Muse of the Morning PDF Sewing Patterns

Introducing Summer Cool Camp: Getting Ready

*** Breaking News! The Matryoshka and Gnomes Giveaway ends in just over 2 hours, so be sure to get your entry in quick quick quick!! I’ll close comments at noon and let you know who the winner is tomorrow!! Woo hoo!! Ok, onto the post:
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cool camp, fun artsy crafty projects all summer long!

So.
I had our whole summer all planned out and I was really excited. I would work on patterns and such in the mornings and then after Mr.Man wakes up from his nap, we would ride bikes to a park and play. Our city has a fabulous summer program in the park for kiddos and Lil’ Miss was especially excited because even though they’re really good about dealing with younger kids, this would be the first year that she would get the participate in the older kids activities. For blogging, I was going to join Elsie Marley in writing a Summer Journal.

But then it all changed. Isn’t that always the way?
The Hubs’ business partner’s husband’s schedule changed, meaning that they can’t work kid-free in the afternoons anymore. And they really really need to work. So I offered to watch their kids with mine at our house during the work hours. It’s only from 1 – 5, so it’s not too bad.

cool camp, fun artsy crafty projects all summer long!
Getting Ready By Cleaning The Pool

At first I was bummed, because I was so excited about our summer plans. Especially about the daily bike ride. But this will be fun too! The older girls (Lil’ Miss and her friend K) and I started brainstorming about what we will do and I think we’ve come up with some really great ideas. Lil’Miss said we should call it “School Camp” and I said, “But do you really want to do schoolwork in the summer?” She said, “Well….. how about Cool Camp?!”

So that’s how our Summer Cool Camp was born. And this is what it is: Everyday we’ll have lots of free time outside, we’ll fill up the kiddie pool, we’ll work in the garden, we’ll pick raspberries, we’ll blow bubbles…. then we’ll do a couple activities, have a rest time and a snack and then more play time. Lots and lots of outside time!

cool camp, fun artsy crafty projects all summer long!

Today Lil’ Miss and I switched the play areas around so that the main play area is in the living room now and the quieter toys are in the studio. This will make it easier to watch the kiddos and allow them to go inside or outside as they want. That’s the new play area above- I’m going to add some more pictures on the wall and organize the baskets and everything.

cool camp, fun artsy crafty projects all summer long!

We’ll do some sort of organized activity each day- probably an art activity of course, and we’ll read some books and maybe do a little baking….

What’s fun is that we will be able to do all the activities that I didn’t know how we were ever going to fit in with the old plan!

And we’d like you to join us!

I’ll show you our projects as we do them so you can give them a try too! You don’t have to keep our schedule or anything, you can do the activities or your own activities in your own time. By joining us, you’re just saying that you would like to do some fun artsy crafty activities with your kids this summer! You can share your activities in our brand new Flickr Group and I’ll feature some each week! Even if you don’t post pics, you can join the group to get fun ideas!
If you’d like to join us, leave a comment with your blog and I’ll be sure to follow you (and maybe even feature a project you do if you blog about it). You can do Cool Camp with us even if you don’t have a blog too- just tell us that you’re going to follow along! And don’t forget to join the Flickr Group!!

It kind of feels like teaching again, in a way…. the planning was always my favorite part.

If you’d like to join us and want to, here’s a banner for you to display on your blog:

cool camp, fun artsy crafty projects all summer long!

Family Dance Party

Today we have a guest post by Julian, one of the bloggers at Growing Up Gamers. Julian also happens to be The Hubs. LOL. He’s a great writer and he has some fun ideas to keep our family creative! Julian is a game designer with his own studio, Escapade Games. He and his business partner are working really hard on a storytelling adventure game for the whole family, which will have a Kickstarter campaign in August and hopefully be in stores in March of next year! So, without further ado, here’s Julian:

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A family that doesn’t have fun together isn’t much of a family. It’s more of a living arrangement. Families need to have fun, but fun can get awfully expensive if you let it. As a part of our family goals to be more frugal, we are looking for free or cheap ways to entertain the whole family. Here’s one we stumbled onto by accident a few nights ago.

Youtube Dance Party

You know how it goes. Your wife gets the old song “Hooked on a Feeling” stuck in her head. Unfortunately, she only remembers one line and keeps singing it over and over. So you pull up the song on the old youtube so she can listen and learn. You listen and you dance and sing (because it’s impossible not to do these things while that song is on). Then your wife gets irritated because you pulled up the original song and not the more ridiculous David Hasselhoff version. So she pulls up that version and you sing and dance again. Now that you’re in a ridiculous mood, you make the obvious choice to pull up “Kung Fu Fighting” by Carl Douglas while your wife is in the bathroom and have a full on dance battle with your daughter. Pretty soon your wife gets back and says something like “Yeah that’s a good song, but check this out.” She pulls up another old favorite of hers and pretty soon the whole family is picking songs to move and groove to for the better part of an evening.

An evening of free fun, good music, and dancing is hard to beat. We enjoyed our impromptu dance party and are planning to repeat it sometime soon. Its a great way to introduce our children to music, reminisce about songs we like, and get a little excercise. Pulling up songs on youtube is a good way to listen to any song you can think of and keep a good variety going for your dance party. Of course, you can always use your MP3s, your CDs, or even an old record collection. Rock out however you like to rock out. Youtube is simply free to anyone with a connection capable of reading this blogpost and as they say, free is a very good price.

