Fancy French Fabric Flower, aka Rose Tutorial Translation

Scouting online for some more flower tutorials, I came across a photo of a flower I loved, and I really wanted to make it. But it turns out the blog it comes from is in French. Using Google Translate, it's hard to follow the instructions because a lot of it makes no sense. The sentence structure is all mixed up, and also what I think happens is that some of the words have multiple meanings and the wrong one is used in the translation, making a whole lot of nonsense. So I tried to redo the tutorial in English. I'm pretty much a blogging newbie, but I'm assuming this is ok to do as long as I am giving proper credit and linking back to the blog it originally came from. All photos, except for the very last one, come from the blog Les dentelles de Segolene. 

First, you need 9 circles of somewhat stiff (or stiffened) fabric 4" in diameter and 3 of  2.75" in diameter.

Start making the heart of the flower. Fold the smaller circles in half and pin them shut. 

Place one folded circle on top of another at a right angle, and repeat with the third circle.

    

Next, stick the free end of the top piece underneath the piece near it, so all the pieces overlap, like when you fold the flaps of a cardboard box, only with three flaps instead of four. This will cause the center to point up a little, forming a small hill shape. 

Now take a needle and thread and run a basting stitch all around the bottom edge of your hill, making sure to catch all of the layers of fabric as you go.

Then pull one end of the thread to tightly gather the bottom, and tuck it in towards the center, similar to when you make a fabric yo-yo.

This is how the top will look.

Knot the thread in place, cut off excess, and the bud part, or the heart, of your rose is finished. Moving on...

Take four of your large circles and fold them in half as you did with the small ones. Lay each one on top of another at a right angle, cut edges lined up, so they all overlap to form a new circle. Then gather the edge of the circle they form and tuck it in just as you did before, only don't gather quite so tightly, as seen in the photo below on the left.

 Now, in the photo on the right, we see that the folded edges of the overlapping quarters you made are folded over a little bit toward the outer edges of the flower, giving the petals some dimension. I think that these folds would hold better if they were made before the gathering stitch is sewn. This way, you could catch the fold in your stitches as you are basting for gathering so they are secure and don't open. I hope this makes sense, it's kind of hard to explain.

 .Then place this part over the center you made before, letting the center peek out a little bit from the center opening. Stitch or glue in place, taking care to place glue or stitches where they won't show.

Now, at this point you can leave it at this, or add petals to make a larger rose.

For the petals, fold the remaining circles in half. Use pins to fold the two sides of the semicircle inward, then make a little dart down the middle of it, starting from the round cut age and going about 3/4 of the way down toward the fold edge, but not all the way there, and stitch in place, as the picture shows. 

Stitch and gather lightly along the cut edge, curving the upper and outer edges inwards with the pleats and folds on the outside of the curve. Kind of like a hunchback with a sail sticking out of his back!

Overlap the petals all around the flower and stitch or glue in place. Here's how the bottom should look...

...and here's the finished rose!

You can glue a felt circle to the bottom to secure and hide all the stitching.

So cute in different fabrics!

Thank you Les dentelles de Segollene blog for the awesome photos, and I hope the instructions make it all clear and easy to follow!

And of course I had to test-drive the tutorial myself to see if it works, so here's my version. Nowhere near as pretty or neat as the one in the blogger's photos, but that I attribute to my abysmal sewing skills and possibly my poor choice of fabrics, as mine was not really stiff. And my outer petals were probably folded in too much and gathered too tight, so they are kind of narrow and it looks as if there aren't enough of them.

Also, I confess to using absolutely no pins at all during any part of this process. That's just how I roll :)

