Let’s be honest here… Who really has the patience to sit for ages making perler bead creations?? I wish I did. Miss G and I made a few little things the other day and had fun, but truth be told, what we really wanted to do was run our fingers through them – hah! That, or use them for something completely different {and less fine motor skill intensive} than what they’re intended for – like making a simple shake and search I spy bottle.
It’s hard to believe, but we’re already amidst December, and in our house, December 1st means that all things Christmas are fair game. We’re doing a very low key Christmas this year {like really low key}, but low key doesn’t mean without tradition. Our fun little traditions are much too special anticipated to let go of, so this year we’ll simply pare down a little bit when needed. Like instead of 10 different types of homemade Christmas ornaments, maybe one or two will do…
After making a super fun, soap-included funfetti sugar scrub for Miss G last week, we decided that this mama needed a sugar scrub of her own too! My little helper and I hit the kitchen with some basic ingredients from our pantry and came up with an amazing smelling scrub that involves two of my very favourite things – COFFEE and being pampered!
Though more than a month behind schedule, we finally got Miss G’s fifth yearly handprint canvas done and hung on her bedroom wall today.
Preschool Book Club weeks are the best weeks. ☺ Miss G and I love exploring books and coming up with engaging, playful activities to go with them. And the best part? When we’re done with ours, we get to try the activities our friends at Buggy and Buddy, Sugar Aunts, Frogs Snails and Puppy Dog Tails, and Homegrown Friends came up with too! So much fun.
With Miss G being under the weather this week, we’ve spent quite a bit more time at home than usual. This has allowed us loads of time to dress-up, read in our new fairy tale fort, play round upon round {upon round upon round} of UNO, and do all sorts of fun creative projects and activities – one of which was creating this fun magnetic rainbow name busy box.
When we packed up our little Vancouver house and took apart Grae’s beloved closet book nook, I knew I wanted to create another cozy reading space once we arrived and settled in Kuwait. Well, eventually arrived and settled, but the book nook just never really happened. Oops.
Even though Gracen isn’t officially starting school this year, the beginning of September means back into a regular routine, and hopefully back into borrowing library books on a regular basis {though it isn’t that easy here in Kuwait}. This little project – creating a stencilled library book bag – has been on our to do list for a long while and I’m so happy we finally got around to it… I think it turned out so well! It also means that whenever we go somewhere, Miss G wants to choose a few books to bring along, which in my mind, is never a bad thing!
As a girl, I adored spending time in special little forts and hideaways, and now I love creating similar spaces for Miss G to cozy up in. Though we’re huge fans of our super simple backyard teepee, this summer we decided to try something new – a simple triangular tent created using only a few things from around the house.
Deep in a bin of secondhand Duplo I picked up yesterday, Miss G discovered a tiny little Lightening McQueen car and immediately fell in love. Though she’s not really watched any movies yet, she and Brad have watched bits and pieces of Cars on their special days together and she adores the characters. Upon discovering him, she suggested that we build him a track to drive on. She most likely had our painter’s tape roadway in mind, but when I suggested a cut and paste city with lots of roads for driving, she was more than game.
Last year, Gracen knew exactly what she wanted to be for Halloween – a brown fox. She decided weeks in advance and never once wavered. This year she wasn’t quite as sure. In the beginning, she was fairly certain that she wanted to be a giraffe or a kangaroo, but eventually the ideas of a lion, hippo, and tiger got thrown into the mix too. I was a little bit worried about how I’d pull off one of those ideas sans sewing machine, so I was pretty relieved when she mentioned being a superhero. That I could do. I showed her a photo of PBK’s gorgeous amazing girl costume, and she was immediately sold (the tutu may have done it ☺). With that, I collected a few craft supplies (some felt, sparkly craft foam, ribbon, self-adhesive velcro, and elastic) and a few awesome and inexpensive pieces from our local H&M {a headband, a teeny purse, shoe wings, and a half price leotard with a tutu attached) and we were good to go. Thinking back to last year’s night before costume, I must enjoy working under pressure, because armed with my glue gun and a pair of scissors, I began working on Miss G’s Supergirl costume last night at 11 p.m. The good news is that because the project involved absolutely no sewing, I was done in 2 hours flat. Yay for that!
Yesterday while digging through her wardrobe for a bathing suit, Gracen discovered the many felt games I sort of hid in the back bottom corner behind her shoes. She came out of her bedroom with big eyes and one of the games in hand and said, ‘Mama, I have a question to tell you… Do you have a felt board here for me???’ I didn’t. It didn’t make sense to pack the board itself overseas, but knowing I could easily get my hands on a frame once in Kuwait, I did bring a big piece of felt and her collection of games. Luckily, I had already picked up our very favourite felt board frame from Ikea a few days earlier, so we were able to have one put together in no time at all.
