12 Outting Bags

I finished a few more Christmas gifts and am really excited about them!  My brothers children have so many toys and I can never find anything new to get them.  This year I decided to make them Outting Bags.  What are those, you ask?  Let me tell you:

They are lined totes that I made and filled with items the kids could entertain themselves with while at restaurants, doctors offices, etc.  

For my 7 year old nephew I made an army bag - complete with army men, helicopter, plane, a laminated play mat and coloring book.  I created the mat on the computer and had it laminated at Staples and it is multi-purpose - placemat, coloring mat (dry erase), and play mat for Army men!

(Excuse the pictures - the lighting was horrible and they really don't do the gift justice!)  For my 3 year old niece I did a My Little Pony bag that contained mini My Little Ponies, a play mat (same as above but with a different theme), and a coloring book.

I can't wait to give them each their bag of goodies!  I spoke to my Sister-in-Law and she is excited as well.  She plans on keeping the bags in the car so that they will always be at the ready.

Happy sewing!   

1 Tis' the season...

Just a couple of things... I quietly passed my 100 post a few days ago!  :)

And two - check out the new holiday banner seven thirty three is sporting!  Hope everyone is geared up and ready for the Holidays.  My presents are all wrapped, the lights are hung... now the waiting game (for me and the kids!!!). :) 

Happy Holidays to All.

6 Burlap Wreath

I have wanted to make a wreath for a while and have been really inspired by all of the christmas ornament wreaths I've seen around the blogosphere.  Unforunately we don't have any spare bulbs around the house and I would have had to make a drive to one of the box stores to get a good price (closest being a half hour away).  So needless to say, I decided to make one out of materials I already had around the house.  I bent a wire coat hanger into a circle, cut burlap and red fabric into strips of 1" x 5" and had at it.  I ran out of burlap so the wreath isn't quite as thick as I would have liked, but for a quick and easy project, it didn't turn out half bad. 

Happy crafting!

0 What Kim Needs... According to Google!

I saw this great post over at Atlanta Mothers Guide... and had to give it a try!  Basically search for what you need on Google and post the top 10 results.

 

Here's what I need:

To loose a few - marbles, no.  Pounds, sure.

A new apron - I could use one - my husband would probably say what for since I'm not much of a cook... but HEY!  I can cook a mean crepe... or bake a yummy cake.

Some hints - yes, yes I could.

To shut up and go home - Well EXCUSE me!

A refreshment - Yes please... a diet cherry coke sounds good.

A safety bubble - HA HA HA HA HA!!!  Yes, since I rolled my ankle a few days ago and then hyper-extended my leg today and now my bum knee is acting up, I agree, a bubble WOULD be nice.

To take off the gloves - If someone would give me the heated USB gloves I don't think I would EVER take them off... my hands are always so cold.

To mind her own business - I may need to do that, but I don't want to!

Sunscreen - You're right, Google, I do need that if I don't want to look like a lobster.

Alone time - Don't we all?  Sigh...

Well there you go - those are my needs!  What about you?

Happy Need Fulfillment!

0 Happy Thanksgiving!

Due to Thanksgiving we are taking a break from the What are little boys made of?  Weekly Round-Up.  Please stop by next Thursday to enter your boy craft into the MckLinky!

9 Sneak Peek: Christmas Gift for my Lil Sis

I wanted to give you a quick peek at a part of the gift I am making for my younger sister and her fiance. 

These are stamped ice cream bowls, inside the burlap bag is tins that I will be adding ice cream toppings too.

I used regular alphabet stamps and glass paint from Joann's for the bowls.  After stamping the bowls I placed them in the oven, following the directions on the paint packaging.

I used regular fabric paint to stamp on the burlap topping bag.
Check back soon to see the final gift basket!What are some gifts you are making this year?

UPDATE: Here is the finalized basket:

Happy crafting!

2 Salt Dough - EASY TO MAKE AND FUN TO CRAFT WITH!

One of my favorite memories in school was sculpting in art class.  I absolutely LOVED bringing home my creations to Mom and Dad.  And now I LOVE when my daughter brings home hers.  I really want to start making our own creations at home and found a great recipe for an easy and affordable salt dough that you can sculpt, bake and paint!

All you need is:

3 cups flour
1 cup salt
1 cup water

Using an electric mixer, beat together the flour, salt and water on medium speed until a ball forms, then remove the dough and knead it until it is smooth.

To bake: heat oven to 275 degrees.  Bake sculpture on a foil-lined cookie sheet for two hours (may need to bake more depending on the size of your sculpture).  Allow to cool completely before painting.

My kids and I are going to bust out some ornaments for an ornament exchange we are participating in!

