Quick Tip #6--Storing Kids' Artwork

My kids draw pictures and make things for me ALL THE TIME.  And they expect me to save and treasure every single one.  I do treasure them, but I don't have the inclination (or space) to store all of those papers and things.

The solution is simple:  take pictures!!

Star Wars is a big theme around here.  My 7-year-old son drew these:

In case you missed some of those details, here's Princess Leia.  See the buns?

And here's Yoda.  I love the frownie faces.  And the stick legs with ball feet.

He's not alone in his Star Wars fixation.  My 4-year-old son did this one of Darth Maul.  He was so proud of how he turned out.  Fierce.

He also did these of Yoda.  Star Wars art is so simple, no bodies required!

My 5-year-old daughter did this one of my husband.  The body is included, but no clothes.

I typically like to label the artwork with the child's name and age, though you can tell by those above that I often forget.

Some things the kids want to keep on paper, not just the computer.  They typically do those things into composition books.  My seven-year-old son is currently writing his own reptile book, complete with drawings.  =)  My nine-year-old daughter is currently writing her own comic book, again in a composition book:

You can also do pictures of things they build, paint, etc.  It all stores nicely on a computer, disc, etc.

How do you store your kids' projects?

Star Wars T-Shirt: Jawa

So, this past week my Little Love #5 was sick.  I got virtually nothing done, other than the Great Cloth Diaper Hunt (which is totally fun and going on all month)!

So, Happy (belated) Star Wars Day last Friday, and "May the Fourth" be with you!!!  (Yes, my husband calls me a Super Nerd.  Coming from him, I think that's a compliment.)  =)

In honor of Star Wars day, let me share with you my latest Star Wars t-shirt.  This one I made for myself.  I got my hubby to model it for me, which is way hilarious since it's too small for him.  You can totally see his muscles under it, which makes me really like it on him.  hee hee

Anyway, here's my little jawa!

Isn't he so cute?  Of course, I made him using the same method as all of my other Star Wars shirts.

I hope you all had a wonderful Star Wars Day and a great weekend!!

Star Wars T-Shirt: Princess Leia

Ok, here's the latest in the Star Wars t-shirt series.  I love this shirt, except that I got a small bubble in the felt, rather than it laying flat.  I blame part of it on the fact that I used a pleated t-shirt, which makes things more of a pain, and the fact that I was doing this while running a low-grade fever and feeling quite cruddy.  I know I should probably just rip the seams and redo it...

Like all the others, she's made out of felt.  I really love her hair buns.  So cute!!

I'm still working on my hubby's storm trooper (I have it sketched already, so maybe I'll get it finished today).  I've already made a jawa for myself.  I still need to get a t-shirt for it and get it sewn on.

So now I'm looking at super heroes:  Batman, Superman, Green Lantern, Captain America, X-Men...the possibilities are endless.  Who would you like to see on a shirt?

Star Wars T-Shirts: Yoda

Here's the latest in my Star Wars shirt series.  I got Yoda all finished, and I must say, he looks pretty cute!!

Like all the others, I started with a simple sketch. 

 I then cut all the pieces out of felt, glued them in place, and hand-sewed them down.  Then I top-stitched the entire thing to the t-shirt.  Very cute, he is.  =)

Star Wars T-Shirts: R2-D2

I've recently been working on Star Wars t-shirts for my family.  Today I finished R2-D2 for my 9-year-old daughter.  She picked a dark blue shirt to put it on.  I love how it turned out!

I made it the same way I did the Boba Fett shirt.   I started by free-handing a sketch of R2-D2.  I then traced and cut out the individual pieces that were on my sketch (sorry for the lousy picture quality below).

I then cut the individual pieces out of felt, glued them together, then hand-stitched around each one.  Finally, I top-stitched it to the shirt.  My daughter loves it!

I have a Princess Leia one in the works for my 5-year-old daughter.  Here's a sneak peak at the Yoda one I'm working on for my 4-year-old son.

These are so simple and so much fun!  I'm really, REALLY loving making them.  I can see me doing other characters, too.  One of my daughters is asking for Hello Kitty...

Finished Boba Fett Shirt

Yesterday I posted pictures of my Boba-Fett-t-shirt-in-progress.  It's now finished!!  Last night I glued the pieces together, then hand-stitched them securely.  Today I pinned it onto the shirt and topstitched around the entire perimeter.  I love how it turned out!!

Now I have "orders" from the rest of my kids (and my hubby!).  So I still need to make two R2-D2s, a Princess Leia, a storm trooper, a yoda, a Wicket...

Star Wars T-Shirts

A friend of mine, knowing my love for all things Star Wars, recently introduced me to Etsy Shop mi cielo.  More specifically, the Star Wars (aka "Sewing Wars") shirts at me cielo.  They are SUPER adorable, and I knew that all my kids would want one (and who am I kidding?  I want one, too!!)  But we're on a limited budget, and we're a family of 8, so I couldn't buy one for everybody.  So I decided to make them myself.

