Tuesday, July 19, 2011
New Blog!!
I decided to change my blog and Twitter name to something more reflective of who I am, so I'll soon be shutting this blog down and switching over to http://www.crunchyconservativemommy.blogspot.com/ and will be changing my Twitter name to @CrunchyConMommy. I think the new name is much more "me" and it's definitely easier to spell and say. I hope you'll join me at my new blog! (If you are a Twitter follower you shouldn't have to do anything, except once I make the change, send any future replies or DM's to my new name rather than the old one!) Also, when I comment on your blogs now it'll show that Crunchy Con Mommy commented. When that happens, you'll know it was me!
Monday, May 23, 2011
Felt Crinkle French Fries Tutorial
As a newbie to felt food making, I've been trying to start with foods my son loves. And as much as I'd love to pretend that's quinoa with eggplant & brussel sprouts, he wouldn't recognize any of those things even if I managed to make the awesomest felt food versions of them known to man. So instead I've got some fruit, a sandwich, an egg (not too terrible nutritionally so far, right?) and now...crinkle fries. We don't have them all that often, but when we do, my son gobbles them up. But all the fry patterns/tutorials I found were kind of lame 2D renditions (maybe they're supposed to be smushed McDonald's fries?), so I had to come up with my own. And when I showed him the first felt fry I finished, he was super excited and clearly recognized it. So if your kid is a fellow french fry lover, give this a go!
Materials:
Yellow felt (one sheet of felt should easily make 8-10 fries)
Matching embroidery floss.
Stuffing of your choice
How-To Make It:
1.) Cut out 4 rectangles of yellow felt for each fry you'd like to make. They all need to be the same length (mine were about 3 inches long), but I think it looks cute to have the two side pieces narrower than the top & bottom of the fry. The important thing is that the top & bottom are identical and the two sides are identical.
2.) Use blanket stitch (or whipstitch if you'd prefer non-crinkle fries) to attach the four pieces together to make a rectangular felt tunnel.
3.) Cut two small squares of felt to fit the ends of your fry (I just stood the fry-tunnel up on the felt to figure it out. If you prefer measuring, the end pieces should have two sides the same width as the long top of the fry & two sizes the width of the long side pieces.)
4.) Attach one end piece, then stuff the fry with poly-fil, wool stuffing, felt scraps, or whatever else you'd like. A pencil or stick might be helpful for shoving the stuffing way down in.
5.) Sew on the other end piece. If you want non-crinkle fries, you can stop here!
6.) This is the slightly tricky part. Thread yellow embroidery floss on to your needle and loop it around the fry, going underneath the thread at each seam but not into the felt.
7.) When your loop is back where it started, pull it really tight and quickly secure it (I used a small knot incorporating the seam I started from.) This is your first crinkle! Repeat this process 3-4 more times until you're happy with the number of crinkles.
8.) If you're making these fries for someone who still chews toys (or whose younger sibling does), I'd recommend sewing several fries together in little clumps to reduce the choking hazard. (We've all had fries stick together like this for real, so I don't think it ruins the realisticness at all.)
Voila! French fries.
Bon Appetit!
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Book Review: Good Words: Inspiration for Catholic Women
What it is
A book of quotations from a variety of authors, each accompanied by a few questions to reflect on. The book is loosely organized around Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 (you know, a time to this, a time to that)
Who wrote it
Several different women authors of books published by St. Anthony Messenger Press.
First Impression
I love the cheerful flower on the cover. And I love the concept. As a mom of a very active toddler, I don't often have time to sit and read a whole 300 page book, or even an entire chapter of such a book at one time. The idea of a book that can be read in tiny snippets (I call them bathroom books because my grandma always had little devotional books like this in a hanging magazine rack on her restroom wall!).
Overall Impression
Because of the wide variety found in this book, something is sure to appeal to you and really speak to you. There were several quotations and questions that really captured my heart, like this one by Susan K. Rowland from her book, Make Room for God: Clearing out the Clutter:
This quotation and the accompanying reflection questions really did make me pause and well, reflect! Short, sweet, to the point, and relevant to my lifestlye.
