Day 150: Play food- part 1

Tonight, I decided to begin the process of making play food with the kids.  I have been stock piling felt for just such an occasion, I have grand plans of making hamburgers, Buns, cheese, etc with them, but we started with 2 very simple foods: Ravioli and Eggs.

The process is really very simple.  All i did was take a rotary cutter and make cloud like shapes of white and then circles of yellow for over easy eggs.  Then I took a pair of pinking sheers and cut squares of tanish colored felt for ravioli.  The girls helped me roll balls of batting to stuff the eggs with, then they put glue around the edges and sealed the yolks onto the eggs.  I added straight pins to give it some extra sticking power while the glue is drying.  We did the same process with the raviolis too.  They are still drying, so you can see the pins in every thing.

Honestly, Iris was really into it.  She enjoyed gluing, and sticking and helping me hold the felt together so i could pin it in place.  I think she is at the right age for these type of projects, Penny is just a little young.  This will be a multi step process, and it will probably span the course of many months, but hey, it is a start!

Day 149: A Protected Castle is a Happy Castle

The Princess Dream Castle has returned yet again.  Mike joked last night that we needed to make weaponry for it.  Well, Iris picked right up on that and before Mike even made in home tonight was asking me if we could "build the stuff for the castle that Daddy was talking about."  So, after dinner, we brought the weaponry materials out and got to work.

The girls colored Popsicle sticks for a Ballista (sp?), Iris cut ruffled triangles for the ballista guidance system, we colored egg holders black for boiling oil, crumpled paper for rocks and boiling oil, and made a "murder hole" system, while Mike worked on making the ballista bolt (look at me, i learned stuff tonight!) and the catapult and trebuchet.  (as i am writing this, I am realizing that blogger is not familiar with medieval weaponry because there are a lot of red squiggles on my blog right now).

So, I learned a lot about weaponry tonight, like murder holes are holes drilled into a platform above the main entrance that boiling oil could be dropped through and onto invaders.

A catapult is a huge mounted sling shot (ok, that is a really dumed down explanation, but it works, i think)

The trebuchet is an above ground teeter totter that launches rocks/boulders/etc through the air.

And, the Ballista.. it looks like a huge arrow on a stationary bow system that when wracheted back, will launch the arrow (bolt according to my hubby) through the air.

So, you remember what our castle looked last last night and here is the new and improved castle!

Day 148: Princess Dream Castle, take 2

Ah, today was a much bigger success than yesterday!  I started off by giving the kids each a piece of construction paper and paper punches as I glued the walls and towers together.  As you can see, they are just tubes of construction paper, and i literally just placed the cones on top, they aren't held on by anything.

After the castle was constructed, we spent a good deal of time gluing the pieces the girls cut out all over the castle.  Mike even got involved.  At some point, they began calling it their "dream castle" so, it stuck.  When we were completely done, they each got to choose a glitter glue pen and I wrote their names on the sides of the castle and on the front, we named it "Dream Castle" haha.

Very Girly!

But, to hold you over, this is the risk you run of doing craft with the big girls while the baby is awake:

Day 147: The failed princess castle

This is going to be short and sweet.  OMG MONSTERS took over my children after nap time today.  Iris SCREAMED, bawled, slobbered every time she sat down to work on craft.  After fifteen minutes and only getting 6 towers and 6 "roof tops" made, I threw my hands up and said "ENOUGH!" We will revisit the making of a princess castle tomorrow.  I think they will enjoy it.  I figure we can put glitter on it, and decorate it with heart, star, and flower cut outs... it should be really cute :)

Try 2 coming tomorrow...

Day 146: Skitter Bot

Well, my hubby is a tinkerer.   Last night, we spent the evening breaking apart I can't even begin to tell you how many CD drives to get gears and motors out of them.  It took us almost 3 hours, but we had a blast.  Today, he asked me if he could do craft, and we ended up with Marker Skitter Bots!!!!  Because he was the mastermind behind this, he will be our guest blogger tonight! (first time ever- i feel like i should feel special or something :-p) ***Let me just leave it at this- unless you know how to play with motors, and do basic electrical wiring, please, do not try this at home!*** We are blessed to have a man in the house that loves to do stuff like this.

