Cube decorating contest

Soooo, when your workplace decides to throw a cube decorating contest during the holiday season, what does your team of Early Childhood specialists do? Win, of course! 

I don’t think the Christmas party committee realized the monster they created when they opened up a contest to see who could decorate their “cubicle” area the most festive for the holiday. All of us at Child Care Aware have been in a situation where you are decorating your classroom or making an art activity for the kids with little to no budget money and LOTS of creativity. We know how to make anything out of nothing. Give us a little construction paper and glitter and we can make amazing things!

So, our crew consisted of seven highly competitive individuals who wanted to win. We got together and planned what our theme was going to be and started divvying out tasks to whoever had the right materials and the time/energy to devote to the task! We all came back to the office with boxes of construction paper, glitter, glue, cotton balls, scissors, Christmas trees, decorations, fishing wire, tape, cellophane paper, toilet paper tubes, brown sack lunch bags etc. You name it, we had it.

We decided to go with a gingerbread theme. We had two cubes to decorate but wanted them to be connected to each other visually. My work cube (which I share with Brittany) was going to be the main gingerbread house and the training department’s cube next door would be the outside/backyard area. 

                            

We covered the whole outside of our cube with brown butcher paper and then put up construction paper glittered lights, gumdrops on the bottom, and lollipops in the front (made of wrapping paper tubes and colorful plastic plates). Katie made tons of cute things out of construction paper, including the adorable snowmen, the windows with the wreaths, and the street signs. I managed to find some gigantic googly eyes that I placed on one of the snowmen. The rest of the colorful plastic plates were covered with clear cellophane wrap and put up as candies.

"Candy" made out of colorful plastic plates and cellophane wrap.

 We put up a trim of fake snow and covered the top with cotton balls all stretched out. The “roof” was made with wrapping paper tubes and a bunch of lunch paper bags arranged to look like shingles. A few more cotton balls on the top of the roof made it look like a fresh batch of snow had just fallen.

Brittany brought her Christmas tree and we decorated it with candy ornaments, candy canes, and lights. I brought a bunch of fake wrapped presents that Jon and I had created years ago. They looked perfect under the tree! We even found some cute candy decorations that went along perfectly with the theme! We made some paper chains ($1 section at Target!) to put up in the background.

Inside the gingerbread house, we created a fireplace with construction paper bricks, a real wreath, and a stocking for each of our co-workers. Emily created a realistic fire with toilet paper tubes and red, orange, and yellow construction paper flames. I brought my stuffed Santa and Brittany had her daughter write a note to Santa. She even brought a fake cup of milk from her kid’s dramatic play set at home. With a plate of cookies (felt gingerbread), our mantle was complete. 

We’re not quite sure who took a “bite” out of one of our gingerbread men. We’re pretty sure it was a member of a competing team! It was clever, whoever it was!

Our fireplace, mantle, stockings, and fire. Look what a little
construction paper and creativity can do!

Now, to connect our gingerbread house to the backyard. Emily’s kids helped color paper plates to look like red and white swirly peppermint candies and we taped them to the floor leading to the next cube. 

A few paper snowflakes, cut out candy cane decorations, and gingerbread also helped set the scene. Some light-up candy canes lead the way to the backyard area where there are a few more gingerbread people skating on an ice rink (aluminum foil with a border of fake snow). 

The gingerbread people were made by Katie out of cardboard and some markers and glitter! A few of us had small trees at home so we brought those in and placed them near the skating rink to look like trees outside.

                                

Some snow falling from the sky and snow drifts on top of the cubes.

Emily and I created the illusion of snow falling by using some fishing line and tying cotton balls in random places. Deanna used her dye-cut machine to create a bunch of adorable tiny snowflakes which we also strung on the fishing line and hung from the ceiling. A few evergreen trees cut from paper and other cute lil snowmen/stuffed animals were spread throughout the area.

When the time for judging came around, Katie had made homemade gingerbread cookies (a little bribe doesn’t hurt!?) for the judges to eat as they walked by. As if they needed any convincing. There were a few other cubes that were nicely decorated, but nothing quite like our theme. 

