Kids Craft-Wood Frames

I totally forgot to post this for Mother's Day but it is way too cute to not share with all of you. I was out of town for Mother's Day this year, on a Caribbean cruise with my husband's family. The trip was "adults only" so my lovely sister and mother came into town to watch over my 3 kiddos. I was away from them for 11 days, way too long by the end of the trip I was really missing my babies. And we were apart for Mother's Day. When I did get home I was greeted with many hugs and kisses as well as these adorable picture frames.

The frames are from Michael's in the $1 section. The kids painted the frames themselves and put all the stickers on. My sister helped with the hand prints and taking the pictures of course.  I love them. This is such an easy kids craft but great momentos at how precious our little ones are in our lives.

I think they would be great for Father's Day as well.

Teacher Appreciation Gift

It is that time of the year again. Teacher appreciation. As a teacher myself I think teacher appreciation should be every day of the year, however the end of the year seems to be the time to give a gift to show that appreciation. But what to get your favorite teacher?

I am a firm believer in the student deciding on the gift for the teacher. It makes the gift personal and gives the student a sense of responsibility. With that in mind my son is only 5 years old so finding a gift that he picks and makes himself is a tricky task. We searched the internet for inspiration and came up with a combination of fun and personal ideas.

We created a vase from a basic glass vase and colored pencils. My son helped me organize the pattern of colors and I used hot glue to attach the pencils to the vase.

Then we made paper flowers from cardstock and pipe cleaners. I drew the flower shapes and he cut them out. You will need two of each shape (one for the front and one for the back). I asked him what he would like to say to Miss Janelle and wrote down his responses on the flowers (ie: you are wonderful, I love you, thank  you, and you are pretty). I made the stems from pipe cleaners by creating an infinity shape and twisting it around the stem portion. Then glue the stem in between the two flower shapes.

For an added touch he picked out the real flowers himself just to fill the vase.

I love how it turned out. It is beautiful, creative, personal, and Jackson was very proud to hand it to his teacher. I love to see joy in giving.

Kids Craft: plant your garden

Spring is here and it is the perfect time to teach children about some of the wonders in this world. That includes how things grow. Children love hands on activities and the idea of watching as something grows from a tiny seed. I saw some small planting kits at Target the other day for only $1. There was cilantro, basil, tomatoes, and strawberries. I allowed the kids to do all the work.

I let the kids tend the soil, plant the seeds, water their plants, and we have been watching the plants grow. They loved getting their hands dirty and learning about the sun and plant cycle.

It has only been a week and we can already see some sprouts. So exciting.

Kids Craft-Spring Break Day 2 OOZE

Lately my son has really been into teenage mutant ninja turtles (TMNT). This brings back so many memories from my own childhood I couldn't be more thrilled to share our love of those silly adolescent amphibians. He wants a TMNT birthday party and all the presents that he wants are TMNT. So I thought it would be fun to do a TMNT spring craft and make some green ooze.

Here are the ingredients:

• water
• white glue (like Elmer's™)
• borax
• green food coloring 

1. Pour the entire bottle of glue into a bowl (8oz).
2. Add 1 tsp of borax to 1/2 cup of warm water. Mix together.
3.Now you can add the food coloring to the glue until you get the color you want. Darker is better because it will lighten as you add the solution.


4. Pour some of the borax solution into the glue and mix vigorously with your hand. Keep adding solution until you get the consistency you like.

 Now you have the perfect ooze for any Ninja Turtle fan. Just make sure you keep it off the carpet little turtles.

Kids Craft-Spring Break Day 1 Sand Painting

It's Spring break here. Having 3 kids under 5 I don't actually have any children in school other than pre-school so our Spring break is not much different than any other week. However my son is home from pre-school this week so we needed some morning crafts to keep the kids from going crazy.

We started the week with an easy craft. Any kid over the age of 3 can do this. Sand Glue Art. All you need is colored sand (Hobby Lobby or Michael's), white liquid glue, paper, plates or other containers to put the sand in, and a spoon.

Pour the sand into the containers keeping the colors separate. Have the kids use the glue to draw on their paper. Sprinkle sand over the glue and pour the remaining sand back into the color coordinated container. Draw again.

The toughest part is teaching the kids to only use one color at a time so the colors don't mix together (unless you want that look). My kids had a blast. They created many pictures and spent over an hour working on their art.

 

kids craft-Thank You Cards

It is always important to send thank you cards whenever you receive a gift. I have been very dedicated to this custom all my life and want my children to know how important it is as well. So this Christmas I started the tradition with my daughter and asked her to help me make the cards. I still wanted them to look nice, so since she is only 3 years old we started with some small additions she could make to the cards.

