Karate
Posted: November 20, 2011 Filed under: family | Tags: baby, bad time, black belt, colic, karate, little brother, pram, rice cereal Leave a comment »I should tell you all that crafti baby has colic and as a result usually screams for most of the afternoons until he finally goes to bed. (Sometimes its all day long!)
Crafti daddy’s little brother is 10 years old and has just recently had grading for his last level of brown belt in Karate. Anyone who knows karate knows that you should be 12 before you can get a black belt but as he has done so well he will be allowed on to the first level of black only while he is still only 10 years old provided he passes of course. We are all so very proud of him and were excited to go along to see him grading.
So we arrive at the karate hall and proceed to unload the kids. I get out crafti girl and tell her to stay in a designated car free zone that I just placed her in and proceed to wrestle the pram out of the boot. While I am struggling with our awesome gigantic pram that barely fits in our boot crafti daddy is trying to get crafti baby out and crafti baby is already starting to sook.
We finally manage to unload the kids and head across the road to the karate hall.
Crafti daddy’s mum is there and she greets us as crafti baby starts to get rather cranky.
While students are grading for their karate levels everyone is asked to keep noise to a minimum so before I can enter the hall with crafti baby I have to get him to stop crying.
Crafti baby has colic and as a result screams every afternoon (sometimes all day long) and it is 4pm that the grading is started and we are running a little late so it’s a very bad time of day for him no matter where we are.
I go thru the motions. First I try him with some rice cereal.
Crafti baby isn’t very keen on rice cereal. Turns out he in fact doesn’t like it but this was only his 3rd ever feed and it was what I started him on.
No success. Option 2 – a bottle.
Nope he doesn’t want that either. Everyone else went into the hall ages ago and all I can do is try to peer in and see something but everyone is sitting in my line of view so that doesn’t work.
By this stage I’m starting to doubt that I’ll get to see any of the grading.
I go for the last resort and give crafti baby his cuddle blankie and pop a dummy in his mouth.
As if by some miracle he calms down instantly and snuggles his blankie tight.
Awesome! I finally get to watch the grading and its nearly time for the brown belts so I haven’t missed it!
I take crafti baby inside and sit down in a chair to get comfortable and watch the gradings.
So much for that idea he starts screaming the moment my backside hit the chair.
I get up and run back out of the hall as quickly as I possibly can without dropping or tripping over everything and continue trying to settle crafti baby.
I spent the entire time pacing around outside the hall trying to get crafti baby to sleep. It was so much fun.
Even though I did not get to see it myself crafti daddy’s brother did in fact pass his last level of brown belt and will be trying for his black belt in one month at the age of 10! We are all so very proud of him.
My 3yr old, my hero
Posted: November 5, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »Most of the time my 3yr old is trying to push the boundaries and consequently throwing tantrums when she crosses the line. However I believe I am doing a good job raising her to be compassionate and look out for others because sometimes she will do something that makes me really smile and laugh at how she tries to help.
The other day we had an incident that proves my point and will hopefully illustrate what I mean.
(My drawings are really crappy as I am pressed for time and frankly couldn’t be bothered doing really ellaborate ones today.)
It’s just before 6am. Crafti baby has already been awake for an hour and had a feed and is settled in the rocker watching me fold the laundry. Crafti girl is sitting on the couch watching cartoons and crafti daddy is about to leave for work.
I am folding one of crafti girl’s shirts and before I get a chance to say goodbye to crafti daddy I feel something crawl across my hand.
I look down and realise it’s a spider.
I jump up, throw the shirt, sprint to the kitchen and scream all within about 0.02 of a second!
Crafti daddy is in the kitchen and I run to him for safety.
His first reaction is:
Crafti daddy knows straight away due to my scream. It is a very distinct scream I reserve for those terrible eight legged freaks and everyone who knows me can pick it.
So crafti daddy lovingly obliges to rescue me and goes to investigate. Crafti baby was a little startled when I screamed but is fine now and quite happy to see crafti daddy whilst crafti girl is getting extremely excited.
After I tell crafti daddy what it is and he still can’t find it he realises he is now running late and gets into a huff. He comes back into the kitchen and kisses me and tries to calm me down.
As I’m waving goodbye to crafti daddy crafti girl runs past me and grabs one of her gumboots.
Crafti girl is going to save me from the spider that crafti daddy didn’t get. I know it’s safe now so I let her go for it.
She runs back into the lounge room and picks up the shirt that the spider was originally on and starts whacking it with the boot with all her might.
After she freaks me out a little by how badly she wanted to kill the spider she runs back over to me and gives me a cuddle.
