Archive for the 'Crafts' Category

How to Find Free Cross Stitching Patterns Online

Saturday, April 14th, 2012

If you’re a fan of free cross stitch patterns but you’re not all exactly an online guru or a technical computer genius, then there’s no need to worry. The internet is a wonderful place and literally you can find anything you want on there if you know where to look and how to look for it. You must also be careful though, because a lot of websites out there were designed to harm your computer or steal information from you, but they’re not hard to spot.

When you’re looking for free cross stitch patterns, one of the first places you probably thought of was Google. This is what’s called a search engine and there are plenty of these to go around, but the number one search engine is without a doubt is Google. A nice searching tip is to ask the search engines questions such as “Where can I find free cross stitching patterns?” or “Where is the best place to find free cross stitching patterns?” Of course those are just examples, but try to broaden your searches and you’ll find much more results in what you’re looking for.

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Learn About Plants with Preschoolers

Sunday, April 8th, 2012

Spring is here! However, depending on where you live it may not look very much like spring outdoors. In our Canadian prairies spring comes late. Winnipeg still has lots of snow and here in Calgary it is still too cold to plant gardens outdoors. We are fortunate there are many ways to enjoy gardening indoors.

In this experiment we will learn what plants need to grow and be healthy.

You will need a collection of new plants and seeds, several small containers appropriate to be used as plant pots, and some soil, some sand, and some clay. You will also need some water and just a little bit of plant food.

Have fun planting some seed in soil, some in sand, and some in clay in the containers. Do the same with the plants. Give some seeds and some plants water while giving other seed and plants none or just a little. Put some containers in plenty of sunshine but others in little or none. Give some plant food and others not. If you are brave, damage one plant by mishandling it. I can never do this because plants are so special to me. Make a note of which seeds and plants you have watered and those you have not. Do the same with the containers you have put in the sun and those you have not and mark the plant you have been a little rough with.

Each day observe the containers and watch the seeds sprout and the plants grow. Compare the growth of the plants in different mediums and areas. What happened to the plant you damaged?

Did you discover:

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Turtle Paper Plate Craft

Friday, August 19th, 2011

Children love turtles. This turtle paper plate craft is a fun, easy preschool craft project. To make this craft, you will need:

Two paper plates
Brown construction paper
Green craft paint
Google eyes
Scissors
Glue
Dried beans (optional)
Felt tip pen

Your child will need two paper plates to make one turtle. Have your child use the green paint to paint the bottom side of both paper plates. Allow to dry.

Next cut out the arms, legs, etc. Using the scissors and brown construction paper, cut out four small rectangles for legs, a small triangle for the tail, and a circle for the head. You can outline them first with a pen if you wish, but it isn’t necessary. I just cut mine out freehand.

Glue the edges of the arms, legs, tail, and head to the top edge of one of the paper plates.

If you wish you can put some dried beans onto the plate so that when you glue the plates together the turtle will rattle when your child shakes it. This step is optional.

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Scrapbooking Teen Memories

Saturday, March 5th, 2011

By the time your teen is in high school, you probably aren’t taking as many pictures of them as you used to. I have to keep reminding myself that I only have a couple of years left and no time to waste trying to capture fleeing teenage memories.

You might be thinking that I’m really organized to be already working on scrapbooking my daughter’s high school memories. To be honest, I have a shoe box full of pictures of my daughter waiting for me to get to someday.

But if I wait until “someday” to continue taking pictures because I already have so many pictures I haven’t done anything with, then my daughter’s teenage years will come and go while I try to catch up.

I don’t want to chronicle every detail of my daughter’s life (nor would she want me to!), but I was trying to think of some memories that she might want to laugh about and maybe even treasure someday. So how do you do that without ending up with pages and pages of memories?

I decided to do two large (12×12) pages (facing each other in the album) for each year of high school. I will challenge myself to use this space creatively to tell the story of each year. When I started thinking of all the the possibilities, it really inspired me to start getting organized and collecting some great memories. And don’t limit yourself to just photographs, your scrapbook pages can really be accentuated by other types of memories. Here are some ideas to get you started:

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Scrapbooking – Must Have Supplies For Those Learning To Scrapbook

Sunday, February 20th, 2011

Are you looking to get into Scrapbooking? If you have never scrapbooked your family’s precious photographs, now is the time to get started. Preserving your photographs now will ensure that generations to come will be able to enjoy them. When it comes to purchasing supplies, I will admit…it is an investment! You can buy inexpensive or expensive supplies, that is entirely up to you.

If you are just getting involved in this craft and hobby, here are the products I recommend to all beginners.

Scrapbook: I like the 12×12 size but you can purchase 8×8 or 6×6 sizes too.
Plastic Page Protectors – To fit inside your scrapbook.
Scissors – you will want an ergonomic pair that is made specifically for paper
Decorative Edge Scissors – You can pick up these type of scissors for about a $1.00 a pair
Self Healing Cutting Mat with Exacto Knife for cropping photo’s and cutting your paper
Clear Metal Edge Ruler
Adhesives – 2 sided tape, glue dots and glue sticks
Paper – Solid and printed paper and card stock (tip: watch craft store sales ads and pick them up for 4 sheets for $1.00 when on sale).
Brads and Eyelets (You will need an eyelet setter), Buttons and Charms (to decorate your pages).

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Homemade Activities for Children

Saturday, January 15th, 2011

artists paintsToddlers and young children love to play games and make things. Not only is this good for their mind but it’s fun for you as a parent. There are so many things you can do things you have in your home right now. You won’t have to go to the store and make a purchase. Here are a few suggestions.

1. Boys

Boys love to race cars, so building things for them is pretty easy to do. For example, if they have you can take a cereal box that’s empty and create a tunnel. To do this, you’ll need to take the plastic out of the box and open both ends up. Another thing you can do is seal both ends and cut a hole in the center that goes all the way through. You can also create ramps with cereal boxes. Use DVD cases as the ramps and race the cars going up and down the ramp on the box.

Match box cars are the perfect size to go through a paper towel or toilet paper roll. These make great tunnels. If your son has larger cars they can be used for obstacles to go over like monster trucks.

2. Girls

Girls like to play dress up, play princess games, and have tea parties. These are all things you can do with things in your home. Dress up is one of the easiest things to do because you already have clothes she can use. Allowing her to put on your clothes and shoes is good, but it’s a good idea for you to set out the clothes she can use. It would be terrible if she got makeup on your dry clean only silk formal gown.

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