Crafting With the Nieces

My nieces ages 7 and 8 had their spring break for the past two weeks.  Their parents are both going to school and had their spring break the week before the girls.  So Grandma and Grandpa were asked to watch the girls for a few weeks.  I got the privilege of crafting and playing with my nieces when I was around.  Of course, I never did pull out my camera until the day before they left.

We have a craft store near by (about 15 miles away) that has crafts for kids during spring break.  We attended three days.  Our first day the kids – my nieces, my daughter, and my son’s girlfriend -  did flower boxes.  My son made a flower for his girlfriend.

The second day at the craft store my nieces, my daughter and her friend painted ceramic animals.

On our last day attending the craft store crafts the girls made design your own flower pots.

The flower pots came with several inserts.

We also did some fun projects at home.  Unfortunately I didn’t take pictures.  I bought some “dinosaur eggs” that you place in water and the dinosaur grows and “hatches” out of the egg after several days.  Here are the two blurry dinosaurs that we hatched.

We made sun catchers. 

This was a very frustrating project!  I think that part of the frustration might have been that the cookie sheet didn’t lie completely flat.  The little beads would creep under the metal frame and then continue to spread.

I had to run my son to his school classes, but my daughter finished the project with the girls.  She got an after shot as the sun catchers were cooling.

Here are the end results.

This niece got frustrated with fitting the colors into the little areas and finally decided to make a “rainbow” butterfly.  I’m loving the end result!

The girls made masks together.  I tried to take a picture of the end results and couldn’t figure out how to get the masks to stay in position.  Finally grabbed tissue from a tissue box and propped them up.  Not the greatest – a bit of a distraction – sorry.

And the girls modeling the masks.

At the very end, we were still pushing crafts.  It was past bedtime on the last night and we started shrinky dinks.

I didn’t get pictures of the before and after.  As soon as my niece’s were done, I packed them up.  I did take a picture of my daughter’s after the weekend.

Now on to my biggest pride and joy!  Last summer when the girls visited I tried to teach them to knit.  They brought their needles and yarn for more lessons.  Niece A remembered the long-tail cast on.  As soon as her hands were in position, they just knew what to do.  I had started them both on kitchen cotton to make squares to wash with.  Well, Niece A wanted to make a scarf, and I knew that kitchen cotton wouldn’t get her the results as quickly as her interests wanted.  We got some bulky yarn and off she went!

This just makes her auntie proud!  Someone who loves the craft.

Look at how well she’s doing!  Very few mistakes - a great job for an 8 year old.

She did start my mind thinking.  She said she didn’t get as much done because she went out to play the last few days as the weather was nice.  She said that exercise was more important than knitting, right?  Hmm. . . .

I tried to get a project knitted for the girls before they left, but didn’t quite finish.  Headbands.

I decided at the last minute that my nieces little sister needed a headband also.  So I guess I’ll send these later this month.  Will post the finished projects with the link to the pattern later.