fawn&forest

I was bouncing around blog-land and found this super-simple, ultra-satisfying project on the blog Hop Skip Jump -- how to make new crayons out of old crayons.  Perhaps they could be called crayon-cakes?

As author Fiona points out, there are numerous instructions on the internet on how to make new crayons out of old crayons, but really it is not too complicated, I agree!

Break up "old crayons", placing them in the color assortment as you wish into a non-stick muffin tin. From there, melt the wax in a 250 degrees oven for about 10 minutes, give or take dependng on the size of new crayons your are creating. To speed up cooling process, place them in the freezer for a bit.  

...and then have fun coloring + drawing! I have put this on our "summer time project list" for sure.

Thanks Fiona for the beautiful photos + idea! 

Hopscotch reminds me of being 8 + the endless hours of summertime. A childhood game we all have surely played with much laughter. But have you played the Alaskan or French version? Want to learn how to play hopscotch from around the world with your kids? And if you need standard instructions on how to play hopscotch, learn how to play here.

Hopscotching ideas + variations are endless. You can even hook your kids up with this  indoor hopscotch mat via Martha or for quick action make a masking tape grid on the carpet. Oh so fun + the kids will strengthen their counting skills + calf muscle at the same time. 

Images from flickr, left and right .

Eliot is now eager to be in his "big boy bed" though I am not yet confident that he won't roll out! A guardrail was in order. The bright standard blue the guardrail comes in are quite unsightly and begged to be slipcovered. I feel safe covering the guardrail in fabric...guardrails usually  have mesh as to not pose suffocation to the child. Use your own discretion on this.

To create the guardrail "slip cover", I measured the length (taking into account seem allowances) and also the height, including both the inside + outside height of the guardrail, allowing extra for the hems. After cutting the fabric roughly down to size and hemming the top + bottom hems, I pinned the fabric, (right-side in) to the guardrail, tracing the curve of the guardrail onto the fabric. I pinned the fabric in place which gave a guideline of  where to sew.  From this point, I just went for it, sewing the slipcover together  with hopes I got it right the first time!!

After a few minor adjustments (ahem...) and about 30 minutes later, the guardrail slipcover was ready to be iron + put in place. The fabric? I bought it at an antique-ish type of store years ago. Someone had originally used the fabric as a valance. I took that apart and sewed it back together to create one big piece of fabric, which explains why it looks, well, pieced together. The plant pattern is fantastic, is fairly nuetral + heavyweight. 

And, thankfully was just enough to create a guardrail slipcover for my son's Kip Platform Bed. 

No matter what age, Play Dough is indeed a lot of fun. Eliot has recently brought it to my attention that it is even more fun to fill innocent tiny truck motors + flatbeds with play dough and do a little 4-wheelin'. Sound effects are a must! Apparently he is not the only one to crash cars and play dough, images above via  here and  here. I love it.

If you are not a huge fan of the gasoline smell (ugh...) of Play-Doh from the store, Organic Play Dough is also available. I have not tried it myself, but it looks good enough to eat (which, perhaps could be a problem....!). I have tried numerous homemade play dough recipes and have not come up with the perfect recipe thus far; I detest the dry salty feeling left on my hands. Eliot on the other hand does not mind it or the gasoline smell!  Here is a basic play dough recipe, tagged Mr. Rogers. 

Mr. Roger's Homemade Play Dough
1 cup flour
1 cup water
1/2 cup salt
2 tsp cream of tartar
2 Tbsp vegetable oil
Food coloring

Throw everything in a pot, cook for 3 minutes on low heat, stirring constantly. Turn off heat, allow to cool for a few minutes. Knead with hands until smooth. Add food coloring.

Fun!

Foldschool is nothing new, true. It has certainly made it's rounds around blogtown, rightfully. Foldschool rocks, providing free, printable pdf patterns to make cardboard furniture with and for your kids. Simple + innovative design at it's best. They've done the hard work, all you need is a rainy day, a mess of cardboard, printbable instructions and maybe a kid or 2.

Foldschool has created patterns for a stool (shown left), a rocker (shown middle) and a chair (shown right). And their site is quite user-friendly stating the age-range appropriateness, how much cardboard + time you'll need, as well as the difficulty level and stability of each piece.  

