Mother's Day 2016: Potted Solar Lights

Activity completed April 2016 for Mother's Day, May 7.

One of the projects we did for Mother's Day this year was decorated terracotta pots with solar lights. I had seen this on Pinterest and thought that Tripp would enjoy decorating the pots, and he did. (Ignore the crooked light on the blue pot... I just stuck it in there for the photo.)

We used:

• Medium sized terracotta pots
• Small solar lights (found in Walmart's garden section)
• Acrylic paint
• Masking tape

I painted the pots first and then we decorated them. On one side of each pot we put Tripp's handprint. On the other side I taped masking tape and let Tripp finger paint over it. (Probably next time it would be best to do the handprint last, since I had to protect it from rogue paint.) You can do all sorts of things with the decoration of the pot... fabric, paper, paint, stickers, maybe even a photo.

Then all you have to do is Mod Podge (I used outdoor Mod Podge) to seal and add the solar light.

Some consideration should be taken with the solar light. We brought a pot into Walmart with us and tried different lights - our Walmart actually didn't sell plain terracotta pots so we couldn't just grab some off the shelf. The lights that fit were the smallest. Even so, when Tripp added some paint around the hole in the pot it made it a bit snug for the light. You'll want to consider that when painting and Mod Podge-ing.

Four Seasons Hand and Fingerprint Tree

This past Christmas I wanted to do as many homemade or handcrafted presents as I could. Handmade gifts are my favorite to receive and I want to nurture a spirit of giving of yourself in my kiddo so it was a natural fit this year. For my grandmother, I decided to try this project: DIY All Season Hand and Fingerprint Tree from Rhythms of Play.

The limitation here is how old your kiddo is and the size of their hand. We ended up going with small 4x4 canvas squares. We had a lot of fun with this project - so many colors of paint to choose from!  I was able to get it done in just a couple of days and I think it's adorable.

Celebrating the New Year: Handprint Craft

Activity completed at the end of December 2015.

As 2016 drew closer I knew I wanted to do something to mark the new year with Tripp. We came up with this easy handprint craft. We painted his hand and made 4 handprints on a piece of paper. Then we used glue to write the numbers of the new year and added some pretty gold glitter. It was a fun way to ring in 2016!

Oh, Toodles...

Activity completed January 2016.

We are in the midst of a Mickey Mouse love bordering on obsession. Mr. Tripp loves watching "Clubhouse" and has a stuffed Mickey both at home and at his Nana's (where he spends two days a week). One of the things he really likes is Toodles, but it's actually pretty hard to find a Toodles toy. (I think a Toodles toy could be pretty fun - it could come with some Mouseketools and slots to put them in - but the round shape might be tricky.)

Anyway, it's nothing special but we whipped up our own Toodles at home. All we used were some paper plates, a Sharpie and tape. It may not last very long but another Toodles won't be far behind if this one gets ripped or wet.

Say... super cheers!

Child's Artwork Calendar - Great Gift

We got so many compliments on this calendar, which we gave away for Christmas presents, and questions about how I did it! I thought I would write up how I made it for you and also for next year.

I had seen an idea on Pinterest using the actual art and printed-off calendar sheets, but I wanted to be able to use the same artwork over and over, and also have it look more professional than I would be able to accomplish trying to put them together.

Step 1: Get the calendars for free! I began this project in July-ish, so that I could take advantage of the periodic offers Shutterfly and their partners have for free calendars. I ended up being able to get 8 or 9 calendars for free (just pay shipping). I used codes from Shutterfly’s Facebook page, as well as companies who often offer free codes in their emails: Cost Plus World Market, Pampers, Huggies, Kellogg’s, IKEA, Toys R Us, Gymboree, Proctor & Gamble, and Oshkosh B’Gosh. I just subscribed to their emails and then would search my email once a week or so for the word “Shutterfly.” That way I didn’t have to look at them all if I didn’t want to.

Word to the wise with Shutterfly codes - once you have an account, you can save codes to it. It will automatically apply when you put something in your cart that qualifies, but they don’t usually stack. I add codes as soon as I get them. Just note the expiration dates.

Step 2: Get your art! I gathered 12 pieces of art and tried to relate them to the month in some way. At Tripp’s daycare they do a lot of seasonal handprint art, so that worked well. I tried to pick art that would fit on the scanner bed.

You can see an album of the art I picked here. As you can see, July is very glittery. It got glitter all over the scanner. It actually looks really neat in the calendar, but I would do glittery stuff last next time, if at all.

Step 3: Scan! I scanned my art at home. Use a fairly high resolution (I think I did mine at 800 DPI). Organize them in a folder by the month you plan to use them for - makes it easy when making the calendar.