All the fear and paranoia that I have been feeling about the spider dissapears for a second and I melt at how beautiful my daughter is.
Crafti girl saved me from the spider and for that she is my 3yr old hero.
I can’t wait til crafti girl’s older and she can protect me from them for real.
Have your kids ever tried to protect you from something?
Bathing the Kids
Posted: November 4, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »Bath time in our house involves bathing 3yr old Crafti Girl and 11wk old Crafti Baby. It is somewhat of a mission that I don’t enjoy most days and I’ll show you why…
So every afternoon at about 5pm its bath time in our house.
It’s at 5pm because this is the time when both the kids turn feral. Crafti Girl is bouncing off the walls and Crafti Baby is screaming.
With much skill I manage to round them up and take them into the bathroom.
I sit crafti baby on my knee and start to run the bath. And this is what happens:
Crafti girl is usually wearing something that requires me to help her get undressed which can be quite a mission with crafti baby on my knee.
By this stage I’m already frustrated because it’s been a long day and I don’t feel like wrestling with my 3yr old to try and get her clothes off whilst holding crafti baby. But I have to. After struggling to get crafti girl’s clothes off I tell her:
Finally when crafti girl gets into the bath I go and undress crafti baby.
Crafti baby finds this very annoying as he just wants to get in the bath. He doesn’t want to get undressed first but unforunately it doesn’t work that way so I have to endure being screamed at while undressing him. Which is starting to make me just a little cranky now.
I wrap crafti baby in his towel and he immediately stops screaming as he’s realised its time to get in the bath.
I take a deep breath.We go into the bathroom and I put crafti baby in with crafti girl.
Crafti girl just loves the bath too and loves to help out with crafti baby too. Unfortunantely this turns into her splashing water all over crafti baby while I’m trying to wash the both of them becuase she is trying to help wet crafti baby like I do.
All the calmness that my deep breathing just achieved is gone and I’m trying to protect crafti baby whilst not going completely mental at crafti girl.
Finally the kids are both clean and it’s time to get out.
Crafti baby hates getting out of the bath too and screams as soon as he is lifted out of the water. I wrap him up and put him over my shoulder. I do this because it makes it easier to dry crafti girl but at the same time I am actually putting his mouth right beside my ear so the deafening screams feel a million times louder and create an instant pounding in my head!
On top of this while trying to dry crafti girl she always insists that I “Smell her hair” or look at an owie somewhere. Ok. Now I’m getting cranky again and I’ve still gotta dress them yet.
We manage to make it to crafti baby’s room and I dry him off and powder up the kids. They both love powder. I’ve been using it ever since crafti girl was born and now it creates a huge mess as trying to powder up a 3yr old standing and moving around isn’t the easiest thing in the world. I start to calm a little because at least crafti baby is happy now but my nerves are still on eggshells.
Crafti baby is all dressed now and we head into crafti girl’s room. I place crafti baby on her bed and begin to dress crafti girl. As soon as I turn my attention away from crafti baby he starts screaming again! My nerves are shot. I’m exhausted and I just want to curl up and go to bed.
Guess what?
We have it all to look forward to again tomorrrow!
Paper Streamers
Posted: November 1, 2011 Filed under: craft | Tags: craft, paper, streamers Leave a comment »A really quick and easy way to make some cool decorations is to make some Paper Streamers.
I learnt how to make these way back in year 1 or 2. It was that long ago I can’t remember when but I have a very vivid memory of making them. When we made them at primary school we made them by tearing strips out of magazines. For these ones I have instead used coloured paper as it looks prettier.
You can use all different coloured papers to make the streamers to make them to suit a certain theme you have in mind. You could use red and green for christmas, orange and black for halloween or multi-coloured for a party the choices are as endless as your imagination.
You will need: Coloured paper of your choice, a Stapler, a Ruler and some Blu-tak.
Step 1: Place the ruler on top of the paper roughly about an inch from the smallest edge. Tear the paper to create a strip that is roughly an inch wide. There is no need to mark out the paper perfectly-near enough is good enough for this-even if one is bigger then the others by the itme it is finished no one can tell.
Step 2: Take one strip of paper and loop it around so the edges overlap about 1cm and it creates a circle shape. Staple it where the overlap is to create a circle of paper.
Step 3: Take another strip of paper and put it through the circle you just made. Loop it around whilst still through the circle and overlap the edges about 1cm again. Staple the edges together where the overlap is. You should now have 2 circles looped together.
Step 4: Repeat step 3 over and over until you have a length of paper circles that you are happy with.
