Footprint Reindeer and Handprint Trees

One of the things I LOVE doing in crafts is documenting the kids' growth.  So these two crafts are a great way to do that!!  The first one is one that my daughter did at preschool, and the second one is one we did at home with BabyJ.


Reindeer Footprints

Supplies Needed

1 large piece of green construction paper

Brown craft paint

1 pair of googly eyes

1 circle of red paper

Clear craft glue

1.  Paint your child's foot (your choice, left or right!)

2.  Gently place your child's in the center of the green paper and have them step down.  (NOTE:  You will want to have either a wet cloth or a small washbin handy to wash the paint off right away!!)

3.  Do the same with your child's hands, and place them next to the toe-prints, as the antlers. 

4.  Using your craft glue, attach the google eyes and red circle (for the nose)

5.  Let dry and enjoy!  I always attach the kids' names/ages on the back of each one, and then I have a great time capsule of how big their hands/feet are each year!  You could also repeat a craft like this each year, and compare them each year!  If you get misty-eyed like I do, keep a box of tissues on hand to help with your nostalgia :)

Handprint Christmas Tree

Supplies Needed

1 piece of white heavy paper

Yellow, green & red paint

1.  Paint your child's hands green.  I did this one-at-a-time, and it made it easier.  Place one hand (open-palmed) onto your paper.  I did it at a bit of an angle. 

2.  Before you do the 2nd hand, make sure that you wash off the first one!  I had an old wash cloth on hand with warm water.  MAKE SURE YOUR PAINT IS WASHABLE!!!  Sometimes, even when your paint says that it is washable, IT WILL STAIN YOUR SKIN!! BabyJ has had green hands all day :)  It will come off in the tub, but make sure if you have a special event or family photos planned that you don't do this craft beforehand!!

3.  Paint and place your child's other hand at a bit of an angle opposite the first hand.  This should look like a tree shape.  I re-painted BabyJ's palm and placed it at the top to finish off the tree shape. 

4.  Use your yellow paint to paint a star at the top and your red paint to do small circle ornaments just beyond the fingertips.  I chose not to do "ornaments" on the handprints themselves, so you'd still be able to see them.

SO CUTE!!!



Christmas Crafties

Recently, I was introduced to Pinterest.com.  What a fun website!! I've been having a blast looking at other people's craft posts, and have had fun making up some of my own!

Going along with our debt-free Christmas theme, my hubby's office is having a decorating contest, and the winner gets a neat prize.  So of course, I started thinking up all kinds of crafts and things to put up!  And getting BabyJ and Jellybean in on the action was half the fun!!  We've decided that we're going to decorate his area of the office with homemade Christmas items and we're going to hang this quote from the Grinch:

“And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow,

stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons.

It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags.

And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore.

Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before.

What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store.

What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.”

-Dr Seuss

So we started today making all kinds of crafts, and we're going to share them with you in a few different posts. 

The first thing we made were Christmas trees. Super fun and easy; G loved it!!

Supplies Needed

Green popsicle or craft sticks

Purple popsicle or craft sticks

Hot glue gun and glue sticks

Clear craft glue

Beads, doo-dads, sparkles, glitter

Imagination!!

1.  Take your popsicle/craft sticks.  You will use 3 per tree.  On the first one, place hot glue on each end.  Place your other popsicle sticks on the glue, and use one more dab of hot glue to adhere the final 2 ends.  We used 4 different kinds of sticks.  We used large and small popsicle sticks, small bumpy sticks and large popsicle sticks with holes in them.

2.  Cut your purple sticks into 3 pieces.  The cut edges may be a bit sharp; you may want to use some fine sandpaper to sand off the rough edges.  Adhere to the middle of the bottom stick with a dab of hot glue.

3.  Using the clear craft glue, start decorating!!  We used beads, pompoms, glitter and sparkles, sequins and glitter-glue. 

Some of our finished trees!!

We've got enough glitter and bling to make Elton John proud!!

When we go to hang them, I am going to use some thin ribbon at the top and adhere it with a dab of hot glue.  I find hot glue works better than the craft glue for that type of thing, as it will hold up under the weight of the popsicle sticks and various adornments when it comes time to hang!

Christmas is coming!

This Christmas, we are trying to do a debt-free Christmas.  This means that we are saving our pennies specifically for Christmas things, instead of using a credit card.  So far, so good!!  We are hand-making a lot of our own ornaments and decorations this year, so we are going to post some of the fun things that we are doing! 

The first craft we attempted is sun-catchers.  I saw this post on Play At Home Mom (LOVE THIS WEBSITE!!), and we had to try it!!

Supplies Needed

Picture frame (We got ours at the Dollar Store)

Clear glue

Clear, plastic gems (either colored or clear.  We got ours at the Dollar Store)

Hot glue gun and glue

Newspaper

1.  Remove the wrapping, paper and backing from your picture frame.  You can decide if you want your gems to be behind the glass or in front of it.  If the gems are thicker than the frame and you put them on the back, the sun catcher won't sit flat on the window.  We stuck ours on the back, and we actually ended up using a second framed attached to the back to give it extra depth.

2.  Using your glue gun, run a line around the inside of the frame where the glass sits.  Then insert your glass.  This will seal your frame, which will prevent the clear glue from leaking out of the frame.

