For the last few days, Gracen’s been working on these sweet little nature wreaths at her creative table.
It started out as a very simple painting station with a few cardboard o’s and some paint in different shades of green.
When the paint was dry, I added a few other things into the mix… Glue, mini pinecones, bits of evergreen tree, and dried out red berries from her autumn nature shelf.
Though this creative table set-up didn’t take off quite like the paper christmas tree one did, it’s been something that she’s come back to each day. She’ll spend a little bit of time adding to one of her wreaths, move onto something else, and come back another time.
This morning, after walking past the wreath on our door, she asked if she could have some bows for her wreaths, so I brought out my glue gun, cut up some ribbon, and added a few to the table.
After adding her bow, she put on the finishing touches…
And voila! A beautiful little Christmas wreath made of things {mostly} found outdoors.
♥
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As much as I’d love to have an entire room dedicated to play and discovery, our little two bedroom house simply doesn’t have the space. So instead of an actual playroom, we’ve taken various playroom elements and created play spaces around the house so that Gracen always has plenty of opportunities to create, explore, and play. If you were to visit our house, you’d most likely see some sort of sensory tray or bin happening in our kitchen, an easel and art supplies in our dining area, a felt board station, creative table, and toy area in the living room, and a nature shelf, dress-up corner, and book nook in Gracen’s room. This set up works really well for us and the nice part is that if I’m making dinner or folding a load of laundry or doing some sort of other job, Gracen always has the choice of doing a project or activity of her own in the same room.
One of the areas Gracen’s especially taken interest in lately is her creative table. All it is a regular kid-sized table and chair set, but the fun part is that new creating materials find their way onto the table every few days. Some days the materials are really simple (something like card stock, stickers, and crayons, or paper, stamps, and ink pads), and other days the materials are a little more exciting (sparkly pipe cleaners and shiny pony beads, or chocolate play dough, gingerbread man-shaped cookie cutters, and buttons). I almost always put out new materials while Miss G’s asleep, and I leave them for her to discover on her own. Though I don’t actively encourage her to engage in the activities at her creative table (they’re more of an ongoing invitation to create), she almost always squeals in delight upon finding something new and gets creating right away.
This invitation to decorate paper Christmas trees was a HUGE hit today. So much so that she ended up creating seven different trees and took her time with each, creating seven unique masterpieces.
This evening, Miss G and I put together something I loved making as a child… a simple paper chain. We started with some paper scraps I had left over from a Christmas bunting and used a paper cutter to trim them into neat strips.
Miss G then chose her “special starting paper”, loaded one end with several swipes of a glue stick…
And I helped her roll it up and she pinched it tightly while counting to ten.
Together, we added ring after ring…
Until we had this sweet little holiday-themed paper chain. I’m not sure what we’ll do with it yet… In my classrooms, I’ve always used them as a countdown tracker of sorts, snipping off one link until the big day, but I’m not sure that Grae is going to want to cut apart the creation she’s so proud of. It may just be a sweet little addition to the holiday decor we’ve slowly been adding around our house.
Making one of these sweet little ribbon wands for Miss G has long been on my project list, and since her last dance class took place today, it was the perfect motivation to not only make one for Grae, but to make one to gift to each of her little friends too.
If you poke around the internet, you’ll find tons of different styles of ribbon wands and methods to make them, but when we stumbled upon these adhesive picture hanging strips (available at hardware stores), we came up with a way of our own.
First off, we took wide satin ribbon and cut it into strips approximately 125 centimetres long, cutting one end straight across and one end at an angle. Then, using a lighter, we sealed off the cut edges.
Next, we took the adhesive backing off of the picture hangers and firmly attached them to the straight end of the ribbon. At this point I was going to sew the picture hanger onto the ribbon for added security, but the adhesive was so strong that it wasn’t necessary.
With our ribbons ready, we moved onto the wand part of the project. Using painter’s tape, we taped off our 6 inch dowels about a third of the way up.