Today we made drawings with a sharpie skitterbot.  I've seen this idea many places - education/electronics websites, festivals, etc.  First, the preparation: Due to the amount of hot glue and soldering involved, I had to do this part by myself.  I look forward to being able to involve the girls in this more as they get older.  I started with a motor freshly harvested from a defunct CD ROM drive, hot glued a nut to it slightly off center to give it the desired imbalance, and then hot glued the motor to the bottom of a plastic cup.  I hot glued on 3 sharpie markers as legs.  I soldered the leads from the motor to a handy 4xAA battery holder from my parts bin.  I initially tried to make it work with just one wire soldered and using the other wire as a makeshift switch held together with a twist, but it proved unreliable and got in the way, so I soldered them both and taped it up.  We pulled a battery out to stop it when we wanted to.  Most times I've seen this, the battery holder is attached to the cup, and the whole thing is left alone to do its thing.  However, I decided to leave the battery holder as a sort of leash for it so that the girls could drag it around, and to make it a little lighter.

Now, on to the fun part:  We covered the table with kraft paper and put 2 pieces of printer paper on it - one each girl.  I gave control over to Iris first, and showed her how to drag it around gently, and how to give it nudges to make her design.  She seemed to have fun dragging it around, but was a little hesitant to push it directly.  After a few breaks to unwind the wires (slight defect in controlling it with the battery wires - they get tangled up as it spins around), and a lot of drawing, we handed control over to Penny.  She preferred to just hold the battery pack over it and let it go on its own, so her drawing ended up being more dominated by circles as it spun around freely.

It was fun to see how different the two patterns turned out when they were done.

Mom and I got into the action after the girls were done and filled up the Kraft paper with marker.  I tried to make a heart shape, but it didn't turn out very well.  Finally, one of my hasty solder joints succumbed to the twisting and the bot shut down.

Day 145: Butterflies

Our Caterpillars metamorphosed into butterflies today.  It took me about 5 minutes to figure out exactly how to do it, but sitting down at the table with the caterpillars I figured out that I could turn the pieces into a butterfly.

To do this, i needed more egg cartons- another 14 egg holders actually... thankfully, we have about 20 egg cartons under the sink :-p

Once i had the egg cups separated, I poked "body" holes in the tops of 5 cups.  Then, on the sides of 8, i poked holes to feed pipe cleaners through.

After all this was done, Mike helped Penny and I helped Iris, we started by hooking a pipe cleaner to the antenna of the caterpillar's head on the inside, then we fed 2 body pieces onto the pipe cleaner (see picture for better understanding).  Then, we wrapped 2 pipe cleaners around the main body pipe cleaner to make "wings" we fed the wing pieces on, 2 per each wing.  I just made a little loopy thing at the edges so that the wings didn't fall back off.  To finish it off, we fed the last three body pieces onto the body pipe cleaner and tied it off- i like the little swoopy tail that mike did more than my loopy thing lol.  But, here are the caterpillar turned butterflies!  OH! right, we also glued new pom-poms to the wings that didn't have any :-p  I almost forgot about that!

Day 144: Dr. Pepper Jelly

Yup, you heard me right.  Dr. Pepper Jelly.  AMAZING!  I will just start with the recipe @ http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1723,148176-244202,00.html .  btw, it makes a lot more than recipe indicates, I used 4 1 cup jars, and we ended up having about 1.5 cups left at the end that we just stuck in a big mason jar and used tonight for dinner.  Oh, you COULD use a few drops of red food color to make it more aesthetically pleasing, but we didn't.

Penny helped me by adding all the ingredients to the pan and began stirring it for me.  Iris helped by stirring periodically as well.  I can't even begin to stress how amazing this jelly is!  I don't know why I don't have very much to say about this craft, because it was a lot of fun.

