Blue's Clues Steve Shirt

All of my kids have been big Blue's Clues fans, probably because I think it is a really cute show and have encouraged it. Miss B. was Blue for Halloween when she was two. It was just a simple one piece 

pajama-ish outfit with a hood with ears, but it was plenty cute. Of course I kept it and my son wore it too (but not for Halloween). Then came the twins, and they really like Blue, so I decided for Halloween that they could be Steve and Blue! Trying to find a Steve shirt is near impossible these days, and Ebay is not cheap. 

But I found a shirt at Target that I thought would do.

Mr. A. saw it and said, "Teve! Teve" and immediately attempted to remove his current shirt. I showed the hubs and figured Mr. A. could wear it as is, but Hubs asked if I was going to make it more Steve like, so I decided I should.

Let me preface this with saying there is probably an easier way to do this, a prettier way, but this was the way that worked for us. :)

I decided I could just zig zag stitch some felt on there. I should have planned just a tiny bit better, but more about that later.

First take your piece of felt and measure the stripes you need to cover. 

Fold felt so you can cut as many stripes as you can. I just used some sheets of felt I had laying around (that was my mistake)

Pin stripe on. I did try doing it without pinning, and for me, well, it wasn't pretty. So I ended up picking it out and starting over.

Zig zag stitch a stripe on. You don't have to zig zag it, but I think it will hold better, and looks cuter.

The stripe that went just under the v-neck opening was a bit tricker, as I had to sew it inside as well.

 Because I used felt rectangles I had about 3 of that color. I thought it would be easy to get more and just wanted to get started one day. WalMart only had single sheets in certain colors, this green not being one of them. I could buy a whole new pack with this color, but I already 2 of them at home, and they weren't in my current budget. I decided I would buy some fleece off the bolt, thinking that there must be something close to the color. I looked and looked and looked, and they had barely any felt at all on the bolt. I made a special trip to Hancock (special as in taking twins with me and attempting to find something that was proving difficult! ha!) They were entirely out of their single sheets. But thankfully they had some felt on the bolt, and they had a similar enough green to finish up. It did not match exactly, but it would have to do, because we were getting down to crunch time.

Around the armpit was trickier for me as well. I did not feel like unpicking the store stitching on the shirt, so I turned the shirt inside out and sewed in a straight line as close to the armpit as possible.

 So the thread was white, but barely noticeable.

Then the felt rectangles were not long enough, so I had to stitch a piece to the other piece. I tried to keep this in the back so it would not be seen as much.

 Also, after sewing the stripes on I could see there was some excess felt where the two pieces met up, so I just took some scissors and trimmed the excess off.

Then I attempted to sew the sleeves, but 2T shirt sleeves are pretty skinny and I could not get it around my machine to sew. Well, I got it around it, but it was so ridiculous to sew, so I improvised and got out the hot glue gun!

I thought much of it looked sloppy, but I just needed to get it done. And the main idea of this post is to let you know what whatever you make for your children, whether it turns out what you had envisioned or not, your little one will love it! My little man was so excited to wear his Steve shirt. Did the sleeve stripes match? No. Did the hot gluing look as good as the sewing? No. Did my almost 2 year old care about my sewing skills? No. Did they look super cute in their costumes? Heck Yes!

We went to a church Trunk-or-Treat and the boys got soooo many compliments on their costumes. And they were super easy, especially just adding a pair of tan pants to Steve's shirt. :)

I'll do another post on how I made their cute and easy Handy Dandy Notebook Trick or Treat Bags

Tot Spot Circles

I watch my cousin's daughter 1-2 times a week, she is about 7 months older than my boys. On the days she is here, we try (key word try, it just does not always happen) to get in some kind of an art project and/ or   lesson.

Being that my boys were not quite two (this was some time ago, I'm a slacker when it comes to posting), and Little Miss is just over two, we're not covering anything major. We have been working on our shapes. 

First we made a felt pizza with all circle shapes (idea found here). I went with the colors I had, so we had yellow dough, orange cheese, brown sausage, red pepperoni, and green bell peppers. We talked about each shape/color/item as it went on the pizza. It has become a fun new little play set for them.

A little later we made pizzas out of construction paper. Before this we had not done a lot of pasting, mostly just painting, because I did not think they would grasp gluing something onto something else (from trying once before). I think having made the felt pizza before really helped them get it. Little Miss got way into it and glued lots of stuff onto her pizza. Mr. W. added some pretty pen marks to his. Mr. A. is not much into art. He will do it for a minute, but I think it requires too little body movement for him.

Another day we did some circle prints, I had various circle things that they kidlets could dip into paint. We had empty toilet paper tubes, empty ribbon spools (I always keep them, even though I have a ton, because they just feel like an art project waiting to happen), jar rings, etc. I just choose one color because otherwise it tends to get too messy (and I really am the messy art mom, but three toddlers and paint, yeah...)

