An Eggcellent Snake Project

I finally got tired of seeing the basket of plastic Easter eggs sitting in the living room floor and decided we needed to do something with them or throw them away.  I was looking at them (thinking about tossing them in the trash) and noticed that each half of each egg had holes in the ends.  I assume these holes are there in case one gets stuck in your childs mouth.  So anyway, I grabbed some line and gave it to Russ to string the eggs onto. 

I was amazed at how much thought he put into stringing them together and how carefully he worked.  I wanted to help, but he enjoyed it too much and wouldn't let me!  So, as he was stringing the eggs, they started looking like a long, winding snake.  Our playtime had developed a into a snake project. 

Russ continued stringing the eggs until he had one left.  The very last egg was turned backwards to give it a "finished" look and the line was tied in a knot.

Then, since we decided it was a snake, I painted a face on it and glued on a piece of ribbon to make a mouth.  Our pointless project turned into a cute little toy.  My 8 month old daughter especially likes playing with it!!  And best of all, I didn't have to throw the eggs away.

Happy Earth Day

I was at my dad's last week, and he had the cutest little simple tool I'd ever seen.  You use it to turn strips of newspaper into little pots for starting seeds.  They are great little pots because once the seeds sprout, you can plant the entire newspaper pot into the ground.  

I wanted to make this little tool for myself, but that would require using the lathe, and well, I need all my fingers.  I came home and sat down next to the recycling bin and figured out how I could make the pots using stuff we had thrown out.  I finally got it to work and so, to celebrate Earth Day, we decided to make some of these newspaper pots and planted some wildflower seeds in them.

The only "tools" I used were a water bottle that we cut both ends off of and a laundry detergent cap.

To start, take your newspaper (after you've finished reading it) and cut strips all the way across that are about 6 inches tall and are the length of the paper.  

Take one strip and wrap it around the water bottle.  Let about 2 to 3 inches of the paper hang over the end of the bottle (the overhang will form the bottom of the pot).  The overhang should be over the cut end of the bottle.  You keep wrapping around and around until you reach the end of the paper.

Once the newspaper is around the bottle, push the overhanging paper up inside the cut-out hole in the bottle.  I used the laundry detergent lid to get it pushed all the way up in there.

Next, carefully pull the newspaper off the bottle.  Reach inside and twist the paper that was pushed inside.  It helps if you set the pot on the table while twisting the inside paper.  This will form a nice, solid bottom.

Now you can fill you pot with dirt and plant your seeds.  I placed all my pots in a tray that we got when we bought flowers.  If you don't have one, you can put them on a cookie sheet.  Put the tray in a nice sunny area, water daily, and when they sprout, you can plant the entire newspaper pot and all straight into the ground!

Happy Earth Day!

Crayon Iron-Ons

I know, I've already done crayons (probably will do them again).  But, they have soo many fun uses that I can't get enough.  This time we used our crayons and some sandpaper to make iron-ons.  The little ones (and big ones) will love creating their own clothing or accessory designs!  Its such a fun project for kids of all ages.

Take a piece of coarse sandpaper and color your design on the rough side.  I free-handed some hearts and flowers.  Since my son isn't old enough to really draw designs yet, I cut out some shapes and letters for him to color.  Remember:  When cutting out letters or when coloring words, you must make them backwards so when they are transfered, they face the right way.

Now for the adult portion!  Take your material (shirt, bag, whatever) and put it on your ironing board.  Be sure to put a piece of white paper or aluminum foil under the layer of fabric you are putting your iron-on on.  If you don't, the crayon will bleed through.  Place your picture on the fabric, crayon side down.  Now iron it on.  Be sure to move the iron very slowly and iron for 10-20 seconds (don't burn your shirt though). 

Now, carefully peel off the sandpaper while its still hot and ALL done!!

Wait until your child sees their masterpiece on a piece of clothing.  They'll love it!

BE SURE TO READ THIS:  While handwashing is best, you can wash your project in the machine on cold.  DO NOT DRY YOUR PROJECT IN THE DRYER!  Not only will the crayon melt all over your project, it will probably ruin all the clothes in the dryer.  I know this from experiences with crayons left in pockets.

Bunnies and Chics and All that Cute Stuff

When I decided to make some fun little stuff for the kid's Easter baskets, this is the first thing that popped into my mind.  By no means am I trying to say I invented these little boogers (I actually had a purple one when I was little).  So, I got my washrags and folded them up until they looked like I remember, and now I'll show you what I did.

For the bunny:  Fold the washrag into a triangle and roll it up, starting with the pointy side.

