On our summer list - shaving cream colors

This concept is pretty common among preschool programs, but both my girls love this activity so much that they both requested it be added to our summer activity list.  And it's extremely inexpensive fun.  We picked up dollar store shaving cream cans, one for each girl. But one for the both would've been plenty!  And then we used cookie sheets and food coloring from the cupboard.

This is pretty simple.  Shake. Spray. Play.

And I totally let the girls take the lead here.  We just plaid in the white cream for awhile.  We talked about how it expands as it is being sprayed from the can.  How it feels, etc. 

I was especially proud of Little Miss Creative who used the cookie sheet and cream as a magna doodle of sorts.  Here she shows her family portrait. :)

Next we decided it was time to add food coloring.  Of course we stock regular colors and the neon colors.  Now if only they made more colors...

E loved dripping EVERY color on her tray, but realized later that may not have been the best choice as it made an icky poo green we could't fade out or change. But it sure looks cool here!

O chose to add her colors slowly.  At first picking her two favs, pink and purple.  (my girly girl!) and added more colors as we added more cream. This made for a cool rainbow affect.  And she really enjoyed when we added the spatulas and other utinsels.

We also added clear water beads to see what they would do.  But I think there was to much cream at this point and they sank right to the bottom of the pile.  E used hers to pretend it was buried treasure, but it was only found once as the pile was to big and the colors were to dark to find a clear softish marble.

Of course Mom had to make a rainbow pile of mooshy cream too! E wanted to know what would happen to the shaving cream if we baked it.  I honestly did not know. So of course we fired up the oven.  (I am blessed with a double oven, so the smaller one only takes minutes to heat up) We set it to 350 and "baked" our creations for about 2-3 minutes. 

Here's the cream after baking.  It's hard to explain what happened to it.  It was very clean smelling (like the original shaving cream but much lighter and airy) and it "sparkled".  It didn't seem to change size, but I suspect it would have had we left it in longer.  The girls were surprised that the cream was not at all hot like we all thought it would be.  But again, with longer time, who knows.  There are so  many things you can do with shaving cream, so thankfully we have some more for next time!

Bored "jar"

We've been mentally preparing for summer for at least a month now.  I am extremely excited about the upcoming months.  This is the first summer that I've been healthy enough to participate in playing with my kids like I want to.  And they are both old enough that they can play and contribute and a new and fun way too.  We've been preparing both a summer list (to be published later) and a bored jar list. 

Of course I searched Pinterest and found these fun ideas:

Click the picture to get to the links.  There are more on pinterest.  I just searched "bored jar" (and "board jar" - seriously...)  I liked things about each post, but of course needed to make it my own.  I wanted it to be a project for the kids more than me.  So I complied all of the lists I could find.  Then I gave them to my 7 year old with a highlighter and she chose the ones she wanted to make the cut.

We also set some guide lines.  The purpose of the bored jar is to entertain themselves.  So that means, when mommy is busy and there isn't anyone available or willing to play.  And you also have to be able to do each activity on your own, without needing help or materials we don't have.   So there were a lot of them that we both agreed would be fun to do, but that didn't fit our criteria.  Those things went on the Summer List.

I liked the idea of putting them on the sticks.  And I liked using Avery's clear address labels.  I was able to make them a little unique by using different, fun (free), download-able fonts from the Internet.  I also wanted to keep track of what we had borrowed from Internet friends and what ideas we came up with on our own.  So I color coded them. 

We had 120 ideas to start with.  We split up the sticks, got out the tempera paint and I let the girls go crazy.

O lasted about 3 minutes and then she resorted to just finger painting on the paper :)

But E likes to see the projects through and was THRILLED with the idea of the bored jar.  So she stuck it out and finished painting about 110 sticks on her own! (But it kept her busy nearly all of the morning! Day 1 of boredom - BUSTED!)

We let them dry, and then I helped her stick all the labels to all the sticks.  Originally we had planned to keep them in one of the large mason jars and swap them out with others to keep the idea newish. 

But the jar only held like 20 some sticks and we didn't like the way it looked. Plus, having helped compile the list, she knew what she really hoped to draw! Instead, we decided just to use the pink flower pot I picked up at the dollar store. 

We've had the "mommy-I'm-bored" flower pot in use for a week and a half. I've only heard those dreaded words once, and I immediately replied, I think you know what to do.  She skipped off to pick out a new stick. 

Some activities last a few minutes like, "stand on your head" and others can last as long as she is interested.  Like one of my childhood favorites, "paint the cement with water".

