DIY Pallet Hearts

Throughout this past Christmas season I saw all these adorable Christmas Trees popping up made from a simple pallet. Well I ran out of time and did not get ours made, but I have plenty of Christmas Decorations and so I'm not sure that I really needed the pallet tree. But with the beginning of February arriving I pulled out our Valentine's decorations and well there is NOTHING for outside. I really get sad or slightly depressed when we take down all the beautiful Christmas decorations and then there is nothing.  I know lots do not like or enjoy Valentine's Day but it is a day in which to share a little bit of God's love and remember some of the good that still exists in this world.

So I took a pallet, drew a large heart on it and grabbed the jig saw. In a matter of minutes I had my heart cut out and the silhouette too. I added some barn red paint to the heart and viola! A Simple heart for outside my house!

Math Garden

A few weeks ago I was working with my niece on matching her numbers and counting to 12. Well I was looking for a fun way for her to practice and maybe one that I didn't have to help the whole time. So we made our Number Garden(which later became the Math Garden).

We took an egg carton and turned it upside down. I had my niece use a marker on each egg cup draw green grass. While she was making grass I was making flowers. I grabbed some popsicle sticks and sticky backed Fun Foam Flowers. I placed a flower at the top of each stick. The where the leaves were to be I wrote numbers 1-12 on the sticks. When she was done with the grass, I then wrote numbers 1-12 on the top of each egg cup and cup a small slit the width of a popsicle stick.

The bottom of the carton with green grass on sides and numbers and slit in egg cup

Our simple flowers- my niece liked the ones with glitter centers better

 

Our Number Garden turned Math Garden

Now all she had to do was "plant" my flower garden, by matching the numbers on the sticks to the numbers on the egg cups.  Once she had finished matching the flowers to the holes, we would count them and check to see if they were correct.

This worked great for my 4 year old niece, but the Math Garden began when my son came home from school. Now Garrett is in 3rd grade and was working on multiplication. My niece had randomly placed the flowers back into the egg carton when we were all done the last time. When Garrett got home, he saw this and asked what it was. I explained that it was my "Math Garden" and he had to Multiply the flower times the number on the egg cup and give me the answer. If it was correct he could "pick the flowers."  This was a fun and quick way to randomly practice math facts in a couple of minutes.

Now that I have looked at it for a while- this could work for matching numbers, counting, addition, subtraction, & multiplication. And now my niece is leaving her numbers messed up when she is done so that Garrett has to practice when he comes home- it's like their own little game between them.

Vintage Handkercheifs turned Tissue Covers

As my in-laws were sorting things, my mother-in-law handed me a bag of vintage handkerchiefs that had been hers - (she knew that I would do something with them). Some of them her mother had added the crochet work around the edges and some she had added the delicate stitches.  After searching the web for a while, I thought that covers for small tissue packets would be nice and something that would be used. But the patterns I was finding online were for large tissues, as seen here, http://beachvintage.blogspot.com/2010/09/project-day-hankerchief-tissue-holder.html

So I adjusted this idea and folded the handkerchief's a little smaller so that they would fit nicely in a book bag or purse.

The 2 white ones were slightly larger than the blue one, so here is how I folded those handkerchiefs.

Lay handkerchief in front of you looking like a diamond not a square. Then Fold the right point to the center and also the left point to the center( you might need to overlap these points depending on the width.). Have your travel tissues close by to make sure that you have pulled them to the width that you need. (leave it a little bigger than the tissues) Pull the bottom point up towards the center but You will Pull it up til the crocheted edges can be folded forward to make a triangle on the front- it will look like an open envelop. Here I stitched along the bottom point and stitched the folded sides all together. I also stitched 1/4" seam along both sides. Then the top point folds down and makes the double row of ruffles.

On the blue one, there was only fancy stitching on the one corner, so I Started just like the first one by having a diamond, folding in the side points and double checking with my package. Then I folded the bottom point part way up and then folded it  up again to make a straight edge, just like an envelop. I stitched both sides and then had the fancy top just drop down.

It might sound complicated, but take a handkerchief and start folding- I didn't worry about hidden seams and I didn't cut any of the handkerchief incase someone wanted to use it some day as a whole handkerchief- a few stiches could be removed and little harm has come to it.

