my little mochi

Newton's Beads

Valentine Word Find

Happy New Year and Happy Valentine's Day bloggieland!

Here's a free Valentine's word find printable for the kids!
Click here to download.

New in the shop! Stu the Penguin Doll & Fun Pack - ePattern & Printables

New in the shop! Stu the Penguin Doll and Fun pack.

Perfect as a stocking stuffer or a gift for a little one. ePattern includes:

• 12 pages of detailed step by step instructions with sketches to make a 3-inch high felt penguin doll
• cap, scarf and easy to make felt bedding designed to fit in an Altoids mint tin
• felt fish softie toy

Also included in the ePattern:

• Mint tin printables for quick and easy decorating of inside and outside of tin - 6 to choose from
• Stu the Penguin Gift Tag printable
• Stu the Penguin and Friends Paper Dolls - 3 pages of printables
• Stu the Penguin Fun Pack - 4 pages of kid activity printables

Visit My Little Mochi Shop or Craftsy Pattern Shop
to purchase.

 

So Awesome

it's spring! make a mini bunny book

Buddy taught me how to make these mini books years ago after he made one in his writing class in school. It's brilliantly simple and creates a six page book (plus cover and  back) with a single sheet of paper and no glue or binding. I made this bunny version for Buddy and thought I'd share a tutorial and PDF file so you can make one too.

But first, here's what the inside pages look like:

 

PDF file and instructions after the jump.

happy valentines day!

Happy early Valentine's Day! Here's a valentine coloring page I made last night while playing with Microsoft Word. It was pretty easy to draw using the ready made shapes until I got to the arms and legs and then I had to get creative, can you spot the three hidden hearts? (I changed my mind and re-did the limbs). Anyway, if you're looking for something to keep the kids busy this week you can print out the PDF version here.

PC photo shoot

I just remembered what was so exhausting this weekend. Buddy and I made pipe cleaner critters on Saturday and it totally tuckered me out. It was a fun quick craft, but combine it with a bossy 5-year old art director (who demanded that I make myself available for an all day photo shoot) and it was no walk in the park. Anyway, here's some of the highlights, although the AD is already insisting on a re-shoot.

We found all of the instructions for the animals in the Fall 2003 Martha Stewart Kids, and I see they're posted at the Martha Stewart site as well. Buddy and I made up the pattern for the boy and the carrots on our own.

PS the eyeless squirrel and deer were his idea as well.

Humbalala!

The other day I laughed out loud when I saw this threadless shirt over on my friend Jenn's blog. Buddy would be beside himself to have a shirt like that, but his mom's a meany so no butt shirt for him. He's at the age where he loves to say things for the pure shock value of it and "butt" is definitely one of his current favorites (and thankfully the most shocking thing he can think of).

Anyway, when I saw the shirt I had to do a little watercolor of Buddy and his favorite word. If you grew up in Hawaii you're probably familiar with the term hana okolele.  I think it's actually pidgin and not Hawaiian, but it's something kids say that basically means, "you are in BIG trouble!"

Buddy says, "humbalala" or "humbalala ukulele" instead of hana okolele and I'm not sure if he heard it from someone wrong or the phrase has just evolved over the years. Another version that I even still use is "halaa!" which I think is based on hana okolele because it's usage is the same.

My brother's used to love to trick me into saying all kinds of bad words just so they could scream "hana okolele!" at me in unison and get me in trouble. Lucky me! I can't seem to think of an equivalent phrase in English or Japanese, do you know of something similar in another language?

(PS In case you're wondering, "hana okolele" is pronounced ha like "haha!", na like "nananana hey hey hey goodbye", o like "oh!", ko like "cocoa" and  lele like "lei" and I've probably broken every grammatical rule for the proper use of quotation marks.)

Happy Monday everyone!

Wow!

Oh my gosh! Thanks so much everyone for all of the comments for the lei-away. I can't tell you how much I loved reading about everyone's worst or best crafts. That had to have been the most fun I've had reading comments! And thank you to all you de-lurkers too. It was so nice hearing from you all.

I wish I could send all of you leis to show my appreciation, so please accept my thanks instead! Buddy helped me draw a name last night and the winner is Sarah of Sarah P dot!

I realized after I posted that I've never shared my best or worst craft. I can't really think of a single best or worst thing but as far as oddly received it would have to be a tied quilt top I made for T before we were married.

It was the first patchwork piecing I ever did and I was determined to finish it in one weekend. I started Friday evening and somehow managed to finish by Sunday. The end result was wonky at best but I still loved it and couldn't wait to give it to T. Although he said he liked it, he never did use it, and later claimed it was too short. I kept telling him he's not that tall! And much to my horror, one day when I went to his place he was using it as a curtain! We still have it, maybe I'll post a picture.

Not much crafting going on around here as I'm still scrambling to get everything ready for our Japan trip. I am so excited! With the exception of some neighbor island trips we haven't been on a real vacation in almost two years, so this is long overdue. Can't wait!

Buddy had a swim-a-rama at school today which is sort of like a swimming recital, so we decided to make some cupcakes for the occasion. It's supposed to be a bear floating in an inner tube. Do you see it?

I thought this would be the quickest cupcakes ever. Just stick a bear into the trolli gummy circle on blue frosting and add some fish sprinkles. But I mistakenly bought mini teddy grahams instead of the regular size one, so the inner tube is way too big. That's what you get for being cheap. I couldn't figure out why the big bag of teddy grahams was a dollar less than the smaller box, but I bought the cheaper one anyway. And the features on the mini teddies are much less pronounced so I ended up having to draw the faces on with food coloring pens. So much for easy-peasy!

(Speaking of cupcakes this cracks me up!)

Get me away from here I'm dying

Oh boo! I'm still working crazy hours trying to meet my project deadline. I can't wait untill this is all over and I can get back to crafting and making some of the things I've been obsessing about these last couple of weeks.

So another quick post. I totally forgot about these mini paintings that the boy and I did back before all the work craziness. We used 4"x4" canvas panels that I found at the craft store and they're the perfect size for a quick project. Bud painted his one day after school while we waited for dinner to come out of the oven. Wouldn't it be fun to do a bunch of them to hang in his room?

And a belated Kung Hee Fat Choy and Fat Tuesday! Back soon. I hope.