The girls really got to see the whole process from the very beginning to getting to eat it on pancakes tonight.  I was really concerned about how pop and jelly would work together, and I wondered how it would taste on something.  Believe me when I say, Dr. Pepper Jelly on pancakes, it has rocked our worlds! haha

Day 143: Caterpillars

Sorry about last night, time got away from me and before I knew it, it was 11 and I hadn't blogged.  At that point, I was just too tired :-p

I was a little bummed out yesterday because I was all ready to make Jelly with the girls, and found out that I was out of lemon juice.  So, I had to come up with a quick backup craft, and thanks to my wonderful hubby, we came up with these cute little caterpillars.  They were a great toddler crafts, and very easy for the girls to make on their own.

I know we did something similar to these on January 1st, but those were painted dragons, these are in fact different :-p

needed items:

egg carton
glue
pom poms
pipe cleaner
googly eyes

Mike and I cut the egg holders out of the carton then the girls were able to do the rest of the craft almost completely alone.  They each had a bottle of glue and got to put a dot of glue on top of 5 of the 6 egg cups and then pick 5 pom poms to put on top.  for the head, Mike and I poked 2 holes into the sides of the egg cup and the girls got to make antennas with pipe cleaners.  Then, 2 dots of glue and 2 googly eyes on the front, and we were done!  They are super cute, and now they are looking forward to making butterflies in a few days. (hint hint hint) But first- JELLY! lol

Day 142: Pinecone

I won't lie, I don't know what to call this... it is the brain child of Iris.  She got everything out she wanted and she had a plan.  I ended up having to help her because the glitter glue was too empty for her to squeeze out of the tube, and the elmers glue was not going to hold the pinecone to the base (a cabinet door pull).

But, we used a wooden cabinet door pull, then hot glued a pinecone to it.  once the pinecone dried, we used glitter glue and put a dot on each of the "leaves" (what are the little pieces of a pinecone called???) and iris started to color the base pink but gave up.  Honestly, I think it is really pretty, i love how it turned out.  I think we may have to resurrect this craft around christmas time somehow.

I liked the blurry one because it looks so sparkly :) hehe

Penny just colored with markers while Iris and I worked on her craft.  But, Penny was very excited to color. That is exactly what she wanted to do, and her coloring is getting much more deliberate and even.  My girls are growing up!

Day 141: Bath Watercolors

Well, I was totally prepared to call today a total and utter failure.  Iris wanted to do the exact same craft as yesterday for craft today, so I compromised and decided to take our water colors to the bath.  Well, as soon as we started, nothing showed up on the tub.  I was getting really bummed, but then I realized that if we used our fingers, the colors were much darker and covered better.  Unfortunately, we didn't get pictures because they were just wet streaks running down the tub by the time the girls were done.

Though, at the end, it did turn into body paint, and at one point, I had three of the cutest bunny rabbits ever in the tub.

Sorry there isn't much to say about this one....

Days 139/140: Bangles and Bath

Sorry about yesterday, I didn't think about blogging until late.  Mike yelled at me about it, so I guess we're good :-p

We made toilet paper tube bracelets.  They were so simple and a lot of fun.  All I did was take about a 1/2 inch slice of tubing out straight down the center, then i cut each roll into 6 bracelets.  The girls then chose 3 colors of paint and painted their bracelets.  Once they were dry, we decorated them with beads/googly eyes/gems etc.  Whatever they wanted out of the craft box was fair game.

here is what we ended up with, they are really cute.

Today, we brought back an old bath craft.  Remember the one we did a few months ago where the kids got to use the foam and decorate the bathtub with it?  Well, I brought that one back, mainly because we were sooo strapped for time.  We were out of the house ALL day, and got home in time for the girls to eat a few bites of a grilled cheese and get to bath.  It had been awhile, and I knew that they had fun last time.  This time though, their designs were so much more cohesive.  They needed no direction or instructions and they had a lot of fun.  I was proud of them!