Next you want to fold the rag around to form an O.

While holding the rag as shown above, fold the two ends back over your hand.  It will form a "head" on front of the O.

Now take a piece of ribbon and tie it around the entire area to hold the head in place (tie it around the rag where my fingers are in the last pictures).

For the chic:  Start off the same as the bunny.

Now, instead of flipping the ends up, you flip them to the sides to form wings. 

As you see above, I pulled one side of the rag down and to the side to have a smoother area for the face.  Now wrap a piece of ribbon around the entire thing (where my fingers are).

Now, to make the faces, I just glued on some pom-poms and googly eyes. Because my 7 month old eats everything she can get her hands on, I decided it would be safer to paint a face on her bunny.

These guys are a great idea if you are looking for a last minute basket stuffer since they are quick and easy to make!

Jar o' Beans

When deciding what to make for the kid's Easter baskets, I wanted to use things in the house so I didn't have to buy too much stuff.  Since I have plenty of baby food jars, I decided to turn them into jelly bean and robin egg holders.

First, paint your lid:  white for the bunny, yellow for the chic.

Take some felt (or construction paper) and cut your pieces.  For the bunny:  ears and feet.  For the chic:  beak, feet, and wings.

Now glue the pieces to the jars.  For the mouth and eyes, just grab a paintbrush and paint them on.  If you don't have a small paintbrush, use a toothpick.  Toothpicks work great for painting small things like eyeballs.

Only thing left to do is seperate out your yellow and white jelly beans or robin eggs and add them to their jars.

I couldn't let Russ help me with this one since it will be in his basket Easter morning, but I'm sure the kids would love to do this project with you.

I Love Contact Paper

This past weekend my playgroup and I had a booth at a local Children's Day where we had to provide a craft for all the kids in attendance.  We needed something that was easy for all age groups, not messy, and inexpensive.  So, we decided to make stained glass windows using tissue paper and contact paper.  This project is super simple for even the youngest kids.  The children seemed to all enjoy it so I'll share it with you.

Start out by ripping a whole bunch of little pieces of tissue paper.  They can be any size or shape, doesn't matter.  You can mix up the colors however you please.  I suggest that instead of buying it, you should pull out that stash of tissue paper you've collected at birthdays and Christmas.

Now, get out your contact paper.  For those who don't know about contact paper, its great!  Basically, its clear shelving paper that is sticky on one side and can be used for crafts, laminating, or lining shelves.  There are so many projects you can do with it (don't worry, I will be posting more).  You can find it with the shelving paper at your local grocery store.   So, back to the project:  cut a square about 5x5 out of the contact paper.

Peel the paper off the contact paper, and place it on the table sticky side up.  Have your child stick the pieces of tissue paper all over the contact paper.  The can overlap, there can be spaces uncovered, the whole sheet can be covered, it doesn't matter.

When they are finished, take another piece of 5x5 contact paper and peel the paper off.  Stick it on top of the first sheet of paper so that the tissue paper part is sandwiched in the middle. 

Now, grab some scissors and cut a shape into the contact paper sandwich.  I like eggs and hearts because they are simple.  If you want to do something more difficult and can't free-hand it, you can print a template online and use it as a guide.  We decided to do an Easter bunny since Easter is this weekend and my son has Easter bunnies on the brain.  You can do different shapes for each of the holidays.

To finish it off, cut a hole in your design and put a piece of ribbon through it to hang it from the window.

As I said, this project is so easy, but the kids will love it.  My photos don't do them justice, but they really do turn out cute.

Peek-a-Boo Puppets

I need to start off by thanking my buddy Becca for hosting this puppet party for our playgroup. These peek-a-boo puppets turned out sooo cute!  They pop in and out and can dance all around.

Start off with a wooden dowel. Take a styrofoam ball and stick it on the end of the dowel to form a head (I guess it would really be the skull since it will be covered, but anyway...) Then, take a plastic cup, cut out the bottom, and slide it up onto the stick.

Next, take a sock (I used an old one because its cheaper than buying one) and slide it over the ball, down the dowel, and up over the cup.  The sock needs to be hot-glued to the cup.  Before you glue it, make sure the cup is all the way at the end of the dowel; this is so you have room to move the puppet up and down when its finished.  If the sock is longer than the cup, just cut the sock.

Now you want to take fabric, felt, or whatever and cover the cup.

