nimble hands make happy hearts

When my children have grown and set up shop elsewhere I am certain I will look back on weeks like last week with fondness. We squeezed in a lot of stuff to include some kind of achy feverish bug that slowly wound its way through each of us. Also to include driving home from St Louis in a snowstorm and arriving home with gratitude only to have the power go off within 30 minutes but then realizing after many hours ours was the only dark house on the street. So we flipped the breaker and tried to act like we weren't dumb at all.

It was an eerily quiet day today. I couldn't put myself to any creative use other than drawing cars on a Magna Doodle. I didn't even get dressed!

Enough about my laziness...

Let's talk about simple crafts for girls. And boys mind you as my 12 year old son usually does these things with us. He likes seeing how things are put together...whether it's a potholder or radio. You know what I mean? It's not like he carries around a sewing basket or has his own thimble. But even if he did it would still be okay!

Now that I've cleared that up--

These ideas are from the Molly craft book from American Girl. This book is from my older girls...they don't publish it anymore. But the ideas are simple enough to follow your own. We have loved these books from all the historical dolls. There is no foam crafting with google eyes. These are things your kids can make and actually give as gifts. Crafts that give them confidence in learning new skills. Sadly I think this company is not what it used to be.

Whenever I see these books at yard sales I buy them and pass them along.

The apple potholder is a great project to learn basic edge stitching...using felt and a little batting it's cute and inexpensive.The star whirler was my daughter's favorite. But just be warned someone will get whacked in the face with it.The victory garden in a jar is my favorite. They really like hammering the holes in the cover and picking little trinkets to go in the jars.

These crafts are supposed to be typical of crafts in the 1940's. I would say that I wish it was still like the 1940's but can't for two reasons. There was a huge war going on, eh? Who likes war?

The other reason being Siobhan Magnus. Maybe you don't know who she is (shame, shame). I just plain and simply love her. UJ is the Cape going crazy for her?

Hey look here is a Molly book on ebay that ends in 13 days.