Helping Kids Put Shoes on the Right Feet

I got tired of telling the kiddo that she had put her shoes on the wrong feet, so I decided to help her be able to figure that out herself. I took two smiley face stickers and put them on the inside curve of her shoe. I read this in some parenting magazine a long time ago.

Then I told her to make the faces kiss. She likes to make the kissing noise along with them.

Free History Newsletter Mini-Units

For those homeschoolers or teachers, etc.

You can sign up for a free newsletter (or just look in their archives) for short little mini-units of historical interest at Learning Through History News.

Little units with all kinds of links (primary sources, multimedia projects, etc) for topics like:
The Sphinx
The Silk Road
The War of 1812
Ellis Island
etc.

Character Bandaids

Has your kid seen and envied Character Bandaids? Will your child not leave bandaids on like mine? Try making your own decorated band-aids.

My kiddo won't stop picking at something, but she won't leave a band-aid on, so last night, we got out the bucket of stickers and let her choose what stickers to stick on her band-aid to keep her from pulling it off. 24 hours later, she's still wearing it. Think it worked.

Cheap Princess Bedding

Decided to spruce up my kiddos bedding ensemble for her birthday. (She's using our old queen mattress with adult colored bedding.) But buying a queen size Princess bedding set is $80. Yeah, right. And for winter, we use feather ticks anyway, and she only sleeps with a sheet in the summer.

So, I took the off white sheet set she already had from us and dyed it pink in the washing machine with Rit dye. $4

Then I took an on sale beach towel $7.50 and made it into a pillow case, but I couldn't cut it since it's a useful item and one day she may tire of princesses. So I just folded it around a pillow and safety pinned it on.

Then I covered her own little pillow that she prefers with scrap fabric. $0

And picked up this princess canopy from the thrift store $3

Blanket she already had from Christmas.

New bedding ensemble=$14.50. Less than one set of plain pink sheets at Walmart. May not be impressive, but it's pink with princesses and as soon as she saw it she decided to pretend going to sleep. I think that makes it a winner.

Sheet and Pillowcase into Mommy/Daughter Work Dresses

Ok, these things aren't going to win me any fashion awards, but I wanted a comfortable long dress that I could make in less than an hour that I can wear around the house when it's hot and I'm not intending to go anywhere. And because most of my clothing is too tight at the moment.

I have one of those dresses I picked up from the thrift store, laid it out on a twin flat sheet I picked up somewhere and hacked around it and sewed for an hour (mainly b/c of my dumb machine's bobbin kept tangling)

And then, I couldn't resist making a "matching" dress out of the pillowcase for my kiddo. Basically on that one, I cut off the top, cut down about a quarter way for arm holes, hemmed the arm holes, made a casing on the two tops and strung ribbon through the casings and tied at the shoulder. The material is rather thick, think it will look better on her tiny body with a thinner pillowcase.

So, we both look like we are wearing a trash sack as my hubby so gently put it, but we match and we'll be in the garden with them anyway. I call it good for about an hour and a half. Boy do I hate sewing.

I tried to make it less sack-like with some more of that ribbon, but it just showed off my pregnant belly. Not that much better considering I'm just showing but I look 6 months pregnant. I guess that's the horizontal striping for you.

But hey, some of you sewing people out there could make a better stab at it using a sheet and pillowcase.

Reader Suggestion Friday - Uses for Yogurt Containers

Sheri, a mother of eight, was kind enough to share some of her tips for reusing yogurt containers. Hope you get some ideas.

When people come to my house and wonder why we have a tall stack of these 1 quart containers, we show them! We stack them like blocks too! We make walls and castles for Ezra to knock over. (He's our youngest.) All my children have fun making the castles and walls with the cartons.

I also use my yogurt containers for drinks on the go! I mix up my protein drink in the blender and pour it into my 1 quart yogurt container and put the lid on, with a small hole cut in the top for my straw. It's kinda' my signature... I will reuse these containers until they are beyond use. With this recycled container, I don't mind if someone tosses it in the garbage. Which can happen when I am out and about. I have tried other containers, but they were too tall for my straw to reach the bottom and be able to drink out of it.

We have also had loads of fun with the yogurt cup lids! They are safe indoor flying disks! And easy for little children to make fly! I think we had about 20 lids that we were flying at each other one morning. We were laughing so hard, we got our morning exercise!

