Peek of the Week - December 2, 2011

 

Take a peek at that serious crafty concentration. Those dudes are hard core. 

What's Peek of the Week, you ask? It's our regular Friday feature and it's all about you! I want to hear (and share with my readers) what wowed you this week. It could be a cool finished project, a work in progress, a personal accomplishment, a cute kid moment, or something that surprised you.

If we could peek into your week - what would you want to show us?

Each week I'll share my own Peek of the Week to get the ball rolling, and invite you to link to your blog post about your Peek of the Week. I know y'all are up to cool stuff - we wanna see it!

So, for my peek this week I bring you the classic story of "Hey, I could make that."

You see, I saw these great felt and bead ornaments somewhere for like $5 bucks a pop. And I thought, "Hey, I could make that." 

Even better, the boys could make that. 

So for $10 bucks worth of felt and beads and pipe cleaners we got like an hour of fun crafty family time, and like 12 great ornaments for our 70's-tastic tree.

 It was such a great project for the kids. They went to town. 

 And look what we made!

Not even sure you need a tutorial on this but here's a quick one:

Supplies needed:

green sheets of felt

a pack of chunky wood beads (or whatever)

green sparkly pip cleaners (or whatever)

To prep for the project I cut circles out of the felt in 5 sizes from about .5" diameter to 4" diameter (or whatever). I also snipped a little slice in the center of each circle so the boys could string them on the pipe cleaners. 

And then it's just stringing. To make the quintessential tree shape you'll use smaller circles as you go up and a bead between each one. But the boys didn't stick to that model and their trees turned out great. Cater to your own OCD levels on this one. 

Loop your pipe cleaner at the top and viola...ornaments a go-go.

And...

I also carried on a Christmas tradition this week. This is where the photo I mentioned yesterday comes into play. See, a few years ago I came across a photo, circa 1981, where my Mom had crafted a beautiful and very detailed brick fireplace out of construction paper to hang our stockings on for Christmas. Apparently we didn't have a fireplace and she wanted to remedy that. 

That's how she is. She can make something special out of nothing and she did it all the time to fill our childhoods with whimsy and magic. I hope I'm doing the same for my kiddos. 

I'm so sad that I haven't found the picture (yet). But if I do, I'll definitely post it. 

But even without the photo, I whipped up our very own construction paper hearth:

 And it totally warms my heart. 

And Amos digs it too. 

So that's my peek. Now it's your turn.

You could get peeking in three easy steps:
1. Blog about your Peek of the Week - whatever it is. Whatever happened that made you proud, laugh, smile, inspired, excited, or just plain happy - now that's worth sharing.
2. Include a link to this blog or put the Peek of the Week button (on the sidebar) in your post.
3. Link your blog post using the InLinkz button below.

If you don't get a chance to get here on Friday, feel free to link your post up later.
The InLinkz button will be active for 5 days.