*Side note - some of the labels have come unstuck from the side they were folded over on.  So I just used a scissors to trim them off, and they've been fine ever since.

*Click on the images below to download the files via google docs.  (Don't worry, they're available to everyone - with or without a google account.) Thanks for looking! Enjoy!

 

Back at it!

Well obviously I'd fallen off the face of blog world.  With the surgery and the complications and almost the school year behind me, I'm ready to blog again! I've been quite busy down in my little craft world, so to get back on pace I thought I'd just share some of the things I've been working on! Lots of scrapping! So let's start with that!

I do a decent amount of custom scrapbookin (although I wish I did more - sometimes! :) I just finished an order for a baby boy first year album.  I use ONLY Creative Memories Scrapbooks, pages, and protectors.  I personally had to learn the hard way, despite  being told, not all proudcts are created equal.  When it comes to albums, you get what you pay for.  Since I believe so strongly in the products, I became a consultant also!  This soft cloth baby boy album has the birth pages attached to the first few pages, but the rest of the year pages I put in a sleeve and tie it all together with a ribbon.  I do this because each baby and story is different.  They might not get their first tooth until 6 months, instead of 5.  This allows the mother to put the pages in cronolgical order or whatever order she likes!

When you open up the cover, this is the first page you see.  When I do custom orders, I like to keep them simple, yet complete.  I scrap my own albums in this manor too.  I like the photos to be what you look at, not all the othe stuff on the page.  So I pick a few things to add to the page to make it "full" but not overwhelming.  In doing custom pages, I like to make a finished page so you could just go in and attach your photos, but if you wanted to add something more, you could. 

Not every page will have room for added things after purchase.  But with a big busy page like this, I don't feel that anything else is needed.  When I made this page I imagined being home to a photo of an adorable baby boy close up or maybe a photo of his parents kissing his chubby cheeks.  :)

Some pages I leave a lot of room.  These pages are great for adding your own touches after purchase, but also to add photos where you want.  You would also then have the option to do some journaling.  I think it's important to write in your own handwriting at least some of the time, no matter how much you hate it.  Now that my grandma is gone, I treasure the few notes I have from her and so wish I had more.  It's such a powerful connection to her and your family will feel the same way about your albums!

*LOVE* these stickers!

Mommy pages are my favorite for doing in boy albums.  It's the one place that everything girly is ok.  The page is about mom, but the photos are about the child.  A page like this is a perfect meeting of those two things!

Bath time photos and pages are one of my favorites.  The pages are so fun to do as there are so many possibilites to me.  Most kids LOVE the bath, so its an awesome time for some great photo ops! (Don't worry, with a little practice, you'll figure out how to shoot the pic without anything showing you don't want!)

This is another example of a page to add as many or as few photos or even more embellishment as you like.  This teddy bear is actually fuzzy and so cute! He was an obvious choice for this simple page.

Again something simple, but so easy! This is a great example of the type of page you'd see looking through my personal albums.

So there's a few peeks into what I've been creating lately.  I'm currently working on finishing up a few of the projects I've started (I have extreme crafter ADD) I am so guilty of starting something but not totally finishing it! Things like dry time annoy me.  I get so excited about what I'm making, I hate waiting for things, so to cure it, I'll start somethings else! ;)

If you want to see more of my scrap pages, you can check out my fan page or my website and of course there are a few in my etsy shop.

I'd love to see what you've been working on! Leave your link in the comments and I'll stop by!

Please excuse my absence...

I didn't have time to say so beforehand because my to do list was long, and did not get finished.  I had lung surgery towards the end of March.  The surgery went fine, but there have been some unforeseen complications/delays after.  I am home now, sore and sleepy, with a chest tube still in.  I will have to keep it in until the lobe that had surgery done stops the air leak.  I've been told it can take weeks.  "everyone is different". ugh.

So in the mean time, I will do the blog to the best of my ability.  They forgot to mention that a main side effect of the pain meds I have to take is narcolepsy.  Seriously! Well not really, but I do randomly fall asleep in the middle of everything.  It comes out of no where and before you know it I am out cold.  When I wake up My book is closed without the bookmark, I'm watching some weird show I've never even heard of, or I have like 289 "0"s on my page! :)

While I try to get my thoughts back in crafty blog mode, here's a site I've come upon while looking through the world wide web.  I have a pile of palettes out in the driveway from the fire/moves.  So I've been looking for projects.  This site is one of the coolest I've seen.  Lots of unique designs and different ideas.

