Some great Fall Books for preschoolers

Last week my preschooler and I studied about Fall. It was a fun subject to learn about and in the process we came across some really great books. These would be terrific for other homeschooling families or families that like to read!

Count Down to Fall by Fran Hawk: This book introduces basic information about the fall season and reinforces counting 1-10. The back of the book also has a few activities which really was a great resource for me as a homeschooling mother.

What Happens in Fall? by Sara L. Latta: A great introductory book of the science behind fall and why the leaves change color.

Leaves Fall Down by Lisa Bullard: This is a fun and short book introducing the concept of fall and why leaves change color. It also has extra resources listed in the back of the book along with instruction for a fun fall craft project for kids.

Hooray for Fall by Kazuo Iwamura: This is just a fun cute book about fall. Terrific for children who aren't ready for a lot of information but are starting to make observations about their surroundings.

We found all of these great books and more at our local library. Many libraries these days are online so you can search before you go and even request them online and pick them up a couple days later. I found this to be a great resource to me so that I can go in with my list and not spend hours in the library. My son enjoys looking at other books or using the childrens computer while I gather our books.

Not just for crafts

There are so many great things I want to share with people and I don't have the time or energy to create separate blogs for each of them so I'm going to be doing it all in one place!

I am happy that many of you have enjoyed seeing my crafty creations and I hope you also enjoy my thoughts on other things as well, including homeschooling and great deals!

Finishing up the Christmas week long challenges

So the week is now over and the weekend has arrived! I would be so much more excited for it if it weren't so dang hot here in VA. It has been the hottest this week for sure and everyday I've melted away. Thursday's mini Christmas challenge over at Catch the Bug was all about SNOW! How I wish it would start snowing outside today, it would bring much relief. I decided to use a cute little snow man stamp that I received in an online stamp swap and I created a shaker tag out of him. It ended up pretty cute.

Friday's min Christmas challenge was anything goes (as long as it's a Christmas project) and I came up with this little tag. I like it pretty well, there had been a blue background paper that I wanted to use but it was a scrap and it just wasn't big enough! Don't y'all hate that, it's the worst!! Other than that little snag I think this one came out good and I can't wait to put it on a package!

Teachers and boys

This is my first creation of the day. I'm pretty happy with it but wish I had not written the green part above the "thanks". I think it came out worse than my mind had intended. It looked much better without it. OH WELL! Such are the trials of crafting. I used a cute little apple stamp from imaginisce and colored it red with colored pencils and blended it with gamsol. I then hand wrote the "thanks" in red marker and went over it with firebrick stickles. For the border I did simple addition in green to tie in with the leaf on the apple. I was going for a nice simple look but I think the image was just too bright to pull of simple. I think it would have been better with less white space and more embellishment.

C.R.A.F.T. Challenge - Thank You Teacher
If the Shoe Fits...Scrap It! - Ruby Red
Sew Many Challenges - Glitter

This one unfortunately didn't turn out exactly how I would have liked either. I think my disappointment is coming from my rushed decisions regarding my crafting. It's hard to find the time to do things the "right" way when you have a pre-schooler, and infant, a hubby and a house to take care of. Looks like I need to get into a good groove so I can do all the things I need to and have time to also craft with the right kind of focus. Anywho, I really love this cute boy stamp (can't remember who makes him) and the sentiment from Jedi Scrapbooking. They fit together just perfectly! Hope you all like it better than I do.

A Gem of a Challenge - Let's hear it for the boys

More challenges

So today's mini Christmas challenge over at Catch the Bug was a sketch challenge. I once again created a gift tag instead of a card. I think it turned out pretty good. Hope you enjoy it!


I also worked on a challenge for Tiddly Inks. They challenged us to create a project inspired by a nature movie. I browsed through all their digi's to find inspiration and found their Tree Tops and Somebunny digi's that I thought were so cute! Then I thought about the movie the secret garden. I used some photo editing software to get the digi's the way I wanted to print them off and used a line of trees on the front of the card with the space between cut out, so you could see the inside "secret". When you open it up you find the little girl in her secret garden playing with the bunny and a section for a note. I had fun with this one but it didn't quite come out as good as I had hoped...in my head it seemed much better. I might try this one again with their digi What's Up Dear, I've already got it printed and colored!!

Christmas Mini Challenge day 2

So today's mini Christmas challenge from Catch the Bug's Christmas in July event was to create a project using the image provided. It's a super cute image and I had a grand time using it! So I made another tag and went with the typical Christmas green paired with yellow/gold and a hint of red. I put a little sparkle on the ornaments to give it something special. I really like the way it came out, it think it's one of my favorites! Enjoy!

Getting my craft on!

So I spent part of my day yesterday and today making some quick crafts. My first to share is a set of 4 note cards. I was inspired by the weekly challenge over at Less is More and their "Circles" CAS challenge. I really like the way they came out, I'm going to be selling this set on my Etsy store Tammi's Tidbits, so if you're interested check it out!

My second is a Christmas tag. I was inspired by the Christmas in July challenges over at Catch the Bug. Today's challenge was to use non traditional colors on a Christmas project. I have tons of Christmas cards left over from last year so I didn't want to make a whole bunch more and I thought tags would be the best use of my time and supplies so they wouldn't go to waste. I plan on matching my wrapping with the tags and picking the tag that goes best with the person who will be receiving it. They are also having a weekly Christmas project challenge so I made an extra to enter into that. I hope you enjoy them!

Non-Traditional Colors Christmas Challenge

Christmas Project Challenge

latest crafty creations

Over the past month I have been working on an order of invitations with matching tags and menus for a surprise birthday party. You can see the invitation below. The colors and design theme were inspired by the birthday person's favorite pass time, golf. The client chose the colors white, dark blue, and hunter green and wanted circle incorporated into the design. This created quite a bit of challenge for me because the two accent colors were so dark. I ended up designing this invitation and it came out pretty well. You can't really tell from the picture but the corners on the right side are rounded to help carry out that circular feel. The tags and the menus had similar designs and were circular in shape. It was a fun order to do and I hope I get more opportunities to create beautiful invitations for people.

This next project is a gift for my sister. I used to really be into cross stitching but it has fallen to the side as I've fallen more in love with paper crafts. Since my daughter was born I've been wanting to make her a cross stitch birth record and hadn't found one online that I loved so I decided to pull out my alphabet pattern book and design one myself. During that process I got inspired to do the same for my sister. Her baby is due in August and the nursery is bee themed and this is what I came up with!

I will later on add in his birthday, weight, and height on the left hand side. I can't wait to finish it and send it to her. Next is to finish my daughters after a trip to the store to get the right color floss!