That Crafty Kid

I speak of the magnificent JM of course. Jm is baffling as she loves to tell me "I can't" then out of the blue comes up with these wonderful creations. Perhaps she is just a true artistic spirit and creates when the mood strikes. Perhaps she is waiting for inspiration or a muse.

Puffy Tree

JC knows I am a sucker for a messy craft. So once in a while she asks, begs, to make something and off we go to find some sort of recipe. Today it was shaving cream, glue and food coloring on a tree. It is supposed to dry stiff...It does for a while. Deffinitely is not a keeper, but when you first do it, it's beautiful!

DIY Postcards: Take 2

We have made our own postcards before, but we painted poster board to do it and sometimes it was hard to get the kids to paint both sides. Solution: use pressed board cereal boxes that already have a picture on it! We used pinking shears to make a fun edge then write anot or draw a picture on the side with the address! Love it! I think these make the coolest environmentally friendly thank you notes too! re-use, re-use, re-use! Popcorn, Cheerios, kid snacks, and cereal with cartoon characters on them..all sorts of cool pictures available! I hope they will make someone smile!

Catching a Mess

I love catching my girl in a big painted mess...at school! ha And what did she say when she saw me peek my head in this day? "I think I feel like hugging you!" Riii-ight you big goof ball! They were making Valentine mailboxes I think.

In sad news, on "party day" for this one she started throwing up so we didn't get to go to school! Fortunately it's just her very bad allergies playing tricks on us and not a tummy bug! But goodness her allergies create some serious issues with the coughing and mucus! ACK!

DIY Masterpiece

I bought little canvases for our DIY gift to Mia this year. I thought they came out very nice. Hope she hangs them!! :-) We tried to use earthy tones to look nice in their house!

Christmas Odds and Ends

Why is it when we bake there is always a tower involved?

We decorated cookies on a holiday tray for our favorite neighbor! ha Well, the way we are situated we sort of only have one direct one, but they are our go-to nieihbor lately. In fact they just re-roofed our house! :-)

JM brought home a lovely clay necklace...I think it was supposed to be a gift for me, but I think she kept it for herself. It was all I could do to get a picture. JM made a lovely ceramic Christmas tree at school and a cute candy cane. The kids just had to paint the trees and they were fired. I thought it was a great idea for a memento this year.

DIY Peppermint Foot Scrub

One of our DIY gifts this year. Just vegetable oil, Kosher salt and peppermint oil. Smells great!

Crafty Thanksgiving

The outfits JM made in school modeled by the Nalley sisters. JC, what is that look?

JM at her Thanksgiving feast. JC and I went to watch. And also this is some of her art that was hung in the halls. On the giant turkey each child designed a feather. I am thinking some of them had parental help since it was homework. :-) JM did not. Hers is the bottom left feather. She loves doing art herself.

Harvesting a Saturday

Making Pumpkin Bread in our rarely used bread machine. Turned out good although not a perfect pretty loaf.

Later we went up to the school JC and I go each week and they were having a Harvest Festival fund raiser. They had a photographer there who I got to take pictures of my girls. Can't wait to see the pictures. I suppose it sounds odd that I did that, since I never do, but the prices were reasonable and it was a fund raiser of course. After the pictures the girls painted their hair blue! JC washed hers out fast at home, but not JM. Notice I did not take my camera to the event!! :-) The girls kept asking me to take pictures of something and I couldn't! It was so funny.

Oh and see the drawer of "make up". The girls love make up and really only get to wear it at halloween. They dug up some old magazines and cut out the make up in the ads andthen put it in their bathroom drawer. Tickled me. How creative!

Here's the pumpkin bread machine recipe I used:

Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 3 large eggs
• 1 1/2 cups pumpkin puree
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
• 3 cups all-purpose flour

Preparation:

Spray bread machine pan with nonstick cooking spray.

In a bowl, mix first 4 ingredients together until well blended; stir in the baking powder, soda, salt, spices, and flour just until mixed. Pour mixture into the prepared pan and set on the cake or quick bread cycle. Carefully loosen the loaf and turn out onto a rack to cool.

Like a Record Baby

Salad spinner art and spinner machine (Thanks for that one Mia!) art.

This is what I did with my class today so I brought it home for the girls to do, who also did it last year in my class, but I don't think JC remembered. If you ever try this, do it on white paper. Construction paper is not quite as vivid especially since I use watered down paint to make it more fluid.

And after this, of course baths were needed due to some splattering and we did tub paints, another favorite. And of course all this instead of doing dishes - oh well.

Libraries and Sand

Oh to be that gorgeous! Our friend Ms. J and her kids gave JM her birthday gift a little early - a sand art kit! Thanks J, M and S! We had a lot of fun with it and JM graciously let JC do 2 of the bottles. Of course when we are done JM wants to dump them and do it again. She just couldn't grasp that there was NO WAY we were going to be able to separate all the colors again! She was sure we could! I let her try with some that had fallen on the table. JM still didn't really believe me.

Wednesday I went to JM's school and had lunch with her and went to library time with the class. Apparently my child was having a rough day but I think seeing me helped her get through the day. She was very happy! We went to bed a little earlier. I hope that helped her out today (and her teacher)! Fingers crossed!