I started by letting each of the kids pick which character they wanted.  My seven-year-old son wants all of them, of course, but chose to start with Boba Fett.  I though this was a great choice, since he's also one of my favorites!!  I mean, how awesome can a guy get?

Anyway, I then free-handed a picture of the character.

(My son insisted that Boba Fett wouldn't be Boba Fett without the scope on his gun.  I guess the ridiculously large head, rounded limbs, and lack of digits don't detract from the coolness that is Boba Fett like the lack of a scope would.  Who can argue with that kind of logic?)  

I then cut all the various parts out of felt and reassembled them.  

Next I'll glue them in place and stitch them together.  I bought solid colored t-shirts at Wal-Mart today for $2-$3 each.  I'll topstitch each character down to their appropriate shirts, and they'll be done!!  The drawing and cutting only took about 1.5 hours.  I don't anticipate the sewing to take too long, either.

ETA:  It's all done!!  See the finished product here.

Princess Leia Hat

We recently went to Comicon.  Soooooooooo much fun!!!  But I needed wanted a costume for my 2-month-old daughter.  After all, you gotta start them young, right?  =)

I saw some Princess Leia hats online, but they were expensive.  Then I realized that I could easily make one myself!

I started by buying some brown fleece at Hobby Lobby (I LOVE buying fleece in the spring and summer.  It's always on sale, so 1/2 yard cost me like three bucks!).  I then made the basic hat from the free pattern found at Fleece Fun.  That took about 3-5 minutes.  Super easy--LOVE that pattern!!  I then cut some strips of fleece, rolled them up, and tacked them to the sides of the hat by hand.  It was so easy, so fast, and so cute!

Everybody kept stopping me to take pictures of her and ask where I got her hat.  It was definitely a hit!

(That's my Yoda backpack next to me--I used it as my diaper bag.  You can find them at Thinkgeek.com.  It got a lot of compliments, too!)

One of the highlights of my son's day was getting to cross lightsabers with Darth Vader.  The force is strong with this one.  =)

We had such a GREAT time!  May the force be with you!

Star Wars Bracelet

I'm a geek, my husband's a geek, and our kids are all geeks.  My poor kids certainly aren't "normal", but neither are my husband or I.  We both majored in sciences, and my kids love science--I homeschool, and we actually do two science curriculums every year, they're so science-hungry.

My sister-in-law asked us last year where she could get us a gift card to as a gift for the family.  Her other sister asked for a gift card to Chuck E. Cheese. (Chuck E. Cheese, with all the balloons, is a death trap for my latex-allergic Little Love #5--not that I mind a great excuse to never take my kids there.)  But when I told my sister-in-law that our whole family would love a gift card to Think Geek, she said that she really worries about my kids.  (By the way, it was way fun for all of us to decide what we wanted from Think Geek.  I LOVE that store!)

Anyway, I'm a HUGE Star Wars fan.  My kids are, too!  We've only let the oldest two watch only Episode I, but they ask a ton of questions.  They can tell you all about the ecology of Dagobah, they know that wookies live on Kashyyk, and they know that Darth Vader is Luke's father and Leia is his sister.  I guess there won't be the element of surprise when they ever get to watch the later movies, but I must admit that it's awfully fun to hear them spouting off facts and playing their Star Wars games "true-to-life," so to speak.

I had a large bin full of all sorts of Star Wars toys, games, etc--all unopened--that I finally decided to divvy up between my kids, nieces, and nephews.  They were all thrilled, and it was kind of nice to not have to store all of that stuff any more.  One thing I still had not given away or opened was an R2-D2 Lego pen.

 I finally opened it today just to find it has a rubber grip--not so good in a house where we try to eliminate all things rubber.

So that went in the garbage, but I still had all of these fun Legos Star Wars beads and an R2-D2.  (You know your pen is a good and fun one when it comes with instructions!)

I'm really big on repurposing things.  I don't like to throw perfectly good and fun stuff away!  So I decided that these beads would make a great bracelet.  Some elastic thread (latex-free, of course), some glass beads, and a drop of hot glue later, and I have this fun bracelet!

My 8-year-old is begging me to let her have it.  No way, Dearie.  This one's mine!  Complete with a bead that even says Star Wars.

Little R2 didn't make the cut for the bracelet.  My kids have been begging for another Legos R2 to play with (I'm suspecting they saw this pen in my bedroom and were just itching to get their little hands on it), so he became theirs to love and enjoy.

And just for fun, here's a drawing my six-year-old son did of Qui-Gon Jinn fighting a battle droid.

Gotta love it!