Happy Valentine's Day!

For Valentine's day...we made cards...and a pinata! We also used hearts cut out of our children's artwork to decorate things.

The cards were simply, cut by me. Any pasting done together. And colored by the girls. My oldest can write her initials now so it was especially fun to have her sign all the cards.

The pinata we made using these materials: a balloon, solution of equal parts water and flour, shredded newpaper, cray paper (colorful streamers), glue, scissors, and string. First we blew up the balloon. Then we covered with a layer of newspaper that we dipped in the flour-water mixture. We let that layer dry overnight. We did about 2 1/2 layers. Every video I watched about making pinatas suggested "at least" 3 layers. I wasn't so sure since we were making our for a group of toddlers, but I didn't want the candy to just fall out on its own either. In the end, I should have done 1 layer, lol. The poor kids never did break it open. We poured it out instead. Then my husband whacked it one good hit and it finally cracked, but still probably would have required more to have candy fall from it. So, definitely one coat only. After the newspaper coat drys. Glue streamers on how ever you like. An easy way is to wrap it around. A more fun looking way is to rip or cut the streamers into squares, cover over a pencil end, dip it in glue then stick it on. We tried both ways. When you're done decorating, pop the balloon and remove it. Then cut or hole punch two holes on either side near the top for the string. String some string through. Fill with candy, toys, and more paper if desired. And voila!

Self-portrait, homemade periscope, etc

I've recently beenbrainstorming more kid craft ideas and I'm really excited to try a few out. Especially as more holidays approach (Valentines, St. Patricks, Easter).

Many ideas I have to admit I get from watching PBS kid shows with my little girls, such as Curious George or Sid the Science kid. One recently from Curious George I wanted to try was making a homemade periscope. But instead of studying the cartoon monkey's way of doing it I just googled it. Here is the link/video I used: http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to-build-spy-periscope-209972/

I chose the one I did because it used very basic household items and I didn't have to buy anything. But, it uses a cd instead of a mirror and it just doesn't work as well.

But a better one might be: http://familyfun.go.com/crafts/spy-periscope-665818/

Another activity we did was inspired by Blue's Clues. We made self-portraits using a variety of materials: paper, yarn, popsicle sticks, googly eyes, and paint. I had Mercedes (my 3 yr old) look in a mirror and notice her features. I asked her how many eyes she had, or mouths. I cut out the shapes necessary but depending on what she wanted (dress or pants, happy or sad mouth, shape of face etc). Then she placed things where they should go. Afterwards she painted it to add more of that Mercedes touch (she loves painting.)

Th other picture I included shows one way you can keep and use your kids artwork by decorating their room with it.

I have a couple fun things planned for February so keep a look out. And if you have any kid craft suggestions please let me know. Thanks!

Christmas Tree Ornaments (or wall hangings)

This week for our craft group we had a Christmas craft party! The kids made macaroni
ornaments, decorated picture frames, and pressed their hand prints into salt-dough ornaments.

1) Salt-dough ornaments: Salt-dough is like a homemade modeling clay. A simple salt-dough recipe:

4 cups flour

1 cup salt

1 1/2 cup water

Knead for 15-20 min. Roll out to 1/4" to 1/8" thickness and cut into desired shapes, poke holes into dough to avoid air bubbles. The salt dough was cut into circles big enough for the kids hands to fit into. Then a hole was made at the top so ribbon could be threaded through later. After the kids made their hand prints in the dough, we baked the dough for 20 minutes at 300 *F. After the hand prints cooled Mercedes and I painted them, we may also spray them with a sealant or gloss.

2) Foil and Macaroni Ornaments: I cutout cardboard circles, taped looped yarn to them, and covered the circles in foil. The kids glued macaroni pieces on and Mercedes later painted hers with some glitter.

3) Picture frame ornaments: Gluing four Popsicle sticks together in a square shape and backing with card stock was how we made these simple pictures frames. Then the kids could decorate as desired. They ended up being more ornaments than picture frames since the kids put stickers and things all over where the picture would go. But you can see an example I made in the picture.

