All the Stars in the Sky -- New Indigenous Picture Book Review

 

Disclosure: I was sent a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own. 

Does your school or your children's school have a star of the day/week/month, etc. award? Many of Hazel's classes when she was younger had star of the day and our lower school has a student of the month. These are often put in place to help motivate students to behave and work hard. Today we are sharing a picture book being released tomorrow that is created by Indigenous People sharing about being part of a community versus being the shining star. It touches on school, family, community and more. The book is All the Stars in the Sky by Art Coulson and illustrated by Winona Nelson. It is recommended for ages 4 to 8. 

What Can a Mess Make? -- Picture Book Review

 

Disclosure: I was sent a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Did you ever hear the story about the time milk spilled on the floor and instead of getting upset the mother sat with the child on the floor and they made pictures with the spilled milk? I believe the child becomes an artist, but I don't remember whose story it is. Our lives, homes, rooms, desks, etc. are filled with little messes, but with some creativity they can become a masterpiece just liked the spilled milk. Today I am sharing a book that is being released today. It is What Can a Mess Make? by Bee Johnson. It is recommended for ages 4 to 8.

Mother's Day Gift & Crafts with Amazing Gift Wrapping Paper

 

Disclosure: I was sent this gift wrapping paper in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

It is hard to believe that Mother's Day is tomorrow!! I have not seen my mother since November since someone is always sick for every holiday this year. We are finally able to go see her!! I wanted to bring her a small gift for Mother's Day. What better than some jewelry made with my paper beads! This week I am sharing three packages of amazing gift wrapping papers that make beautiful paper beads as well as wrapping beautiful gifts. We will start with the one I have used the most. It is Marbled Patterns Gift Wrapping Papers - 12 Sheets from Tuttle Studio. 

Catalog Paper Beads -- Recycling Catalogs -- Tween & Teen Craft for Earth Day

 

This week I started thinking about paper beads with something different. I had an Oriental Catalog sitting around and decided to try making beads from it. I was thinking this would be a fun Earth Day craft for tweens and teens. I tried different shapes and methods which I will share with you here. Most of the paper beads I have made have been recycling paper, but most of them were with special paper that I had. I wanted to find something that people would have in their homes to recycle. I came up with catalogs. I started with the Oriental Trading catalog that came in the mail recently. I still have pages of it even with all the beads I made.

Even More Paper Bead Fun -- Crafty Sundays

 

Now for the third week I have been experimenting with paper beads. This week I experimented with using brown paper as in paper bags and brown paper wrap. It began when I was at the Cape house and my sister had covered a counter with brown paper to protect it while contractors were there doing work. I was in charge of removing it. I went to throw it away and realized it might work for beads that I could paint. To start though let me share some finished products from beads I made last week. Here is the bracelet I made from the map beads. 

More Paper Bead Fun

 

It is Sunday again and time to share some of the crafts I have been doing. I am still focusing on paper beads like last week. This week I made some necklaces and experimented with the shape of beads as well as paper I am using. First I will share the necklaces from the beads I made last week.

Experimenting with Making Paper Beads -- Crafty Sunday

 

This weekend begins my spring break. I finally get to rest for a couple of weeks. We really don't have much planned as Hazel still has dance classes and her college classes this week. I just know I need down time desperately. As I have been trying to give myself time to craft more since it relaxes me, I have been doing a bit of paper quilling. Paper beads have a similar technique as paper quilling. I made paper beads a few years ago out of wrapping paper. 

Beaded Decor Craft

 

My plans for this week were to take it easy and enjoy some time with friends and family. Unfortunately, Hazel came home with a cold last week and shared it with me over the weekend. Our Christmas plans were cancelled, and Hazel and I have been watching a Harry Potter marathon. I want to share a fun craft I made last week. I am going to hang in on our front door once I take the Christmas wreaths down.

Doll Crafts & Finds -- a Crafty Weekends Link Party

We had another busy week, but I found some time to make some crafts for Hazel's dolls. We are currently on a Harry Potter kick so a few are related to that story as well as a new quill pen for Caroline and a new Nanea style nightgown. Hazel would like to get Nanea and Luciana, but doesn't want to wait until her birthday or Christmas (basically the same things) or until she saves the money, so we are working on some clothes and trying to use her other dolls as them. I am also going ot share the some new doll finds we have found. Let's start with the quill pen. I found Felicity's quill pen and inkwell on ebay. Hazel fell in love and wanted one for her Caroline doll. Instead of spending the $25+ on it, I decided we could make one.