Vintage Doily Angels

This past October, my in-laws had an auction and we had all been given the opportunity to sort through things that had meaning. Well I had taken some doilies but I just couldn't let my husband's grandmother's handiwork leave the family. I have 2 nieces on that side of the family and 2 sister-in-laws that I thought would appreciate them the most- if only I could find something unique to do with them.  As I Searched Pinterest I found this beautiful picture and knew that it is what I wanted to make out of the doilies. Here are the directions that the pin was connected to http://grandmotherspatternbook.com/?p=9509

Once I got to the directions- I was shocked- because it was the actual crocheting pattern and that is something that I don't know how to do and certainly by mid December didn't have time or desire to learn. But this is what I wanted these angels to kind of look like.

So I adjusted and here is what I came up with.

I had a few limits, first I only had a few doilies left to work with and I wanted to make sure that I ended up with 4 angels (I forgot to take a picture of 1 before shipping it).  But if you are interested in the adjusted version here are the directions.

Vintage Doily Angel

1. I washed all the doilies and tried to get any stains out and then air dried them.
2. I had a Styrofoam cone 4-6" tall, that I covered in plastic wrap so it wouldn't stick.
3. I took the larger doilies and used them for the dresses. I soaked them in liquid starch and draped them over the Styrofoam cone.
4. While the dresses were drying, I picked out the wings. These I fan folded in the middle and hand stitched a few stiches to make sure that they would stay folded and pulled together.
5. I soaked the wings in liquid starch and laid them flat until they dried.
6. Once everything was dry and I had pulled the cones out from the inside, I used my hot glue gun and attached a wooden round knob to act as the head, the size depends on the size that looks best with your doilies.
7. I then was able to determine at what height I wanted the wings and I hot glued them onto the body.
8. I finished the angels with small flowers glued around the bottoms and a small cluster near where the hands would be to make that illusion with a small bow.

These was really a simple project, but very meaning full when you know where the doilies came from.

 

 

Simple Fall Decoration

As I watch my niece, she helped decorate my home for fall, but she wanted some decorations for her house too! So she and I began a couple of things for "her house." So our first project was the "Leaf Garland." I had some fun foam leaves in fall colors. So we took those leaves and pieces of colored drinking straws and she strung them on to a piece of yarn. So that she could have a "Leaf Garland"

We did work on a repeating pattern, of leaf -straw-leaf plus we also laid out a color pattern of brown orange green red. This was also a great activity for fine motor skills while she is threading through those holes and straw pieces.

Our supplies

 

Our completed garland


 

Frozen water balloons

Last week when we experienced the "Polar Vortex" and had the extreme cold, the boys and I experimented with frozen water balloons. We did this last year, but they wanted to do it again and with the extreme cold this worked well. 

We started with regular balloons, food coloring and water.  You do need to be careful that once your water balloon is filled that you carefully hold the throat of the balloon down low and add the coloring. Then grab the throat at the end and massage the coloring down into the balloon. Then tie off the balloon. We then took them out side and sat them on the porch where the cats won't bother them and let them there at least 24 hours. It does take some time for them to freeze. We have found that the balloons sometimes will break when the balloon is completely frozen. But we then take our frozen orbs and line the sidewalk and enjoy some beautiful color with our snow. These almost look like large glass paperweights - they are very cool!

Garrett with his long frozen water balloon

This one had a hole in the middle- like a bowling ball

Pop Bottle Piggy Bank

Tonight as Cub Scouts we discussed how to use your money. To save, spend, donate and invest. Well after discussing with the parent providing that part of the activity, we thought that a divided bank would be really neat for the boys, but they were a little pricey to just give away. So I came up with this divided bank from a 2 liter pop bottle.