The smaller 6 oz and 8 oz yogurt cups can be used like those stacking cups and they are are free, once you eat your yogurt! If you want to reuse those smaller yogurt cups, some yogurt companies will send you the reusable plastic lids for free if you ask. Then I put my husband's daily yogurt into one of those cups for his lunch from the larger 1 quart container. I think I need to learn how to make yogurt! When we take yogurt in the car, I put a hole in the top and stick in a straw for less messy eating! It works most of the time. Some of those yogurts with bigger chunks of fruit might get stuck... I can even cut the straws in half for a more convenient size.

Reusable Worksheets

Thanks to a frugal commenter on my post on tracing worksheets, I now have a reusable workbook!

Just slide your workbook pages inside page protectors and use a dry erase marker. A rag will wipe it off right away. I left marker on it for several days and a rag no longer worked, but it came off nicely with just a little rubbing alcohol.

I'll just keep a folder of these worksheets and switch them out anytime she gets bored with the ones in her current folder. This also could work for a homeschool consumable workbook that you want to use for more than one child.

Since she now wants to do letters and numbers, here are some more sites for free printables. The last site lets you make a worksheet with whatever words you want. I used it to print out her name for her to trace.

http://www.printactivities.com/index.html
http://www.first-school.ws/preschool/printable-activities/index.htm
http://www.handwritingworksheets.com/

Reusable Prewriting Worksheets

My three year old drew faces, rather intricate ones, all of a sudden, demonstrating she could control her writing utensil. So, I grabbed a few of those preschool readiness workbooks that I had picked up somewhere and she blew through all the pages that didn't require her to make letters. (She made the number "1" but anything more complicated than that was not within her grasp.) A few hours later, she brought the workbook back to me and asked to do more "school" and made sure she showed off her "school" to Daddy when he got home.

She needs more practice to be able to do the letter practice in the books. She needs some prewriting practice.

The only books I thought would work for us this is this series of Kumon books, but I have a feeling I'd spend $8 for an hour of her working and then she'd ask for more school. Now if it were a laminated/dry erase book, I'd be all over it.

So here are a group of sites that have plenty of printable worksheets to choose from (print on draft ink setting!) so we can do more school.
{You can google, "Line tracing worksheets," "Fine motor skill worksheets" or "prewriting worksheets" to find sites such as these}

Our Homeschooling Expedition Page of Links to Prewriting Worksheets

Handwriting 1

Ed Helper Visual Perception Skills

Tracing Lines Kids Learning station

Pre-printing Practice

Tls Fine Motor skills worksheets

And a nice Activities booklet for Prewriters

Now, how to make them reusable? Slip them into a page protector for a 3 ring binder and have the child write on it with a dry erase marker. Then you can easily switch out pages and save the old ones for re-rotation or the next child.

If you know of any other good sites that have many options for prewriters, let us know in the comment section!

Girls Hoodie to Toddler Hoodie Dress

Using my dummy from yesterday for sizing, I took this size 10 girls Old Navy sweatshirt that had been donated to the thrift store because someone didn't know how to mend the split pocket seam . . .

And made it into a toddler dress. Merely sewed up the sides, sewed new thinner sleeves and cut the sleeves shorter. Didn't do anything with the hood. Didn't bother moving the shoulder seams, so they are a bit down her arms, but I think it looks just fine. And she loves her "jacket dress."

Toddler Dress Form Dummy

I am really not a pattern follower, and my toddler won't sit still for me to drape and pin things that I find at the thrift store to refit for her.

So, I made a dummy toddler.

I first cut down an adult turtle neck to fit her pretty tight, it was ugly, had holes in the seams, etc. But she declared it a pretty princess dress. If that wowed her, anything I do from here on out will be splendid!

Then she was thoroughly excited to spin around while I duct taped her arm pits on down, but then got a bit upset doing around the neck because it kept catching her hair. Note to any other mothers attempting this, gel the kids hair/plaster it to their head before trying. Needless to say, she's not having so much fun at the end.

I made a waist line on her by having her bend at the side for reference for later and to tape it back together. Then I cut it off of her down the back. Then I taped it back up.

Then I took the leftover turtle neck material and all the other misc. things I have scrapped and stuffed it halfway.

