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.

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 123: Potted Plant Holders

Today's craft is brought to you by The Home Depot.  I am telling you what, I LOVE this kids project thing they do on the first Saturday of the month!  Last Month's was a little more complicated than the girls were able to do on their own, but today's craft was literally a dab of glue and a screw, YAY!

They made these really cute little potted plant holders.  They are just simply a piece of wood for the back, and a piece of some sort of fiber board with 2 large holes cut out for the potted plants to go into.  All the kids had to do was put a dab of wood glue on the fiber board and screw the back piece onto it, then they got to paint them.

Iris is really surprising me lately, at least these last two Home Depot crafts, because she has gone for the really dark colored paints.  Penny on the other hand has chosen very light, very girly colors (especially today).  I was really proud of both of them for how well they painted and how nice their plant holders turned out.  Can't wait to get home to put plants in them :)

I will post pictures tomorrow (I hope.) It took 5 hours for the pictures to get from Mike's phone to my e-mail last night... I'm a little afraid to try to upload those pictures and try to upload new pictures tonight, so I will have to wait until tomorrow.

Day 101: Poured Paint Pots

I was trying to figure out something to do with the 100th craft yesterday, and stumbled upon a blog that described this drip paint technique.  I thought it would be kind of cool and something the girls would be able to do.

The basic premise of this idea is to flip a clay pot upside down, cover the drainage hole with tape and literally pour paint on the top.  Just enough so that it starts to pour down the sides.  Then you just take the next color and pour it on top.  We tried to be sparing with the paint, but Iris' motto was apparently the more the merrier.... you can currently see 2.5 of the six layers of paint she poured on her pot because she went so heavy.

Penny really took to this craft technique though. I think that it was a good balance of paint bottles and her personal strength.  She can only squeeze so hard for so long, and it seemed like that amount of time was the perfect amount of paint to make it pour and drip over the sides properly.

We only had 2 clay pots, so I had no intentions of actually doing this craft, but then I thought that the kids may need an example, so I grabbed a Solo cup and showed this kids.  Solo cups don't have any porous surface to keep the paint on them, so the paint has, over the course of the evening, dripped down and is mainly pooled on the paper plate below it :-p

Day 94: Outside Crafting!

OMG!  It is April 4th and FINALLY we had a nice day.  Apparently, Mom was smiling down on the world today, celebrating her 57th birthday.  We spent almost 3 hours outside today, just playing, taking a walk, riding bikes, swinging etc etc etc.  It was so nice, that I decided to do craft outside.  Thanks to my brother-in-law, the wine drinker, we had craft today.

I have been trying to find enough wine corks to do this craft for 4 months now, and until last weekend, I had precisely 1 cork.  But, after last weekend, we were up to 7, enough to make our craft.  Until today, the only thing I had seen made with corks was fall trees.  But, I thought that since it was such a nice day, we would make flowers with them!

I used an old egg carton and filled it with paint, grabbed a few paint brushes and 6 of our wine corks and headed outside with some of our brand new finger paint paper.  Well, ok, acrylic paint isn't finger paint, but it worked well enough!  The girls and I sat down and painted.  Now, Penny, she wasn't so interested, so she put a few strokes of green on the paper and decided to go swing some more, but Iris did stamp for a bit.

Here are today's (and yesterday's) crafts!

Day 93: Watercolors

Can you believe we are 93 days into the new year and this is the FIRST time we've done actual watercolors?  We did ice watercolors early on in the year, but to ever just paint with specific watercolor paints, well, this was a first!  Iris does watercolors every week at school, but they do 1 color at a time, and they do the really fancy wet paper watercolors, so this was a new opportunity for her.  Penny had NEVER watercolored before, so it was new for her too.

I remembered why i hate watercolors as soon as we started.  They NEVER stay clean.  As in, when you deal with little ones and watercolors, they CONSTANTLY mix the colors!... especially in a 24 colored pack :/  it makes me want to twitch a little.

Penny found it much more interesting to color the water than paint on the paper.  Iris wanted to color the entire paper like they do in school.  She got almost all the way done, and then Penny spilled her water cup all over the table, quickly ending our watercolor painting excursion.

