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As I mentioned in my sewing post, yesterday I got the Alex Toys Happily Ever Crafter kit. I bought it from JoAnne, a fabric and craft store. I paid about $28 (including shipping), but now the lowest price you can find it for is $35 at Amazon. I'm still evaluating whether it's worth $28 - though probably the answer is yes. I'm not so sure about $35.

The kit comes with enough material to do 9 projects:

• 1 headband
  
• 3 felt bracelets (felt + buttons & felt shapes to sew on it)
  
• 1 coin purse (felt + ribbon & buttons to sew on it)
  
• 1 bandana (it's unclear to me what to do with the bandana)
  
• 1 stuffed dog (dog-shaped felt + stuffing)
  
• 1 room sign (felt rectangle + ribbons/felt letters/buttons)
  
• 1 felt broach (simple butterfly wing shaped felt)
  
• 1 sewing pouch
  
• 1 embroidered cloth & hoop
  
• "wool" for crocheting & plastic hook
  

In addition you get a variety of buttons, a few felt cut-out shapes, some little beads (no idea how you'd saw these ones), some metallic shapes (id.), two needles, a bunch of thread, a bunch of pins, a small pair of scissors, a pin cushion, a threader, a thimble and practice cloth. There is a booklet of instructions for the crocheting and embroidering, but not for the sewing - though there are instructions for each project. As we make the different projects, I'll write about them. (keep looking!)

A couple of days ago, Mika finished her first sewing project, a coin purse from the Alex Happily Ever Crafter Kit. She/we sewed it in a couple of sessions while waiting for Camila to get out of swimming class.

I have to say that she enjoyed it quite a bit. I did help her by threading the impossible needles (and dividing the thread into several strings so that they could be threaded in the first place) and tying knots. And I did sew one of the sides for her (after we did come to the conclusion that, despite the instructions, the sides had to be sewn if you wanted to put any coins inside) - but she did pretty much everything else herself, including sewing the buttons. Her stitches are still a bit big and not too straight, but so are mine :-)

Anyway, this is her creation:

My mother got this jewelry kit for Mika and she just made a necklace for herself. This kit has a very original "clasp" that makes making jewelry both fun and easy for kids. You start by passing the included string through a plastic flower clasp, which closes and keeps the string secure. This way you can avoid making knots or having to use traditional clasps. The flower clasps are light purple and not very attractive, but you'd wear them behind your neck or under your wrist (if you make a bracelet) so that should be OK. What makes it cool is that you insert a magnet both at the beginning and end of the string, which then attract each other, making it easy to "close" the necklace. That way you don't have to deal with a difficult clasp or have to make the necklace long enough to pass over your head. I wish they had the same system for adult jewelry.

The beads the set comes with are very pretty. There are metallic cylinders, white and lilac drops, bright pinkish and purplish flowers and other things. You are supposed to intercept magnetic beads every so often to make it easier to wrap your necklace around your wrist as a bracelet or make it look like a pendant. Mika didn't do it on her first necklace, but she ended up with a gorgeous, gorgeous necklace that looks great on her (picture below).

Note: The metallic bead on the top right corner of the picture is the end of one of Mika's braids, nothing to do with the necklace :-)

One thing to keep in mind is that the kit comes with only 4 clasps - enough for 2 necklaces. Alas, we lost one of the clasps, so the necklace above is as much as we'll make from this kit.

I just got Mika (and Camila) the Alex Toys Silkscreen Factory, which I will review later after we have printed more items. We just did the bandana it came with, but we'll have to buy other (cheap) items of clothing to silk screen.

In any case, as everyone who knows me knows, I can be quite dense for things related to arts and crafts and, really, how things work to begin with. So I have a question - Why do you need the silk for silk screening? Why not just paint directly on the fabric without the silk between the paint and fabric? If anyone knows, please e-mail me or comment.

I'm always looking for things to do with my daughters, specially things that are crafty but pathetically easy to do. I am not a crafty person myself. When I came across this kit for Alex Toys Silkscreen Factory I thought it would just fit the bill. Plus, I figured the results would actually be useful. That is still an open question (will my kids actually wear what they make?), but at least I have enjoyed using it.

The kit is quite simple. It comes with a plastic screen, several pieces of "silk" (in reality some plastic mesh), six or so stencils (some with multiple images), an applicator and a few sheets of paper to practice on and to cover a specific image if you are using a multi-image stencil. The kit also comes with 4 1-oz tubes of color paint: green, yellow, blue and red and a bandana for you to decorate. As far as I can tell, each tube should be enough to cover four full-size stencils. As usual with Alex products, the kit seems expensive for the price (I paid $24 for it), BUT if you want to try silk screening for cheap, there don'tt seem to be too many other options out there.

In all, I think the kit works pretty well. You have to be careful to not move the cloth or the frame when you are silk screening it, otherwise the paint will smear. You also have to be sure to cover the whole screen with paint, perhaps with more than one layer, to make sure that it all makes it through the silk. And you have to be careful to apply the paint both firmly and gently, lest the silk bunch up. It's held pretty tight, but this has happened a couple of times when my 7-yo was screening.