Then I stuck it on a dowel rod planted in a piece of scrap wood. (This had been doubling for the toilet paper dispenser under the curtained sink in the guest bath, but I kiped it, it was meant to be a mannequin base.) Then finished stuffing up around it. Then I pulled up the excess turtleneck material and pinned it up to keep all the stuffing in. Viola, My 3 year old on a stick complete with pooched out belly.

Milk Carton Reusable Lunch Box Holders

If you haven't checked out the magazine, FamilyFun, you really should. Seriously, I am not fond of paying for magazines, but I do pay for this one. I got this idea from them. My hubby takes lunch to work, (You didn't think our cheap selves would eat out for lunch now did you?).

So, FamilyFun suggested this instead of lunch baggies, plus it is tons more durable so it will keep your items from getting smashed.

Take a gallon milk jug and mark off three of the sides small like in the picture and one tall side up to the top. (FamilyFun shows a milk jug without the divets, if yours don't have them, even better, you have to fiddle with it if you do.)

Cut it out. If you have divets, cut the interior flaps down until they don't touch it when folded, otherwise it doesn't close securely, lets in too much air although this will never be well sealed. Place a piece of sticky velcro on the top long interior flap and on the corresponding bottom flap.

Place in your bread.

And fold in the flaps and velcro it closed. No more squished sandwiches. Wash with the dishes when yucky.

P.S. My poor hubby's coworkers shake their heads in pity that I send the man to work with lunch containers made from trash, but I promise there is a reason behind my madness! Tupperware would do the same thing, look prettier and clean up easier, but my hubby's lunch pail is too small to accommodate a bulky sandwich container. That's why we use this, it fits.

Free Printable Maps

Would you like some free printable maps to help your child with a school project or to learn geography?

http://www.printableworldmap.net/

Free Play Money to Print

Do you homeschool? Have kids who play grocery store? Have a monopoly game missing money?

Print play money for free here.

No need for little swimsuits

Functional fixedness found me last week. In my stash of clothes that I store up when I hit good garage sales and get hand me downs, there was no 3T swimsuit. So, I put it on the grocery list. There were no more size 3 swimsuits at the store. So, I went and dug through a mountain of clothing at the thrift store. Literally a mountain, there was no organization to the newly-brought-in-from-recent-garage-sales kid pile. Found one 12 month swimsuit and a teen one. A brilliant idea struck; I could cut down the teen one! Then even more brilliant, I had an old one at home I hardly ever wore because I hate the color, I could convert that one! Then on the drive home, my brain informed me that a swimsuit isn't a necessary item. She can swim in her underwear/clothes in the backyard pool and even the lake. As long as I don't want to go to the city pool, I'd be wasting my money getting her a bona fide swimsuit if I was willing to waste enough gas to find one in this town.

So I filled up the fairy pool, put her in some panties and let her go. Daddy plopped in dressed as well and she was happy.

So, so glad I didn't put up a tutorial on how to cut down an adult swimsuit to fit a three year old and have someone comment that I could have just let her swim in her clothes! Functional fixedness -0 Me - 1 (Admittedly, almost too close to call)

Pizza Box Art Storage

Wonder how to store all the lovely art work you get from your kids? Maybe a take out Pizza box would work well for you? Nice big space for pictures, paintings, collages; sturdy packaging to keep it from getting crushed and thin enough to fit in odd spaces, like under a bed. Just make sure to choose ones that didn't get pizza grease on it.

Scrap Toddler Onesie Dress

My child believes she is a princess. And real princesses only wear dresses. So, coupled with her aversion to wearing any kind of two piece outfit and my hatred for onesies (not good for cloth diapering or potty training - the only two modes I have ever been in with my kid), I set out to make her a dress with scrap materials to add to her wardrobe.

First, I scrounged around for my outfit in all my salvaged craft supplies. A free onesie hand-me-down, a ribbon off of a birthday package, a stained yellow tshirt and a button that I salvaged from a shirt before throwing it in the rag pile.

I used the side of the shirt since I was trying to avoid the tar like stain that had landed the shirt in the material pile. I folded the onesie in half and laid it on top of the shirt.

Then I cut out a skirt of two pieces, slightly larger at the waist to allow for seam allowance. If you are hoping for a pattern there isn't any, I just cut till I liked it. I would hold it up every now and then to see how it fell and when it looked good, I quit cutting.

