crafty mccrafterson.

this afternoon we are headed to a birthday party. this will be the boy's very first party (not including family). he is over the moon excited. his friend, mendel, is turning 3. not only will we be celebrating mendel's birthday, but we will get to watch his upshernish, as well. for those of you not in the know (aka me, before i read details on the invite) the upshernish is an inaugural haircutting ceremony which marks a jewish boy's 3rd birthday and formal introduction to jewish education. pretty cool, no?

anyway, i wanted to come up with something kind of unique to bring mendel as a gift. i didn't really want to go to the toy store and buy something....i have no idea what he's "into" or what his parents would approve of. so, while searching for ideas i came across a blog that suggested making a fort kit. i'm pretty sure almost every kid in the world likes a good fort, so i decided to go for it.

here's what i did....

i bought:

-a flat sheet from target (you know the kind that comes in a matching bag? yessir, that's the one)

-a spool of ribbon

-a pack of wooden buttons

-some rope

-a flashlight

-a pack of wood clothespins

first, i cut the ribbon into 8 strips, about 10 inches long each. i sewed 2 strips onto each corner of the sheet and then sewed a button over the ribbon to make it look a little more finished.

i tied a leftover piece of ribbon around the rope.

and the flashlight.

notice my assistant...clearly he's cut out for hand modeling

i printed out (free!) labels from armommy.com , laminated them (totes optional, but if you have a free laminator at work and a wee bit of free time on your hands, i say go for it), and attached them to the gift.

i put everything back into the bag. tied it all up with a bow and ta-da! done deal....



cute, no? and speaking of cute- here is my disheveled little assistant, ready to attempt to steal the flashlight lend a hand even in the wee hours of the morning.

oh, and side note- i lit-ra-lee spent less than $15 on this little number, so that's pretty awesome, too.