One thing I must say is that this is not a kit for perfectionists (such as my 7yo) - it's easy to make one of the mistakes above and end up with a less-than-perfect silk screening (see below). But personally I think it's a really cool way to decorate a shirt or a bag or whatever. My kids, so far, have enjoyed using it.

As I mentioned, the kit comes just with a bandana, but you can buy 50% cotton - 50% polyester t-shirts at Michaels or Joann for $2 on sale. These silk screen beautifully. The bandana also went well, though we were less lucky with an apron. All this said, this hobby can get expensive. I think that I'll take advantage of future sales to stock up on cheap t-shirts, aprons and bags - and then take the silk screening kit out when we can make something for someone's birthday.

By the way, Alex sells a refill for when you run out of ink. It comes with extra stencils and silk, but I think it's expensive for $12. Instead, when I run out of ink (and I've already ran out of the red one), I'm planning to buy some fabric paint. I've also read you can use acrylic paint. Hopefully that will be cheaper :-)

One thing to remember: wash the screen, the stencil, the silk (which is reusable) and the squeegee as soon as you are done - if the paint dries, it stays there forever.

Here is a very useful youtube video showing you exactly how you use this kit.

It's been a couple of years since Camila stopped wearing diapers, and even longer since I used her changing table. Still, I never got around to getting rid of it (though I did remove the changing platform from the top) and I have finally found a use for it: as my craft-kit cabinet. Well, I also keep the science kits I've gotten for the kids there. As you can see, it's pretty full - which hopefully will deter me from buying more :-)

Browsing through Amazon the other day I came across the Crafty Girl books, written by San Francisco writer Jennifer Traig and published by Chronicle Books. They were published in the early 2000s and they are out of print right now, though you can get them through used books bookstores. The two I got were $4 each, including shipping.

I got Crafty Girl: Fun and Games: Things to Make and Do and Crafty Girl: Slumber Parties. I ordered through Abebooks.com and both books came in almost perfect condition. They are little things, but sturdy and very nicely formatted - they have a sense of fun.

I still haven't put any of their ideas to work, but I've read through both of them and I love many of the ideas there - they are not things I would have thought of on my own (but then again, I'm not very "crafty"). My favorite idea, from the fun & games book, is to make your own board game. You make connected squares in a large piece of cardboard or poster paper and write funny instructions on each of them. For example, if you land on square 6, you have to wear a shower cup until you roll a 2. Or if you land in square 10, you have to wear socks on your hands until someone else rolls a 5. Other cool ideas is to make your own rocks and hide little things inside them and to fortune tell with tea leaves.

The slumber party book gives you several "theme" ideas. It's geared to girls a little bit older than Mika (who is 7), but she loved the idea of having a "fashion" slumber party that will include the suggested games/crafts. We'll be scheduling one soon.

In all, I'm quite happy with the books and I'm thinking of getting more :-)

I came upon scrapbooking while looking for crafts to do with my kids. I had tried scrapbooking before, when Michaela was first born, but quickly discovered that I neither had the time nor the talent to dedicate to it. Still, it seemed like the sort of thing that kids would like, so I figure we should give it a try.

As usual, I went looking for a kit. After seriously considering Alex My Scrapbook, given that I've gotten so many other Alex products and that I'm pretty happy with them, I decided to look some more and came upon the Totally Me! - It's A Girls Life Scrapbook Kit, sold at Toys R Us, which was cheaper ($16 vs. $20) and had a "buy one, get one 1/2 off" promotion going on.

Given that I didn't get the Alex kit, I can't really compare the two. The Toys R Us one is pretty nice, very pinkish and girl oriented, and it comes with a variety of frames, stickers and so forth (read this review for a complete list of contents). I wish there were more sizable stickers (the ones they have are mostly tiny ones), but all in all I think it was a good buy. I started scrapbooking with Camila (my 4.5 yo), and she was quite happy with it.

Today, I was at Michaels shopping for beading needles (which, btw, are much cheaper online than at Michaels, but then you have to pay shipping), when I came across the "Ultimate 12" x 12" Memory Album Kit" by "Memories Forever", which seems to be a brand of Creativity Inc.. The scrapbook was on clearance for $15 - off an alleged original price of $55. The box looked nice and it said it made 100 pages (vs. 20 for the Toys R Us one), so I thought it was a very good deal. Boy, was I fool.

The kit (which does not appear in the Creativity Inc. website and must have been discontinued as soon as it hit the stores) includes a 12" x 12" album with 50 page protector pages and 100 thick pieces of paper. We'll get bored of scrapbooking much before we finish this album. But the album is your standard ugly, brown, photo album. While the Toys R Us ones is red (or is it pink?) and lets you put a picture on the cover, this one is definitely austere. Mika (my 7.5 yo) was quite disappointed.

The stuff that comes with it is also very disappointing. They didn't have any of the stickers and punchouts taht were featured in the box, and instead they had a bunch of individually-wrapped packages of boring images in muted colors that are just boring for a little girl. What's worst is that they included several packages of the same images - why not offer some variety? Clearly, this kit was not put together with any care whatsoever. And indeed, it was put together with no thought. The largest picture frames they include are 3 x 5 - who gets 3 x 5 prints anymore? Everywhere you go they give you 4 x 6, so the frames (all 80 of them) are just useless.

