I just had, what, a week and a half accidental hiatus from Indietutes. I have excuses, but I won't bore you with them. It is sufficient enough to say that I've spent a lot of time trying to look on the bright side of chronic sinusitis. The only pluses I've come up with is that I can't smell the cat litter and have a lower tolerance to alcohol. Wine, anyone?
But, I've done some stuff anyway. Because I'm a trooper. One of the things I did was cut a cardboard box in two and paint the inside white to make a sort of low-tech, zero budget kind of light catching box for taking pictures during these dull winter days. I'm hoping to try it out tomorrow photographing some neat little egg carton toys The Man made with the childs last weekend plus a strange little creature I made in the lab for my derby team's Christmas exchange tomorrow night (it's weird - you're going to like it).
Until then, I have a little idea for anyone looking for an easy-peasy craft to do with kids (during the upcoming holiday school break?) that happens to work rather well as a take home party favour as well.
This isn't my idea, there are many sites on the web that share this little fabric scrap badge idea, but since my kids never get tired of sorting fabrics and putting them together and were utterly engrossed for hours with the planning stages, I thought I would share. Perhaps you could use something to occupy your sweet ones also?
Here is girl child wearing her badge (or brooch... because of the boy, we call it a badge - only then is it manly enough for him to wear).
The scrape badge (brooch) is made from a number of circles cut from fabric scrapes collected into a pile and held together with a button stitched through the lot.
Before that could happen, however, the children spent an hour or two trolling the fabrics, sorting and inventorying. When they were ready, I helped the kids cut out six different sized circles of their choosing.
Finding just the right buttons took another thirty minutes or so, and then a selection of embroidery floss was dithered over for a good amount of time until the colours were matched or contrasted in an acceptable manner.
Fabric circles, buttons, and floss were gathered up into individual bags and taken along to the the gathering of their Derby Orphans Social Club. The DOSC is girl child's invention where the offspring of some of my teammates and my kids run around a gym and eat junky food. Fun was had by all.
We just used safety pins to secure the badge on our clothes, but stitching or gluing on a proper pinned back would be a great idea. I am actually holding out for a week or two until the kids get bored of wearing them and then I will put two together, back to back, with a string caught between and turn it into an ornament for the Christmas tree.
Always thinking ahead, I am.
Plus, for some bizarre reason, the Christmas spirit has hit me hard this year. So bad that today, while I was humming Christmas carols and lighting my new Three Kings vintage (it is one year older than my husband) candle from the thrift store, The Man asked me, "Who are you?" Apparently this Christmas spirit thing is unusual in me. Then he says, "You're little a Christmas Princess this year. A Chrincess." Because he has an affection (infliction) of mashing words together to make up his own special terms.
I think I'll own the description Chrincess this year and see what I can come up with for presents and the tree. I don't know why, but I really am excited about all this holiday stuff. Perhaps its because I give books away as presents and that means I get to go book shopping (at the thrift store, which is a great little treasure hunt) or because I'm looking forward to a time in which I may not actually have a sinus infection (but probably will, damnit.)
Anyone have any good recycled, upcycled, thrift store present ideas this year? I could always use a few for the non-readers on my list.
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