My kids absolutely love Halloween. They start brainstorming costume ideas in April and talk about it pretty regularly all summer long. Our neighborhood is a great place to be on Halloween. Families spend a lot of energy decorating their yards with ghouls and gravestones and spider webs. On October 31 the elementary school (which is…
Goldfish Hat from Fleece Hat Friends by Mary Rasch
My middle son Simon, loves to wear hats. All summer he wore a Spiderman baseball cap. When he gets dressed up he wears a fedora. And in the winter he likes to have a fleece animal hat to wear. Most of the winter animal hats in stores are for little kids and after lots of…
Summer Activity with Kids: Making Cheese at Home
For the final project in 3rd grade Simon’s teacher gave the class an open-ended project. Choose a topic, research it, and present what you find to the class. (Kudos to teachers who trust kids to tackle something like this.) We spent a weekend considering topics – rocketry? the Apollo 13 mission? sheep shearing? Then a…
Making Halloween Costumes for Kids
When I was a child I desperately wanted to make costumes for myself for Halloween and Purim. We didn’t have a sewing machine and although my mom is very creative, making costumes was not her thing. I remember spending one particularly long October afternoon when I was eight taping paper together to try to make…
Book Review – Sewing School 2: Lessons in Machine Sewing
Sometimes a single image can have a transformative effect on your life. At least it can on mine. My older daughters are now 7 and 9-years-old. They are aware of what I do, that I sew and write books and write a blog. They come into the studio while I’m working and ask, “Can I…
Easy Purim Craft: No-Sew Felt Hamentaschen
Today is the Jewish holiday of Purim. We spent the morning making these: hamentaschen. Hamentaschen are the traditional cookie of Purim because they are shaped with three-corners to represent the three-cornered hat worn by Haman, the villain of the Purim story. Filled with something sweet and sticky, such as poppyseed, prune, apricot or raspberry jam,…
Kids and Cross-Stitch
Our kids have daily and weekly chores. And they have an allowance. The two are connected, but not contingent upon one another. In our family when you start first grade you begin to take on personal and household responsibilities. Every morning, after you wash up and get dressed but before you come downstairs for breakfast,…
No-Sew Fleece Octopus Tutorial
I picked up this craft booklet, circa 1966, a few months ago at a church rummage sale and got inspired to update one of its projects. The yarn octopus has long been a classic toy to make for children, and I’ve transformed it into an even easier, and perhaps more cuddly, no-sew fleece octopus! According…
Custom Plush Toy From a Child’s Drawing
Send me a drawing made by a special child in your life and I will create a custom softie for you! This is a project 've been planning for many months and I'm really pleased to say that today the listings are live! I'm only going to take a few at a time (there are…
Paper Mache Projects
Simon has been begging to do some paper mache. In fact, last week he was crying on the way to school, saying that he didn’t want to leave me. I got him calmed down with the promise of beginning our paper mache project that afternoon. Crafting is a pretty powerful bribe, huh. He decided to…