Day 14- Is it cheating?

So, I will admit, I had these foot prints around since fall of last year.  I got creative one day and found out how to make "stepping stones" with flour, water, and salt- http://www.ehow.com/how_8166318_make-handprint-molds.html - I thought "wow, this is such a cute idea.  We'll make the prints today and paint it tomorrow."  Well, tomorrow became the next day, the next week, the next month, and eventually the next year.  It was so easy to think "OMG! 2 and 3 year old with paint- AHHHHHHH"  But, after the last two weeks, what is a little paint on a dining room table???  haha

Well, now that I finally decided to let the kids paint the "stones" I wish I hadn't.  Penny's doesn't even look like a footprint any more, and Iris' is really hard to see, though oddly, in the picture it looks better.  There must have been some little birdy tweeting in my ear not to paint those.  Oh well, there will be more projects.  Maybe sometime this year we'll do a mosaic tile, that would be fun!  (I must be going crazy from all the paint fumes the last three days!)
Speaking of paint fumes, here is a couple of pictures from the room I'be been working on all weekend.  We have put $70 into so far, and that includes the GORGEOUS new floor and paint!  Can't wait until it is completely finished, but it has literally transformed from an UGLY, outdated storage room behind our dining room to a beautiful office space.  I am so glad we took the time to repurpose this room.  It is soon going to become my craft room!  This room was blue (like EVERY other room in our house when we moved in) with horrible 1980s peel and stick tiles on the floor (tan fake brick even!)... Not the best pictures, since it is after 10, but, I am happy with the results (the cabinets are open because the paint is still a little tacky lol)

Day 11- Mess Can Sometimes Be Success

So glad I finally broke down and decided to try to painting with toilet paper tubes.  The kids had a blast, and  the proof was on their hands!  Sometimes, the best projects are probably going to be the messiest, which is what I am learning when we dye pasta at night, haha.


I pulled the muffin tin out of the cabinet today, filled all 12 tins with different colors.  The kids sat in their chairs and watched so intently as I squeezed red, yellow, blue, purple, silver, white, brown, etc etc etc into each cup and then proceeded to place a toilet paper tube in each pile of paint.

When I finally said "Have at it" they both looked a little confused, so I took one of the toilet paper tubes and started stamping on a piece of construction paper.  That was all it took, Iris and Penny went to town!  They both tried different dipping and stamping techniques and created very different works of art.
Clean up was a breeze, other than cleaning the rims of each muffin.  Everything else either sat on the table to dry or got dumped in the trash... how much easier could someone ask for???

Tomorrow, Macaroni necklaces.  Another huge shout out to my hubby, Mike, for staying up past our bedtime to dye noodles.  What would I do without him???

Day 7- Creating Memories

I was talking to my sister-in-law last night about this crafting goal for the year.  I was telling her things that I have done, our failure, and my favorite so far.  She happened to mention that one of her more favorite things to do with some of her younger clients is a memory box to put photos in.  Well, that got me thinking, it would be nice for the girls to have something to keep some of their smaller projects in, as well as pictures of the numerous crafts we are going to do this year.  So, ANOTHER trip to JoAnns (which, I needed some stuff to finish these owl invites) and I had everything we would need, plus some.

The fun thing about this project was that it was truly a free for all.  No paint, but everything else was a free for all, stamps, stamp pads, markers, crayons, colored pencils, marbles, peel n stick foam, sequin, beads, nylon cording, wooden stars, pom-poms, you name it, i let them have it!  And Penny LOVED it!  She had so much fun.  I gave her a glue stick and let her go.  One of the only crafts so far that has involved no fits!  She was free to do her own thing, and she loved it.  Iris enjoyed it too, her tendency for lines was blatantly obvious.  She was more willing to ask for help gluing things on, but she was very particular about how she wanted things done.  She wanted specific colors on specific things in specific places.  The kid knows what she likes!

