Twirling Paper Ladybugs

This is one of the cutest paper crafts I have found so far. I couldn't resist making them for my kids' room. They took the better part of the afternoon and about two hours into the evening after the kids went to bed. While each of the steps themselves were not difficult, there were just a LOT of steps to go through. Well worth it, I think.

I found the idea at Make and Takes about two years ago and finally decided to do it. I had to adapt the tutorial to meet with my circumstances. The Make and Takes tutorial calls for the black markings on the ladybugs to be painted on. I, however, used construction paper cutouts since my workspace currently consists of my bed and desk. The last time I attempted painting in my room, it didn't turn out as well as I would have liked and took quite a lot of patience to fix: see here and here. (Plus, I'm sure my mother appreciates my consideration for her basement carpet..) 

For this project, I used 4 pieces of black construction paper and about half each of 9 colored pieces of construction paper. I bought that paper about 13 years ago for scrapbooking purposes and I don't think I've gone through half of it yet!

I used a glass jar candle as my stencil, and I'm glad I did. In retrospect, the much bigger ladybugs I had in mind would have been a mountain of a task to complete. I used one of each color construction paper I had available to me (excepting the black which I use later on in the project). I cut out 18 circles to complete 9 different ladybugs.

I bought this 1" circle punch for this project nearly two years ago. I'm glad I found the punch before I found my spouncers and paint, or this craft would have turned out to be much longer and difficult. As it was, in order to put just 4 dots on each of the four sides of each ladybug, I had to punch out 144 circles! Amazing how quickly it adds up.

To make the head/face of the ladybugs, I stenciled 9 more circles in black.

Then, using the edge of one of the colored circles, I measured out a corner of the circle to the size I wanted the face to be and stenciled that in. Each black circle had room for the four faces I needed for each ladybug.

Pre-cut

Post-cut

(Don't worry about wasted paper, I used the inner diamond to punch out the last few 1" dots I needed.)

Gluing the faces on.

Each circle had to have a slit cut about half-way through each circle. One on the bottom and one on the top, so that they could be fit together for gluing later.

Gluing the wiggly eyes on.

Hot gluing the two circles together successfully was challenging enough with two hands, so I wasn't able to take pictures of that process. I've been burned by a hot glue gun before and I wasn't interested in repeating that experience.

While the kids were away at a summer recreation program, I hung these little darlings in their room.

I think I might even make these sweet little clouds to go with them....

My hope is that they have grown out of the paper-eating stage that destroyed nearly all of these fun  pom-poms I made for them three years ago. I was able to rescue one of the tiered pom-pom creations and it's been hanging in my room ever since. So, I'll cross my fingers and hope that they will leave the ladybugs alone! :)

My desire for whimsy has been satisfied once again!

Until next time! Happy Blogging!

Father's Day Questionnaire

With Ben away at WLC (Sergeant school), one of the events he has been unable to celebrate at home this year is Father's Day. So, I put together some cute questionnaires for my kids to answer, and then I mailed them out to him. He received them this morning, so I am finally free to post them up here. :)

I found the questions on Pinterest, but just copied them down and designed my own simple form and added a nifty clipart Soldier down at the bottom. I think I tracked down the original idea to Make it Perfect's blog, so I wanted to make sure I acknowledged that. 

Just to make sure Ben could read them, I filled out the kids' answers, but let them sign the bottom, themselves. 

Ben called me this morning and said that he really enjoyed them. I'm just glad that we could send him something to make him smile while he's away.

The kids are also fixed on getting him a present (Audrey is very firm on a specific idea). We will be going to the store sometime this week to pick out something for him. There won't be enough time to mail it out to him, so we will wrap it up and have him open them when he comes home.

Our anniversary is also this week (double whammy). I've already got some ideas percolating, but I won't be able to share them here until after he receives them here at home, so stay tuned for those in a couple of weeks.

(Official) Last Day of School

The last day of school was short and really more of a formality than anything. It was a good opportunity for Audrey to say good-bye to her friends and her teacher, though. Mrs. Jensen read an Eric Carle book called "A House for Hermit Crab" which may have helped Audrey with the concept of growing up and moving on to a new grade. She had really been struggling with the fact that she will have a new teacher, class and possibly even new friends next fall. 

Getting a hug and her folder from her teacher.

Taelin, Audrey, Ariana and Addy

She had lots of other friends in her class, but these are the ones she grabbed for the photo.

Audrey loves Mrs. Jensen, a fact which makes me quite happy.

