Sticker resist t-shirts, part two

We made our sticker resist t-shirts last week, and after 1 washing . . . the paint mostly washed off.  Which one should expect if one was using washable craft paint, right? Ha ha ha. 

 So we tried it again, this time using fabric paint. And of course it worked out a lot better!


Before being washed: 

 After being washed:  

 Whoo hoo! I'm glad it worked out and the kids each have a personalized shirt that they made for themselves (with the exception of Theodore, but he'll have a chance to make his own someday, I'm sure).  :-)

Sticker resist t-shirts

This is a super cute idea that I've been wanting to try since I saw it on the Having Fun at Home blog. 

You'll need:

--white t-shirts for each child

--foam letter stickers

--paint and brushes

--something to put under the top layer of the shirt so the paint doesn't bleed through to the other side (I used fingerpaint paper, but you could use cardboard, wax paper, foil, etc)

Spell out each child's name on the shirts, making sure you press the stickers down hard enough to make them stick all the way around. 

Then have the kids paint all around the stickers. 

After the paint is dry, peel the stickers off and voila! 

The only problem is that I used washable craft paint (!!!) instead of digging out my acrylic paint. So the paint may wash off or bleed after they go through a wash cycle . . . but that's okay, we can try it again!

Thankful picture frames

I am getting so excited about Thanksgiving coming up next week! The leaves are finally changing and we did our first Thanksgiving craft yesterday morning. It was supposed to be a cardstock picture frame sized to fit an index card, but 1) I didn't have any cardstock, 2) or index cards, 3) and I couldn't find my exacto knife to cut the centers out straight. So they're a little misshapen. As most of our crafts are. ;-)

This is Buttercup's frame. She decorated the "frame" with crayon and marker doodles, then drew a picture of . . . something . . . in the blue box in the center. Above the box, I wrote the things that she is thankful for: candy, Mommy and Daddy, Aunt Anna, Grammy, markers, that God made me, Skylyn [Buttercup's friend] having her birthday, Theodore, Skylyn's mommy named Mrs. Jessica, Oliver, herself, pizza, the computer, pears, her striped shirt, and her Lightning McQueen sheet.


And here is Oliver's frame. He decorated the "frame" with crosses, and drew a picture of himself singing the Imperial March (ha ha ha ha ha!!!!) in the blue box in the center. Above it, I wrote what he is thankful for: God, Thanksgiving, Jesus, that God made the world and us, that He made Theodore be in our family, that God loves us and is in our hearts, and that turkeys are here so we can have Thanksgiving.


I am definitely saving these frames to look back on in future years. :-) I just love my sweet babies!

Cute sandwich FAIL

I saw this Agent P sandwich at Hawai'i's Bento Box Cookbook blog, and knew I had to make it for Oliver! I'd planned to make it for his first day of preschool (and also make a cute Hello Kitty sandwich for Buttercup), but then I realized that their sandwich boxes would be resting vertically, not horizontally, on the shelf all morning and all of the pieces would fall off unless I secured them with duct tape. ;-)

So, I made them both Agent P sandwiches for dinner one afternoon with Buttercup helping me. (I gave her the choice of making a Hello Kitty sandwich for herself, but of course she wanted hers to match her big brother's!) The faces were recognizable, but my sandwiches didn't come out nearly as well as Susan's, ha ha!

I guess I didn't do too badly with Oliver's (on the right), but Buttercup's really doesn't look much like Agent P. She still liked it though!

Hand puppets and more baby pictures

Oliver wanted to "make something" with the items in our recycling bin the other day, so he made this boat (which he aptly named The Titanic):


Buttercup made a boat, too . . . (or rather, she colored on a cardboard tube and then cut it up into tiny pieces):


And I made these puppets. Buttercup was calling them finger puppets, until Oliver pointed out, "Those won't fit on our fingers, unless we're gigantic brachiosauruses!" So we decided that they are hand puppets. :-)


I can't wait until Theodore is old enough to "make stuff" with us, too! In the meantime, we are enjoying him just as he is. He is 10 weeks old today!