Today Gracen and I put together this very simple sensory bin stand for her brand new {big} bedroom. It was an idea I’d seen on Ikea Hackers a few years back, and I’m so glad I remembered it. It’s simple, inexpensive, multipurpose, and fully customizable, which I love. And now that we’ve put it to the test, I think we may even get another one to add to our collection.
With our fuzzy little friends happily in their new homes eating themselves silly, today Miss G and I went out to the garage to dig up one of the butterfly homes I made years ago when teaching my first ever Kindergarten class. Of course, there are probably many different butterfly huts available for purchase online, but I’m typically a fan of making things myself if I can. Such was the case 8 years too… Instead of purchasing a readymade butterfly home, I opted to purchase several of these inexpensive mesh hanging storage tubes and modify them a wee bit.
To start out, I carefully made two large perpendicular cuts on the very bottom of the storage unit in order to open it up. Then, very carefully, I snipped out all of the mesh dividers that created the separate compartments.
Next, using some picnic table covering plastic (found on large rolls at IKEA and hardware stores), I cut out circles just a hair larger than the circular openings along the sides of the tube. With a hot glue gun and a hand I was wiling to burn repeatedly for the sake of my students and soon-to-be butterflies (just kidding…um… kinda ☺), I glued the plastic windows to the inside of my tube to cover up the holes (gluing them to the outside would have undoubtedly been easier, but that would have also allowed my hot glue slip-ups to be more obvious, which simply was not acceptable at the time).
In order to create some homey resting ledges for my winged friends, I glued several brightly coloured faux flowers to the inside of the enclosure too.
Though very wrinkled from years of storage, our butterfly enclosure is now hung from the ceiling so it rests perfectly on the tiny little table our chrysalises are going to sit on when they’re ready.
In the meantime, since we’re not at the chrysalis stage yet, I pinned up the butterfly enclosure, set our caterpillar containers on the little wooden table, and set up a little reading and observing corner for her to enjoy.
Now to figure out how we’ll hang our chrysalises… While teaching, I stuck them (still attached to their container lids) to the ceiling of a large wooden block that was open on two sides, but since we don’t have one of those, I’m going to have to get a little creative. We shall see what we come up with!
♥
For extra fun, like us on Facebook here and find us on Instagram here.
I’m not going to lie. I had grand plans to sew a beautiful bunting-style felt advent calendar that was hand embroidered and could be used year after year. But it didn’t happen… And that’s okay.
Instead, I searched around the internet {a couple of days late}, combined a few ideas, and came up with what easily could be world’s fastest, simplest paper bag advent calendar. It certainly won’t be something we keep for years and years, but it could last two or three. Plus it takes almost no time at all to put together and I already had everything, save the paper bags, on hand.
To get started, I purchased 25 of these flat 5 by 7 paper bags (you don’t want the lunch-style ones that fold out at the bottom) from one of my favourites – Urban Source.
Then, using one of the stamp sets I use for my Littlelest Lulu block orders, I stamped the bags with ‘Dec. 1’ through to ‘Dec. 25’. This job could obviously be done by hand, with letter stickers, or by printing labels from the computer, but I chose to do the stamp route this time around.
Once done with the stamping, I folded the tops of the bags down about an inch from the top.
Next, I selected an area of wall to hang my calendar. I went with this spot because it’s right along the ground and allows Gracen to reach her own bags each day, but you could really do any spot you wish.
Using teeny tiny nails, a hammer, and some baker’s twine, I strung up five evenly-space lines for my bags. (I hung the bags as I went just to get a feel for how it would all look in the end, but as long as you know that the bags will fit in the arrangement you choose, you really don’t have to hang them up quite yet.)
Next, I filled the bags, added a note inside each, sealed them shut with washi tape, and hung them on the lines with mini wooden clothespins.
Originally, I had really wanted craft paper bags, but I actually think the white ones turned out perfectly. They are just see-through enough to show the shape of the object(s) inside, which gets Miss G really curious.
This year, because Grae is nearly obsessed with adding to the tree each day, we decided to make her advent calendar all about ornaments. Some days her bag will be filled with a purchased or previously made ornament to add to the tree, and other days, she’ll have to create the ornament first. Either way, there will always be a handwritten note included that tells her why the ornament is special or what she can create using her materials.
Well… That’s it. World’s simplest, quickest DIY advent calendar. It was ridiculously easy to put together, but I know my little lady will adore it just as much as if I’d had the time to make the elaborate one I’d originally planned on creating. And that’s all that matters. ☺
♥
To keep up with all the Mama.Papa.Bubba. fun, like us on Facebook here and find us on Instagram here.