But many of the quotes seemed to me to have been thrown in because that section was too short, or the editor wanted to feature a particular book. And I found it frustrating that they seemed to completely ignore the "negative" sides of some of the pairings. For example, in the section based on the "A time for war, a time for peace" section of the Ecclesiastes verse, all of the quoations and questions are about peace and nonviolence and things like that. None were about, for example, what in life IS worth fighting for. The book would have been fine arranged around more arbitrary themes or even around a calendar as a daily devotional book, so it's a little frustrating that they didn't even bother to follow their self-imposed structure.
Pros
Cons
The Bottom Line
An okay gift, but not an intellectually challenging book or one that I would buy for myself.
This review was written as part of the Catholic book reviewer program from The Catholic Company. Visit The Catholic Company to find more information on Good Words - Inspiration for Catholic Women. They are also a great source for serenity prayer and baptism gifts. I received a free copy of this book for review purposes but received no monetary compensation and was under no pressure to provide a positive review of this book. This review is my honest opinion of the product in question.
A book of quotations from a variety of authors, each accompanied by a few questions to reflect on. The book is loosely organized around Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 (you know, a time to this, a time to that)
Who wrote it
Several different women authors of books published by St. Anthony Messenger Press.
First Impression
I love the cheerful flower on the cover. And I love the concept. As a mom of a very active toddler, I don't often have time to sit and read a whole 300 page book, or even an entire chapter of such a book at one time. The idea of a book that can be read in tiny snippets (I call them bathroom books because my grandma always had little devotional books like this in a hanging magazine rack on her restroom wall!).
Overall Impression
Because of the wide variety found in this book, something is sure to appeal to you and really speak to you. There were several quotations and questions that really captured my heart, like this one by Susan K. Rowland from her book, Make Room for God: Clearing out the Clutter:
Our belongings should not bog us down and make us slaves of us. We should be surrounded with beauty, with things reminding us we are God's children.
Anything else should be removed.
So go ahead and clear out!
This quotation and the accompanying reflection questions really did make me pause and well, reflect! Short, sweet, to the point, and relevant to my lifestlye.
But many of the quotes seemed to me to have been thrown in because that section was too short, or the editor wanted to feature a particular book. And I found it frustrating that they seemed to completely ignore the "negative" sides of some of the pairings. For example, in the section based on the "A time for war, a time for peace" section of the Ecclesiastes verse, all of the quoations and questions are about peace and nonviolence and things like that. None were about, for example, what in life IS worth fighting for. The book would have been fine arranged around more arbitrary themes or even around a calendar as a daily devotional book, so it's a little frustrating that they didn't even bother to follow their self-imposed structure.
Pros
- Lots of variety
- May expose you to another book you'll love
- Something is sure to speak to you
Cons
- Some questions are trite
- Some quotations seem out-of-place
The Bottom Line
An okay gift, but not an intellectually challenging book or one that I would buy for myself.
This review was written as part of the Catholic book reviewer program from The Catholic Company. Visit The Catholic Company to find more information on Good Words - Inspiration for Catholic Women. They are also a great source for serenity prayer and baptism gifts. I received a free copy of this book for review purposes but received no monetary compensation and was under no pressure to provide a positive review of this book. This review is my honest opinion of the product in question.
Friday, April 1, 2011
Felt Frog Finger Puppet w/ Free PDF Pattern
Introducing the newest addition to our felt finger puppet family...a frog! He'll be going in my son's Easter basket along with the bunny finger puppet I made earlier.
Materials Needed:
This frog puppet is super easy. The head with eye bulges is all one piece, and pretty much all you have to do is sew on the eyes, nose and mouth, then assemble it all with some quick blanket stitch or backstitch. Which, in case I haven't mentioned, is really easy to learn. Believe it or not, I taught myself blanket stitch from a YouTube video just a few months ago!
Variations
If you want your frog finger puppet to be a toad finger puppet instead, you could use olive green felt and cut muddy brown spots out using the eye pupil circle from my pattern. Then, sew the spots at random on the body and face of the your toad. Muddy brown French knots can enhance the toady look.