3.  Spread your clear glue onto the glass.  Clear glue is key, as white glue will look a bit filmy. 

4.  Attach your gems!!  Remember, the thicker the layer of glue, the stronger the hold will be.  However, it also means that your project will take longer to dry.  Ours dried for about 2.5 days before it was finally ready! 

5.  Enjoy!  We used a large suction cup to attach it to the window that gets all of the light in the winter, and we'll move it in the spring.  





Pumpkin Decorating!

Last year, we decided that instead of carving our pumpkin, we would paint them.  This year, my Mother in law came to visit, and she and Jellybean decorated the pumpkins!  She had brought a kit that had all kinds of neat stuff in it, like pipe cleaners, googly eyes, foam shapes in the shape of mouths, eyes and noses, and of course, stickers!  If you don't have a kit, you can always use whatever craft supplies you have on hand!

Here's what the girls came up with :

Such a happy little guy!

Zorro pumpkin!



This one if my favorite!  I love how surprised he looks :)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!



Pumpkins

I just had to post this one to show off our Pumpkin creation!!  We went onto a search engine online and typed in "Pumpkin Carving Templates" and found a whole bunch we could print off!  We let our daughter choose, and this is what she came up with:

Supplies Needed

SHARP knife

Pumpkin

Carving template

1.  Cut the lid off of your pumpkin in the shape of your choice.  We chose to do it in kind of a flower shape.  Make sure you cut your hole large enough to reach in to scoop the seeds and bits out, but also taper it so that the lid won't fall into your pumpkin like mine did :)  Just angle your knife a bit as you carve it inwards.

2.  Pick your template online and print it off. Make sure your design isn't too big for your pumpkin or it won't look right when you pop a candle in there.

3.  Using the tip of your knife or a pin, make a series of dots as the outline that you will cut. It's hard to see it in this picture, but that's what we did here.

4.  VERY carefully cut your shape.  By using your knife tip or a pin to outline your shape, it is WAY easier to cut that way instead of trying to do it freehand.  I used a larger knife for the bigger shapes, and I used a very small, thin paring knife for the fiddly bits.  There are a TON of kits that you can get at the Dollar Store or your local big Box store that have tiny little pumpkin carving knives in it.  When you are carving, be VERY careful that you don't cut over the lines that are there to hold things together.  Or, you will end up having to tape your pumpkin back together :)  When you use an intricate design, there will be bits that you cut around that will make the shape your are creating, and will also hold your shape together.  I tried to glue Minnie's jaw back on, but of course glue on a wet pumpkin just wasn't going to work.  So because we're using a battery-powered candle and not a real one, I used some clear tape to hold it back together :)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!

 

Halloween!

I know we're cutting it close to the wire on this post, but I wanted to post some of the fun Halloween things we've been doing!


HOMEMADE (AND SUPER CHEAP!!) DECORATIONS:

Supplies Needed

1 Dollar Store :)

Foam shapes (We used Frankenstein, ghosts, bats & pumpkins)

Small, blank paper or white plastic bags

Felts, crayons, pencil crayons

Googly eyes

Halloween Stickers

Anything sparkly and fun!

1.  Pick out foam shapes

2.  Attach your mediums of choice (beads, glitter, stickers etc.)

3.  Hang them up! 

I got these ghosts at the Dollar Store, and they are awesome!  You could very easily make these at home with a paper or white plastic bag.  We filled ours with tissue paper, but you could use newspaper or even leaves from your yard.

We chose to hang our little foam creation up with masking tape on the wall of the house leading up to the front door.

Very spooooky!!

Water Play

Well, it has been a very eventful few weeks!  We've had more illness in the family, and we've also had company staying with us since the end of September, so we haven't been able to post as often!

So here's what we've been up to:

Jellybean started Preschool this year.  It was so strange to see my little girl in her backpack all ready to leave me behind, but it was great to see how independant she has become!  She didn't notice at all when I left, she just went right in and started to play.  It was great, although a small part of me wanter her to cry, just a little!  Along with her newfound independance, we have also discovered some newfound attitude, with a capital A!  It has been such a challenge to stay calm and relaxed with her, when sometimes I'm ready to pull my own hair out!  How do you deal with a cantankerous toddler?  I'm always open to new thoughts/ideas, and I'd love to hear how other mamas deal with this stage!!

In other news, we've been experimenting a lot.  Jellybean LOVES playing with different mediums, and her current favorite is water.  So we set her up at the table with a towel and some different tools and she had a blast!

What We Used

Two plastic cups (they're from Edo Japan for soy sauce with your sushi, but we reused them!)

A plastic cup

A picnic mustard bottle (I got these at the Dollar Store, I think they were 2 for $1)

Plastic bowls

A Towel

1.  Spread your towel.  If you're doing this outside, it doesn't matter if you use the towel as much, but as we did this in October when it was only 2 degrees outside, we decided a towel was a must!

2.  Give your child his/her "tools" and let them have at it!  You could also use an old dish tub for more play!  Jellybean loved squirting the water from the mustard bottle into the little cups, and then from the little cups into the bowl.

This activity is fantastic for gross and small motor skills, and it's also great for hand/eye coordination.  Don't be afraid of a little mess!  At least your floors will be nice and clean when your kids are done!  :)