MADE: grocery bag dispenser, goo, and a craft

We've been MIA here for awhile.  Sorry.  No excuse other than I just get caught up in other things sometimes.

Husband commissioned me to make something that would solve the problem that WAS our pantry overflowing with plastic grocery bags, so I made this grocery bag dispenser from the tutorial on Make It-Love It.   I just used a single piece of fabric to save time (she sews a few different fabrics together, in stripes)

Extremely easy.  

I hung it on the pantry doorknob but it just seemed too low, so I hung it on the hinges.  It's cute enough to be showing and I'm just happy the kitchen is somewhat more organized.

You know me.  I don't like to make a trip to the store for anything if I don't have to, so I used lace for the ribbon, because I didn't have any ribbon.  Works just fine.

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I've been on a mission to do more fun things with and for my kids, so we made this goo (from Our Best Bites) that I had been promising G we'd make every day for at least a couple of weeks.  We finally did it yesterday.  I'm still working on the procrastination thing, but I think it's a worthy enough goal.

It entertained them for quite some time.  I put a big piece of freezer paper down on the kitchen floor for them to smash it down on.  They had a friend over when we made it, and they got tiny toys and cars out, to 'bury' in the goo.  They loved it.  (didn't get any good pics)  Here's a different recipe at Tot Treasures, if you don't want to buy Borax.

We put it in a ziploc baggie so they can play with it again and again.

And then there was this 'mess-free finger painting' idea, I saw on Mama Smiles.  They loved this too.  Put some tempera paint in a freezer ziploc baggie, tape to the counter with a piece of paper underneath, and let them go to town, without having to worry about the mess it'll make.  -I- loved this one too.  

We used primary colors, so we got to see how they mixed and made new colors.  We just left them taped to the counter, so they can come back and play any time they feel like it.  Then, when they get tired of these colors, we'll switch to something new.  Maybe next time we'll make tertiary colors with a primary and a secondary in each bag.

Preparing for Easter

Easter is right around the corner and I've had my eye on a few crafts and activities. Although there's always a little bit of focus on the shallow, like matching Easter outfits, dying eggs, and getting candy, I think my kids are at a good age to teach the real meaning of Easter, so I'm excited to start a new tradition this year. Some of my findings:

Egg carton flowers, from E is for Explore

Cute envelope bunnies from Martha

This beautiful new take on dyed eggs, from Country Living, using temporary tattoos.

I don't know if I'll have time to get this one done, but that doesn't stop me from looking.

We WILL most definitely be making these edible bangles at our house, from Family Fun. So easy. I already have elastic thread. All we need are the jelly beans!!

I found a few great resources similar to the egg hunt at 'Prepared Not Scared' and I plan on doing something along these lines.

You basically fill 12 plastic eggs, each with a scripture reference and an object to go along with that scripture. You can spread the opening of the eggs out over a twelve day period (maybe opening one up each night before bed), or go on an egg hunt for them on Easter morning, and open all twelve in order. I think this is a really simple way of teaching your children the deeper meaning of Easter, and it will only take about 20 minutes to put it all together. Then you can save them, to bring out every year on Easter!

Keep in mind that, if you want to do it over twelve days, you need to start. . . .yesterday. ; ), so either get the eggs filled today and just play catch up with the first few, or fill them soon and do the Sunday version.

Similar ideas found at Family Volley and Mommy Savers.

C is for...

Today was my turn to teach our co-op preschool. There are 6 rambunctious little 3 year olds (and Jack) that come and run around. Its lots of fun, but also stresses me out. As most people know, 3 year olds are not known for their attention span. I want them to leave here having learned something, but sometimes that's really hard.

I had lots of fun today, hopefully, they did too! I love to watch all their cute little personalities interact, and listen to their little (often hilarious) gems of wisdom.

We always let the kids play for a few minutes when they first get here. Then we got in our circle and sang the ABC's. Then we started talking about the letter C.

C is for Caterpillar: We talked about my friend Connie the Caterpillar (using a story from Frontline Phonics with lots of alliteration). We read The Very Hungry Caterpillar, by Eric Carle. Then we made balloon art caterpillars (from here).

C is for Cookie: We read If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, by Laura

Numeroff.

C is for Counting: We fed cookies (Cookie Crisps Cereal) to the Cookie Monster (I found a picture on google images, cut out the mouth, and taped it to a bowl). I would give them a specific number of cookies they had to feed him and then they would use tweezers (the big kind. Mine came from the Bed Bugs game) to put that amount in his mouth. They didn't quite grasp the concept, but it was still really fun.

C is for Car, Cats, CTR, Candy: Next we decorated a letter C with stickers of things that start with C. I was going to have them glue on some of the cookies and little candies (mini m&ms), but they were having so much fun just with the stickers that we decided to fore go the rest of the mess.

We always end with some dancing. We LOVE jitterbug.tv! They have all kinds of kids music available. My kids love to go through and try out different songs all the time. The most popular choice of song for this preschool group is definitely We Are the Dinosaurs by Laurie Berkner.

(The letter C paper and the feeding cookie monster activity came from home schooling activities I've seen Carrie do that I adapted to fit our topic and age group.)

Art Party: Part II

Continued from Art Party: Part I

After we filled ourselves with sugar, we headed outside with a big drop cloth, some paint, chalk, paper, and canvases, and set out to make our own works of art.

Our first project was bubble art.