For a tropical tree frog finger puppet, make the eye bulges a separate piece from the head itself and use bright orange or blue felt (or how cute would a hot pink and purple tree frog be?!?). Make a tummy circle out of the same bright color as the eye bulges (you can use the tummy oval from my monkey finger puppet pattern). Use black French knots to make a fun polka dot pattern if desired!
If you don't want to attempt sewing, you could use felt glue, but if you do I wouldn't recommend letting anyone who still chews toys play with it lest an eye come off!
The free PDF frog finger puppet pattern on Google docs is here.
Materials Needed:
- Green felt
- White felt (scraps)
- Black felt scraps and/or black thread for eyes
- Green thread
- White thread
- Red or pink thread for mouth
- Scissors
- Embroidery needle
- Two straight pins (optional)
This frog puppet is super easy. The head with eye bulges is all one piece, and pretty much all you have to do is sew on the eyes, nose and mouth, then assemble it all with some quick blanket stitch or backstitch. Which, in case I haven't mentioned, is really easy to learn. Believe it or not, I taught myself blanket stitch from a YouTube video just a few months ago!
Variations
If you want your frog finger puppet to be a toad finger puppet instead, you could use olive green felt and cut muddy brown spots out using the eye pupil circle from my pattern. Then, sew the spots at random on the body and face of the your toad. Muddy brown French knots can enhance the toady look.
For a tropical tree frog finger puppet, make the eye bulges a separate piece from the head itself and use bright orange or blue felt (or how cute would a hot pink and purple tree frog be?!?). Make a tummy circle out of the same bright color as the eye bulges (you can use the tummy oval from my monkey finger puppet pattern). Use black French knots to make a fun polka dot pattern if desired!
If you don't want to attempt sewing, you could use felt glue, but if you do I wouldn't recommend letting anyone who still chews toys play with it lest an eye come off!
The free PDF frog finger puppet pattern on Google docs is here.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Bunny Finger Puppet -Free Pattern
After how well my monkey finger puppet turned out, I decided to make more. With Easter right around the corner, I thought some seasonal animals would be especially fun. So here's my white Easter Bunny finger puppet:
I'm partial to white rabbits-I even had one myself in elementary school (I named her Rosebud and called her "Rosie"). But bunnies come in a variety of colors, so feel free to make black, brown, & gray bunnies too! If you do use a different color, consider putting an oval of white or cream felt on the tummy (like on the monkey finger puppet) for extra cuteness. Anyway, I used a combination of blanket stitch & back stitch to make this rabbit finger puppet and it definitely took way less than an hour total to do-maybe 15-30 minutes?
I'm planning to make a couple more springy animals-a sheep, frog, and duck, and I'm going to put them in my toddler's Easter basket. I'll post patterns for any that turn out well so you can try them too!
Click here to get to my free printable bunny finger puppet PDF pattern on google docs.
I'm participating in:
March’s Families, Create! challenge was filled with awesome animal-themed posts. From Mo Willems to monkey finger puppets, our writers and crafters kept busy getting creative with the little animals in their lives.
Visit Code Name: Mama and Living Peacefully with Children to find out how you can participate in the next Families, Create! Carnival. Our April theme is "Fantasy" - childhood is a fascinating time, filled with magic around every corner. What can your family imagine and create?
Please take time to read the March submissions by the other carnival participants:
I'm partial to white rabbits-I even had one myself in elementary school (I named her Rosebud and called her "Rosie"). But bunnies come in a variety of colors, so feel free to make black, brown, & gray bunnies too! If you do use a different color, consider putting an oval of white or cream felt on the tummy (like on the monkey finger puppet) for extra cuteness. Anyway, I used a combination of blanket stitch & back stitch to make this rabbit finger puppet and it definitely took way less than an hour total to do-maybe 15-30 minutes?
I'm planning to make a couple more springy animals-a sheep, frog, and duck, and I'm going to put them in my toddler's Easter basket. I'll post patterns for any that turn out well so you can try them too!
