Try it Tuesday: Duct tape checker boards

Don't you love it when a blog post posts three days before you even wrote it. I guess I hit the wrong button the other day.

Okay welcome to Try it Tuesday. It is summer time and with four kids running around this house I figured I needed something they could do to keep themselves busy. So I usually turn to the stack of magazine pages I have pulled (about ten monthly) and find the simple craft ideas that they have there. While we were up on our cabin trip the kids made Duct tape checker boards, an idea I found in the Family Fun magazine last November. 

This craft was simple and fun to make, the kids did most the work themselves and even though my really nice sewing scissors are now gummed with duct tape this was a great activity.

Here is what you will need:

Roll of duct tape

3 sheets of duct tape (all three different colors)

Gallon Ziploc bag.

24 one inch wooden discs. 

Start by taping the Ziploc bag with the roll of duct tape. You need to be careful to not tape the bag close. You tape both sides of the bag and again need to do your best not to leave gaps in between each row of tape.

After the bag is taped take one of the sheets of duct tape and cut out 16 squares, about 1 1/4 inches by 1 1/4 inches.

Place these in a 4x4 grid  but do not remove the backing until it is situated how you would like. Then remove the backing and place them on the board.

To make the checker pieces turn one of your remaining duct pieces over so the grid sheet is facing you. Trace twelve of your wooden circles then cut those out. Do the same on the remaining duct tape piece and remaining wooden circles.

After they are cut out peel off the backings and place on the wooden discs.

That's it. You are finished. It is fabulous and fun and the kids love it.

Try it Tuesday:Baby Towels

In my younger singler years when a family member or a friend announced a pregnancy I would whip out my knitting needles and within a month have a fun little baby sweater that would be delivered or mailed to the expectant mother. I loved knitting and it really only took me a few weeks of watching Doctor Who or Buffy to knock out a sweater. 

Then I got married and had kids. No longer were my evenings my own and though I loved the change my knitting time went to nearly nothing. In fact poor Matthew didn't even get a sweater until he was 18 month old  (I started it four months before he was born). I still wanted to give a homemade baby gift though and was at a loss of what to do.

Inspiration struck one day after getting Matty out of the bath, I wrapped him in a towel that a neighbor had made for us and that I loved. Here is the reason I loved it- it was big enough to wrap him in and the hood covered his whole head, not just part of it. After almost two years of use it has held up and it wasn't flimsy, it was a good thick towel.  I looked at how my neighbor had put Matty's together and made my own.  In fact I made five of them. I just wish I had taken pictures to walk you through the set up

So here is what you need:

2 wash clothes

1 towel

3 yards of ribbon

To make hood:

Sew together two sides of the wash clothes (thing of it as the top and back)

then sew some of the ribbon on to the front of your hood. I usually put it about two inches from the end.

To make hooded towel:

Sew the ribbon horizontal across the towel about four to five inches from the bottom. 

Attach the hood to the towel 

These are quick and easy shower gifts or just fun for your own little one.

Easy gift ideas

I meant to have this up a lot earlier but tis the season. 

I love making homemade gifts, my problem is I don't usually have time to make them. That is why I try to find some fun simple, easy ideas that can fit into anyone's schedules...and in my case...abilities. 

The first was what I call the Grandpa Book. We made this for my dad for father's day and for Christian's dad for his birthday.  We just got pictures of each individual grandchild and printed them off on the computer. The kids then each drew a picture or wrote a note explaining why they loved their grandpa. After I just went and bound the books with a cover sheet of all the cousins on it. 

These were a lot of fun to make and so super easy.

The second thing was friend gifts for the girls. I thought of just going to buy candy for them to give but when you have three kids with friends that can start making them very pricey. So I ran across a fun easy craft that cost as much as three Christmas candies but we made 14 gifts for the same price. 

This is simple to make and do. Just get those metal washers and paint them with nail polish. We painted them with white nail polish first then the girls went to town designing and painting (still with nail polish) whatever they wanted. After they dried we put on a a coat of clear polish and then tied it with a ribbon to make a necklace. They were simple and quick, and the girls loved it.

