I'm Back and Crafting with Purpose

Alright, so my day job required me to be on the road for the last two weeks and I've been pretty much MIA and the crafting has taken a back seat. But now I"m back with a purpose and I NEED YOUR HELP!! There is a fabulous website I love to check up on called Craft Hope. What they do is craft for charities all around the world and I've wanted to get in on the fun of crafting for a purpose. Their 10th project is for Konbite Sante you can go read all about this project there, why they are doing it, who it will benefit etc.

Basically they are putting together birthing kits for Haiti. Since this is Craft Hope's 10th project I wanna commit to make 10 of them, with your help. Here is what is going to be needed to make one kit so we sill need 10 of each item listed below.

1 Hotel size bar of soap -

1 Packet of Alcohol Wipe -

1 Packet of Purelle Hand Sanitizer

1 Pair of Clean Latex Gloves (They do not need to be sterile)

1 Square yard of clean 4ml plastic

3 Pieces of Clean String each 12" long

This is where the crafty part comes in:

1 Flannelet/Cotton receiving blanket

1 Handmade tote bag -

1 Stuffy Toy (Optional)

I have to mail these to Maine so I'll also need some cash to help pay the shipping costs to send these out. The project deadline is March 1st so my deadline is going to be February 19th to get the supplies from you.

If you are interested in doing this project with me, leave a comment and let me know which items you are willing to donate. It's only 10 kits and we can do this.

Because every good deed deserves COOKIES!

And not just any cookie, these cookies! They are so chewy and delicious. If you haven't tried them you must. Last Sunday as I was walking out the door for church (ignoring the weather man), I don't usually ignore the weather man but really 10 cm of snow he's been wrong before. It was calm out and not that cold, clear and mild. I was sure he was wrong.So off I go to church in my cute little heals, 3/4 length shirt, no jacket, no gloves, no boots Nada! Ten minutes into Church it starts dumping snow and it just keeps coming and coming. All the way home (did I mention we live out side the city where the plows come to us way after the city folks) as my children were falling asleep. I wondered to myself how I'm going to get my car into my long drive way that is not plowed and carry my children in, (did I mention they are both now sleeping), into the house ankle deep in my cute heals and not slip and drop them.

Can I tell you how relieved I was to see that my awesome neighbour from around the bend came over with his ATV and plow and plowed me right out to my front steps! Seriously, a little bit of service meant a lot to me that day so cookies were in order!! If your neighbour shovels you out make them a batch of these bad boys!

Comfy Cushions

Houston, we have progress in the toy room! I'm not sure if it's the full time job, the million other projects I have on the go, Christmas time just behind us, but some times progress is just slow and I'm feeling that with this toy room revamp. However I'm happy to report that the kids now have a spot for their little bums. I made these cushions which my children call Comfy Cushions from the Rollie Pollie pattern I purchased over at Made. Initially I found the pattern kinda tricky but once I conceptualized it in my mind it was actually quite simple.
I had actually finished Coconut's cushion earlier in the summer and the kids have had several spats over who actually gets to sit on it. Technically it is hers but during the day when she is in school that is where Buddy Boys has his afternoon nap. (Yes they are just that comfortable!)

There is going to be many a movie watched from the comfort of these two cushions...I can feel it already.

Repurposed Crayons

Buddy boys is having a birthday coming up in March. I have plans for his party but where I work full time if I don't get at it early I just can't seem to pull it off. He's turning three and this will be his first Big Boy party with friends so I want to make it fun for him. I'm doing a Bob the Builder theme. This crayons are going to be part of the party favors once I get it all together.


The first thing I did was ask the Librarian at Church to raid the kids crayons that she no longer was using or in need of. She gave me a big bucket full of them so this made this project really inexpensive to do. I really love that about do it yourself projects. You will need to bunch like colors together and remove the paper from them.

I saved a can from the Christmas baking I did. You can use any shape and size can you can get your hands on. If you wanted to you could get multiple cans going at the same time. So break up your crayons and put them in the tin can. Place the can in a pot of boiling water. You need about 2 inches of water in it. You don't want the can to float.

Let the wax crayons melt into a liquid and use a toothpick to stir it around and make sure there are no unmelted clumps in there. This will also help the colour be uniform if you are using different shades of the same colour.
You will need a mold. I bought a chocolate mold off eBay for about five dollars total including shipping. That was the only expense I had with this fun project. Place your mold on parchment paper on a baking sheet. If you happen to spill wax there will be no clean up required.

Pour the wax in the mold and let it sit until it hardens. You can speed the process up by placing the mold in the fridge or freezer.

Keep repeating the process until you get all the desired colours you need. This took me about 3 hours to do them all. If you live in Halifax and want to give this a try I have extra crayons you can have.

Yummy Dough

Happy New Year!! I hope you had a wonderful Christmas time, I sure did. I had 10 days off in a row from work and I unplugged from the computer world and enjoyed some family time with my kids. Here is the creative genius behind the yummy dough creations.
Coconuts got some yummy dough for Christmas so we gave it a whirl. She spent a couple hours playing with it.

