Crayon roll

Crayons are wonderful, and a bare necessity to exercise little creative minds. There are a lot of crafters out there making wonderful crayon holders, wallets, aprons, you name it. Since I had purchased several packs of Bare crayons, a non-toxic plastic crayon which I've found to be very kid and mom friendly, I needed something to house exactly 30 crayons per kid. The best thing I could find was a 15 crayon role at the blog, Chocolate on my Cranium. From her pattern I increase the front and back pieces to 13 x10" and then made two pocket strips of 13x5", and instead of ties I used my handy dandy snap pliers. Voila, a 30 Bare crayon holder.
Also, instead of using fabric stabilizer, the outer shell is vinyl, which is naturally, and perhaps overly, stiff. These crayons can go out in the rain and will probably stay dry.

After I finished this I began to think I might make a few more to list on Etsy. However, even an internet sales crafter is required to register for a sales tax number here in VA. I'm thinking about it, but it will require paperwork every single month (or a $10 fine) even if I don't own a single penny to the state in sales tax. Seriously, the time sucking bureaucracy is the most discouraging part of it. Seriously, if you can, make your own!

Let's Laminate!

How I managed to home school without a laminator for over six years I can not fathom. When our Classically Catholic Memory, (CCM) history timeline cards arrived it became a first order priority to procure a laminator. Surely they'd be wrecked in short order if I didn't find a way to protect them. As luck would have it, I stumbled upon a laminator, by Purple Cow, at Costco, selling for less than $20. Reviews on amazon were decent, so I snatched one up, brought it home, and started encasing all my flash cards in plastic. The machine came with only 30 pouches in my flash card's size, but I was able to find more, with decent reviews, at a good price. To my delight the pouches I bought worked just fine in the machine and were even nicer than the first group. 


Laminating is a little addictive. Once you finish one project you'll already have another in mind. Lucky for me, I'm too busy for addictions. Though my notion to laminate my copy of alphabet cards is finally underway with the help of my oldest daughter. She's picked up where I left off and has been helping me color.  The machine came with 100 full sized pouches, so I haven't had to buy any other sizes as of yet.

 

play silks for Christmas

I decided to get my children play silks for Christmas. However, I wasn't prepared to pony up $60+ for the rainbow colored set I wanted. So I googled and read several tutorials on how to make my own silks.

First I bought 6 large 35x35" silks and 6 more 21.5x21.5" smaller silks.

While waiting for the silks to arrive, I ran out in search of Kool-aid, but couldn't find all the colors I needed. So I found an 8 pack of Wilton icing dye to use instead.

My oldest is trying to earn a crafting badge for Scouts, so I recruited him to help for credit.

Once the silks arrived we washed them in warm soapy water. My son remarked that they looked like sails. I'm excited to see his imagination already going into gear.

Then I put in about 1/4 tsp of icing dye, 1/4 vinegar, then filled the rest of these large mason jars with water. The assistant stirred until the dye dissolved.

While the jars are heating up in the jar bath, I put the larger silks into the jar. At first I put in both 1 large and 1 small silk, but discovered it was a bit too tight, and removed one scarf. Basically, just soak the silk in the mason jar till the dye has been absorbed and set into the silk at your desired intensity. Then add more dye if the water has cleared and soak the next silk. 

Using tongues is a good idea if you don't want to dye your fingers too.

I ironed the silks (which was suggested on one tutorial) to help further set the dye. After this I folded and wrapped them up for the kids. They think all of these are for their little sister, but actually, they're getting play silks in their stockings too, as she's not getting ALL of them. A lot of what I'm getting the kids this year are really for sharing. I expect they will all play with these.

So that was fun! We'll have to do that again sometime.  Perhaps I'll make more for Easter.