Valentine Wreath!

Isn't it funny how just a simple little trip to the Target Dollar Spot can get your creativity going in the right direction? As I was shopping for another project I stumbled upon the Dollar Spot and it really made me want to get a little crafty. Since I have been at a crossroads for creativity in the past few days, I really wanted to see if this could get me going again. There are just times that you need a quick fast craft without all the fuss and muss. 

Supplies

1. 1 Wreath from Target for $2.50

2.1 Package of glitter hearts for $1.00

3. 1 Strand of heart shaped lights for $2.50

4. Ribbon that I already had

5. Hot glue gun

Directions:

Lay the wreath flat on your working surface. Arrange the lights to go all the way around leaving three for a cluster at the top in the middle. My picture hides the cluster with the big bow. Secure the lights with ribbon like I used here or you could use pipe cleaners to better conceal the wire. I used ribbon because it is what I had on hand. Tie and place small bows and glue to each heart light. Glue glitter hearts all around your wreath. I am planning on gluing more hearts to cover the wire after I write each child's name on it. Tie a big bow and glue it to the top. I am hanging my wreath on my classroom door so I made sure that I ended the heart lights at the top and under the bow because I will have to use an extension cord over the top and down the back of the door so it will light up! 

As you can see this is a very easy little craft project and very economical. It was the perfect way to wind down, look ahead and take a small break from life. After I complete it with the extra hearts and names, it will hang in my kitchen for a few days and then I will take it to my classroom. 

Wishing you a warm and wonderful winter full of crafty creations, 

Make a Crafty New Year's Hat with your Kids

Get Cute Printables to Create this Cute Hat for New Year's Eve

Click Here to Connect

Guadalupe Pie

Guadalupe Pie

So this is not something "crafty" 

however....it is a super delicious recipe 

I wanted to share for New Years! 

It's easy and fast and will 

be gobbled up by your guests, no doubt!

enjoy! Melodee xoxo

Crafting with Kiddo's

I don't know about you, but I am often split on sharing craft time with my daughter, C.  On one hand, I want her to express her creativity, but on the other hand, I am ridiculously controlling and I always know what's best and I always know how things are supposed to be done and seriously, kid, you should just let me do it.  (Please tell me I am not alone on this one!)  I have so much trouble letting go of the control over the final product and accepting that it's okay if it doesn't turn out the way I expected it to or what I consider "perfect".  That truly is a struggle for me, and it's one that I work daily on.

I was reading an article on flax and twine's blog called Crafting with Kiddo's.  She talks about removing "the cringe".  Do you know hat the cringe is?  Oh, I know all too well what "the cringe" is, and I experience it MANY times while crafting with C.  It's that twist in your stomach when she wants to mix two colors that obviously do not match or when she wants to add 64 pom poms in a one inch square and only 13 on the entire rest of the space.  Check out her article, I really felt myself relating and she gives some good advice on handling "the cringe".

Also, while you are surfing the web, check out some of the feather boa wreaths my daughter and I created - they are beautiful, and my daughter (who is 6) just adored it because the feathers were soooo fancy.

Check it out at my blog, where we also have a Halloween and a super creative, designed by my six year old, Hawaiian wreath.

Help!

Hello Crafty Friends,

Today I pose a question to you. I have a real dilemma. As I have said before I normally am a crafty person with thousands of ideas swirling around in my head. I also said that when I am not thinking about something creative or doing something creative, I just feel lost. This does not happen often but I am walking around trying to find my next inspiration. What do you do when you need inspiration? Where do you go when you need creative inspiration? 

New Year's Spin Drum from FamilyFun

I came across this cute New Year's idea while browsing through my Google Reader feed this morning. It requires some more supplies than you might have immediately at hand, so you might have to plan on a quick trip to the crafts store (or your neighbor's house!).

I haven't tried this myself. If you do it with your kids, be sure to post a picture and let us know how it went!

Step-by-step instructions from FamilyFun here.

The Crafty Community Welcomes: Sydney from Lessons Learned

Hi everyone! I'm Sydney from Lessons Learned and I'm very excited to be joining The Crafty Community! When I talk about storage in my house and I say, "Well crafts can go there," no one even flinches. Well, maybe my dad flinches cause he thinks it's all just too much, but otherwise, it's just part of life!

Tell us a little bit about your blog and why you started it.
My blog Lessons Learned is just that - as it's little subtitle says, from the classroom and beyond. We are the teachers, but the truth is we are still learning little lessons every single day, from our own students or just in life and it is up to us how we choose to apply those lessons. 



Tell us about yourself.

This is my 5th year in a classroom but my 2nd year with my own (took a long time to get there, which you can read about on my blog). I work mainly with 1st graders. Last year I taught a class of 19 1st-graders. This year I see almost 50 something students throughout the day in small groups, assisting them in either math or reading. I absolutely love taking creative and hands-on approaches to my teaching and I am always looking for new ideas. 


I am also a contributing author, as well as administrating author at Teaching Blog Addict.




I am in charge of the linky parties over there, and all those wonderful Freebie Fridays - you know, these?






I am also a proud aunt, sister, and daughter. I love to have fun, relax and most of all I try not to take myself so seriously. 


What do you think makes your blog different from others?


I believe my blog is a little different from others because of what I offer - a little bit of seriousness, a lit bit of humor, and most of all I tell it like it is from my perspective. I offer ideas that have been tried and tested. 

that's my pic with Legos!

Hello Crafty Friends!

Hello Crafty Friends,

My name is Mrs. Coe and I am the author of  the Little Miss Kindergarten and Little Miss Hypothesis blogs. 