Craft- Celebration board

I am starting to find my weekly craft time to be an escape. I like doing simple easy projects and it gives me a few minutes to just escape. So far I had avoided painting, I have never been great at details. I have stuck with knitting, or things I can work with on photoshop, or print out. But I launched out this time and did a very simple and easy painting project.

This celebration board is a simple concept I found on pintrest. It is a chalk board that sits somewhere in your home and you change daily what your family can celebrate. We have celebrated homemade jam, first days of school, lost teeth, and family baptisms. It is to celebrate big and small. 

First thing I did was went to Home Depot and got some project board. Cooper, the very nice Home Depot employee, cut the board for me till I had six 12x15 pieces. 

Then my husband showed me how to use his drill and drilled two holes in the very top.

Then I started painting. It took three coats of paint but I was surprised how quick it was. It took me twenty minutes to paint the front and sides, then I waited an hour or so for it to dry and painted the back. Not too long at all.

I had someone cut the vinyl for me and I ended up using a vinyl chalk board as well.

Then it was time to add the ribbon, not sure if I like this one but it is what we have for now.

The kids love this and every morning they wait to see what will be written on our celebrate board.

Craft- Conference Board

With LDS General Conference coming up I am always looking for ways to keep the kids entertained.  While looking for other things on Pintrest I ran across this idea from a site that seems to have been hijacked for a moment. I will get back to you with the site. But this woman was awesome! She had so many different ideas and one of them was creating a Conference Center. The idea behind it is the kids can find out who is speaking and place their picture at the podium. Then they can pick the topics they hear about and put it in the speech bubble.  I am seeing 

The idea behind it is the kids can find out who is speaking and place their picture at the podium. Then they can pick the topics they hear about and put it in the speech bubble.  When the speaker is finished you can put them in their seat for the remaining time period. 

 There are also places to put who is conducting the music and who is playing the organ.

This lady baby caused me a lot of grief and a ton of time but I got it finished in time for October conference. Now I just can't wait to use it.

Craft- Picture Quiet Books

Recently I joined Pintrest. I really didn't want to, in fact I had avoided it. But then I got called to the Relief Society Additional Activities Committee, formally known as the Enrichment Committee, formally known as the Personal, Home, and Family Enrichment Committee, formally known as the Homemaking Committee.  All of a sudden I was in charge of coming up with craft ideas for our ever popular Super Saturday craft day.  

I browsed Pintrest with no intention of joining but pretty soon I realized that I needed to take the plunge, if only to keep straight the craft ideas I was coming up with for our Relief Society event.  I had also been thinking of creating a quiet book for Matty so this helped too. While I was looking around I realized two things: 1-Matty is still six months away from using quiet books 2- I was at least a year away of having the talent to make a quiet book. 

Then I stumbled across the picture quiet book. Perfect not for Matty but to keep James entertained. The premise was simple. Simply Fresh Designs had already created the templates I just had to add pictures. Perfect. They had books on beliefs, Old Testament stories, Teaching of Jesus, Life of Jesus, Book of Mormon stories, Articles of Faith, Gospel ABCs, and Life of Prophets and Apostles. 

I used the LDS Gospel Art book to put in the pictures with my paintshop pro. Then I sent the pictures to Walgreens and picked them up a few days later. I found some 24 photo photo books at Target and Walmart and then put them together. 

Simple and easy, my kind of project.   Now I will have to launch into the other quiet book...maybe next week.

Craft- Back to school and welcome home banners

Back to school, the time of year most kids dread and most moms look forward to with gleeful anticipation. As I child I loved going back to school, I loved pouring over back to school ads and deciding what school supplies I wanted buy, what Trapper Keeper was going to go best with my new folders and pencils.  I would drag my parents to five or six different stores to make sure I got the best deals my babysitting money could buy.   Yeah, I was unlike most kids. 

My kids however cringe whenever I mention how many days are left till the school bell rings. They are even now holing up in the rooms hoping beyond hope that August 27th will never come. 

Recently I was reading the Disney Family Fun magazine and I ran across a craft that was so simple and easy that even I could do, and would solve the kids back to school blues. 

The idea was simple enough. Celebrate summer's end by picking a few activities that we hadn't done yet and pack them into the last few weeks. I just had to make a banner.

