Just Us Girls Book Review--Mother Daughter Crafts

Disclosure: I was sent this book to review free of charge from Quarry Books. All opinions in this post are my own. I did not receive any other compensation for this review. I am including links to each item for your convenience but do not receive anything if you purchase them.

Today I get to share with you a wonderful book called Just Us Girls: 48 Creative Art and Craft Projects for Mothers and Daughters to do Together by Cindy Ann Ganaden. This book has some fun projects for any mother and daughter team to try. It promotes bonding time which is always important. Hazel loves that it is called Just Us Girls. She thinks of it as a secret time to do fun things. As usual I let Hazel go through and pick some crafts to try. She limited herself this time or maybe I limited her by not giving her as many papers to mark pages. 



The book is divided up by seasons. Each season is given an element: spring/earth, summer/fire, autumn/air, and winter/water. The crafts in each section lend themselves to the season and/or the element. Some crafts are obviously better to do during that season since they involve nature that is available during the season and others can really be done anytime. 

The first craft Hazel wanted to try was in Summer and was the Miniature Shadow Box. Now as we usually do we changed things to what we had on hand. The book has a pull-out page in the back with the pictures of the mermaids, seaweed, and background. Hazel did most of the cutting. Then since we could not find any Spanish moss we used green crinkle paper for the extra seaweed. We used ribbon around the outside instead of sand since she wanted to do it fast. We also used the bottom of a jewelry box and Hazel stuck many items in there. I made one with the lid of the box and using foam pine trees since it is winter time here.

The boxes were fun to make and let her be creative. Then she happened to be home sick today so I thought it was the perfect time to try another craft from the book. I decided we would try Woodland Animal Masks, which is a winter craft. Now the masks are suppose to be sewn and felt. I wanted to make it easier on Hazel so instead of using the patterns in the back as patterns we printed them on cardstock and glued the felt and supplies to them. This made it very creative since Hazel came up with all sorts of supplies for her masks. Oh, and we had to do at least one of each one.

Our Masks Drying

 Hazel wanted to start with the bunny and after choosing her colors of felt she decided she wanted to add cotton balls so it would really look like a bunny.

She was so excited about it that she did not let it dry long enough before trying it on.

I did some re-gluing and then she added some glitter glue to make it more sparkly. The first one I did was an owl. I knew I wanted to add feathers to it. I ended up planning it and cutting and then Hazel did most of the gluing.

Next Hazel made the bear. She had a bit of trouble cutting some of the felt pieces so we made adjustments. We used the glitter glue to add the small details. She used the jewels instead of felt for some of the other details.

While she worked on the bear, I made another owl because I was inspired by a fake flower. Then I couldn't find a match and thought of the cupcake liners and smaller flowers. Hazel chose the jewels.

Finally Hazel chose the colors for the fox. She had to make all four after all. She used the glitter glue and jewels to accessorize it.

These are just two of the 48 ideas in the book. I can see us doing many more of the great ideas. I cannot wait until the warmer weather to try the nature wands and their carrier. Overall I consider this book a perfect book for a crafty mom (or grandmother) and daughter and there are even some crafts that the boys may enjoy as well, but don't tell Hazel. I hope you will check it out. I know it is one I am definitely keeping and using quite a bit.

For other craft book reviews from Quarry Books check out 3-D Art Lab for Kids. And stay tuned for more great mother daughter crafts!!