Then using crafter’s acrylic in colours that coordinated with our ribbons, we painted the bottom third of each dowel with two coats of paint.
When the paint was good a dry, we carefully removed the painter’s tape to reveal the handle part of our wands.
Next, we used a tack to poke holes in the top ends of the dowels.
Then it was time for these guys – small eye hooks available at all hardware stores.
We screwed the eye hooks into the recently made holes by starting the process by hand and using pliers part way through. (One thing to be mindful of at this point is that if your eye hooks are on the larger side (like ours), you don’t want to force them down into the dowel too far. You’ll get a pretty good sense on when you should stop twisting, and please do so. Spoken from experience, if you force them down too much, the dowels will split open.)
Your wand should now look like this.
Now the final step… We hooked the metal picture hanging hook onto the eye hooks and use pliers to squeeze the hook shut tightly.
And there you have it – a pretty little ribbon wand.
In order to transport them to dance class without a big tangly mess happening, we simply wrapped the ribbons around the wands, and secured them with a bit of polka dotted washi tape.
♥
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I know I’ve said it before, but becoming a mama has given me an overwhelming urge to create special traditions with our little family of three. Things that we look forward to each year… Memories Gracen will hold onto for a lifetime. The holidays are extra special when looked at through the eyes of your child, aren’t they?
Looking back on my own childhood, the holidays were filled with special traditions I still remember vividly now as an adult. Trudging through the snow out at Imperial Oil (where my Dad worked) in the freezing cold and selecting the perfect tree to cut down and take home… Having a special evening dedicated to decorating the tree together… Visiting ALL of my grandparents’ houses over the course of Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day… Staying up as late as we wanted on Christmas Eve with our cousins… It all seemed so magical. The thing is, the times I remember most have nothing to do with wish lists, Santa visits, or presents received. All of the memories that stick out in my mind are about doing things as a family… Just us spending time together.
And that’s my hope for Gracen when it comes to the holidays… That she’ll come to cherish the time we spent doing things together more that any of the material indulgence that inevitably comes with Christmas.
This past weekend, we carried on a tradition that we began last year… An afternoon filled with holiday music and handcrafted ornaments. The hope is that one day we’ll have a giant tree filled with beautifully mismatched homemade ornaments that mean more to us than store bought ones ever could.
Here are this year’s additions…
First up are some very simple, but very beautiful beaded candy cane ornaments.
To make these, we used sparkly pipe cleaners cut in half and colourful iridescent pony beads Miss G selected at the store herself.
To get started, I simply folded over one end of the pipe cleaner to create a little nub to hold the beads on, and Grae began adding beads.
The wonderful thing about making these ornaments is that little ones get to sneak in a ton of fine motor skill practice while making them.
Once the pipe cleaner is nearly full, just flip over the open end to create a nub on the opposite side.
Then gently bend your beaded pipe cleaner to form a candy cane shape. (This is the one that Gracen made – start to finish – by herself).
Next, we did a remake of an ornament we made last year… A glass bulb decorated with a family of thumbprint reindeer. To make this one, select a solid-coloured glass bulb (one with a matte finish will photograph much better – duh!), then cover your thumb with a thick layer of brown crafter’s acrylic.
Carefully press your thumb onto the glass ball.
Hang your ball somewhere or carefully set it on a small cup and allow it to dry completely.
Once dry, use red crafter’s acrylic to add noses and a black paint pen or Sharpie to add eyes and antlers. Easy peasy!
The last batch of ornaments we made were out of cinnamon dough (2 cups of applesauce, 3 cups of cinnamon, 2 tablespoons of nutmeg, and 1 tablespoon of pure vanilla mixed like mad by hand ). With these ones, we used extra cinnamon to prevent sticking, assorted cookie cutters, stamps, straws to create ribbon holes, a rolling pin, and parchment paper.
It could easily be rolled, handled, and stamped without sticking at all, which was nice.
