Old photos - last day of school

Here's some old photos from Glitter's last day of school back in May.

Sparkle always signed Glitter in each morning. Hey, it's handwriting practice and helped her memorize our phone number.


Here is Glitter with her teachers. They are an awesome couple of ladies. We will miss them.


I love that Glitter is wearing the dresses that I originally made for Sparkle when Sparkle was in the exact same class/classroom.

Old pictures - Blackberries

Here's some old photos from last spring when a member of our homeschool group hosted a blackberry picking and pie baking day at their farm.

More sewing

After the girls' initial success with sewing pillows for the dolls, I tried to think of a new project to interest them. The idea came to me when we were going to the library.

I used to drag a boxy cart on wheels to the library. As the girls browsed the stacks, they dump whatever books they found interesting into the cart. Then, at checkout, we'd sort the books so that Sparkle could check out her own books on her own library card. Then all the books got dumped in the cart again.

One day we didn't have many books to return to the library and it was raining so I tossed the few books into a tote bag instead of using the cart. I enjoyed not having the bulky cart, so the next week, I pulled out three cheap, freebie bags and we each carried our own bags. A few weeks later those bags were falling apart at the seams.

I started with an idea from a book about sewing with kids and adapted it for us. Instead of starting with regular fabric, I took the girls to Goodwill and purchased over sized, colorful, cloth napkins. The girls got to pick out patterns they liked, and the edges of the fabric were already finished. It was $3 for the project -- more expensive than simply buying bags, but still cheap enough.

Once again, I started with Glitter, as Sparkle wasn't very interested. Glitter handed me pins and I pinned two of the napkins together. Glitter sat on my lap and pushed the foot pedal as I guided the fabric. We stitched three sides together to form a bag. Then I cut the third napkin into strips to make handles.

Sparkle wandered into the sewing room while Glitter and I worked and suddenly she wanted to sew as well. After I finished Glitter's bag, I repeated the procedure with Sparkle, except that she's too big to sit on my lap.

Finally, we loaded up the new bags with books and headed off to the library! The girls were so proud of their bags and carried them all around the library, filling them with books. Yay! Sparkle didn't whine for help when carrying her books to the check-out counter. The girls didn't fight over who got to pull the cart. I love it when a plan comes together.

sewing

I went to the local homeschool convention this weekend and one of the booths had sewing books and patterns for kids. I got to talking with some of the moms in the booth and their experience with teaching kids to sew and decided that just maybe my kids are ready to try.

Sparkle's previous experience with sewing has been only hand sewing at her girls' club. She needed help threading her needle and tying off. When stitching she often got her thread tangled. As a result she got turned off sewing. If Sparkle wanted me to sew something, I'd suggest that she help me, and suddenly she would no longer be interested in whatever it was.

So, I decided to take a new approach today. I decided to let the girls use my sewing machine. I invited Sparkle to sew a pillow for the dolls. She declined. She said that she thought it would be boring. I shifted strategies. I invited Glitter to make a pillow. Glitter jumped at the chance.

I introduced Glitter to running the foot pedal without any thread or fabric. Once she got the hang of moving the needle (and stopping!), I added fabric. Glitter sat on my lap while I helped her guide the fabric as the machine pulled the fabric along. Finally, I added thread and Glitter sewed her first seam. She was so proud! Next, we did a simple pillow. We folded a square of fabric in half and sewed along two sides. I did most of the guiding of the fabric and some of the foot pedal, but Glitter felt like she was doing it. Then we turned the pillow right-side-out and started stuffing it with poly-fill. At this time Sparkle joined us wanting to participate. As I I sewed the pillow closed, Sparkle announced that she changed her mind and wanted to sew a doll pillow too.

Glitter ran off to try out her finished doll pillow and I turned my attention to Sparkle. I started her off the the same process -- no thread or fabric, then just fabric, and finally thread and fabric. Sparkle was too big to fit on my lap, but she was also capable of maintaining a slow, steady stitch so she did all the sewing on her pillow herself. I helped by telling her when to start and stop, and pivoting the fabric at the corner. I also sewed the final seam.

The dolls now have two new fluffy pillows.

repurposing

I picked up some marshmellow shooters for the girls. The girls re-arranged the parts and decided to use them as tubas.

I sewed some tutus for the dolls. The girls put the tutus under the dolls' dresses to poof out the skirts. The girls also stuck the tutus on the dolls's heads as veils and flower petals.

I bound some paper into a little booklet for Sparkle to use as a diary. The booklet is now a journal for science experiments.

The girls often put their own spin on toys in ways that I don't expect.