Take a 2 liter and wash it out. Then mark 2 1/2" down the side. You will cut with a craft knife about 1/2 way around and the width of the thickness of cardboard that you are using, at those 3 2 1/2" marks.  Between those marks going with the length of the bottle, you will cut small splits where the coins will be dropped in. You will need 4 of those slits. You will also need to drill a small hole in the bottle of the bottle for the tail

supplies needed

You also need:
 2 googly eyes (we used the peel and stick eyes);
 a small circle of adhesive pink fun foam (cut to the size of the bottle cap)
a black marker
1 piece of pink construction paper (cut into triangles)
3 circle discs, cut slightly bigger than the diameter of the bottle
1 pink pipe cleaner, cut in half
hot glue gun



You add the eyes to the neck of the bottle making sure that they are toward the top of the bottle where the coins would be dropped in. The take the marker and add the nostrils to the pink nose. Peel the paper backing and place on bottle cap. Take the pipe cleaner 1/2 and wrap around your finger to make it curly. The place the end of the pipe cleaner into the drilled hole in the bottom of the bottle.
Take your construction paper triangles, fold a tab across one side, and using a glue gun place the ears slightly above the eyes on the neck part of the bottle. The add the cardboard discs to the large slits in the side of the bottle.

You now have a piggy bank that is divided to divide your money or to sort your money. Just a simple activity to help reinforce money management to children.

Dr. Seuss Weekend

I was SO thrilled that Dr. Seuss's birthday was on a weekend and that the boys would actually be home!!! YEAH!! So I started thinking and planning- nothing too time consuming, but a little fun and then add a couple of books! Well we started Friday night by watching the Lorax and we talked about UNLESS. What type of things wouldn't get done unless they helped or did their part. I also made red jello and whipped cream Seuss hat desserts for during the movie.

Saturday morning before soccer, we had green eggs and ham (of course). This year I made green scrambled eggs and I colored the butter for their toast too. Garrett wasn't real thrilled with green butter on his toast, where Robert was like "oh it's part of the fun - it's just food coloring!"  Following several soccer games, we came home and had lunch. "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish" came to mind, and so I baked chicken nuggets and then cut little triangels out of both sides, I added an eye and a smile and they looked a little bit like fish.

Our chicken turned fish

The whole school of fish

Following lunch they wanted to play "Cat in the Hat Catapults", which we have to make a rythming word for the word that mom gives in order to launch the catapult. That lasted a little while ( we started that game a year or so ago). Then they wanted a new game for this year - so we played "Ring the Gack" - I took some light weight cardboard and cut discs, which they each colored and designed. Then they had to stand at one end of the table and throw the rings to land on a set of antlers form one of Gary's whitetail deer.  They thought this was great.



Rack the Gack game

For snack, I made up some vanilla pudding, divided it into 3 bowls and added food coloring to each bowl. I then piped the pudding into bowls, reminding you of the cover of "Oh the Places You Will Go" .

Oh the Places You Will Go Pudding

And then we HAD to make oobleck (requested from BOTH boys). It was an afternooon spent being silly and doing crazy things while reading several books too.

Working our version of Oobleck

I think I am going to miss Dr. Seuss Day when they get older. Maybe they will still let their mom serve Green Eggs and Ham at least!

School and Sharpies

Even from a distance, you can see the name on the lid of the pencil box!!!

As we get ready for school around here, I label most everything - in case they would misplace it or temporarily loose it. But in the last couple of years, I have had problems labeling their backpacks because the inside lining was black. Nothing shows up on black. But this year Sharpie came to the rescue or at least it came to my mind. I purchased silver sharpies at Christmas Time and yes I still had them. I quickly grabbed the silver sharpie and wrote names right in the backpacks on the inside. It worked great so I grabbed the black pencil box and did the same. Yeah for Sharpies in silver - you can see them on black!!! It worked great for labeling stuff for school!

Dressed Up School folders

 

The boys had wanted fun folders this year for school, which I didn't have a problem with until we went to pick up our school supplies and there really wasn't things that the boys liked on the folders. (Robert did find 2 that had verses on them that he thought was cool)  So we discussed what we could do with the folders to make then fun and in the boy's  mind "cool." We picked up a few of the basic folders and brought them home. Well today as we were packing backpacks, they remembered that they wanted to "fix up" their folders. So after a few minutes on the computer. They had each picked out a couple of pictures from things they had done this summer and then (of course) we had to add a few tractor motifs. After we printed out each page on the color printer, we then cut them to shape and with a little Contact Paper, we attached them right to the folders. Now the boys have "cool" personalized folders to keep track of their papers this year, plus a great way to remember the fun they had this summer. Not only did this keep school shopping a little cheaper, it also made it unique - no one else will have a folder just like theirs!