Call it cheating, but hey, at the Greenhouse today, they did chalk, they flew kites, played with bubbles, today was full of all sorts of different enrichment so I was ok with bringing back an old craft.

Day 138: Paper Tube Airplanes

Another craft I can not take credit for... yet again, pinterest.  However, this was cute and something the kids found fun too, especially since they are so enamored with airplanes.

The original instructions called for using finger paints to paint the tubes a solid color, i really didn't want to get the finger paints out, so we used markers, which worked well, just the kids aren't old enough to completely cover a canvas (so to speak) in marker.

After they colored their tubes as much as they wanted, we cut 1 1/2 inch strips of construction paper for the wings.  The rear wing/tail, was simply creased to make the upward fin thing.  We applied glue and here are the girls' airplanes.  oddly, Penny's is the purple and pink one and Iris' is the blue one... go figure!

Day 137: Rings

Well, it is 11:40 and I am blogging.  Can't say I'm not dedicated.  This craft was born out of the need to have a quick, easy craft for the girls to do.  I googled "quick toddler crafts" and one of the first things to pop up was making pipe cleaner rings with "jewels" on them.  How much easier could we get?

So, I got out the hot glue gun, the pipe cleaners, and our little box of misc. craft items.  Mike even got involved and made himself a ring :)  All you do is wrap the pipe cleaner around your finger, twist it a few times to hold it in place, then bring the ends together and wrap it in circles.  Once it is wrapped, then you add a dab of hot glue and top it with a jewel. Thanks to the http://www.jugglingwithkids.com/2012/05/pipe-cleaner-rings.html blog for the idea!

Here are our rings... and my hot glue blister :(

Days 135 and 136: Turtles

I saw this idea on Pinterest (i think?) a few days ago.  Basically, you take an oval roaster, paint it green and turn it into a turtle shell.  Well, i decided to take it one step further and make turtle masks as well.  The girls LOVED them.  Iris wants to wear hers for Halloween.  Let me tell you, if she still wants to wear this in October, it will be a $2 craft WELL worth it!!!!

All in all, it was a very easy craft, just LONG.  First, we had to paint the "shells" green, which by far took the longest.  Do NOT attempt a craft like this on carpet, I am SO thankful that we have hardwood because not only did Iris knock her paint on the floor and I had to clean it up, but Penny dropped hers on the ground and instead of picking it up or telling me, she stepped in it and walked all over the dinning room/kitchen!  Gah, that child sometimes!!!

One the shells were dry, I used a small pairing knife and cut hols on the side walls for ribbon to go through.  Then I simply fed the ribbon through and tied a knot to keep it in place- instant turtle shell!!

Part two of this craft was to make the turtle masks.  They were simple, but time consuming, green construction paper and an accent color for the bandanna.  Iris chose red, Penny chose Orange- after they both originally asked for Pink, go figure! Simply cut out an oval face, draw a smile and a nose with black marker, then glue the bandanna across where the eyes will go, cut out eye holes and punch a small hole for some string to hold it on.  Tie a knot in your string and done! I am not an artist, so the masks are a little um, wonky if you will.  Maybe I'll enlist Garvin next time I need to do something like this :-p

Penny wanted to wear her shell to bed tonight, i think it was a hit! haha

Day 134: Rain Rain Come Again!

It has already been unbearably dry this year.  My allergies, the person who doesn't have allergies, are through the roof.  My husband has been struggling for almost 2 weeks with allergies.  It is time we wake up and smell the climate change people!  That being said, I saw these really cute umbrellas with rain drops craft today on Pinterest and decided that they would be great for the kids.

Finger paint paper cut to the shape of an umbrella, a pipe cleaner, and some news print (in our case a phone book) cut into rain drops.  Paint, cut, glue, done!  So I did most of the "cutting" but Iris did cut out 2 of her own rain drops- i was really impressed.  Penny put all of hers together, but Iris ran out of time before bed, so I put hers together for her.