Christmas Crafts - Focus on the Nativity with Oriental Trading - a Crafty Weekends Review & Link Party

Disclosure: Oriental Trading sent me these products in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

So yesterday we had a Holiday Preview Party at work. We had to be festive even though it is only the beginning of November. I still have holiday nail stickers on. Yes, Santa is on my thumbs. It was fun though and it got me into the mood. Of course it also helps that Hazel has been pulling out holiday DVDs to watch for a couple of months now. Well I always like to find a way to bring the religious side into our holiday and am going to share some crafts and products that do just that. Now Oriental Trading has an amazing collection of religious Christmas products. Hazel and I looked through and choose a few fun things which mostly were crafts. I fell in love with the DIY Unfinished Wooden Nativity & Stable Set, which is no longer available. See their religious Christmas crafts for other ideas. 

Ultimate Wrap Bracelets -- Crafty Weekends Review & Link Party

Disclosure: Tuttle Publishing gave me a copy of this book free of charge for this review. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation. As in all my reviews I am providing links for your ease, but receive no compensation. 

Tonight I am going to share a fun new book and kit called Ultimate Wrap Bracelets by Patrizia Valsecchi and photographer Antonio Attini. This kit comes with beads, buttons, cords, and some charms as well as a cardboard work surface.

Patriotic Necklaces for the 4th of July

We are expecting to deal with Hurricane Arthur this year on the 4th of July. Our original plans were to go to my parents on Thursday and go to their town's parade on Friday and fireworks on Saturday. Between the weather reports and Hazel and I both feeling a little under the weather, we changed our plans. So Hazel asked if we could have a cook-out for the 4th. I told her we were expecting lots of rain, so a cook-out was not going to happen. Next she asked if we could have an indoor picnic. This I agreed to as long as she picks up her toys so Daddy can vacuum and we have room in the family room to actually have our picnic. Next she asked if we could pull out all the patriotic decorations we have made for past 4th of July parties. This I agreed to as well with the same condition.

We did make a craft for this year as well. I was inspired by Buggy and Buddy: 4th of July Craft for Kids: Patriotic Necklaces. I cut up some red striped straws and some blue ones since we had them. We also bought a package of red, white and blue star buttons. Then we used whatever red, white and blue beads we could find. Our original idea was we would wear these to the parade, however since we are not going, we will just wear them for the day. We made three of them thinking we would be with my nephew for the parade.

I made this one using both holes of the buttons to pass the string and using three large buttons as the pendant.

Hazel made this one trying some sort of pattern of stars and straws. She asked me to put one of the stars on with both holes used after seeing mine.

This was my first one. I was trying to use what we had to make it similar to the one on Buggy and Buddy. Then I added my own twist to it.

For Memorial Day we did a patriotic round-up of our past decorations and things. Click on the picture to see the round-up. 

We also shared some books and crafts for Flag Day. Again click on picture above to see this post. 

For all of our American readers, we wish you a very Happy Independence Day!!

Advent Week 4: Love

Before I begin this post's content, I want to share that I just updated my Winter Solstice post with the best book to read!! We did not receive it from the library before the original post. The addition is towards the end of the post. Now onto our Advent post.

This is the fourth week of Advent. We light our final purple candle. As you light each candle you remember how Jesus brought us hope, peace, joy and now love. Some Advent wreaths have a white candle in the middle. This candle is for Christ and is lit either Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. Now love is such an important theme. There are so many Bible scriptures you can think of to go with love..."...The greatest of these is love." 1 Corinthians 13:13. We included God Gave Us Love by Lisa Tawn Bergren in our books to read today. I feel this is a perfect book to read to explain the theme.

For those that do not know this series of books, Little Cub learns about God from different people in her family. In this one, she is with her grandfather. They talk about how God wants us to love everyone. They also talk about how there are different kinds of love and the greatest love comes from God. And yes, they mention God sending is only Son to us. 

When we did our clay ornaments last week, we also made some love ones.  We used love rubber stamps to get the words on them. 

The other craft is to make heart ornaments from pipe cleaners and tri-beads. They are very easy. Put the beads in whatever pattern (or no pattern) onto the pipe cleaner. Then bend and twist the ends of the pipe cleaner to make a heart. Now you can add a ribbon or just hang it as we did.

