Wood Spelling Blocks: A Homemade Christmas

I challenged myself about a month ago to make as many homemade gifts as I could for my children this year. We have a tradition in our little family to do 3 Gifts of Christmas.  Gift of Meaning, Gift of Usefulness and the Gift of Wonder.  The stocking is not included and can be filled with as many fun things that will fit :)  That is where my homemade challenge falls into place here. I have made several stocking stuffers for my 3 kids and this is the next on the list to show you.

Wood Spelling Blocks

in uppercase and lowercase letters

I bought some wood blocks and stamped on letters on every side of the blocks as well as a few pictures.

I stamped the cute drawstring bags as well, for easy storage.

Let the spelling begin!

 Make sure to check out my other Homemade Christmas Items on my blog!

Photo Book.....Gift of meaning 2011

 Take a look inside my daughters Gift of Meaning for this year:

 What almost 5 year old would not love a picture book of pictures full of themselves with the people that they love the most?!  Believe me, mine will love this I am sure.  She not only is a lover of books, but loves pictures too.

 The hardest part of putting this together was going through 5 years of pictures.  whew, it was hard but I did it. I had this made at Wal Mart dot com and it only took 2 days to get here....delivered right to my front door.  Perfect!!

(I could not get this done any sooner for I wanted pictures of her with her new baby brother inside. So I appreciated how fast it came.)

 I also love how you can personalize it with fun notes inside too.  

Hurry up, you only have 11 days until Christmas.   

Are you ready? 

 I am!!

You can find my other Gifts of Meaning by searching them on my blog.

Little Shopping Play Totes

I made these cute little shopping totes to go with the

PLAY KITCHEN I finished a month ago.

They are such a fun little accessory to go with all the play food.

front side:

I found a pack of totes at Joann's using a coupon, then I just drew on these pictures using Elmer's Painters (the same things I used for my Quiet Book), heat set them with an iron and they were ready to go in just a few minutes.

Back side:

Top 5 posts of 2009

Here are your 5 most favorite posts of the year! I hope this will continue to inspire you as much as I am inspired by all of you.  Thank you all so much for your comments and ideas that you have shared with me.  It is amazing to be a part of all the talent out there and I look forward to even more during this new year.  HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

#5  Fridge magnet makeover

#4 Fabric Wall Hangings

#3 Reusable Shopping Bag Makeover

#2 Cheap Chip Board Book Makeover

#1 My Quiet Book

There are many many more posts that have been favorites of yours, just take a look on the side column of my blog for a long list of projects and have fun finding the projects that you are looking for!  Again, thank you for letting me share all of this with you!

Here is to even a better year for all of us!

Easy File Folder Games and more...

I LOVE the teacher supply store!! There are sooooo many possibilities there for so many different things. And you don't have to be a teacher to make the things usable for you or your kids. I found these 2 posters and turned them into several things, including file folder games for my kids. Super cute and very inexpensive.

I also found a very old calendar that I had laying around my house from several years ago (don't ask me why I had saved it in the first place but for this it was great??) and I turned that into a file folder game as well.

Here they are: 4 different games. Laminated and ready for use.

With the left over objects from the posters I made a game for the kids. They can close their eyes, reach into the bag and draw a color, then they have 15 seconds to run and find something in that color. (this can be played in the house, or out in the yard or this would even work in the car) This teaches them so many good things about colors and objects and it's fun too.





For the other left over pieces of the other poster I cut out the words and laminated them. I LOVE this Poster Putty!!! Works great when you can't put up permanent things on your walls. I also used this putty to decorate my kids bathroom!

And in my daughters room, I have made a learning station for her. This alphabet poster was also a great find at the teacher supply store!! How fun is that!!

So 2 posters, costing $3 made 4 file folder games, 1 game and a learning station. Not bad if I say so myself. I'll be visiting the teacher supply store more often for ideas and projects!!

Fabric scrap memory game

Once again I found a great use for all those little fabric scraps that I find myself holding on too. I turned them into a game. These are perfect for church, or the doctors office or other places you go where the activity needs to be on the quiet side or you need to take the game home and wash them.

I made two sets.... I just couldn't narrow down my scrap pile enough so I made double the fun.





I used heat n bond on the 2x2" squares on the one side and adhered it to the white fabric. The finished squares measure slightly larger then 4x4". I sewed right sides together on the 4x4" squares, turned them inside out and then sewed around them to close up the open side. I decided not to put batting in between only because I wanted it to pack smaller in my purse BUT you surely could add some if you wanted.
Simple, fast and washable!!!

Quiet Book Pages.....you asked for them!

After posting my first look into my kids Quiet book back in April, I have been asked be several wonderfully nice people to please show the rest of my pages. I was happy too. Here they are. I hope this will help you come up with some other ideas for your Quiet book.

Have a great Monday everyone!

Please look at my April 27, 2009 post for the rest of the ideas on this Quiet Book!

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Quiet Book Ideas

Before I begin let me just say that I LOVED putting this quiet book together for my kids and only MY KIDS!! (it was a lot of hard work, late nights and miles onto the sewing machine)

So with that being said, I want to share with you the things that I came up with to make this possible so you can make your kids a QB. Hope these ideas help:

I used these painters faithfully.....they worked great and they come in all sorts of different colors. Just follow the instructions on the package.

I am NO artist my any means...therefore I thank the coloring books I already had to inspire me!!









On some of the pages I traced them right onto the fabric....

And for others I just used the picture and TRIED to draw my own or it gave me a great idea for a certain page.

And for some pages I used cookie cutters to trace the outline of animals.

I added a few games and activities as well.

I made a simple cover...... and no I did not attach the pages to the cover. What happens when you have several kids who all want to look at the book at the same time??? This is what my mother did for us when I was growing up-we each could work on a page at the same time and it really helped keep us more QUIET.

Some other supplies that I used were:

muslin for the pages

pellon in between the pages for extra strength

bias tape for the edges of the pages

buttons, snaps, Velcro for the pieces

flannel and ribbon for the cover

knee patches used to add strength to the back of the pieces

felt....a lot of felt!!
** each page is double sided, I made some easier pages as well as some harder pages since the kids are different ages

I sure hope this helps give you a few ideas for your own QB,

and remember, after all the hours it takes to put it together..... the kids will have even more fun using it.

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Please look at my May 11, 2009 post for a picture of all the pages!