Ok, so on to the fun part.  You can use felt cut-outs, wiggly eyes, pom-poms, pipe cleaners,or whatever else you want to make a face and decorate your puppet.  This is a part thats fun for the kids.  Now of coarse, they can't use the hot glue gun, but you can give them Elmer's and let them go crazy.  The Elmer's doesn't stick so well, but when they aren't looking you can use your hot glue gun and re-secure their pieces.  For mine, I made curly hair by wrapping yarn around a dowel, wetting it, and microwaving until dry.  Make sure to microwave at small increments (20 seconds or so) or you will burn the dowel and yarn.  Trust me, I know!!
 

Time to have fun with your puppets (or take a nap with them)! 

Butterflys and Blooms

This week felt like spring had finally arrived.  So to celebrate, we made some pretty pretty butterflies and flowers.  This project is literally the easiest and cheapest project possible, and it turns out soo cute.

Give your little one a coffee filter and some markers and tell them to go crazy.  It doesn't matter how much or how little they color the filter. 

For the butterfly:  Gather the filter up in the middle so that there are two equal sides to the coffee filter and wrap a pipe cleaner around it to form the wings (you actually only need about 1/4 of the pipe cleaner).  Bend the ends of the pipe cleaner to resemble antennea.

For the flower:  I actually used two coffee filters, placing one on top of the other.  On the backside of the filters, gather up the entire middle section.  Wrap a pipe cleaner around it. 

Now for both the butterfly and the flower, you take a spray bottle of water and lightly spray the coffee filters.  The water will cause the colors to make a really cool tie dye type design.  Each project will be soo different and super cute.

My Baby turned 3

So, I didn't get to post last week because I was working on stuff for my son's birthday party.  My baby boy turned 3 this weekend.  He's not a baby anymore.... and he reminds me every day. 

I didn't want to have his party at our house since our family is huge and my house isn't.  I wanted to try something different this year, something that would be super fun for Russ and all his little friends.  So, I picked up the phone and started calling all the fire departments in the area, and I found one that you could rent for parties.  The party was actually in the bay with the fire trucks.  There was plenty of room to set up tables and chairs, let the kids play with their toy trucks in the floor, and still have all the fire trucks in there with them.  The fire fighters were awesome!  They gave the kids a tour and told them all about the different parts of the truck.  Then, they pulled a truck outside, hooked it up to a hydrant, and shot water across the sky.  I think this was the highlight of the day. 


Instead of gift bags, we got plastic fireman hats, and I assembled foam fireman badges and wrote each kids name on one.

We kept decorations to a minimum (one of the advantages of a fire department party).  My friend and I did make a super-cute banner out of scrapbooking paper and simple shapes. 

As far as "entertainment", besides the fire engines, we filled the floor with toy trucks, had fire engine tattoos, and made a coloring sheet with a fire truck with the birthday boy's name on it.

If you have a little boy, I highly recommend a fire department party.

I have a surrogate....

for my chicken eggs!  My good friend Mamma Tortilla is currently incubating 8 of my chicken's eggs as a fun project for her little ones.  She is going to keep me, and everyone in the blog world, posted on their progress, so be sure to click on her name to pop over to her blog and check it out.  I'm hoping she can get some good candling pics along the way.  The chicks will stay with her for the beginning of their lives, and then they will come back to us. 

Meet the Daddy

Here is Kevin.  He is the daddy of all the eggs.

And here are the potential Mommies

Froee, Al, Kiki, and Lizzy

 

So, be sure to check back in about 20 days to see pics of our little chicks!!  It will be exciting to see what the babies look like. 

A Hair-Raising Project

I think this project turned out just hilarious!  We made our own Chia-Pets using old pantyhouse and grass seed. 

Basically, you take a pair of your old, ripped pantyhose and form a little pocket.  Put a little grass seed in the bottom, then some dirt, some more grass seed, then fill with dirt.  Tie the end to form a head and cut it from the rest of the pantyhose. 

On one of the heads, we added googly eyes, a felt mouth, and twisted a section of dirt into a nose.  For the other, we used parts from our Mr. Potato Head.  My husband and son made the one with the Mr. Potato Head parts, and if you know my husband, you'll notice it looks a lot like him!!  I cut a hole in the bottom of a styrofoam cup and placed the head on the cup, with the knot in hole.

Finally, we took the heads and put them in the kitchen window.  The heads have to be watered every day.  I think ours are watered about two or three times a day because Russ dumps water in them every time he washes his hands.
This project was definately one of our family favorites.  I gave mine a haircut last night.  I tried to talk my husband into trimming his, but he refuses :)

Here they are enjoying some of the warm weather on the back porch!!

UPDATE!!!!

The one on the right as had a few haircuts.  The other, not so much.