Update on our Advent Calendar Crafts:

Donkey Ornament

Hazel was working on the wisemen today. I did the camel with the wisemen while she made the wisemen. I also glued the stable together for her. I like how they are coming out and think she is doing a wonderful job. We added some white wool to the sheep and the shepherds. Hazel decided the wisemen needed gold and silver and used glitter glue. She has been really enjoying this year's Advent calendar. 

How did you celebrate Advent this year?

For more on our Advent:

• Advent Craft Calendar
• Advent Wreaths
• Advent Week 1: Hope
• Advent Week 2: Peace
• Advent Week 3: Joy
• Advent Calendar Round-Up

Metamorphosis: Caterpillar - Chysalis - Butterfly Cycle & some crafts and activities

Congratulations to Tracey over at We Made That for winning our Sewing School 2 giveaway!

For awhile I have been eying the butterfly nurseries at Lakeshore Learning. I have seen so many wonderful posts about people watching the amazing metamorphosis of the butterfly with their children and really wanted to do it with Hazel. Then they went on sale and I couldn't resist. I bought one in May, but I told Hazel we could not send away for the caterpillars until after our trip to Florida so we would be home to watch everything and take care of them. She was so excited and could not wait to do it. When we returned home
we sent the coupon in to get the caterpillars. 

The caterpillars arrived on June 19th. They come in a jar with food in it. The instructions were not to open

the jar until all the caterpillars were in chrysalis. The caterpillars traveled to Cape Cod with us that weekend so Hazel would not have to miss a thing. We watched them grow, but apparently I did not bother to take pictures of them growing. One did not grow and we realized it had not made it so we were down to four. On June 29th all the caterpillars were in chrysalis, so we opened the jar after preparing the butterfly nursery and hung them on the hook. Then we watched. 

On July 5th, the first butterfly came out of its chrysalis. We were so excited! Soon two more came out. The fourth did not make it. Hazel had knocked over the nursery by mistake and one had fallen. Although we gently made sure it was on the bottom of the nursery (and not under the paper), it did not recover from the fall. So we had three beautiful monarch butterflies. We prepared by reading Monarch Butterfly by Gail Gibbons. We fed them sugar water as the instructions said, and then on July 13th, we let them go. Hazel was very sad to let them go, but she understood why we did. I told her every time she sees a butterfly she can pretend it is one of ours.

It was truly amazing to watch!! I think I may have been more excited about it all than Hazel. I definitely checked the chrysalises more often than she did.

We also did some butterfly crafts and activities. I made Hazel a butterfly barrette, using this pattern from Bugs and Fishes. I love the mobile she had the pattern for, but we did not get around to making one.

Next we took some ideas from Making Learning Fun. First a butterfly life cycle bracelet. Each bead or group of beads represents one of the four phases of metamorphosis. The white bead represents the egg. The red and green represent the caterpillar (we used more green ones than suggested since we used flat green ones) and then the clear bead is the chrysalis and finally a butterfly shaped bead. I made it the perfect size for Hazel to wear and I think we will make some of these at Hazel's butterfly party for which we still need to pick a date. (This summer is flying by!!)

Then the next activities also came from Making Learning Fun. I happened to be looking for some Roll-a- activities because Hazel loved it when she tried it at the new school she will be attending this fall. The day we took a tour the Pre-K class was doing a Roll-a-Frog activity and the teachers had Hazel try it. I bought her some dice today and put them in the little containers I had bought ages ago for it. Then I went looking for some pages. I changed it a bit in I did not have her draw them like the directions from Making Learning Fun said. I knew she was not ready for this with her drawing ability. Also the school one was putting pictures together from paper, so I cut them out of construction paper. While searching for the activities I found Roll-a-Caterpillar and Roll-a-Butterfly.

I printed off and made several other ones as well, but I won't share those right now. So that is one thing I really wanted to do with Hazel that we got done this summer! And we loved it! For more butterfly activities and crafts, check out my Pinterest Butterfly Board!

Prayer Beads for the Jesus Prayer

Have you entered my current giveaway?

Ok, I know I have mentioned how active I am at church. I am a Christian and I truly believe in God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. I tend not to be one who discusses it everywhere, however I do try to keep God in my life every day. When I visit my parents I have my favorite shops to go to and one of them is the Priory Shop at the Community of Jesus. It is located right at Rock Harbor and it is always so calming to visit there. You can also get tours of the Church of the Transfiguration, their million or maybe even multimillion dollar church that opened about ten years ago. While there I always love to browse the books and often find some inspiring books. This last visit was no different. While keeping Hazel busy with samples of the homemade jam on crackers and granola, I was able to find a new book. I'm only in the second chapter, but I am very interested in it. The book is The Jesus Prayer by Frederica Mathewes-Green.