On the downside, handprints and thumbprints were out of the question. The dough just simply didn’t have enough give to it.
Once we’d filled our baking sheet, we popped the ornaments into the oven on the lowest setting and let them stay in there for several hours, flipping them once and a while.
I wish I could somehow bottle the smell of our house while they baked and share it with you all here… It was divine.
Before going to bed, I turned off the oven and let the ornaments sit in there overnight, just like I did with the baking soda clay ones.
When we awoke, they were fully dry and hard as a rock, but still smelled delicious. (These are a few of the ones G made all by herself). We added small loops of baker’s twine, and voila – they’re ready for hanging.
And how sweet is this little initial bunting Bradley made for Gracen?
Now we just have to get a tree so that we’ll have somewhere to hang all of these beautiful new ornaments.
♥
I am so thrilled to be sharing this family tradition as a part of ‘12 Days of Christmas Traditions with Vancouver’s Top Mommy Bloggers‘. If you haven’t already, please pop over to JulieNowell.com to read her post about carrying out traditions in a new home, and be sure to pop over to The Write Mama tomorrow to read all about Lori’s Christmas Village tradition. Enjoy!
During our recent visit to Urban Source (I feel like a lot of my upcoming posts will start this way), Gracen selected several sheets of coloured acetate (basically a brightly-hued transparent film) to bring home. Right away, two activities came to mind… One of which was this window cling art.
During nap time, I used different objects from around the house as tracers to cut the large sheets into an assortment of shapes. I placed the shapes, along with a spray bottle filled with water, on a tray next to our large front window, and left it there for my curious little monkey to discover upon her awakening.
Of course she beelined to the tray the moment she was up. I explained that we could use water to help the shapes stick to the window, and she was off. A little mist….
And stick a shape on top.
Voila! Instant window art. Super fun and super easy.
It didn’t take her long to realize that looking through the shapes was pretty cool too… “Mama! Everything is all pink!”
Of course the previous method works well for seeing the outside world in pink, but this is much more effective for making your house turn pink.
The really cool thing about the fact that our shapes are primary colours is that they lend themselves to colour mixing very well. Grae was amazed at all of the colours she could make by simply overlapping two shapes.
And after experimenting with colour mixing, she tried sorting the pieces into groups based on shapes and colours.
And soon after that, the pieces started becoming pictures of things. The triangles stacked on top of one another became her tree and the tower of large circles became her snowman (if you look closely, you’ll see she is in the process of adding buttons to her snowman’s belly).
This was such a fun and simple activity and as long as you can deal with dirty windows in the name of play, it can stay out for several days to be revisited over time. The other thing I like about it is that if you don’t have coloured acetate just hanging around the house, you can always reuse project covers, plastic duo tangs (or, as I’ve learned from my American friends, plastic “prongy folders”), scraps of vellum scrapbooking paper, or even plastic packaging.
♥
On a side note, I know that I have seen this idea around the web before… Trouble is, I cannot for the life of me find the link I’m thinking of! If you know, please pass the info my way as I’d love to give credit where credit’s due.
One thing I adore about the city of Vancouver is the endless locally-owned specialty shops that line the streets of many neighbourhoods. One of our favourites, located just down Main Street near Heritage Hall, is Urban Source.
Urban Source specializes in alternative art materials and sells all kinds of leftovers, misprints, over stock, cut offs, and discards from local industries as unique art supplies. So whether you’re in the market for wooden doweling, ceramic tiles, cardboard cutouts, old-school slides, or leather scraps, Urban Source has probably got you covered. Besides the always changing stock, I love the giant selection and knowing that by purchasing ‘alternative’ craft materials we’re saving them from heading straight to the landfill. My little miss, on the other hand, loves the fact that she gets a {flat rate} brown paper bag that can be filled to the brim with materials of her choosing.