A Food Post: Yummy No-Bake Creamy Chocolate Chip Cheesecake in a Mug

Nothing of major craftiness here today, but I'm loving a new indulgent snack I've concocted and I just gotta talk about it. I was craving cheesecake but had neither the inclination nor the ingredients to actually bake some, so I set out to come up with something crave-worthy. What I ended up with was loosely based on this recipe for Chocolate Chip Cheesecake Dip posted by Cyclone Mommy on Food.com, reduced to the size of my craving only with no leftovers. Here's what I did: I took my cream cheese and butter out of the fridge to let them soften for a while. I then microwaved 2 tablespoons of butter in a deep glass mug till it was melted. I added 2 ounces of cream cheese, stirred it all together till it was smooth. I had some lumps so I stuck it all back in the microwave for just a few seconds and then it came together nicely. After that, I stirred in 1/4 cup powdered sugar and 1 1/2 teaspoons brown sugar. When smooth, I added a scant 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract. I let the stuff cool and then when it was no longer warm I stirred in 1/4 cup of the teeny-tiny mini chocolate chips. I let it get nice and cold in the fridge, then I grabbed a spoon and dug in. It was yum. Totally satisfied the cheesecake craving. My husband passed by, I served him a spoonful, and he stayed right there until it was all gone :). So I definitely wanna file this one away for future cheesecake emergencies. I'm thinking it would go well on a tea biscuit or maybe graham cracker stick. Or just on a spoon, like I had it. That's great too. So here's the whole recipe:

No-Bake Creamy Chocolate Chip Cheesecake for One
aka First Aid for Cheesecake Cravings

2 tablespoons butter
2 ounces cream cheese
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons brown sugar
scant 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup mini chocolate chips

Bring butter and cream cheese to room temperature. Melt butter in tall mug in microwave. Add cream cheese. Microwave again for a few seconds if too hard to blend smoothly. Add sugars and vanilla, stir until smooth. Cool to room temperature, stir in chocolate chips. Refrigerate. When cold, enjoy! Try with fruit, cookies, graham crackers...

Another Baby Headband

Fair warning: This is going to be a pretty long post. I guess I just have a lot to share today, and a lot of that requires background information to explain it properly. So here goes...you've been warned! Been working on a few new hair accessories lately and some other projects I haven't got around to posting yet. First off I want to share a cute little headband I made for my adorable baby niece because I already have pics uploaded for that. The reason for that is twofold: number one, one of my kids has a performance coming up at school and I needed to clear space on my memory card to record it, which is how come I had to upload all the pics on my SD card to the computer. But the second, and SUPER EXCITING reason, is because I finally got a new laptop! Woohoo! Just so you understand how huge this is, allow me to provide some background. When my ancient desktop died of old age several years ago, I couldn't afford a new one. I was lucky to get a laptop gifted by a very special person who got a new one and didn't need the old one any more. I have been using that for the past few years and it's been through a lot with me. Spills, crumbs, drops, and two babies who liked to sit on my lap all day long while using it. At some point, the battery quit working and it could only be used while plugged in. Then the cord got ruined, fixed up with electrical tape, ruined again, fixed again, ruined again fixed again, several times until I had no choice but to order a cheap new Chinese power pack off of ebay. The little metal thingy that goes into the hole in the computer (correct terminology sadly eludes me) to connect to power did not fit tightly in the hole, so you had to be really careful lest it moved slightly and you cut power to the computer. Happened several times. Then I scored a used but name brand factory original power supply from someone who was way past using computers of advanced age and no longer needed it. The kids attacked the keys several times over the years and quite a few were broken and could not be replaced, so I have been living without a space bar, window key, number four, and several letters for a long time. That computer also does not have a memory card slot, so in order to upload pics, I had to pull out a separate memory card reader that consisted of two parts that had to be fitted together and then plugged into the computer. This reader was getting on in years, so it was tricky getting it to communicate with the computer, and then you had to hope the connection would not be suddenly dropped while using it. Plus there was always the danger one of the kids would pass by and pull on the thing, aborting the whole process right in the middle of it. And, it took FOREVEEEEERRRRRR. So you see why I hated it so much, right? Best of all, my old laptop is still running....wait for it...drumroll please....WINDOWS XP! For realz. So...yeah. By the way, XP is my favorite operating system ever. I still love it and I don't think I missed out on anything by skipping Windows 7. I used 7 frequently at my mom's house and I totally prefer XP over that. Bite me. Anyway, three years ago I started saving up for a new laptop. Bit by bit, slowly slowly. I did not want to just buy some cheapy thing the minute I could afford it...I don't buy laptops every day (you got that from this post already, right?) and whatever I get had to be up-to-date enough to last me several years at least. So I knew I needed a fairly reasonable budget to work with. Finally this year I was able to take advantage of some really great holiday season sales and now I'm working Windows 8.1 on my sleek new compu-buddy as we speak. It has a nifty little memory card reader hidden right inside its shiny new body and the process is now painless, so I can cautiously tell you to expect an increase in pictures moving forward. No promises, though! Anyhoo, back to business. The headband I made for my niece - great-niece, actually; her mom's my actual niece - is made of charcoal grey felt and has two cute little flowers on a narrow black elastic band.  I'm not sure how well you can see because it's such a dark color, but they are two different types of flowers on there. The one on the left, it looks like a wild rose to me, came about after much trial and error. I was desperate to make a pretty little rose, and collected several tutorials from around the web. But none of the styles I tried came out looking anything like the picture. I couldn't possibly allow anything so flawed to touch that sweet baby's head, so I kept trying. Finally, I came upon THIS one, and I felt like I'd hit the jackpot when it actually WORKED. I added a lighter grey leaf at the edge of it which I just freehand cut out of a piece of fake grey leather I had lying around from an old school project one of my kids brought home a long time ago (no they did not mind getting rid of the project and harvesting its usable body parts, I would never destroy something precious to a child). The other flower is actually modeled after a store-bought headband I have. I cut a wide strip of felt, folded in half lengthwise to create a narrower strip, and cut little horizontal slits about 3/4 of the way through the width of the folded strip at equal intervals all along the fold line. Just like this (right edge is folded edge):  Then I just rolled up the folded strip, gluing along the edge without the slits. I then turned a little scrap of striped grey and white fabric into two little leaf-triangles just by folding and gluing under the edges. When I put the two flowers together side by side, I decided it needed a third, larger leaf on the side from the same grey faux leather as the rose. I glued the leaves to the backs of both flowers and glued the flowers to a wide strip of felt. I used a plain adult-sized black elastic headband from a multi-pack (either from Goody or scunci, can't remember which) and cut it down to size. I glued the open edges to the bottom of the felt strip that had the flowers on it, added extra glue for reinforcement all over the top of the seam, and then glued an identical strip over the elastic, sandwiching the edges in between the two pieces of felt. Aaaaaaaaand, done! I would love to post a picture of my niece wearing this headband, but unfortunately she was being a diva and refused to let me get a good one. I think she wanted me to bribe her, like with diamonds or something. But I was too afraid she might swallow them, being only seven months old. Ha! Whatever, you'll have to take my word for it - it looks really, really cute.

