Lunch: Turkey, Sailboat, Elephants

Turkey Sandwich:

Turkey and Cheese sandwich cut freehand with a knife.  Eyes are a slice of a cheese stick with a black frosting pupil.  Beak is a triangle of cheddar cheese and gobble is a wedge of grape tomato stuck on with a bit of frosting.

Snack mix:  teddy grahams and candy corn mix.

Apple wedges with chocolate whipped peanut butter

Sailboat:

Peanut Butter and Jelly sailboat cut from two sandwiches (meaning:  mom ate leftover sandwich for breakfast!)  The sails are one sandwich and the hull is the top part of another sandwich.

Teddy Bear sailors are cut from cheddar cheese (at the holidays, stores have mini cookie cutters and gingerbread men and women would work too!) and have a life preserver made from a rolled out tootsie roll.

Boat is floating in a sea of colored goldfish crackers with an octopus made out of a cheese stick (edible marker face).

Sea Turtle is a slice of banana with vanilla tootsie roll arms and legs.

Elephant Lunch:

Almond butter and honey sandwich using cutter:  

Cheese and fruit roll up elephants using a different sandwich cutter.

Vanilla pudding with banana slices.

Pistachios.

Happy Creating!

Art Journalling: Maps and Lighthouse

Another Art Journal swap on swap-bot:  Mini Handmade Art Journal R19.  The theme for this journal was Maps.  

This is what I came up with:

made from strips of a cut up map.  You can see Juan De Fuca (above), which is in Puget Sound  (below).  I purposefully cut the words and placed them, because if you are going to cut up a map, you should at least pay a little tribute!

I liked it so much (and still had a lot of map bits leftover) that I did another one. 

Here is some other artwork from those journals:

Happy Creating!

Happy Valentine's: Will Zoo Be Mine?

The 4-year old's preschool is pretty strict on food items that can be brought in.  I mean, there is an approved food list (oreos, teddy grahams, 100% fruit popsicles, apple slices) and 4-year olds only need so much candy anyway, right?

I saw these posted over at Blue Robin Cottage and just HAD to make them!

I used a Safari Ltd toob from Hobby Lobby (also found at Michaels Craft Store and Amazon) with a 40% coupon, so it was only $6.  

Left over cardboard boxes from shipping boxes (not yet cleaned up from Christmas)

Letter stamps, red ink pad, and red/white bakery twine I already had on hand.

The little one signed her own name on all 11 Valentine's and colored in the little hearts I drew.

This was a pretty easy craft, but stamping each letter 11x was a bit tedious.  There was no candy involved, no wasted paper and included one small toy.   It cost a total of $6 and 1 - 2 hours of time (depending on how much your child helps).

Happy Creatin'!

Dinosaur Hoodie

I hear these things are kinda popular with the youth these days.  

and really...I kinda want one, too!

I started out with a plain kangaroo pouch hoodie from Target.  I think it was Champion brand.  AND I paid full price for it.  No sale, no clearance.  Eek, what was I thinking?  Well, I was thinking that it was for a birthday present and I was running out of time to find one cheaper.  Plus, I like that little girl, so I could afford a $15 sweatshirt :)

I ripped the lining out of the hood, because I wanted to put something more colorful in there.  I made sure to save it for a template...but don't sew it in right away.  Wait until after the spikes are added to hide a few stitching lines!

Picked out a few colors that matched the hoodie.  Proper girlie colors for a sometimes girlie girl.  This is fleece, since I had all these colors on hand. 

Measure the length from the top of the hood down to the waist of the sweatshirt.  Then laid my colors out.

Sewed them on.

Then sewed up the spikes.  And added the hood liner back in (Pretty sure I sewed it inside out to hide the seam, the I just hand stitched the hole closed).

My little is just a bit smaller than the intended recipient so I asked her to try it on.  I wasn't sure I was going to get it back from her :)  Maybe I should make another one...

If you are interested in making your own version, here are a couple tutorials that I found useful.

Dino Spikes on WhateverDeeWants

Hood Liner:  SimoneHowell

Happy Creating!