture on and let dry. This will take about 15 minutes. Now go back and apply a coat of Mod(ge) Podge over the top of the picture. Repeat one more time. The label on the Mod(ge) Podge suggests spraying a clear coat over the dried project to seal it and eliminate the slightly tacky finish the Mod(ge) Podge leaves.

How do YOU say Mod Podge? I say it Modge Podge, always have and always will thus the (ge) tacked on to Mod. I am with Anjeanette on this one, they need to change their name!!!

4. Use your trusty E-6000 to glue the pin to the back of the clay. You will know what I am talking about if you have seen Anjeanette’s Tutorials that require glue.

This is THE GO-TO glue when you want it to hold like no other. You will have to break up the Clay before it will release it’s hold. Even then you will have to use a knife to scrape the clay off the glue. The glue will remain forever on the pin. (I tried to reuse a pin by removing it from an earlier project that broke. I got the pin off but the project is in tiny crumbs in the trash.) Seriously go out and get some from your craft store if you don’t already have some. Keep pliers handy because once it has been used a few times you will need them to get the cap off. If your tube gets plugged and the glue won’t come out, use a toothpick to clear out the nozzle.

Once the glue has dried pin the picture to the front half of the snowflake ornament canvas. If you have two children make a second pin and fasten it to the other side of the snowflake. Be sure to remember to put the child’s name and date on the back of the pin.

The reason I used a pin on the back of the clay picture is so that whomever the lucky person is that gets your lovely gift can remove the picture pin and use it elsewhere to enjoy it all year long.

Technorati Tags: Christmas in July,Christmas,Katrina,Crafts,tutorial

Katrina

Christmas Photo Ornaments To Make With Your Kids

I hope you are enjoying our 2nd week of Christmas In July, here at Roots And Wings Co! I hope you are able to use some of our ideas, or at least that they may spark an idea of your own. For myself, I am always happy to get a few Christmas things done ahead of time! YAY!

I love to give pictures of my children, to their grandparents. I also like to have them for myself. A great gift idea is photo ornaments. I made a few different kinds of them. I thought of even more, too! All of these ornaments were made so that you can slide a picture in from the top.

The first Photo Ornaments I made were out of paper. To make these I went through my scrapbooking stash and gathered any Christmas embellishments that I had.

I cut out fun ornament shapes next. I cut 2 of each shape out, cutting an extra hole out of the center of the one that would be the front. This will be where my photo will show through.

At this point you can cut out your photos to fit the ornament openings. I used a magazine just to post on my blog (since I do not post my children on here). Oh, and my daughter had a fit that I cut up something with Hannah Montana in it.

Glue the backs to the fronts of the ornaments. I like the idea of changing out the pictures so I just ran glue along the very outside of the ornament along the sides and bottom only. So all my photos can slide out through the top. Plus the pictures that I will use will probably be my kids school pictures, which we don't even have yet!

My kids and I went to town giving Christmas foam stickers some sparkle and extra oomph! These stickers were all just plain before we added glitter, cut them up, and colored on them with marker.

Add embellishments as you like. I also have ribbon that I curled myself. So, I will be using that ribbon to tie the ornaments to the tree when we actually hang these up. I love the bounce that the curled ribbon gives these ornaments. I also attached many of these embellishments with thick tape (those double stick foam pieces)to give the embellishments more depth.

I always add the year to our ornaments (and the name of the child). It's cute if you can do this inside some of the embellishments. But if nothing else, at least put this information on the back of the ornament.

Of course I had to make some of these ornaments out of polymer clay, as well. These were so much fun to embellish. I cut out extras of the paper ornaments to use as templates when cutting out the clay for these ornaments. For the green ornament, my kids helped me to string seed beads onto craft wire. I then curled the beaded craft wire around a thin stick and attached the tops to the back of the front piece of the ornament, with super glue. On the all red ornament I love the holly and leaves on the side. I just cut those out by hand. The third ornament was really fun. I rolled the clay into long thin "snakes" and layered them red, green, red, etc. Then, I rolled these "snakes" all together until it was the right thickness to cut my ornament out of it. I love how this turned out and ended up making about an even dozen ornaments this way! ;)

These are my favorite ornaments. They are the ones that I did not help at all with decorating or putting together. Apparently my kids just liked the foam stickers and none of the rest. I think it was the glitter that put them over the edge for my kids. They are so excited to give these to their Grandparents that they asked to do it already!


Seeing them all together, I'm not sure that I want to give them away now!

It was so much fun making these with my kids. I thought I was going to do more of it myself then I ended up doing. Great memories were made with my kids when we made these together. We even have extras of quite a few parts of this (the glittered foam stickers, the red/green swirled polymer clay ornaments, and spiral beaded craft wires.)! I'm not sure what we'll do with them, but the kids weren't done crafting when the craft was all finished. I think we will be doing a lot more of the beading, in the very near future. This is the second project I have done lately with the beading and it even got my youngest hooked! My older kids always enjoy crafting with me, but to pull the youngest one in so much was a nice surprise bonus!

Rebecca

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