Running With Scissors

Mom Feature: Airplane Applique Quilt

2:19 PM

This post is featuring a quilt made my mom.

My son loves airplanes, and this is his new bedspread she made him.

Amazing right?

I had been collecting fabrics to make him a little quilt, and she said she'd been planning an airplane quilt too and wanted in on it. So I just mailed her the fabric I had and we talked about what I had been thinking, and she had ideas of her own.

I sent her old knits to use for the planes, mainly old t-shirts to add texture.

We both envisioned vintage prop planes, and so super bright fabric didn't seem to fit, so my mom actually tea-dyed the knits to mute the colors for a more vintage feel.

The quilt has a lot of different texture, the blue background is a flat sheet, clouds are fleece, and the airplanes are a variety of knits and cottons.

The quilt is backed with a chocolate flat sheet and bound with chocolate corduroy.

Once she decided to make it a full bedspread, she chose to hand quilt this puppy.

I feel bad we live far away now and I wasn't around to go help quilt it.

Anyway, more details of my mom's quilt.

Each plane is an applique she made. The detail is crazy for such a big quilt and so many planes and different styles. She went above and beyond what I had planned.

Each of these stars below is an applique--so much detail.

The yellow planes are from that yellow ribbed tank top I've had for a long time, and now something much better!

Another cool feature my mom added was naming the planes in the center panel, which will be on top of the bed.

Each plane is named after one of my son's family members.

Here's the my mom's (his maternal grandma) plane: Sheila

Mine: (mom) Jessica:

my husband's maternal grandma, so RJ's great-grandma Lilac:

There were other planes, his dad, other grandmas, and this last one is the plane with his name/ initials on it: RJ

Such an amazing quilt designed and created by my mom.

And like any great work of art, signed and dated by the artist:

The little guy was really excited when he saw the quilt and yelled "Airplane!"

Can't wait to get it on his bed, and I have leftovers of the stripe to make a pillow case to kind of match.

art & craft

Leap Frog Letter Factory Flash Cards

5:00 AM

I've really enjoyed Leap Frog's educational DVDs, mainly the Letter Factory that teach sounds each letter makes .

I've been looking online for flashcards that coordinate with the alphabet characters in the DVD for a while, and couldn't find any, so made some myself.

So far they've been great, and I was actually surprised how many sounds my son knew from watching the DVDs. I think having the cards with the same clues helps him, and it's nice to review the same clues he's already familiar--not having to watch TV to do so. It seems like he learns a lot more using the cards, since he has to recall info rather than just watch the DVD, but it's fun to have both that reinforce one another.

My mom gave us the Leap Frog DVDs for his 2nd birthday, but I saw them at Costco for $5.99 the other day.

So if you would like some ABC Flash cards to go with the Leap Frog sound clues, I'm sharing the ones I made!

**Keep in mind I just sketched them so take them for what they are--home made by a non-artist mom.**

Here's links to print your cards:

(I recommend you print them on card stock for durability)

Plain cards so you or your kids can color them:

Print Black and White cards to color yourself

Or if you don't want to color, save time by using these:

Print Colored cards here

I did try in the sketch to emphasize the actual shape of the letter rather than all the clue crap around them, by drawing the letter in bold marker.

Here's my add-ons once you've printed them off, colored them if you chose that route, and cut them apart.

1. Backed them with scrapbook paper.

Just cut 4"x4" squares, and used glue sticks to attach them on the backs of the cards.

2. Printed uppercase and lowercase letters on address labels.

I wanted to have just the printed letters on the back, so as he gets better at knowing his sounds, I can easily flip the cards, to test his knowledge of the actual text letters, rather than the cartoon clues. Eventually just using the text backs when he's learned them all, but having the clues for reminders.

So I just printed them out and stuck them on, you could obviously print letters on regular paper and glue them on too.

4. Laminated for durability

I looked into having these laminated at office stores. But it is expensive! $3.00 per square foot, or buy many 8 1/2" x 11" sleeves for $2.00 each.

I found this laminator at Costco for $18.99, and it included 100 laminating sleeves.

So I decided it was worth it to just get the equipment, since one set of cards would have cost around $15.00 anyway.

It's really easy, I used the 4x6" sleeves for these cards.

Just slip in the card, put it in the machine, and it comes out great!

(I did have to trim the extra plastic on the bottoms)

After everything was done, I thought it would have been smart to have used a different, bright plain color on the back of the vowel cards. Then when he's just practicing with the text letters, those would stand out as different. It was too late on mine, but maybe an idea as you cut the paper on the back of your cards.

I just bundle the pack with a rubber band to keep them together for now, and they've been great having to wait at doctor's offices, and the post office. They fit in my purse, so I keep them there and just grab a few while we're waiting. They're still new and fun right now, so this entertainment may not last as long as I hope.