Click here to get to my free printable bunny finger puppet PDF pattern on google docs.
I'm participating in:
March’s Families, Create! challenge was filled with awesome animal-themed posts. From Mo Willems to monkey finger puppets, our writers and crafters kept busy getting creative with the little animals in their lives.
Visit Code Name: Mama and Living Peacefully with Children to find out how you can participate in the next Families, Create! Carnival. Our April theme is "Fantasy" - childhood is a fascinating time, filled with magic around every corner. What can your family imagine and create?
Please take time to read the March submissions by the other carnival participants:
- Lizz at Am I a Funny Girl turns a family outing at the zoo into a picture book to keep.
- The kids at Living Peacefully with Children celebrated the emergence of Spring with butterflies. Check out their Coffee Filter Butterfly mobile and Pipe Cleaner Art.
- Aunalise at My Sweet Potatoes offers helpful ways for a child to remember calming techniques with a “Calming your Beast” basket.
- Most of us have monkeys running around our house at times. Or lions. Or elephants. Make your child's creative animal play even better with stuffed animal tails! Dionna at Code Name: Mama shares an easy tutorial.
- Galit Breen at These Little Waves shares an easy way to get creative with Mo Willems' "We Are In A Book."
- Brenna at Almost All The Truth shares a look at butterflies through metaphor, books and a coffee filter craft.
- Mandy at Living Peacefully with Children knitted some simple Nugget Bunnies for her children's Ostara baskets while practicing a new technique.
- Amy at Anktangle shares photographs of crocheting a lovable stuffed turtle for her son to play with.
- Aunalise at My Sweet Potatoes knows a few ways to bring beneficial birds to the garden.
- Megan at Purple Dancing Dahlias shares a fun little first sewing project.
- Lauren at Hobo Mama has a fun and easy game to make to stimulate your preschooler's memory.
- Using her children's artwork as inspiration, Mandy at Living Peacefully with Children woodburned wooden eggs for them to color in honor of Spring.
- Aunalise at My Sweet Potatoes is making nature bags or field bags for nature journals and the other things we may need as we explore our planet.
- Animals are the inspiration for this set of handmade clay items for an I Spy bag at Living Peacefully with Children.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Monkey Felt Finger Puppet Free PDF Pattern!
I decided to make my son some felt animal finger-puppets. He loves animals, especially monkeys, right now and we're working on learning how to pronounce all their names and make the noises they make. I thought finger puppets would be a great way to supplement the learning-about-animals we've been doing with books, Fisher-Price Little People, singing "Old McDonald", and staring & pointing at the occasional woodland creature who strays into our "backyard" (We live in an apartment, so I'm using the term pretty loosely).
I remember thinking they were fun as a kid, and also figured they were simple enough I might be able to actually make them successfully despite my limited sewing skills. The fact that felt is dirt cheap is an added bonus (20-40 cents for an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet in my neck of the woods).
So I started hunting for patterns. I fell in love with these patterns on Etsy, but couldn't justify spending $5 for 5 patterns.
I enlisted the aid of the children's librarian and scoured through dated books on puppet-making, all to no avail.
So I took a big gulp, and made my own. And to my amazement...it worked! I used the auto-shapes in Microsoft Word for the shapes, and hand-embroidered the eyes, nose, & mouth. And here's what my completed monkey finger puppet looked like:
His neck was a bit too long & narrow, so I corrected the pattern. So if you follow this pattern, the neck will be more like this bunny (pattern coming next!):
Anyway, I want to share my patterns with you guys, for free. So click here to get to the PDF of my monkey finger puppet pattern (on Google docs) and feel free to print it, use it, customize it, & share it! And please leave me comments to let me know how it goes or if you have any questions. I'm hoping to make lots more-you can see I already made a bunny (for his Easter basket) and I'll try to post as many patterns for you as I can.
Materials needed for monkey finger puppet:
Brown felt
Light brown or white felt.
Embroidery floss in the same two colors as your felt.
Sewing needle
Scissors
Pattern
Print the PDF pattern & follow the instructions on it. For the eyes, I used satin stitch to make some rough ovals, then backstitch to outline them. I used backstitch on the nose and mouth.
