Decorating Another Present

We put our Let's Explore shop shipping box to good use! I put Elliott's birthday presents in it, and O and my niece had a great time painting it! M was especially proud of her artwork, and she described her art to Ell before he opened his gift :)

Making Crayon Letters and Numbers

I recently purchased the silicone number and letter ice trays from the Let's Explore Shop (among LOTS of other things!), and we are very happy with them. The first thing we've made were crayons! I shouldn't say "we" since I had nothing to do with it other than providing the trays and crayons :) Unfortunately, we used cheap crayons, so the wax floated to the top and the color sank to the bottoms. It was a learning experience, and we've gotten Crayola brand crayons to use next time :) My mom, sister, O, and my niece had fun peeling the crayons (right, Melanie?) and putting the crayons in the tray. I'll show the finished product after I make the next batch :)

Happy Birthday, Daddy!

O and I made this sign for Elliott last year for his birthday, and I thought I should share it since it was a fun activity and a wonderful keepsake! (Elliott's mom just laminated it for us, so we can use it every year without worrying about messing it up. Thanks, Grandmother!) To make this sign, I took pictures of O holding each letter spelling out "Happy Birthday Daddy." My mom had the stuffed letters that worked perfectly for this project. I then printed the pictures as wallet sizes and glued them to a posterboard. I also traced her hands and cut them out for added decorations! Elliott loved it, but I think I love it more! O also REALLY enjoys looking at the sign and "reading" it :) I'm not sure where this idea came from, but I *think* that I saw something similar in an issue of Family Fun years ago.

Homemade Water Color Paint

O and I made homemade watercolors which were inspired by this post at Dim Sum, Bagels, and Crawfish.

To make the watercolors you need 3 Tbs cornstarch, 1.5 tsp corn syrup, 3 Tbs baking soda, 3 Tbs white vinegar, food coloring, and small containers. When you mix the 1st 4 ingredients, you'll see (and hear) lots of fizzy fun! This was O's favorite part of the activity. She was VERY impressed with the fizzing! We then poured the mixture into several small containers and added food coloring. This was yet another lesson in color mixing since we made orange and purple. She wanted to mix yellow and blue to make green, but since we already had green (and we didn't have enough mix to make 2 greens) we didn't make another.
O enjoyed painting with the watercolors, but after 4 paintings she said "O tired. Going to lay on the couch. Need blankie." I got her down from the kitchen helper, and she acted worn out and tired and laid on the couch with a blankie over her for about 2 seconds :) Here are her watercolor masterpieces. I'm planning on incorporating them into her color book somehow, but I haven't really figured out how yet. I'm hoping to finish her color book before she goes to college, but I don't know if I'll make it :)

Magic Folding Blocks

I saw this on Thingamambaby and since I had all of the materials, I decided to give it a try! The cube was surprisingly simple and fast to make. I think it took around 15 to 20 minutes, and most of that was spent trying to find the stickers. Elliott was very impressed, but I haven't shown it to O yet. I just hope she won't try to pull the blocks apart!
Here are the very detailed instructions that Thingamambaby linked to. Thanks to Thingamambaby for this great idea! I think this will make a fun, homemade Christmas gift!


Gracie loved it, too!

Feet Painting

O was in a painting mood after we finished the bubble wrap painting, so she made a painting for her dada for his birthday. She loved mixing the color on her hands and then smearing it onto the canvas. She was very excited that we were going to be making footprints instead of handprints. Although she did make a few handprints while she was covering the canvas with paint.
Here's her 2nd masterpiece of the day! Her footprints did not show up as clearly as her handprints have, and I'm not sure why. We used a different kind of paint so that may be it, or we might have just tried to make the footprints too soon (before the paint was tacky).