Step 4: Make the calendar on Shutterfly. They will want you to choose a theme first. If you do it the way I did, most months will have the entire artwork as the top of the calendar so the theme doesn’t really matter much. You can always go in and choose backgrounds from a different theme, if you want to.

If some of your art is smaller than the calendar, you can make a collage. I did this for October and November and included photos and a cute background. Shutterfly also has a new “art library” you could use to make a collage if you don’t have a photo of your own.

If your artwork is bigger, try moving it around and “zoom in” on a section. That is what I did for September, my favorite month. This is a smaller section of a much larger piece of paper.

I did not add in birthdays/anniversaries/events since I was giving them out to a variety of people and didn’t want to worry about forgetting someone or including someone that some people didn’t know.

Save the calendar to make it easy to find later as you use up free calendar codes.

Step 4: Ordering the calendar. Make sure you preview it before you order. (Shutterfly pretty much forces you to, anyway.) I recommend ordering one first and not a whole batch at once, to make sure it looks right.

When you go back in to use a code, Shutterfly will make you preview it each time. It may also ask you if you want to save changes, even if you didn’t do anything. I always say no just in case I accidentally did change something I didn’t mean to!

Step 5: Give away your calendar and be prepared for oohs and aahs!

Christmas Ornaments Garland Craft

Activity completed December 2015.

I was inspired by our fall leaves garland craft to make something similar for Christmas. After some thought I decided on ornaments. They look very sweet and sparkly in the playroom window. These would also be cute on a tree of homemade ornaments.

To make these ornaments, you will need:

• Thick cloth paper towels, like Viva brand
• Sharpie
• Aluminum foil
• Water
• Food coloring
• Pipettes
• Glitter
• White glue
• Scissors
• Ribbon
• Hole punch
• Newspaper

1. With Sharpie, draw or trace a circle onto the paper towels.
2. Place the paper towels on newspaper to catch any drips or misses.
3. Add food coloring in your desired colors to containers of water.
4. Let your child use the pipettes to drip water onto the paper towels.
5. When dry, cut out the ornament shape.
6. Add glitter to your white glue and use a paintbrush to paint it onto the towels.
7. Cut a square of aluminum foil and fold it over. Glue to the top of the circle.
8. When the ornaments are completely dry, use the hole punch to punch two holes into each ornament.
9. Thread the ribbon through the holes for a garland.

The only issue I had here was getting the foil to stick to the paper towels. A stronger glue or hot glue might work better next time.

Rocket Birdhouse

Activity completed November 2015.

We spotted this wooden rocket birdhouse at Michael's and I knew it would be a lot of fun to paint. Tripp loves rockets and space shuttles. He likes to watch space shuttle launches on YouTube and has a toy space shuttle he pretends to blast off all the time. Naturally, then, he fell in love with this rocket.

First, I painted the rocket white. After it dried he chose some colors of acrylic paint (blue, yellow, and green) and painted it. (He wanted me to paint a "puppy" on one side, which you can sort of see in the picture, but I was able to convince him to paint the rest himself.) We also went over it with glow-in-the-dark acrylic paint and Mod Podge.

The addition of a hook and chain meant we could hang it outside. He loves it and likes to look around for birds to invite into the birdhouse. So far, none have claimed it but I imagine someone will by spring!

Glittery Turkey Thanksgiving Craft

Project completed November 2015. 

This turkey jar was a fun Thanksgiving project. I got the idea from I Love to Create, which calls them "Gobble Gobble Globes." However, I switched up the order of the steps, because to me pouring the water in at the very end would risk getting the decorations wet! Here's the order we did it in with our supplies... these would be very cute place settings if you wanted to make a bunch of them!

Supplies:

• Empty, clean baby food jar
• Scrapbook or construction paper in various fall colors
• White glue or glue dots
• Gold glitter
• Water
• Googly eyes

Steps:

1. Fill the baby food jar with a generous amount of glitter and water.
2. Holding the baby food jar upside down, attach the googly eyes and a triangle of yellow or orange paper to the jar with glue.
3. Trace your child's hand on paper and cut it out. Use this template to trace and cut out multiple copies of their hand shape (we used 4).
4. Once the glue for the eyes and beak has dried, use glue to attach the "feathers," fanned out, to the back of the jar. Allow to dry.

Colored Rice Craft

Activity completed September 6, 2015.

