Wet Felted Easter Eggs

The girls, my mom, and I wet felted Easter eggs about a month ago. I still haven't taken a picture of the finished eggs, which is why I haven't posted about this yet. I just realized that I needed to write this post before Easter, so I apologize that I don't have pics of the finished products!

To wet felt Easter eggs you need the following items: plastic, wooden, or styrofoam eggs, wool roving (I bought our wool roving from Hobby Lobby), warm water, and liquid dish soap.

First, we wrapped our eggs in wool roving. Then we dipped our eggs in a bowl of warm, soapy water. We squished the eggs and shaped them with our hands while they were in the water.






After the eggs were well covered with the wool and it seemed somewhat felted, we rolled the eggs on a cooling rack. After they were well felted, we left them to dry. This was a fun and simple activity!




Both girls LOVED this activity!

Fun with a Flower Press

I gave the girls a flower press in their April Fun Box, and they were so excited.

Both girls love to pick flowers, and they enjoy arranging them on the paper before smashing them in the flower press.


I thought about making a flower press, but I saw this for only 3 dollars and decided it would be much easier to just buy it :) It's simple and well made, and it will be a great addition to our nature bag.

E's Montessori-ish Bedroom

Several readers have asked (many) times for me to post pics of E(1)'s bedroom. I've always planned to do this, but just never got around to it. Now that we are about to move E into O's room, I decided it was now or never!

This is the view from the door. The shelf under the window is from IKEA. I used to have one basket in each space. The baskets each held a set of toys...knitted fruit, blocks, and beanbags. Once she grew out of these, I replaced them with books. The wall shelves are rain gutters that we installed a couple of years ago. They are great for storing books!

My favorite part of the room is the bird mobile (hanging over the rocking chair). My mom and I made it when I was pregnant with E. E LOVES birds, and I think that seeing birds fly around her room has inspired this love!


This is the closet door. There used to be a mirror on the bottom of the closet door (in addition to the mirror on the wall), but it fell off. Since, we rarely used it, I didn't put it back up.


E's floor bed. It's a double bed, so that we would have room to sleep with our little snuggle bug. We used to have books in this rain gutter bookshelf, but she started pulling up on it and it started pulling out of the wall. We'll move this rain gutter shelf to O's room soon (along with E!).

I'm sorry it took so long to write this post! Hope it helps someone out there who is planning their baby's room :)

Planting Seeds

The girls received daisy, sunflower, and basil seeds in their April Fun Box, and we planted the seeds in baseball card sleeves! This idea came from Family Fun magazine.

We put a little bit of dirt in the 6 bottom pockets and taped the sleeve to the sliding glass door with clear packing tape. We put seeds in each pocket. The soil was wet, so we didn't water them for a couple of days.

Within about 3 days, we saw growth! It has been very exciting to watch our seedlings grow!



O(4) uses a medicine dropper to water each seedling.


They are growing FAST! We'll transplant the sunflowers and daisies to our yard and the basil to pots very soon!

Coffee Bean Jewelry

Several months ago, I hosted a giveaway of unique handmade jewelry. The jewelry is made by women in Guatamala who are seeking shelter from abuse. Several of you have asked where you can buy the jewelry. Here is a link to a website that is now selling the jewelry.

Also, here is a message from my friend about the women's shelter (she left this message in the comments section of the original post, but I wanted to be sure that everyone sees it!).

Thank you all for your comments! I just got word that the shelter may close due to lack of funding! The link above is where you can purchase the jewelry! They have finally gotten it up and running through a partner group that has added it to their website! Spread the word, please!

Also, if you know of ANY organizations with Grant money or other money to donate, please, let me know. B/c they are faith based (but DO NOT force or require faith) they are often denied funding.

Thanks for your support!
Rebecca

Making Goop

Making goop on our beach is one of our favorite Spring/Summer activities, and we did it for the first time this year on Sunday afternoon. The girls mixed equal parts water and cornstarch and then mixed it together with their hands. We kept adding more cornstarch, and O(4) eventually added sand "just to see what happens."

We talked about how the consistency seems to change from a solid to a liquid as we played with the goop. We usually add food coloring to our goop, but I decided to make it a little simpler and skip the food coloring this time.

Painting a Mural

The girls and I painted a mural outside on Sunday afternoon. Elliott and I taped a long piece of paper to our fence, and we gave the girls a few cups of paint.

We had fun, but E(1) was pretty fussy and didn't enjoy it as much as I thought she would (she was overtired). This activity quickly turned into a body painting activity, which was not surprising at all :) Luckily, I thought ahead, and we painted right by the lake. Once the girls were through, we just stood in the water and washed the paint off of our bodies.

Next time we'll use finger paint or maybe shaving cream (tinted with food coloring), and I'll have them wear old clothes (the paint didn't come out of E's bathing suit).

Decorating (Hot) Easter Eggs with Crayons

Drawing on hot boiled eggs with crayons is SO much fun! This idea came from Family Fun magazine as a quick and easy way to decorate Easter eggs. However, we enjoyed using eggs as an art medium so much that we may draw on our boiled eggs every week!


As soon as the eggs finished boiling, I put them in a tray (that came with an egg dyeing kit). O(4) and I drew on them with the crayons, and the crayon wax melted as we drew.


I was undecided about whether or not to allow E(1) to join in on this activity. However, it was a moot point since E understands "hot" and was not at all interested in getting near the hot eggs. She sat quietly and watched her sister draw.

After drawing for a while, O decided to shave her crayons and sprinkle the shavings on the eggs. What fun!

Felt Storyboard Activity

I love doing felt board activities with the girls (I think I like them more than they do!) and here is a recent activity that E(1) and I did...

I printed the felt story pieces for Polar Bear, Polar Bear What Do You Hear? from Kiz Club. After cutting out the pieces, I glued a small square of sandpaper on the back of each piece. As E and I read the story, I put the pieces on our felt board.

After we finished the story, E had fun matching the pictures.



I love all of the story pieces at Kiz Club, and I'm planning to make a bigger felt board this weekend!