‘I Love You’ Pillowcase {a simple handmade gift}

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Is it just me, or is buying gifts for dads next to impossible?! I’ve never been good at buying gifts for my own dad, and when it comes to helping Miss G come up with fun gifts for her Papa, I’m not much better. Thus, we usually go with something simple, handmade, and from-the-heart. For last year’s Father’s Day, we put together a simple framed Papa interview and portrait, a super easy snack basket, and our annual Papa and Grae photo book {well now that I type that, I wonder whether or not I actually finished and printed it… ACK! Must look into that}. This year, Gracen and I have a few new ideas in mind, the first of which is this very simple ‘I love you’ pillowcase.

Button-Up Foam Craft Sticks

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I’ve had a package of large foam craft sticks for a long while now, but have never really figured out a fun way to put them to use. Well, today as I was working on a project for CBC Parents, I realized that the cute flower-shaped buttons I was using coordinated perfectly with the colours of the foam sticks. Having had a reusable countdown chain on my mind for quite a while now, I knew exactly what I was going to do with them.

Ice Cream Kit {a fun gift for summer birthdays}

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There’s no doubt that Grae and I love putting together fun gifts for her friends’ birthdays. So far this year we’ve given several craft kits, a play dough kit, a sensory play kit, and a little artist’s drawing kit. This time around, we wanted to try something different – keeping in mind that the birthday girl is moving come the end of the school year.

Hand-Shaped Ring Dish

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With Mother’s Day only a few days away, I started thinking about some of the fun Mother’s / Father’s Day gifts kids tend to make in school year after year. The first project that came to mind? Clay pinch pots – a classic. I don’t know what exactly has made them the go-to gift for moms and dads, but my guess is that it’s their versatility. Dad needs a coin dish? Check. A safe spot to store his tie clip and cufflinks? Check. Mom needs a bowl to hold bobby pins and hair elastics? A special spot to store her rings at night? Check. Check. And that’s how this project came about. I {quite desperately} need a spot to keep my rings while not wearing them instead of my usual leaving them somewhere in our large apartment only misplace them and eventually find them a few days later. While we could have made just a regular pinch pot, we decided to try making a hand-shaped ring dish since I’m a little obsessed with handprint projects. Didn’t it turn out sweet?

Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons: A Sewing Activity

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Something I’ve wanted to start doing with Gracen for a long time now is fun hands-on activities based on our very favourite books. We looove reading and because we have a limited book collection and limited access to outside libraries here in Kuwait, our favourites get read over and over and over again. What I’m saying is – getting a little more out of them with a corresponding activity is a very good thing {and would be even if we had a huge home library}.

Striped Egg Art {Using Washi Tape}

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Striped Egg Art | Mama Papa Bubba

Gracen is all about ‘decorating’ for upcoming holidays, which in our house normally means switching out the wreath on our apartment door, changing up the garland that hangs above the large couch in our living room, and maybe adding a few pieces of artwork to the wall above our creative space. So with Easter not too far away, new decorations are needed asap. Our first project, this striped egg art, is very similar to our paper strip handprint art and is very easy while beautiful at the same time.

Our Creative Space

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Some of my very favourite moments with Miss G happen when we’re sitting side-by-side creating. Whether we’re working on a collaborative project or each doing our own thing, I feel like we do some of our best bonding while creating beside one another. Sometimes we sit, hands busy, in silence, and other times we have in-depth conversations about serious / random / ridiculous things.

No-Sew Snake Sock Stuffie

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Miss G and I picked up these ridiculously awesome knee socks at Target during one of our cross-border shopping trips long ago… At the time, I didn’t really know what we’d make with them, but I did know that they were awesome and had a lot of potential, so into the cart {along with two other pairs} they went! Somehow, we didn’t get around to using them while still in Canada, so we packed them up in our Kuwait luggage and transported them to the other side of the planet {naturally}.

Flower Stamping With Celery and Potatoes

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Creating a flower stamp with the base of a celery stalk is one of those things that has gone around Pinterest multiple times {I think this may be the original post}, but because Miss G and I wanted to try it with a group of friends, I wanted to have several flower stamps on hand. The trouble is, I didn’t want to have to buy several heads of celery just to create stamps {partly because it’s wasteful and partly because celery costs 3 or 4 times more here in Kuwait than it does back home!}

I wasn’t sure if binding a bunch of stalks together with rubber bands would work, but it totally did. Just for fun, I created a couple of simple leaf stamps using the old-fashioned potato stamp method too.

We paired our veggie stamps with some washable tempera paints…

And got this!

At home we stamped several pieces of paper just to enjoy the process, but at Bright Minds, the kids’ artwork was turned into beautiful laminated placemats for them to take home and enjoy day after day. Pretty, right?

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Spice Painting

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I had actually planned spice painting as an open-ended activity for my Crafty Kids students today, but between making senses books, creating squishy sensory balls, and exploring the magic that is slime, we didn’t get to it. Not to worry though, between Gracen and a handful of friends, the paint got plenty of use down in the courtyard this afternoon.

Little Artist’s Drawing Kit

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There’s no doubt that we’ve been all about the ‘kit gifts’ this year… Since moving to Kuwait, we’ve brought craft kits, play dough kits, and sensory play kits to Grae’s little friends’ birthday parties, and today we added type of kit to our gift list… A drawing kit! As soon as the birthday girl’s mom told me that she loved to draw, I knew we could put together a fun and easy kit filled with items that any little artist would love.

Paper Roll Dolls

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Miss G and I finally got around to putting some of our {bordering on out of control} toilet paper roll stash to use today. Making paper roll dolls with Grae is something I’ve been wanting to for a long while now, and I’m so glad we finally got to it because it was a lot of fun {and these insanely cute little dolls came of it too}.

Valentine’s Day Play Dough Favours

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There’s no doubt that we love play dough. In fact, we’ve given it out as gifts and favours several times before. But that being said, I can’t take any credit for these sweet, simple little Valentine’s Day treats…

Simple Name Resist Art

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We had such a good time making our heart resist art the other day, that we decided to do a similar project for today’s Wednesday play date. Since I eventually want to create a large canvas that displays a favourite quote using this technique, I decided that we’d try using letters this time around. And what better way to use letters than to spell the munchkin’s names?! Name resist art it was.

Simple Heart Resist Art

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Gracen and I had so much fun with today’s art project that we actually ended up doing it twice! It’s the simplest technique, but the results are absolutely stunning and in this case, perfect for Valentine’s Day too! {Though my original thought was to use the pieces as art in Miss G’s bedroom…}