Do you love your locally owned fabric shop? Project 95

Did you know that 95 percent of fabric shoppers make their purchases at chain stores? That’s right, only 5 percent shop independents. Let’s change that.

Lauren Venell of Sweet Meats recently turned me on to this great project called Project 95: Fabric Shoppers Unite—Shop Independents is a worldwide network of independent quilt and fabric shops, that have joined forces to promote shopping independents.

I occasionally shop at chain crafts stores like Joann’s and Michael’s but mostly prefer the smaller local shops, they have a higher quality of product, more knowledgeable staff and best of all it helps people in my community.

Project 95 and your local craft shops need your help!
The first thing you can do is to help Project 95 keep their database up to date. ( I have to say that the techie in me is cringing a bit at how they are going about this. But I’m not judging!) Email their tech person at [email protected] with a list of the name of all your local shops.
Second, tell all your crafty friends to do the same.
Third, check out their database to find a local shop! Shop local!

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I hope if you’re in the Northern Hemisphere that it’s getting warm enough where you live to add in some outdoor activities with the kids. It’s easy to do a lot of learning outside when the weather is nice; my daughter has a fond memory of doing long division in sidewalk chalk at her school. But if you need some more specific ideas, here are some fun and educational spring outdoor activities for kids to do at home or at school.

Gather some glass bottles, rocks and other natural materials to make a garden xylophone with these instructions from The Moments at Home. This looks so fun, and you can use this idea to make musical instruments with other objects you find around the home/classroom/playground too.

This post from Child’s Play ABC has a lot of great outdoor learning ideas for kids, but the one I wanted to highlight is going on a rainbow scavenger hunt. Kids can collect things of different colors and see if they can make a rainbow (or just sort things by color). Check out more ideas for scavenger hunts.

Another good activity to do with things you collect from outdoors is making natural paint brushes. Get the instructions from Messy Little Monster, and of course you can test them out by painting outside, too.

Speaking of art, have you ever made paint from dandelions? (I dyed yarn with dandelions once, and it was a lot of fun.) Learn how from Little Cooks Reading Books, and then you can use your natural paintbrushes along with natural paint!

You can also paint with mud, like in this post from There’s Just One Mommy. Or make an outdoor, garden themed sensory bin with real dirt like this one from Mess for Less.

Or kids can gather materials to help them build their own nests as they learn about how birds and other animals build nests. The Crazy Outdoor Mama has a printable and post that will help.

What activities do you love to do with kids when it’s nice outside?

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