Use Alphabet Noodles in Two Fun Craft Projects

Sitting with a hot bowl of alphabet soup, who amoung us hasn’t tried to string words together from the noodle letters floating within? That urge struck me recently when I opened a box of Eden Organic Vegetable Alphabets and found the letters were forming words in lovely, earthy hues of spinach, carrot, beet and annatto. These noodles…they wanted to be a craft project! Here are two ideas that use them to good effect, and are quick, easy and inexpensive to boot. These crafts would be fun for children to make, but since mine are too young to do these, I acted as a stunt double on their behalf.

See the full article and instructions on inhabitots.com:

Velvet On The Ground

I just completed these fall-colored velvet acorns for a woman in California. Fifty of them are carefully packaged and in transit.

In related news, it’s a bumper year for acorns in my corner of the world, but I’m noticing many of them are dropping from the trees without their caps.

Hey, oaks! Gimme some craft supplies!

So Much Great Art is Orange

Clearly I’m still a new parent because I’m encouraging my kids to make art. I understand that before long, we’ll be buried under more objet d’art than you could shake a paintbrush at, but for now, the kids rolled up their smock sleeves and made some art for Father’s day.

The labels read:

Claire Mary Catherine Donohue
Da Da
(Study in Applesauce)
2009
Applesauce and food coloring

Lachlan John Donohue
For Daddy
(I Wanted to Eat This)
2009
Applesauce and food coloring

The artist as a young girl

Lachie tests his medium, which is dyed applesauce.

Recycle Baby Socks Into Bunnies, Chicks and Eggs!

If you live with babies and small kids, you may also live with heaps of outgrown clothing, slated for hand-me-downs. With spring cleaning and re-organization underway in most households, why not revisit those old clothes and give them new life as recycled crafting materials? As a new mom with twins under a year old, I have approximately eleventeen zillion pairs of wee socks waiting to be repurposed (or at least moved out of our basement).

Read the full story:

Originally published on Inhabitots.com.

Babies New Year!

Claire and Lachlan in the New Year spirit

What is mom putting on my brother’s face?

I tapped my New Year’s tiara stash to find something for baby Claire to wear, but I didn’t have any glitter-encrusted bowler hats or other dude-appropriate finery for baby Lachie, so I made him custom “2009″ glasses to suit his wee face. I used sparkly blue pipe cleaners, and am still surprised my son didn’t just rip these off his face.

It didn’t occur to me to get out noisemakers this year.

Hung by the Chimney with Care

This was the babies’ first Christmas, and since I haven’t made stockings for them yet, I hung a couple of vintage ones this year, shown at right.

Good thing I have extras in my yuletide stash…just goes to show you can never have too much Christmas decor. ( Whee! )