Let me know your feedback so I can improve this pattern & any future ones!
I'm participating in:
March’s Families, Create! challenge was filled with awesome animal-themed posts. From Mo Willems to monkey finger puppets, our writers and crafters kept busy getting creative with the little animals in their lives.
Visit Code Name: Mama and Living Peacefully with Children to find out how you can participate in the next Families, Create! Carnival. Our April theme is "Fantasy" - childhood is a fascinating time, filled with magic around every corner. What can your family imagine and create?
Please take time to read the March submissions by the other carnival participants:
I remember thinking they were fun as a kid, and also figured they were simple enough I might be able to actually make them successfully despite my limited sewing skills. The fact that felt is dirt cheap is an added bonus (20-40 cents for an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet in my neck of the woods).
So I started hunting for patterns. I fell in love with these patterns on Etsy, but couldn't justify spending $5 for 5 patterns.
I enlisted the aid of the children's librarian and scoured through dated books on puppet-making, all to no avail.
So I took a big gulp, and made my own. And to my amazement...it worked! I used the auto-shapes in Microsoft Word for the shapes, and hand-embroidered the eyes, nose, & mouth. And here's what my completed monkey finger puppet looked like:
His neck was a bit too long & narrow, so I corrected the pattern. So if you follow this pattern, the neck will be more like this bunny (pattern coming next!):
Anyway, I want to share my patterns with you guys, for free. So click here to get to the PDF of my monkey finger puppet pattern (on Google docs) and feel free to print it, use it, customize it, & share it! And please leave me comments to let me know how it goes or if you have any questions. I'm hoping to make lots more-you can see I already made a bunny (for his Easter basket) and I'll try to post as many patterns for you as I can.
Materials needed for monkey finger puppet:
Brown felt
Light brown or white felt.
Embroidery floss in the same two colors as your felt.
Sewing needle
Scissors
Pattern
Print the PDF pattern & follow the instructions on it. For the eyes, I used satin stitch to make some rough ovals, then backstitch to outline them. I used backstitch on the nose and mouth.
Let me know your feedback so I can improve this pattern & any future ones!
I'm participating in:
March’s Families, Create! challenge was filled with awesome animal-themed posts. From Mo Willems to monkey finger puppets, our writers and crafters kept busy getting creative with the little animals in their lives.
Visit Code Name: Mama and Living Peacefully with Children to find out how you can participate in the next Families, Create! Carnival. Our April theme is "Fantasy" - childhood is a fascinating time, filled with magic around every corner. What can your family imagine and create?
Please take time to read the March submissions by the other carnival participants:
- Lizz at Am I a Funny Girl turns a family outing at the zoo into a picture book to keep.
- The kids at Living Peacefully with Children celebrated the emergence of Spring with butterflies. Check out their Coffee Filter Butterfly mobile and Pipe Cleaner Art.
- Aunalise at My Sweet Potatoes offers helpful ways for a child to remember calming techniques with a “Calming your Beast” basket.
- Most of us have monkeys running around our house at times. Or lions. Or elephants. Make your child's creative animal play even better with stuffed animal tails! Dionna at Code Name: Mama shares an easy tutorial.
- Galit Breen at These Little Waves shares an easy way to get creative with Mo Willems' "We Are In A Book."
- Brenna at Almost All The Truth shares a look at butterflies through metaphor, books and a coffee filter craft.
- Mandy at Living Peacefully with Children knitted some simple Nugget Bunnies for her children's Ostara baskets while practicing a new technique.
- Amy at Anktangle shares photographs of crocheting a lovable stuffed turtle for her son to play with.
- Aunalise at My Sweet Potatoes knows a few ways to bring beneficial birds to the garden.
- Megan at Purple Dancing Dahlias shares a fun little first sewing project.
- Lauren at Hobo Mama has a fun and easy game to make to stimulate your preschooler's memory.
- Using her children's artwork as inspiration, Mandy at Living Peacefully with Children woodburned wooden eggs for them to color in honor of Spring.