Edible Jewelry and Christmas Decoration

This week in craft group we stuck to a simple classic, cereal necklaces. The kids threaded fruit loops and cheerios on their yarn and then we tied the ends together to make a necklace. The kids especially liked that their craft was edible.

Then a friend of mine gave me the idea of paper plate wreaths. This was something I made with my 3 yr old. I just cut out green paper triangles and red paper circles, and we also had some twigs to decorate with. Then I cut out the center of the paper plate and let Mercedes glue things on as she desired.

Happy Thanksgiving

This week we made thanksgiving crafts: decorating sugar cookies to look like turkeys (or just to look like whatever the kids wanted them to), and making thankful trees.

The thankful tree was something I made as a kid. I made the craft even more kid friendly though so my toddlers could be very involved.

Step 1) Make the "tree" with popsicle sticks. We glued them together with regular elmer's glue sticks. Hot glue guns would have worked better, but I was going for kid-friendly remember. So the kids had to use a lot of glue to get the wood to stick together, but it worked. We used a thicker wider popsicle stick for the trunk and colorful small popsicles sticks for the branches (I found the colored ones at the dollar store).

Step 2) Plant the trees in paper cups, using homemade playdough as the "potting soil" to get the trees to stand up.

Step 3) Have the kids decorate paper banners to wrap around the cups.

Step 4) Have an adult cut out leaf shapes.

Step 5) Help the kids think of things they are thankful for and write them on the leaves. Then stick the leaves to the tree. (glue or we used "scotch photo splits" that I have for scrapbooking, that way I could put them on the leaves and have paper on one side until the kids were ready to peel them off and stick them to the tree) The extra leaves we placed in the cup to fill out later as Thanksgiving approaches.

Have fun, hope you get a chance to be creative and enjoy some family activities this thanksgiving holiday.

Birthday Party Crafts

For our daughter's 3rd birthday party we went with a Fairytale theme, but tried not to make it too girly so the boys would have fun too. The bulk of the activities included two crafts. The decorated paper crowns, and made stuffed monsters.

I originally thought I'd have to go to a burger king to get crowns that I didn't cut out myself, but I found a pack of Teacher's board borders for 60 cents at Target and with a little paper extension that fit the kid's head great! Then we just had crayons and stickers for the kids to decorate them with.

The other craft involved more prep work and mom supervision; thus I can't take credit for it. My friend whose daughter's birthday we were also celebrating came up with this craft. She used felt and cut out random shapes, the sewed them and stuffed them (kind of like a pillow, but the result is a simple stuffed animal). Then she had other felt shapes, and eyes, and puff balls, for the kids to choose and then show her wear to hot glue them onto their monsters. The kids loved it! One suggestion I would have for this craft, is also making a simple upside down pocket on the back of the shapes where the kids could stick their hands and then they could become makeshift puppets.

Past Crafts

Since I don't have any plans for more crafts til Thanksgiving is a little closer, I thought I'd share some of the other simple crafts we did several weeks ago. Coloring or painting is a daily thing in our house, but there are ways to make it even more fun or interesting.

One way is to include paper shapes and cut outs and make a picture, then paint it. I cut out a rough shape of a tree with branches (pretty simple if you just want to wing it). Then I found a bag of fake leaves at the dollar store. I glued the tree shape on card stock and then Mercedes glued the leaves where ever she wanted to on the paper. After wards she painted it. We had a collection of real leaves too, but the fake leaves are less messy. With real leaves we did some shading, where you put the paper over the leaves and rub with a crayon.

Another craft we did was and educational craft about the life cycled of the butterfly. It was something I did in preschool so I thought it would be cool to have my little girl get to do something similar. We made four sections on a paper. Then had a variety of materials to glue on to represent egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, and butterfly. (we used marshmallows for the eggs, puff balls for the caterpillar, peanuts in the shells or spiral noodles for the chrysalis, and butterfly stickers or foam cutouts for the butterflies)