Ooooo - I just thought of something!  Maybe I can host an ornament exchange on here.... who doesn't love a good ornament AND getting a package in the mail!!!  May have to shelf this idea till next year though... since it is already almost THANKSGIVING!

1 Pretend Checks

UPDATE: You can now purchase downloadable, personalized pretend checks in my Etsy shop!  Available as individual or "bound" checks. Check it out now - reallyCRAFTYstudio.etsy.com

Since my kids are getting a play kitchen for Christmas and they already have a cash register and like to play store, I thought I would make a set of checks for my older daughter to use during this pretend play.  I created checks on the computer and printed them, cut them out and placed them in an old checkbook that I never used.  I also gave her an extra check register so she could really get the full effect!  On her checks I actually had her name and address at the top left. 

6 REVIEW: C.H. Hanson Steel Stamp Kit

I received the steel stamp kit that CSN Stores sent for me to review the other night and couldn't wait to try it out.  I ripped open the packaging and found a very heavy duty metal box containing the set of letters and numbers.  Before I got started I did a search for steel stamping tutorials and found a really good site, beaducation.com.  I suggest that you check it out if you are interested in steel stamping.

I got out my stamps, a hammer and a washer and went to town.  The steel stamps are very sturdy and the perfect size to handle.  I do wish that there was a beveled edge for your thumb to rest, but other than that, I have no complaints. 

CSN Stores was great.  The shipping was fast (ordered the 12th and arrived on the 18th) and customer service was friendly.  I recieved email updates throughout the process.

So what did I make?  Washer necklaces for my daughter and younger sister:

I can't wait to try it out on other things.  I am looking around for blank charms so that I can make more necklaces, keychains... the skys the limit and I'm ready to dive in!

Bottom line:  CSN Stores was great to deal with and have a great selection with good prices.  I recommend the stamp set for anyone looking to get into metal stamping!

Happy crafting!

Disclosure: I received this complimentary stamp set from CSN Stores in order to post this review. No payment was received for this blog post.

1 Puppet Theatre from a Cardboard Box

I decided that my kids needed a puppet theatre for all of their fun finger puppets that they have been making.  I didn't want to buy or build anything, so I decided to construct one out of a cardboard box.  I cut a window, added a wood dowel to hold the curtain I made out of red scrap fabric.  I left the back flaps so that the kids can hide inside the box (I don't exactly fit in the box, so yes, that IS my head you see in the pic above!).  I also added a small flap that I cut off the box and folded it over the bottom of the whole for the "Now Playing" flap where your kids can tape their play posters! 

My kids haven't had a chance to decorate it yet, but I know it will look super special once they have!  In less than 15 minutes you can make your kiddos a puppet theater and puppets!  I also thought of laying the box on its side and cutting out the hole so more than I kid can fit in.  Then all you have to do is lay it on its side on a table and voila!

Learn how to make the fun finger puppet you see above right here!

Happy puppeteering!

0 Super Heroes to the Rescue!!!

I finally got around to making this Super Hero cape that I featured way back when on my weekly round-up.  My son absolutely LOVES it.  He runs around the house yelling BATMAN and posing all sorts of cool super hero poses.  I made the otherside with a crown because we attended a birthday party that asked the kids to come dressed as princesses and princes... although it is VERY hard to get him to switch it from Batman, with a swift flick of the wrist he didn't know the difference! :)  

1 What are little boys made of? Weekly Round-Up MckLinky Style!

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I have decided to continue with the MckLinky weekly round-up... so here we go again!

I am really excited to see all of your great boy crafts/projects/activities!  Please include our button in your blog post so others can come join in the fun!

There are just a few guidelines: 1) please link to your blog post (not your blog main page) so people can go directly to your project and 2) Enter your blog name and in paranthesis add the name of your project we can clearly see what it is. 

1 Customized Video from Santa -- FREE!

Visit here and you can make a customized video to your child from Santa!  You will need to register, but it is Disney Family, so is a trustworthy site.  The only other thing you will need is a picture of your child and their name.  Upload the picture, enter their name and voila you get an AWESOME video to share with your child.  I did this for both my older children last year and they FREAKED out!

Happy video making!

5 Christmas Gift Tags

I have been steadily working my way through wrapping all of our Christmas gifts.  We have 28 people to buy for (immediate family - ourselves, parents, siblings, neices and nephews, best friends), as I've said we come from a big family!  We've pared it down some - we don't buy for my brother and his wife anymore and eventually as my younger siblings grow older and start families of their own we will have to figure something else out.  But for now we set a limit for each person and we work within our means.  I love putting thought into gifts and wrapping them should be no exeception!  I hate paying for gift tags when I know I could easily make them myself with materials I have around the house.  Usually I print tags onto address labels (Avery 5160) and stick them to the packages.  I decided to try something a little more fancy and came up with these.  I think they are really cute - I chose Christmas trees for the art, but really anything Christmas related could be used.  I printed these onto cardstock, cut out and hole punched.  I added some ribbon and used double stick tape to add to the package.