"Big Kid's" Pink Couture-Style Headband

Ok, this time I REALLY did it. For real. I produced something that I am really proud of and (probably) saved myself a whole lot of money to boot. You know those gorgeous couture headbands they sell for the adornment of females from birth and on up? The really big ones, with clusters of all manner of wonderfully constructed fabric flowers accented by things like pearls, gems, lace, feathers, marabou and any other sort of prettiness you can imagine? The kind of thing that features prominently in newborn photography and seems to be under strict regulations to be larger than the baby's head, taking all attention away from the actual baby and consequently begging this question: why go to the trouble of undressing the baby, taking the risk of all surroundings getting soaked in a warm and non-cleansing liquid, getting the baby to fall deeply enough asleep so she will lie still in all sorts of unnaturally contorted positions on top of or inside all sorts of odd objects of all sorts of odd shapes, colors, and textures, often perched in ways that appear frighteningly precarious, as appears to be de riguer these days, merely for the sake of getting the oblivious baby in the picture when all you really want is the ginormous HEADBAND??? Raise your hand if you're still with me, because I'm not quite sure what it was I was originally talking about at the beginning of the world's longest run on sentence.

So anyway, if you still don't know what I mean, just google images of couture headbands. You're bound to figure it out quickly, if eye-poppingly. Google RULES, y'all. These things are trendy, and mostly expensive. I've seen some over $40! For a single hair accessory! Insane, right? But...but...but...I wanted one! Because I like to be trendy. No, scratch that. My wardrobe is a cross between an elderly toad and an explosion of black shapelessness. But, man, I like my offspring to be trendily dressed. Oh how I care about their appearance. Rather foolishly, I imagine, because all THEY seem to care about is comfort, playing in the dirt, and colorful ice pops. See where this is going. Yeah, obviously I ought to just keep them in soft dark-colored garments at all times, and often I do, though I try to ensure, as much as possible, that those are stylish and nice-looking soft dark-colored garments. But I do so love to deck them out all spiffy on occasion. So, lacking a tiny moldable girl baby of my own, I determined that my half-grown girl child must have a gorgeously decorated headband, which, while not quite outshining her entire head in size, could be constructed to come rather close.