This was a simple addition to our fun with colored rice. It couldn't be easier - all you need is:

• Colored rice
• Cardstock
• Clear-drying glue

We each made designs with the glue on our paper. I went for a heart shape while Tripp experimented with how the glue flowed and how hard he needed to squeeze. Then we added handfuls of the rice onto the paper. A few minutes later I shook the loose rice from each paper and we had our colorful designs!

Fall Leaves Garland Craft

Activity completed November 2015.

I first spotted the idea for this fall leaves craft on Raising Arizona Kids. It was a perfect fit for a Tuesday afternoon at home since we always buy Viva paper towels and we had plenty of pipettes and food coloring on hand.

The idea is simple: draw or trace leaves on paper towels with Sharpie, then use the droppers to drop colored water onto the towels. When they're dry, cut them out and string them up for a pretty seasonal garland.

One thing I enjoyed in contrast with the original blogger's leaves was the colors on each leaf. Ours turned out with lots of colors on each leaf and it looks so pretty, particularly in person. Tripp likes any craft where he gets to use those pipettes!

A Glittery Pumpkin

Activity completed October 13, 2015.

We did a very simple painting activity today. I cut out the shape of a pumpkin on cardstock and we painted with glitter and black paints. We had fun watching the glitter show up, and when we added some black paint to the purple glitter paint, we got black glitter paint! So pretty and a wonderful addition to the "punkin wall."

I also helped Tripp write his name and the year on the bottom of the pumpkin. He held the pen and I put my hand around his so he could feel the shapes of the letters as we wrote together. When his daddy asked what his favorite part of the picture was, he pointed to his name.

 

Pumpkin Sticker Fun

Activity completed October 6, 2015

This was another simple activity, but a fun one that occupied Tripp for quite awhile. I cut out a jack o'lantern from construction paper and set out stickers for Tripp to decorate it with.

He surprised me by wanting to group all of the stickers of the same type together. He decided to do this entirely on his own as he'd peel off a sticker, place it and look for "more more" on the sticker sheet. After awhile, he started defining each sticker as baby, mommy, and sometimes daddy. He also learned some Halloween vocabulary: witch, pumpkin, and bat.

Our Pumpkin Patch - Cute Family Autumn Craft

Activity completed October 6, 2015.

This was a super easy, but adorable little picture we put together in October.

Supplies
White cardboard
Orange paint
Green marker or paint
Black Sharpie

I decided to mix together red and yellow paint to show Tripp how it turned orange. I put two globs of each color of paint on a strip of aluminum foil, then gave Tripp a toothpick (or, as he calls it, "pick pick"). We each mixed together our globs of paint and watched it turn orange.

Then I dipped Tripp's thumb in the orange paint and pressed it on the paper. I did the same, then we corralled Tripp's daddy into doing it.

Once it dried I added green 'stems' and the words on the picture.

I think it looks adorable!

Shape Pumpkin

Activity completed October 6, 2015.

We made a fun Shape Pumpkin this October!

Supplies
Contact paper or Scotch single-sided laminating sheets (2)
Construction paper or tissue paper cut into shapes - rectangles, squares, circles, triangles, etc.
Painter's tape (optional)

I cut out the shape of a pumpkin from the laminating sheet and pulled the backing off to expose the sticky side. I added a green stem too. Tripp had a lot of fun with the stickiness! I used painter's tape to hold the pumpkin to the table, but it wasn't really necessary.

Then I just let Tripp put the shapes on as he wanted. While he did we talked about each shape and the colors of the construction paper.

When we had used up all of the shapes, I put another laminating sheet over them and cut out the pumpkin shape. Then we had our finished pumpkin!

This would be a really easy activity to adapt to an older child. You could let them cut out the shapes, for example. I think I may repeat it next year and see how his pumpkin evolves!

It would also be easy to do with other shapes, like Christmas trees, ghosts, etc.

I think this would look nice in a window, but Tripp decided that we should add it to what is quickly becoming our Pumpkin (or punkin, as he says it) Wall.

A Painted Jack O'Lantern

Activity completed September 29, 2015.

I found a pair of these thick cardboard jack o'lanterns at Hobby Lobby and picked them up for us to decorate. One I kept as a stencil to trace onto construction paper. The other I let Tripp paint. He wasn't very interested, but he painted a good amount of it.

I put it up on our screen door where I usually put seasonal "Welcome" signs. This really helped him take ownership and pride in the project. Whenever he'd see another pumpkin, he'd talk about the pumpkin outside.

A Pretty Flower Window Garland

 Project completed 8/18/15

I love having fresh flowers in the house, but unfortunately both of our cats like them too - a bit too much. They will find any flowers I put out and either knock the vase over or chomp them to bits. When this happened recently to a bunch of flowers, I decided we could turn them into a pretty window decoration instead. It was easy and still adds that pretty look of flowers.

