Just a quick update

Check out my happy little buttoneers from last week's class!

Crafty kids + brains the size of planets + yarn and buttons = about a dozen of the world's most interestingly non-standard ways to sew buttons onto plastic canvas.  I wish I had taken pictures of some of their finished projects - it was a total hoot to see what they came up with.  And of course, good little craft teacher that I am, I told them all that as long as they were happy with the results, it looked great to me.  And it did ... as long as you didn't plan on actually using the buttons for anything!

Best use of embroidery ever

http://vintagericrac.blogspot.com/2010/12/options.html
(not exactly kid-safe, although it's not smutty, either ... just not something you want to have to explain to your kindergartener, so be warned before you click through)

What do you think - would anyone buy this on a card?

Told you I was having too much fun with those little Japanese dolls ...

So that's what I saved them for.

I was cleaning out the basement last week and found some little paper weeble-wobble dolls we bought when we lived in Japan.  

My first thought upon finding them?  Grab the camera, I bet I can sell pics of those!

Fun with Fibers, week 5: Sewing

This week we're entering the exciting world of sewing through a rather practical door - buttons!  I'm sure I'm not the only mother who seems to spend half of her free time finding buttons in the wash, finding buttons in the backpack, figuring out which buttons go where, cursing the lack of matching buttons in my button box, and finally sewing the darn things back onto my kid's clothes.  Tell me I'm not alone, people!

After today's tutorial the kids should be able to sew a button back on by themselves.  Well, okay, maybe with a little hand-holding (and needle-threading), but it's still an improvement over complete cluelessness.  And it gets them ready to sew more exciting things next week!

You can read more about the history of sewing on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sewing
More about the history of buttons here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A23623616

If you happen to have a lot of buttons laying around (thanks, mom, for the 5-pound tin of yard sale buttons last summer!), there are lots of cool crafts for kids to make with them.  Some involve sewing, lots involve glue, and all of them are fun.  You can find an overview of them here: http://www.google.com/images?q=button+crafts&hl=en&prmd=i&source=lnms&tbs=isch:1&ei=UAf9TODCM8H7lweZpLyMBQ&sa=X&oi=mode_link&ct=mode&ved=0CBUQ_AU&biw=1138&bih=544

A couple of my favorites:

Well, that's about it for this week.  I'd better go shovel out my driveway if I'm going to make it to school in time!

A-one and a-two ...

It's that time of year

When the handprints of felt

Start to pile up

'Round the tree ...

And this craft of mine

Takes almost no time

Leaving me

Free to say:

Merry Christmas!

May your ornaments go well!

PS - LazyHusband says if I keep making handprint ornaments much longer, they'll be so big we'll have to use them as throw pillows instead of on the tree.  He may be onto something there ...

First year - done!

I've done this for four years in a row on my personal blog, but this is the first time I've managed to pull it off on my craft blog.  Go, me!