When your family decides to get funky on the dance floor, here are a few songs appropriate for getting the whole family moving that we recommend.

Hooked on a Feeling – originally by Blue Swede (Later murdered/perfected by David Hasselhoff)

Kung Fu Fighting – by Carl Douglas

Ring of Fire – Johnny Cash

Cheeseburger in Paradise – Jimmy Buffet

Lime in the Coconut – by Harry Nilsson

Old Time Rock and Roll – Bob Seger

Twist and Shout – The Beatles

La Bamba – Richie Valens

Gitchee Gitchee Goo – Phineas and Ferb

Saftey Dance – Men With Hats

Best Years of Our Lives – Baha Men

I Love Rock and Roll – Joan Jett

Crazy Little Thing Called Love – originally by Elvis, Improved on by Queen

What are some of your favorite family friendly dance songs? We’d love to hear!

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It’s Chrissy again- I just wanted to say there is only 2 days left to enter the Matryoshka and Gnome Giveaway, so don’t forget to go enter!! Click Click Here To Go To The Post.

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DIY Your Own Lightbox

Lightboxes are so much fun and valuable in the classroom or at home! Children can use them for tracing designs and for exploring see through materials. A lightbox is great for exploring with colors and opacity. There is even evidence that light can be therapeutic to children and adults, especially in the winter, when there is less sunlight.

They can be pretty expensive though! When an affordable light box or light table can be found, they’re really too small for even one child to really be creative with, much less big enough for 2 or 3 children to gather around and use.

I stumbled upon several DIY light boxes and light tables on other blogs, but they all seemed like a lot of work or like they might not hold up to a lot of use by active children. I gleaned a lot of information from the sites though and created my own, which is very sturdy, safe and was very simple to make! It took about an hour including drying time.

Supplies:
- the largest, flattest plastic tub that you can find with a clear lid. An under-bed box is perfect size. I found the one I used for $9.00 at Walmart. You want the lid to be as flat as possible to allow for lots of play space. Ours has some ridges on each side, but they don’t interfere with play. If the one you find has the brand name raised up, you can use a fine grade of sandpaper to sand it down
- white plastic spray primer (at the hardware store, they told me I didn’t actually need this, but it definitely was important, so pick some up)
- silver spray paint
- white spray paint
- 3 strands of white Christmas lights, 100ct
- 1 extension cord

Spray the inside of the bottom and top of the tub with primer. Take care to spray the paint evenly, especially on the lid. Allow to dry and set the lid aside.

Spray the inside of the bottom of the tub with silver paint. This makes it reflective and lets the light look like its coming from all over instead of being splotchy.

Spray the inside of the lid with just 1 or 2 coats of white paint. Again, take care to paint evenly, as splotches will show up on the play surface. The white paint diffuses the light to make it all even across the playing surface. [An alternative, is to take a large piece of parchment paper and put it across the tub part and then put the lid on, closing the ends of the paper inside to keep it taut across the surface]

Lay the Christmas lights in the bottom of the tub, evenly spacing them out. They don’t need to be pulled apart, just kind of unfolded and laid in the bottom. Plug the lights into the extension cord. The extension cord just goes over the edge of the tub and then you can plug it in. If you want, you can cut a divot in the side of the box to make the cord fit a little better.

And you’re done! Put the lid on, plug it in, turn off the lights and see what sort of magic happens!

Here are some really fun activities and materials that we use on our lightbox! Check it out!

Public Domain Doll Patterns

As far as I know, these are a bunch of public domain doll patterns. If you know otherwise, please let me know! They are all in PDF format, so you’ll need acrobat reader to open them. Click to download!

If you make one of these dolls, I’d love to put a picture of your doll here, just email me with it and I’ll post it, and a link to your site as well!

Curly Haired Doll	Vintage Doll Pattern
9 Inch Ballerina Doll	Sunsuit Baby
Twin Dolls	Soldier Boy
Shirley Temple	Sailor Boy
Rainy Day Doll	Pet Pony
Old Fashioned Doll	Mini Dolls
Marian Martin Doll	Laura Wheeler Black Baby Doll
30 Inch Doll	Huggy Babies
Floppy Doll	Davey
Dancing Dolls	Cowgirl Doll
Cowboy Doll	Clown Doll
CDrop Doll	Boy & Girl Dolls
Baby Doll	15 Inch Jointed Boy Doll

Stuffed Star Ornament

Supplies:
You’ll need a small amount of woven fabric, thread, sewing machine and all that, plus a little stuffing and 7 glass beads. You can use a button in place of one of the beads.

Step 1:
Find or draw a large star template- mine is about 4 inches across. Cut out two from a woven fabric, with right sides together. Sew around the edge with a 1/4 inch seam allowance.

Step 2:
Leave open a small hole for turning on one leg of the star.

Step 3:
Turn right side out and stuff lightly with polyfil or wool stuffing.

Step 4:
Sew up the open edge using a blind stitch. Attach the glass bead on each side of the center. Pull it just tight enough to make the center dip in a little bit. Then attach the beads to the points of the star.

Variations: Use tiny jingle bells on the points instead of beads.
Sew together scraps into a large quilted square, then cut the star front or both pieces from the quilted piece.

Gorgeous!!