Crafty

I have good intentions as a mother to try to get Brooklyn involved in crafty things. At one point, I had a goal to do a craft once a day to keep her learning. Ha! I failed miserably at that. So then I moved to a craft once a week and I'm failing so far, but still have a goal to improve. The hardest part of a craft project is the planning involved, though I have learned recently that sometimes you don't need to plan at all. :)
I recently got a free subscription to Parents magazine and they have a craft project in the back of each of their magazines. Some of the crafts are a little more advanced so Brooklyn can't do them yet, but we did try this one. I tried to find the Internet link to the project, but had no luck. If anyone wants to try it, let me know and I can email you more information. Basically you take an old egg carton and let them color it with paint. Brooklyn loves to paint!

Here she is all done!

Then she wanted to paint the plate and I think she loved this more than painting the egg carton. See, this would have been much simpler than making the full project, but it was already started so we finished. Well, let's say that I finished it! After she painted, there wasn't much else she could do. I had to cut them out and add things to them. Brooklyn loves to cut, but I didn't think she was up to this much cutting and to cut straight. She did get to pick out the eyes and glue them on though. This project became a month-long project because I wasn't in the mood to do the rest, but we did finally finish it.

Here they are: a crab, starfish, clam, octopus and two fish. That's as good as it gets! It was a fun project, but I don't think Brooklyn has played with them much so they will probably end up in the garbage here soon. Oh well.

I asked Brooklyn to hold up her favorite and she picked the crab. Well, then she held up each one separately and we took a picture. I thought the crab and the clam were the cutest.

And to go along with my "craft post", this summer I was in a crafty mood as well and made some rag quilts. I know, no big deal to many of you, but for a girl that didn't even own a sewing machine before Mother's Day and was actually very nervous behind one, this is a big accomplishment for me! I made my first rag quilt in March for my nephew and it was stressful and Marty actually helped me sew some of it. Then I got a new sewing machine so it was all mine and I could get it out as needed and learn to feel more comfortable behind it so I tried making more.

This is a picture of the one I made for my friend, Jessie, who had her baby at the end of July. I also crocheted her some burp cloths.

And while I was buying fabric for the other one, Brooklyn told me I needed to make a blanket for her "babies" so we picked out this fabric and I made one for Brooklyn. It's fun to actually keep one and Brooklyn loves it and sleeps with it every night.

Now since July I haven't done anything, but I'm starting to get in the mood again and plan to go to the sewing group in our ward this month. I just need to go buy more fabric!