Unsupervised Art

Lately we've needed a few little activities that the kids can do without me when I am....well ill! JM loves these giant coloring pages. I had JM and JC do these big people. I had them leftover from school. And JM loved the beads that you iron to stick together. That project took her 3 afternoons, with a lot of breaks of course. I was impressed by her patience and patterns. When I was ironing it some of the beads fell off and I was having to adjust it and good grief its hard! Adults would likely take longer with their big old fingers! JC tried all the projects but is more of an experimenter. She did work on her big person a lot. It's the one on the left and is basically a lot of squiggly lines. The beads she keeps starting and starting over and then quits. Doesn't quite have the patience for it yet.

More at Mia's

Random photos. Up top they are making cupcakes..slice and bake cup cakes... Ever heard of such a thing? Squeeze the batter in, then squeeze the icing on top after they are bakes, throw on some sprinkles and wah-lah! They liked it, but I think I like the process of mixing and measuring with the kids. This was certainly simpler with more kids though.

Something To Do

Alas at Camp Mia. Mia made us more iced animals to release. This summer we had I and L to enjoy activities with at Mia's house.

DIY T-Shirts

Upon the advice of a friend I bought some letter rubber stamps to make t-shirts! Along with some of my other stamps we had a great time making shirts to remember our cousin visit! Mom took these pics as I was IN the paint to be sure we didn't make anything REALLY ugly! :-) And now we have more paint and stamps for another! The girls will be trhilled to do this again! I might have to surprise them and make my own for them! :-) Yeah sometimes ya want it .... just so... but yet you give in cuz it is afterall the shirt THEY are making right?

Ummmm whose name do I have for Christmas? Muhaha..Yeah, you SO wanted a painted Tee. :-)

Ice Age

The boys are back in town. (Nephews) Actually this is the first time little L has ever been to Texas! And, this is the first time any of them (Y and J included) have been to our house and we were so glad to have them. Although my brother hasn't made it yet, but should be visiting next week.

Back to the ice.. I froze these farm animals a while back and we decided it was time to let them make their escape. It toook the kids EXACTLY 55 minutes to do it! They used medicine droppers, small spoons, and brushes. A couple took a break or 2 for pictures or bubbles, but someone was always working on it. JC and L were especially into it. Great activity!

Sticker Club

We joined a "sticker club." Hubby jokes that this is an intro to chain letters but there is no bizarro curse or anything tied to it. You just send stickers to someone you were asked to send stickers to then you asks 6 of your friends to send stickers to the next person on the list. I think you are supposed to end up with over 20 packs of stickers or something if everyone actually participates. So far we have gotten 4 or 5, but its been totally worth it! The girls love getting mail and now they ask- is this from our sticker club?

Bath Tub Painting - Oh Baby!

Well after some dirt fun the girls didn't really want to bathe. Mainly my oldest - that's no surprise! ha She stays pretty busy exploring and moving on to the next craft, so she has no time for getting clean. JC on the other hand uses bathing as an activity - like her mom! But when I mentioned painting in the tub they stripped down pretty quick!

Bath Tub Paint Recipe:

1 TBS Corn Starch
1/3 cup dish detergent (use something for sensitive skin if your kiddos have sensitive skin)
Food Coloring (as much as you dare!)

Totally fun exploration in color mixing, textures, sensory skills and art! And super easy to clean up! I am thinking this is going to be on our hot summer day activity list!

Rainy Day Crafts

My kids are definitely guinea pigs for my class. Considering their age, it makes sense! It was raining so we tried new inside activities! Well first was an old one. I made Shamrock cookies for my class tomorrow to frost so the girls made some too. They made "USA" and some hearts and one shamrock. And yes we bake in dress up. See the ice skating cow? I couldn't resist taking a picture. I am freezing some cheap plastic animals for a future project. And the glass container is filled with rice and little characters. It's an "I Spy" container. You have to hunt for the items and try to find all of them in there. You can choose a theme like a color or letter of the alphabet. Now my problem with this is it's difficult to find a clear plastic container with a wide mouth for objects. And you don't want to pick a container too large or you have to use a lot of rice. Mine is a glass peanut jar which I will not be taking to school because I fear breaking glass!

And we made Cheerio necklaces today as well. Fine motor skills. :-) JC was into it as she wanted to eat off the necklace. JM was more into making jewelry with pipe cleaners without Cheerios. She is very into pipe cleaner creations in general. She actually has created a magnificent large butterfly from pipe cleaners.

But the picture of JM is actually becase we got a kick out of her hair. I took down her pigtail braids and she said "Oh it looks like you except my face is dirty!" (chili for dinner) JM is referring to a picture of me at 18 flying a kite with hubby. And she's right. My hair looked very long, full and kinky curls like this..although - mine was not from braids! ha

And the quote of the day-
JM: I think the wicked queen is inside your body.
note: Let's just say mom was NOT happy about some listening or lack of and the princess got sent to her room. I am sure she knows I enjoy a good comment about it! giggle

Dendrochronology

The study of climate changes and past events by comparing the successive annual growth rings of trees or old timber. This is what we attempted to do at our playdate today! haha I have no actual pictures of THAT though. We saw a little presentation I found on the Arbor Day website. Looked at some pictures and counted rings, looked at a tree outside and speculated about damage in the rings and made our own paper plate age with rings. Ie JM's plate had 5 rings, and JC's had 3. JC was sure to put some wounds among her rings as well to signify possible fire damage or insect infestation. HAHA At the age of 3 life is stressful you know.



Here is what I did take pictures of today! SNOW..or sleet...or something cold sitting around. :-) So this afternoon we needed S'Mores!! And this little guy on the paper plate with a flower JM made too. Thought he was pretty cute.