A Little Welsh Fun

It turns out we completely missed Saint David’s Day yesterday, but I found this blog post full of Welsh crafts from Filth Wizardry so delightful that I had to pass it on anyway.

I’m in love with the easy paper leeks!

(Long-time readers also know that I’ll celebrate any excuse to have fun that involves sheep.) 

If you want to continue with the theme of St. David and Wales, here are some wonderful compilations of crafts and activities on DLTK (did you know that dragons are considered Wales’ national animal?!) and Activity Village (I love the dragon sock puppet!).

In any case, happy March, chickadees!  Spring is really coming.  Yay!

Look for a post on ways to make the day magical on Monday.  My husband’s recovery is coming along well and I think it’s time for us to start easing out of hibernation.   

Enjoy the rest of the weekend!

Colorful Shaving Cream Fun!

I’m very sorry for my long absence! 

Five year-old Alex had a tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy last week and the recovery has been really hard on him.  We’ve also been out of town to celebrate my birthday and to meet with doctors at the Mayo for my husband to get a long-overdue new hip.  Also, a friend (and magical mama to six kids) died suddenly (click here if you would like to help the family), and I just didn’t feel up to writing for a long time.

But times like these mean we need more magic for our kids (and us), so I’m back on my feet to do my best.

This morning, I got out the shaving cream and food coloring for Alex to have a bit of messy fun. 

I sprayed his name in shaving cream and then had him smooth it out, then dropped about 3 drops of each color (red, blue, green, red) on various parts. 

He used his finger to swirl the colors, then used chopsticks and spoons, making colorful mountains and experimenting with lots of color mixing.

It was a huge hit!  His brother joined in the fun for a while too, and then helped clean it all up. 

I hear it’s good for wood tables, too.  I have no proof, but our 50 year-old wood table can pretty much handle anything at this point. 

This craft works marvelously well in the bath, too, of course!

Hug your kiddos, count your blessings, and make the most of every second that you get with these amazing little people (and the amazing big ones, too).

Easy, Sturdy (Free) Building Blocks!

Here’s a little project that we’ve been doing for years.

These fun blocks are so easy!

I was planning on making a set of building blocks for Fiona for Christmas, but she kept trying to manhandle the presents under the tree so I decided to make her a set of “presents” of her own. 

It worked like a charm!

Here’s all you do:

1. Save your cartons of drinks like almond milk and orange juice.  You’ll need two cartons for each block.
2. Cut off the top.  Rinse and dry.
3. Fit one carton into another (open ends facing each other), so that the block is closed on all sides.  This also makes it very sturdy, since it’s basically doubled up.
4. Wrap with wrapping paper or cover with contact paper.  If you use paper, you can seal it with clear contact paper.  You can also tape on family pictures, magazine pages or other fun images before sealing with contact paper.

That’s it!  You can change them whenever you like by simply wrapping them with a new wrapping paper or covering with another layer of paper and contact paper. 

When my bigger kids were little, I made a “marble” set with marble contact paper so it looked like they were building stone buildings. 

You can also use little individual milk cartons (like school lunch size) to make alphabet blocks. 

 

Oodles of Ways to Have Fun With Pumpkins!

Want to have a little pumpkin fun besides the usual jack-o-lanterns? 

Here’s a whole slew of fun ways to decorate and play with these fantastic orange veggies...

Lowe’s suggests using hardware to make all sorts of whimsical, wonderful little pumpkin creations.

Oasis Accents tells how to make glittered pumpkins.

The Magic Onions posted the delightful idea of letting kids pound nails in and then string yarn on their creations.

The Preschool Toolbox made sweet little pumpkin boats.

The Swede Records featured some gorgeous melted crayon pumpkins.

Sweet Paul made this lovely little pumpkin diorama.

Country Living has a whole slideshow of fun ideas, including using stencils, decals, paint with painter’s tape, and more.

And for a few more ideas, check out my round-up of 35 Ways to use pumpkins for crafts, entertaining, education and more.

What’s your favorite way to use pumpkins? 

…Besides in pie, of course! 

 

Marble Mice!

Here’s a fun little printable craft from The Toymaker — Marble Mice!  Just print out the pattern on cardstock, cut out, and add a large marble inside. 

The Toymaker says…

These Marble Mice are fun to make and roll around on your desk. Cats love them!

