Name shirt for my little girl

 Malia has long ago outgrown her hand painted name onesie!  It was high time I made her a shirt.
(See side bar for pricing.)

'Friends Forever' Shirt for Japan

 I wanted to do something for the people in Japan and I came across this idea.
(I followed this tutorial at Living with Punks.)

I really wanted the kids to help too.  (Okay, so I did 99.9% of it, and that's if you count that the kids had to go shopping with me to buy supplies!)  This was the perfect solution.  It was something they could do for another child.  Unlike just giving money, this was something they could feel connected to. They were excited to see which kid represented them and which one represented a child from Japan.

I've finished the ones for the children in Japan (one from each kid).

I have 3 more in the works.  One for each of them so they can remember.

Honestly, these were more time consuming than I expected (mostly because I had to keep changing the thread to match!), but they're so cute and I'm glad to be able to help.

Mommy School

 

I have been doing Mommy and 'E' school for a while now. My 4 year old loves it! Now that my daughter is 2, she's been joining us, too. Since I'm an organizational freak, I plan out my curriculum for months in advance. I usually have a theme for each month. We recently did a section on recycling. We made our own paper and even included seeds in the paper. We plan to 'plant' the paper and hope to see some flowers grow!

We also did these little dump trucks. I was surprised at how much the kids loved it! This one is my daughters and was made from a half and half container. We made one for my son using a milk carton. I found the idea at here.

Recently we traced each kids body and then I let them go to town coloring them.  We call them 'flat E' and 'flat M'.  (E and M are their first initials, we actually call them 'flat {insert kids name}).  I got the paper from the Dollar Tree.  It's just the back side of some brown wrapping paper.

Then we talked about dressing themselves.  Both my kids are great at dressing themselves (though I will admit it't not at all uncommon for one of them, especially the 2 year old, to have something on backwards!), but we made if fun by letting them place their clothes on their 'flat' people.  My 4 year old totally got it and did great.  I think my 2 y.o. was a bit confused.  She started trying to put the clothes on herself even though she was already dressed!

I got this idea from a book called 'Slow and Steady, Get Me Ready' by June Oberlander

This is a neat book that has simple ideas for learning activities for kids.  It has one activity for each week from birth until age 5.  They're all easy activities that can generally be done with things from around the house.

I love doing school with my kids!  It provides us with some fun activities together and I love taking an active role in their education.

So, to you other mommy's, what kind of things do you do with your kids to teach them?

Valentine's Tic Tac Toe Board

 

We have a happy camper over this craft.

I was standing in Hobby Lobby the other day trying to think of an idea for a Valentine's craft to do with the kids when it occurred to me:  I already have everything I need to make a tic tac toe board!  Well, I did have to buy one piece of scrapbook paper, but that's it!

What you'll need:

MDF board (left over from this project)

decorative glass marlbles

scrapbook paper- a few pieces of patterned and one piece of black

Modge Podge 

(I really don't use it all that often, but I've used it for nearly every craft I've posted here -weird!)

scissors

 

 Cut patterned paper to fit on the marbles.  I had 12 total with 2 different patterns.  Decopage paper to marbles.

  

Then decopage scrapbook paper to the MDF board.  Mine was 12x12, but we're planning to do smaller for an upcoming Valentine's party we're hosting.  Then cut your 'lines' from the black paper and decopage them on as well.  

And that's it!  Too easy!

  

My 2 year old has no clue what she's doing and my 4 year old just barely gets it, but it's still fun!

  

Can you tell?

 

Dollar Store Picture Collage

I bought these at the Dollar Tree for an activity I did with the 8-11 year old girls at church. I had a bunch left over and I kept meaning to take them back, but just never could find the time. So, I started thinking about what I could do with them.
This is what I came up with.
It's soooo easy and I love how it turned out!

This is what it originally looked like. Actually not that bad, but I have grander ideas.

All you do is find some pictures that will fit and cut them to size. You can arrange them horizontally or vertically but be aware that the hanger only works if you do it vertically. You could try to move the hanger, but since I didn't try, I can't promise it will work well. I'm planning to buy one of those thingys you use for displaying plates for my horizontal collage.
Once you cut the pictures to size, all you do is modge podge them in place. I did one layer of Modge Podge horizontally over the pictures and then another vertically. It created a canvas like look that I really liked. Also, I accidentally cut the pictures a bit shorter than I'd meant to, but I liked the way it ended up looking kind of like tile! Serendipity happens too rarely for me!

And since I had so many of these left over I was able to make some for all the grandmas. And for just a buck and some change! Can't beat that!

Valentine Advent Calendar

I was inspired by this idea.

Her's was a Christmas advent calendar.

I waited and waited for the paper mache boxes to go on sale at Hobby Lobby.

Didn't happen before Christmas. They finally went on sale last week - the end of January. (Naturally!) I snatched up enough to do a Christmas Advent and couldn't resist doing a Valentine's Day one as well. They were half price, after all!

Each box is filled with Valentine's Day activities.

(see list below)
Here's what you'll need

Paper mache boxes

frame (make sure it's big enough to fit all the boxes)

MDF board (more on this in a minute)

scrapbook paper

acrylic paints

Modge Podge and foam brush

Number and Letter Rub-onsI painted the (12x12) frame. Then I painted the parts of the boxes that would be visible. It was an exercise in patience as it took about 3 coats. You don't necessarily have to paint it. In fact, I didn't paint my Christmas version. It just depends on the look you're going for.

Then you cut your paper to fit the lids. I simply traced the lids of the boxes, cut them out and modge podged them to the lids.

Once they were dry I rubbed the numbers on the lids as well as 'love' words around the frame.

My base is MDF board. The inspiration piece used sheet metal. When I went to get it at Home Depot I discovered it was kind of expensive and I had no idea how to cut it. So I went over to lumber section. The friendly guy there showed me where the MDF board was. It is sold in giant pieces - much bigger than I needed. So the guy helping me out offered me a scrap piece (I told you he was friendly! :) for free!

Again with the Modge Podge, I adhered the scrapbook paper to the MDF board.

Then, after arranging the boxes to my liking I used E 6000 to glue the boxes to the board.

Finally, I filled each box with some Valentine's activities.

*tell someone you love them

*make a Valentine train out of candy

*have heart shaped pancakes with strawberry syrup for breakfast

*make a list of things you love about someone

*play Valentine's tic-tac-toe (coming soon) with someone you love

*start puppy love (I altered the original idea from a pillow to a stuffed puppy)

*look for love notes in your love letters pillow

*make Valentines

*make and decorate sugar cookies

*give someone a 'heart attack'

*make crayon hearts

*have a Valentines day party

*make heart shaped marshmallows

*Valentines Day treasure hunt

Lift the Flap Family Scrapbook

This is so easy and my kids LOVE it!!!

Go buy a lift the flap book.

(As a side note - lift the flap books can be hard to find. There's no 'lift the flap' book section at the book store. )

I prefer one with lots of flaps (see below) so you have space to add more pictures as your family grows.

Miss M. loves, loves, LOVES this book. She looks at it several times a day. This is saying a LOT because this little girl never sits still.

Anyway, all you do is cut random family pictures to fit under the flaps. Then just adhere them under the various flaps. I like to do all our extended family as opposed to just the immediate family. Though it might be fun to do one of just the immediate family and have them making different faces (happy, sad, etc.)

The awesome benefit of this (besides the fact that it keeps my little live wire still for a few minutes! :) is that even though we live far away from most of our family, my 2 and 4 year old both know all their family members.