Owls

Found some very cute Owl notecards for printing over at

http://www.mmmcrafts.blogspot.com/

Print your own here;

Then browse her lovely designs.

Her blog is filled with fantastic patterns and I can take no credit other than to give her a shout out and tell her I love her designs.

The New Craft Room

In case you didn't hear.......we got some snow.

Our Christmas Tree looked beautiful this year.

But we took it down today.

I'm glad to have my living room back.

We had lots of sparkly ornaments.

And a perfect shelf for the Elf.

Oh, and my dog always sleeps like this.

He's obscene.

Really.

He's Dachshund and English Bulldog.

I know.

He's a Bull Weenie.

I've been wanting a craft room of my own for quite some time but we really didn't have space for it in our part of the house. The empty inlaw apartment has been used for my homeschoolers but since we meet only once or twice a week, I wanted the space to go to better use. I thought about putting my craft room in our family room but decided against it. The TV is there and well......so are my kids. I wanted quiet and some place to craft other than my kitchen table where I didn't have to pick up my project so we can eat dinner.

So in order to make space in the craft room in the apartment, I had my husband haul all of my craft stuff over there including a 6 foot table. The trick is going to be to let the homeschool kids know that my corner is off limits. But they have their own table and own cabinet for crafting so we should be fine. Doesn't this look a mess?

Baskets, quilts and odds and ends all needed to find a place.

I decided to start by just putting like items together on the shelves and then to sort and decorate it. I had so much stuff and things in containers but it was great to get this

finally organized and to have everything right in reach.

The cabinet to the left and this table is for the homeschoolers to craft.

We can pull the table out if we need more room.

There is still plenty of space.

The homeschoolers cabinet was completely organized, decluttered and cleaned.

I have paints on the bottom left shelf, some material toward the top and my cricut cutter on the very top shelf. The right hand shelf started with scrapbooking paper, stamps, cutters, some beads and craft books and glue. The walls are quite bare.

My design style is usually somewhat modern but many years ago I went thru my country phase. There is something about the simplicity of handcrafted items that I just love. I wanted this craft room to be all country and was able to pull out many of my packed away country items.

The wall quilt was given to my daughter when she came home from South Korea.

She said I could borrow it for my new space.

She said it was too girly.

The ribbon storage to the left of the quilt is actually a towel rack

and dowel turned on its side.

It works great to store the riboon.

The white box in the right hand corner is my shelving for more scrapbook paper.

On top of the paper storage is a big jar of beans. I don't craft with these

but they look pretty and I'm all about pretty.

There is also a big jar of antique buttons, some geodes,

a picture of a bird nest that I took and some pinecones from my yard.

Then the decorating began. I didn't like all the paint and plastic containers showing and I found some beautiful lace curtains that made great coverups. My mom's Raggedy Ann doll is on top and my friend John gave me some great bail storage jars that I love. The bottom right hand shelf has my mother-in-laws decoupaged jewelry box. It holds tubes of beads.

I LOVE these jars. I had a dozen of them and they hold everything. We use the clothespins to hang artwork on the clothesline (inside) and the jar on the right has alphabet beads.

I have lots of Noah's Ark things....another one of my collections.

The handkerchief in the basket was my grandmothers. There are some hand dipped beeswax candles and an itty pair of stockings.

The top shelf holds red tubes for crafting, large corks and a doll.

The bail jars hold plastic pony beads and as well

as others that I use for making my malas.

The large table provided much storage underneath. I found some yarn and a great basket. Maybe someday I will learn to knit or crochet.

A country bear sits atop the ribbon.

I love this felted mouse. I have 3 of my grandmothers mice prints and 3 stuffed mice that go with them. They hung in her bedroom for as long as I can remember.

I am so grateful to be surrounded by things that remind me of my family.

The mouse on the left is one of 3.

The mouse in the roses is just cute.

My crafting table is organized with everything I need right in reach.

The Campbell's Soup tin contains scrapbooking glue sticks.

These bail jars sit on the windowsill and have gems and stones.

I'll find a use for them soon.

Right now they are just pretty.

The completed corner.

I love how the curtains cover up the plastic containers

and more unsightly items.

The felt is all rolled and ready for use.

Tae and I will be doing some sewing projects for his 4H group.

This jar has pretty stones.

I love how the alphabet beads are mixed with pearls.

Morgan made this cinnamon applesauce ornament.

It smells great.

I had tons of curtains that I love but some were only one pair and it was hard

to find a place to use them. These beautiful embroidered flowers

were curtains that my mom picked up somewhere.

I hung purple gingham curtains on the windows.

The violet embroidered curtains that I couldn't find a place for made a great table skirt after I sewed the panels together and it hid all the containers under the table. I do need to get a full length table topper. This yellow one is not quite big enough.

Do you have a crafting space?

Studying Australia

Right before the Holidays, we did some studies on Australia.

Enchanted Learning has some wonderful unit studies.

I've been pulling a lot of homeschool material from their website.

Years ago, my inlaws signed us up for Highlights magazine. It was called Which Way USA Book Club. We have all of the United States packets but have not worked our way through them just yet. The country packets are called Top Secret Adventures. So far we have done Japan and China. The packets come with a book all about the country, puzzles, maps,

passports and a mystery to solve.

Tae has really been loving these.

He especially loves the mapwork and puzzles.

The packet included the smaller map of Australia. Once we had studied the different territories

we moved on to find Australia on the globe.

The bigger map now hangs on our classroom wall.

As we study each country, we put a sticker on the map and stamp his passport.

The passport comes with stickers from each country.

The workbooks contain crossword puzzles, word searches, riddles and all kinds

of fun things to do to help solve the mystery.
You can see a sample here.

Tae is always happy to point out our homestate and then see

how far away our unit study country is.

We studied Australian animals and Tae made this cute Koala mask.

So cute!

We also studied Kangaroos, made a didgeridoo out of wrapping paper rolls

and painted some Aboriginal art masks.
You can find a link for the mask templates and patterns here.

I bought these masks from Oriental Trading.

They were supposed to be African masks but worked just fine for Australia.

Excuse the nose picking. He's six.

Tae chose really bright colors for his mask and

made patterns of dots and stripes.

To paint the dots he used the eraser end of a pencil.

Beautiful!

What unit studies have you done?