Today we popped in and after very patiently waiting for me to browse the selection of new items, Gracen retrieved a brown paper bag and began filling it with treasures of all sorts. With a tiny bit of help from Mama {who had specific projects in mind}, the bag was brimming with crafting goodies in no time.
In the end, this is what we came home with in Gracen’s $6 bag… Everything from gift wrap to acetate sheets to brown boxes to medicine bottles and puzzle pieces…
I see a whole lot of craftiness in our future.
♥
Urban Source is located at 3126 Main Street {Vancouver, BC} and is open daily from 10:30 to 5:30, with the exception of Sundays when they open at 11:00.
My personal rule? All things Christmas wait until December 1st. Well, besides crafting or purchasing the odd little gift here and thereI guess…
This year though, I’ve broken my own rule. I’m not sure how it happened, but we were looking for a fun afternoon activity and somehow I ended up whipping up a batch of baking soda clay without giving any thought to the fact that it’s still November. Oops… It’s okay, though. We started the tradition of making special handcrafted ornaments together as a family last year, and I already have {more than a} few new types in mind for this year, so we’ll just call this our practice round…
I’ve always been a fan of salt dough ornaments. The dough is easy and inexpensive to make, it’s really easy to work with, and you can shape and mould it almost any way you like. The only downside to salt dough, however, is that it loses some of its appeal when it dries out. Last year we made several different salt dough ornaments, and though they are special because they are handmade, they did crack / puff up / brown a little bit during the drying process. So when I started seeing baking soda clay pop up all over Pinterest just after Christmas last year, I knew we’d have to baking soda clay ornaments a shot during our next round.
The dough itself is very easy to make. It involves just three ingredients (baking soda, cornstarch, and water) and a little heat, and before you know it, it’s done. I followed this recipe almost exactly, but added about a tablespoon more cornstarch. The result is this amazingly soft, smooth, bright white dough that feels silky in your hands.
UPDATE: The recipe link we used for this project no longer exists… Here is a similar baking soda clay recipe.
Once the dough was made and was cooling, I collected a few things from around the house to use to create shapes. Cookie cutters were the obvious first choice, but mason jar lids, the rims of glasses, and butter knives all work well for the job too.
Next, I gathered some materials to make impressions in the dough. After a visit raiding Gracen’s stamp collection and nature shelf, this is what I had.
I also got out a rolling pin, some kitchen scissors (for freehand shapes), some straw pieces (for creating holes to tie twine through), and some extra corn starch to prevent the dough from sticking to everything.
We got started by giving Gracen a chunk of the dough to just play with and explore at first, but of course she requested a cookie cutter and stamp and was right down to business. That’s just her style.
Now anywhere you read about baking soda dough, the instructions will clearly advise to leave the dough sit until completely cool, but we were too impatient for that. As a result, our dough was still a tad bit warm and sticky, which made it a little bit tricky to work with. My advice? Wait until it’s completely cool. Lesson learned.
What we found worked really well, even with our warm sticky dough, was using the bottom of a flat dish or glass to flatten the dough, rather than using the rolling pin. The rolling pin was just too sticky for our dough, but the dish bottoms worked perfectly.
As far as making the impressions went, we found that lightly dusting the stamp or object with cornstarch first, then pressing it into the dough and removing it slowly turned out great results.
The same technique worked best with the cookie cutters too – dust cookie cutter with cornstarch, then push the dough out of the cookie cutter gently and slowly.
When we’d used up every last bit of dough, I popped the ornaments onto a parchment-lined baking sheet and put it into a just-warm oven to dry out. We left them in there for several hours, flipping them every now and again, and before going to bed, I turned off the heat and left them sit in oven overnight.
The next day, we got out our paintbrushes and acrylic paints, and painted away.
These are some of my very favourite ornaments that Grae made. She pressed the dough, cut the shapes, and decorated them all by herself.