- Aunalise at My Sweet Potatoes is making nature bags or field bags for nature journals and the other things we may need as we explore our planet.
- Animals are the inspiration for this set of handmade clay items for an I Spy bag at Living Peacefully with Children.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Parenting With Grace: Book Review
I received this wonderful book for free for review purposes from The Catholic Company, a small business specializing in selling books and gifts that can help Catholic families grow in their faith. The Catholic Company was recently recognized as one of the top 10 mobile commerce sites of 2010 by InternetRetailer.com finding themselves amongst the elite ranks of companies like Apple. Walgreens, Amazon & Barnes & Noble for their user-friendly, innovative website created in-house.
What it is: Parenting With Grace, 2nd ed. is a parenting book offering theoretical discussion of how attachment parenting meshes with the Catholic faith and practical suggestions for dealing with everyday parenting situations.
Who wrote it: Greg and Lisa Popcak are a husband-wife team of Catholic radio personalities with psychology backgrounds and 3 kids.
Overall Impressions:
I thought this book was extremely insightful, especially the section explaining why they feel practices like breastfeeding and co-sleeping mesh so well with the Catholic views of natural law and self-giving love. After reading this, I felt like I understood much better the reasons why those same practices felt so right for our family.
I also thought a lot of their "real-life" examples were pretty funny and found many suggestions that seem like good things to implement with my own family as my son gets older. I really liked the emphasis on positive discipline as opposed to punishment for misbehavior.
Pros:
Cons:Unapologetic in promoting only the parenting style they personally find best which may turn some readers with different parenting styles off
The bottom line I highly recommend this book to any Catholic parent or parent-to-be. Other Christian parents would probably like their tips, but should skip the first section on parenting types as it seems fairly anti-Protestant at times. I'm not going to try to be a mini-Lisa Popcak and copy everything they suggest, but there were definitely some great tips in there that I'll try to apply to my own famiy, and I LOVE the section discussing attachment parenting, the Bible, and the Catholic view of natural law.
Get it: Parenting With Grace is available from The Catholic Company for $14.95 as I post this review.
I was not compensated for this post other than by receiving a free copy of the book for review purposes, and this review is my honest & original opinion. Besides books like this one, the Catholic Company is also a great source for first communion gifts and baptism gifts.
What it is: Parenting With Grace, 2nd ed. is a parenting book offering theoretical discussion of how attachment parenting meshes with the Catholic faith and practical suggestions for dealing with everyday parenting situations.
Who wrote it: Greg and Lisa Popcak are a husband-wife team of Catholic radio personalities with psychology backgrounds and 3 kids.
Overall Impressions:
I thought this book was extremely insightful, especially the section explaining why they feel practices like breastfeeding and co-sleeping mesh so well with the Catholic views of natural law and self-giving love. After reading this, I felt like I understood much better the reasons why those same practices felt so right for our family.
I also thought a lot of their "real-life" examples were pretty funny and found many suggestions that seem like good things to implement with my own family as my son gets older. I really liked the emphasis on positive discipline as opposed to punishment for misbehavior.
Pros:
- Thorough discussion of attachment parenting, Catholic theology, & natural law
- Well organized for easy reading/reference
- Lots of "real-life" examples and practical solutions
Cons:Unapologetic in promoting only the parenting style they personally find best which may turn some readers with different parenting styles off
The bottom line I highly recommend this book to any Catholic parent or parent-to-be. Other Christian parents would probably like their tips, but should skip the first section on parenting types as it seems fairly anti-Protestant at times. I'm not going to try to be a mini-Lisa Popcak and copy everything they suggest, but there were definitely some great tips in there that I'll try to apply to my own famiy, and I LOVE the section discussing attachment parenting, the Bible, and the Catholic view of natural law.
Get it: Parenting With Grace is available from The Catholic Company for $14.95 as I post this review.
I was not compensated for this post other than by receiving a free copy of the book for review purposes, and this review is my honest & original opinion. Besides books like this one, the Catholic Company is also a great source for first communion gifts and baptism gifts.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