The mindset of Foldschool is to restore design to one of its original missions: to provide a product at an affordable price through a smart manufacturing process, essentially free. So donate to good design: help spread the idea of Foldschool to design addicts worldwide by donating here.

Here's another project that will help alleviate that huge stack of kid's drawings + other such thoughtful scribbles: impromptu notebooks! I have pledged to no longer scratch heaps of notes to myself on small pieces of paper + post-it notes. Instead, I keep a lively notebook of reminders, grocery + dinner lists and other bits I would otherwise forget. 

I also have found it sad to toss out any of my son's endless amounts of artwork. A great deal of the drawings + scribbles are exciting and fun, but not so frame worthy. Recycling my son's  artwork into notebooks is a useful way to use up that big stack of goodness.

Most of Eliot's marker + crayon drawings (paintings would not work so well for this project) are on large 15x20" pieces of white drawing paper. As long as the stack of papers are cut down to the same size, you can create a notebook any size you wish. With that in mind, I made between 2 and 4 notebooks per stack of 15x20" paper. Depending how thick you want the notebook, use between 10-15 sheets of scribbles.  

With the paper cut down to size, fold each piece in half. Once you have a stack of the folded pieces, nest the pages together to create a book. If you choose to put a cover on the notebook, cut a sheet of paper (I used colorful cardstock on some, other I left without a cover) about 1/2" longer and wider than the inside pages.

To bind the notebook, I used regular 'ol office staples + stapled the spine of the notebook in the middle a few times. You could also use a sewing machine (depending on the thickness of your pages) to bind the notebook or use other simple bookbinding techniques, depending on how fancy you want to get.

Though the pages of the notebooks are not totally blank, I find writing over + around the scribbles to be quite charming as it reminds me of my son's unbound enthusiasm. 

When Eliot was a newborn everyone told me the first year will be over before I know it, they grow so fast. It wasn't until I was putting away the newborn clothes + pulling out the 0-3M size that I really realized Eliot really was new + different each day. He was growing. Fast. And I had not even taken him to the photographer yet! In my sleep deprived daze I was not quite ready for him not to be a newborn. 

And those tiny hands and feet! So in addition to sniffing the sweetness of baby skin until I was over the moon, a bit of detailed documentation was in order. Geared with a big tub of  Model Magic by Crayola  and determination, I put my plan in action. Every three months I would smoosh Eliot's tiny little hands + feet into the clay and at the end of the first year display them in a specimen box.

A big tub of the Model Magic in white has 4 individual packages of super light weight air-dry clay. Using one package for each 3rd month was enough clay for 3 hand prints + 1 set of foot prints.  I found it beneficial to make 3 sets of hand prints as, in the quickness of working with tiny hands, they don't always turn out as you would expect and grandparents will always appreciate a set of handprints. I did not cut out a particular size of clay for each handprint (but a circle or rectangle would work), but rather rolled out a ball about 1/3" thick into an organic form, as shown above. For the footprints (not shown) I rolled out a 5x7" rectangle, 1/3" thick, which ultimeltly ended up being big enough for Eliot's 1 year old foot.

To assemble the specimen box, I adhered orange cotton fabric to the inside back + sides of the box. Using a date stamper I dated each handprint with a small piece of paper, tacking it in place with a pin. Before adhering the  handprints to the background, I wrote a  simple descriptions of each age on a paper card (for 6 months, "silly + thinking about crawling") and glued it to the background so it would appear behind the handprints when fully assembled. With a big glob of hot glue, attach the handprints in place. Using another bit of paper, I titled the collection with my son's name + birth date, attaching it to the inside of the box.

Another option would be to create specimen boxes with each month's hand + footprint displayed together. If you cannot find a specimen box big enough to hold your precious collection, use a clear acrylic box frame as I did. It's a bit more work figuring out how to repurpose the frame, but creates a very streamlined presentation as a result. Clear acrylic box frames are available in a selection of sizes, perfect for this project.

Fun. We'll have to have another Memory Keeping week as there are still so many good ideas, projects + products to share!

Memory keeping meets organizing + recycling: keepsakes in a jar. I'd like to think I came up with this idea all on my own, though I am certainly not the first one to put tiny memories in a jar and call it a keepsake!