Of course, we won the best decorated cube contest, winning us the adorable ugly trophy for the year. Now, on to next year’s planning…. Can never start thinking too early… ;)

Katie showing off the ugly traveling trophy that isn't going to travel! :)

Deanna and Katie standing in their cube....errr....gingerbread backyard

Check out the Child Care Aware of ND facebook link for a few more panoramic pictures.

Check out the adorably hideous traveling trophy we won! Who am I kidding? Traveling trophy!? That would mean someone else would have to win next year and we aren't going to let THAT happen!

Crocheted snowflake and star ornaments

I love my job! I get the privilege of working with child care providers and directors in the eastern part of North Dakota. I love that we share a similar passion – to provide the best quality care we can for our future generation. Through the past year and a half, I have been working with a handful of directors who are working hard on a director’s credential called Aim4Excellence. It is intense. It is time consuming. It is in-depth. Each module takes about 6 weeks and there are 9 modules. That’s a lot of hours. Recently, a few of the directors I’ve been working with have finished this daunting task. The last time I met with them, I wanted to give them a little something to thank them for all the hard work they have put in. I’m pretty sure you can guess that it was homemade. After all, I do like being crafty. ;) Since Christmas is around the corner (yippeeee!), I decided to find some cute crocheted Christmas decoration patterns and try my hand at making them.

The first one I found was for snowflakes. The free crochet pattern can be found here. I used a G sized crochet hook and a couple of different colors of worsted weight yarn. Loops & Threads Impeccable yarn in Teal, I Love this Yarn in graphite and I Love this Yarn in white sparkle. The white sparkle yarn is absolutely perfect for this pattern! Just enough sparkle to look like a snowflake. :)

The beginning of the pattern starts with a magic ring.

Then, I dug out my sparkly Modge Podge (seriously, this is so cool!) and dabbed a bit on the front of the snowflakes. Not only does it add a nice fun sparkle, it stiffens the yarn so that the snowflake doesn’t curl in on itself. Multi-purpose AND pretty – can’t get better than that! Don't forget to continually tighten your magic circle so that the hole in the middle stays small. It will want to stretch as you go.

          

When you are putting the Modge Podge on, it will look really white. Be patient, once it dries, it will be clear and only show the sparkles. Don't put it on too thick because the sparkles kinda clump together. After drying, I tied the snowflakes together to make a long garland.

I spaced the snowflakes about 3 inches apart using my husband's old-school Transformers ruler. :)

The next project I took on was crocheted stars. I found this free pattern on Pinterest. I used a G sized crochet hook and used three different festive colors. I Love this Yarn in sparkle white, I Love this Yarn in Jelly Bean, and Yarn Bee Dreamy Chenille in black cherry.  

I started the yarn with a magic circle for all of the colors EXCEPT for the red. That yarn tends to break when I try to tighten the magic circle. I stuck with a simple chain 4 and slip stitched into the first chain to form a circle. Then, I put the puff stitches in that. 

The beginning of this pattern using a magic circle

Starting Round 2 of the pattern

Once again, I used the sparkly Modge Podge to stiffen the yarn and add that nice little sparkle. These turned out so cute! I decided to turn these into tree decorating ornaments so I put a little bit of red yarn at the top and created a loop so it could hang. 

Starting Round 3 of the pattern

Finished pile of stars! Now comes the sparkly part!

                                                                                                                                                               
My husband graciously offered to burn the ends of the yarn so it wouldn’t unravel. Any time my husband can play with fire, he’s a happy man. Is that a Y chromosome thing? 

I found a cute cardboard container in the dollar section at Target and managed to find some matching tissue paper in my tissue paper storage container. Win win! Relatively cheap gift and I was able to use up some scraps of yarn that had been in my stash for quite a while.

If you are looking for an easy Christmas crochet pattern to use up yarn and to make a cute creative gift for someone in your life, look no further! 

Non-slip toddler slippers

My niece, Sydney, loves to go out on our deck to see if the neighbor puppies are out in the yard, playing. She also is a great helper and likes to assist us in taking the garbage out.

Since it’s been getting a little cooler out, we needed to come up with a solution so Sydney’s toes don't get cold. I should preface this with the fact that Sydney hates socks. Despises them. They come off instantly. So, most of the time, when she joins us outside, she is barefoot. Well, in North Dakota, that only works for a short period of time in the summer.

