Don't Play With Your Food!

I challenge everyone to make something, anything out of your snack tomorrow. I know we were all taught to not play with our food but it really is a lot of fun. Send them to me and I'll add them to this post!

QT

I really enjoy sketching with a pencil. Probably because it has an eraser! I don't mind making mistakes I just want to be able to do it over without getting a new sheet of paper!

I was looking at one of my kids books and wanted to draw one with a big eyes. The big eyes can make things look so adorable.

Mount Butterfly-more

Wow, it's hard carving flowers! The butterfly was relatively easy with the exception of the antenna. The flower is a Black-eyed Susan or a salt shaker depending on how much imagination you want to have!!

The Big Apple

We stayed in NYC last night and I so wanted to make a butterfly there. Unfortunately it was raining so we didn't get to stay that long. In honor of the Big Apple, I produced my apple butterfly. Adam made his first butterfly (I'm finding that the process is contagious) out of his waffle from breakfast.

Board Game Anyone?

We have a ton of games and they make a very nice butterfly. Wish the kids wouldn't tell me that board games are "boring" that's why the call them bored games!

We are off to NYC for the night so we'll have to see what I can make in the Big Apple!

Beauti-fly

The girls have a nice collection of hair ribbons, clips and bows that I used for today's butterfly. It was sort if last minute. I was sitting relaxing at 8:30pm and realized and hadn't decided what I was going to use for my butterfly. Yikes!!

Not a problem, I have a list of ideas that I have gotten from friends and family which I turn to when I draw a blank (like today)! Want to offer a suggestion or a challenge? Drop me a comment or an email, I'd love to add it to my list!

Puzzle Anyone

We've tried making this puzzle however with 2000 pieces I don't have many interested puzzle builders. Makes a nice butterfly though!

This one is mirrored after the swallowtail. They have little tails that hang off their lower wings.

Sled-A-Fly

This was the best packing snow that we've had all year. Evan and I made a fort. Adam, Megan and Amy worked on the tallest, skinniest snowman and I used the sleds to make a butterfly. It so warm I think it's going to melt fast.

Butterfly Mosaic

This is the dark side of butterflies. I had a tile mosaic kit that I picked up at Michael's Craft Store for one of the kids. It was a fun craft but the colors of the glass tile were so disappointing. And to make matters worse, the grout is too dark. It's hard to see but it's a side view with a brown body, dark and light blue upper wing and a green lower wing.

Stuffy the Butterfly

Sorry for the delay in posting, the wind knocked out our internet for the day. 

This was a butterfly that I wanted to do days ago, no, weeks ago.   However, the owner of these stuffed animals is a little possesive of her stuffed animals so it took several requests before I finally got the okay.  Miss Amy must own close to 100 stuffed animals, she doesn't play with them she just owns them.  I was given permission to make this butterfly if I promised to put them all back.  Which of course I did, promptly!!

Lego Butterfly

Evan and I played with Legos today and came up with a butterfly and two really awesome ships for a ninja warrior and his friend.

The butterfly had to be careful to avoid the wicked battle scene.

Lettuce Fly

I got this idea while grocery shopping this morning. Make a butterfly and then eat it. It was delicious!

Flour Fly

I was without an oven for 2 months but I finally got to bake some cookies (requested by the kids of course)! So I thought about doing something with flour.

I've also been admiring a pattern that my chandelier makes on the ceiling of my dining room. It's where I've been trapped for the last two months. The pattern reminds me of circles and hash marks. I decided to marry the two ideas. It was like playing in the sand but no sunshine!

Green Tutu

This one reminds me of a green tutu or a little girl that is swinging her hula skirt around. It was a challenge trying to get this one to look like a butterfly instead of a flower but I think I finally got it!

Happy Valentine's Day

So many yummy choices for treats to play with. I really had a hard time deciding which to use. Good thing I have lots of people wiling to eat them for me!

Have a great Valentine's Day with all of the people that you love!

Hotel Butterfly

We had to stay at a hotel last night because the fumes from the painting and staining was just too much to handle.

We stayed at a Hampton Inn and they had a tower of towels that gave me an idea for my towel origami butterfly. I left it for the clean up crew to see.