Oh well, live and learn.

Well, it turns out that both girls love scrapbooking and are thrilled with their kits. Mika decorated the front of her otherwise boring album with stickers, and has already finished 14 scrapbook pages (fortunately it will take 100! - the one I got for Camila only takes 20!). Alas, she's not very careful when she does it by herself, but we just did a couple of pages together and I think they turned out quite well.

I made the mistake of getting glitter for the kids. They've LOVED using it, but now my whole living room is covered with sprinkles. Mika will vacuum when she's done, but I don't see them getting out of the little crevices between floor boards. I guess this is one way to have a sparkling house ;-)

I think the kids love scrapbooking because it's 1) quite easy and appropriate for all developmental levels and 2) more creative than some of the other crafts where pretty much all you do is follow directions.

In any case, I'm glad we've found something that we can do together and that they enjoy so much. :-)

Here is one of Camila's pages:

And here one of Mika's:

I was just thinking that all the emphasis on crafts I've had for the last few weeks, all the kits I've bought the kits and the different crafts I've done with them, may lead some people to believe that I am crafty. Nothing could be further from the truth. When I was a kid, my worst subject in school was Drawing, to the point that even today I draw like a five year old. My second worst subject in school was Actividades Prácticas, "practical activities", which could be described as "crafts". I can't tell you how bad I was at it. With the exception of a collage of Nefertiti that I made in 7th grade and a clay figurine of "the Devil as a serpent in Paradise", I was never able to do anything good. Even the devil figurine came about because I was trying to make a face and what turned out look so gaunt that it could be the devil - so I made it horns and, because I knew that making a body was beyond me, I made a serpent shape to which I stuck the head. My art teacher actually liked it :-)

But anyway, the point is that I suck at crafts but the kits I've bought are for little kids and doing what a 7-year old is expected to be able to do is not that hard. And crafts gives me something to do with the kids that is not overwhelmingly boring. But lord, I'm definitely not crafty.

I learned this "craft" from our daycare provider which had Camila do it when she was quite young (2?). All you need is some paint (we used a combination of acrylic and whatever paint you use to paint wood, what we had at home) and a rock. Fortunately, the lady who used to live in our house until she died (at 95!) was a huge rock collector (mind you, not "pretty" rocks, just random rocks she gathered in the California desserts), so we have quite a few rocks around. You can paint whichever designs you want on the rocks, both girls chose to do ladybugs, but later Camila did a bumble bee as well. Both girls had a great time doing it, and after they're done I can put the rocks where they were before in the garden :-)

Mika's ladybug is the one above and Camila's, of course, is the one below :-)

A couple of days ago, I placed an add in the San Leandro Freecycle group looking for craft supplies. Now that the girls and I are crafting so much, supplies are running out quick. For those of you who don't know freecycle, it's basically a mailing list through which you give away the stuff you no longer need/want and get stuff from others who are in the same situation. You pretty much can give away anything through freecycle, I've seen half-empty bottles of shampoo being taken, though that's not been the case for some of my stuff. C'est la vie.

You can also request items in freecycle, and my posting for craft supplies was answered by two great ladies who gave us very cool scrapbooking and general craft items. I want to thank them both very much here - I know the girls and I will have a great time with the material we got.

And hey, if you read this and have extra craft supplies there around, we'd love to get it :-)

I got this recipe from Crafty Girl Fun & Games and it worked surprisingly well. Note that you need to make the water paints several hours in advance to give them time to dry. You'll need small non-absorbent containers for the watercolors. I used a mini-muffin pan, as recommended, I'm hoping it will clean out well. Don't use anything you'll need anytime soon, as I think these watercolors will last a long time. I used soap coloring to color the watercolors but you can use food coloring instead. I also used green glitter, the only type I had.

• 1 Tbsp. distilled white vinegar
• 2 Tbsp. baking soda
• 1 Tbsp. cornstarch
• 1/2 tsp. glycerin
• 1/2 tsp. glitter (optional)
• soap or food coloring

Mix vinegar and baking soda in a medium bowl. Wait until the mixture stops foaming and add the cornstarch and glycerin. Stir well. Add the glitter, if using and stir.

Transfer a little bit of the mixture into a each small container (you can make 6 or so, depending on how much you want of each color and how many colors you have). Add a few drops of coloring and mix well, add more coloring if you want a more intense color. Repeat until all the watercolors are made. Dry for several hours or overnight. Use as regular watercolors.

Now that the girls and I are so into crafts, we need to find supplies. Someone on Craigslist suggested hitting up the flea market, so that's what I did this morning. I didn't find any general craft stuff (I specially want to get things I can glue or saw onto fabric), but I found a lot of jewelry.

I ended up buying a Beads Carousel for $10. It looked new when I looked at it, but upon opening it I realize that it had been used. The threading needles were in a different box from their packaging, a couple of bead compartments were empty, and there are less beads in the package than the picture I found online. Still, I think it was a pretty good deal. In addition to beads, the kit includes thread, threading needles, clasps and earrings. The big problem with the kit is that there are lots of small beads that are too small to make it through the eye of the threading needle. I have no idea how to thread these ones. Please e-mail me if you know :-).