Knowing nothing about the Jesus Prayer, I was intrigued. The book says that learning the Jesus Prayer and praying properly will bring you closer to God and hear God speaking to you. The prayer is simple, "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me." is the simplest form of it. A longer form is "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me, a sinner." Now the trick is you need to say it one hundred times each day. To do this, you need some prayer beads to keep track of it. So I had Hazel help me make a prayer bead necklace and she wanted one too, but we did not put one hundred beads on hers.

I used the cross I had gotten that is made out of olive wood from Jerusalem. Then we lined out ten rows of ten beads. It was great to see Hazel figure out what one hundred looks like. I changed the first and last beads of each row so I could count by ten by the feel of the beads. I did not use a pattern to the beads beside that since I figured my prayers and my sins will be both small and large. Then while I strung my beads, Hazel laid out some for herself. She decided the round ball ones rolled around too much, so she used the flatter ones and we had a butterfly bead left from the Melissa & Doug butterfly bead collection she was given for her birthday, so we used that one.

We made hers into a necklace so she can wear it even when she is not praying. Then I taught her the Jesus Prayer. We of course did not make it through all the beads on either necklace before she got bored and I have yet to take the time to do it one hundred times let alone each day, but I'm still reading the book, so at least I am ready when I finish it. Supposedly doing this practice will get you to the point where your mind is praying continuously even when you are doing other things and thus living out the instructions Paul gives in several of his letters including 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

^"16 Rejoice always, ¹⁷ pray continually, ¹⁸ give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus."

and in Romans 12:12

^"12 Let your hope keep you joyful, be patient in your troubles, and pray at all times."

and in Ephesians 6:18

"¹⁸ Pray in the Spirit at all times in every prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert and always persevere in supplication for all the saints."

and finally in Colossians 4:2

"² Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with thanksgiving."

The Jesus Prayer is widely taught in Eastern Orthodox Churches. The book goes through some history of it as well as some of the difference between Eastern and Western Churches. However if you want more information you can check out the book or you can read some more on Wikipedia.

So this is what I am exploring right now when I have time to read something that is not a children's book.

Rainbows, Spring and St. Patrick's Day

So as I stated the other day, we are ready for spring. We have been busy thinking about spring crafts and putting away our winter decorations. Today I am going to focus on a couple rainbow crafts we have done. After all, rainbows seem to say spring as well as St. Patrick's Day. 

The first one I saw on I Can Teach My Child. We changed it a bit by using wooden beads, white clay and adding a sun coming out of the clouds.

After making this craft, I decided to make Hazel a needle felted picture of a rainbow. I took a piece of white wool felt and needled a light blue roving all over it for the background.

Then I added the rainbow using small amounts of each color. After the rainbow, I added some clouds and tried to make them three-dimensional and added a bit of grey to the white in them. And of course I added some sun, so it would be like the craft we did together. Now to find a place to hang it.

Beaded Crosses

The other week when we pulled out the decorations, we had hung our four yarn eggs on our chandelier, but our chandelier has eight arms. I wanted to add some crosses to tie in the religious part of it. I thought about painting some wooden ones, but I couldn't find where I had stashed them, so we made some beaded ones. 

Hazel decided to make a necklace and bracelet as well. She decided we were working in our jewelry store making all of our special orders. Oh, and we had to sing a little song we made up about making the jewelry. First I will share a tutorial for our simple crosses. You need some beads (we used wooden ones) and a pipe cleaner.  Cut the pipe cleaner so it will make a cross (roughly 1/3 for the horizontal).

Then choose a bead to be the middle bead. I experimented a bit and found the flatter beads to work the best. Stick both pieces of pipe cleaner through the middle bead.

Then position the pipe cleaners to make the cross you want. You should have a little more on the top so you can make a loop to hang it.

Now start beading each branch of the cross. On the top one stop a little further from the end and bend it down to make a small loop so you can get a string through to hang it.

On the other branches you will just fold a short end over the last bead. Then it is ready to hang.

Hazel made this one!

These were the first ones, but I discovered the bigger center beads did not work as well.

We also made some jewelry. I made us each a St. Patrick's Day bracelet.

And I made us matching rainbow bracelets.

Then I used a rainbow pendant and made her a matching necklace.

Then she made a necklace and wanted me to make another necklace with another pendant bead.

Now she likes to accessorize herself with all of them.

She gets quite the comments going out like this. It makes her very happy though!