For this project you can use new, empty jars or recycle one of those  condiments jars from the fridge.  With a clean jar in hand + tiny bits of this or that (relating to a particular time or event) + a bit of paper to create a tag, you're set. Place the goodies in the jar, write something meaningful on the tag and in a snap you have a very sophisticated keepsake.

I was initially inspired by Eliot's first trip to the beach last Summer. I could not part with all the smooth rocks + pieces of shell Eliot's little hands discovered on the beach (in addition to the sand that inevitably ends up making its way home!). With a stash of little jars I was saving for something, and the goodies from the beach, the first memory jar was assembled. I have yet to complete the rest of the memory jars that I have saved bits + goodies for. Once complete, however, it will be quite a lovely collection.

It's funny how counting time in weeks + months becomes completely normal. When you're pregnant + asked how far along you are, it's "ohhh, 34 weeks!". After your baby is born + asked how old he is, you reply "ohh, 13 weeks" or "27 months!". Interesting what motherhood does to you mathematical abilities. 

Photo journaling is another take on recording the growth + development of your child in the early years. For my pregnancies, My husband takes a snapshots of the progression of my belly, each week marked with a post-it note with the appropriate week jotted down.  Of course as a follow-up after our son was born, I took photos of him every week for the first year. I dressed him in a  white onesie + stuck a post-it note with the corresponding week to him, having him sit in the same chair.  In his 1st week picture he was less than thrilled being propped in a chair + was sadly screaming. For the 52nd week photo, Eliot is wearing a party hat + walking away from the chair he sat in every week.

The images of the sweet little girl above is another great example (images via flickr). Using the same orange chair + a pile of softies, Mom + Dad took a similar picture each week to reflect the development and personality of their daughter. Click on the link to see the whole collection.

When planning your photo journaling project, be sure to take into account the location + backgrounds that will be in the photos. Uniformity + unclutterd backgrounds is key. Having an object (stuffed animal or small toys) for your child to interact with displays their personailty + development. 

Another dedicated idea is to take a picture of your child each day of their first year. This is exactly what new mom Raya at Paperpony blog has done, titling the series 365:a baby's first year. Photo journaling like this is more about the day to day details than the  weekly growth. The overall effect will surely be a stunning collection of your baby + you'll be thankful to have all those detailed images.

Having a complete set of 52 weeks or 365 days is priceless.

Welcome to Memory Keeping week! As I mentioned in my previous post, I have become borderline obsessed in the memory keeping department.  I am not a 'scrapbooker' (which is the latest craze it seems) but a run-on sentence writer of motherly love mixed in with saved receipts, garment tags and other seemingly useless but meaningful scraps.

One of my favorite memory keeping books is the Moleskine. It is simple, unassuming + fresh. The history of the Moleskine itself is also quite special + it is available in a wide variety of styles + formats. 

To document each of my pregnancies, I have used small sketchbooks, dedicating each open set of pages to a week in the pregnancy. In addition to weekly entries I have also written about our family, preparing for their arrival + decorating the nursery. Along with each weekly entry I have glued a small picture of me + my progressive belly. I will write more about photo-journaling later this week. But as you would guess, my husband takes a snapshot of me with a post-it note (with the corresponding week written on it) on my belly. I then include the post-it note in the book along with ultrasound images, doctor appointment cards + strings in accordance to the baby's aproximate length each week.

I could not stop there! To document the first years, I have used large blank notebooks. As it is, I have filled 2 Moleskines for the first 2 years of Eliot's life. Mostly writing + as I mentioned before, scraps of this + thats. In the first year, I would write a weekly entry about what exiting + monumental event happened (which of course, something huge really does occur each week!). In the 2nd year, I made monthly entries, taking notes on post-its to remind me what actually happened, later taking the time to write a month's worth of memories + other funny things I would certainly have forgotten if not written down.

Could I reasonably stop there? Nope. Now that Eliot has past the 2 year mark, I have continued in a 3rd Moleskine. 

The best friends of my Moleskines? A mechanical pencil + a lovely cup of decaf. 

I have become documentation-obsessed. While my mother is quite loving, as a second chlld, I was severly neglected in the baby-book-childhood-documentation category. Very few pictures were taken + not a single locket of hair was saved.  I love my mom + do not hold it against her but as a result have commited myself to documenting every last bit of my pregnancies + details of my children.  There, I've admitted it!  