Bubble Wrap Painting

This activity has been on my to do list for a LONG time (at least 3 months!), and I don't know why its taken so long to get to it! You need bubble wrap, paint, and paper. I taped the bubble wrap onto a table, and O painted it. She was a little tentative at first, and she asked for paper. I assured her that it was ok to paint the bubble wrap, so she jumped right in :)

She tried to make handprints and seemed a little dismayed when it didn't work. She looked at me sadly and said "not work!"
I put the paper on top of the bubble wrap, and she loved pressing it (especially since she was making handprints on the back of the paper!).
Tada! Her finished masterpiece!

I've seen this activity on many blogs and in several books and magazines, so I'm not going to link to one particular place. Just wanted to let you know that it wasn't my idea (even though you probably already knew that!).

Paper Bag Water Painting

For this activity you need an unfolded paper bag and water :)

O was thrilled to make footprints...
and handprints on the paper! She LOVES making handprints!We also sprinkled water on the paper with our fingers, and O made fingerprint dots. After we were finished, I hung the paper to dry and then wrapped it up to use again another day.

Making Chalk Paint

Since our last experience with our homemade chalk didn't work so well, we decided to try it again using a different (and simpler) method :) 1st we crushed O's wet chalk using the mortar and pestle. Then we added a bit of water and stirred.
Viola! Chalk paint!
This paint worked much better on O's chalkboard, and we had lots of fun! (aside from the fact that I was attacked by fire ants in the middle of the process! I'm just glad that they got me and not O!)

A Painting for Grandpa

Since we are into homemade gifts, I decided that O would paint her Granpa a painting on canvas for his birthday. She was thrilled! She chose blue and yellow for her colors, but then asked for green. She looked skeptical when I told her that she could mix blue and yellow to make green. She was very happy when she saw the green appear on her canvas!
She loves making handprints!
Ta-da!
She added a little red after the blue, yellow, and green paint dried to spice things up a little.
Here's her masterpiece :)

Paper Plate Food

O and I had fun making paper plate food today. For this activity you need pictures of food cut from a magazine, glue, and paper plates. O and I looked through old magazines and chose the pictures of food about a week ago, and this afternoon I cut the pictures out. O worked on cutting bits of the magazine, but she's really too little to handle scissors effectively on paper (we need to practice cutting playdoh again). She enjoyed putting the glue on the backs of the pictures using a glue stick. I had to hold the pictures still for her. She also liked patting the pictures onto the plate. After the 1st 2 plates, she was a little tired of the activity and kept leaving saying "mama do it by self." She came back and helped with the 3rd plate, but I did the 4th one by myself :)
She was proud of the finished products! She set her table (by her play kitchen) and fixed supper for dada as soon as he got home!

Making a Baby Doll Cradle

O and I made a cradle for her "niney" babies using an oatmeal box. It was simple, but it took a few days since it had to dry between each step. First, I cut the oatmeal box. Then O and I painted it with mod podge glue. She LOVED doing this!

While she was painting the box with mod podge glue, I cut out strips of construction paper (O chose the colors) that we laid them on top of the mod podge.
We let the cradle dry for a day before painting it with another layer of mod podge glue. Again, this was SO MUCH fun for O. She stayed busy picking the glue off of her hands for quite a while after we finished this project :)
Here's the finished cradle. Its the perfect size for her "nineys," and she loves to rock them in it. The cradle actually turned out to look a bit like a roll of lifesavers, but O doesn't mind. I thought about embellishing it with stickers and lace, but decided to just leave it as is.

A Shell Memory Game

Can you tell that I love making/playing memory games? The idea for this game came from The Write Start. When I saw her post, I knew we would definitely make this game. Its so pretty and fun! If you haven't checked out The Write Start yet, you need to!

First we washed and dried the shells. Then we put the stickers on the shells. I looked several places before finally finding the same exact stickers that were used on the inspiration post (at Target). I was pretty excited especially since all of the other sea life stickers that I'd found were flashy and tacky :) O helped stick a few of the stickers on the shells, but she was a little rough and I was afraid she would tear them.
Since she's not quite ready for a full-fledged memory game, we did a matching game instead. I put a set of shells in each basket, and she chose one from the 1st basket and then found its match in the 2nd basket. She REALLY enjoyed this!Here she is with all of her matches!