Coffee Filter Butterflies

While Garrett was home form school, it was May Day. Usually we deliver baskets of flowers to some of the neighbors, but with the seasons and flowers being all confused, Garrett and I made coffee filter butterflies to share with our neighbors.
This is usually really simple, but we had 1 small problem, I didn't think about his new markers being "washable." Very seldom do I purchase the washable type of markers. Kids are going to get markers on them anyhow and it does come of eventually. Well we tried the first filter and the color washed right out of it. Oops - okay let's get older markers and try again.

These are the markers that worked! not washable!

After the first little mistake, we then made several colored coffee filters, where you put color on the filter with a marker and then with an eye dropper add a few drops of water so the colors run together.  I did try to figure out how to dry these inside. When I saw the suction cup hooks that we use in our shower for scrubbies. I moved one to each end of the shower and stretched a string between the strings. miniature clothespins that we use for our art clothesline and we were set. Garrett could add the water and hang them up by himself.

We had all sort of colors

We then took clothespins, the slide on kind and added faces. When the filters were dry, we folded them to make our wings and slid 2 filters on each butterfly. We made cute little envelopes with hangers and then waited til May 1st to go hang them around the community. These worked really well and turned out adorable.

Valentine's Day preparation

Garrett is in kindergarten and we received the list of students in his class to write Valentine's cards too. This is a great way to have him practice his writing. But when I asked what type of valentine's he wanted, he once again stumped me. John Deere or tractor valentine's! He is all excited about it and could I find red tractors for the girls and green ones for the boys? Now I was really stumped! Where would I even find tractor valentine's, let alone different colored tractors? Well I did go looking yesterday and didn't find anything close. So today I decided that maybe we could make our own with my Printshop on the computer and print them off, shouldn't be hard, but let's search the web first.  When I searched the web, I found this great site http://www.familyshoppingbag.com

 It has all sorts of party decorations, invitations, favor boxes, etc. that can all be printed off and used! And they had John Deere!!!! When I clicked on the John Deere, here are invitations, bookmarks, stickers, writing paper and well I was able to take the bookmarks and add some cute sayings and I currently have John Deere Valentine bookmarks for Garrett's kindergarten class. (upon his approval) But this site has Care Bears, Strawberry Shortcake, Spiderman, and most importantly here JOHN DEERE!!!!
Garrett maybe hasn't stumped his mom after all!

Christmas gifts that kids can make

Well it is that time around here. We have begun the process of making Christmas gifts. I try to challenge the boys to make something for our families. I try to have them do different projects so they aren't giving the same thing.

Here are some ideas that have been hits:
Bracelets - they are so simple and depending on the age and resources can have a wide variety. Last year we found charms that told the Christmas Story in Oriental Trading. So Robert made "Christmas Story" Bracelets.

Christmas Ornaments -  There are so many different types of Christmas Ornaments to choose from. Several Years ago, Robert found some string art patterns online and we then cut light weight wood and made little string art ornaments. Garrett has some plastic ornaments (also found in Oriental trading) and we used multiply colors of paint and then the paint swirled together and made some beautiful ornaments.

Soups in a jar - Garrett made "Love Soup" in a Jar a few years ago. We went to the store and bought supplies according to the recipe that we found online.  We then spent part of a day with measuring cups, ingredients and jars and in a little bit of time had all of his gifts done. He also got to practice simple measuring.

2 Halloween Wallhangings done!

I finally finished my 2 wallhangings for Halloween. I don't like to eat candy corn, but these guys turned out really cute! 

Recycled Jar Pumpkins

I am always looking for fun things to do and this is one that I did when Robert was a baby, but I stumbled on a whole box of these. Take an empty, clean baby food jar, spray paint the outside with orange spray paint and let dry. Once dry, take a fine black paint brush and black acrylic paint and add the faces for a jack o latern. Add some green raffia and a tea candle or a LED candle and you have a cute little pumpkin. These are great for each person coming to dinner sometime or for just on the mantel at this time of year.

The recycled baby food jars are on the ends and the stained glass pumpkin in the middle

Now the reason I stumbled on the box of recycled baby food jars, because I am working on table decorations for a fundraising dinner at our church for the Kids Klub this coming Sunday, Oct 23 at 12:30. For the dinner I took this idea and changed it a little bit, but not much. I took ivy bowls and used orange stain glass paint. I painted the inside of the ivy bowl and let it dry. Then once dry, I added the green raffia tied near the top and I will put in the LED tea candles. This was really an easy way to make centerpieces. With a few leaves scattered on the tables, it should look nice and not be too full for the table.