I found some adorable "handmade for you" stickers and instantly came up with the idea of putting Elizabeth's hand print on the cards.

She helped me cut the paper for the background into squares using my sliding paper cutter and then we painted her hands and stamped them on the cards. Add the Thank You and handmade for you stickers and we were done. Then I wrote the thank you notes for her.

As she grows and learns to write I know she will be able to make the cards alone but for now it was a really fun project.

kids craft-felt Christmas trees

It must be December because over the last 3 days the temperature has dropped from 60 degrees and sunny to 25 degrees and still sunny. The sun and blue skies are very enticing for little ones, until they go outside and realize it is freezing!

Hence a lot more time in the house = boredom = a messy house. 

Time for mom to get a little creative.

So over the weekend we decided to make some felt trees for our playroom. I drew the trees on the felt and let the kids cut them out. (Practice cutting skills, very important for a soon to be kindergartener). Next we cut out little colored circles for ornaments on the tree. Then I use sticky back velcro on the back of the circles and the kids decorated their trees.

This is an easy craft that can lead to hours of fun, taking the balls off and putting them back on the trees.

Kids Craft-Thanksgiving Indians from Paper Bags

Kids love holidays when they get involved. Thanksgiving can be a little tricky to get kids involved other than the basic turkey shaped craft. This year we went in a new direction. We used basic brown paper grocery bags to make Indian costumes.

Using the body portion of the bag cut underarm holes. Then using the bottom portion of the bag cut  to go over the shoulders as straps. Staple the strap to the front and back of the bag vest you created. Then cut the bottom of the vest into fringe. Let the kids draw Indian symbols all over the vest. Then using the remaining strips from the bottom of the bag make a headband and add some paper feathers to the back.

Now we can all celebrate Thanksgiving in style.

Puppet Show from a Cardboard Box

I'm back!! You probably thought I was done blogging and had abandoned all my readers. Not quite. I am sorry that I have been MIA for awhile. Between Halloween, and family visiting, and adjusting to a life with 3 kids I have just not been doing much crafting or blogging lately. But now things are calming down, we are getting back into a routine, and I am learning how to fit time in for "me", I can get back to the blog and sharing all my ideas.

Lately my kids have been obsessed with puppets. They begged me to make them a puppet show where they could play with their puppets. My original thought was to buy a nice wooden one for them for Christmas but then I realized I have a perfectly good cardboard box sitting in my garage that my double stroller came in.

So, I got to work. I cut out a square hole in the front and cut a door in the back with the hinge side on the crease of the box so it will swing freely. Then I spray painted it red (their color request). I used some spare fabric and made two panels. I gathered the panels at the top and stapled them to the box.

 The panels do not cover the entire hole but I wanted to make sure when they were pulled back there was plenty of space for the puppets to play since the panels don't slide like other puppet show boxes I have seen. Then I used a screw driver to make small holes on each side of the window, strung some yarn through the holes, and stapled the yarn in place on the back so it wouldn't get pulled out. These form the ties for the panels when the puppet show is taking place.

 

 

  

 It was a quick project but the kids think it is great and I love that I spent a total of $0 to make a perfectly good puppet show box. Now I can enjoy the kids imaginative stories every day.

Kids Craft-Halloween Ghosts

This week my kids and I made Halloween ghosts to hang up in our playroom.

I started with white card stock and cut out a ghost shape. My 4 year old actually cut the ghost out himself (part of practicing using scissors). Then I let the kids use glue and cotton balls to cover the card stock. Finally we cut out 3 ovals from black card stock for the mouth and eyes and the kids glued those onto the ghosts. Then I hung them from the light fixture in the playroom using yarn. This way when a breeze comes through the house the ghosts sway. We made 4 total. An easy and fun kids craft that any child over 2 could make.

kids craft-foam frames

I was walking through Michael's the other day when I came across these great foam frames for only $1. I thought it would be fun to have the kids decorate their own frames and pick pictures to put in them. Of course I took this opportunity to teach them both how to spell their names (there's always a catch when crafting with mom).

I showed the kids all the supplies I found, princess foam stickers for Elizabeth and pirate stickers for Jackson.

Then I told them that before they could use the fun stickers they had to use the letter stickers to spell their names. Once we had the name letters in order and on the frame I allowed the kids to go crazy and decorate the frames however they liked. Then we picked out pictures to put in the frame and decided to give both the frames to dad to hang in his office. It was cheap, easy, and not messy.

The perfect kids craft.