Kidmade Drawings

I have always loved to draw. Sometimes I don’t have the time or patience for it but I still love it. Up until sixth grade, for the most part, my drawings looked like typical little kid drawings. Something in my head clicked when I hit middle school. Maybe it was something in the 9 week art class or maybe it was something I saw on TV but something in my head changed when it came to drawing. I had a subscription to a Looney Toons magazine at the time. I remember sitting in church (not paying attention) with a notebook and my magazine. I could recreate the drawings of my favorite characters with out a flaw. It looked as if they were traced and when I showed them to people, they accused me of doing so. Around this same time, I also started drawing things around me. I remember one drawing that I did one night while staying with my grandmother of a shoe that was drawn with shading and all. I kept drawing up until I was in high school then I did like I did with most things, gave up. It wasn’t until my junior year of college that I rediscovered drawing. I loved my Drawing 1 class and wish I had taken more time while doing my large assignment drawings, but with everything I was involved with at that time most of the drawings ended up having to wait until the night before to be done. My final project was done in around four hours. It was an 18 inch x 24 inch drawing of one of my favorite photos of Ani Difranco. I didn’t even get started on it until midnight and it was due at 9:00 am. I went through four large cups of coffee and pretty much didn’t sleep before class.  I still have the drawing and I still can’t believe how well it turned out with only four hours, no sleep, and a wobbly caffinated hand.

So there you have it folks, 30 days of Kidmade things by me 🙂  I hope you enjoyed a bit of my history.

Kidmade Popsicle Crafts

Ah, the Popsicle stick. I don’t think any kid that ever attended a public school escaped Popsicle stick crafts. There were many that I remember mostly photo frames and coffee mug trivets. I don’t know if other schools did this (probably not in today’s standards) but we had to keep our sticks from ice cream time at school and even bring some from home. They were washed of course. One teacher took the Popsicle craft to another level of recycle craftiness with the introduction of the toilet paper roll. We made a Popsicle stick/toilet paper roll pencil & note pad holder. I colored all my sticks different colors so that it would go with any décor, lol. I don’t remember what holiday we made this for but I know that I gave it to someone as a gift; complete with some sharpened down pencils with no erasers too.

Kidmade Paper Wreath

I know Christmas is over but I just didn’t get around to posting this kid made item before the holiday rushed past me.One of my favorite school art projects came when I was in the first or second grade. A very lovely man (who later became my choir teacher) used to come to our class and do various crafts with us. Anytime I cut out anything, I remember how he taught me the correct way to cut things out. This particular craft was a construction paper wreath. I worked diligently making sure to cut my wreath properly. We then took hole punches and popped holes in various places on the wreath. On the backside, we glued different colors of tissue paper over each of the holes. Last, we cut out and glued a big red ribbon on the front. I was so proud of my wreath. I remember how they all looked taped to our classroom’s windows. The sun would shine on all those little different colored dots and make the whole display of paper wreaths come alive (at least in my little kid brain it did).

Kidmade Puppets & Cards

EEK, I was so busy yesterday that I completely forgot to post my Kidmade post for the day. Consider this a twofer!In seventh grade, our class put together a puppet show. We had to write, perform, and make all the puppets and props. We chose to make a play based on the Flintstones. I was cast as Betty. We spent a few weeks preparing for our performance. During this time we made our puppets. Since I was Betty, I made the Betty puppet. I made it from some white muslin and stuffed it with Polyfil. These weren’t complicated puppets, so they didn’t have moving parts. Instead, it had just a simple dowel to hold her up. I drew a decent version of Betty on the fabric and it looked good. We did our performance during our regular class period, which was lunchtime to most of our parents and they could come watch – and of course, my mom came to see it 🙂

I have always loved paper and paper crafts. I love to send cards and will sometimes send them for no reason at all. I even did this as a kid. I would spend all day making cards out of construction paper, stickers, crayon drawings, old ribbons, and pretty much anything else I could get my little kid grubby paws on. I knew the technicalities of card sending but I didn’t always get it correct. Most of my early cards say “Form: Mom, To: Me” LOL. I probably didn’t learn the correct spelling of “From” until first grade. I would even make envelopes for my hand-drawn cards with little drawn stamps.

Kidmade hat

There wasn’t a Kidmade post for yesterday. I hope everyone had a wonderful Chrismtas! I know I did 🙂

Girl Scout Summer Day Camp was always so much fun. They were always themed one year it was Christmas in July, another year was Hawaiian Vacation, and another was Nature Hike (a cop-out if you ask me, but whatever).For the year of the Nature Hike, we made various crafts that involved what else, nature. I remember making a bookmark out of contact paper and twigs and grass and we made pressed flowers. One of the bigger projects was a straw hat that we decoupage nature theme fabric on. I chose a very awesome (and realistic) robin for my hat along with some nice flowers. I was so proud of that hideous hat. I wore it all day. After the camp was over, I wore the hat home. When I got out of the car at home my dog (a golden retriever named Princess) freaked over the bird. I suppose that she though it was a real bird on my head. She kept trying to attack it and since it was on my head was instead attacking me. My mom freaked trying to get the dog off me and I was scared to death. I never wore the hat again… probably for the best, I don’t think the world was ready for that fashion statement.

Sorry for the really bad scan (>.<)

Kidmade Gifts from the heart…

Ask any college kid and you’ll know, money for them is Tight. While I was in the first year or two of college, I wanted to feel like an adult and give my family Christmas gifts that I had put a lot of thought into. Since I didn’t have a lot of money I focused more on the presentation of the gift, rather than spending a lot of money on a gift. Don’t get me wrong, I did get nice gifts; they just weren’t pricey. I took some paper lunch bags and printed out photos that meant something to the person I was giving the gift to and me. The one I gave my dad was a photo of a bundled up kid and a dad carrying a Christmas tree through the forest; something my dad and I did when I was a kid. I took a hole punch and popped holes along the top where I wove ribbon through. They weren’t much but they were heartfelt.