What fun!

 

 

Bleach Pen Fun!

Here’s a great craft for older kids and teens to show off their creativity and bring new life to boring clothes.  Try your hand at bleach pen altering!

Victoria made this lovely shirt from an old peach t-shirt of mine that I was going to donate. 

She put a layer of waxed paper inside the shirt (to prevent bleach soaking through to the other side) and laid the shirt flat, then drew a freehand design on the shirt and put it aside to dry completely before washing (do this in a well ventilated room).

She had so much fun that she altered a ton of other clothing she scrounged up, from colored undies (peace signs were added in back!) to shirts and socks.

This could be done with younger kids if a parent does the actual bleach pen work, since bleach is very caustic.

For young kids, have them draw the design with chalk, then have a parent go over it with the pen.

Want to see some inspiration from others?  Here’s a google image search of all sorts of great designs others have done.  Fun!

 

 

Altered Artwork!

Here’s a fun project to do for your next art adventure.  Alter some artwork!  Twisted Sifter posted the altered thrift store masterpieces by artists Chris McMahon and Thryza Segal, and the results are so fun! 

You can generally pick up oil and acrylic paintings at thrift stores for next to nothing, and then assign the kids the task of adding in a magical creature or two. 

     

My late father was an artist and he often bought thrift store paintings and just painted over them completely since it was much cheaper than buying new canvases.  I’ve planned for a long time to take some paintings and have the kids just add on to them, but I like this idea even better.  We recently bought a bucketload of framed art and pictures for Victoria’s photography, and now I think we need to go back and get another stash for this project. 

Fun!

 

Colorful Baking Soda Busywork

Here’s a fun way to occupy the kids in a bubbly, colorful way.

Do some baking soda and vinegar experiments but add color!

You’ll need:

• A box of baking soda per child (ours cost about .50 a box and we bought a bunch)
• 1-2 cups of white vinegar (generally under a dollar)
• Food coloring
• One cake pan or similar container per child
• Muffin tin (regular size if two kids will be sharing it the way ours did, or mini muffin size would be enough for one child — an ice cube tray would work too)
• Eye droppers or pipettes (one per child)

Instructions:

1. Fill the muffin tins half full with the vinegar, and tint each cup with a different color of food coloring.  We usually leave one clear so kids can mix a custom color.
2. Pour one box of baking soda into a cake pan for each child.  Smooth out.
3. Spread an old towel on the table (or do it outside) and put the cake pan(s), muffin tin and eye droppers on it.
4. Show kids how to squeeze the eye droppers in the colored vinegar to fill them up, then have them drizzle and drop it on the baking soda to watch what happens.

This large amount of baking soda means that kids can happily do the activity for a good long time, making this a perfect activity for while you’re making lunch or taking a break. 

Kids can also experiment with things like pushing the eye dropper under the baking soda and then squeezing (tiny volcanoes!) and so on.

Science info:  Want to know why baking soda and vinegar bubble up?  Explain to the kids that carbon dioxide is released when acids (like vinegar) and bases (like baking soda) combine and react to each other.  If they want to do more colorful science to learn about acids and bases, consider the purple cabbage pH experiment (our family’s all time favorite science experiment).  You can also just bake something!  People make cakes and breads rise by either using yeast or relying on the same reaction with ingredients like baking soda and buttermilk. 

Have fun!

Painted Soap Clouds

Remember when I recommended microwaving a half a bar of Ivory soap as a way to make the day magical a couple of months ago? 

We took it a step farther and had the most fun! 

We microwaved the soap for about 30 seconds (set your microwave for about a minute and just stop it when the soap stops expanding) and watched it puff up.

Then I gave the kids muffin tins filled with colored water (we used water and food coloring but you could also use liquid watercolors) and eyedroppers. 

They had so much fun! 

I highly recommend it!

Easy Velcro Blocks

Here’s a fun and inexpensive way to make some neat building blocks for little ones.

Our fabulous friend Jan, a local Head Start teacher, came up with this idea. She purchased a couple of $1 bags of foam blocks from Target and then purchased some adhesive velcro. She cut the velcro into tiny squares and affixed it to most sides of the blocks.

Our boys played with the new sticky blocks yesterday and had great fun.

You could also use the idea with wooden blocks or any number of household objects.

Fun!