They had fun with it, but the color is very subtle, so I think they were in need of something more vibrant. Luckily, our next project took care of that.

We made DRIP ART (at least that's what I'm calling it). Pretty sure this was the favorite of the day. We started with a layer of white paint on our canvas. Then dripped a few new colors on, and tilted the canvas to spread the color. We continued the process of dripping and tilting, until there were no more white spots.

The end result was a beautiful swirl of color.

We brought our masterpieces inside, hung the bubble art on a clothesline in the kitchen and laid the drip art on some wax paper to dry.

Each kid got a goodie bag with a mini etch-a-sketch, watercolor paint palette, and box of crayons, so they can continue to make their own art at home.

Credits:

bubble painting: Housing a Forest

drip art: Housing a Forest

goodie bags and contents: ZURCHERS (greatest party store EVAH!)

more art party ideas on my pinterest board. wish i could've done them all.

Sneak Peak

Christmas is sneaking up on us WAY too fast! I wish I could freeze time.

Each one of us is making something by hand for each one of the other members in the family. Here's a little sneak peak of my gift for the boys.

It doesn't look like much right now, but I think they're going to like it and I'm a bit excited about it. I'll post pictures when it's complete.

Teacher gift

Griff's Christmas gift to his preschool teacher this year, was this adorable snowman. I got the idea from the talented Sarah, of Sarahndipities.

My husband is the one who ended up making it all. Which is good, because he's more artistic than I am. We used a small rolled oats container. He made the top hat out of black paper (the brim is just the lid from the oats). He covered the can in white printer paper, carved a little piece of wood to resemble a carrot, let Griffy paint it orange, drew the basic shape of coal with a black sharpie and had Griff scribble them in. Then he made some holly out of paper and attached a note with some of my yarn that read (like Sarah, of Sarahndipities),

'We 'tissue' a Merry Christmas and a 'Handy' New Year!'

On the inside, we put tissues and hand sanitizer (things she can use in the classroom). When we were buying them at the store, Griffy did NOT like our idea. We finally got him to agree by telling him he could also pick out a candy bar for his teacher. So he picked out the Twix. (We cut a slit in the bottom of the lid, and stuck the Twix bar inside. So there's a little surprise for her in the hat!)

And I actually tested a pattern for Sarah a few days ago, so I had the brimmed hat that I made for that, and stuck it in along with everything else.

When she opens the lid:

After making the snowman with daddy, I think Griff finally understood where we were going with all of this and he LOVES it. He was just a little worried in the store. He wasn't sure we knew what we were doing.

I love how it turned out. Check out Sarahndipities for more inspiration and click on my link (#106)!

tiny winter scenes

Every Christmas season, I see these cute little winter scenes in mason jars, and I've always want to make some of my own.

I picked up three bottlebrush trees at Wal-Mart. I soaked them in hot water and bleach for half an hour, like I had seen on YouTube. Nothing happened, so I tried again, with more bleach.

Still nothin'.

Oh well. No white trees for me.

I cleaned them, sprayed them with 'Snow' (I got it at Roberts but I'm pretty sure you can get it at Hobby Lobby and probably any other craft store), and sprinkled them with Martha Stewart glitter.

After they dried, I put some sugar in the bottom of some mason jars, and put the trees in the 'snow'.

I wanted to find a tiny little reindeer to put with one of the trees but never found one. Maybe next year.

I love the simplicity of my little winter scenes. They add a nice touch to our table without being 'too much'.

It's {FINALLY} beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

I feel like we kind of got a later start on decorating than we usually do. We've just been behind this year. We had family in town for Thanksgiving and everything else took a back seat. It took me awhile to get going again. It's starting to look like we're not even going to get Christmas cards out! : (

But the house is looking festive at last, and that makes me happy! We'll start with the tree.

Usually our tree looks like this:

I LOVE it! It's HUGE, and FULL, and BEAUTIFUL!!

But this year we wanted something different. With a curious little one year old running around, we didn't want the big tree falling on her and we didn't want her to break the ornaments. We came to the conclusion that we needed a smaller, more sparse, simply decorated, Christmas tree! It's funny how you get so used to the 'norm'. I almost felt nervous going to the tree lot to look at SMALL trees! Like I wanted to make sure we were doing the right thing. It's just a tree, I know, but I wanted it to feel like Christmas and it usually DOES. . . .with our BIG tree. So I got a little nervous.

But when we got this gem home, we all fell in love with our humble little tree. It's just cute. Not overbearing.

Hubba built a little table for it to sit on, and I got some new, cheaper ornaments in the next few days, while he was at work.

I used this tutorial for the snowflakes. (If you're going to make these, DON'T FORGET her note in the beginning of the pattern! The dc are actually sc!! I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong at first.)

I also got some tinsel garlands and a few small ornaments from Wal-Mart. I added some candy canes and my 'peace sign', and she was complete.

The boys have told me on numerous occasions, that this is the BEST tree and that it's so much prettier than any we've ever had. You can imagine, from what I told you before, (about my self-esteem hinging on my children's acceptance), that I was beaming after hearing that. They were so excited to show daddy the decorated tree, when he came home from work in the morning.

This cotton ball Christmas window is something I saw on pinterest and LOVED the idea of 'snow' around my tree, so we strung up some cotton balls and craft pom poms from the ceiling with thread. I LOVE!!

tomorrow: tiny Christmas scenes, an ornament garland, and a crocheted wreath