I then sewed a small hem along the bottom of the skirt pieces and then sewed up the side edges of the skirt making sure the hem s were on the same side as the side seams. I then turned the onesie inside out as well.

Then I pinned the shirt edge to the skirt edge all the way around making sure the side seams of both the shirt and the skirt matched.

I turned the dress inside out and if you want to you could end there. But I had matching scraps to add!

I wanted to make a faux bow in the middle of the waist, so I marked the center of the ribbon and made loops of the same size next to it (picture will explain) and pinned it to make sure I had it centered right. (BTW, she was determined to be a princess hand model. Every time my camera was brought out, she insisted her hand be photographed, in case you are wondering why her hand keeps showing up, I couldn't always crop it out!)

Then with matching thread I tacked it right in the middle with a few sewing machine stitches.

Then I pinned the ribbon on the dress with the faux bow in the middle. My hand model distracted me a lot at this point and unfortunately, it turned out a bit off-centered. (Oh, well, it's purpose is to be a play-in-the-mud dress anyway.)

Then I sewed along the top and the bottom of the ribbon and folded the ribbon ends under so that the ribbon ended at the dress's seams.

Then I hand sewed on a button in the middle of the faux bow.

Here is the finished dress.

And the hand model princess checking it out and striking a pose.

Maybe one day the MakingDoMom will learn how to sew for real, but for only 20 minutes worth of work, I'm happy with it. For really dressy dresses, I'll buy them at the thrift store already put together!

Cloth Wipes or Toddler Training Wipes

I miss my cloth diaper wipes! My toddler is toilet training and paper toilet paper usage is a disaster! One, my child thinks a quarter of a roll is necessary to use each time she visits the potty. We have gone through a lot of toilet paper in the last few months! Two, have you ever tried to clean up a toddler who didn't make #2 in the toilet with paper toilet paper???? Virtually impossible; make the toilet paper wet and you add a whole new level of mess. Plus, you end up using a quarter of a roll to clean the kid up. (Maybe that's where she got that idea!). I have put her in the bath a couple of times when I gave up getting her clean, but I don't want to continue that for she would view that as a reward.

So, I have gone back to cloth wipes for potty training. It is easy to tell her, one square. And wet it with a little water it is 50 times less of a job to clean her up when I have to. My old ones were a bit crude and hubby complained when he used them on her that he disliked the odd sizes. So, I decided to make nicer, softer ones.

If you use family cloth (cloth toilet paper), this design would work well for that. I am not going to get into the debate of cloth toilet paper, but if you have never heard of cloth toilet paper use and are interested you could look at this or this site which I think are a good source of information. Googling "family cloth" would easily lead you to many articles or posts on the subject. Someone commented on my blog earlier that they use the money they save on this specific frugal/green project to buy the family a year pass to the zoo.

Side Note: I always get a giggle out of people that are "shocked, appalled, horrified" by mention of cloth diapers, cloth toilet paper, cloth pads, etc. What do they think people who lived before mass production of disposable products did? Prior to the late 1800s/early 1900s toilet paper didn't really exist (unless you count the ones that included splinters, then you could reach back to the mid 1800s) and even though it was available doesn't mean it was bought and used, especially in an era where underwear was unmentionable in mixed company! I can't imagine a woman from the Victorian era plopping down toilet tissue on the mercantile counter. My mom, who was definitely born much later, grew up with an outhouse equipped with the Sears catalog and corn cob husks and I don't consider her or my grandparents untouchables or crazies. More importantly, they survived! :)

First, I grabbed a big ugly flannel bathrobe I got from a thrift store. I doubled over the fabric and cut out a 7"x7" square (or what roughly resembles a square). I had done 6x6 earlier, but I thought they were a bit small.

Then I flipped it over so the wrong side of the material was facing out. (I could have skipped this step if I just folded it that way to begin with!) Then I just straight stitched all the way around and stopped about a third of the way from the folded side. (Where it shows my machine stopped in the picture)

I cut off the corners so when I turn it right side out, I don't have a hard little wad of cloth in the corners. (Don't cut the unsewn corner.)

Then turn the cloth inside out. It's poofy.

To sew up the hole and make it lie flat, Tuck in the hole and start there to zigzag stitch all the way around.

And now you have uniform-sized soft, 2 ply cloth wipes. I threw in one of my 6x6's to show you the zigzag more easily.

Wash like you would cloth diapers or cloth menstruation pads/tampons.