A Fall Batik Banner

The kiddos and I just finished making the most fun fall project: a glue batik banner. I've never done anything like this with fabric before and we had a lot of fun. I got the idea in the October issue of Family Fun.

1. First, I took a piece of muslin fabric that I just happened to have in my fabric bag. (Don't even ask me why someone who doesn't sew has a bag full of fabric). Then I tore it into the size that we wanted.

2. Next, we arranged some leaves on the fabric and outlined them with school glue (I used Elmer's).

3. Then we let the glue dry for 24 hours. Well, we got busy on the weekend and let it dry for a few days:)

4. Then we took some acrylic paints in fall colors and painted our leaves.

5. And we mixed a fun color for the background. After that we let the paint completely dry (it took a few hours).

6. When the paint was dry, I ran a kitchen sink full of warm water. After letting the it soak in the water about 20 minutes, I began rubbing the glue out of the fabric. It came out very quickly and easily.

7. After letting it dry one last time, I used some Heat 'n Bond to make a place to slip in a dowel rod.

Here's the finished product, hanging on our backdoor! I love the way it turned out and the way that the glue made those patterns. Its such a cool tie-dyed sort of look. I can't wait to try this again!

Well, today I'm off to War Eagle, Arkansas...a little spot out in the middle of NW Arkansas that is beautiful this time of the year and has the BEST arts and crafts fair around. I used to go every year until we moved to Alabama, but now that we're back I've been counting the days until this week! I'm sure I'll have some treasures to show you tomorrow:)

One Way I Refresh During the Summer as a Homeschool Mom

As our homeschool takes some time off this summer, my mind almost never stops thinking of and planning ahead for the upcoming school year. This is probably because I'm Type A and an obsessive planner...lol Whatever the reason, I do enjoy this season of planning. But I also need to be refreshed as a homeschool mom. Homeschooling can be incredibly exhausting and all-consuming. It's not easy and it's a lot of responsibility. And I take that very seriously when I am researching curriculum and planning toward the next school year. So also taking some time to rejuvenate and refocus myself is very important. How do I do this? Each summer I take some time to read something inspiring and motivating that speaks to me as a homeschool mom. Some of my fave reads from past years--that I have nearby on my shelf and refer to often--are Educating the Wholehearted Child, The Well-Trained Mind, The Charlotte Mason Companion, A T...

The Making of an Egyptian Death Mask

We are learning all about the ancient world this year with Story of the World I and loving it! We've been learning a lot about Egypt, of course, which is completely fascinating. Most recently we have studied the New Kingdom of Egypt, which includes the story of King Tut. So we decided making an Egyptian death mask in the style of King Tut's would be a fun project. First since it was too cold at the time to paper mache in the garage (it probably would have frozen instead of dried-ha) and it was too messy to do it in the house, we decided to pick up a couple of cheap craft masks at Hobby Lobby. Next we cut out cardboard shapes to complete the shape of the death mask, attaching them with hot glue. Vince even put a little detail on the *beard* with the hot glue per The Princess' request. Then the kiddos started to paint them with this metallic gold tempera paint. It worked okay for the cardboard, but would not coat the plastic of the mask. We thought maybe a second coat ...

Door Hanger Chore Charts

My kids have had a chore chart for a while. It's one of those magnetic boards and they share it. However, it's not by their rooms and often they (and I) forget to update it. Plus it's a little bulky. When I saw the concept of a door hanger chore chart on Pinterest, I loved it! It was compact, right there were the kiddos could see it coming out and going into their rooms, and it costs almost nothing to make. I headed over to one of my favorite stores: Hobby Lobby, of course. They have these little wooden door hangers for .79. I also grabbed a couple of packets of decorative buttons for $1.99 each. I already had the clothes pins and the paint so those cost me nothing. I began by painting the door hangers (I used tempera paints because that's what I had). Then I grabbed a fine point Sharpie and the clothes pins and started writing chores on them, making sure to write them correctly so they will ...

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