As if all those beads were not enough, I also bought a bag of assorted old and broken jewelry for $5. I got that particular bag because it included several shell necklaces, and I'd like to use the little shells for gluing to cloth. There was much more than shells, and I've been able to recover quite a few beads in good condition. There are also a few pendants that I think I can clean and use, and lots of single earrings. I'm hoping to turn some into pendants, use others for their beads, and some light ones also as decorations for fabric. I don't know what I'll do with the rest. I also don't know what to do with the non-broken chains that came with the kit. I'll clean the thinner ones and I can attach pendants to them - but what about the thick ones? I'll figure something out.

There is at least one necklace that I think Mika could wear -there is nothing wrong with it - and a couple that I wonder if we should keep for dress up. We'll see.

What is frustrating is that there are a few necklaces that cannot be "debeaded" - the beads just won't come out. But really, for five bucks I can't complain.

My 7-year-old, Mika, won this kit at a trivia contest at Borders a couple of months back. She was staying with my mother and the two of them tried to make the friendship bracelets. Apparently it was impossible, they required more skill that either of them could muster.

The kit itself came with regular craft thread, a few plastic beads, a cheapy threader (not even a threading needle) and a few safety pins. Not very much, specially for the $17 that Borders sells it for.

All that said, I'm planning to use the thread and beads for other craft projects.

Yes, I have to admit it, I do get obsessive over things. I've been obsessed over cookbooks, trips, photography (though that, a long time ago), toys for the kids, making cosmetics, etc. etc. And my current obsession are crafts and craft books. I've finally found something I can do with the girls without being bored to tears - and I'm going full force into it (though the girls seem to be getting a bit bored with it :-(.

As I have no idea how to do crafts myself, I've bought a number of kits (sewing/knitting, jewelry making, silk screening, scrapbooking), but I've also gotten quite a few books (to be exact, six). My favorites so far are the Jennifer Traig's Crafty Girl books. They have a very light tone of voice (one really directed towards teenagers, but one that I appreciate nonetheless), and projects that sound cool and I actually want to make with Mika (my 7-yo). We already did a couple, homemade watercolors and a game, which we haven't finished yet (I'll blog about it as soon as it's finished and we play it), and they were quite successful.

I've already written about the first two books I got, and now it's the turn of Crafty Girl: Accessories and Crafty Girl: Cool Stuff. I haven't made any projects from these books, but I went over them and wrote down the projects I want to make in the next few weeks.

Neither book is as good as Crafty Girl Fun & Games, that is to say, I found fewer projects I wanted to do in each of these books, but I think they are pretty cool anyway. The Accessories book includes instructions for making a felt scarf, picture jewelry and sparkle hair twisties, among other things. The Cool Stuff book's projects include making a photo placemat, a stationary kit and decorating a light switch. Many of the projects in both books are really nothing more than decorating everyday objects with craft supplies (glitter, buttons, felties, beads, ribbon, etc. etc.). Yes, they are obvious ideas, but not anything that had occurred to me prior to reading about them in the books. In other words, the books may be too elementary for an experienced crafter, but they are perfect for someone like me (and my girls).

The same cannot be said of Kids Create!: Art & Craft Experiences for 3- To 9-Year-Olds (Williamson Kids Can! Series). I bought it because it got good reviews at Amazon, but I should have focused on the fact that the book clearly said that it is for "3 to 9 year-olds". Yes, my kids are 4 and 7, so they are within that age group, but clearly the book is geared towards the younger children. That doesn't mean that it doesn't have a few projects I want to do (making sculpting dough, marbled paper and paper beads), but most of the projects result in pretty useless items (e.g. a photo puppet, a crystal garden or a walking snake). It might be amusing for little kids to make these things, but once made they will be thrown out or stored forever. The Crafty Girl books, instead, have projects for things that we can use or give away as gifts.

I have ordered another book, The Crafty Diva's D.I.Y. Stylebook: A Grrrl's Guide to Cool Creations You Can Make, Show Off, and Share, but it hadn't arrived yet. I'll write about it as soon as I go through it.

And this is it, I swear. No more books, no more crafts (beyond those in our kits and the books). My obsessions are pretty strong, but don't last too long - and I don't want to end up with lots of things I'll never use again.

Last weekend, I got a bunch of beads and old jewelry at the flea market. I thought I might get more today, but there was nothing of the sort to be found - instead, I lucked out and got a scrapbook kit for $5 (including an album) and some extra scrapbooking supplies (cut outs, stickers, etc.) for $1. Now the girls are scrapbooking, and I'm too tired from going to the flea market and then to Michael's (where they have a sale on acrylic paint) to actually do anything with or without them :-)

Yesterday I got a couple of junior backpacks that I'd ordered from woot.com a while ago. They were $5 each (+shipping) and I couldn't let the deal go. Today Camila and I started decorating hers, and this evening Mika joined up. Alas, now that her backpack is all done, she's mortified that the children at school will think she is weird for having decorated it. *sigh*

Anyway, here are their works of art. We used shells and pearls from the jewelry bag I got at the flea market a week ago, and wood letters, ribbons, feathers and flowers that we got from freecycle. We used regular glue and E6000 Jewelry Adhesive, which was recommended to me as a "glue everything" glue. I hope the decorations won't fall :-)

Camila's Backpack

Mika's Backpack

*Update*. Mika did take her newly decorated backpack to school the next day, and the kids liked it. So now she's happy to take it every day.

