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 100!!! 'Nough Said

There is part of me that just wants to post the picture of this and not even write anything, but this is Day 100!!! 100 crafts in 100 days!!!!  We are ALMOST 1/3 of the way through the year and we are still going strong!

It is hard to find crafts with the "100" theme.  I finally searched "100th day of school" on Pinterest, and I hit a jack pot!  I decided to do this 1-0-0 paper plate theme.  I used hot glue to stick the #s together, then i put dabs of glue everywhere to keep the pasta stuck to the plates.

If you are wondering- to keep with the 100 theme, each girl got 100 pieces of dyed pasta for their plates, and they used them all! Now if you sit here and count, I can't promise you that there are 100 pieces of pasta on each plate, because come on, we are talking about a 2 and 4 year old.  Who knows where they put the pasta.. I mean, Penny tried to eat a piece today! lol

On a side note: My hits to this blog have SKYROCKETED lately. I've gone from about 8-10 a day to almost 30 a day.  My +1s have gone from 1 or 2 to 3 or 4, and I can see I'm getting a lot of hits from overseas.  I'd love to know who everyone is if you are a regular.  I don't like feeling like i'm talking to myself all this time :)  Feel free to leave a note, let me know who you are and where you live, and most importantly, if you have any craft ideas, make sure to let me know!

Day 99: Garden Start-Up

Today's blog will be quick.  We didn't necessarily do a "Craft" today, but more of a learning activity to follow us through the next few weeks/months, if it succeeds :-p  We planted seeds in little cups outside.  While we were at Home Depot on Saturday, I let the girls pick out seed packets of things they want to grow over the spring/summer.  I was hoping that they would choose things like a pack of tomatoes, maybe a pepper plant, some herbs, maybe even some peas or green beans.  Basically, I wanted things that we could easily plant in a planter and not in a huge garden.  Well, leave it to Iris and Penny, they chose lettuce, broccoli, yellow squash, and corn... yes, corn.  We are attempting to grow corn, in a POT on the back porch.. yup this a recipe for disaster.

The girls got to dig shovels full of dirt from a bag and put the dirt in their cups, then they got to put seeds in each cup.  We planted a lot of lettuce, i hope that the lettuce takes off.  But other than that... who knows how this is experiment will turn out, it could be a total disaster, hopefully it will be worth our time in a few months.  Wish us luck! :-p 

Day 98: Flower cutouts

So, a few months ago, I saw this really cute paper punch craft done with paint samples from a hardware store.  I had been thinking about it and thinking about it, and thought it would be a super easy, fun craft to do with the girls.  On Friday, we went to Jo-Ann's and picked out a paper punch (daisy) that they liked, and then on Saturday, after making our bird houses, we went to the paint department and they picked out paint swatches that they liked.

That is where it went south.  I didn't quite know where to go with this craft.  The picture I had seen, they had used a brown paper back as a gift bag for someone, well I had no need for a paper bag, and I had no real direction to go.  Mike suggested just gluing them onto a piece of green construction paper, but we had a lot of green paint swatches, so I went with black.

I really wanted to make something as well, but I spent the entire time punching daisies out so that Iris could hoard them only to pile them all up on her paper at the last possible second and declare craft "done".  Penny did actually enjoy gluing her pieces on the construction paper.  I got a P glued on before the kids lost total interest and craft was effectively OVER.

Day 97: Red Race Cars

Today was a day for Mike to take control of craft with the girls, who by the way were asking from the minute I opened my eyes this morning if they could build their cars lol.  But, as soon as he was ready for the day, they were ready to build their cars!

I honestly didn't have much to do with craft today because I was cleaning windows in the kitchen.  (btw, Mike says I did a good job because he keeps thinking that they are open only to find out that they are closed!) Everyone has all their fingers and toes so I guess the hammering in of little nails didn't get too out of control.  I didn't hear Mike yelp so I am guessing Penny didn't try to poke him with a nail.

I can only find 1 car right now, but Penny's looks exactly the same, just without stickers.  She piled all her stickers up on the top of the car, then about 5 minutes later pulled them all off.  They were both VERY proud of their cars, they played with them for a long time today.

Day 96: Home Depot

So, Why is it that this is April 6th and I JUST found out that the first Saturday of every month, Home Depot has a project for the kids??? Seriously, best thing EVER!  We went over this morning (Iris, Penny, and I) to get a craft for today and tomorrow, and I walked out of there with today's craft DONE, and tomorrow's craft in the bag (literally) along with 2 more day's crafts that I actually went for!