Of course she wanted to make a mermaid.

And a house. You then bake your creations and you can eat them. We weren't too fond of them but the creative process was lots of fun.

I spent a bunch of time just snuggling with my kids. Coconuts in particular cause she's usually at school and I at work so we had a few Mommy Daughter Dates. What did you do during your Holidays that made it special?

Tato's Thomas Birthday Cake

My sweet little nephew whom I affectionately call "Tato" had his fourth birthday. Of course as every little four year old boy should be, he too loves everything Thomas. I told my brother that I would make him a Thomas cake. What was I thinking offering to make a fondant cake a week before Christmas. His face was much trickier to do that I thought it would be. But let me tell you, it was all worth it when I saw how excited Tato was to see his cake. He had a super fun birthday party and enjoyed his cake. I thought the smoke coming out of the train was a cute added touch.
Happy Birthday Tato, Auntie Nana loves you!

Craft Room Spruce Up

I've wanted my own craft room for as long as I can remember. We've been married for 10 years now and finally I've got one. Mind you I have to share it with the computer and the Kids crafting station but I've got plans to make this space jive together and look appealing. Mostly thought I want to create an environment of creativity. I want to be able to come here and get busy making stuff. Really I craft and sew mostly for my kids so they are the best kind of inspiration and they are so darn cute who wouldn't want to make them stuff.

Currently if you could actually see my desk that is under this inspirational wall mount it would leave you less than motivated but hey it is Christmas time and I've got to start somewhere.

Next on my list for this room will be some shelving so I can start organizing and storing my crafting supplies. I've been working on the kids toy room too so I'll have some more to show you for that room soon.

Chocolate Covered Pretzels

This is such a quick and easy project to make.

Melt semi sweet chocolate chips in a double boiler on the stove.

Drop the pretzel into the melted chocolate.

Sprinkle them with crushed nuts or candy cane while the chocolate is still wet.

For an added fun touch melt milk chocolate as well. Put it into a zip lock sand which bag. Snip the corner and drizzle over the pretzels. Yummy!

Christmas Party

Seriously, what's Christmas without a little party? Well OK maybe a big party. We had our ward Christmas party last week. I'd love to say I single handidly pulled an event like this off but anyone whose done this knows it takes a small village to do. So village in hand we threw a fun night with hot appetizers, and cool punch, snazzy cheeses, spinach dip and everything in between. It was such a lovely night and I don't think anyone missed the Turkey Dinner. This was the third year we were in charge of the Christmas event and we simply wanted to change it up.My super talented friend Helene took these photo's. You can see her work at HMF Photo she got some mad talents. She also did our family pictures if you wanna peak here.
We decked out the gym with lots of white lights and Christmas trees, it really looked festive.

Ashley made these sweet cup cakes and they tasted fabulous. I'm so thankful for talented friends, who share willingly their talents with me!

We also did some fruit skewers which are fun and add a little flare to any table. That and kids love to eat fruit on a stick, it tastes way better that way.

These little square bits of goodness are cheesecake bites that you can get at Costco pre made and pre cut. We needed too do some really simple treats that we could set up ahead of time so that the masses could munch while we got the hot appetizers flowing from the kitchen.

The centrepieces on the tables are fluted glass dishes filled with fresh cut holly bushes and pine cones around the base of them. Super cute and super inexpensive. I'm seriously going to plant holly bushes at my house simply for Christmas table setting.

12 Days of Christmas Crafting - Day 12 Gift Tags

We hope you have enjoyed our 12 days of Christmas crafting ideas and that you have been inspired to share a bit of yourself with the people in your life. The only true gift we can ever give is when we give of ourselves to others, just as the Savior gave His life for us. After all it is His birth, His example, and His life that we are celebrating this Christmas season. Last but certainly not least for our 12 days are these cute Christmas tags. What better way to top off a lovingly made gift than with a cute handmade tag! These are super easy to make and look darling.

First you start off with a die cut tag made with the Cuttlebug machine. If you don't have a cuttlebug, you can improvise by cutting a 2" x 2 1/2" rectangle of cardstock and punching a small hole at one end of it.

Next you cut a 1 3/4 x 2 3/8 rectangle out of a coordinating colour of card stock.

Take this rectangle and stamp "To: From:" on it.

Punch out a cute Christmas design at one end. glue this rectangle onto your die cut tag, loop a piece of cute Christmas ribbon through the hole and "Voila" you have a lovely hand made tag to attach to your lovingly made gift!

Aren't they adorable!

Well this sure has been so much fun sharing our creativity with you. If you don't have the pleasure of knowing Meaghan and Monica let me tell you a bit about these gals. They are hilarious, sweet, understanding, loyal, funny, caring, concerned, did I mention hilarious, and are some of the sweetest friends I have. I'm a better person because of them. Thank you ladies for humoring me and coming along for the ride with these 12 days of Christmas crafting. So signing off for our last post together (for now anyway)...

Happy Creating, Meaghan, Monica and Nancy