Salt Dough

Every year before Christmas we make salt dough decorations for the tree and to give away to people we know, but this year the homeschool group we go to are having a sale of craft things to support someone overseas. We decided that we would make salt dough for the sale.

Sophie and I made up a few batches of dough, and began cutting and cooking, painting or coffee staining, and varnishing the ornaments.

We were soon sick of the whole process and our hands were all sticky but we knew we couldn't stop because they had to be ready in two days. We worked on them all morning and well into the afternoon and there were still lots of smug pieces of salt dough waiting to be cooked or coffee stained. Sophie and I were tired of it all but by the end of the day we had quite an impressive amount of salt dough ornaments.

When we finally finished work for that day we knew that we still had another busy day ahead of us. Production like this is not an easy thing to do and Sophie and I were very happy when we could stop making salt dough!

Do you make salt dough ornaments?     

Rainbow Coloured Shoes

Sophie and I are on the DIY website and we both wanted to complete the fashion designer's badge. One of things I could do to get the fashion designer's badge was to decorate a pair of shoes. I liked the sound of that and asked Mum if she could get me a pair of plain white shoes to doodle on. Mum agreed but then Sophie said she wanted to do the same thing. I got a bit upset. It had been my idea to decorate shoes after all. Why couldn't Sophie think of something herself? Mum assured me that it didn't matter if Sophie did the same thing as me.

We went to the shops to find some shoes. Sophie found some plain white canvas shoes but there were none in my size. 

"Maybe there will be some next time we come shopping," Mum suggested.

I sighed. It appeared Sophie would be getting the fashion designer's badge before me. 

Sophie found some Sharpies and got to work colouring her shoes. I watched enviously as she drew one spot after another spot with a pencil, then got to work colouring them in with her Sharpies.

When Sophie was done she went to show the big girls her shoes. I came with her.

"Oh, those are lovely," Imogen said, inspecting the shoes. Sophie beamed. "Did you colour some shoes?" Imogen asked me.

"I don't have any shoes," I grumbled. "The shop didn't have any in my size."

"Hmm." Imogen thought about the matter for a while. "Go to my cupboard and find the pair of shoes I was going to colour in."

I skipped over to the cupboard and found the shoes.

"Why don't you colour these in for me?" Imogen asked.

"Thank you, Imogen," I smiled. "Are you sure?"

"I've been meaning to colour those in for months. It's about time somebody did something to them!" Imogen replied.

I gave Imogen a big hug before running back out of her bedroom.

I found my laptop and looked through Google Images for a design I might want to try.

"Imogen!" I shouted after a while. I ran into her room with my laptop.

"Yes?"

"I found three designs I could try," I said and showed her the pictures.

One design was a starry pattern, another was flowers which looked a bit hard, but my favourite was the zig-zaggy one.

"I rather like that one," Imogen said pointing to the zig-zagged design.

I smiled. My day was getting better and better.

In the afternoon, armed with a pencil, Sharpies and a pair of shoes, I sat down to begin creating the best shoes the world had ever seen. Imogen had said that she wanted the main colour to be blue. I worked all afternoon on them and when they were done I was amazed. I had thought I was going to make some terrible mistake that would ruin the shoes. I did make some mistakes but nothing noticeable.

"Imogen, I've finished your shoes," I said, bouncing into her bedroom.

"Gemma-Rose, they're lovely," Imogen gasped.

I grinned.

Sophie took some photos of the shoes for me and posted them on DIY.

I really enjoyed decorating the shoes. I wasn't sure I could but it turned out to be easier then I thought it would be.

Thank you Imogen for letting me decorate your shoes!

Doodles

I didn't ever think of drawing flowers and patterning them till Imogen started doodling. She would drew flower after flower and decorate them with patterns. Sometimes the flowers overlapped sometimes they were next to one another.

Mum really liked the doodles and decided to try. Mum could do really nice ones and soon Sophie was doing it.

I decided to have a go but I didn't have a clue how and I wasn't patient enough to draw all the flowers with patterns and colour them in.

Mum found a doodling site and one day we were sitting round the table. "Could we have a craft day today please?" I asked.

 "If you want," replied Mum.

 So we all arrived in the family room after washing the lunch dishes.

"Sophie and Gemma-Rose do you want to learn how to doodle?" asked Mum.

" Yes please!" we both said.

Mum showed us the doodling site and we watched a movie on how to doodle. It showed us a few simple patterns. We did every pattern and soon we had a page full of pattern lines. We also did butterflies and it showed us how to do the sun and water in doodle style.

I love doodling. It is such a simple way to draw lovely pictures.

               

Homemade Christmas Cards

Mum couldn't find any nice Christmas cards. So she said we should make our own Christmas cards.

She took some pictures from a Tomie de Paola book and scanned them. Then she printed them off. They were small enough to fit 9 on a page.

Then Sophie and Charlotte cut the pictures out and they cut out backing card. I put glue on the pictures, and Imogen stuck the pictures on the card and punched holes in them.

Charlotte and Mum went on Picnik and made some messages for the backs of the hanging cards. Imogen and I stuck those on too.

Then Imogen and me tied curling ribbon through the holes in the cards to make loops. Imogen curled the end and we were finished.

We made 54 Christmas cards.

Yes Hearts

We made yes hearts.  We made them with some glitter, glue and some pens and some card . And the big girls did some fancy writing.

We made them because it was the Annunciation and it represents Mary saying yes to God, when she said yes to the angel Gabriel. She would be the mother of Jesus.

Sophie and I made Annunciation cakes. They were vanilla cakes. I got to use the mixer.  Charlotte and Imogen put some white chocolate buttons in the icing.