So I spent some time planning this (okay, full disclosure: I spent an insane amount of time googling approximately three gazillion pictures and tutorials until I finally made up my mind on what, exactly I wanted it to look like and then attempted to reconcile that with what I felt I was capable of creating). But then I got to work, and after a full set of burnt fingers, a couple of mess-ups, frustrated stomping-offs, and subsequent re-dos, I DID IT! I copied the experts and produced something that is, in my humble opinion, awesome. And I am just so totally blown away by my own awesomeness as the creator of such, well, awesomeness. And may I tell you, (I'm not really asking permission here, despite how it may seem) I used only a few pieces of ribbon, a headband, some beads, feathers, lace trim, felt, a lot of hot glue, and that aforementioned set of burnt fingers to accomplish this, although admittedly said fingers were not, in fact, burnt, at the beginning of this project. I'll leave you to figure that out with your awesome (there's that word again) sleuthing skills. You will notice (or I will make sure you do)  that I did not mention the word "flowers" in that list of supplies. That is because I did not use any. While my design prominently features four, count 'em, four lovely blossoming blooms of varying colors, styles, and sizes, I did not buy even one of them ready-made. I want you to know that I actually made all of these flowers all by my little old self, and I can hardly believe they turned out at all. And because I am so absolutely insanely proud of my handiwork, this time you get a picture. Make that two pictures. But being of the cell-phone variety, the quality of them is not very good. Still, my work is thus preserved for all time, come what may. Also, I wish to assure you that it looks significantly lovelier upon my darling's precious head than it does perched on top of the unfinished wooden banister post, but the darlings are currently gainfully employed at their place of education, which is the one crucial factor that enables the crafting and subsequent blogging to occur at all.

Come, now, you must admit that this is a fairly nice piece of work, especially for this admittedly non-crafty crafter. And, well, I myself love how my kiddo looks in it, so there's that. But most of all, my (big) little girl feels like a princess in it, and that's really all that matters, isn't it? Meh, who am I kidding.

Off to call the newborn photographer.

Updated 2/2014 with a somewhat better picture, of the non-cell phone variety:

Pink Satin Flower Headband

Yesterday I produced something so cute I can't stop looking at it and smiling. I made a yummy little headband for my tiny niece. I made a satin flower headband, in princessly pink of course. (What? I have just as much right to make up adjectives as the next person, y'all!) I found the most gorgeous pale pink super-soft elastic with a decorative twist running down the center while browsing at the store for ribbons. I don't know what it's actually intended to be used for, but it was calling my name and demanding to encircle a precious soft little baby head, so home it went. Then I kept it lying around for a while because I just couldn't decide what would be special enough to top something so pretty. Yesterday I finally got down to it and just did it.
 I used this tutorial as the basic idea for how to construct the flowers. You cut out circles, uneven is fine, and then you use an open flame to melt the edges so they stiffen and start to curl. It seems most people use a lighter as their heat source, but I don't keep lighters around the house and always use a tealight for such purposes. It's also handy when using grosgrain ribbon for anything, to seal the cut edges so they don't fray. Now I want to point out something that wasn't clear to me from the tutorial. If you hold the circle so the outer rim is nearest to the flame, the edge will harden and maybe shrink if held long enough, but it won't really curl up into the bowl shape you are aiming for. Good for sealing edges of things you want to keep flat so they don't fray. If you want the edges to curl up, you need to hold it so that the part of the circle that is on the bottom and on the edge is nearest the flame. So figure out which side of your satin, if it's different on both sides (mine had a more shiny side), you want to have showing at the top of your flower, and hold the bottom of the fabric so it faces the heat source. I like to make use of the side of the flame as opposed to the top, because I find it easier to avoid burning myself, so I'll hold my fabric by the side of the flame, not above it. You want to have the outer edge of the BOTTOM part of the circle turned to face the flame, not the actual outer edge of the circle. So you are melting a ring shaped area on the outer edge of the bottom of your satin circle. Make sense?
 I changed it up in a few ways. I used a soft pink satin ribbon, very wide, because I didn't have any satin fabric. I used fewer layers than the picture shows, and I burnt them for a short enough amount of time so that they they didn't get quite as curled up as on the photos in the tutorial. I felt this gave it a softer, daintier look, since it's for such a tiny princess. In the center, I glued on one of the pearls I bought on my trip to Michael's. I was going to use a large one, but when I tried it out, I felt the smaller one looked better. My kids agreed, so that's the one that went on. I also didn't bother with the leaves. I wanted more of a clean, minimalist look for this. I don't know why. But I'm glad it worked out.
I cut a piece of the pretty pink elastic 3/4 inch larger than the baby's head measurement. This turned out to be 15 inches, which happens to be a typical size for most newborn headbands, as I discovered from snooping about online a bit. I sealed the cut edges by melting with my trusty tealight. Then I sewed them together with a 1/4 inch overlap. I'm hoping I made it large enough to still fit her for a little while yet as she grows. I think it will, because the elastic is so soft that it's pretty stretchy without being constricting when stretched. Come to think of it, it might be just a tiny bit loose on her for now. Oh well, if it is she'll grow into it. So I hot-glued the flower right on top of the seam, then glued a felt circle under the elastic and to the underside of the flower to sandwich the elastic between the circle and the flower. This way, it lays nice and soft and smooth against her little noggin, with no bumps or rough areas to irritate her, and none of the glue or stitching shows. Maybe one of these days if I can overcome my aversion to uploading photos I'll post a picture, because I'm just so thrilled with the way it turned out.

