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I actually have three patchwork projects going now. Yes, three. Yes, I have a problem.

Hopefully more about the others soon. But this one started in the most irresistible way. I was making a bed cover for my daughter (10) when my son (7) declared he wanted a quilt, too. I told him he could look at some of my quilting books for inspiration, and he sat down and thumbed through them. He liked the Gee’s Bend book the best (is this kid good at getting brownie points or what? Gee’s Bend is my inspiration for all things quilty). Then he set about arranging my scraps into patterns.

It’s been so fun to see what he comes up with. He’s very particular. Also fun to see what surprises come together as the patchwork grows. The way the deep orange pops, the way the blues and greens begin to blend together, the way the prints dance and change character according to their placement and size.

All of these fabrics have a story. They’re bits from friends and family or pieces of other projects, some reeeeeally old.

He seems to want it to be a lap quilt. For more of my patchwork projects, click here.

Finished Call the Midwife (the book). It was very good. I especially love the stories about the nuns. Fascinating people.

I’m not exactly sure where it started (maybe with the rocket? maybe with this book?), but over the course of the summer, our dining room became piled high with cardboard creations.

I thought I’d share a few, in case they might inspire you or your kids. The center photo is the first guitar my son made. The others, clockwise from the top: a rocket, guitar  #2 and drum, shadow puppets, tube puppets, shadow puppet theater, and sword.

Summer’s over, and the factory had to be cleaned up, but we make sure to have a small cardboard stash at all times for building material. For more kid’s crafts, click here.

My kids created this after seeing something similar on the ending of an episode of Curious George. See, TV isn’t all bad. The theater is basically a box with one side cut out and covered over with a sheet of white paper.

The other shape with the cat (above) is an airplane. Of course.

They used chopstick pieces as holders. I’m loving the cardboard factory that is our dining room right now. Each package that enters the house is eyed as building material.

Our five-year-old wants to make a ball (sphere) of cardboard. Hmmmm……which gives me an idea…..

Can you say it three times fast?

Sorry I haven’t been around much in the last week or so. Now that a certain girl’s coronation birthday weekend week is over, I’m coming up for air.

We did it, folks. We survived a sleepover birthday party (plus days of other celebratory activities) and lived to tell the tale. I’m not exactly sure how she hypnotized talked us into the sleepover. All told, it went pretty well, though, and thankfully, the girls got along.

One highlight of the party was “Pass the Parcel,” which our daughter learned from her British (and half-British) friends in Germany. It’s really a fun, sweet game, and you can organize it so that everyone feels like they’ve won.

Basically, you have a small prize wrapped up in layers upon layers of wrapping paper. You pass the parcel around while music plays, and each time the grown up stops the music, the person holding the parcel gets to unwrap a layer. Ideally, each layer holds a tiny prize (in this case, Jolly Ranchers) and there’s at least one layer for each player.

We got distracted a bit while wrapping our parcel, and some layers—oops!—were empty. Nevermind, the girls were gracious and divided the candy evenly at the end.

At the center, we placed a collection of polymer clay beads and linen string, so each kid could make a necklace, bracelet, or key chain thingy. I had them pass the bead collection around and let each child choose a bead until they were all gone. Thankfully, there wasn’t much fuss about who got what colors. They’re all pretty, right?

Then each child strung the beads into the desired shape. So fun.

My kids and I had made the beads months earlier, with no thought of a party. I was inspired by this lovely post, which includes instructions, but I couldn’t figure out a way to string them in a way that suited me, so they sat around for months. I think I’ll try making some for me again—we have more clay.

Anyway the beads were a hit, and the activity was just enough—not too long, not too frustrating. We may have to make “Pass the Parcel” a party staple!

This is one of those last-minute inspirations that happened to work out. I was trimming bits from a Christmas sewing project (to be pictured later) and had all these great strips of cheery prints. It seemed a shame to waste them.

I grabbed a balloon, blew it up just a little (you could do a bigger version if you wanted) and tied it off. Then I made a water-and-Elmer’s-glue mixture, dipped the strips, and wrapped them around the balloon, just like papier mache—-only one layer of strips, though. I left a few holes here and there, but if I had to do it again, I’d leave more holes for effect.

This would be a great quick craft to do with older children, though of course you have to be able to stomach glue mess. Not a problem in my case.

Family members who shall remain nameless were skeptical, but in the morning, when the glue was dry and the balloon popped, it DID actually detach from the cloth and leave this little egg-shaped vessel. It could’ve dried a bit more, though. Make sure it’s dried ALL the way for best results.

Then you just make a thread hoop/hanger thingy and presto! change-o! You’re done.

There’s a nail on our kitchen door that suddenly cried out for a wreath. Hang something cheerful here! it said. What with this week’s cold front from Siberia (what? Siberia? that’s what they’re saying but I don’t know if this is metaphorical or not) we can use all the cheeriness we can get.

Seems like I saw some kind of fancier ribbon wreath somewhere, I can’t remember, so that must’ve given me the idea of wrapping the ribbon. I wanted it to be really super simple, though, and have my daughter do it using a styrofoam form with my random re-useable ribbon collection* and straight pins. I like knowing it can be rearranged whenever we feel like it, and maybe we’ll try it with cloth strips another time.

My seven-year-old took the project and ran off with it, literally. She did it almost entirely by herself, color choices and all. I love it. I think it looks kind of mod, and I like the layering she did. It’s a perfect kid project because it only takes a few minutes (maybe 15 tops) and the immediate payoff is big. Now my four-year-old wants to do one. For other low-key kid crafts and art stuff that we’ve done, look here.

*I’ve had a random re-useable ribbon collection for many years. It has often been snickered at by roommates (formerly) and then husband, but then who comes to me needing ribbon when it’s present-wrapping time? Hmmm? I find it immensely handy, and when the presents are ones given to immediate family, the ribbons go right back to their nest after clean up. Currently the ribbons live in a clear plastic travel toiletries case, organized by color. I highly recommend getting a collection of your own.

The kids decorated this bag together the other day for a friend’s birthday. It’s a shopping tote that zips into pouch-shape so you can store it in your purse and have it handy. Here in Germany pretty much everybody has re-useable totes because you have to pay extra for grocery bags.

The bag comes from dharma trading, which has a ton of other bag options for very reasonable prices. I think you can get some blank totes at Michael’s, too, but maybe not the lightweight zipper kind like this. The kids used Sharpies because we couldn’t find our Tee Juice markers, but I would recommend the fabric markers because the colors will wear better.

Here’s the back:

I thought it turned out really well.