The Crafty Diva's D.I.Y. Stylebook: A Grrrl's Guide to Cool Creations You Can Make, Show Off, and Share is the lattest - and last - craft book that I got. It arrived yesterday and at first glace I wasn't too happy with it. Most of the projects required buying pre-made items and decorating them - which could be expensive and doesn't require as much crafting as I'd like. For example, instructions for a "powder puff fluff" involve buying white baby powder, putting it in a jar and decorating the jar and brush. Not too exciting.

But I looked at it more carefully today, going through the book and making a list of the crafts I want to do, and I found a surprisingly large number of these - about 12. Yes, some just involve decorating an item I have or can buy (e.g. making a treasure box by covering a wooden box with fabric & decorating it - I hadn't thought of the fabric part, and I think these can make very good boxes for the jewelry we are going to make as Xmas gifts). But others are a bit more involved and interesting: making photo key chains, a "charades in a can" game and a pant leg purse (great idea, as Mika's jeans are pretty much disintegrating). Alas, for most of these projects I will have to buy stuff. But hey, as long as we do stuff together, right? :-)

As for today, they're having a playdate at home and I think I'll finally try making "quicksand" - a mixture of cornstarch and water that seems solid when you quickly and forcibly press on it, but becomes viscous if you slowly introduce your finger in it. Very cool. I may also try to make sculpting dough from water - though I'm somewhat doubtful that will work.

Our craft for yesterday and today has been making greeting cards. I've been thinking about making them for a while, but I was finally prompted by the card project in The Crafty Diva's D.I.Y. Stylebook. Of course, decorating greeting cards is very easy - the ideas that I got from the book were to use cards that we had around, instead of creating them out of hard paper, and make a little raised area in the front, by pasting colored paper on thick (or doubled-up) cardboard and then decorating with a sticker. I think it looks quite nice.

The cards I used were those I got from a stationary set I got at Costco many years ago. The set came in a beautiful wooden box, which I want to use for other stuff anyway. I still have the letter paper, however, and it's a mystery what I'm going to do with it (maybe freecycle?).

In any case, the kids weren't as excited about the raised-surface idea and they decorated the cards as they wished. Below is a picture of their (and my) creations:

I didn't grow up in the US, so "shrinky dinks" were not part of my childhood. Indeed, until people started mentioning them as a possible "craft" for my kids, I didn't know anything at all about them. Everyone whom I talked to about them thought they were great for kids, so I got a box of Shrinky Dinks Cool Gear by Faber and Castell.

I didn't bother to look at what came in the box, but it was rather disappointing: 5 sheets of shrinky dinks (about 30 images, I think), 8 small color pencils, two keyrings, one super-cheapy chain, one plastic cord and 8 shells. There was also a small hole puncher and some self-sticking magnets. So basically you can make 4 "gear" type of items, a bunch of magnets and have a few shrinky dinks left over. That seems quite little for $15. After doing some more looking around in Amazon (after I ordered :-( ) I found some better deals, like Shrinky Dinks Jewelry by Alex, which include more images and more play items - and is substantially cheaper. Well, live and learn.

One other thing to keep in mind when ordering this set is that the drawings are the type that would be likely to appeal to boys more than to girls (race cars, sports equipment, etc.). Still, my girls did not seem to notice, though they did chose to color the more gender-neutral images first.

As for the craft itself, it's a good way to spend a few minutes - coloring the picture, baking them, waiting for them to cool down and then affixing them to something. But there isn't that much entertainment value for the price - the kids were amused at seeing the large pictures turn into such little things, but they probably enjoyed the coloring most of all. In all, it just was not worth the $15 or so that I paid for the kit :-(

One toy that was worth its price was Sculpey clay. We got the Sculpey III Multipack - Bright Ideas, which comes with 10 different colors of clay, very bright colors. It also retails for about $15, but we bought it at Joann with a 50% off coupon. Still, given how much fun my kids had with it, it would have been worth the full price.

Basically, sculpey is clay - as in playdough type clay. It starts off a little hard, but after you roll it and handle it a bit, it becomes as plyable as play dough. The advantage is that you can also bake it and harden it - so you can make everything from a bead to a sculpture out of it. Of course, what you end up with is mostly linked to your particular sculptural talent - which doesn't run very high in my family. But the important part is that the kids had a great time playing with the dough and expressing their creativity.

Now, if it was up to me I would have chosen more muted colors, but of course, it's for the kids and they like stuff that's bright. Still, they followed my lead and made beads and pendants (and some figurines), which we'll turn into necklaces tomorrow and thus extend the fun :-)

I got Alex Toys Paint Ice Beads and Jingle Jewelry Kit, after the kids and I made a couple of necklaces with the Girlfitti Magna Style Jewelry Kit which my mother got for the girls. They enjoyed that kit, so I thought they would like these as well.