I Took the Plunge

I finally took the plunge and bought some fabric for upcoming sewing projects. Until now, all I used were scraps of clothing and bedding that were going to be gotten rid of otherwise. Repurposing is great, but some times you just need to pick out a brand spanking new piece of cloth. I haven't been willing to spend money on fabric when my previous sewing projects were just for learning or practice. I didn't want to risk wasting the money if the project were to turn out to be a flop. I didn't know if I was capable of producing anything usable. But now, I think I might be there. To me, this is validation that I have finally learned to operate a sewing machine capably enough to construct a brand new garment that my kids can actually wear out in public.  I decided it was now or never, and mustered up the confidence to go pick something out for me to sew.
The project I decided to attempt was a pillowcase dress for my daughter.  I figured that was simple enough for me to manage and easygoing enough that my small errors wouldn't be a catastrophe. And let's not forgot, they are so, so cute and fashionable right now.
Browsing in the fabric store was delightful.  I spent an inordinate time in the store looking at and feeling the different beautiful fabrics before making my selection. My original thought was to use a denim or chambray type of fabric, and use navy blue ribbon. Then I thought perhaps a nice floral would do. And then I spotted some pretty seersuckers, and thought I could do something with that. I finally settled on a lovely piece of grey and white seersucker with extra thin stripes, to be paired with white ribbon for the shoulder straps. Then a light bulb went off in my head: I could do the dress for my daughter and use the same fabric to whip up some matching elastic-waist shorts for my boys to wear with white polos! What a cute family portrait that would make! I plan to get started ASAP. I'll let you know how it all turns out. I'm so excited about this project and really hope I don't mess it up.

