Pretty Initials

This fun project was easy and pretty quick to do on a sickie/cold days. All you need is paint, paper/canvas and scotch/painters tape.

Tape the child's first initial (or their name) onto the canvas/paper. Then have them fingerpaint over it. Start with one or two colours and then allow to dry before adding more so you don't get a huge mud coloured mess. Once dried, remove the tape. If your paint bled though the tape a little you can touch it up with white paint if you want or outline your letter(s) with glitter glue for a little sparkle! Super fun, Super easy!

**Tips: I cut my letters out of tape - it took a bit longer to do, but I wanted something a little fancier than the straight lines of using masking tape alone. I also used acrylic paint (and especially watched the 1 year old with it) because it goes on nicer and thicker than finger paint, IMO.

Fun Lunch

My little dude started to get picky when it comes to eating. Sometimes he'll pick away at something for over an hour and a half without finishing, or he'll all of a sudden dislike something he loved 3 days ago. So a couple weeks ago I started making "funky lunch"; lunch made up to look like a face. I'm able to squeeze in tons of fruit, veggies, cheese, you name it... and he LOVES it. He will devour his "funky lunch" in 10 minutes and then usually ask for more fruit.
Here are some of our "funky lunches" from the past few weeks!

Fingerprint Tree

This is a fun little craft for teaching about Autumn, or just to show the beauty of the leaves changing.

What You'll Need: Finger paints (we used sponges soaked in paint that was a little watered down) and paper.

What To Do: 

 ~ lightly coat brown paint on hand and down the arm, press lightly on paper and you have your truck and branches.

 ~ Next use fingertips to dot all your colourful leaves around your branches. You can put paint on all your fingers and do lots of leaves at once, or just one at a time. My 3 year old was getting creative (and messy) with his leaves towards the end.

 ~ Voila! You have a beautiful Autumn tree! The one pictured here was from the 1 year old - so I did most of the fingerprint placement. The one made by my 3 year old was a lot more 'free-flowing', but still looked great. Since he wasn't as precise about where his leaves were, it actually looked like leaves falling and scattering on the ground! Fun!

Crafting With Kids

I don't seem to update this blog as often as I had planned. This doesn't mean we aren't getting ooey and gooey in our craftiness. Lately it seems we just do spontanious crafts, I forget to take pictures, or I totally plan to do up a quick blog, but then tantrums, fights, playdates, lunch, snack, nap or pretty much any other aspect of mommydom happens and the last thing on my mind is blogging about our craft. It happens.
Instead of this being an excuse blog about why I haven't posted, here are some tips that I have found totally useful while crafting with my monster(s).

Home made smock: Little dudes get messy. It doesn't take a lot of time or effort to get completely disgusting, especially while crafting. Take an old shirt of dad's and cut out the back (look at the picture below for a 'template' - you want to cut out all the red). Then your little one can slip their arms in and you can tie up the back so it's not flopping all over the place.
You can add velcro or a ribbon to tie the back in place. You can also flip up the bottom and tie it around your little one's waist and then they have a pocket in front.

Finger Paint Sponges: Finger paints, especially with an eager little artist, get mixed together and turn a gross looking colour pretty quickly. Instead, soak small sponges in paint (you might need to add a little water). Voila! No more paint swamp. This works really well for fingerprint or handprint crafts since you do get saturated in paint.  

Time: if a craft says it'll take about 20 minutes to complete, give yourself an hour. Plan on giving yourself at least half an hour of clean up time after - some projects (glitter projects!) you will be cleaning up over the next few months, after some projects require a bath, and yet others you'll only need to do a quick wipe down and you're on your way. But always plan on the worst - it'll quickly ruin your fun if you have a toddler covered in paint from head to toe (and every crack in between), but not enough time for a bath.

Don't Aim for Perfection: We'd all love to cover our walls and/or fridges in beautiful artwork from our kids, but the reality is that sometimes what they make isn't all that pretty. But I bet you they had a heck of a lot of fun making it. Let them take the reins and make what's in their head - this will help develop their own creative juices.

Have Fun!!: If crafting with your kids isn't fun, if it's too stressful, or too messy, or too time consuming - don't do it. It will just turn into an unpleasant experience for everyone. When your kids go to school they will be coming home with more crafty/artsy projects than you know what to do with. So stick to what you and your family is comfortable with.

Father's Day Poem

This is a nice quick little craft that makes a super sweet keepsake. This one you can do at any age - if you started with a newborn, do it yearly to see the difference a year makes!

<picture to come later today>

What You'll Need: Non-Toxic paint, plain paper, printer (or nice writing), paint brush.
What To Do:

• If you've got handwriting skills of an 8 year old boy, like myself, print the following poem:

My dirty little fingerprints
I've left on every wall,
And on the drawers and table tops,
I've really marked them all.
But here is one that won't rub off,
I'm giving it to you,
Because I'm so thankful
For a (Mommy, Daddy, Nanny, brother, sister, you get the idea) just like you!