And indeed, they did. They loved painting the "ice" (a.k.a. glass) beads in the first kit, and they loved the idea of jingle jewelry in the second kit. But... they weren't too big on making the jewelry itself. The beads that come with the kits are very small, and the possibilities for creativity, at least with the ice set, are limited. So they haven't gone beyond painting beads on that set.

We fared even worse with the Jingle Jewelry Kit. The first problem was that the kit didn't have any written instructions as to how to make the jewelry, just drawings of the steps. Alas, if you've never made jewelry before the steps could seem puzzling. But beyond that, using the jingles means having to knot the cord in precise places before and after putting specific beads - not an easy endeavor for me, much less for two little girls who barely know how to tie knots. Let's just say that the enthusiasm for the kits did not last very long.

In all, now that I have gotten more beads, those two kits seem rather expensive for what they are (but that's true of all of Alex's kits). Still, the kids liked painting those beads so much that I'll try to find some transparent beads for them to paint.

I haven't been "beading" for very long, but soon after I bought our first jewelery kits I lost the beading needles that came with them. It's quite hard to put small beads into thread without a beading needle, so I hurried to buy some more.

There were several choices at Michaels, a craft chain store near us, and some how I lucked out and got the Beadalon Collapsible Eye Needles. I LOVE them. So far, I've pretty much been able to bead anything I've wanted using them. The eyes collapse, so it mostly doesn't matter how small the hole in the bead is (but be weary and don't try to force it, I did get a needle to break while trying to pass it through too small a hole).

There are a couple of minuses, however. For one, they're expensive!, up to $4 for a 4-pack. For the other, they are VERY easy to lose. I already lost 3 of the 4 that came in my last package. They are so thin that it's almost impossible to see them once they fall into the floor.

Anyway, I'm sold by them.

As anyone who has kept up with my crafting blogs knows, I obsess. It doesn't matter really what I obsess about, I'll find something on which to focus all my free-moment-energies and there it is. After crafts in general, and then craft books, the newest thing has been beads. I started with the jewelry set I got at the flea market, I went on to looking for beads on Amazon (but not buying any), and about 2 weeks ago I moved to ebay. The problem with e-bay is that the sellers make it too easy for you, many of them include free shipping, and some auctions start quite low (as in one cent). Indeed, it was one of those one-cent auctions which got me. It was for a single Murano Glass Bead. What do I want with one bead? Who knows! But it was one cent, free shipping, and it was just too easy to buy it. I'm sad to say that there were dozens of more bids following that first one, and I've actually bought 32 (yes, that's not a misprint) items. I don't even know what those items are (beads and pendants, I assume), but I know that I have to quit! Now, someone take me to e-bay (or is it beadaholics?) anonymous.

Well, my first purchase came today. It's a strand of 8mm white freshwater pearls, 55 in all. I've never had "real" pearls before, so I can't really evaluate how good they are. They are definitely not all perfectly round, many seem more oval-shaped than round, and many of them have markings or some imperfection or another, but I guess it's a way of telling that they are "real" instead of just "plastic". In any case, I paid $5 for the strand (including shipping), so I wasn't expecting museum quality. It took the pearls 10 days to arrive from Hong Kong, which really isn't bad.

Yesterday I got some more beads I had ordered on e-bay. They are supposed to be black agate and azurite. To tell you the truth I'm not convinced that the beads sold on e-bay (almost exclusively from China/Hong Kong) are what they say they are. I suspect that they may be artificial, some sort of resin. But knowing absolutely nothing about rocks, I don't have a way of really knowing. So, to make myself feel better, I'll just go on assuming they are "real".

I've been thinking what to do with the pearls I got the other day, and decided that I wanted to match them with the black agate. I ended up making the necklace below and I'm very, very happy with it. I think it looks even better in person, and I'll definitely wear it with dressy clothing. The necklace is supposed to be Mika's, I bought the pearls for her, as she always wanted something "real" - but I think it looks too grown up for her. I may try to make her another one with the azurite, which is greenish, or just pretend it's hers but wear it myself :-)

In all, I've found that beading is quite relaxing, in particular when following a pattern. I think that must be why people like knitting as well.

I've ordered a bunch of findings (as the metal parts that hold jewelry together are called) through e-bay, but most of them are coming from China, so it'll be a while before I get them. Meanwhile I was in need of more clasps, fishhooks (for earrings), crimp beads and so forth. I figured buying a findings set would be the cheapest option - specially given the 40% off coupon always available at Michaels. Well, I was wrong. The Precious Accents collection is soooo bad that I'd have been better off just waiting.

The collection, even with the coupon, is not particularly cheap - almost $7 after tax. It comes with a little of everything, emphasis on the little. But what is annoying is just how cheap all the findings are, made from such weak metal. The clasps are hard to open (and I'm sure they'll quickly break), the hoops are too small and the pins very fragile. I hope the stuff I get from China is better :-)

Mika, my 7.5 yo, is selling the first necklace she designed and made all by herself. It's made of azurite and copper (I think) and it's much nicer than the picture shows. Indeed, I wanted it for myself but she is "saving" to buy herself a DS, or a dog or a TV (it changes by the minute) and she seems to prefer the money to her mommy. The necklace is 22" long and it's quite well made for someone her age. As I said, I'd like it for myself. She wants $10 for it (plus shipping if you're not in San Leandro).

