Who doesn't love a giant brain-sucking spider on top of their head?!

These days, my little one is into all things animal related.  If I didn’t know better than to predict these things at age four, I’d say she was going to be a biologist when she grows up.  We recently went through a fascination with bugs, and being the mama I am, I found ways to bring that into our kids’ crafts.  Here’s one of our spider crafts.  This would be great as  Halloween craft, of course, but we don’t wait around for stuff like that here!

This one is particularly nice because it’s a super quick craft that doesn’t take anything special to make.

What You Need to Make a Spider Headband Craft for Kids:

• Black Construction Paper
• Scissors
• Tape
• Googly Eyes
• Pipe Cleaner (optional, Dot decided her spider needed a mouth)

The spider headband takes craft supplies you probably already have on hand.

Cut eight strips of black construction paper to make your spider's legs. We made them one inch wide and as long as the length of our construction paper. Cut two additional strips about two inches wide for the headband.

Tape the 2" bands together along the ends and use them to measure around your kid's head to make the headband the right size.

Fold each of the construction paper legs about an inch from one end.

Tape the legs on the inside of the headband so that they hang over the edge where they were folded. Put four on the left and four on the right so the legs will hang down one either side of your kid's face. (Creepy, right?!)

Add some googly eyes to your spider headband craft to give him some personality.

For these handmade decoupaged fabric Christmas ornaments, you will need:

• 3″ Styrofoam balls
• decoupage medium/glue
• fabric scraps
• paint brush
• ribbon
• skewer
• embellishments

Basic craft supplies for homemade Christmas ornaments.

To start, push a skewer through the Styrofoam ball.  This gives you a way to hold it without decoupaging yourself to within an inch of your life.  You can also stick the bottom of the skewer into a foam wreath so your Christmas ornaments can dry and to hold them still when you decorate them.

This is where things get a little sticky.

Next, brush decoupage medium onto the foam ball.  Place fabric scraps onto the ball, brushing more medium over them.  Continue to do this, overlapping fabric wherever you need to, until the entire ball is covered.  Set it aside to dry for a couple of hours.

The Christmas ornament on the left is dry, and the one on the right is wet.

Once the ornament is dry, you can add a ribbon for a hanger.

I removed the skewer and then used it to push a very thin red ribbon through.  I then tied some small jingle bells to the end to keep it from pulling back out.

After that, you can embellish as you wish.

My preschooler directed me as I hot glued buttons and pom-poms all over her Christmas ornament.

A simple bow was enough for my handmade Christmas ornament.

What I Learned the Hard Way: I used fabric scraps that were left over from the scrap fabric Christmas wreath we made, thinking it would be great to have these ornaments match the wreath.  That worked out well, but I discovered that 2″ square pieces of fabric were too big.  I ended up cutting the squares into quarters so the cloth would lay better on the round ball.

Your octopus doesn't have to be sad, but for some reason, Dot felt that ours was. Who am I to argue with and ar-TEEST?

We recently took a family trip to Seattle, and weeks later, Dot is still talking about the octopus we saw at the Seattle Aquarium.  We decided last week to make our own octopus.

What you need to make a paper bag octopus:

• Lunch-size paper bag
• Markers or crayons
• Newspaper
• Googly eyes
• White glue
• Ribbon/String

A few simple craft supplies are all you need to make a paper bag octopus.

Crumple enough newspaper to fill the bottom of the paper bag about 1/3-1/2 way full.

Gather the bag below the stuffing and tie it off to make your octopus' neck.

Glue on some googly eyes, and draw in the rest of the face with your marker.

Cut the remaining part of the bag into eight pieces to make your octopus' legs. We drew on some suckers, too.

Some of you may have noticed that lately I haven’t been posting very frequently, that our newsletters haven’t been going out, and in general, things have been mostly quiet on both Craft Jr. and the entire Woo! Jr. Network. I’m happy to say that it has been due to (mostly) very awesome reasons! (The not so awesome reason is that my brand new laptop is still getting “repaired” after almost a month. But I digress…)

Anyways, I’m kind of rather spectacularly proud of the fact that my first book, Mom Blogging for Dummies, is pretty much done and is getting ready to go to press! It is coming out this July – squeee!

