some artsy/crafty stuff

We're almost done with Christmas shopping/making.  Almost.  Whew!  I'll tell myself I should start earlier next year, but it's unlikely to happen.  I know it.  We're excited about some of the things we've made for the kiddoes.  Hopefully, they'll be excited too!

I have managed to get a few personal projects done.  There are multiple online tutorials for each of these things.  I just kind of mish-mashed the tutorials to make it work for me.  They're not perfect, by any means, but they're functional and bright, which is what I wanted. 

Here's a plastic bag holder.  My goal is to move toward using re-usable bags (and I'm in the process of making some - did you see that there's high lead content in many of the store-bought ones?), but I have an awful time remembering to take the re-usable bags into the store (or into the car!).  And let's face it, it's easier to let the bagger do his job with the bags he's used to using.  So we still end up with a lot of the plastic ones.  But at least we can recycle them, and this hanger on the door reminds us to do that!

And here's a wall pocket I made to put school/church papers in.  You know, those papers with info that needs to be dealt with, but maybe not immediately.  We were just piling them on the counter, and then I'd forget about them.  So this way, there's a place for them out of the way but within sight.  I used a cereal box to make it sort of stiff - gotta love upcycling!

And here's a similar wall-pocket, but for a cell phone.  It (belatedly) occurred to me that our phones are often in pockets or on shelves out of the reach of Our Girl.  And we don't have a land-line phone.  So if there were an emergency, she might not be able to get to a phone or know where one was.  Thus - phone pocket!  Now I try to stick my phone there as soon as I walk in the door.  And the little pocket next to the phone has a list of phone numbers for her (so she doesn't have to find them in the contact list - phones are way more complicated than they used to be!).  I had her practice using both of our cell phones and the phone number list so we're relatively confident she could make a call in an emergency.

The Girl has also been busy in art class at school.  They post some of their artwork online, which I love.  Here are a couple of her latest masterpieces:



And The Boy made a gingerbread house at preschool.  Well, I think My Man did most of the work, but The Boy did plenty of tasting!

Pictures of our Christmas craftinees will wait until after Christmas.  I'm so excited!