Behavior Stars

We have been working on my three year old daughter sleeping in her own bed at night.  She is getting more consistent but we needed to step it up in the incentive area.  We needed something to show her how close she is to achieving weekly goals.  Last week she was taking a short nap and I quickly put together a chart with behavior stars.

I printed a paper with "good" and "naughty" in different sections.  Then I slipped it into a plastic sheet protector.  I used hot glue to attach strips of velcro.

Avery write-on dividers were perfect for this project because the stars could be erasable.  I wanted to be able to write on each star as a reminder of what my daughter did, good or naughty.  Any shape would be suitable but an old star cookie cutter worked as a great pattern.

Stars were cut from each divider and then small pieces of velcro were glued to the back.

I used an old wipes container as a storage box for the stars and a mechanical pencil.

Now we are working on getting more good than naughty stars on the chart! 

My daughter completely understands that her goal is to have more good than naughty stars.  She begged me not to put that naughty star on the chart yesterday.  Unfortunately she has yet to sleep in her own bed all night with out coming back into our room.  I'd be willing to give her five good stars for that behavior!  Maybe tomorrow...

I'm linking this post here.

 

Disney Pirate

My son loves all things pirates. Doesn't matter what pirate he loves them all. His favorites are Jack Sparrow and Jake from Jake and the Neverland Pirates (Disney). There is tons of girl dress up clothing out there but not a lot of boy stuff. So I decided to make Jack a Jake costume that he can wear when he is pretending to be a pirate. I didn't have a pattern I just made it up but I was pretty easy.

SHIRT
First I took a white collared shirt that had a few stains on it. I cut off the sleeves in a zig zag and I cut off the collar. Then I cut the button strip off the front of the shirt. I sewed up the the middle of the shirt about 2/3 from the bottom with the right sides together. I also stitched the open edges down to even it out. Then I cut holes in the top open section and threaded some leather stripping.






VEST
For the vest you will need:

3/4 yard navy blue felt
1 package of yellow quilt binding
4 yellow buttons

Step 1: Begin by tracing a t-shirt creating a pattern. You will only need the front and back, no sleeves. Then I used my white shirt collar to create a collar pattern. Next you will need to make 2 triangles for the front part of the collar. Pin all your pattern pieces to the felt and cut out your pattern.
***For the back you need to cut on the fold. For the front you need to cut two pieces. For the collar and triangles cut 2 of each piece. I also cut under wonder for each piece, to give it the stiffness.

Next attach the under wonder to 1 of each of the triangles and collar piece. Then you will attach the other fabric pieces creating a stiff collar and triangles.

Now you will attach the under wonder to one of each triangle and the collar piece. Then attach the other triangles and collar piece. This will make the pieces stiff. Don't worry about the raw edges, they will be covered by the binding.

Step 2: Attach the shoulders of the front and back right sides together.Step 3: Attaching the collar

Now you will attach the collar to the vest right sides together.
Press the collar up and lay the vest down with the front facing up. This gets tricky...Attach the triangles to the front of the vest and the collar.
Step 4: Attaching the binding.

Now you need to pin the binding all around the vest. You will need to do it in pieces and several times you will need to finish off the binding to make a nice edge. If you need directions on this see here.

Sew it down to the vest and add your buttons.

DONE! Add some basic blue pants and a red scraf...Arrrhhh.

Backpack and Supplies Makeover

This post was originally shared at Freckles Crafts Back to School series.  With school already starting I thought I should share the entire post here too.

When I completed the back pack set for the Back to School series, my daughter wasn't yet enrolled for preschool.  Some changes have happened since then...today was her first day!  I'm pretty much a nervous wreck today but am really excited about our new adventure.  With that in mind, I was very happy I had this new backpack set ready for her first day!

I had so much fun transforming these boring supplies into a fun school set!

I started with some basic school supplies purchased from the drug store - $5 backpack, mechanical pencils, 3 ring binder, composition notebook, and pencil carrying case.

I prepped the backpack by using a seam ripper to carefully remove the brand tag.  Then I cut off all the zipper pulls.  I initially planned on using my Cricut to make a fabric initial applique.  Instead I found a font online and simply traced my daughter's initial onto Heat n' Bond.  You don't need a cutting machine to applique! 

I simply ironed the Heat n' Bond initial to patterned fabric, cut it out, and then ironed the applique to the backpack.  Be careful when ironing on the backpack (a low heat setting is suggested). 

I used my sewing machine to stitch around the initial.  This step is not necessary but I didn't really like how the black in the fabric blended with the backpack.  Purple thread helped make the initial stand out against the black.  To finish the backpack I tied coordinating fabric to the zippers.

The mechanical pencils were fun to embellish!  I removed the top of the pencil and then applied a thin layer of Mod Podge to the entire pencil.  I wrapped a strip of fabric around the pencil and then sealed the fabric with another layer of Mod Podge.  I only made two pencils but I'm sure older kids could use an entire pack for the school year!

The composition notebook received a makeover too.  I used Mod Podge and fabric to make the cover pretty!

I used the same technique for the pencil carrying case.  Mod Podge is awesome!

I didn't worry about cutting the fabric to fit over the snap until I had already fitted the fabric on the case.  It was much easier than I anticipated.  Once the initial layer of Mod Podge had been applied, I used an exacto knife to carefully cut the fabric away from the snap. 

Hopefully the new backpack set will keep my daughter excited for her first week of school!

I'm linking this post here.

 



Embellished Backpack and Supply Set

Today I'm participating in a fun back to school series at Freckles Crafts.  I'm showing you how to transform a plain backpack and supplies into a cute matching set.

This would be just as cute with different fabric for boys!

You can see my entire post at Freckles Crafts here.

Rebecca has the funnest crafting ideas and crafts for children.  I met her at Creative Estates earlier this year and think she is wonderful!  Go spend some time at her site and be inspired to get creative with your little ones!

 

Kids Craft - Monster Shoes

I had something different planned for this morning's post but when I saw my daughter having so much fun pretending to be a monster last night, I knew I had to share the easy monster shoes we recently made. 

The idea came from Disney's Family Fun magazine.  It is probably a craft more suitable for older kids to make themselves but my two year old daughter and her BFF had fun helping me put their shoes together.  We started with four empty tissue boxes. 

I let the girls pick out colored paper and then I cut out pieces to cover each side of the boxes entirely.  Each shoe had eight paper pieces (two rectangles for the sides, two squares for the ends, and four thin strips for the top).  I also cut three triangles for each shoe to embellish the front.  This was a perfect activity to work on identifying squares and rectangles.  I had the girls take turns handing me the appropriate shape for the side of the box I was covering.  I asked them the name and the color of the shape as I was using the glue gun to attach the paper.  By the time we were done I had two little square and rectangle pros! 

My daughter and her BFF had monster races for several hours after we finished our little project.

Our shoes were kept simple but I'm sure my daughter will want to embellish them with glitter and rhinestones later this week.  These would be so much fun to make at a monster themed birthday party!!

I'm linking this post here.