Triple Valentines! Free Printables

Victory!  For those of you who have not been following of late, I have been having much difficulty with (what I thought) was my printer.  After countless hours on the phone with tech support, near tears moments when I just had to walk away for a while, and reboots, I am pleased to say that I printed something today!!!  It took a factory reset on my computer, but I think we're finally past this battle. 

All this to apologize.  I have three Valentines options that I've been wanting to share with you, but have not been able to with this whole fiasco.  While I know I've completely missed the school crowd, I'm choosing to still post these in the chance that someone might still be able to use them before Sunday, or save the ideas for next year!

While contemplating this post, I realized that I really couldn't remember the origins of Valentines Day.  That meant I had to study up for the multitude of "why" questions that always accompany holidays in this house!  I read from History Channel's page that there were as many as three Saint Valentines, but the most popular legends claim one of two events.  First, the Roman Empire chose to ban marriage for young men as they found relationship free men to be better soldiers.  Saint Valentine saw this as unjust and married young couples in secret.  The second thought was that while the young Christian Valentine was in a Roman prison, he slipped a note out to his love and signed it with, "from your Valentine." 

1) Entirely Homemade: this one you'll need to start ahead of time a couple weeks to allow the paper to dry.  But basically our goal was to buy nothing! 

Paper: We saved paper scraps, pencil shavings, and even some natural elements and filled up our blender's pitcher.  Then we filled in around it with water and blended it until it was a fairly smooth paste.  Then we spread it out as thin as we could on a window screen (that had torn last summer and since been replaced) and waited for it to dry!  I set it up on a pan to allow air to flow underneath.

Ink: Leftover frozen blackberries from last summer were thawed, smooshed (kids' favorite part!) and strained into a small jar.

Quill: We used one pheasant feather and one seagull (?) feather, the latter of which had a much larger shaft (could hold more ink). 

 I somewhat simplified Sun Hats and Wellie Boots' instructions by shearing off some of the down and vane , clipping an angle then clipping flat the tip.  Ending with a vertical slit up the shaft.

They loved making little cards with all the elements they had put together all by themselves!  I feel like that kind of independence is so liberating!

2) Sunday School Dragonfly:  "We love because He first loved us" 1st John 4:19 is inscribed on dragonfly wings to focus on how this holiday of love can even be possible.  Two quick slits allow a lollipop stick to weave through to create the body of the dragonfly.  Click on the thumbnail below to enlarge and print:

3) Woodland Critters Valentine: This is what my little ones are giving all their friends.  I decided to leave the template black and white so each could be colored individually.  I think it makes it just that much more special for the recipient!  Another option would be to print it on colored paper of your choice. 

 The same basic idea of two slits is used to weave a pencil through to make sense of the phrase, "Valentine, you're just WRITE for me!"  Click on the image below to enlarge and save:

I hope you have such a lovely Valentines day and can find much joy in celebrating the love in your life!

Grown-Up Sweetie Slippers: Free Crochet Pattern

The Toddler Sweetie Slipper was such a hit in our house, it’s been necessary to adjust the pattern to an adult size! I love mine because they don’t slide around or slouch at the ankle, and they’re just thick and cozy!  When we were in Alaska, my sweet husband got me my silver fox and beaver pelt slippers that are SUPER warm and soft!  I wore the often up there, though they are a tad big.  But I just found out that I can wear these crocheted slippers inside them if, you know, it’s -20 and the power goes out.  My feet would still be warm.  These whip up really fast and are gender-neutral, so they make great gifts, too!   There may or may not be a few of my family members receiving these for Christmas =)

You may not choose to do it exactly like this and that’s GREAT!  This is just a good starting point, but feel free to adjust, tweak, and embellish to your heart’s content!  You may notice in some of my photos that one of the yarn colors will change seemingly sporadically.  Some of these are intentional (adding the fluffy navy around the cuff of the blue pair) and some are for the simple reason that I was using this project to whittle down my ever increasing yarn stash and it WORKED!  Using two yarn s at a time makes these slippers thick and warm, but it’s also a great stash buster for all those odd leftover pieces.  If you don’t mind a new color halfway down your foot.  Maybe you’ll chose to switch colors there intentionally!