We also made a felt snowman. I did not get any extras made for him, just the three white snowballs, and I showed the kids how we make a snowman (out of felt anyhow). And of course we sang Once There Was a Snowman. I then tried to have them glue their circles on a white paper, they were less than interested. I mostly glued it for them. We also added some white tiny snowflakes (paper punch excess) for them glue. Mr. A actually loved that and added quite a few to his, Little Miss was not at all interested, and Mr. W. liked it just fine.

Doing craft-y things with the littles has been fun for me. I enjoy watching these three entirely different personalities and learn their different interests and strengths, even in their twos. I am constantly testing what I think will work well to keep three little ones interested. If it were just one child, it would definitely be easier to do actual lessons, but with three, I am finding it so much trickier. But mostly, as long as they are having fun and experiencing new things, I count it as a win.

As a second win, Little Miss was saying "cir-cuh" when her parents came to get her, and she said it again the next time she came, and Mr. A. was saying it too. And a few months later both A& W can identify a circle. :)

Easy Felt Candy Clip Tutorial

This is a super easy clip to make and super cute too!

I found my inspiration in these super cute Lollipop Ornament Craft Kit from OTC. I bought the kits for a craft for my daughter and her friends to make. 

Start with two thin strips of felt. Mine were about 9 inches long, maybe 1/2 in wide.

Glue two of the ends together with the glue of your choice.

Roll the two pieces together, keep it as tight as you can. 

You also want to try to keep it as flat as possible on one side.

 It should look something like this you when you are done. 

You can kind of push one side flat after you are finished rolling as well.

 Next to a quarter so you can see the finished size.

Find a coordinating piece of tulle (I always find small sections in the fabric remnant section at Walmart). My piece measures about 6 inches by 5 inches.

 Place your felt candy disk toward one edge of your tulle.

 Wrap it up.

 

Find some thin ribbon to tie around the edges. This time I used some rickrack. Before tying the ribbon around the tulle take a look at your candy and see which side you think looks the most presentable, tie so ribbon ends show on that side. I like to have the flattest side face up.

 Cut off excess edges of tulle.

 Again, compared to a quarter.

Now you just need to attach to a ribbon lined alligator clip. This time I used a wide red grosgrain ribbon. 

Finished product measures about 4 inches in length.

This is one my 9 year old made herself with about 2 seconds of explanation. 

And another clip being modeled

She asked why she always has to be the model, I told her because she is cuter than I am. :) 

 And modeling her own clip

This is a fun clip to match almost any outfit, and made with scraps (which I always have hanging around). You can make it festive for Christmas, or for any other time of the year as well!

Girlie Turkey Clip

I know it is uber close to Thanksgiving, but I decided to whip out a Turkey clip for my daughter last night, and took some step by step pics (very dark unfortunately) in case you wanted to make your own.

I made a tom-turkey for her last year that needed some repairs, so we fixed him, and decided to make another in more girly colors.

To start you need 5 silk leaves in 3 different colors: 3 in the first color, 2 in the second color, and 1 in the last color.

We chose purple, pink, and a sparkly brownish clear one

Layer the 3 strategically (or not so strategically) like so, and glue once you like the arrangement

Layer the two on top of that one. You just don't want to cover your back color too much, so try to have the points of the second leaf color (pink) inbetween the gaps of the first color (purple), and glue.

Then place your last leaf in the middle on top of the rest and glue.  (I had to take this photo with a flash, so you could see the transparent leaf, and add a little tweaking to the color)

You need about 12 inches of any coordinating ribbon for your turkey's head and body. 

 a 5 in piece 

a 3.5 in piece

and a 2.5 in piece

Take the 3.5 in piece and make a loop without twisting the ribbon, like so:

Do the same with the 5 in piece. 

Glue the smaller loop inside the larger one.

Make another loop with the 2.5 in piece, this is the turkey's head, place it round end up.

Place two googly eyes on the head, about the middle of the loop, which will push the head down flatter as well.

You need another 1.5 in to 2in piece for the turkey's waddle. Put glue on back side and fold in half, making it a skinnier piece of ribbon. Glue one end onto turkeys head and then just fold and glue where you think it looks good. 

We used a small pink jewel heart for the beak, but I have also used ribbon cut and folded into a triangle for the beak.

Then just attach to a ribbon lined alligator clip. 

And your girlie turkey is ready to go!

 I like to do my daughter's hair in a half bun/pony type do, the accentuate the turkey tail feather look, but I think it would look cute for any hair do.

And here are some pics of our turkey from last year, in more traditional colors, and some other turkey do's we did. 

For this one we just did a simple ponytail, and took a few thin strands of hair and twisted them and pinned them in a loop with bobby pins to make turkey tails.

This one I made a triangle with small elastics in Thanksgiving colors and pulled it into a large ponytail. Then we ratted the hair a bit and "boufed" it up and used lots of bobby pins to hold it in place and with both placed the turkey in the middle of it. 

My daughter has received many compliments on both the hair dos and the clips. :)