Learning to Tie-Dye

We learned to tie-dye shirts at the birthday party of a friend on Sunday, and it was so much fun! O went a little crazy squeezing the bottles too hard, so I had to help her quite a bit. This is definitely something we'll do again. I read on a blog (can't remember where) about tie-dyeing every year on Jerry Garcia's birthday, and I think that's a great idea!

Crayo-Craze Crayons

I saw this at WM the other day and thought it would be a great coloring tool for O. She inspected it for quite a while. Then she colored with it a bit. She was disappointed that she couldn't make "tadoos" on her skin with it (and I was relieved). I hope she'll enjoy coloring with it more next time. I think its a great idea and very convenient. Also, the crayons are unbreakable, and there's no paper for her to peel off, which is nice. Although, I think peeling off the paper is her favorite thing about crayons :) I really want to get crayon rocks for her, but I think I'll wait until Christmas. Although, I need to go ahead and buy them since they are on sale! Here she is trying to trace her hand. She LOVES to trace her hand and our hands!

Chalkboard Birthday Cards

The chalkboard is great for making birthday cards, too! I uploaded a pic from our birthday card photo shoot to snapfish, and I'll make a postcard to send to Grandpa for his birthday. He's going to love it, and O had a great time making it! Also, I discovered that I love writing with wet chalk :) We left the chalk out in the rain last night, and it was so much more fun to write with it when it's wet. I really don't like the feel of chalk on my fingers, so this was a very pleasant discovery. I think we'll just use wet chalk from now on!

Making Wrapping Paper :)

O and I had a great time wrapping a present for one of her friends today. We started with a piece of newspaper. She painted it with her dot painters. Then decorated it with stickers and colored with markers a bit.

Then it was done! We had a great time with this project, and O was very proud. She told me that she want to "get in O's car seat and mama drive to see Momo NOW!" The party is not until Sunday. I hope she can wait that long!

The best part about this is, not only was it fun, but its recyclable! We'll be wrapping all of our Christmas presents in newspaper this year. Although we will use the gift bags that we reuse every year :)

Rainbow Felt Goldfish

I finally found the time (and motivation) to finish sewing the felt colors goldfish that I cut out before O's birthday :) I'm not sure why I couldn't bring myself to start sewing these fish because it wasn't difficult to do, just a little tedious. Anyway, I'm glad they're done, but I think I'll wait until Christmas to give them to O. They'll make a nice advent gift (I'm super excited about the advent calendar I have planned for O! I'm going to start making it next month, and I have started working on a list of tiny gifts and activities for it).

Scrapbook Paper Memory Game

When I saw this memory game on the Crafty Crow, I knew I would be making one soon :) Its just too cool and pretty to not make! This game will be one of O's Christmas gifts, and I plan on making a drawstring bag to keep it in. One handmade Christmas present is made, and I have about a hundred more to go! I bought wooden rectangle boards (sold in packs of 4) from Hobby Lobby and used Mod Podge to glue the scrapbook paper onto them. I planned on covering the paper with a layer of mod podge, but I decided to spray them with clear acrylic sealer at the last minute (since it's so much faster and easier). This was a fun and simple gift to make, so give it a try!
Here's a pic showing the other side of the boards. They are bigger than I planned, but I couldn't find boards any smaller, and I didn't want to go through the trouble of cutting them.

The Best Way to Wrap a Gift!

Leave the gift in the box it which it was shipped. Then put a few squirts of finger paint on it, and set your child loose! O had a great time painting Guh-guh's gift :) I planned on wrapping it in newspaper, and then painting it. Then I realized this would be much easier and faster (especially since I couldn't find any tape!). I think I know how we'll wrap all of our Christmas gifts this year! And the best part...its easy to recycle (I hate the waste of wrapping paper).

The finished product! Beautiful!