This little reindeer family was made by making 3 small balls, flattening them down with the bottom of a cornstarched bowl, and then pressing our thumbs into the middles. I cheated a little bit and used a Sharpie for the antlers and names, because well, we all know how they would have turned out had I used paint…
This heart ornament also started as a flattened ball, and then I used a cookie cutter to push just part of the way through to the dough to make the heart shape.
Once our paint was dry, we added some string to hang them from. Ribbon or jute would be pretty, but I have a thing for baker’s twine currently, so we went with that. Here are some of our finished ornaments…
Aren’t they pretty?
And because our yearly ornament making tradition is bound to leave us with heaps of special, handcrafted tree decorations one day, we added the year onto each.
♥
Though we didn’t do it this time around, giving the ornaments a light coat of Mod Podge or spray-on sealant make protect them and help them last longer.
A couple of weeks ago, Gracen and I attended an awesome Halloween-themed story time at Pottery Barn Kids. (Who knew, right? It happens every Tuesday at 11 a.m. for those of you who are in Vancouver.) Afterwards, the kids got their Book Club passports stamped and were each {very generously} gifted a Kiwi Crate to take home.
I’ve seen Kiwi Crates on a few of the blogs I read and I’ve always thought they were very neat, so I’m not sure who was more excited about the gift…Gracen or I. (If you’ve never heard of them before, they’re basically little boxes that arrive to your door each month and are filled with all of the materials/instructions/inspiration needed for hands-on projects. Some are science activities, some are arts and crafts, and some are geared towards imaginative play.)
This afternoon we took out our crate, opened it up, and found all of the materials needed to put together a window garden. Needless to say, my little gardening enthusiast was thrilled.
Included was a clearly laid out instruction card complete with diagrams, and a sweet little observation booklet for Miss G to draw in.
We carefully set up the garden, referring back to the instruction card after each step. Gracen, Miss ‘Let’s Do a Project!’, loved it and took her work very seriously.
With the exception of really making sure the suction cups were stuck to the window and printing the words “mint” and “basil”, Grae was able to do everything on her own, which was lovely.
We now have a sweet little garden set up right in our living room and I can’t wait to help Grae water it each day and watch as our fresh herbs grow. ☺
Because we enjoyed our Kiwi Crate so much, and I sincerely think they are a great way for parents and children to try new things together, I contacted Kiwi Crate and asked if they’d like to share the love with one of our readers. And guess what? They do! One Mama.Papa.Bubba. reader will receive a complimentary crate of their own, and will have the option of selecting a regular crate or one of the new holiday-themed crates.
The contest is open until Monday, November 26th and there are multiple ways to win (be sure to leave a separate comment for each).
To enter to win a complimentary Kiwi Crate:
Leave a comment below telling me something you love to do with your kid(s).
For additional chances to win:
–> ‘Like’ Mama.Papa.Bubba. on Facebook, then come back and leave a second separate comment saying you did so (or that you had previously).
–> ‘Like’ Kiwi Crate on Facebook, then come back and leave an additional separate comment saying you did so (or that you had previously).
–> Follow @jkossowanon Twitter, then come back and leave a separate comment saying you did so.
–> Tweet about the giveaway and leave an additional separate comment saying you did so.
Don’t forget to leave your email address! The winner will be announced on November 27th and contacted via email. Good luck!!
♥
Kiwi crate did not ask me to write this post, nor did they compensate me to do so, but in the interest of full disclosure, I did sign up to be a part of their affiliate program. This means that when Kiwi Crate products are purchased through the links i’ve provided, I get a small kickback from the company.
I must admit, I’ve seen many recipes like this one from Under the Sycamore floating around the internet, and I’ve been skeptical. Very skeptical, in fact. I guess I was envisioning some sort of jello-y bird seedy concoction and I just couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that a hunk of seedy gelatine could last more than a few minutes (especially in the summertime) when tied to a string and hung from a tree.