I am a proud contributing author to Teaching Blog Addict which has literally changed me as a teacher forever! 

I contribute to numerous blogs for educational purposes and I love the collaboration between teachers that I have found in the blogging community. In the early days of my blog I posted about "crafty" things but as I have grown as a teacher blogger, I have realized that I needed another outlet for "crafty" blog posts. I was super excited to get the invitation to join The Crafty Community. 

I am not an artist by any means but I have been called "crafty" all my life. I just always thought it meant that I had no real artistic ability! I feel totally and completely LOST if I am not either working on a crafty project or just planning one out in my head. After every Christmas I get a severe case of the blues... A couple of years ago I came up with the idea that I would do Christmas crafts after Christmas to extend the season in my own little world or just to make something I did not have time to do in the real holiday season. I have learned that I have no real time to make Christmas crafts between Thanksgiving and Christmas so I do it a year ahead, go figure. 

I am also secretly obsessed with Christmas brunch... I try out new brunch recipes on my family all year long until I nail down what I am going to make. 

Source: plainchicken.com via Little Miss Kindergarten on Pinterest

I am thinking of trying these!

Source: half-bakedbaker.blogspot.com via Little Miss Kindergarten on Pinterest

And my favorite Christmas craft this year was the angel parent gift I made with my class to give to their parents for Christmas.


And my favorite crafty thing I did in Science this year was ice cream in a can!

I look forward to sharing with you a year of crafty ideas!

Celebrating 100 Followers! Hobby Lobby Give-Away!!

What a super marking point for Crafty Community!

We've hit 100 followers, and we're hosting a Hobby Lobby Give-Away...

Win a $20 Hobby Lobby Gift Card just by:

- following this site

- blogging about us

We can't wait to have you grow with us in our crafty little community.

Simply leave a comment that you follow us for one entry.  

For a second entry, we'd love for you to do a brief post about us and leave a second comment.  

Thanks so much, we grow by word of mouth.

Any Crafty Techy Moms?

Stay Warm while using your SmartPhone or iPad

Click Here to Read More

Christmas cards tree

Adorable Snowman Gifts

Have you see these adorable snowmen yet? I about died when I saw them on Kerri & Lindsay's blog. Aren't they the cutest?

Here's what you need:

*a pair of cozy socks 

{I got one pair at Old Navy for $2 and then I saw them on clearance at Joann's Fabrics, 2 pairs for $2!}

*a package of candy or chocolate

{I used a box of hot tamales and mike n' ikes}

*white cardstock cut in half

*black permanent marker & crayons

*ribbon

*tape

How to create:

First, take the pair of socks and fold the elastic so the socks are together. Then pull the socks over the top of the candy box. Tie a piece of ribbon at about the middle of the socks. Then I tucked the back sock into the elastic. Wrap the white cardstock around the candy and tape the back. On the front side, use your permanent marker and draw eyes, a nose and a smile. Then go back and add color with some crayons.

Give to neighbors or friends. Your kids will love making them! I sure did!

Painting the Bullseye - A Fine Motor Skills Activity

Having small children I am always looking for fun crafty ways to not only display my kid's projects but also to work on their developmental skills. It is nice and sunny here today in Florida so we took a fine motor skills activity outdoors to a new level! Head over to Surviving a Teacher's Salary to find out how we not only made some pretty cool and unique artwork but worked on our fine motor skills at the same time!

Using Tagxedo to Make Christmas Gifts for Parents

*this post originally appeared on my personal teaching blog here

This week, my students are making Christmas gifts for their parents using Tagxedo, a free tool for creating word clouds. Tagxedo is very similar to Wordle, but I prefer to use Tagxedo because you can make your cloud many different shapes including animals, hearts, stars, and holiday items. I'm not entirely sure that's not possible on Wordle, but if it is, I haven't figured it out yet.

To start, I had the students brainstorm a list of words about their parent: appearance, personality, hobbies, favorite foods, etc. We did this with regular old pencil and paper.

A brainstorming list

Next, we went to Tagxedo and clicked "Start Now." That brought us to this screen, where we clicked "Load" and then typed in all the words from our list. In a word cloud, the size of words depends on how many times they appear in the entered text, so the bigger we wanted a word to appear in the cloud, the more times we typed it.

Entering text for the word cloud

We then experimented with shapes and themes (colors) until we had just what we wanted.

The final product on Tagxedo

Next, we saved the word cloud as a JPEG and printed it. We mounted it on cardstock and decorated (with glitter--lots of glitter).

Decorating

This weekend I'll pick up picture frames at the dollar store so we can frame our creations. Then we'll wrap them up and take them home to put under the tree!

Voila!

This is a very quick and fun way to have your students create something to take home to their family. It's also incorporate this into a lesson on adjectives or character traits (which we've been studying this month).

Enjoy!

Painting with Sponges - Getting the Creative Juices Flowing

My oldest son does not always have the patience to sit down for painting or crafts believe it or not and part of the problem is I think it is hard for him to just come up with something to paint on a blank piece of paper. So we have started incorporating shaped sponges while painting! Come by and check out my post on Painting with Sponges!

WINTER WONDERLAND

Tin {Faux} Letters

Create faux tin letters for pennies! 

stop by Polkadot Notebook to see how easy it is...

xoxoxoMelodee 

Treasured Christmas Crafts!

Just wanted to stop by and share some of the fabulous craft ideas I've seen on Pinterest these days 

for the holidays!

Peppermint Play Doh

Paper Plates Angels

Paper Plate Christmas Wreaths

Christmas Finger Puppets

Puzzle Pieces Ornaments 

More to come!