What do you think?  Would anyone be interested in a free download of the tags?  The left side would be blank and you could handwrite - or if you have a typewriter (what is that?!?) hanging around, it would be really cute to type in the to and from fields.

UPDATE:  The blank tags can be downloaded HERE.

-- I have lots of fun crafts coming up in the next few weeks, so make sure to check back often!

1 Jublotte - The original Mmmm Mmmm Good!

I was reading all of the great soup recipes that were submitted over at Sisters Stuff and had to post my family recipe (I missed the deadline at Sisters Stuff).  This is a soup my Memere has made for many, many years.  She had 9 children in 12 years, so had many crazy mouths to feed.  It is simple and easy to make and you can make lots of it all at once!

My mothers side of the family is French, so that is where the weirdo funny name came from - my husband says it's macaroni soup with hamburg and occasionally hot dogs, but really, it is so much more!

Here you go:

For a family of four:

Two small cans of tomato juice

Two small cans of water

1 Cup Macaroni

Two Hot Dogs (optional)

1/2 lb. Hamburg

Onion salt (or regular salt) and pepper

Combine two small cans of tomato juice and two small cans of water into a medium sauce pan.  Add broken up hamburg.  Bring to boil.  Add in 1 cup macaroni, two sliced hot dogs and seasoning to taste.  Cook on medium until macaroni is tender. 

This is super yummy with milk and bread and butter!

Hope you enjoy!  It really is a family favorite - super easy and inexpensive!

Happy cooking.

2 Turkey {GOBBLE, GOBBLE} Crafts

I found this great site with TONS of fun Thanksgiving crafts.  I absolutely LOVE the Turkey Chair Cover:

And how cute is this?

I also love how creative this little guy is:

Happy crafting!

3 What are little boys made of? Weekly Round-Up MckLinky Style

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Copy and paste into your blog.

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Here we go! This is our first Thursday using good ole' MckLinky for our Weekly Round-Up and I am really excited to see all of your great boy crafts/projects/activities!  Please include our button in your blog post so others can come join in the fun!

There are just a few guidelines: 1) please link to your blog post (not your blog main page) so people can go directly to your project and 2) Enter your blog name and in paranthesis add the name of your project we can clearly see what it is. 

0 Steel Stamping Kit Headed My Way!

I have been drooling all over the creative blogosphere everytime I see those cool stamped washers that everyone and their mama seems to be making nowadays.  I have had a steel stamping kit on my wishlist for a while now.  So imagine my excitement when I was contacted by the wonderful people at Csnstores.com who said I could review one of their great products.  I started at the main CSN Stores page and went from there.  It took me over an hour to decide which item I wanted... should it be for the kids, my hubby, or for myself?  Finally, I decided, hey, I'm doing the review, I'm gonna get something I've been wanting... so I searched for "steel stamp kit" and came up with this! 

YAY!  So keep your eye out for my review!

Wanna know a little more about CSN Stores?  Here's the rundown: it's a group of fantastic online stores that truly provides a one stop shop. CSN consists of over 200 specialty shop sites with over 1,000,000 products - they have everything from children's toys to dining room furniture.

10 Simple and Fun Finger Puppets

Again, another project I learned as a child and never forgot.  My daughter makes these all the time.  You can make them as elaborate as you want.  We have added yarn for hair, googly eyes, used color paper, etc.  Teach this to your kids and watch what their imaginations unfold!

Materials needed:

1 8.5x11 piece of paper

Markers

Embellishments (yarn, googly eyes, sparkles, etc) optional

1.  Fold paper in half and then unfold. 

2.  Fold right side into middle.

3.  Fold left side to touch the other side.

4.  Fold in half.

5.  Fold top flap in half.

6.  Do the same to bottom flap - this creates a paper "M".

7.  Insert index and middle fingers in the top pocket and your thumb in the bottom pocket that was created.  This is how you make the puppet talk.

8.  Decorate as desired and have lots, and lots of puppet shows!

Happy puppeteering! 

0 Spread the Word!

I have decided to switch up the "What are little boys made of? Weekly Round-Up". Starting this Thursday there will be a MckLinky list where you can come add a link to your fabulous boy crafts! Anything boy related is accepted! Share your ideas or stop by to get some inspiration! I can't wait to see all of the creative ideas!

Make sure to spead the word and stop back on Thursday!

Happy crafting!