Origami Bows

I saw these very cute origami bows on Pinterest this week, and really wanted to make my own.  I found the printed tutorial a little confusing, so searched for a video tutorial.  I found this one on Youtube, which is absolutely brilliant.  Each step is shown clearly and I had no trouble making my own bows.

 We had a pack of origami paper in the craft drawer, so I started practicing.  This purple bow was my very first one.

It worked perfectly, however, I did use a glue stick to hold the centre points of the bow in place, and to secure the bow to the two ribbon pieces.  It just make things a bit neater, and stopped the bow popping open every time it was touched.

As Samantha was home sick again today she asked me to make her more bows.  She chose the paper and I obediently folded bows.  This was what we ended up with.

I'm not sure what they'll get used for, but they are very pretty.

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Rosie the Hungry Puppy

Samantha was home sick today … however, once the medicine kicked in she was quite perky and wanted to do some craft.  She decided that Rosie was feeling hungry. This is Rosie.

According to Samantha, Rosie really wanted some dog food and a bone … and a nice bowl to eat from.  I raided the craft drawers and found some crepe paper (Samantha insisted on using the pink paper), some craft foam, washi tape and an old plastic milk carton.

I cut the bottom off the milk carton and Samantha decorated it with washi tape.  She then scrunched up the pink crepe paper into balls for the dog food.  I drew a bone shape on the craft foam and cut it out, then stuck it to a second piece and cut it out again.  This made the bone a little bit thicker.

Here's Rosie's delicious dinner.

Now Rosie could dive right in and enjoy her treats.

I think she liked the bone best.

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Sorting Kids Clothes the Easy Way

If you have more than one child, I'm sure you know how much of a pain sorting and folding laundry can be.  It's especially bad when you have more than one child of the same gender.  All those tshirts, leggings and underpants all look pretty much the same when piled into a laundry basket.  It doesn't help that my kids are quite slim and don't fit things marked for their age.  It also doesn't help that sometimes the labels are buried in a side seam, and are impossible to find.

I recently read the most awesome laundry sorting tip. Unfortunately, I cannot find the original post where I read this, despite a lengthy search, but I did find it mentioned in a post on the Amarillo Globe News and on The Daisyhead.

This is how it works … get a permanent marker (I used a black sharpie pen, which I know from experience doesn't come off in the wash) or you could use a tube of fabric paint.  When you buy clothes for your oldest child put a single dot on the label, or on the inside of the neckband/waistband.  When you hand the clothes down to the next child, add another dot, and so on.  If you have four kids, the last child's clothes should have four dots on the labels.

Here's what it looks like:

Now stop for a moment and think about how easy it is to sort the laundry, even if someone who has never seen my kids clothes is helping (right now I'm thinking about my awesome mum and mother-in-law who are so helpful when they visit).  All they have to do is check the dots and they instantly know who it belongs to.  I've added dots to tops, skirts, trousers, leggings, underpants, socks … all their clothes.

This is so easy.  There's no need for labels to ironed or sewn into clothes and no writing names and then crossing them out. This trick is so clever and simple, that it's amazing I have never seen it before.  I can also say, from my very own experience, that it works.  It's only been a week since I implemented this, and already my laundry sorting is a piece of cake.  I hope this tip is as helpful for you as it has been for me.

I'd love to hear any feedback from you.

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