Audrey loved her first year in school and I hope the love of learning and making friends will follow her throughout her life.

(Almost) Last Day of School

I say this was almost the last day of school for Audrey because her official last day only consisted of about 45 minutes of stories and getting a folder with some remaining school papers and projects.

So, on this (almost) last day of school, I had her wear the same outfit she did on the first day and I recreated the photo experience to see the changes that occurred in my little girl over the 8+ months of school. Click on the picture to see a bigger version.

There is definitely some wear on both the shirt and pants. Her clothes fit her much better and she's lost some of the "baby" in her face. She's wearing shoes in the first shot and barefoot in the second and, yet, you can still tell that she is a bit taller in the second shot. It's pretty amazing to see the difference.

It almost chokes me up to think how much she changed over such a short period of time, and it wasn't just a physical change. She is a budding independent reader, does basic math and understands so much more than last fall.

She left the house on that first day as a brand new Kindergartner and returned a prospective First Grader!

Fashionable Six-Year-Old

Audrey's been dressing herself for quite some time. I try not to interfere with her choices, because there will come a time where peer-pressure may very well do that for me, much to my dismay.

Every so often, though, someone will look at my daughter and look at me and ask if I really intend to let her wear that... and, horrors, if we'll even dare leave the house! Well, aside from a few considerations, I figure I'll let her express herself any way she likes. In my mind, it shows creativity on her part.

The considerations are often boring: Can she wear that to school? (Apparently flip-flops are not allowed as we found out about a month before school let out for the summer.) Is it weather appropriate? (A long-sleeved shirt will be just as unwelcome in July as a sundress in December.) Can you see her underwear? (Fortunately, this is not because of any pant-sagging tendencies, but because of her penchant for skirts. A pair of simple shorts underneath does the trick.)

She has also started fixing her own hair, and I am more than happy to have her learn, even if the results often look like she's been trying to apply hair ties in a tornado. She'll need to know how to fix her hair soon enough. However, I try to make sure that her hair looks nice when my status as a decent mother might come into question.

While Ben was away training in the Army, he often only saw the kids from the shoulders-up via Skype. However, I made sure he got a good look at this ensemble:

Yeah. My little outside-the-box-thinker. In her mind, if she likes it, she should be able to wear it all at once, never mind matching. :)

Honestly, as long as I'm working on my kids' social graces, grammar and knowledge of the world outside their neighborhood, I figure fashion sense will only need to be taught if they don't grow into it on their own... I think if they haven't gotten it worked out by the time they're thinking about getting married, we might need to have a sit-down.

Googly-Eye Drawing Starter

I found this idea on Pinterest, the magnificent wonder that it is. This post by House of Baby Piranha was too simple to pass up, AND I had all the supplies on-hand. Oh, all right, I had to hunt down my glue-sticks, but it all worked out in the end.

It also gave us the chance to crack open the almost-new boxes of crayons we got for FREE at a church swap! Woohoo!

Both of my kids really enjoyed the launching point of this craft. Googly-eyes are always fun!

Henry's pictures are still quite abstract. I see amoebic critters here, don't you?

Audrey drew a farm, complete with a pig, a cow that looks like a horse, a ghost and some dung beetles eating poop. We had just read a book called "Poop-Eaters" the night before. It's nice when the books we read make an impact. :) (Note that both the ghost and the cow have the letters coming out of their mouths backward. Audrey explained that the W and M come out of the mouth first and that's why they are closest.)

Both of these pictures were considered "fridgers" and are still hanging up for the delight of all! We'll be doing this one again at some point.. maybe after we get through the other 5,000 craft pins I have waiting in the wings. ;)

School Dance Festival

Kindergarten has been quite an adventure for everyone in our family and not just for the kindergartner, herself. It's hard to say who had it cut out for them the most; me trying to keep up with the mountains of homework and other papers, Ben missing out on most of the school year, Audrey dealing with the joys and challenges of school or Henry being left at home without a playmate...

In the last week, Audrey's school had their annual dance festival. Because we had been out of town, Audrey didn't have much time to learn the dance, but she had a good partner and learned quickly. I wish I had a video camera, but a few stills will have to do and you'll have to use your imagination when I say that those two were completely adorable. The song their class was dancing to was "You've Got a Friend in Me" from Toy Story.

The girls kept scooting down the line as the dance went on and I had a hard time capturing them.

But, it was so cute and so sweet. I'll be better prepared the next time she has an event like this. Maybe I'll even have a video camera by then.