But when Gracen woke up from her nap today and immediately announced “All done sleeping! Nice nap. Grae Grae wants to MAKE some ping!”, then suggested bird feeders, I decided we’d give it a shot. I had two goals in mind – first, seeing if gelatine + bird seed really does equal cool bird feeders, and second, figuring out a way of making them without having to have Grae stand at a hot stove to stir a pot of water.
I’m happy to say, our experiment was a success. Not only do we have trees sprinkled with pretty bird feeders (thus some very happy birds), but Gracen was able to do almost all of the steps on her own at our butcher block and there was no stove required.
Here’s what we used for the project… Bird seed, gelatine, boiling water, straws cut into 2 inch pieces, some baker’s twine, and some cookie cutters and pancake moulds.
We started off by emptying two packets (not boxes – the above photo is misleading) of plain gelatine into a very large mixing bowl.
Then I carefully poured in a little bit of boiling water (this is one of the only jobs I did for the project).
Gracen then stirred the mixture very gently until all of the gelatine was dissolved.
Next, we measured out our bird seed. We used a “wild bird” variety, but I think pretty much any type would work as long as the seeds and bits are not too big – I think a finer blend works best in this case.
Then Grae poured the bird seed into our gelatine/water mixture.
We stirred it for a few minutes, making sure that all of the seeds were evenly coated and that there was no longer excess water at the bottom of the bowl.
Next, we covered a tray in parchment paper and laid out our cookie cutters and moulds.
Using a teaspoon, Grae filled each cookie cutter with seed, one by one.
Here she is hard at work…
You want to make sure that they’re a little bit overfull, so be generous with the seed. (This recipe made these five feeders, plus a large bird seed “cupcake” too).
Because the mixture gets really sticky, we covered the cookie cutters with a layer of parchment and Grae pressed the seeds down into the moulds.
You want to make sure the seeds are packed very tightly – it’s part of what makes the feeders stay together well.
Next, we took our straws and carefully inserted them into the cookie cutters, making sure to not place them too close to the edges. Once the straws were in the seed, we pressed the seeds down around them to make sure everything stayed tight.
Next, we popped the entire tray into the fridge and let them set for a couple of hours before taking them out and letting them dry out on the counter. We left them for most of the evening, and before I went to bed for the night, I flipped them over so that the bottoms could dry out too. (It’s a bit awkward to flip them with the straw sticking out the way it is, but you could trim the straw if you liked.)
The next morning, we gently popped the shapes out of their moulds.
Then we plucked out the straws and made sure that the holes were clear all the way through.
For the last step, we took some baker’s twine (ribbon or jute would be perfect too), put it through the holes, and knotted the tops. Voila! Pretty little feeders for the hungry birds in our yard.
Cookie Cutter Bird Seed Feeders (a toddler-friendly method)
Pour the water into a very large mixing bowl. Add two packages of gelatine and stir until it’s fully dissolved. Add the bird seed and mix well until everything is evenly coated.
Place cookie cutters/moulds onto a parchment-lined tray and scoop seed mixture in until heaping full. Place another piece of parchment on top of the cookie cutters and press down firmly to pack in all of the seeds. Remove the top parchment layer and gently poke straw pieces all the way through the seed shapes (be sure not to put them too close to the edges). Pop the tray into the fridge for a couple of hours to allow the feeders to set.
Later on, remove the tray from the fridge and let sit on the counter to dry out. Flip the cookie cutters over a few hours later to let the bottoms dry out too. Let sit for at least 3 – 4 more hours (overnight is best) until the feeders are completely dry.
Gently remove the seed shapes from the moulds (they should be fully dry and hard to the touch at this point – if not, allow to dry longer). Carefully remove the straws and tie a twine loop through the holes. Hang in a tree.
What do you do when it’s {long past the} time to pack away the Halloween things for the year, but your toddler has developed a particular affection for the battery operated votives that previous lit her jack-o-lantern?
