In a college photography class, Sue Tenerowicz was introduced to letter art. Her assignment that was to go out in the world and find letters that the world created.  Then spell something.

She says, “A simple idea, but the concept stuck with me.”

“I’ve always used words in pictures to send a special message. Sometimes, it was a message written in the snow, captured in a photo, and sent to a loved one. Other times it was an “I Love You,” written in the sand to capture a beautiful testament with a glowing sunset on the beach.”

“When my husband, Rob, and I moved back to the Bay Area with our boys, I started noticing the letters that were all around us – like the great H on the span of the Golden Gate Bridge. I kept seeing letters in everything from fences to flowers.  It brought me back to that college assignment.”

I want to do this with my kids! I think it would be so much fun to go out on hunts for letters in their names, snap photos and then print them out for a bulletin board or the door of their room. (Although I’m sort of envying my friends who named their kids Max and Ty right now. I don’t know if any of us have the attention span to seek out Julian and Scarlett.)

I used images from Sue's site to make Scarlett's name

Want to try this?
Here are three ways to go (the first being the most hands-on):

1. Take your children on amazing scavenger hunts until you find (and photograph!) all the letters. Print your photos and choose one of these multi-photo frames to display your masterpiece.
2. Find your letters on flickr using this fun tool. Print and frame.
3. Let Sue do all the work for you and buy your chosen word from her on her website SpellItOutPhotos.com

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Letter art not your thing? Choose another fun makin’ it project from our growing list.

For many years, when I watched HGTV, I would tell myself that if only I had a staple gun, I would be reupholstering stuff left and right. And then my husband bought me a staple gun for Christmas two years ago. Twenty-five months later — yesterday — I used it for the first time.

We have had this little art table for the kids since Julian was about two.  My sister bought it at Michael’s, painted it, and decoupaged it with pages from Goodnight Moon. It was cute, but the paper layer didn’t last. A couple years after, Ryan scraped the pages off, sanded it, and sprayed it with chalkboard paint.

Everything I’ve seen online with chalkboard paint seems so charming, but the reality is that the chalk dust makes a mess if it’s the surface of an indoor table.  Chalk in a dining room = not so good. Also? Here’s how the chalkboard painted surface looked after a while.

Covering this table with oilcloth makes it easy to clean, perfect for art projects and snacking. It’s a kid-sized table, coming up just above my knee. I cut the cloth and stapled the edges down. That’s it.

Oilcloth (or laminated cotton in some cases) comes in so many fun patterns. This etsy store is full of them.

Stapling not going to happen? Just throw the oil cloth on the floor and have the kids get messy there.

This project idea is part of our Makin’ It series, weekly posts with ideas for things you can make. Baby too young for this one? Check the list of DIY ideas for a Makin’ It project you like.

We are big fans of the I Spy books, starting with the board book versions I bought when Julian was a baby. We play “I Spy” with regular books, too, and now we’ve graduated into Where’s Waldo? territory.

When Julian was four, he and I did a little photo shoot with big plans — still unfulfilled as of this writing — to make our own I Spy book. We ended up with unbound printed photos. (You can do it, that way, too.)

DIY I Spy Book

1. Set up a solid colored background on the floor. We used a foam play mat.
2. Gather a laundry basket full of {insert nice word for “junk”}. Include favorite objects and personal items.
3. Spread your items on the background as you like. Since there’s no wrong way to do this, let your preschooler help.
4. Try to talk your preschooler out of being in the picture himself. I failed. See above.
5. Photograph the scene.
6. Arrange new items and repeat.
7. Upload set of photos to your choice of photobook makers and order yourself a book.
8. Alternatively, cheap out and simply print the results on your own printer. Paper clip the photos together to make a set of I Spy cards for use in the car or on the plane.

Another fun version of this activity is to dump your purse and photograph the results.

This is part of our year-long series Makin’ It with The Rookie Moms. To contribute your own idea, click over here.

When my second son was born, I flirted with sewing to create this Moby-style baby wrap (AKA the “fauxby”) to keep little Milo super close. It is the snugliest baby carrier that I’ve ever had.

My mom helped me to hem the edges. Once I saw how legitimately simple it was, I made another two on my own.

Ingredients:

• Muslin fabric, 5 yards (one long piece will usually yield two wraps. Protip: get the lady in the store to cut it for you!)
• A patch made from another material.
• Thread in your sewing machine.