I'm sure you'll like what you see.  If you don't have palettes already, I'm looking into where you can get them from.  If you have any ideas, I would love to hear them!

Tutorial tuesday - jellyfish!

Sorry for nothing yesterday - it was my baby's birthday.  They are so bittersweet for me.  I LOVE the birthday and the day and the event.  And of course I always reflect back on the day and the events of the birth itself.  But I can't help but realize each year it just gets faster and faster.  Every birthday is another year closer to no babies here anymore.  And that makes me one sad momma.

We were at Mall of America in Bloomington MN this weekend for the girl scouts 100 year anniversary birthday celebration.  (WOW!!) We went to the sea life aquarium.  And much to my surprise the jellyfish were a HUGE hit with the kiddos, as well as myself! They had a very large display of many different jellyfish. So I thought this tutorial about making your own jellyfish bottle was fitting! I don't know if I could accurately reproduce her project, but its definitely worth a try - now just to find some clear shopping bags!!!


Click the picture to get to her awesome tutorial!

Let me know if you make one and how it goes for you!

Freebie Friday - Magazines!

I love getting magazines and/or catalogs in the mail.  A lot of people just toss them, labeling it as the dreaded junk mail.  But I love to look at them.  Even the catalogs.  It might seem silly, but I've learned a lot about different techniques and ideas from just browsing through catalogs.  You never know when inspiration will strike. 














Fill out the order form for Met Kids.  I haven't gotten this one before.  But it looks fun! And its free, so thats even better!

If you are reading this blog, then I'm nearly positive you love Martha Stewart.  And if you don't love her, I bet you still wouldn't mind getting her magazine for one year for free! Unlike the one above, you do have to take a short breakfast survey.  It took me less than 5 minutes.  I was enrolled in some reward point program (for answering the questions) but I don't plan on using that so I did nothing further besides hit delete. Here's the link I used.












I love spring and fall for many reasons.  Especially because of the nursery catalogs.  I get a lot from Spring Hill nursery.  I have bought quite a few plants from them (they have good specials) In addition to their main catalogs, they also do a ton of mailers.  I know this too would be junk mail to most, but the pictures they use are so beautiful I just know I will think of something awesome to make with them some day.  So down to the craft room upcycle shelf they go.  And in the mean time the kiddos make some pretty beautiful collages! :)
http://springhillnursery.com/catalog_request_qas.asp?splid=SPLID02

My nephew (and now my daughters - thanks to the new "girl" line) are getting really "in-to" legos.  I had no idea there was a magazine, but why not! It makes sense.  Because Lord help me, I can never think of anything to create when challenged.  And if I'm lucky enough to get an idea, I can never figure out which piece I am missing to complete my vision.  I had to fill out a form and then confirm from an email.  There are different age magazines, which I though was nice - hopefully the JR addition is filled with Duplo ideas!


I scrolled down until I saw the image above.  If you click the magazines tab it'll take you to the digital eddition that shows up on your computer using your flash player.  So I hope by doing it the other way it'll actually send one in the mail and not just enroll the kids in the club. (just click the picture for the link)

**Update** We are receiving the Lego Magazine in the mail! :)
I love free magazines, but I am willing to pay for a good mag I really like too.  If you are the same way, I urge you to check out http://www.valuemags.com/home/index.asp They have several different titles with reduced subscriptions.  If you click on their free tab, you will see a list of freebies.  In my searching for today's post I have come across links from them for free Disney Family Fun and Better Homes and Gardens.  They are since expired, but at least its nice to know they put popular ones on the free list also!

Tutorial Tuesday - St. Pats Day

Since it's really late, and my husband is shutting lights off on me... I will keep this really short!
I stumbled upon this cute tutorial for a St. Patty's Day shirt.  Her tutorial is great, but I think I have another way.

Here's her completed project:


ADORABLE! And her blog post shows how to do it using the freezer paper stencil and cricut technique that has been all over pinterest and the like.  If you have a cricut and are confident in your skills to do this, excellent! If not, you could easily reproduce this shirt without.

My idea is use felt or scrap fabric to cut out your clover and then use a disappearing fabric pen (in the sewing section for a few few bucks - then the ink will "erase" during the first wash) to hand write your own letters and then fill them in with paint.  This idea is much quicker and while you may not think your handwriting is cute now, your kids will love it when they don't have you anymore.  My grandma's handwritten notes, cards and recipes are some of my most treasured belongings. Happy Creating!