a craft a day

I broke down. I got a Pinterest account. I have avoided it because I know how obsessive I can be. Add that to the fact that I do not need one more thing to distract my attention... But I do need crafty ideas. Pinterest is perfect for that. I have come up with gift ideas that I never would have come up with on my own. Well, I say that. Maybe I would have, but now I don't have to!

Crafty ideas: Abe needs something to do. He is three. (THREE!!! Big boy!) Three means he has a very busy mind. Busy and overwhelming if it's not occupied. Mornings in our house have the same tempo -- wake, eat, clean up, dress, pray, go somewhere, do something, sleep, lunch. Once the boys wake up we have somewhere between 1 and 4 hours to kill before Daddy gets home. Those can be a very long few hours if Abe (especially, but Ike, too) isn't occupied.

I have taken a few weeks to think through how I want to do the crafts. I don't want them to random, and order makes me happy. So here's what I've come up with.

5 boxes, labelled Monday through Friday

Sunday on the left side of the Monday box, though we won't do a craft on Sunday.

Nor will we do one on Saturday.

(My favorite Billy Currington song was playing on Pandora. ...it's the little things!)

Monday we will go over a new letter. Each week we will focus on a new letter. Monday we will do a DIY "fan" -- tongue depressor, 2 pieces of paper, and the letter (which I will cut out from a stencil)...have him help me put it all together and then decorate/craft it up! Then we'll look for things in the house that start with the "letter of the week." Those will be written out on a sticky note and put on a word wall (I will post some pics of it once I get it up!) Every other day of the week we will do a craft of things that start with the corresponding letter of the alphabet. We should hypothetically be able to get through the alphabet twice during the year (26 letters x 2 = 52 weeks in a year), though I am sure we will take a week off here or there.

I am happy to have figured out how to better use our afternoons. Now to execute. We'll start when we get home the first week in January.