Note: To get the texture I wanted, I only crocheted into the back loop of each space.  You could do a regular stitch, but may have to adjust the sizing a little.  This pattern fits a women's size 7-10

With two yarns of choice for foot:

Magic Ring of 6 sc.  Join with sl st and tighten ends.  Ch2

Round 2: 2dc in each st around.  Join with sl st.  Ch2

Round 3:  (dc in next sp, 2dc in next sp) around.  Join with sl st.  Ch2

This is about five stitches into round 4

Round 4: (dc in next 2 sp, 2 dc in next sp) around.  Join with sl st.  Ch2

Round 4 complete

Round 5: (dc in next 3 sp, 2 dc in next sp) aroud.  Join with sl st.  Ch2

Rounds 6-8: Dc in each sp around.  Join with sl st. Ch 2

Rounds 9: (dc in next 7, dc2tog) around.  Join with sl st.  ch 2

Rounds 10-11: Dc in each sp around.  Join with sl st. Ch 2 

*Note:  This is one place you can add a couple more rounds for individuals with particularly long feet.

Row 1:  Ch2 2, Dc in each of next 10 sp.  2Dc in next sp.  Dc in next 10 sp (should be about ¾ of the way around).  Turn.

Row 1 complete

Rows 2-7:  Ch2 2, Dc in each of next 10 sp.  2Dc in next sp.  Dc in each sp to end.  Turn.

Row 7 complete

*Note: This is another place you can add more rows for a larger size.

Turn the heel inside out and slip stitch seam down the back.  Turn right side out.

Still open  along the back before seam.  Excuse my little helper's arm =)



Still inside out after having finished the seam

With two yarns of choice for ankle:

Round 1: Join with sl st to top of heel in the back.  Ch 2.  Dc in each sp across to corner where the side meets the top of foot.  Dc2 tog.  Dc in each sp across top of foot.  DC 2 tog at opposite corner.  DC in each sp around ankle and sl st to join with start.  Ch2.

Round 2-3: (Dc in each of the next 5 sp.  2 Dc in next sp) around.  Join with sl st.  Ch2

Round 4: Dc in each sp around.  Join with sl st and finish off.

 

*Note: Rounds 3-4 are optional depending on how high you want your ankle.  If you want it higher, keep repeating round 4 until you’ve reached your desired height.

Done!  Well, you might want to start from the beginning again so you end up with a pair. =)  But you get the idea.  Now your toes will be ready for the cold (or holiday) season!  If you have any questions or notice any problems with the pattern, please shoot me a message.  Thanks!  Happy creating!

Autumn Trio: Printable Nature Art

Quick post today because my kids want to go on a picnic and, well, priorities.  I wanted to give you some free autumn printables should you so desire.  If all goes as planned, high quality prints will soon be available at my Etsy shop's grand re-opening!  Click on the photo to open the larger version. I hope you enjoy and cherish this day!

Autumn Scavenger and I-Spy Jar

It’s AUTUMN!!!  I’m just so excited!  This is the first time in seven years that we’ve had a fall season that lasts more than a week or two!  (It’s super short in Fairbanks where the snow is already falling right now)  The colors and pleasant crispness and all the harvest activities are so appealing to me!

 

Behind our home are two trees side by side: an apple (see my previous blog post about these treasures!) and a horse chestnut.  The later took us a while to identify this summer, but now it’s perfectly obvious as it drops it’s fruit to the ground.  And it’s shedding its leaves quickly!  Dumping might be a more appropriate term.  

So our big guy started raking the leaves all together this week into a big pile.  He did pretty well before getting distracted and I was able to finish it up into a 3-4 foot pile.  I had to explain to them what to do, then ready…set…GO!  They sped to the pile and jumped right in!  Oh, they were thrilled!  Squealing and giggling, throwing the leaves in the air and burrowing down in.  By far the best part of their day!