We got there, and I realized that they were doing a Kids Workshop which was Make Your Own Bird Feeder.  So, I trotted the kids over there and we got our own bird feeder kits and also go the cutest little aprons with their names on them!  Then we got to work.  I was a little afraid, you know, I had 2 bird feeder "kits" in front of me with 7 pieces of wood, 8 nails, a screw, and an eye screw in each and a 2 and 4 year old beside me, and I was ALONE.  It wasn't that I was worried that I couldn't follow the directions that were written for a kid 5 years or older, or wasn't comfortable with the hammer/screw driver, it was that I really concerned about the fact that I was ALONE with a 2 year old named Penny and Iris.  Penny can be hard to keep occupied when it is a one on one project, not to mention a 2 on 1 project that requires hand tools!  YIKES!

Well, I set everything out, and I tried to get the girls to match the big nails together and the small nails together, then I had them put the big nails in the 4 "big nail holes" that were pre-notched in the little 1/2x 1inch pieces of wood that formed the base of the feeder.  Once we had our nails set, I started driving them in the wood pieces and once I got them started well enough, I let each girl help me drive them basically to the bottom of the piece of wood.  I prayed for my fingers, toes, and eyes the entire time!  (Sometimes, I am SO thankful for glasses!!! haha)

After we did that part, then we had to glue the edges of wooden pieces so that we could hammer them together.  The girls got to put the glue on the edge, and just as before, I got them started so that they were secure, then let the girls help me drive them all the way in.  I did this very methodically  I first set Iris' up, got hers started, and did my little "learning curve" with her, since I know that she has much more patience for this type of thing than Penny does.  Once I had the step done with Iris, then I went to Penny and helped her do the step quickly and without a fuss!

So, now we had a square made out of 1x1/2" pieces of wood, we then got to put the bottom on by gluing the frame and setting this little square piece of some-sort-of-composite-wood on top of it, then driving the 4 small nails into the premade holes.  I got Iris' started, and she actually drove them the rest of the way in completely by herself- proud mommy moment right there :)- and then did the same thing with Penny, but I helped Penny drive the nails in.  I don't know, the thought of Penny wildly swinging a hammer around with me or anyone else in a 50' radius sort of scares me.

Once that step was done, we screwed the post onto the base, and both girls helped me twist the screw driver... at which point, while I was helping Iris, Penny found one of the small nails and started poking me in the butt, thigh, and calf with the pointy end.  Oh, Penny.... Then we put the small square on the top and attached it to the post with the eye screw.  Birdhouse building COMPLETE, and everyone still had all their eyes, fingers, and toes...

Next was painting.  I was basically able to sit back and enjoy.  Iris really was into this dark mood today, because her birdhouse is almost all black and red; very gloppy red paint that approximately 12 hours later is STILL not dried.  Penny did really well painting hers.  She did let me help painting the roof, but other than that, she painted it all herself!

When we finished, the people there gave them a pin with a birdhouse on it, and a little certificate.  They also gave them a car to come home and do "With Daddy" and a pin for the car too.  We put the birdhouse pins on their home depot aprons when they got home, and will put the car pins on tomorrow when they make their wooden cars with Mike.

They were SO excited about the birdhouses.  I will be back at Home Depot as many months as possible doing these crafts, I love how hands on they were :)  Maybe I will remember to bring Mike in the future for an extra set of hands!

Day 95: Butterflies

why is it that ALL over Ohio it was 50-60 degrees today, but in Cleveland it only hit 41??? Have I ever mentioned that I hate Cleveland?  Oh well, we had a lot of shopping to do today and then we came home still needed to do craft while dinner was in the oven.  Iris had asked to make "circle" butterflies a few weeks ago- are we noticing a trend with Iris' craft requests yet???- and I saw these really cute toilet paper roll butterflies on Pinterest earlier this week and thought that they would be PERFECT for a craft, and it fit the "circle" butterfly request.

I have been trying to break in all of our new craft supplies that I got this week- I don't think I told you all this, but I got a gift certificate to Fat Brain Toys, and I stocked up on craft supplies and musical instruments for the kids.  We got a big coloring book, new construction paper, new paint brushes, watercolors, finger paint paper, doodle paper, and maybe one or two other things, as well as some bells, and other musical instruments.  Needless to say, we have been having a lot of fun this week!

Today, my handy paper cutter was the perfect tool for the job.  All i did was slice a 4" piece of construction paper to wrap around the tubes, then four 2" pieces for the wings.  Then we used the super tiny (1/8" i think?) hole punch that I have, to make a spot for the antennas, and used a glue stick to stick everything together.  We fed half of a pipe cleaner into each of the punched holes, wrapped the tops around our fingers and then made faces on them.  Penny wanted nothing to do with craft until I had my butterfly done, at which point she decided it was HER butterfly lol.  Iris did all of hers herself, with the exception of wrapping the paper around the body.  I was really proud of her artistic license with this craft.  And I am SO proud of her artistic ability today!

I threw in a picture that Iris drew today of a Crocodile wearing a hat.  I don't know that I could have drawn a crocodile that well!!!  I have some budding artists on my hands :)