One day recently in the middle of schoolwork we got a little distracted.

Scissors and stapler were out…er, along with half-eaten banana bread and porridge bowls…and one thing led to another.

Before I knew it we had many of these little books.

In different sizes.

Along with paper pouches…

…like this.

And they became books like this one (anyone else have trouble with those pesky “b”s wanting to be “d”s?)…

Somedays homeschooling has me wanting to pull my hair out but I’m always thankful for the opportunities and freedom it gives us – and for moments like these.

There are little shoots coming up in the garden but it will be a little while before we see any blooms. In the meantime we’ve brought spring inside with a bunch of origami flowers.

I love origami and even though I’m not so talented at it, I’m always drawn to it. This past week we pulled out our handy origami book again and picked out some flowers to try.

We made lilies, tulips and a simple four petaled flower but the lilies are our favourite.*

After making four or five I decided to photograph the process in case anyone else was feeling the need for some blooms.

*I did most of the making with lots of input from the observers but I’m going to see if any of the little fingers want to give it a try. They already have plans to make a bird mobile for little brother’s birthday later this week so we’ll see how patient we all are with that.

1.Start with a square of paper. We have some origami paper which is nice and thin but we’ve also used papers that the kids and coloured on and sent to the recycling bin. Start with the main colour on facing up.

2. Fold the far corners together making a triangle. Unfold this triangle and fold the opposite two corners together.

3. Unfold again and this is what you will have.

4. With the main colour on the outside fold two corners to the two opposing corners. Unfold this and repeat with the other two corners.

So far so good?

5. Leave this last fold together. Bring the top two corners together allowing the middle to open along the reference folds from the previous steps. You will have a four triangles. Fold the triangle coming towards you to the left and the triangle pointing away from you to the right. Fold flat.

You will have a diamond shape that looks like this.

And like this from above with two folded triangles on each side. This is called a Preliminary Base.

6. Lay it with the open points facing down. Lift the top right triangle so it is perpendicular to the diamond.

7. Press this down from the centre to create a smaller diamond. Use your previous fold lines as a guide to know where the centre is.

8. Take the right side of this new diamond over to the left.

Like so.

9. Repeat these previous two steps on the three other points.

This is what you should have. See how it is split at the bottom with four points at the bottom, two on each side.

10. Take one of the raw edges and fold in to the middle.

11. Repeat with the other raw edge.

12. Continue these two folds (step 10-11) until you have made 8 folds – only fold where you can see the contrasting colour and are bringing to folds together as shown above.

13. Unfold the last steps – these creases will be reference folds for the next steps.

14. Lift up the raw edge that cuts across the paper to make a hollow cone shape in the middle.

15. So here is the tricky part*. This is called a petal fold. The previous folds will help guide you. Fold in the single layers at the bottom following the crease made in step 10. I’m showing it on one side but do it on both sides together. Press these folds in gently, following the reference folds and create reverse folds with a new point in the middle pointing to the top of the shape.

*When I had Dan test out my instructions it was here that he exclaimed, “HERE is the tricky part? You’re kidding me right?”

It will look like this. Repeat the petal fold three times around the piece. This is a completed Frog Base.

Are you with me?

Anyone?

We’re almost done, I promise.

16. Those four new points you created need to be folded down.

17. Swivel your layers around so you have a smooth side facing out and equal points on each side. Lay it down with the closed tip pointing towards you.

18. Fold the outermost tips in to the centre as shown.

19. Repeat the previous step on the three remaining smooth faces.

20. Using a pencil roll each of the four petals down to open the lily.

Comme ça.

There you have it!

If you’ve made it this far you’ve earned a pat on the back and a high five.

Make one…make two…

…or make a bouquet.

So what do you think? If you have any troubles or think this is just absolutely ridiculous (as I think Dan may be starting to wonder) let me know. I’d have fun showing a few more origami projects in the future but don’t know how well my directions are coming out. I’d love your feedback if you give it a go!

I can get very weighed down when I consider all the waste that this family produces despite our efforts with the three Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle). Even seeing how much goes out in our recycling bins feels a bit overwhelming because although I would say it’s better than nothing, recycling still takes a toll. I would like to see less coming into our home with the sole purpose of holding something until it leaves as waste – plastic, plastic, plastic.

My grandmother grew up in a large farming family during the Great Depression. The Depression ended but she has never forgotten the lessons that need dictated. I have always admired (and sometimes shaken my head) at the second, third or thirtieth use she finds for a thing which most of us would have long since discarded. My mom, while slightly less extreme, has learned many of these habits of saving, reusing and repurposing. My mom adds her environmental conscious to my grandmother’s thrifty ideals.

I’ve learned a lot from these resourceful women although I come nowhere close to their level of dedication. I love to find a second life for things but owing to our small space filled with growing little people I’m not able to hold on to too many things without having a planned use for them. One thing I do hold on to is calendars.

Each Christmas we usually receive at least one beautiful calendar and come the end of the year I always have a hard time tossing the old one into a bin for recycling so I often tuck them away somewhere with thoughts of finding a new use for them.

When we made our Valentine’s Day cards this week I thought of these calendars when it came to needing envelopes. The book that inspired our cards also had a page on making envelopes and calendar pages seemed a great alternative to a fresh piece of card stock. They are so easy I don’t know why we haven’t done it all along.

Here’s a quick peek at how the kids and I made these simple envelopes.

Using our handy dandy craft knife I cut a page out of our calendar.

