this post brought to you by clothespins and my nephews and niece.

So–I got an email from Family Fun (whom I love) about a new contest they are having called TOP THIS. Each month they will pick a “material”  and do a craft with it…then they want you to create your OWN craft and submit it to get featured in their magazine!

 

this month is CLOTHESPINS!!!!!!

and I got the email when I was up at my mom’s house (my sister was in town) and all 15 of my mom’s grandbabies there. So I told the older ones about it…

and my niece and sister took a trip to “town” and bought about 350 clothespins…

 

and we got our craft on!!!!!! (each kid that participated pretty much came up with their ideas on their own…and executed it with little help from us “adults” They did so awesome! i’m going to hire them to blog for me!!!!

let me show you what they came up with!!!

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first up…my oldest nephew (age 14) He came up with the idea of a clothespin puzzle….

 

we went through magazines and grandmas photos and found something we could use….a milky way advertisment! we clipped the clothespins as close as they could go onto some cardboard and glued on the picture. Then he took a knife and cut between each clothespin.

he flipped it over and wrote a “cheat” on the clothespin backs 

to play you just take off all the clothespins and then try to reassemble them. It would be great for a quiet time activity or church! (you could put pictures of grandma…or pictures of elsa and anna! anything goes!)

look how cute he is!!!

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next up……my other nephew (age 13)– a clothespin growth chart my sister was measuring all 15 of the grandkids and was just marking it with tape on the wall! So my nephew decided to get them off the wall and onto this cute board!!! 

he painted the sticks…and ate some cake. cause crafting and cake go hand in hand.

then he and his mom measured and wrote on the clothespins everyone’s names and height.turned out so cute! we are leaving it at grandmas…we want to come back at christmas and see how much each person has grown!

 

 

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and ANOTHER NEPHEW! (age 12!) He came up with  a plan and just sat down and worked it out all by himself! A clothespin lampshade! He took some black paper and punched holes and tied twine to connect the papers…then clipped on the clothespins. Just shimmied it over the existing lampshade!!!

its so cool looking…and you could totally customize it with any colors!

 

 

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you would think i’m running out of nephews…but i’m not! another one (age 9) created this cute note holder…

 

he made a sketch of his guy (totally love the unibrow!)

he even got grandma’s help painting!!!! (she is going to be THRILLED i put this on here!)

you could make one for each kid to hang  jackets…or personalized notes! so cute!!! I loved the creativity of putting the clothespins as hair!!! *****************88

hey…guess what!? It’s my niece’s turn! She’s 15 and made this adorable flower pot!!!!she was the one that ran and got all the clothespins–and then she scored all these fun little clothespins to make mini flowers! she took a red solo cup and cut it down and clipped clothespins all around (covered with washi tape!)filled the cup with m&m’s —but you could fill the cup with beans or rice and use it put pens in on a desk or at work!!! (cute teacher gift!!!) Seriously! I think I have the most creative family!!!!!

 

If you want to check out the Family Fun competition..check it out here!

and you can go HERE to see what i did with them!