If this doesn't work I'll probably try etsy, but then I'd have to create an account :-(

Over a decade ago, on my way back from some activity in some European country, I had layover at Heathrow, where I chanced about the British Museum Store (which is now online at http://www.britishmuseumshoponline.org/). There I found a "Fun with Amulet" kit, which allows you to make all sorts of Egyptian amulets with clay. I got it for my sister, who was then a teenager.

Apparently she didn't like it, because she doesn't seemed to have opened it - but she kept it and this year gave it to Camila for Xmas. We finally opened it today and I'm surprised at how well the clay kept, and how cool the kit is.

In reality, the kit is very simple. It has a mold with different amulet shapes, 3 rather small clay bars, a few backings for the amulets (to make into pins, earrings, etc.) and a little booklet. But the girls had fun making the amulets (though I had to help, specially with the smaller ones) and I think they may even wear them. Well, maybe (Mika doesn't believe in magic or amulets, and thus sees no point in having them, or so she said today).

In all, I'm quite happy that I bought the kit and that my sister kept it all these years :-)

BTW, the kit is available through some sellers at Amazon. I thought it was quite expensive at first (about $30 after shipping), but I probably paid just as much when I bought it and I think it's really worth it giving how cool it is.

Update We are throwing an Ancient Egyptian party for Mika's 8th birthday and the kit is coming very handy. I'm making ankh necklaces for everyone and small scarabs to put with the invitations. I will probably use some of the other amulets as part of the scavenger hunt.

Update 2.

While I love the amulets we made, they are *very* fragile, both those I made with the enclosed clay and those that came with the Sculpey clay I bought. None of the keychains we made survived purses or pockets, and some of the ankh necklaces we made broke already (I'm making extra for the party). I think the problem is that they are too thin - or am I underbaking them?

The amulets we made:

I bought the Style Six Color Effects Airbrush for Mika (my 8yo) for Xmas. I wanted to branch out a little from silk screening and I thought she would enjoy this different way of decorating t-shirts. Well, she did, but the product itself was a total failure.

This kit consists of four airbrush markers, a few stencils and a machine which blows air - you put the markers on it and supposedly use it to spray the paint onto whatever fabric surface you want. Alas, the machine doesn't work at all. It's pretty much impossible to make any paint come out of the markers by using it - it just doesn't blow enough air. Now, the markers work quite well if you put them in your mouth and blow through them - and that Mika enjoyed during very much - but it's ridiculous to pay $24 for 4 miserly markers and a few cheapy stencils. The markers don't last very long either - they were enough to make about 3 (well covered) shirts.

To add insult to injury the refill is super expensive (about $19 after shipping for 3 markers) and not easy to find.

So, heed my advise and do not buy this product.

I'm throwing Mika an Ancient Egypt theme 8th birthday party, and I've been having some difficulty finding Ancient Egyptian crafts online or books on Ancient Egyptian crafts on Amazon. However, I was easily able to find four such books at the library, and I figured I'd blog about them for anyone in the same boat.

Egyptian Crafts from the Past by Gillian Chapman is an older book (1997) that concentrates mostly on cardboard based crafts. The crafts include: boxes (rectangular, tubal and pyramid shaped) with Ancient Egyptian motifs, clay/papier mache sarcophagus, clay/plaster scarabs, plaster relief, board game, cat mummy, reed boat, pasta jewelry, cardboard amulets, papier mache canopic jars, mirrors and make up boxes. The crafts are in the challenging side and several require materials that we don't have at home (reeds, plaster, tubes with plastic stopper), but several look very cool and there are things I'd actually like to make. I'm just not sure we have the skills to make them. The book is beautifully illustrated with color photographs of the crafts and step-by-step drawings.

History and Activities of Ancient Egypt by Alexandra Fix includes an easy to read introduction about Egyptian life and fun as well as a few crafts: a recipe for date sweets, a fake papyrus recipe (made from a paper bag), a papier mache ushabti, and a senet game with instructions on how to play it. I think I'll try the papyrus recipe and perhaps the ushabti. The book is illustrated with color photographs of the crafts and step-by-step drawings.

Ancient Egyptians and Their Neighbors: An Activity Guide has crafts from Ancient Egypt, as well as from Mesopotamia, Nubia and the Hittites. After an introduction to Ancient Egypt, it goes into several projects like a sugar-cube step pyramid, a tissue box garden, pillowcase costumes, a toilet roll bracelet and a clay necklace. There are short chapters on Ancient Egyptian writing, work, food and religion each with a craft or too. The crafts are illustrated with simple black & white drawings, but in general they seem simpler than those from the previous books.

The Ancient Egyptians: Dress, Eat, Write, and Play Just Like the Egyptians is full of simple, somewhat tackier crafts. These include making a paper crown, a plastic straw boat, checkedboard papyrus from regular paper, a cardboard senet game, a recipe for ful medames, a felt and plastic bead colar (which actually looks cool, but it'd probably be a pain to get the necessary beads), a yogurt cup water clock (seems cool too), a clay winged scarab and a cardboard sistrum (which I'd like to make if I can find small bells).