Center it on your paper so that it's going to be easy to get 2 full hand prints (I like putting the poem in the corner).

• Using the paint brush, paint a decent amount of paint onto one of the child's hand (too much paint and it'll probably smudge, too little paint and the print won't show up), stamp the child's hand down and lightly press their fingers and palm down to make a nice clean print.
• Frame it for a special gift or put it in the scrapbook to look at later!

**Baby's are harder to do hand prints with - they always seem to have unbreakable little fists. For the really little guys, you can do it while they are asleep (make sure the paint is warm so it doesn't shock them awake) or you can quickly paint their hand and then hold something out that they want to grab and quickly stamp their hand. If paint is just too messy, you could always trace their hand and colour it in yourself with paint or jazz it up by gluing sequins, sparkles or anything fun inside the hand outline.

HAVE FUN!!!

Easter Eggs

This one's a little late - sorry. Easy craft, but needs adult supervision. These are fun AND if kept in the fridge can be eaten (if you like hard boiled eggs)

What You Need: Eggs, food colouring, crayons.

What To Do: Hard boil your eggs (I boil mine for about 10 - 15 minutes), run the eggs under cool water until they can easily be handled and then completely dry them. Mix up some food colouring and water in small dishes (the more colour, the brighter it'll be on the egg). Have child, carefully, draw on the egg with crayon - older children can draw faces or repetitive designs. Dip the egg in colour (a quick dip will give you lighter colour, than letting it soak). You can do single colour eggs or you can dip multiple times for fun colour combos and colour mixing (this is good for teaching that two colours make a whole new one!).

**Hard boiled eggs can be kept for up to a week, if they are kept in the fridge.

Spiders and Critters

This was a fun little craft to pull out last minute. Takes very little prep, but if you've got a creative monkey it does take a little more paint supervision.

What You Need: Egg cups (for painting stuff, the cardboard ones would probably work better), paint (we use Crayola non toxic washable paints), pipe cleaners, glue, googley eyes and a marker.

What To Do: Lay out lots of paper and let your little one paint their cups. Once dry, tape pipe cleaner legs into the cup and glue or draw on eyes and a mouth. Voila - your own creepy crawly.

**As you can see in the picture, the paint started peeling off our spider when it was being played with - you can either use cardboard egg carton or use markers to colour a styrofoam egg cup. **

Spring is Springing: Rainbows

So this rainbow is not totally correct, but it's a starting point to teach little ones about them.

What You'll Need: Dyed noodles, cotton balls, lentils, markers, cardboard or thicker paper.

What to do: Dye your noodles with food colouring at least a few days before (soak noodles in colour for a few minutes and then lay out to dry on a cookie sheet), draw the lines of your clouds, rainbow, grass, flower, ect as a guide line for your little artist. Keep an eye on things as your little one glues everything into place. Allow lots of time to dry!

Spring is Springing: Butterfly

Spring may be springing everywhere, except in Central Alberta! That's not stopping us from getting started on our fun spring crafts. It may still be snowing outside, but inside we've got butterflies and flowers and rainbows! 

What You'll Need: Coffee filters, washable markers (permanent ones don't work), clothes pin or pipe cleaner, **optional; googley eyes, magnet**

What to do: Colour in big bold blotches on the filter, spray a bit of water in the center of the filter and watch as it seeps towards the edges and blends the colours. Let it dry completely (about 1/2 hour). Fold filter in half and scrunch together, you can use either a clothes pin (like we did) or use a pipe cleaner cut down to size. Glue on or draw eyes and fluff out the wings! Voila, you have a beautiful butterfly.

Tips: Don't use too much water as it can take a long time to dry.

If you use a pipe cleaner for the body make sure you twist it tightly and cut enough that you have a little extra at the top for antenas!

If using a pin, glue a magnent on the back and you can hang stuff on your butterfly!

Make a bunch of butterflies and hang them in a window to let the light shine through!

Magic Paint

What you'll need: Paint, water, paint brush/sponge, white crayon, white paper
Have child draw on the paper with white crayon. Then paint over it with watered down tempura paint or water colours. Watch as the childs drawing or scribbles or name or whatever 'magically' appear!

Lovey Hearts

Sorry, it's been awhile! Although late, here is a sweet little (easy) Valentines day craft. This can also be used for Mother's Day or Grandparent Day or any other day you want to show a little love!

 What you need: Construction paper, scissors, markers/crayons, glue stick, sparkles (if you're daring enough!).
Have Mommy cut out some hearts in different sizes and colours. Either glue to the paper and decorate or decorate each heart before you stick it on. You can even use the scraps from cutting out your hearts, to make something extra special! Toddlers love to be independant - this is a great one to just let them go with the glue stick, hearts and crayons!