 

Clancey getting in on the joy

 

Sometimes you just need to get outside and get some fresh air!  We were having one of those days earlier this week, and everyone was grumpy.  In fact, our oldest was seriously fussing that he did NOT want to go out!  I insisted because I knew it was just the medicine we needed, though I didn’t even know what we’d do once we got there.  We just started wandering and picking up tiny treasures, and as we went the mood improvement was drastic!  There were feathers, acorn hats, pebbles, lichen, pinecones, and bark.  Each new item was celebrated.  We got back to the house with a bagful and I wondered what we could do with our collection?

I had a freshly washed honey jar and we tucked them all away in there.  It was so fun to look at them all through the glass and remember finding each one!  We’ve hung on to it now as an I-spy jar.  They will try to pick out the items they found or I’ll ask them to find something white, round, sharp or whatever.  It’s really been quite fun and such a simple form of entertainment!  You could do this with anything!  I even thought about picking up litter along the road for some tidying and color variety.  Or maybe toys that get left out!  Even if you just kept it to natural items, it would look different depending on the season.

Then just yesterday I read about this Nature Pal Exchange and it looks so fun!  From what I understand, every season you can sign up to have a sort of pen pal in another climate.  Then you go on a nature walk and collect little treasures just like we did earlier.  You take them home, label them, and send them off to your nature pal while they do the same.  Then you get to discover nature treasures from a completely different region!  How fun!  And I love how they keep the focus on God's creation and how we can be responsible with it.  This is their first year and they're already supporting charities with the monies made, too!  I’m going to see if we can get in on this next one and I’ll let you know how it goes.  If you get a chance, check out their Instagram account, too.  Some of the collections are absolutely lovely!

 

Happy treasure hunting!

Healing the Hurts: Free Play Bandage Printable

Our daughter isn’t even two and her caretaker instinct sure has kicked in.  She makes sure everyone has all their food at meal times before she starts, things are shared evenly, gives the best hugs and makes sure each cut and scrape is urgently tended to. I think every little one can have most of their minor wounds miraculously healed by an adhesive bandage (trying to avoid brand-names!), but she wants to make sure everyone else has one, too!  And her dolls, and stuffed animals, and sometimes the wall… And, boy can the cost of bandages adds up quick!  Especially when you pick up those cute character ones.  We want to teach her that bandages aren’t stickers, but encourage her caring heart as well.

Then last week I found a pack of 300 labels (I used Avery 1” x 2 5/8”) and decided to whip up a pretend-play alternative.  Feel free to print and play with this pattern any way you like!  It’s saving us a pretty penny while our little one is saving the world as it is in her mind!  I’m rounding here, but we went from each bandage costing 30 cents to only 2!
 

Click here to open printable sheet

All these bandages got her brother talking about doctors and nurses, what’s the difference and who’s better.  Naturally (being a nurse) I set him straight! =)  But then I was realistic and explained how they work together with a whole team of helpers to try to increase the health of others and themselves.  And now, he wants to be a doctor!  Who knows what might come of a sheet of play bandages!? 

Although not outdoors, one of our adventures this week included driving out to the science museum in Portland (OMSI).  I feel like a lot of their exhibits were over our little ones’ heads, but I still love the concepts their observing.  I remember not enjoying reading the placards at the museums growing up, but then when I later read about concepts in textbooks, I could visualize them because of what I had already seen.  So hopefully it will stick with them!  I’m only disappointed we didn’t even get to the human body exhibit!  I think they really would have picked up a lot as it’s something they’re interested in right now.  Just too much to see!  I guess we’ll have to go back! =)

Are you looking for more pretend medical play ideas?  Check out these free doctor's office exam forms, and this great freebie idea for play x-ray print outs!  Sure to be hours of fun!  Or even better, make your next doctor's office slightly less traumatic.