Steps:

1. Cut the fabric in half lengthwise so it is 20 inches wide and 5 yards long
2. Iron, pin, then hem the edges.
3. Adhere your patch to the middle of the wrap so you can easily find it by feel.

Too lazy to sew the edges? Buy a knit fabric that has some stretch. The ends will look raw, but they will not unravel. This is sort of a flashdance-style wrap. Look for 5% spandex or lycra and 95% cotton. You’ll need 5 yards, and the width will be 42 inches. Fold it in half and cut along the fold.

Whitney laid it out for me in her kitchen this morning and took this picture.

Wondering how to wear it? I experimented a bit before I asked the woman at our local baby gear shop to fit me properly. It was a relief to have a pro install Milo for me. Maybe this video will help you.

Wanna just buy one? Voila, le moby wrap on amazon.

Related links:
Rookie Mom Challenge: Go to the fabric store
Wrap your baby and stay warm

To accommodate our holiday guests in our tiny dining room with its four-top table, my husband ordered a new camping table from Amazon.com. It arrived in a cardboard box big enough for a 7-year old boy and a 4-year old girl to lie down in. How do I know this? Because my kids got in the box, of course.

In an excellent post about the most basic and universally loved toys on GeekDad, the author says:

Boxes can be turned into furniture or a kitchen playset. You can turn your kids into cardboard robots or create elaborate Star Wars costumes. A large Box can be used as a fort or house and the smaller Box can be used to hide away a special treasure. Got a Stick? Use it as an oar and Box becomes a boat. One particularly famous kid has used the Box as a key component of a time machine, a duplicator and a transmogrifier, among other things.

He notes humorously that this toy can be procured easily from Amazon.

[They] include one with virtually every order I place there.

Here are a few inspirational photos of cardboard boxes, the most versatile toy in your house this week.

from The Imagination Tree

to make while keeping your box-sitting toddler company: cardboard thank you postcards (via designsponge)

homemade marble run – this one is from a cereal box by Made by Joel

Cardboard shape sorter from Parents.com (this article has 11 more box ideas, but is super annoying to navigate due to the ads and one-idea-per-page format.)

I love the Dr. Seuss feel of this silly bedroom set. Make a few “frames” for kids art? via Tip Junkie who has 32 cardboard box ideas posted.

Probably not feasible for most of us, but we do have a handful of small people, furniture and animals who could inhabit a box, via Busy Being Fabulous

Another one from Parents.com. Unless you are a stylist for Parents magazine, your cardboard kitchen won’t look this cute, but it doesn’t hurt to try.

Have you come up with anything cool to do with cardboard?

Update: Two fabulous friends shared their boxes with us over on our Facebook page.

Cori’s kids show us in fast-motion what fun a box can be.

Mike knocks our socks off with this pirate ship he made for Emme to navigate puddles at the park.

My mom makes mini photo books with Shutterfly for my kids every time we spend a weekend together, so we have a whole bunch of them. She is/was a creative director at her own ad agency, so she’s pretty darn good at it. But the hardbound books that Shutterfly is promoting now are in another league. I saw them in person last month, and I was impressed.

What I like the best was the approach to storytelling they shared. It has helped me stop thinking that a photobook has to be a comprehensive summary of the whole year or even a whole vacation. This template, for example helps you create a top 10. How easy is that? Only ten photos needed!

It doesn’t even have to be a Top Ten of the year. It could be “Top Ten Things about Julian’s 7th Birthday Party” or “Ten Things Scarlett Does Everyday” or “Top Ten Adventures in Our First Ten Years of Marriage”.

Another direction: This template is for “A Year of Firsts.”

Yet another example:  Catherine from Weelicious made a book documenting how to make a particular kind of cookie. The whole book is photographs of the recipe steps with instructions. I think this would be fun to send to a niece or nephew. I was hoping the photos I took of Julian making slime could be used as a How to Make Slime book. (See exactly how Catherine’s book came out on Shutterfly’s site.)

Note that these templates live on the “Storytelling” tab of the Shutterfly site.

GIVEAWAY! Now that you have tons of ideas, and know that the bar might be as low as collecting 10 photos with a theme, here’s your chance to win $150 dollars of credit to use on Shutterfly.  We wanted to make sure that if you make a book, you can buy multiple copies and have them shipped directly to your loved ones. (You know what I wish someone would do? Make a book of their baby doing every activity on our list of 52 challenges for rookie moms! Shutterfly, can you help us make that happen?)

UPDATE: Giveaway now closed (1/2/12). Winner will be notified on 1/3/12.