Now that it is fall, it’s getting too chilly for her to be without socks. My husband suggested I make her some slippers that we can quickly slip on her feet. That way, we don’t have to hunt for socks and shoes every time.

After searching for a toddler slipper pattern, I stumbled across this super cute one on Pinterest. I have SO many good crochet patterns on my Pinterest board - check it out if you are looking for more patterns!

They are so adorable and they can be tightened because of the strip of yarn that goes around the entire shoe. So, if they are a little big (which I’d rather have than too small!), you can snug them up a bit until they grow into them a little more.

My sister-in-law picked out the gray and white colors and I got to work. These worked up super-fast – I had them done in one evening.

Notice that you go around your first chain when making
the sole of the shoe.

I have crocheted baby shoes before, so I kinda knew what I was doing. For some reason, the first time I crocheted shoes, it was SO hard. Now, I’ve made so many of them that they are all pretty easy.

For this pattern, I used a 3.75mm hook and two different kinds of yarn – Big Twist in white for the sole and Lion brand Wool-East in oxford grey for the body. Both are worsted weight yarn.

First off, crochet the sole. You’ll notice this part is done in the round (not using slip stitches and continuing around and around the whole outside).

Finished sole.

Then, when I got to the part where you switch to the main color, I decided to add one additional row into this pattern. I like a clear edge from where the sole of the shoe ends and the body begins. There are a lot of shoe patterns out there where the sole kinda melts into the body and it ends up being very rounded. I prefer the shoes to have a flat sole. So, in-between rows 5 and 6 of this pattern, I inserted this row: After switching to the main color, slip stitch in each stitch all the way around – LOOSELY. Then, when you start row 6, you will be crocheting into only that slip stitch, not the stitch under it from the previous row. This helps create a nicer, cleaner edge between the sole and body of the shoe.

Loose slip stitches in-between rows 5 and 6.

Continue on with the pattern until the top of the shoe is done and you are ready to work on the straps and toe flaps.

After doing the strap parts, I worked on the toe flap. Those were pretty simple to do. Lining them up so they were centered, I started stitching the toe flap onto the actual shoe.

After completing that, it is time to get out your strip of yarn that you will weave through the entire shoe.

Starting the toe flap section.

            

                              











As mentioned before, this is to help snug them up and keep them on. Crocheted slippers aren’t super well known for staying on all that well.

Stitching the toe flap section to the body of the shoe.

              

I used a yarn needle to weave the white yarn in and out of nearby stitches and all the way around the heel of the shoe back up to the front.


Go through both of the holes in the middle of the strap section and tie in a knot.

One final touch that I added to this project was a non-skid surface for the bottom. We have wooden floors and I knew if Sydney were to wear these crocheted slippers around the house, it would take about 3 seconds before she’d slip and slide and hurt herself on our wooden floors. I had heard about a product called PlastiDip and wondered if that would work for something like this.

Off to Fleet Farm I went. After searching all over in the paint section, I was not finding what I was looking for. I asked an employee for something that would help make a non-skid surface for a crochet project (I don’t recommend doing that, they look at you kinda strange), he was just as confused as I was. Finally, another guy came buy and after I explained what I was looking for, he knew right away that it was in the tool aisle.

Alas, there it was! One bottle of PlastiDip was just under $6. Not a bad price considering I only used a tiny bit of it.

I recommend spraying this in a well ventilated area – We put some paper towel on the damp grass and did it on our lawn. I used masking tape to tape off the edges where I wanted the non-skid surface to end and then taped some paper to that tape as well to protect the rest of the shoe from unwanted surfacing in case the wind took it.

After the first coat, I left the slippers in the garage to dry for about 45 minutes. Then, we did another coating and let that dry. Finally, one more coating and let it dry overnight. In the morning, I was pleasantly surprised that an initial test seemed to work – the bottom of the slippers weren’t going to slide on my wooden floor. 

The bottom of the slipper after the PlastiDip dried.

The PlastiDip is holding up quite well after a few weeks of wear. I might reapply another coat if needed.

Isn't she adorable?!

Enjoy these super fun slippers! My niece sure does! We leave them tied so that she just has to slip them on and off. She gets super excited when she sees Uncle Jon put his shoes on. She runs over to put her slippers on to join him. :)