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 :)

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 92: Whoa, blogger change!

What the heck?  The layout of Blogger changed overnight!!! haha, oh well, same basic set up, just looks really different.

We had such a wonderful day today, I REALLY needed the fun that we had too.  For the last week, my life (and Mike's) has revolved around Coraline.  Making sure that she has meds on time, making sure her fingers are out of her mouth, making sure that she is taking enough fluids, getting enough food, etc etc etc.  Today, Mike's mom called and asked if we wanted to go to Lodi Outlets for lunch and shopping.  Part of me, was hesitant, but the "I need to do something fun" won out.  I loaded the kids up in the car and went down.  I have to say i am SO happy that I did!  Coraline was fine, she even napped while we were on the train.  But, spending the entire day out of the house really ate into craft time.  And, that left me coming home at 5:15, looking through my craft drawers for something to make.
The second drawer I opened i found these little stick things that Mike bought me for Christmas.  Even he told me at the time that he had no idea what we would do with them, but that he thought they were cute.  I figured with some markers, some foam stickers, and a few pom-poms and they could be a really fun craft for the girls.  Very personalized, and individual for them.  Something to really let their imaginations and creativity run free.
We used a TON of glue, but here is what we ended up with!  I think it was a great craft for the girls, it kept their interest and they enjoyed it.

Day 91: Coffee Filter Drawings

So, this craft was supposed to be a Coffee Filter Flower project.  Basically, take a coffee filter, color it with a marker, cut out a flower shape and spritz it with water so all the colors blend nicely.  But as they say, "The Best Laid Plans" We did color coffee filters.  But Iris was sooo meticulous with her drawings that I felt bad cutting it.  So, we just colored them, and then spritzed them with water to let them blend and bleed a little.  Here are some of the drawings we did: