Craft time almost did not happen tonight. Why is it that you can have a great weekend, and then it is completely turned around (or at least it feels that way) within about 20min of something a little different. We went to a graduation party today of a friend of the family. The kids did great at first, but then about 10-20 min toward the end I about lost it. It felt like one thing after another. They were still in their church clothes, I figured it's a graduation party, no need to put on play clothes. I guess I should have asked. They had some lawn games. So Braeden had done about 3 knee plants in the grass in his only-worn-two-times Hartstrings navy and white striped pants that Grandma had bought him before I noticed. Olivia "had" to tattle on Braeden for silly things a few times before I asked her to sit a minute. At which point she pouted and sulked. While sitting, she put her feet, which had her spanking white mary janes, only worn twice before, and which she picked for today telling me she would take good care of her clothes (an issue this year for her), behind the cross bar of the metal folding chair putting some nice copper colored stripes across the toes of both her shoes. Girlie, who has been known lately for putting anything at all off the floor into her mouth, was going around and picking up blown away chips to put in her mouth, with a plate of food back on the table at her spot. Then when I brought her to the table she began her infamous crying like she's dying. At which point I decided it's time to go and then had both Braeden and Liam crying terrible tears because they didn't want to leave. It sounds like a bunch of silly things now, but at the time I was beyond frustrated and needing some peace and quiet. I gave everyone (myself included) time outs on the way home so that I could think/pray/and collect some of my lost patience. Whew! We got home, they played well for a little while and I gathered our craft items. It worked out okay. :) So here it is...

Shrinky Dinks!!! I LOVE shrinky dinks! We used to do these when I was a kid, all those cute little preprinted sets. You can't find those anymore, or at least I don't think you can, but I did find a package of blank shrinky dink material for making wonderful ideas into reality at our local Wal Mart! :)

We originally were going to make picture frames. This was one of the ideas listed in the shrinky dinks package and I thought it sounded great. So I let the kids each pick a picture from a collection of "extras." And we gathered the materials: Shrinky Dink material cut into frames (I used my scrapbook paper trimmer), colored pencils, and my scrapbook markers (for myself, Olivia, and Braeden), white paper to put under the frames for the kids to color on, and a cookie sheet for baking.

The one rule I gave the kids was that they couldn't write numbers or letters. Whatever they drew, would be backwards once the frames were flipped over, as you color on the backside. I wrote letters, but knew they wouldn't understand how to do it backwards.

Well, the frames didn't really turn out! :( Olivia's and Girlie's did, although they are a bit "modern" and curvy! :) But mine and Braeden's looked like pretzels! I was so disappointed too because can I just drop the modesty for a minute and say mine was so cool! lol :) I was going to use a picture from Lego Land at Downtown Disney and had written Downtown Disney and drawn designs, it was so good! :) Oh well... Here's Olivia's finished product. She did great! We glued in the picture and are going to put a magnet on the back.


The day turned out great after the 20 minutes of Yuck. What a blessing! :)

Update: I just washed Braeden's pants and my Shout Gel with scrubber has worked miracles and gotten all of the grass stains out!!! Yay for Shout Gel!!! :)