Mom Blogging for Dummies by ME!

Let me just say that writing a book is way more work than you probably think it is.

No. More work than that.

It pretty much took up every spare second of my time (and then plenty more hours on top that didn’t fall into the ‘spare time’ category). The lovely and talented Lorna Doone Brewer has been keeping you entertained with projects while I’ve been busy, and I’m happy to say she will continue to do so even now that the book is complete. Over the next week or two I’ll be getting back into the swing of things around here, and more regular posting shall commence!  If you can’t wait for the book release, you might want to pre-order Mom Blogging for Dummies now just to make sure you’re the first on your block to get a copy!

Lots of book writing + running a business + being a mom = brain drain

As satisfying as it was to write a book, it was also a little draining. Mostly this was due to the fact that without any of the aforementioned “spare time”, I was unable to do any sewing, crafting, or creative projects for about 4 months. I know, right? I kind of went bonkers. So this last week I blew off many overdue side projects, emails, and important communications to replenish my creative soul (sorry to those who are still waiting for emails – that’s next on my list, promise!). What did I do? I sewed. As in, sewed so much that I actually got sore from it. I promised myself I would make my first quilt when I was done with the book, which I did – it’s almost complete!

But this last weekend was the really fun part of getting my creativity back – I sewed softies!!

Making Stuffed Animals

I just have to say, sewing softies (Stuffies? Plushies?!) is rather addicting. I made one for myself, then went on to make one for each of my kids, too. None of the patterns are mine, but I’ll show you where to get all of them:

Fancy Peacock from the book Little Birds

Stuffed Peacock Pattern from Stash Books' Little Birds

I bought the book Little Birds based solely on the fact that I saw this peacock on the Stash Books Blog (eye candy alert) and literally HAD to make one for myself immediately. He is proudly perched in my craft room now, and I get happy just looking at him. I mean, who wouldn’t be happy looking at this adorable thing??

Little Birds from the Stash Books Design Collective

Pikku the Penguin from the book Little Birds

Stuffed Penguin Pattern from Stash Books' Little Birds

So, have you ever bought a book based on one awesome project, only to find that the rest of the book is only mediocre? Well, that’s NOT the case with Little Birds. I have plenty of work-related catching up to do this week, and I’m having to talk myself out of making more birds. That sounds really odd when I say it out loud…

Anyways, this little penguin was adorable and perfect for my youngest daughter. I made it out of a recycled cashmere sweater, so the resulting toy is beyond soft and cuddly. I had a hard time giving this little one up.

Stuffed Angry Bird from Obessively Stitching (Free Pattern!)

Stuffed Angry Bird Pattern from Obsessively Stitching

My son wasn’t quite as impressed with the rather girly-girl birds in the first book. So we went over to Obsessively Stitching, where Care has created sewing patterns for all the Angry Birds and green pigs, too! My son had the hardest time deciding which one he wanted me to make for him (complicated further by the next book – you’ll see what I mean). But he was kind of ecstatic when I was done with this. He’s not usually into stuffed animals, but his love of the Angry Birds game outweighed his usual disdain for softies.

Asp Turtle from the book Beasties

Stuffed Turtle Pattern from Diana Schoenbrun's Beasties Pattern Book

I have to admit, this pretty darn adorable turtle isn’t entirely representative of the things you’ll find in Diana Schoenbrun’s Beasties book. My oldest daughter is a turtle lover, so I used the pattern but made it extra cute (don’t you agree?!). The book, however, is filled with softie patterns that can be truly called “Beasties” – a cyclops, werewolf, Loch Ness monster, aliens, a yeti, and some truly strange creatures that pretty much defy explanation. This book was filled with so many cool monsters to make that my son asked if he could make one all on his own. Yep, an 11 year old boy asked me to teach him to sew because of this book.