Step 5: Using Blu-Tak simply stick the decorations up wherever you like.
You have to try this. They work up so quickly its not funny and they look great. Plus being paper they are able to be stuck anywhere with blu-tak making them much more versatile then other commercial decorations that you can buy.
We currently have heaps of them hanging around in multi-coloured and red and green as Christmas is coming and its much better then hanging tinsel everywhere and a lot less mess too!
The Christmas Tree
Posted: October 31, 2011 Filed under: family | Tags: christmas, christmas tree, family, family tradition Leave a comment »Every second Sunday I take the two kids grocery shopping. This Sunday was the day before halloween but because we are in Australia and not America when we walked into the shop there was christmas decorations everywhere – already! Now anyone who is a parent knows how difficult it can be to contain a child’s excitement when they stumble upon the joys of christmas coming again. Crafti Girl is 3 and this is the first year that she remembers Santa and really truly is grasping the concept of christmas and its very exciting!
Upon spotting the decorations and jumping up and down in hysterics over seeing a blow up Santa Crafti Girl just about begs me to get a christmas tree.
Its the first time Crafti Girl has ever asked me to get a christmas tree and its Crafti Baby’s first christmas this year too so I give in. Sure why not? It’ll be fun putting up the tree together when we get home and I suppose it won’t hurt if its just a little bit early. It is almost November after all.
So we finally get home after an exciting few hours picking out our decorations and doing the groceries. I get out all the decorations that we brought today which are purple and silver and get Crafti Daddy to go dig out the christmas tree we brought in the post christmas sales last year. He brings it out and its a 6ft tree. Awesome this is gonna look great with our decorations!
I start to put the base of the tree together and ask Crafti Girl to help me pull out all the branchy thingys. But thats not what she wants to do she wants to put all the “pretty” decorations on only.
Okay so I’m not going to argue with a 3 year old. I want to have fun putting this tree up not deal with a tantrum so I let it go and decide to just put the tree up and then get her to put all the decorations on after.
When I’m finally done pulling out the gazillion and one branchy thingys and making it look somewhat like a christmas tree Crafti Girl gets really excited and runs over to start helping me put all the “pretty” decorations on.
This IS fun! We are decorating the christmas tree together and spending quality time creating a family tradition.
We happily go about placing the decorations on the tree for the next 5 minutes when Crafti Girl proclaims to me that we are done.
What?! It’s only been 5 whole minutes! I’m not letting her give up this quickly, especially not after I just spent the last half an hour putting the stupid tree up so we could decorate it together like she has been talking about all day long! So I gently try reminding her about how the christmas trees in the shop that we saw had much more decorations on them and thats how we want our tree to look.
All I get is a blank stare.
Then she turns and runs away saying “Bye.”
She’s gone to see Crafti Daddy putting up the fairy lights outside instead.
Hmmpfh. What a disappointment. Now I’m stuck decorating a 6ft christmas tree all by myself. Damnit I didn’t start this just to leave it sitting there half done. It will look pretty!
And after another hour I was finally done with it and I think it looks pretty good actually.
Yes, it is ALL purple and silver and yes those yellow dots are fairy lights. Crafti Girl comes running when the fairy lights are on now and Crafti Baby just loves to lay in his rocker and stare at it too.
Now I am constantly being asked to turn the fairy lights on when is christmas going to be here?
Maybe it was too early to put up the tree after all as I have another 7 weeks of these questions to look forward to.
Do your kids help you put up the christmas tree? Are they as helpful as mine are?
Craftilicious Daddy
Posted: October 30, 2011 Filed under: family | Tags: dad, daddy, family Leave a comment »The other night I asked Crafti Daddy to look at my blog and tell me what he thought of my idea and pictures etc… The only comment I got was – “Do u have a family of three now?’ What the?? Then I realised the picture I drew of me and the kids didnt contain him. In fact I hadn’t mentioned him at all in this blog yet-lucky there is only 2 posts and time to make up for it now.
This is Crafti Daddy
Crafti Girl thinks that Crafti Daddy is “totally awesome!” and so thats why he is our so aptly named Totally Awesome Crafti Daddy.
All of our crafti adventures would not be possible without Crafti Daddy. He works very hard as the Warehouse Manager at an International Macadamia Company and gets to spend his days ordering people around and hooning around on a forklift.
Ok maybe he does work really hard loading and unloading trucks and doing paperwork and stuff too but bossing people around and hooning around on a forklift sounds like a lot more fun to me.