A Crafty Shopping Trip

Yesterday I spoiled myself a little bit. I made a trip to Michael's craft store to find supplies for my crafting projects. I try not to spend much money on my hobbies at all, so everything I bought was within strict limits. I love going to craft stores. I feel like I'm in a toy store for grownups. I just want to buy everything and try everything all at once. So I try to buy only stuff that can be used to make actual useful items. I'm not on the financial level to make art just for art's sake, so I'm going with things that can actually save me money on something I'd otherwise have to buy ready at the store at this point. If I buy it, it's got to serve a purpose, and I prefer if that purpose is more than just decorative. I'm not yet a skilled enough crafter that I'd want to decorate my home with stuff I've made myself, and when you're on a budget, useful ought to come before decorative. So I would buy supplies to create or embellish clothing for my children to actually wear, but not stuff like polymer clay, which I love working with, but serves no practical purpose.
So what did I actually buy? First of all I bought some elastic, as I've got some sewing projects in the works, which I'll share later on. Also, I bought a navy blue Sharpie marker. I wanted a fabric marker, truthfully, but I couldn't find a navy blue colored one that wasn't part of a larger multipack, which cost more than I was willing to spend when I just needed the one color. I needed it for two reasons, one because I have an awesome shirt embellishment project in mind to use it for, and two because I had a little bleach spatter accident involving my son's best pair of navy blue shorts and I'm hoping to use the marker to repair that damage and save the shorts. I hate hate hate bleach and try to avoid using it at all costs. The smell makes me nauseous and no matter how careful I try to be, I seem to come to grief very frequently when using it. But in this case it was unavoidable, hence the nasty byproduct.
I also bought some tiny jewelry making parts (findings) called crimps. These are little metal tubes used to seal off the ends of beaded jewelry so the beads don't fall off the wire or cord. You slip them over the wire and pinch them closed with a special tool that creates a groove down the center and then pinches the two upper edges of the groove together so it's a round tube again, with the wire pinched in the groove at the center of it. I have some beaded pieces that have fallen apart, and I'm thinking that this way I can repair them by myself rather than throw them out or have them done by a professional repair place.
I had so many other items in my shopping cart as I walked around the store, but before checking out I forced myself to give up some of my project ideas and pare down to the bare minimum. There were some things on my shopping list that I didn't end up finding, so I'll have to go somewhere else if I want to use those things. But I did buy some things I was planning NOT to buy. I was checking out the clearance aisle and there were some rolls of colorful striped ribbon on sale for $.49 a roll, so I bought two, a wider one and a narrower one. I know they'll make adorable hair accessories. Then, I found myself in the ribbon aisle. I was going to pass right through, because I have a nice stash at home now, but then I happened to notice 3/8" wide grosgrain ribbon in many colors on a 10 yard roll for $2. At my local trimming store, this kind of ribbon sells for $.85 a yard. Ribbon is something I use a lot lately, since I like kids' hair accessories to match the outfit they're wearing, and bows and such tend to be really expensive - $4 for a simple grosgrain ribbon bow, and upwards from there, at least around where I live. As mentioned previously, I'm working on learning to do ribbon sculptures, and have also done quite a few bows and flowers with ribbon. So ribbon gets used a lot, and at that price, I wasn't going to leave it there. I originally snatched four rolls, but one must have stayed behind in the shopping cart, because I didn't find it when I got home and unpacked, and the receipt shows I only paid for 3 rolls. Too bad.
I also got a little package of fake pearls in different sizes. I plan to use them as centers for fabric flowers. Ditto for a pack of rhinestones. I also got two more sheets of felt, in white and pink, for making hair accessories and other stuff. My local store sells them for $.69 a sheet, here I got them for $.33. And they are a nice heftier variety than the type I've bought before. I also threw in a roll of double-sided scotch tape, useful for so many things.
One crafty thing I've done quite a few of is woven friendship bracelets, also called macrame. These are made by knotting colored cord in different patterns to create different designs. I learned to do it last year and found it very enjoyable, and a relaxing way to kill time, especially on long car rides and other situations where I tend to get edgy. I use the method to create other things as well as bracelets. I made a wide chevron patterned one to use as a pacifier holder for my baby, for example. I also think they would make great shoulder straps for handbags, belts, shoelaces, and headbands. I'm been planning to teach my daughter to make them also. I  think maybe by now she might just be old enough. I like to use colorful six-strand cotton embroidery thread for my designs, and on my shopping trip I found a package of 34 skeins of thread in tons of colors for $3.99. I've already started a bracelet to match my daughter's new purple t-shirt. It's a plain, basic candy stripe, the first type you usually learn, but with a nice pattern I thought would look really interesting. Six strands, two dark purple, two light purple, one black, one white. I'm doing the two purple rows near each other, resulting in one wide purple band. then one black, then one wide light purple, then one white. Looks cool so far!
I also (finally!) bought some fusible adhesive. I've wanted this for a long time, and have a few uses in mind for it. My local store doesn't carry it at all. In addition, I bought a gorgeous cream-colored burlap flower clip, just because I loved it. Some people splurge on shoes, clothes, or jewelry...this was mine. For $2.99, I don't think it was unreasonable. It'll make a nice hair accessory.
I also picked up some goodies for the kids - a pack of initialed notecards with  matching envelopes for my daughter to write letters on, and some washable watercolor paints for my son. He's been desperate to paint ever since my mother-in-law sent my daughter an art kit containing watercolors. I wouldn't let him try them because I don't trust him with non-washable paints, and though he got his own present, all he has wanted was to paint like his sister. And now everyone's happy.