Costume Department

My senior year of college, I carried more than a full load of classes each semester and was in two full production plays along with some smaller scale productions. The fall semester Children’s Theater production was actually two plays in one. The first half was Rip Van Winkle and the second was The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. We had a cast of twenty-five. The theater department had a full costume for Ichabod, but most of the rest of the cast needed to have costumes made for them.I was the only one in the entire theater department that had any experience sewing, so I was the “Costume Department”. For the week leading up to the beginning of our performances, this is how my day went. 7:00 Wake up, Class, Sew, Class, Sew, Lunch (sometimes), Class, Sew, Dinner, Sew, Practice 7:00-11:00, Sew until 1:00 am. Everyday. I measured everyone, cut patterns (most were made up), and mended older costume pieces that didn’t fit or were torn. I churned out pants, shirts, skirts, and props. In addition to all that sewing, I also helped with the set construction and helped choreograph a dance scene.

My workspace (hallway, sweatshop, prop closet, – whatever you want to call it) had to hold just about everything that was to be prepared for the play; including some hay bales – Fresh from the farm hay bales – with the spiders that lived in them. I hate spiders. I really hate spiders. These things would crawl up to the ceiling (I have no idea why) and jump down on my fabric, table, or head. Gah. I hate spiders. At one point, I think I counted over 40 visible spiders. This led to bug spray, large amounts of bug spray, in my poorly ventilated hallway. Luckily for me, I got to knock off early that night.

We had 3 performances our Opening day, followed by 3 the next, and one the night after that. Each performance had its memorable moments and I was given special recognition in the programs for all the work I did.

Pillows & Quilts

My college was in a very boring town that had horrible weather. It was so beautiful when I first moved into the dorm. By the third week, the rain started. It either rained or snowed every single day until May. The local news kept a running tally of it. I attributed it to the fact that my days at BC were already depressing, therefore the weather accommodated to me to either match how I was feeling or to get under my skin more; I’m not sure which.Since there was absolutely nothing to do within a 100-mile radius of BC and by January the snow was eating at my soul, of course I resorted to crafting. I started small with simple pillow projects. I didn’t have a sewing machine at the time, so I was sewing them by hand. I found this wonderful lush velvet in a remnants bin at the fabric shop across from the campus. I swiped some stuffing from my mom’s stash while home one weekend. I worked on my huge velvet pillow between classes. One afternoon, I was working away on my pillow and finishing up the last seam when my roommate came in. She just started hysterically laughing at me because all she could see was two little feet sticking out from a huge black velvet pillow and a hand waving at her from behind it.

When my pillow was complete, I was still bored. I went back to the fabric shop and perused the remnants bin until I found a bunch of purple tone fabrics. I began hand stitching a quilt between classes. After a week or so I grew bored of my quilt and quit. It was a nice lap blanket size probably 3 ft by 2 ft. The following fall semester I was in a children’s theater production where I played an old woman telling ghost stores while being in a quilting & knitting circle. My lap quilt was one of my props. When I graduated, my acting coaches/teachers gave me a nice framed photo of the ghost story scene and I’m holding my quilt. I still have the quilt and it is still unfinished. Maybe next semester during my quilting classes, I’ll pick it back up.

Holiday Cookie Tradition

My grandmother and I used to bake cookies at Christmas every year. I would spend the day with her and we would bake cookies all day long. I can remember the taste of grandma’s from scratch sugar cookies, which had a hint of orange to them. We even made icing and she would let me decorate the little gingerbread people, the Santa heads, the stars, and the bells. As I got older, my grandmother was not able to do things like she used to so my mom began baking Christmas cookies with me. A few years ago, I shared the tradition with my niece who really enjoyed decorating and creating large snowmen cookies.This year, since I took the Buy Handmade Pledge, I’m going to be giving my Christmas cookies as gifts to my family. I know the pledge was “buy” handmade but buying gifts this year just isn’t an option for me. I am giving gifts to my two nieces, nephew, and my cousin’s twin daughters. The only gift that I’m actually buying is a video game for my 10 year-old niece (from my husband actually). The rest of the gifts are handmade, including my holiday cookies.

Today and this weekend will be spent baking and packaging the holiday cookies.

Yes Anthony, I will be making my Walnut Oatmeal Raisin cookies that you love so much.

Kidmade Yarn Dolls

I was an avid 4-H camper. I only missed one year (stupid band camp) the entire time I was eligible to be a camper or leader. When I was a camper, around age 9, one of the Adult Leaders taught a craft one afternoon that I fell in love with. – Yarn Dolls. These are made in much the same fashion of tassels. Wrap yarn around a square of cardboard until the yarn is as thick as you want it. Tie in a place for a hair line, neck, and waist. To make a boy version, split the yarn hanging below the waist in half and tie at ankle positions. Cut the folds of the yarn at the top of the head and at the bottom of skirt/legs. To make arms, wrap yarn around a shorter piece of cardboard. Tie at wrist positions and clip the folds of the yarn at each hand. Shove through the center portion of the body or if you have made the arms in advance, place arms before tying off for the waist.I used to use up all of my mom’s yarn stash making yarn dolls. I took great pride in my yarn dolls. I still have a boy and girl set of yarn dolls that I think still look nice and are excellent considering a 9-10 year old made them.