But either way this is a great way to use or reuse unwanted glass jars and containers.

Are you wearing green?

Happy St. Patrick's Day! So are you wearing green? Are you looking for the rainbow and the hidden gold?  In the past I have hidden gold for the boys or we would spend the day making rainbows. I'm not really sure what Garrett & I will be doing tomorrow, but I know that it will be lucky whatever we do!

We have already made a few shamrock's with some very simple supplies.
green paper (any kind)
contact paper
scissors

Take the contact paper and draw on a shamrock (You need 2 of these) While you are doing that have your child shred or tear up the green paper. We used tissue paper and green construction paper. With your contact paper cut out the shape of the shamrock and then peel the backing off. Lay it with the sticky side up and let your child push on pieces of the green paper. Once covered in paper, peel the other piece of contact paper and sandwich the green paper between the 2 pieces of contact paper. Now you have a St. Patrick's sun catcher, if you used tissue paper, or if you just use construction paper, you now have (depending on the size) either coasters or placemats!  And they are cute decorations for the holiday!

Cookie cutters are for more than cookies

I have a large barrel of cookie cutters that are all plastic, that I was given as a gift. I use the holiday ones on a regular basis but I seldom use the letters and numbers. I pulled out the container the other day and Garrett asked to see them. As we were looking at them, I thought about how we could use them, without making cookies. I gave him all the letters and numbers and let him start tracing them on paper. Wow not only was he practicing letters but also coordination of holding with one hand and tracing with the other.  While watching him, I remembered tracing Christmas cookie cutters to make wrapping paper  (which I had forgotten until I was watching Garrett tracing the shapes).

As I watched him, I thought of a game for the numbers. I quickly put the numbers in a bag. We had to pull out a number and then go find that many similar things. For example, Garrett pulled out the 3 and he went and found 3 matchbox cars. I pulled 6 and grabbed 3 pairs of gloves (6 gloves). We played this for a while too.

So what other uses do you have for cookie cutters?

Shrinky Dinks Valentine's

A few years ago, Robert found out about Shrinky dinks - yes they are back! For Valentine's Day treats - not really treats but gifts, he made Shrinky dink hearts that once they were shrunk we either put a pin back on them with hot glue for grandparents or we had put a hole in each one and added zipper pulls for on the kid's backpacks. These turn out really cute and the kids seemed to really like them.

Recycled Christmas Thank you's

Right after Christmas, a blog that I follow, Teach mama, posted the following http://teachmama.com/2010/12/quick-trick-fun-with-bows-and-gift-wrap.html where she talks about letting her children cut the wrapping paper as a great way to practice cutting. She also includes ribbons and bows. Well I loved her post, but Garrett wanted to know "why are we cutting the paper into shapes?" Fortunately I was prepared for this question and had figured out that if we cut the shapes out into circles (that worked best for our wrapping paper) that we could then create snowglobe Christmas thank you notes. These turned out great and not only did we practice cutting with Garrett, but we also were able to recycle some wrapping paper and make nice thank you's.

All we did was use a glue stick to glue down a brown piece of paper to look like the base of a snowglobe and then added the circle cut from the used wrapping paper. I did ever so lightly, iron the wrapping paper after cutting it to get out any little wrinkles that were in it.

Simple Christmas Tree

As Christmas gets closer so does the excitement and the things that Garrett wants to do. So we made a small Christmas tree yesterday. We took a piece of green construction paper and folded it in half lengthwise. I then drew 1/2 of a Christmas tree. Garrett was then able to follow the lines with scissors (Great practice) and he wasn't really sure what we were doing either so it was kind of fun, when he opened the paper up and saw a tree.

Then I love glitter glue and paint, especially at this time of year, but it is way better than the messy that I made as a kid with glue and glitter. We added a start, with help and then he asked for the tinsel to be drawn on so he could follow it. Then he added the red dots for his decorations.

It's really a quick craft and helps the kids practice several skills, but best of all Garrett had a cool tree to hang up on his clothesline for decorations.