Create a new use for them of course! Er, at least that’s what we did…
Here’s what we used… Mod Podge (regular white glue watered down with water works just as well), a jar, some tissue paper squares (we bought ours pre-cut, but you could just as easily cut or rip up large pieces), glitter, a pipe cleaner (perhaps 2), and a foam brush.
Grae started by painting part of her jar with Mod Podge.
Then she carefully placed tissue paper squares into the glue.
She continued adding Mod Podge and squares until the entire jar was covered. I actually couldn’t believe how into this process she was. She took the job very seriously and did every last bit on her own.
Once she was done covering the jar, I gave it a gentle once over with Mod Podge to smooth everything down. While the jar was still wet, Gracen sprinkled a light layer of glitter over the entire thing.
Then we placed it right side down on some parchment paper and let it dry.
Once it was dry, Grae used some clear glue and sequins to give the lantern a little bit more sparkle.
Then we let it dry again.
Afterwards, we used our pipe cleaners to create a handle for the lantern.
And that was it. A new place for G’s beloved votives to call home. ☺
Last year, we all carved our pumpkins together. And though Gracen had a blast scooping out pumpkin guck, sorting seeds, and watching the carving action, she didn’t really get to take part in decorating her own pumpkin.
So this year, we decided to switch it up a little. Brad and I still carved our pumpkins, but in order to let Gracen be fully in charge of decorating her very own garden-grown pumpkin, we set her up a little pumpkin painting station.
With a handful of brushes and little containers of purple, green, orange, black, and glow-in-the-dark acrylic paint, Grae got busy beautifying her pumpkin.
It was the best of both worlds, because not only did she get to decorate her pumpkin, but she also got to help us do all of the fun messy parts of carving ours.
After having her fill of icky gunk scooping, it was back to pumpkin painting. She covered the entire thing in a thick layer of paint and then we let it dry overnight.
The next day, we used a little trick I learned years and years ago and cut a hole in the bottom of the pumpkin (no need to mess with trying to get a lit candle in through the top – you simply set your candle down on a surface and place the pumpkin on top). Together, we scooped the insides out and used our apple corer to polka dot the pumpkin’s surface (which worked brilliantly, btw).
Gracen loves it. It glows just like Mama and Papa’s jack-o-lanterns do, and we were able to preserve almost all of her painting masterpiece.
Here’s a new {Halloween-themed} felt board activity I whipped up for Miss G this afternoon while she napped. It was a super quick project and couldn’t have been more simple to put together.
All you need is some felt (I just use the cheap craft store stuff for felt board activities), a really good pair of scissors, and maybe some fabric glue if you want make your pumpkin stems green like I did.
I often cut out my shapes freehand, but since I wanted 3 distinctly different pumpkin shapes, today I quickly sketched them out first.
Next, I cut out my pumpkin shapes, as well as some green stems for the tops.
Using Aleene’s OK To Wash-It fabric glue, I attached the stems to the pumpkins and set them aside to dry. Of course, you could stitch them on or use regular craft glue for this job instead. Or, another thought…you could not attach them at all and let adding stems to the pumpkins be part of the designing process.
While the glue dried, I worked on cutting out some jack-o-lantern eyes, noses, and mouths. I did this freehand, making up the shapes as I went along. Folding the felt in half in order to make symmetrical noses and mouths / two eyes at once made the job a lot faster and easier.
When Grae woke up, she was super excited to find her new felt board jack-o-lanterns waiting for her and got to playing right away.
She designed and redesigned the jack-o-lanterns again and again, sometimes very cautiously and sometimes more abstractly. She even ended up using eyes as eyebrows and upside-down mouths as moustaches (two things I wouldn’t have thought of!)
♥
For an easy and inexpensive felt board DIY, click here.
Today Gracen and I did one of our favourite things… We had a little mama and babe crafternoon. A Halloween crafternoon to be exact!
