How a well supplied craft room kept me from losing Mom Points.

First of all, let me just say that another two weeks has slipped past me.  It's not that I haven't wanted to sit down and write to you, I just know that when I do, my whole day seems to evaporate somehow.  But, I have used my time wisely, and I'm going to do my best to update you!

This blog begins yesterday.  Actually, it began on March 10, which was the day before the kids got out of school for Spring Break.  Abby and Emma informed me that they needed to wear green to school the next day, in order to celebrate St. Patrick's Day in the classroom.  That was when we discovered that they didn't have much to choose from.  Abby has one shirt that is green.  Unfortunately, it has a rather large reindeer on the front of it.  Emma has.....nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  One of the drawbacks of refusing to wear any color other than pink.  We managed to find a shirt of Abby's that had enough green in it to pass, and she borrowed that.

Fast forward one week.  It's the day before St. Patrick's Day, and the bunch of us are scheduled to go to MOPS.  That means out.  And that means wearing green.  Now, a GOOD mom would've realized that this day was coming, and would have taken steps after the problem was discovered.  Apparently, in this instance, I am not such a mom.  Which led to yesterday's mad scramble.  And because of yesterday, I am able to maintain that a well supplied craft room is critical to the well being of my children.

I found some white t-shirts that had been purchased for another project, which we never got to.  After a 20 minute rummage through my craft room, I came up with a roll of Heat 'n Bond, and 5 different green fabrics.  I found a shamrock to trace, and copied it in 4 different sizes, then traced a number of shamrocks, of various sizes, on the back of the Heat 'n Bond.  Now, it was time to involve the girls.  I put each girl's first initial on the back of her shamrocks:  1 large, 2 medium, 3 small, and 4 tiny ones.  I then asked which fabric she wanted for each shamrock, and fused them to the the fabric.

I sat down and cut them out, which took quite a long time. 

Then called the girls in, one by one, to design their shirts.  Emma was first:

After she was satisfied with her design, I fused her pieces in place.  Here is her finished shirt:

It looks slighlty like a smiling face, doesn't it?

Next came Katie:

She was very precise about how she placed her pieces, and this is what she ended up with:

Now it was Abby's turn.  She really took it to heart when I told them to make sure that they were happy with how it looked, because once I ironed them, there was no changing.  Abby rearranged her pieces about a dozen times!

And this was her finished result:

And finally, I did one for Maddie:

Ordinarily, I would've sealed the edges with fabric paint right away, but I was afraid they wouldn't be dry in time to wear today, so I let that go.  I will be sealing them though, and hopefully, they will still fit next year!  They loved wearing the shirts...couldn't wait to get dressed today, actually, and I really think the fact that they "made" them themselves had a lot to do with it.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!