There are two more books, Great Ancient Egypt Projects You Can Build Yourself and Spend the Day in Ancient Egypt: Projects and Activities That Bring the Past to Life that you can buy at Amazon that were not available at our library, but that get good reviews at Amazon.

I think I have enough with what I have and I look forward to go through the books with Mika and find some crafts we can make before and during the party. I'll blog about the ones we do and how successful we are.

I just got a package of Sparkle Floam at Grocery Outlet for $2 (it sells in Amazon for $4.60) and Mika had a great time playing with it. She made a "cover" for her cell phone and loved how it looked. Of course, this is a non-functioning cell-phone :-)

I'm not sure if the floam is supposed to dry and permanently stick to whatever surface you put it on, I really don't care either way, but it would have been nice if it came with instructions on how to use it.

Mika and her floam phone

One of the activities I have planned for Mika's 8th Birthday Ancient Egyptian party is decorating t-shirts. For that purpose, I got a couple of booklets of Ancient Egyptian stencils at Amazon.com and some Tulip Fashion Spray Paint at Michael's. The booklets were Fun with Egyptian Stencils booklet which I got as part of the Exploring Ancient Egypt Fun Kit I bought at Amazon, and Fun with Egyptian Symbols Stencils. So far I have only used the first booklet, and I'm quite happy.

The stencils are quite small, each sheet is about 5.4" x 4". The sheets are laminated and they cleaned up quite well (though we'll see how many clean ups they can stand). They are, of course, too small for spray painting if used by themselves - but I cut out a rectangle the size of the stencil in the middle of a cardboard sheet, then taped the stencil there, and it worked quite well to shield the rest of the spraying surface.

I'm also happy with the paint. The kids had some difficulties making it spray rather than just blot, but I think it was a matter of applying the right pressure to the pump and having it at an adequate distance from the surface. I think the kids at the party will figure it out.

Both Mika and Camila were quite happy with the results. Mika painted a t-shirt she had with the ankhs and Camila just tried it on a piece of paper-cloth we had around. I got white t-shirts for the party, so I think it'll work even better.

The kids and I just spent a while scrapbooking and organizing our supplies - and I've realized how much I've come to appreciate printing our own pictures. We're not the kind of people who get pictures printed in the first place, so we don't usually have many around to scrapbook with. Indeed, most of the printed pictures of the kids I have are the ones my mother has sent us.

But I do want us to have more recent pictures to use, and now we can print them affordably using the photo paper available at the Dollar Tree. The paper comes in two sizes: 8 8.5 x 11 sheets (which you can use to print 1 8x10, 2 5x7 or 4x6, 4 3.5x5 or 9 wallet size pictures) or 20 4 x 6 sheets. I personally prefer the 3.5 x 5 size for scrapbooking (if for no other reason than the frames I have are those sizes), so the larger sheets are more convenient for me - or they would be, if I was able to cut straight! Well, the frames hide the imperfections. I calculate that combining the cost of the paper and printing, I'm probably spending 4 to 5 cents per 3.5x5" print and 7 cents per 4x6 print. That's really not bad at all. Of course, my calculations might be off :-)

What really surprises me is the quality of the prints. The paper is glossy and the prints look great - specially considering our low end printer. Of course, I don't know how they'll hold long term.

Today Mike was late on taking Camila to daycare, which gave us some extra time for mommy-Camila time. We used it working on the Orb Factory Sticky Mosaics Jewelry Box, which I got Camila for Christmas. All in all, it's been one of the best toys I've gotten her. For some reason, she loves sticking the mosaics (they are self-adhesive) on the little numbered squares on the box, and seeing the bright images appear. This is a task that she takes on (with mommy along) for a while, then she puts away, only to take it on again a few weeks later. Thus, it's four months after Christmas and she still hasn't finished it. But that's cool, as it means she still has more to do when it fancies her.

The results are quite nice. We only have one side to go (and probably not enough tiles, as they've gotten lost all over the house in the last months), but the sides that are ready are quite pretty. I think Camila is looking forward to using it as a jewelry box in the future (for all the jewelry mommy makes her and she never wears).

I'm thinking that I'll probably get her the fairy mosaic box, from the same company, next Christmas.

Mika, my 8-year-old, got the Project Runway Fashion Design Projector Kit from her step-grandmother for Xmas. She played with it when she just got it, then put away for several months, and got it out again this morning. I have to admit that it was quite fun.

The kit comes with a projector and a slides with sample shirts/pants/skirts/shoes/bags/etc. You place the projected images on top of pieces of papers with lightly drawn body figures (these come with the kit), trace over the images and then decorate the clothing as you'd like. There are a few more things on the kit to make it more fun - as well as a "challange" game, in which each player spins a wheel to find out what piece to design, in what style and in how much time - while competing against other players. Of course, the competition aspect is not great when you have sore losers in your family, but it would be fun for more mature players.

This kit is perfect for an 8-year-old girl or older (I even enjoyed it), but I think it wouldn't work so well for a younger girl.

It's not cheap, but if your girl is into fashion design, this is probably a great way for her to pass her time.