Without Crafti Daddy I would not be able to stay at home and look after the kids or be able to afford all our crafti things and as such we would not be able to have any crafti adventures and then I would have nothing to write and draw about and this blog would not exist. So a very big Thank You and a very warm Welcome for Crafti Daddy!!!
18th Birthday Memories Book
Posted: October 29, 2011 Filed under: craft | Tags: 18, birthday, books, buttons, craft, fabric, gifts, glitter Leave a comment »
So my little sister has just celebrated her 18th birthday. I day I never thought would come and is making me feel especially old now. We went out and I introduced her to a few different drinks and karoke and we had a blast. For her birthday I wanted to make her something special that she can keep and look back on to remember all the great times she had when she was 18.
For inspiration I remembered my graduation book that I created for graduating high school. It contains many photos and letters from my friends, important documents from functions that we had and also many quotes and poems that remind of how special our friendships were and how much fun we were having at the time. My sister also created something similar for herself and they are now treasured keepsakes of ours.
This is what my Graduation Memories Book looks like:
I wanted to do something similar but make it special for her 18th. So I searched my house looking for a nice book that I could use. I found a Spiral A4 Notebook so that is the book I have used. You can use any book you like but A4 ones work best as Memories books as they are big enough to hold many photos and whatever the person wants to put inside of it. So once you have selected the book you want to use gather your supplies.
You will need: An A4 Book, Some nice Fabric, Craft Glue, Double-sided Tape, a Ribbon, some Buttons, a piece of Cardboard and some Glitter.
Step 1: Cut strip of fabric larger then the front of book. Place double-sided tape along the top, bottom and the side that will stick to the front of book. Peel sticky side off tape along side and stick down to front of book. Open book cover.
Step 2: Peel the sticky strips left. Fold the top and bottom fabric flaps over and stick down. Place double-sided tape along remaining edge.
Step 3: Peel sticky off tape and fold fabric over and place down neatly making sure there are no lumps on the front and it is pulled tightly and neat.
Step 4: Place double-sided tape along back of ribbon. Peel sticky and place along edge of fabric along edge of book and fold over to back of cover.
Step 5: Using craft glue, glue buttons down along the ribbon in whatever pattern you want. Put the book aside for a moment.
Step 6: Now grab your piece of cardboard and mark out a ’1′ and an ’8′. Cut around these using scissors.
Step 7: Put double-sided tape on back of numbers.
Step 8: Cover the front of the numbers with craft glue and dip them into a plate filled with glitter. Shake off excess glitter.
Step 9: Peel sticky off back of numbers and attach in desired location to front of book.
You are Done! Simply wrap and give to your 18 year old on their birthday. I’m sure they will love it. My sister certainly did!
Hi There!
Posted: October 28, 2011 Filed under: family Leave a comment »Hi!!
I’m CraftiliciousMama and I am a stay at home mother of 2 beautiful children. I love to spend my days creating beautiful things out of stuff that I have lying around the house and occasionaly step out and do big projects too. I love to get my kids involved in the process and make a big mess of the house too! Ok maybe not messing up the house bit but it is fun crafting with the kids.
Our Craftilicious Family:
I always have so many ideas going through my head and never have the time to create them all. I wish I did but with a baby and a 3 year old it is quite difficult to find the time to be really crafty all the time. When I get the chance now it makes me very excited like a little kid and I just wanna tell the whole world about what I have created.
I love to make gifts for family and friends for special occasions too instead of just buying them something. I really do believe its the thought that counts and if someone takes the time out of their day to make me a gift instead of just buying me one I love it so much more because it is personalised and they made it just for me and its unique! =)
Friends and family have suggested that I should make lots of my crafty things and sell them at the markets or whatever but I do not have the time and it would feel to much like work then having to make the same things over and over to be able to have a stockpile to sell. Stuff that. I enjoy making whatever I feel like at the time-thats what makes me happy and thats what I’m going to stick with.
My sister recently had her 18th birthday and I spent about a month trawling the internet trying to find a good project to make for her and couldnt find anything. There have been a few times when I have searched the net trying to find gift ideas and there is nothing I like anywhere. Then I had a brainwave-if I’m having trouble finding nice things to make on the net then surely other people are too right?
Here is the solution ‘Craftilicious Mama’. A blog dedicated to bringing you great gift ideas and craft projects that you can create in the comfort of your own home for next to nothing at all and you can even do it with the kids! =D
As I do own 2 digital cameras but my charming 3 year old daughter has broken both of them I am instead going to be supercreative and draw all the pictures for this blog. I will do my best to make the drawings as accurate as possible so that they are easy to understand and follow. I hope you enjoy my blog and stay tuned for more exciting projects in the near future. =)
