paint cut paste

N will begin kindergarten at the local waldorf school in early september. (yes, she’s only 4.5, but they do a mixed age K class, so this is her first of two years in kindergarten.) anyway, about a week ago, we got a letter in the mail from her teacher with instructions for how to make a bag in which to store her spare clothes at school.

now, for a momma like myself who really cannot sew is a very beginning seamstress, this is rather daunting. it’s funny to me that the waldorf school assumes the parents can all sew — and also great that they emphasize it because really, coming from a long line of fiber artists, i really should know! luckily, i inherited a sewing machine from my artsy (and adventurous) friend who moved her family to bali last year. (thank you, linds!) so i busted that out and gathered my supplies.

when we made our seasonal placemats a couple weeks ago, N and i placed the fabric order (together at the computer screen – i know, waldorf) on spoonflower. N could not resist one of the fox fabrics we saw on there, so i bought a yard of the fabric, not knowing what exactly we’d do with it. well, here is the answer — time for a foxy spare clothes bag! the directions were simple (thankfully!) first cut fabric to 16″x32″ — easier said than done when you don’t have a cutting mat thingie or a rotary cutter, but i managed some diagonal approximations of straightish lines. fold fabric in half, right side facing in.

sew up the two sides of the bag, leaving the top open.

okay, i didn't cut it straight AT ALL but whatever. it's inside the bag, right? is this where you all put the pins when sewing?see, i need help.

fold in the open side about 2″ and pin. sew along the fold to create a casing for the drawstring.

insert a string, rope, ribbon, or braided cord through the casing at the top. i quickly realized that a huge crochet needle would be my best friend in this task.

pull together, tie into a bow (or wait until you get into the classroom to see where the hook is and how long the string is supposed to be, then cut it and tie a bow ) insert spare underwear, socks, pants, t-shirt, and hang bag in kindergarten classroom.

ever since i saw this brilliant post on wise craft two years ago, i’ve totally wanted to make our own everyday placemats! i finally got around to it last week!

i don’t know about your home, but we really benefit from having some sort of wipeable, plastic placemat on the table at mealtimes. we use cloth napkins everyday and when we entertain, we use cloth placemats, but for everyday use, cloth placemats just don’t cut it. while i realize i could achieve this look (and you could too) by laminating beautiful cardstock or paper art work, i wanted the heft of cloth layers for our placemats.

where did those pretty patterns up there come from? well lately, i’ve been OB-sessed with spoonflower, so i could not resist (though i tried) picking a few patterns from their web site to use for ours. the visuals are important to me, especially for something we’ll see so often and will likely be burned in N’s brain if we use them for years of her childhood. because we are very seasonally oriented in our home (from our seasonal altar to food to centerpieces to decor,) i decided to choose one fabric for each season. i made eight placemats total: four with spring on one side, summer on the other. then four with autumn on one side, winter on the other. i got the spring fabric from etsy (i was seeking a hip snail print, as snails are a huge sign of spring here in our backyard, as they SWARM it all season long) and the other three seasons’ fabric was carefully chosen from spoonflower to also be personal to our family in some way.

when the fabric arrived, i was thrilled to begin! (a project with beautiful fabric that requires NO SEWING? this is my kinda creation!)

(i didn't need the pins. they just made the pic cute & were in the box with my fabric scissors.)

i followed the instructions on wisecraft: i began by cutting four 11″ x 17″ rectangles out of each fabric. (i freaked about the measurements here being exact and lining up because i didn’t read ahead in the instructions, but you don’t need to freak at this part. there is a time later when you’ll trim them down again.) i must have looked stressed during this part of the project because N kept rubbing my back and saying, “i like the way you’re concentrating here. good, good, you got it, good.”