If you have a DIY kid and you don’t have the time, energy, or interest to get crafty, here are five fun gift solutions:

1. Kiwi Crate Subscription

Each month, a collection of hands-on activities based on a theme (like color, gardening, or dinosaurs) – including arts, crafts, science – arrive with all materials in an attractive package. $19.95/month for ages 3 to 6. Visit kiwicrate.com for more info.

2. Kits from Paper Source

This monkey puppet kit comes with everything you need to make 5 adorable hand puppets from a bag (no sewing required). Other DIY kits include shrinky dinks charm bracelets and ninja warrior action figures. Prices vary.

3. Melissa + Doug faces and bodies

The Create-a-face pad provides a gender-neutral tableau for creating different heads (and, thus, requires markers, crayons, or construction paper with scissors to decorate). My son loves his with the blank bodies. The paper dollface version comes with stickers and other embellishments. Around $6.

4. DIY fashion

Choose some fabric markers and a blank canvas such as a pillowcase or tee-shirt. I had my high school friends autograph a pillowcase at graduation time and I have been unable to part with it in twenty years.

5. Build-your-own robot

Toysmith makes a few different DIY robot kits like these balloon-powered “Cosmic Jet” cardstock guys. Build two ‘bots with materials included and then spend your time racing them. We also liked the TechnoRobot (also DIY, cardstock but this guy is taller and moves around differently). Either one is less than $10.

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Disclosure: We were given samples of Kiwi Crate kits to share with the kids in our lives. Awesome!

I cannot tell a lie. Over the course of this year, at various blogger events, I collected three different $50 gift cards to customized paper goods companies, and I was determined to use them all.

My annual mailing list is about 75 households long. Hence, I uploaded the same photo to Minted, Paper Culture, and Tiny Prints, and split my order three ways.  So… spoiler alert: if you are on my real-life friends mailing list, you’re about to see what our 2011 holiday card picture looks like. (BUT still, a surprise remains: which version will you receive?)

Version A) The Tiny Prints gift card was given to me at a luncheon the Bay Area company hosted for bloggers in November. I let my children choose the card. It looks a little more Happy Gay Pride than Happy Holidays, but I love it.

I put a picture of me and Ryan on the back which looks a little random, but hey, when you’ve got a nice picture of your hot husband and yourself (wearing make up and contact lenses and earrings all at the same time!), how can you not show it to everyone you know?

Version B) Next, we have the Minted card I ordered. A $50 Minted.com credit comes in the Citrus Lane mom-to-be gift box. I was doing some work for Citrus Lane, had lunch in their offices, and went home with this card. (Thanks, Citrus Lane ladies!)

I chose this one:

Minted seems to have a new promo code every day, so I’m not going to post one here, because it might expire before you read this. When you shop Minted’s 2011 Holiday Card Collection, look at the stripe at the top of the page for a discount code. (These cards are expensive, but you already may have guessed that given that I said that I spent more than $150 on a total of 75 cards.)

Version C) Paper Culture slipped a $50 credit into something I picked up at this year’s BlogHer conference. I was first seduced by Paper Culture because of their rounded corners. I am obsessed with rounded corners.

Save 20% at Paper Culture with the code I just got in the mail: TYPMN9. Ends 12/31.

Pro tip: My crafty friend Jackie gave her sharp-cornered cards this premium look with a handy corner clipper. I love this thing!

In Kindergarten, Julian’s Special Person of the Week poster was 100% rounded-cornered photos, and boy was I pleased with myself. (If you stuff your own stocking, grab the corner rounder for $6 on Amazon!) Some of the card companies charge an extra $0.10 for rounded corners. I say if you find a great deal, order square ones and then do it yourself.

Note: My kids’ unisex red-and-white-striped jammies were provided by Polarn O Pyret, and you might see more of them this month because Heather’s boys all have a set as well.

I hope the person who gave this stool to us can forgive me for what I have done.

We received this stool as a gift when Julian was born. Six and a half years later, the boy had zero interest in sports, and I felt like the stool just doesn’t suit him.

And so I spray painted it.

(Of course, over the past six weeks he has developed an INTENSE passion for both football and fútbol. But he did agree to the stool makeover in advance.)

And as you can guess, I am much happier to have the yellow stool in my bathroom than the original one.

Nine months on, nine months off? Something like that.

Your 46th weekly challenge is to obtain some new-to-you clothes that you’ll enjoy along with an afternoon of girlfriend hilarity all for the cost of some cucumber-scented spa water. The end of the year is a perfect time to plan a clothing swap.

