Space lapbook

Ds is making a lapbook on outer space. I will post the pictures as he does it. If you want to see it you can look at http://tinyurl.com/ecvjd I have always made his lapbooks in the past. This is a big first for him. Keep in mind he is only 6 years old. His printing is sloppy. He has always had a hard time with print. On the other hand his cursive is beautiful. I never figured out why he writes so well in cursive but not in manuscript.

Baby Play...Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?

A red bird.

A yellow duck.
A blue horse. A green frog.
A purple cat.

a white dog and a goldfish that's what I see.

This project was a big first for me. It was a make due with what you have project. In the past in order to make a craft or new toy it has required a trip to the store for supplies. This time I made due with what I had. The first ones I made yellow duck, purple cat, green frog and white dog all came out of my fabric box to make diapers. They are MM micro fleece, Alova suede, and sherpa. I didn't have all the colors needed to make all the animals so after looking around the house I found DS had several red shirts and DH had a blue shirt. YUP they are now a red bird and blue horse. I found an old black hand towel for the black sheep. My goldfish was one of our holiday cloth napkins. I am now one napkin short of having a large Christmas dinner. It had a red juice spot on the corner of it so it was no longer good for a nice dinner anyway. I am still searching the house for a brown bear. I stuffed them with rice because I had a bag already. I used a sharpie marker to draw on them. You could stuff with cotton balls, pillow fluff, old fabric, socks, beans, or whatever you have. I used the coloring pages on www.dltk-teach.com for my outlines on most of them. I don't care for the dog but he will be OK for right now. I would like the yellow duck to be a darker shade of yellow but he's done for now. I will add in the black sheep, Teacher, children, and brown bear soon as I get them done.

I did get a chance to get some more done. This is my black sheep. It didn't show up good in the picture.This is my teacher. Please don't laugh! I never said I could draw. I didn't sew it or stuff it with rice yet because I thought it would show up better in a picture flat on the table. I used fabric pens to draw her.

This is the children. I know they are not the best looking but they will work. I don't have them full of rice yet. I plan on doing that later today.

This is our brown bear for now. We already had him so I am using him until I have the time to sew one up. I will add a picture of my brown bear soon as I get one done.
I have to say that I never would have been happy with this set when my son was little. I would have wanted one to be exactly like the book. I would have spent tons of time and money making them up the way I thought they should be. I don't look at things the same way now. I don't have the time or money to do things the way I once thought things needed to be. This set didn't cost any money to make. I didn't spend much time on it. It is a great sensory toy for DD. She can touch so many different fabrics this way. I will get around to making up a brown bear. I doubt I will waste my time making them look more like the book. We have lots of favorite books in our house. I would rather spend my free time adding toys for some of them.

Baby library is done!

I finished the baby library. I still need to make up my sons library. Both of my children have spent hours in the books today. I was shocked to see my DS reading all the baby books. I do want to make up some toys to go with some of the books. For now I will make due with what I have. I am sending out a huge thank you to Ellen for this great idea and her advise in getting it done. I look forward to getting a larger one done up for my son in the next day or two. I would like to have one set up for DH before next week. Our house isn't big enough for me to have a library so maybe I can sneak in a shelf of DH's.

This week

I don't have a lot of plans for the week because of the holiday. My friend Ellen from Texas had this great idea. She set up her child's bookshelf in an attractive library style. I think this is something I need to do. My only problem with doing this that my children are not close in age. My one year old is very careful with her books but I don't want her to get at her brothers books. If I put a big bookcase up in the living room my DD would climb it and hurt herself. I have a spot in our TV stand that I use for DD's books. I already line them up by size but after hearing Ellen's idea I know I can do better than that. For my son I think I will take a small bookshelf we have but aren't using and maybe set it up in his room. I will let everyone know how it turns out when I get it done.