then i ironed each rectangle of fabric. (first time i’ve used my ironing board in N’s life – she had to ask what it was. sad, right? uh, i like to tell myself that we mostly wear comfy knitwear and it’s not needed.) after they were wrinkle-free, i used thermoweb heatnbond lite to adhere spring to summer and fall to winter. wisecraft gives a thorough explanation of this process on her blog here.

after they were bonded, right sides of fabric facing out, i trimmed them down to 10.25″ by 16.25″ each. (aaaah, all lined up!)

next i did a little research on the laminating process. i found a teacher supply store locally that only charged 65 cents to laminate something that is 11×17 – score… or so i thought. BUT when we visited the store, i learned that the laminate was very thin and the placemats would still be flimsy like the cloth. so, i decided to go to fedex/kinkos (as wisecraft recommended – no need to try to reinvent the wheel to save a few bucks here.) i found it very user-friendly.

even though each placemat cost $4.50 to laminate at that size, we went this route considering the fabric investment i’d already made. they offer a thick plastic sleeve to put the cloth into. after it’s centered in the sleeve, just run it through the laminating machine that seals it together with heat. i feel like they’ll hold up for years!

about an hour after we laminated them, they were on our table and dinner was served — summer style!

even though this was a mom-made project, i have to say that N was with me every step of the way and takes immense pride in telling everyone “can you believe that WE made these placemats ourselves?!”

in the words of N’s favorite muppet show special guest star, alice cooper, “school’s out for summer!” that means that N is graduating from preschool, and the class presented a really sweet gift to the teacher/school yard on the last day of class — handprint garden flags! (can you tell which parent coordinated this creation? um yeah, i’m a little obsessed with flags/garland over here.)

i cut and sewed a cord pocket onto these little linen fabric squares the same way i’ve done for the food flags and leaf print garden flags, of course. then i gave one out to each family in the class to take home with simple instructions to use fabric paint for handprints and their child’s name (which have been removed from photos for privacy) and to bling out their flag with whatever else they’d like. we got busy handprinting N’s.

in a few weeks, i received a rainbow of lovely handprints from each kid in class.

we worked on stringing them together on a white rope.

then the flags were ready to present to the most amazing preschool teachers ever!

i just love the details on each one – showing such personality! (wish you could see all of the names – they were so cute – but i want to protect the privacy of the kids in class.)

here’s to all the wonderful teachers out there in the world! happy summer!

i’m so psyched to be guest blogging today over at chalk in my pocket! (thanks, regina!) i’ve shared a project that’s great for earth day — it involves a nature walk, painting leaves, printmaking, and beautifying our backyard. go check out how we made our leaf print garden flags!

happy earth day tomorrow, everyone! how do you celebrate our planet?

two of N’s boy friends from preschool celebrated their fifth birthday this month. when i asked N what she wanted to get for them, she said, “i want to make them both a shirt.” um, okay – let’s do that!

i got a good deal on solid, plain tees at old navy ($5 each when you buy more than one – we bought three. one for each boy and, of course, one for N. ah, preschoolers. sigh.) the boys’ shirts had a pocket on the front, which meant we’d be printing the design on the back. N reeeeally wanted to put their name on the front, but we compromised on each kid’s initial on the pocket. she hunted for letters in our cardboard letter stash.

when i asked N what each boy might want on his shirt, she replied that they are both really into firetrucks. so, i cut some cardboard into what i thought kinda sorta resembled a firetruck shape…? humor me.

then N painted the firetruck cut-out with a thick coat of red fabric paint, using a paintbrush and not a roller. we weren’t very pro with this job, but it was fun and it worked in the end.

we pressed it onto the backs of the shirts. because we did this on a whim, and used what we had in a pinch, we didn’t really think through the materials too well ahead of time. i used a corrugated shipping box to cut the firetruck out, so it came out kind of striped. eh.

i had to fill in the spaces with a paintbrush.

to make the ladder, N painted a wooden craft stick with blue paint and we pressed it on twice, with a shorter stick for rungs. this is pretty much the thing that helped it resemble a firetruck.