Whitney totally hates this photo series but I love it. To be fair, she was trying on outfits from the “pass-through” pile.

We’ve mentioned this idea here and there, but here are the instructions for how to throw a clothing swap on your own.

I have hosted no fewer than nine clothing swaps with my stylish friends and spawned at least three known copycats. For the record, this is better as a a no-kids-allowed event (or just pre-crawlers), so let Daddy take the bambino out for a hike while you get some well-deserved girlfriend-time. The whole event can take less than two hours.

Here’s the step-by-step to planning and hosting:
(kind of long, but I want to make it mindless for you)

1. Stake out a day. Work with your partner or a babysitter to find a good day for the swap. Plan around naps and try to avoid mealtime so that you are not trying to be Martha Stewart while you are running around your living room half-naked.
2. Invite the ladies. Send out an evite to all your potentially willing friends.
3. Purge. Set aside a good hour and clean out your closet of stuff you haven’t worn in a year or wouldn’t want to wear right now even if the proper situation presented itself. Be brutal. If you’re feeling those flipping annoying post-partum body issues, get a good friend to help. (Do your marriage the small favor of not asking your husband if your “butt looks big in this” because it probably does!)
4. Merchandise. Clean and fold the things for the swap. Bust out the iron even. Create a separate bag of clothes so ugly you’d be embarrassed for your friends to see (stained t-shirts for instance) — these can go in the pass-through pile (modeled by Whitney as “Before”)
5. Think about how you’ll set up your space for the event. Is there a mirror handy in the living room or will you have to tidy up your room too? Is there space for hanging clothes? If you have room to “merchandise” your stuff, it is a little more fun to “shop”.
6. Make little signs — use the computer or write on index cards what the categories of clothing are so that guests can sort their offerings. (Download our labels here.) And, have a few blank labels available for the day of.

On the day of the event: tidy up, wear cute underwear, get some appetizers or have your friends bring them, and wait for everyone to bring you new clothes! We usually start out browsing the piles casually enough and trying stuff on here and there. Once you try on a cute spangly dress, it is fair game for someone else to have a go at it. Let your friends decide who really looks best in it. I am notorious for trying to get my hands on everyone’s good stuff.

Afterward, get someone to help you load the car or take stuff directly to the charity.

Note: we often have a grab bag category, maternity, men’s clothes, shoes, and baby clothes.

If you’re still not convinced, here are my top eight reasons to host a clothing swap:

1. eat drink and be merry (just easy snacks and spa water)
2. enjoy a fun afternoon with friends
3. feel good about donating to a worthy cause
4. get a heap of new clothes for free (especially good if you have a changing-mom-body!)
5. get a license to buy a couple new pieces for all your thrift
6. play dress-up and get silly
7. purge yourself of unwanted clothes
8. re-gift your recent holiday loot (I like to hold mine in January)

… I’m getting off my soapbox now.

So, do you love or shove the clothing swap for moms?

I am so proud of our buddy Marie who has just published her first book. The team at her publisher, Wiley, who maintain a pretty solid crafty website themselves, put together an adorable package of Marie’s ideas and photographer Nicole Gerulat’s images.

As you can see in the table of contents above, the projects are organized by month. My own kids love making things in anticipation of upcoming holidays, so this layout would draw them right in.

If you don’t already know Marie’s site, head over to Make and Takes to browse the zillions of projects she and her contributors have posted. She often uses her own kids as models on her blog, and they each make an appearance in her book. Aren’t they the cutest?

If you need inspiration for unplugged time with your family, consider buying a copy of Make and Takes for Kids. If you’d like to win a copy, simply leave a comment before November 21 telling us what your go-to creative activity is with your child(ren). On 11/21, I will select a winner at random from the comments to receive a copy of the book.

This homemade owl beanie is so cute, I had to share. Not only is it a simple sewing project, similar to the make a baby hat out of a tshirt post I did a few years ago, but the whole Owl in a Tree is a clever mom and baby costume idea. The mom behind this project is the author of the blog Humpty Was Pushed.

She provides step-by-step instructions in her post.

While she sews her owl eyes and nose to the hat, you could just as easily cut them from felt and glue them if they are just for one or two wearings.

Now that I know how to make a baby hat out of a tshirt, I have a hard time getting rid of any tshirts that have their hems intact. I see each of them as potential beanies!

Sewing not your thing? Buy one of these on Amazon.