Terra Cotta Butterfly

Yes, I know I didn't post a butterfly yesterday. Unfortunately, it was a really bad day and I forgot until this morning. I'm back on track today, maybe I'll just add another at the end!

I bought this clay a few weeks ago but I've been waiting for my oven to be put in so I could bake it. Clay is so much fun. The kneading process is great exercise for your hands and you can just start over if you want. It's so much more forgive than watercolor or markers. Megan came up with the suggestion of putting the butterfly on something and I read that you can use aluminum foil to give it height. I bent the wings over some foil, baked it and then slid out the foil.

Junk Drawer Butterfly

I challenged myself to make a butterfly from a bag a parts that I had in the basement. I think it's a collection of the leftover parts from furniture and whatever. I always keep the parts since you never know when you'll need a screw or a strange plastic part that's just that size.

A bag of junk and a hot glue gun!

Evan worked on another automotive today.   We have a real wicked vehicle with some guns and toting several armed Lego men that ready for action.  Look out bad guys.

Wooden Spools

I have collected a few strange things over these last couple years. This one is an ice cream bucket full of wooden spools of thread. Someone offered them on Freecycle and I just couldn't resist. Seems strange since I've been voted most likely to throw everything and anything away!

I'm glad that I finally found a purpose for them.

This is Evan's creation for the day... its a tank made out of the same wooden spools.

K'nex er fly

I played with toys today! Now I have an idea why the kids don't want to do any homework. This was challenging but I wasn't expecting it to be so hard. I had to make a pattern but I had to figure out how they went together. The kids gave me all kinds of suggestions. It almost makes me think that we are all born with creativity but squelch it somewhere along the line. Possibly in lieu of higher learner?

Evan has decided to make a car a day for a while. I'll be adding his creation to the blog.

Whittlin' Away

I tried my hand at carving again. I'm surprised how much different it was from the soap. As expected, wood is harder but it was more than that. I had to monitor how hard I dug into the wood so I wouldn't put a huge dent in it . The process was a little like this: push tip down with pressure, then push forward instead of down, then let up the pressure when I've almost reached the stopping point, then pull up so that I sort of snip off the little bit of wood.

This definitely requires focus or you'll be stripping off your skin! Fortunately for me - no bandages required.

Go Green Bay Packers!!

Green Bay Packers Rule!!

Butterfly Flower

I have some silk flowers that I've been wanting to 'repurpose'. I'd have to say that they make beautiful butterflies!

I also want to thank all of you that have given me suggestions for materials to create with and inspiration via email or personally. I'm keeping a list, they will all be made at some point! One year is a lonnnng time!! I'll need all the inspiration I can get.

Swirly

I was inspired to make a butterfly using the swirl cake decorations. I have a cake decorating kit that contains various swirled designs and this one caught my eye.
I had to play with the number of beads to hold the shapes together and where to place them. A several tries and here she is.....

Collage Day

Whoa, the Mod Podge stuff is wicked. I think my head is still spinning from the smell.
This was a fun way to make use of the magazines but I wonder if material would have stayed smoother? The paper wrinkled as it soaked up the Mod Podge. Megan made a collage too. I'll add hers to this post too. I like the randomness in in her picture.

Flight of the Butterfly

You'll have to bear with me on this post.  I had this really cool idea of producing a flipnote and then video taping it.  I drew a little picture of a butterfly in flight over several pages, then I tried to flip through it to 'see' the butterfly flying.  Well, the idea was a bit better then the execution.  I couldn't quite get all of the pages to flip.

So, I came up with plan B.... photograph each drawing and then clip them together into a movie.  Well, in theory it was a great idea except that my video software wouldn't let me flip through the pictures fast enough so its a very slow flight of the butterfly.   I guess sometimes, we have to accept the fact that our ideas may be a little too big to produce!!  Thanks for viewing.

Crochet Butterfly

I love the Internet! I found this pattern to crochet a butterfly and it's free! There are so many talented people in the world and it's so awesome that they share it with the rest of us. I'm learning about all different techniques and art mediums all by browsing the Internet. Thank you to all the kind people!