Now I like to be crafty, but I am not very good at it. So this was a low key craft for me. 

I made a template first off to have something for my banner.

 And then I got my letters and paper ready

 Look how nice all this looks, really I should be barred from Hobby Lobby, I am just grateful the closest one is about a half hour away.

After the letters were put on I went and got them laminated.  

I had to think about this one for a minute. How do I keep the fun activities on...turns out all those envelopes that I had lying around finally came into good use.

Then I strung and hung the banner. It looked pretty good if I do say so myself.

It worked so well I made a Welcome Home banner too to celebrate the kids arrival from their super long trip.  

This turned out to be one the best crafts  I had ever done and one that I am thinking of repeating for several other holidays.

Christmas crafts

I have been rather neglectful of this blog the past few weeks. I have a list of things that I wanted to blog about but the madness of the season got to me and all the things that I wanted to blog about got left behind in the wake of the madness.

So here they are the Christmas crafts I did with the kids this month. I want a disclaimer out there that though I appear crafty, I only play one on this blog. In truth I can barely sew a straight line, wield a glue gun without burning my fingers, and drop so many knitting stitches that I have to get creative. So really these are easy crafts to do and require NO talent whatsoever.

1- Nativity Wreath

Okay so as a teacher I knew the greatness of Oriental Trading. I bought so many things from them- pencils, bouncy balls, toy cars. It is amazing what a 17 year old boy will do for a die cast car. As a mom I have found they have some great crafts for kids. We have tried several different items from them and each one has been a hit. This one I did by myself and then gave them to the kids to hang up. It was simple and easy and I only got one blister from the hot glue gun.

2- Friends gift
Another Oriental Trading find. It was a simple glue the sticks together and glue on the face. The snowman was supposed to have cheeks but I thought it was easier to put together without them. After putting them together I went to the store and found some awesome Christmas Push Pops and tied the pins on. The girls loved giving these out to their friends.

3- Chocolate Caramel Pretzels
I wanted an easy neighbor gift that the kids could help me with this year. In the past I have done fudge or caramel but both are hard to have kids help you with. So this time we went the pretzel route. The girls loved helping with these. They dipped them in the caramel then waited and dipped them in the chocolate. They also came baring sprinkles to add a bit of holiday cheer. Even James got into the fun. I was impressed that we were able to use all 5 lbs of caramel.

4- Chocolate covered Oreo's

I started making these last year and realized that I needed to get a lot better. This past Halloween I worked on my technique and started using multiple colors on the same mold to great success. This year I made these for James's preschool teachers and coupled them with a small Christmas mug and candle. These were so much fun to make and James was able to help. Expect more chocolate colored oreo's coming out of the Bradley kitchen in the coming months.

Craft Zone- Baby quilts

I remember being a little girl and my mom making a gift for my dad. We would go over to visit my Aunt Rita during the day and she and my mom would work on tying a giant University of Utah blanket while I played with my cousins. I remember that they taught me how to tie and I tied a few stitches and then I grew bored and went back to playing with my cousins.

During Young Women I got the chance to tie a few more quilts and found I liked it a bit more. Then I joined Lamda Delta Sigma while in college. It was there my love for creating quilts really took off. For each girl that got married we would tie a quilt. We got really good at it. Then as time progressed we tied quilts at baby showers. It is a tradition now to make quilts. There is something about creating them then giving them to others that I enjoy.

This past week I actually finished two quilts on my own. Though I have quilted many I have always had others finish them for me. I have learned that being able to sew a semi straight line can open up many doors in quilting.

The first quilt I finished was for my sister-in-law Sarah. We tied this quilt at her baby shower and then my mom came over to teach me how to bind it.

I had to unpick it a few times but I was pretty happy with how it ended up.

The second one I did all by myself. It was for my cousin Stef and her son-to-be-born son. Stef lives in LA and is married to a USC fan. Stef is a U fan and I figured that her son would be surrounded by USC fans and he would need something to combat that influence. So I made her a U of U quilt.

I love this quilt. Love it. I was tempted to keep it for myself. I think I will be using this fabric in the future as well for a baby quilt and maybe a nice king size quilt too.