This is by no means a new idea, and it’s nothing fancy, but it is something I’ve always enjoyed doing with my kindergarten students. It’s fun, messy, and personalized with wee little handprints. Perfect for Halloween cards for grandparents, teachers, or a special friend. Here’s a quick run down of how Gracen created this little masterpiece.
First, start off by drawing a large asterisk on a piece of black construction paper or card stock (we use a hand over hand technique for jobs like this).
Next, connect the tips of the asterisk with concave lines in order to create a web shape.
Then, cut out the web. (This is tricky for little hands. Gracen tried, but our poster board is was so thick that it was next to impossible for her… This may be more of an adult helper sort of job.)
Place a small roll of tape in the centre of your web.
Tape the web down in the centre of a box lid, baking pan, or plastic paper tray.
Next, put some white paint in a small bowl or container and plop a {very scuffed} golf ball, bouncy ball, or large marble inside. (While I find golf balls work best because they’re big and heavy, marbles and bouncy balls make a more solid, web-like lines.)
Shake and swirl the container so that the golf ball is well coated with paint.
Next, gently tip your golf ball out of the container and onto the web.
Swirl and roll the paint-coated ball over the black paper web by tipping the tray back and forth.
When it’s sufficiently spider web-y, remove the paper from the tray and set it aside to dry.
Now for the spider… Gather up some brightly coloured paper, black paint, and a foam brush.
Using a foam brush, paint a good, thick layer of black paint on your little one’s palm and fingers (not the thumb).
Help your little one press their hand on the paper a couple of times to create two spider bodies and half of the needed legs. Allow the prints to dry for a couple of minutes while you wash hands.
Next, rotate the page so that the fingers are pointed downwards.
This time around, paint just the four fingers of your little one’s hand. (I like to use the opposite hand for this part so that the fingers are angled the same way, but that’s just the crazy in me. ☺)
Stamp them on the other side of the palm print in order to complete the spider’s body.
When the paint is dry, attach some googly eyes to the spider’s body using white craft glue.
Then, cut the spiders out, leaving a small border of coloured paper around the edges.
Attach the spider to the web with glue or tape, or if you want the spider to have a little wiggle to it, glue a small pompom in between the web and spider. And voila… All done!
And if handprints are still too tricky for your little one, here’s what we did last year using a footprint instead:
For one reason or another, I began saving toilet paper rolls a while back. (Don’t ask me why, because I don’t remember. Probably something Pinterest related?) So with a collection of 10 or more paper rolls just sitting around, I decided it was time to do something with them. I don’t know how I came up with the idea for this project actually… Maybe I’ve seen it somewhere before? I don’t think so, but it’s certainly a possibility given my tendency to snoop around the internet in the wee hours of the morning. Either way, I’m probably not the first person in the world to think of using empty toilet paper rolls to create heart-shaped stamps, but since I’ve scoured the web and I can’t find paper roll heart stamps anywhere else on the internet, maybe I’m the first to post about it?
(Disclaimer: While I wouldn’t have my students bring in tp rolls to use for crafts in my classroom, I’m {semi} okay with using rolls from our house in our house. If you’ve read the same article I read as a beginning teacher about tp rolls being covered in fece particles, you can always opt for paper towel rolls, craft paper rolls, or wrapping paper rolls instead. ☺)
To get started, you’ll need two things: paper tubes and some rubber bands.
First, flatten your paper tube and press down along the two creases.
Next, invert one of the creases in order to begin creating a heart shape.
Play with the shape of the heart by squeezing the tube until you’re happy with it.
In order to help the heart keep its shape, wrap an elastic band around the tube once or twice.
Make one heart stamp for each colour of paint you intend to use.
Lastly, pour out a few dollops of paint (we used crafter’s acrylic) and place one stamp in each paint puddle.
Then set your wee one loose!
We started on the easel, and ended up on the floor using the stamps to make some homemade wrapping paper, but the stamps would also be perfect for making beautiful homemade cards or some art to hang in your little one’s room.