Have you ever started painting a room and mid project: your child wakes up, nap time is over, the show it over, kids get home, etc?
It happens to me often. I know when I am in the “zone” I like to just go. You know what I mean? It’s a hard part of motherhood that you often have to stop something you want to do, because a child needs you. It is also one of the blessings. Your child needs you. This season goes so fast.
My little Reagan has been waiting so patiently while I painted her bothers room, my craft room, and our guest/foster care room. She was so excited when I told her we would be starting her room.
She is my fellow crafter. She will color and craft all day, and the moments we get to do it together are some of my favorite moments of being her mom. I knew I needed to include her in the process, but I was not sure quite how. Let’s be honest, I knew there would be crazy drip marks and paint on the carpet (more than my usual mess), if I let her attack the walls. So, I cam up with her own little paint project. I blew up a family portrait of my family’s beach trip (I am one of nine kids) from last summer and got it printed at Staples in their engineer print section. I think it may have cost around $3.00? I used some painters tape to tape it to the wall, pulled out some paint, paintbrush, water, and paper towels and let her go at it. She was so excited!
She was painting before I knew it. I started her accent wall, while she painted our family. It was awesome. We got to talk, hang out together, both do something we love, and just have fun creating. I loved hearing her little giggle as she painted. I would turn and she would squeal, “mom, I just painted daddy BLUE”!
She happily worked on and off her project while I painted her accent wall purple. I can’t wait to show you what else I am going to do to this wall. For now, we moved her painting to the closet, so I could paint the rest of her room a light pink. More about that later as well.
She is so proud of her painting, and I am so proud of her. Being her mom is one of the greatest gifts.
If you’re interested in some of the things pictured above, you can find more info here…
I will probably wait a little while but as the painting gets worn or falls down, I will probably secretly take it down. I’m thinking it might actually make awesome wrapping paper, or maybe I should mail it to one of those family members and say Reagan wanted them to hang it up in their house. Ha!
This was a fun activity for my preschooler. I think it would also be fun to turn this idea into your very own pin the tail on ____________. There are lots of ways to modify this idea to make your own party game. Have you ever blown up a picture and had it printed as an engineer print?
I hope you are having a good week! We had some warmer weather here in Indiana this week and were playing outside in sweatshirts!
I started by gathering some felt and sparkly paper with colors that would work for my die cuts. I then used my 
I laid each of my die cuts on a coordinating piece of felt folded in half. I made sure I liked the placement and colors working together.
I then either stitched on my design or hot glued it. I played around with both ways, and they both worked great. I then stitched up the bottom and side of my felt (which I had folded over) to create a bag. I ended up stitching the other side as well (even though the fold closed that side off) just so it looked more symmetrical. I sewed either some ribbon or rope into the crease at the top of each bag to create handles and they were done.
The final step was hanging our Boo bags secretly out on our neighbors’ doors. The kids were all too excited to act like spies and hurry up and down the street.
Have you ever been Boo’d before!? If not, you could start this idea on your street. Print out a little ghost Boo sign and type up some simple instructions for your neighbors to read, attach them to your goody bag and you are ready to play!
Do you have a mission in life?
I cut my felt and fabric to create sweet ends and points for my arrows. This is a great way to mix patterns and colors. Your pieces could be all felt or felt on one side and fabric on the other. The big thing to note, is you need two identical size pieces for each part of the arrow. They create a front and a back as you will see in the following pictures.
I used hot glue to attach some feathers to the end piece of my arrow and then glued the identical size piece on top.
Once I had made a few of the end pieces of my arrows, I sewed all the identical size pieces for my arrows together. I could have just used hot glue, but I liked the look of the sewn pieces with stitches. The thing to be careful here is to keep an opening on the different pieces for a dowel rod or kabob stick (which are much cheaper!) to slide through.
After all my pieces were sewn, I simply started sliding them onto my wood kabob sticks and squirted in a little hot glue to hold them in place. They were done!
They were so fun to make! I am already dreaming of making more! There are so many possibilities for how to display these and the options for colors and patterns to use to create them.
Now, if you are like me, and create something you are excited about (and you voice it), your kids may want to get on board and create some too. After I made these arrows, my kids wanted to make some arrows. I adapted this idea to fun paper and just using hot glue for them. I created a stencil piece and let them trace and cut out their own arrow parts. I let my oldest hot glue his own arrow, while I did the younger three kiddos’ arrows for them. They loved being able pick their papers and place feathers where they wanted too.
This was such a quick little craft for them, where they got to use their imaginations and practice some easy skills like tracing and cutting. Reagan also decided to color hers. So, although it is the same idea, every arrow is different. Just like each of my kids are different. I love them! They have been enjoying flying these off the steps as if they were paper airplanes. Oh, to be a kid! 🙂
How about you? Do you have a passion that excites you? Something you want your life to be marked by? I hope you can make a little arrow or something that helps remind you daily that the grinding moments matter!