now it was time to make N’s shirt. she decided she wanted a “rainbow horse shirt!” thankfully, we had a package of these great horse shaped cardboard cut-outs. she painted one into a stripey rainbow, kinda like the birthday sign she made for her 4th.

because the horse was not on corrugated cardboard, and because i put a large, flat, hardcover book under the shirt when we pressed it, it turned out pretty well!

we let these dry for 4 hours, then waited 72 hours to turn them inside out and wash them (per the fabric paint instructions.) voila – custom birthday gifts for the guys, and a sweet tee for my little lady!

my daughter is a girl who dreams vividly. she has told me her dreams upon waking ever since her second birthday, always so colorful, odd, and fascinating! usually pleasant or funny, sometimes scary and dark. because dreams have been a big part of her life and our talks, we decided to make a dream pillow.

especially being a therapist, i am a person who feels that it is important to confront dream content — dreams are paths that lead to our unconscious world. dreams are a safe place to explore that which is potentially scary or dangerous. for this reason, i don’t find scary dreams to be unhealthy for a child to have, rather they are often essential for the child’s psyche to process information. however, all of us parents know that being afraid of the dark and/or having nightmares can be really horrible for a child. we do wish N “sweet dreams” when she goes to sleep, and we always hope that she has a peaceful night. it is in that spirit that we decided to make the dream pillow — for a peaceful slumber and to usher N into her own fanciful dreamworld each night.

we had a lot of rectangles of fabric leftover from the food flags we made. N has been asking to paint on them, so this seemed like a perfect opportunity. we set up our fabric paints, and i taped two rectangles of fabric to her art board.

then i wrote a list while N dictated the things she would like to see in her dreams: “mommy and daddy, owls, birds, flowers, trees, ladybugs…” after the list, we made a plan to put the images of the three of us on one side of the pillow, and a nature scene on the other side that would incorporate the other items.

N did a great job painting all of the things from her list onto the fabric. she had so much fun with it. we even painted on stamps to stamp her name onto one side of the pillow, and used a bird stamp for the bird image on the nature side of the pillow. N noted that the nature side of the pillow reminded her of our backyard, where we always have birds, we have a tall tree with an owl statue under it, and colorful porchulaca flowers.

that magenta guy on the branch is an owl, and there is a ladybug climbing the tree.

i hung the fabric to dry outside in the play house.

after it was dry, i ironed it on the backside, against a rag, to set the paint. then i hand-washed it in the sink with our natural detergent. (you could probably throw it in your washing machine, but i didn’t because these rectangles of linen had frayed ends so i didn’t want them to unravel.)

next we picked some lavender from our backyard to stuff into the pillow, as lavender is known to be an herb that helps with relaxation and peaceful sleeping. we used a few of the stems which were already dry for the pillow, and we hung the rest of the lavender harvest to dry to make sachets and such in the future. (you could also include chamomile, mugwort, valerian, or catnip, if you wanted other sleep-inducing herbs, but not all of those smell pleasant and you should research all herbs before using on or near your child.)

as a family, N, her dad, and i wrote our dreamtime wishes for N onto soft, handmade paper with sparkly and colorful pens. for example, i included “sparkly sunshine magic” and “hugs and kisses” on a couple of mine. two of N’s said “owls” and “mom & dad.” craig wrote “magical powers” and “exploring new places” as part of his wishes for her. we included these inside of the dream pillow, to infuse it with good intentions.

we also put a small amethyst stone inside of the pillow, as amethyst is said to have a calming and protective energy that makes is good for any type of dream work. it helps overcome insomnia and/or nightmares, and may help one to awaken refreshed and energized.

stuffing

i sewed up three sides of the pillow on my sewing machine, and then N stuffed the goodies inside. i chose to keep the frayed edges visible on the outside to give it a natural feel, rather than sewing the painted sides facing each other and inverting the fabric. you could do it either way.

