One of the things I’ve been doing to encourage independent play {and creativity} in recent months is keeping a fun, inviting, and well-stocked ‘creative table’ for Gracen. All it is is her little table (or sometimes a tray or even the floor) with an assortment of materials available for her free use. Sometimes it’s paper and glue and embellishments (like in our Christmas tree creative table), sometimes it’s play dough and cookie cutters and decorations, and sometimes it’s a tray of baking soda with droppers and dishes of different coloured vinegars. Naturally, some creative table set-ups are more open-ended and some lend themselves more to a finished product, but either way, the purpose is for Gracen to explore materials, experiment, and create freely while enjoying the process.
Today, Miss G and I did a little bit of shopping for this year’s Valentine’s Day projects (yes, we’re thinking about it already), and though I intended on holding off on a Valentine’s themed creative table for a while yet, my little lady popped up from her afternoon nap and her first words were, “I want to craft now. Grae Grae gets her new craft things!” And that was that. A Valentine’s creative table it was.
Together we gathered up all sorts of pink and red craft supplies… Smelly markers, sparkly foam shapes, bingo dabbers, stamps and a stamp pad, doilies, construction paper hearts, and some glue.
As she does with most creative projects, Grae dove right in.
The immediate favourite? The foam stickers. She plower through the initial stash and asked for more right away.
Throughout the afternoon and evening, she came and went as she pleased, adding to her pieces as she wished.
Here are a few of the pieces she declared ‘finished’…
While it won’t be around until the big day (I try to change up our creative table supplies every 4 to 7 days or so), there’s no doubt it will be enjoyed, added to, and revisited for several days to come.
♥
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Not too long ago, Miss G ‘s 
This time, we started with an ‘O’ shaped cardboard base. Gracen glued her puzzle pieces (this time using just regular white glue) onto the cardboard doughnut, overlapping them as she went along.
When the ‘O’ was covered to her liking, we set it aside to dry for a while.
Later in the day, she came back and painted the puzzle piece wreath all green. She quickly discovered that dabbing the paint on gave much better coverage than brushing it on, so she went with that method.
When she was done painting, we let the wreath dry again.
Next came the really fun part – decorations! She chose magenta sequins as holly berries, but you could easily use buttons, mini pompoms, foam circles, or dot stickers too. Just add some dots of glue to the wreath and pop your decorations on.
The last step was adding a little ribbon bow I’d quickly made for her… Regular white glue worked just fine for this job too.
For the last few days, Gracen’s been working on these sweet little nature wreaths at her 
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 
Though this creative table set-up didn’t take off quite like the 
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.
Today, 
While puzzle pieces are the main material, a few other things are needed to make this pretty little ornament… Glue of some sort (craft glue or hot glue would probably work best), some white crafter’s acrylic and a paintbrush, a scrap of cardboard or card stock cut into a circle, a small piece of ribbon or string to hang the ornament from, and some glitter (completely optional, but not in Miss G’s opinion).
To get started, glued 3 puzzle pieces onto our cardboard circle, evenly spaced like this.
During the process, we quickly realized that pieces shaped similarly to this one were going to work the best, so we dug those out and put the others aside.
Next, we added 3 more puzzle pieces. We tried to place them on top of the original 3 as the instructions say to do, but when it didn’t work out very well for us, we slid the original 3 out closer to the edges, and added the next 3 onto the edges of the cardboard circle too. It worked out perfectly and was much easier for Gracen to do.
When our snowflake was completely dry about an hour later, Gracen gave it a good once over with white paint.
While the paint was still wet, she did the job I think she looks forward to most when crafting…. She sprinkled on a very generous amount of sparkles over the entire thing.
Later in the evening when her snowflake was dry, I hot glued a little loop of ribbon onto the back, and voila – a new handmade ornament to add to our tree.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
While searching for a basic hat pattern for our Waldo and Wenda costumes, I came across