On a side note, I realized today, I am happier than I have been in quite awhile.  I feel inspired and motivated.  I haven't felt like this in a long time.  I walk into some place like JoAnn's, or Pat Catan's, or Michael's, and I want to try new things.  Yes, my life has begun to revolve around crafting.  I am constantly thinking about, planning, scheming about new craft projects.  Pinterest has become my new best friend.  My hands have all but fallen off from punching holes, cutting paper, gluing ridiculously small pieces, pushing brads, etc, but I am happy!  I am loving the amount of quality time I am spending with my kids.  I love how inspired and excited they are EVERY morning.  They talk about their craft project at breakfast every morning.  They talk about it until we make it, and as soon as we do, they can't wait to show Mike.  And once he sees it, talk turns to the next craft.  It has brought us all together as a family, and I love it... though this blog is KILLING my bedtime!  I just hope that maybe, at some point this year, I inspire someone to sit down with their kids/grandkids and make something.

Day 3, a day late.. oops

Well, I failed, a day late on my post, but we DID craft yesterday.  Actually, it was a lot of fun, save the total meltdown Penny had because I wouldn't let her pour the paint :/  Once she got that out of her system, she loved "smashing" the paint.

The Set Up, so clean given what we were doing!

We painted suns, by simply cutting a white circle out of paper, pouring red, yellow, and orange paint randomly on the paper, covering it with plastic wrap and "smashing" and "pushing" the paint around until all of the white paper was covered.  After the paper was totally colored, we pulled the saran off (ok, I did, VERY carefully, and QUICKLY disposed of it in the trash!)  Then, I gave the girls each a toothpick, told them to stick the tooth pick into some paint that I poured onto their plates, and to make "Rays."  I put Rays in quotes because we are talking about a two and three year old.  Penny had a different idea about where the suns rays are.

 But, in the end, I think I can say the turned out awesome.  I love how they each turned out.  I wish Iris hadn't gotten tired 3/4 of the way around the sun, because I still like her sun more than mine.  I love Penny's abstract sun, it looks like the sun is letting off flares.  Mine seems boring in comparison.

I hope that missing yesterday's blog didn't ruin me for the year!  But, I kept up the main part of the goal, I made an art project with the kids!!  The idea for this project came from: http://mrskarensclass.blogspot.jp/2012/01/lets-fly-to-moon-or-jupiter.html with the help of my friend Patty.  Loved they link, THANK YOU!!!

Day 1

So, today began Craft Year.  I put a lot of thought into today's craft because I want to be able to repeat it on December 31st of this year.  This way, I will be able to show the progress the entire family has made over the year.  A problem that I am running into is that it is hard to find a craft easy enough for a two and a three year old to join in on, but one that is also unique and interesting for Mom- aka me.  I found a cool New Year's dragon on Pinterest, my new best friend, and with some help from my wonderful husband, it was fairly easy to do, even with a screaming two year old!

All we did was take 1 cardboard egg carton, some acrylic paint, a few pom-poms, googly eyes, a large jingle bell, and some 1/4" elastic.  I cut apart the egg carton and let the kids paint the cups.  After painting was completely, I poked holes in the egg cups to string them together with the elastic, and attached a jingle bell at the end.

It is sort of hard to see here, but you can see in the red one behind that they are strung together with elastic.  I turned the first one on edge to be the "mouth" of the dragon.  Once I attached the construction paper tongues, pom poms, and eyes, here are the final products.  Note to anyone who may try this at home, the only way I can get pom-poms to stick to anything is by using hot glue or super glue.  I know that the super glue is going to end poorly one day, with me glued to SOMETHING haha.

On a slight side note, I am realizing quickly that Penny, my two year old, is just TOO young for many of our crafts.  She loses interest quickly, and gets VERY mad when I don't let her do things, like pour paint into cups, or use scissors-- does she think I'm insane?!  I hope that it gets better throughout the year.
And finally, this is the "before" picture.  My crafting supplies, laid out on our small dining room table, on January 1st, 2013.  I hope to take an "after" picture at the end of this year.  I am already trying to figure out where I am going to put my soon to be acquired supplies!  I think my 31 rep is going to LOVE me haha.  Peace, Love, and CRAFTS!-- Kara!