Here’s a fun little way to keep your kid occupied for a bit, and also use up some of the scraps you have in your stash from various projects. The Boy has been obsessed with the game Spore, particularly the fun of character creation.  (Yes, we’re raising a geek child, why do you ask!?)  And while he has a lot of fun playing it on the computer, he does need a break from ’screen time’ sometimes (not if you asked HIM, of course!).   He’s never really been into arts and crafts – short attention span from too many video games,…

One of the fun activities that we’ve been doing, to try to get our little video game fiend (yah, he’s a born geek) out of the house is taking a ‘photo safari’–sometimes we call it a ‘photography field trip’… The 4 year old gets possession of mommy’s point and shoot camera, and we go for a walk–sometimes through the woods, sometimes through the neighborhood. I’m actually pretty amazed at some of his shots (many are pure luck, like achieving the rule of thirds because he wiggled his hands accidentally!) but I do find it fun to look at the world…

I literally squealed when I saw this at Superpunch this morning…

Noah Dziobecki created a dead on Star Wars-themed version of Goodnight Moon, called Goodnight Forest Moon. You can download the book here.

The Boy loved Goodnight Moon when he was little, and now he’s completely into Star Wars in all it’s forms.  So this is totally cool.  You can download a pdf of the book, and he gives very detailed instructions on how to print and make your own version.

“In the great metal room, there was a comlink, and a tauntaun, and a holo picture of..” (pdf)

Twitter It!…

At Dabbled we love to make something new out of something old.
It’s a great way to get new uses out of something that you don’t wear or is outgrown, and if you mess up, well, you’re not out expensive fabric, right? Plus, it’s fun to REFASHION!

Here’s a few tutorials to start you on your way!

Kids Refashioning Tutorials:

There are a ton of these out there, these were just a few I had saved in my ‘to write about’ file!

• TUTORIAL: Boy’s Sweater Vest (from a Man’s Sweater) at MADE (via OnePrettyThing)
• The 15 Minute Dress (made from Bandannas!)
• Another cute sweater vest idea, this one…

Does your child have finger puppets that get lost and scattered about? Or is your child really a little small for wearing them on their fingers, but still likes to play with them? This is actually a re-run from 2008 when the boy had just turned 3, and was not really dexterous enough to wear his finger puppets, but still wanted to play with them. I’m busy working on a new project today, and there might be a few of you who missed this tutorial back then, so I figured I’d share it with your today!

This is a very simple…

A lot of people liked the super easy sewing of the Treeskirt project, so here’s another quick and easy project!

My son has a favorite t-shirt that was getting a tad small… he wore it layered with a long sleeve shirt to a party the other day, which gave me the idea to make a long sleeved, slightly larger shirt out of it for him to wear this winter and spring.*

I forgot to take a “before” pic, but you’ve seen t-shirts and long sleeve shirts before, so just imagine them, hehe.

So, Here’s how I did it.

Materials:
1 long sleeve (LS) shirt (can…

So… I decided to make a FSM (Flying Spaghetti Monster) out of a radical combination: Spaghetti and meatballs.  No, these aren’t just stacks of spaghetti, with meatballs on top, these are true meatball creatures… suitable for your own Flying Spaghetti Monster, or whatever you’d like to create!

I used a technique similar to the one I used for the Halloween Cephalopods (thanks to Filth Wizardry for the idea!).

Ingredients:

• Frozen Swedish Meatballs (I used the ones from Ikea), 2 per monster. (Defrosted)
• Thin Spaghetti, dry.
• Several tubular noodles (I had some elbows on hand, but this would probably work better with a larger…

For Halloween this year, I tried a new idea, that I had gotten from the most excellent blog, Filth Wizardry. She did this as a fun project with the kids, and I thought it looked like a lovely and disgusting item for the Halloween buffet, especially for the kiddos. Now those of you who follow me on Twitter may remember this for the Dot Cooks “Live Tweet”, where I documented all my Halloween food prep (if not, you can see the summary here!).

So why am I showing you this now, since Halloween is a whole year away?  Well, I think…

A third flickr Gallery for your inspiration… this time featuring some cool/cute and homemade kids costumes. ( See Part 1 and Part 2)
I’m from the old school that likes to make rather than buy costumes. And I totally remember being “Dracula” with a red towel for a cape!

Some of these are totally doable by amateurs… Others might require some actual sewing skills… but hopefully this gallery (18 photos) will send some inspiration your way.

From animals (adorable bird, silly shark, cute bunny, and more) to pop culture (Darth Vader, Oompa Loompa, Mario, Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, etc) to classic (lovely…

Welcome to yet another Halloween post!  (Don’t miss any this month: Get the Feed (RSS) or Get Dabbled via Email)

This easy and fun homemade costume was the hit of last year’s Halloween carnival–I love how the arms all move!–so I insisted that my friend Holly write up instructions to share with you guys.

Materials:

Black turtleneck shirt
Black pants or sweatpants
3 pairs of long black socks
Black toboggan
4 pairs of white gloves
3 small Styrofoam balls – cut in half
Square of red felt
Square of black felt
Craft glue or a hot glue gun
A spool of invisible thread
Sewing needle
4-5 sheets of newspaper or tissue paper
1 long…