For this project we used:

• Flowers
• Contact paper (or these laminating sheets)
• Construction paper
• Pencil
• Scissors
• Hole punch (optional)
• Ribbon (or string) 

First I traced a cup eight times on yellow and purple construction paper to form the circles (the rim of the cup for the wider circle and the bottom of the cup inside). I cut these out to form rings.

On the laminating sheets, I laid the rings down on two laminating sheets - four for Tripp and four for me. I let him choose the colors and he picked two purple and two yellow rings.

Then we pulled apart the flowers, talking about the types of flowers, the colors and how sticky the laminating sheet was.

After the circles were filled, I put another sheet on top of both of our laminating sheets and pressed down to seal them together. I cut the circles out and carefully pressed as hard as I could to get all the air out.

These were fun for Tripp to look at. Almost like real nature flash cards or something like that.

Then it was simple to cut out a hole and string the circles on ribbon. Attached to the playroom window, they make a pretty nature display!

Tissue Paper Tree (Seasonal Activity)

This simple little tree turned out just adorable, and so simple too - composed of a construction paper background, a black marker trunk, and creatively added tissue paper leaves. Let your little one practice with dispensing white glue on each branch before adding the tissue paper; let them choose the color of paper or choose ahead of time according to the season.

Wouldn't this be cute as a four-part series to illustrate the changing seasons? Add flowers for spring, green leaves for summer, put yellow and red leaves along the ground for fall, and use cotton balls for snow to illustrate winter. I see a new project coming up...

Sunflower Handprint Art

Sunflowers are so bright and cheery, and this handprint art reflects that, bringing a little sunshine into the house no matter the time of year.

It was easy to put this together, with construction paper (blue, pink, and green), yellow paint and a black marker. Tripp got some practice with scissors and cutting while I cut out the shapes. We added the dots together and I went over "left" and "right" while we chose which hand to use for each flower petal. A cute little thumbprint bee completed the picture.

We Heart Tape Resist Art

 

Tape resist art is one of my favorite projects to do with Tripp. Brightly colored paint, tape (just as fun as stickers for him), a mess and a pretty picture at the end - what more could you ask for?

It's a great project for young kids because they can be completely free, and you can still shape it to fit the occasion.

For Father's Day, I decided to make some tape resist art with Tripp using his name for his grandpa, Tata. I like to use small canvases from the craft store for this craft. I just keep an eye on sales and coupons - you can often find good deals. I use masking tape, which adheres easily to the canvas and comes off easily at the end.

In the past I have used fingerpaint but this time around I decided to use acrylic paint. Tripp does not generally make too much of a mess with paint so I wasn't worried about washing - and the acrylic has a bolder color and dries more quickly. If he were in a messy mood, though, I'd stick with the fingerpaint or washable paint.

This project is simple: spell out the desired word using masking tape and stick it carefully down on the canvas. Pick out some colors or let your kiddo choose, and go to town painting. When it is mostly dry (but not completely dry), carefully remove the tape. Voila!

Here's one we did for Valentine's Day, in the bottom left corner. This was using fingerpaint, so the colors are not quite as bold but it turned out very pretty!

Fireflies Craft - Fingerprints and Handprint

This sweet project was fun to do with Tripp (22 months old) and will be a reminder of how small he was this summer.

For this project, I used:

• Construction paper (green, blue, yellow, and black)
• Washable paint (yellow and white)
• Aluminum foil
• A black pen - you could use Sharpie, or go fancy like me and use a Sakura Pigma Brush

My process:

1. First, I wrote out the Fireflies poem on yellow construction paper. Please forgive my awful handwriting! Here is the text of the poem, which is by Meish Goldish.
   Glowing, glowing in the night
   Fireflies shine a yellow light.
   Flashing signals to their mates,
   Such a bright sight each creates!
   Glowing, glowing in the night,
   Fireflies shine a yellow light.
2. Next, I cut the yellow construction paper in the shape of a beam of light (sort of). I also cut out the blue jar and the black shape for the flashlight itself.
3. Tripp and I read the Fireflies poem together and I talked a little about fireflies and the colors of the construction paper.
4. I glued down the two parts of the flashlight.
5. I painted Tripp's hand white and we pressed it down on the handle of the flashlight to look as though he was holding it.
6. I painted Tripp's thumb yellow and we pressed it down on the blue jar. We repeated this process until we had five cute fingerprints.
7. When the fingerprints were dry, I added little wings with my brush pen.
8. We glued aluminum foil to the top of the jar to look like the lid.
9. Finally, we glued the jar down and called it good!