MOMMY MONDAY

Happy Mommy Monday fellow crafters. I have two daughters: Madalynn who is 5 and Ashley who is 3. For any of you moms out there, you know that toddlers are excited to learn new things and experiment with art supplies…paper, markers, scissors. From watching me scrapbook, the girls have become very interested in wanting to document their own fun adventures. I have been buying inexpensive scrapbooking items and putting them in a basket strictly for the girls to use. I have found great items that are $1 each at Target in the dollar section and also at my local Dollar Tree stores.

Finding things for the girls to scrapbook is the easiest part of the whole process. You can choose to scrapbook something that they did or simply a historic event that has been in the news. This is a wonderful keepsake to look back on when they are older.

Last week was a fantastic opportunity for the girls to not only create a scrapbook of their own, but for them to learn about the presidential inauguration. Fortunately, I was off work that day so we did have the TV on all day. As the reporters were speaking, I was writing down pieces of information such as the bible President Obama used was the one from when Lincoln became president. I bought newspapers from Inauguration Day and also the day after.

Allowing your toddler to explore the world of crafting will fuel their brain and trigger their imagination. Here is how to get started. You will need:

Cardstock and scrapbook paper…8x8 will probably work best for littler hands
Hole punch
Ribbon of any kind
Childrens scissors
Embellishments/chipboard letters
Adhesive...Crayola makes a great glue stick that goes on blue (so they know where they are gluing) but dries clear. It also has a wide stand on the bottom of the cap so that it makes it easy for the children to put down when they aren’t using it. Found at A.C. Moore for $1.79
Contact paper
Pictures or newspaper clippings

The first thing is…let your child make all the decisions. There is nothing wrong with offering suggestions, however, your child will be most proud of their finished piece if they know they truly made it themselves.

Use a nice heavy piece of cardstock for the front cover. Select the rest of the pieces of paper you want to use in the project. Punch 3 holes on the left hand side, binder style. Allow your child to pick out a ribbon that will be used to bind the scrapbook together.

Create the cover page which should be like a title page. If your child is too young to write, a good suggestion might be for you to write the title, trace it with glue and then allow your toddler to use glitter to shake over the glue. Allow your page to completely dry, if necessary. Once it is ready, laminate it using contact paper and then re-punch the holes in the side.

Create the inside pages using pictures and captions or newspaper clippings. For our Inauguration pages, we are using all newspaper clippings and some embellishments to jazzy up the pages. Madalynn is writing some pieces of information that we learned while watching TV. Both of them will be using their own scissors to cut

out the newspaper articles. Their glue sticks and regular glue are all ready to go!

Once all of the inside pages are complete, you are ready to create the back page. I like to paint the kids hands using acrylic craft paint and pushing it down onto paper. Once dry, allow the child to sign the bottom. We always put “Creations by Madalynn” followed by the date. Let your child be creative with their “signature”…you could have a Picasa on your hands! After this is complete and the worries of smudging are gone, laminate this with contact paper and re-punch.

Have your child lace the string through the holes and tie it at the bottom. Another thought…you could use a setter to create a small hole punch and then use large enough brads to hold the book together…I guess it all depends on how many pages are in your creation.

Have fun helping your child to create a memory book! We’d love to hear your ideas and suggestions. Have a art-tastic week!

A Changing Day.

I have been counting down the minutes until this change of power is complete. What an amazing time to be alive. I know, I know that seems to be the sentiment coming out of every talking head on tv...but its the truth and theres no better way to express it then with these simple, simple words. The best thing about today is that at the core we all need to feel that hope and the promise of a new day that will change not just our lives now but also as this moment resonates into the future.

I hope every one takes the time to write, blog, journal or sing out loud about your feelings about this changing day and use it for your life and our world around us. Happy Changing Day everyone.

abundance.

Since I just moved, I am in the middle of setting up my scraproom. So last night I sat on the couch; surrounded by a white shoebox, a Longaberger basket with a busted handle, 2 ziplock bags and a desk drawer all filled to the brim with various writting implements-crayons, colored pencils, pens, markers (thin, think, smelly and not so smelly), pencils and random gunk left in the bottom. I had a random burst of energy and decided that I should test each and every marker and pen while I organized the mess.

In my lap I balanced a white legal pad and went through each and every one. An hour later I had tested 307 pens and or markers, and ended up with 6 highlighters, 88 crayons and 76 colored pencils and 41 pencils -most unsharpened so I am sure I will throw some in the kids easter baskets.

But the most interesting part of this exercise was that I kept remembering random things that went along with some of the pens......there is a Chimay (my favorite beer) pen that I got at least 6 years ago at a beerfest There are at least 5 from past jobs including Kohls where I went home daily with a new pen and multiple from North East PA-it seems that everytime I visit my sister I steal her pens. One from Boston at Nine-Zero which was the most luxurious hotel I have stayed at and one from a very scary Super 8 outside of D.C. My favorite pen states that "if it isn't done by nappy-its not done right"- this one I have no clue.

Now before you ask, of course I took some pics for some awesome layouts-what kind of scrapper lets that moment go by? Maybe this will be what I need to get this scraproom finally done -a burst of energy and some random lost memories.