Leaving about an inch on either side of the card, I cut the extra paper off the side (now I’m trying to figure out that to do with those leftover ends…).

I passed the tools over to my very willing helper who used the edge of the ruler as a guide to fold up the edge of the paper.

*I used the wrong side of the craft knife to score along the fold line for a neater fold.

Repeat on the opposite side.

With the middle of the card about an inch above the middle of the page fold the bottom up to cover the card.

Glue this last fold down.

Fold the top down over the card.

And you have a so-simple-you-didn’t-really-need-a-step-by-step envelope.

Add a label for mailing and close with glue, tape, ribbon or twine depending on whether it will going into a mail slot or hand delivered.

There are lots of fun possibilities to dream up with these – different papers, different sizes, different closures. I foresee plenty of these envelopes in our future.

These were so easy, the kids were so proud of their new skill and there is one less calendar saved in the basement!

More hearts in the jay household today. I love seeing how excited these kids get about a theme!

Last week we got out the watercolours – mostly of the red and pink variety – and sat down to paint.

It has been a while since I used my watercolour paints. I absolutely love painting with watercolours (although I have no idea what I am doing)  but don’t get them out often enough because I get that painting-is-messy syndrome. It becomes a big deal in my head to get it out and clean it up. Of course my head gets it blown way out of proportion because when I do brave a painting session with the littles it (usually) goes great. They love it as much as I do and now that my big girls are getting older there is much more help with the clean up.

There is something about spreading that watery paint across the page.

Watching it bloom.

Observing how the colours mix and mingle.

So calming, peaceful and focused yet mind-wanderingly simple.

Cheap therapy.

After our papers were full we used these water colour crayons to add whatever designs we fancied – there were more hearts.

We tried painting over our crayon designs with water and also dipping the tips of the crayons in water before drawing for a deeper colour.

While we’re here I would like to put my vote in for buying quality art supplies for kids (and yourself). It makes such a difference. With this project we used both higher and lower quality paper and paints (leftover from my more miserly years) and we certainly noticed a difference. The cheaper paints were mostly dried up and the cheap paper curled at the edges when it got wet. There are certain special pens, markers and pencil crayons that I don’t let the kids have free reign over but I would rather have them use quality materials that will last and perform well over cheap supplies that will need frequent replacing or cause unnecessary frustration.

We gave our paintings plenty of drying time…er, plenty…as in a week since craft time just did not seem to be happening. Then using a heart cookie cutter we traced hearts all over the back of our papers.

We cut out our hearts.

A very eager seven-year-old set them around the table in pairs.

We gathered red yarn and an embroidery hoop and tied a length of yarn to the hoop. We glued our heart pairs around the yarn (yarn going in between the two hearts).

We continued in the same way, tying lengths around the hoop until we were happy with how it looked.

We attached three more pieces of yarn with the length going above the hoop. Being careful that our three lengths were equal we tied them together at the top and hung our heart mobile from a handy ceiling hook.

We got the idea from MJ, who was inspired by this tutorial – I love the grapevine wreaths!

We were so excited with this one that we made a second, smaller mobile which currently hangs over a sleeping babe’s head.

I have a feeling we will be making more of these as new themes spring to our imaginations!

Thanks for joining us for more Valentine’s Day crafting!

My husband and I don’t make a big deal of Valentine’s Day. Maybe a card and maybe a chocolate fondue (I am usually pretty insistent on that last point) but no gifts. I can be a pretty sappy romantic but a holiday that makes so many people feel like something is lacking seems a little out of whack. And that is not even taking into account the money-grab so many stores make of it. Bah humbug, right?

That being said, though, although Dan and I don’t make a big deal of the day, the kids and I have so much fun with it. Winter is long and cold around here, February being one of the worst offending months, so we make the most of the excuse to decorate the house, craft with red and pink, bake fattening sweets and share the love with some of our favourite people.

We are thick into Valentine’s dreams and planning around here this week – the last two mornings I have come down to hearts galore, red construction paper and a tableful of kids who love to gift (how great is that?). The trick is for me to keep up with all the elaborate plans that they (and I) have put together for gifts, crafts, decorations and goodies.

Today we checked some names off our lists of valentines with these super fun and easy cards. I had debated about including glitter, paint and, glitter paint, but maybe the best part of these valentines was the lack of anything too messy. I caught a break there.

The idea came from this great book.

First I cut tin foil squares. I started out using an craft knife but found that tearing it off on the edge of the ruler made for a much smoother cut.

Then using Sharpies in pink and silver we drew hearts and swirls over our foil squares. We chose light colours more to give the impression of a design without overwhelming the foil with colour.

I kept snapping pictures because I couldn’t get enough of the little fingers grasping markers and little heads bent over their work. (On a side note, someone needs to put some clips in this kid’s hair – more on that later.)

We ended up with lots of foils like these.

We punched out lots and lots of hearts (and argued a little over whose turn it was to use the punch).

While they were swirling and punching I cut and folded cards like these from red card stock.

Then free license reigned and the kids decorated hearts, glued hearts and amazingly didn’t decorate themselves with Sharpies!

This girl was serious about completing her valentines.

This boy was serious about the punches.

This girl was serious about the glue.

Oh we had fun – and all while little brother was napping. I caught another break there.

I kind of want to do it again tomorrow.

Another Valentine’s Day craft to share tomorrow! I’ll give you a hint – there was more red, pink, hearts and glue – who would’ve guessed?!