Beasties Patterns by Diana Schoenbrun

So, that’s where I got the stuffed animal patterns to make my own softies. You may see another post like this in the near future – but I promise I have to get caught up on emails first. :)

FYI – these are not affiliate links, I live in Illinois and pretty much can’t use affiliate links at all anymore – new weird tax law, don’t ask. :(

But I did get a free copy of Beasties to review late last year. I feel pretty bad it’s taken me so long to write something about it! I bought the other book with my own hard-earned pennies. :)

Super cute craft apron that kids can help decorate.

I have to admit that sometimes it’s difficult to get pictures of Dot doing crafts because, well, the kid hates to be dressed.  That also means that she gets pretty filthy when we do some of our projects.  We’ve been able to solve both problems while creating a really fun craft.  We used fabric paints and markers to make her a special “craft apron” that she can wear when we’re doing our “little projects.”

To make this apron for kids, you will need:

• A kid’s apron (this one was $3 at Joann Fabrics)
• Fabric paint
• A fabric marker

You only need a few supplies to decorate a kid's craft apron.

Let your kiddo dip her finger in the fabric paint and stick it on the apron. Two green dots on top of each other make a cute frog.

Dot did hand prints on her craft apron, which is so fun because we can compare them as she grows.

Of course, you can decorate your kid's craft apron however you want.

After the paint dries, add eyes and smiles with your fabric marker.

The craft apron looked a little plain, so we added some words with the fabric marker.

What I Learned the Hard Way: Kids hate waiting for paint to dry.  ;-)

Support these Great Kids Craft Blogs by Independent Crafty-type People

Crafty Crow	The Crafty Crow is a ‘Children’s Craft Collective’ in which they gather up great craft projects from around the web and post them all in one place. They find some of the coolest stuff on the web!
One Pretty Thing	One Pretty Thing is also a collection of crafts from around the web, but it is mostly crafts kids can make – some of them are things adults can make for kids. Total eye candy here, plan on getting stuck at the site for a very. long. time.
Fem Manuals	Fem Manuals is written in Portuguese, but I’m just blown away by the creativity of their projects and use of everyday materials to make absolutely beautiful things! They also post a lot of photos to Flickr so that you can mostly figure out how to make their projects without needing to read a different language.
Little Birdie Secrets	Little Birdie Secrets has adorable kids crafts sprinkled in with some really yummy looking recipes, including pies and cupcakes in jars!
Zakka Life	Zakka Life shares gorgeous crafts made with the most surprisingly simple materials. Who knew paper bags and toilet paper rolls could be so chic!
Dollar Store Crafts	Dollar Store Crafts – a woman after my own heart! I hate going to my local crafts store and dropping $100, especially when I know I can make great stuff from the dollar store for less than $10!
Croq Zine	CROQ Zine is written by the same people behind Dollar Store Crafts, and is the companion blog to the CROQ Zine print magazine. Just the illustrations on the covers are worth a visit!
Kiddio	Kiddio is a combo craft project and craft collective bog, and another one that finds ways to make everyday objects into lovely bits of awesomeness.
Kids Craft Weekly	Kids Craft Weekly is more of a newsletter than a blog, but you can get a taste of the coolness they have to offer both on their site and in their Flickr photo pool.
Plaid Kids Crafts	Plaid Kids Crafts is the kids craft blog by the people from Plaid craft supplies. They may not be an indie blog, but their creativity makes up for it!
Make and Takes	Make and Takes is a well established blog written by a crafty mom who seems to have a never-ending stream of creativity. She also has some super-cool recipes tucked in here, including one for Root Beer Cookies. Don’t tell my son – he won’t leave me alone until I make them!
One Crafty Place	One Crafty Place is one of my new favorites on this list. This is a craft collective blog, and also includes some irresistible adult crafts too. As if I need more things to do right now!
Wee Life	Wee Life is full of crafty creative stuff along with some local things to do with kids for several major cities. Plus they have a scrumptious section of printables. Yay!
Skip to My Lou	Skip to My Lou is so beautifully designed that it makes me feel happier just to see it. She also does frequent giveaways of crafty cool stuff, what’s not to love??
Craft Jr.	Craft Jr. is of course our blog right here! We’re pretty proud of it and the success it has seen in the few short weeks it’s been around. We hope you love it as much as we love writing it!