Still Busy...but it's not all CHRISTMAS!

So when I was done with ART Symposium at the Girls' school, I thought for sure I would be starting on my Christmas crafting....oh how I was wrong!!  You may try to leave...but they will PULL you back in!!  Kathy and I received a distress call from another mom who was in charge of the Library Book Sale decorating...yep we answered it!!  I guess when you do something crafty and put it on display, you should expect to be asked to do MORE!!  So I showed up to a "paint party" at the mom's house thinking I would be putting a day into creating a panel for the hallway leading to the school Library...NO ONE was there...except for the mom in charge...and she was sick!!  So I left her house with THREE panels to decorate!!  The only "instruction" I was given was that the theme was "Wild about Books"!  

Here is the first one:

I wanted it to be "girly" so I could put some Girl Book titles on it!  I had the hippo from Fantasia in my head and just went from there.  The panel is actually a giant foam board covered in bulletin board paper.  I then used wood paneled Contact paper to make the "tree", and some more paper for the leaves.  The hippo is tempera painted on with a tulle tutu glued to the panel.  The giraffe is paper pieced then painted on.  I used hot glue for the ribbon, but Craft Bond glue stick for the paper piecing.  The cheetah is my favorite!!  She was roughly drawn on the paper, then I pieced craft FELT to fill her in!!  I used the Craft Bond EXTREME glue stick...that stuff WORKS!!  I had so much fun doing these panels...but it did take away from my Christmas crafting...oh well...

Here is the second panel I did... 

I wanted to do a "Night-themed" one because of the book Stellaluna!!  I had a whole bunch of craft paper scraps after I cut 22 "V" vests for The Middle Child's Thanksgiving Feast...and I HATE to waste!!  So I used the rolled paper to make the trees!!  Once again, I used the Craft Bond EXTREME glue stick to adhere them to the panel.  Then threw some tempera paint to add "texture"...Kathy must be rubbing off on me :)  I didn't have a lot of time to work on this panel, so I printed outlines of the animals then cut and glued them to the panel.  After, I went over them with tempera paint...worked out much better than me trying to draw or trace all of the animals!!   Thankfully, Kathy saved me from the third panel...she took it and did a Rainbow Fish underwater theme...sorry, no picture!!  So once that was done, I was free to work on other things...but first, I wanted to show you my really QUICK Thanksgiving wreath I did for my momma...

It was my Halloween wreath that I did with the orange drywall tape.  Same scrappy burlap flowers...I just added some thick felt leaves, a different ribbon, and a scrappy "Give Thanks"!!

So I've been knitting....a little...

This was a really quick hat I did for my SIL's new baby niece!!  Her momma sent me a couple of picture texts of hats asking if I could make one...for that sweet babe...OF COURSE!

Her big brother had a birthday in November...this is what he requested...

Spiderman is his favorite super hero...so why shouldn't he have a cape?? HA!  I made it reversible...just in case he realized that Spidey is NOT a cape-wearer!!

 Ms. Priss had a couple of birthday parties to attend this month also...

Pillows are my "go to" gifts these days!!  And headbands...

These are for the second birthday girl...

 YAY!!  A little Christmas crafting!! :)  The last two headbands were actually for Ms. Priss' BFF...she got a bag full of goodies and an I.O.U. from me!!  I promised to make her a pair of jammies, but realized too late that I didn't have enough fabric...GAH!!  So she is owed a trip to the fabric store to pick out her own PJ fabric! :)

I mentioned a couple of post ago about making ornaments with my GS Daisy troop for a swap...well here they are!!

They all did such a good job!!  I brought them white air-dry clay and cookie cutters; floral wire, jingle bells, and some ribbon; and some pre-cut felt circles with the GS logo already stitched on!!  They all picked which type of ornament they wanted to make and went to town!!  I brought them home...under LOTS of protest to let the clay dry and add the hanging ribbons.  The air-dry clay took a LONG time to dry...like a WEEK long of constantly turning to make sure they dryed evenly.  Maybe it is the humidity in LA that makes them take sooo long.  I want to do some with my kiddos...can I put air-dry clay in the oven??

Any way, the swap was cancelled...bummer!!  BUT the girls were sooooo happy to get to keep the ornaments they made, so all ended well!! :)  This month we did some winter-themed tee shirts...

I was just going to paint the mitten on the shirt, but ended up not getting all of the tee shirts in time!!  So I cut the mittens from felt and the cuffs from various fleece and felt scraps.  Then decided to go ahead and monogram all of the girls' names on the cuffs...for FUN! :)  I used a machine blanket stitch to sew them to the shirts...it just looked RIGHT!!

Then  brought them all to the meeting so the girls could put their handprint on them....too cute!!

As you can see...some of the girls still forgot their shirts...and one little girl tells me, "my momma doesn't want me to get paint on my hands..."  WHA-???  So I improvised by putting her hand on the mitten and painting AROUND it...think they can THWART me, huh??  HA!

So wrapping up this super-long post....The Middle Child's teacher has left to have her third sweet baby...which means aLOT of work during pre-Christmas week for this ROOM MOM!!  Anyway, before she left to have her baby BOY...after having two girls, she asked if I could re-fashion her baby swing cover to make it more "BOY-ish".  She sent me the cover and a thrifted bed ruffle...this is how it turned out.. 

Not too bad...but my machine did NOT like all of those LAYERS!!  I finished it and got it back to her a whole day before she left for maternity leave...yay!!

SO this is SMS GIVEAWAY WEEK!!!  Are you participating??  I'll be visiting...so should everyone else!!  Head over to Sew Mama Sew! for the list of link ups!!!   Until later...