Insta Sleep-over Pads

Source: gltc.co.uk via Bridgette on Pinterest

Take five pillowcases and stitch together. Insert pillows. Ack! How do people come up with these ingeniously simple ideas?

New, Improved Halloween Design: 50% more scary

After my other Halloween designs were summarily dismissed by my 8-year old as "Cute - for a little kid", I knew I had to come with something that a Grade Three would be proud to give. I came up with this invitation design today:

Next up...something with a cat and a crooked fence.

apropos of nothing...

I brake for rainbows.

Hippo Applique Onesie

A little mid-summer crafting: an appliqued onesie. A dear friend had a baby a few weeks ago and, as odd as this may sound, I've been at a loss for a gift. I brought a bag of goodies to the hospital, things I knew she and her husband would appreciate but probably hadn't thought to pack (including chocolate-covered Peak Frean's, a stack of gossip magazines and some nice-smelling things for the shower) but I wanted to give something to the new guy too. It took a while but inspiration arrived in the form of a sweet nothing I overheard her whisper to her son: hungry hippo.

Welcome to the world baby.

ice cream party

The kids made these crazy cute pompom ice cream cones at nursery school, and it got me thinking that an ice cream party would be a really fun (and easy and delicious and crowd pleasing) summer birthday idea. Oh those lucky July and August babies.

The invites: Print, cut out and have the birthday kid decorate ice cream cone-shaped invitations using this template:

icecream_wl[1]

Treats: We once looked into hiring an ice cream truck for our neighbourhood block party, but in the end we opted for homemade ice cream cookie sandwiches and fruity popsicles like these:




Make: Kids can make their own pompom party hats and ice cream cones. Cover a picnic table with kraft paper and place in the middle: bowls filled with different shaped pompoms, a few generous blobs of white craft glue, popsicle sticks, real ice cream cones (be sure to use the flat-bottomed variety), and plain party hats.





Play: Classic outdoor games like Capture the Flag (a ramped up version of hide & seek that's all the rage on my street this summer), a three-legged race, water balloon toss...

Grand Finale: A make-your-own sundae station will definitely be the messy highlight. Gummy candy, mini marshmallows, chocolate chips, sprinkles, chocolate sauce, bite-sized cookies. Don't expect it to look like this any place but in the mind's eye:

a batch of teacher notepads

I've been meaning to add a picture of finished notepads to the images section of the notepad product page, but I never seem to remember in my rush to get them wrapped and in the post. Packaging counts when it's a gift, so I took a snapshot this morning of a bunch of notepads ready to head out:

Packaged in tidy cello envelopes. Nice + Simple. Click here to jump to the product page at the shop. Three more weeks of school!

crafts for a sunny day

Though the reason why now escapes me, I bought a set of fabric paint markers last year. They've sat in the cupboard for months, biding their time - as craft supplies tend to do in my house - but were finally called into action yesterday. Stella had a pair of white canvas sneakers, worn briefly the night before, and I gave Henry a long sleeve school uniform t-shirt that had a stain on the tummy. We cut the sleeves off (which were decorated separately and worn, jauntily, as arm warmers) so he could have a summer t-shirt of his own making.

I plopped a magazine inside the body of the t-shirt so the paint wouldn't bleed through to the back, and that was the end of my instructions. They were engrossed in their work for two full hours (while I weeded and read the paper).