once it was all sewn up, we brought it into N’s room before naptime. she was sooo excited about it and loves the smell of the dried lavender!

as N knows this isn’t the sort of pillow she will lay on or even cuddle with, she chose to keep it on her headboard, right beside a little guy i made for her out of some of her old baby clothes. that way she can smell the pillow before going to sleep, as well as sleep knowing it’s right above her head. and speaking of old baby clothes, this project can be done with any fabric or any old clothes you may have. think about upcycling some of those old onesies with cute patterns. you can even skip the fabric painting step and focus on the idea of making this into a great sleep talisman or medicine bag.

while we’re on the topic of sending your children off to sleep in a peaceful way, and infusing their dreams with a little magic, i would like to recommend a wonderful bedtime book that a friend recently told me about, called starbright–meditations for children. it has amazing ideas for talking your child through soothing visualizations before they drift off to sleep.  this is just one of many dream-related art projects to come – stay tuned! sweet lavender dreams to you and yours!

i’m a big fan of prayer flags or anything that resembles them. and what better thing to pay homage to than food? (well for me. eat, pray, love – right?) anyway, i saw this awesome idea on alphamom to do a fourth of july bunting using starfruit. i fully intended to do this before the holiday, but after combing 5 grocery stores/produce markets here, there is just no starfruit to be found. we improvised and took a different path.

N and i gathered up some fun and sturdy shapes at wholefood’s produce section. then i sliced them in half and let them sit face down for about an hour on a towel, to absorb any extra moisture.

to prepare, the night before i had cut up some natural-colored linen (i purchased some from jo ann’s fabrics – you could also use white or cream burlap or other fabrics) into 8″ by 5″ rectangles, with a little help from my cat. i frayed the edges by hand because i love the raw look of that.

N and i chose some colors from our fabric paint stash (you can also use acrylics) and began to paint the flat sides of the fruits and veggies to do some printmaking. (you can dip them in the paint, but we went this route so we wouldn’t waste any paint by leaving it in a dipping pan.)

we chose different colors for each of the different pieces of produce, and pressed them firmly onto the linen, toward the bottom of each rectangle. (this is to leave room for a pocket at the top for the rope to go through to hang them later.)

it was so much fun to see the colorful shapes emerge on the fabric.

we let them dry all afternoon, while we admired our work.

the next day, i pinned and sewed each flag across the top to make a pocket for a rope to go through.

sadly, i was impressed with my ability to do this. i am NOT a sewer.

alphamom’s blog said you could use fabric glue instead to create the loop for the rope, but i used this as an opportunity to practice using the sewing machine my dear friend gave me before she moved to bali. (i mean, this was the next best thing if i couldn’t move there with her, right? wow, this is becoming an eat, pray, love post in a coupla ways.)

i got some nice rope at the hardware store for 14 cents per foot. after putting the rope through the loop at the top, we were super-pleased with the results.

the banner/flags/garland is now hanging in our kitchen window… where else?

during the printmaking process, we got a little overzealous about the fact that cauliflower makes cute little trees, so we made an extra banner of all of the “tiny trees” we printed.

more ideas:

• i got word that there’s a shipment of starfruit coming in tomorrow to a local grocer, so you just may see some star bunting in our future, after all… it’ll be more on the aquatic-colored starfish side of things than fourth of july though.
• another thing i’d love to do with all of our extra lined rectangles is to do some leaf printing on them like the artful parent shows here.
• you can also print letters to spell out a word or name.
• it would be great to do a different child’s handprint on each piece of fabric, say for a school class banner (think: teacher appreciation) or to give to a grandparent who has several grandkids, or for yourself, (if you have enough little hands and feet in your house to make a decent length garland of your own kids’ paws.)
• printed fabric squares make for lovely garland, flags, pockets to sew onto aprons, book-covers, etc, etc, etc…

let your imagination run with it and string it up on the wall!