And it's fun. While I have a son + another son on the way, who will perhaps never care to read the ushy-gushy lovey bits I have lovingly written about them, I still enjoy taking the time to slow down, relax + write about my children, my family + my time spent as Mom in the early years.

The First 1,000 Days (shown above) is a simple way to document your child's first thousand days of life. Each page has a beautiful paper-cut illustration by artist + author Nikki McClure, with inspiring suggestions of what to write -- "your first day, first visitors, first yawn" and "all the new things you learn everyday, new words, new skills, new friends" in addition to 2 pages dedicated to each month of the first year, celebrating the first birthday, songs, games and books you read together. All tied up in one compact book with nearly 130 pages of goodness.

So, as a salute to my documentation obsession, all next week will be devoted to Memory-Keeping in various formats. Fun!

I looked forward to having children's artwork of my very own before having our son Eliot. It has always reminded me of one of my favorite artist, Cy Twombly. Beautiful scribbles are not an easy accomplishment!  As soon as Eliot was able to hold crayons in his chubby little hands, I eagerly plopped him in front of a pad of paper for him to get to work! Before too long, however, you end up with heaps of artwork, endless amounts of scribbles. Between art class + the open art cupboard, it can pile up quickly. I can't bear to throw it out (or ahem, recycle it!) and really, not every drawing is frame-worthy. 

So, what to do? Make notecards. To create the cards, use standard size blank prefolded notes or cardstock, cut in half to the appropriate size. Then, trim a pile of  artwork down to fit the front of the notecard, leaving an even amount of space around the edge for the border. Sew the artwork onto the card using a coordinating color of thread + the sewing machine. However, using glue, decorative staples or brads would also look nice + be just as effective. 

It's that simple. With a sweet greeting, use as a thank you or birthday card or give a set of 8 to grandma + aunties (don't forget the envelopes). They would appreciate the thoughtfulness + will thank you.... how much artwork can fit on the 'fridge anyways? 

The blog Design*Sponge is having a DIY contest which fawnandforest.com is co-sponsoring. Now is your time to roll up your sleeves + get a little crafty with a chance to win a portion of the $1500 in prize money that is up for grabs. Wouldn't it be fun to get the kids involved or be inspired by your baby-bundle? A little DIY something something for the nursery? Contest ends March 2nd, so you still have a couple more weeks to be a part of the action. 

A bean filled felt heart for your sweety. What could be more charming? Gather a few simple supplies (one piece of felt, a large needle, embroidery style thread and some beans, lentils or rice) and you're set. This project is brilliantly simple + completely adaptable.  

Felt is a nice fabric to work with as it does not need to be hemmed + it does not fray. Layer the 2 equal size pieces of felt on top of one another. With free-hand scissor action, cut out a heart. A loppy one is fine, just be sure that the 2 hearts you cut are roughly the same size. I embroidered my son's first 2 initials "eq" to the top side of the heart. If you choose to embroider, do this now. For more information on embroidery + for simple stitches, visit DMC.

I think it's more charming to hand stitch the heart closed, but by all means, use a machine if you have one. Start by sewing the hearts together at the top "valley" point of the heart (about 1/4" in from the edge), stopping an inch before the ending point. Funnel in beans, lentils or rice. Best if you do not fill the heart too full, leaving room for some floppiness. Carefully finish stitching the heart closed, doubling up the stitches at the end so your beans don't fall out.

Making a bean filled heart need not be too fussy + would be a special project to do with the kids. 

It's always fun to start a project you can realistically finish. Motivation from the start!  I am not a fast knitter (or very talented at that) but with the simple "knit stitch", 1 ball of  medium weight yarn (i used a soft chocolate wool) size 7us needles + 2 hours I made my sweet son a cute + cozy scarf (or 'karf as eliot calls it).

The scarf  measures 3"wide by 26"long (I initially casted on 14 stitches and knitted until i ran out of yarn). The 'karf  is long enough to comfortably tie around eliot's neck without too much excess length. This seems to be good proportions for a toddler, but adjust according to the size of your child, amount of yarn + motivation. 1 ball of yarn was enough to give me that warm-fuzzy feeling of accomplishment  + provided an enjoyable evening curled up on the couch.

For more information on knitting + yarn, visit purlsoho.com.