Making snow globes

The kids and I were at Barnes & Noble the other day, and Oliver saw this book:


Of course it would be perfect for him and Buttercup! So I bought it. Actually, I went home and ordered it for half the price on Amazon, but same thing. :-)

Most of the crafts are pretty involved and geared for adults to make for themselves or their homes, but there are a couple of cute crafts that kids can help with. The snow globe looked the easiest, so that's what we made first. The only thing is, it's a long process (painting, letting paint dry, gluing, letting glue dry, etc) so you may either want to most of it on your own and let the kids help at the very end, or make sure they have something to keep them occupied while they're waiting. :-)

You'll need:
a small glass or plastic jar (I used baby food jars)
distilled water
a strong, non-water solvent glue (I used super glue)
glitter
acrylic or spray paint (I used washable poster paint so the kids could help me)
glycerin or clear dish soap
a plastic bottle cap
a small toy to put inside the snow globe

First, paint the jar lid and set it aside. After the paint dries, use super glue to attach the bottle cap to the inside of the lid. After that dries, use glue to attach the toy to the bottle cap. (Buttercup chose a Squinky because she didn't want to use one of her "Wegos.") :-)


Once the glue is totally dry (about 15-20 minutes), add distilled water and either a few drops of glycerin or clear dish soap to the jar. Place the lid (with toy attached) on the jar to see if you need to add or remove water. The goal is for the water to cover the toy completely. If the water level looks right, add glitter to the jar.


Then spread glue inside the lid, and also on the rim of the jar.** Screw the lid on tightly, then set it aside to dry overnight.

**I used too much glue on this step and it dripped down while it was drying.


Finished product! In addition to using too much glue, I think I also added too much soap, because the water is pretty cloudy and bubbly after you shake it up. They're still cute though! :-)

M is for Moose

This morning after breakfast, Oliver was looking for something different to do, so he and I decided to do another letter lesson. It's been so long since our last one that I can't even remember what we did!

After some hemming and hawing, we came up with M is for Moose -- specifically, Oliver's beloved chocolate moose. ;-)


While I worked on drawing the moose's head, Oliver traced his hands to make the antlers.


Once it was all put together, he very carefully wrote the word "moose" at the top of the page! Turns out that "moose" is kind of difficult to sound out -- those tricky double Os and silent E! -- but he did great and I am just so proud of my smart little boy.



Check out my awesome (ha, ha!!!) moose here:

Sled and snowman craft

This morning we made this sled craft from the Family Fun website. Ours didn't come out quite as cute as theirs, ha ha! But we had fun anyway, and I got to use my exacto knife and glue gun, whoo hoo!

(I'm going to be lazy and let you get the instructions from their website if you want to try this for yourself.)




Looks pretty cute with one of Wendy's catnip mice on top!


Then, being the overachiever that I am, I decided to make cotton ball snowmen to sit on top. I used 2 cotton balls glued together, with googly eyes and mini colored pom poms for decoration. Oliver really liked using the glue gun, and I was more than impressed at his self control -- he only squeezed out a little bit, just like I asked him!


Is it just me, or do they look more like owls than snowmen?


The finished product!



And where was Miss Buttercup during all of this, you might ask? Why, she was busy yelling, screaming, slapping, and sitting in her time out chair, of course!

Don't believe me? Here's a picture that I was trying to take of Oliver and his sled, when Buttercup walked up (fresh out of time out) and stepped right on top of Oliver's sled. Sigh. Good thing we used a lot of glue.

b is for bumblebee

One day over the weekend, Oliver randomly asked, "Hey, can we do a letter lesson??" So we sat down at the table to quickly get started before he changed his mind. ;-)

I planned to do P is for Penguin. But, as it turns out, my uppercase P looked more like a lowercase b, so I grabbed Oliver's copy of Curious George Learns the Alphabet to make a cute bumblebee instead. And he loved it! :-)




Buzz, buzz!

W is for Wrench

We haven't done a letter lesson in a while, so this morning after breakfast, we did W is for Wrench. Oliver practiced writing Ws on the dry erase board and helped me come up with W words, while Buttercup not-so-sneakily dug her fingers in the glue stick and smeared glue on her PJs, her chair, and under the table. Needless to say, it was a hasty lesson this morning! :-)

Homemade animal masks

I'm not sure why, but Oliver really likes to growl at people (random strangers, our friends, the mailman) right now. He doesn't do it to be aggressive or mean, he just likes the sound. I've tried to explain to him that most everyone might not like being growled at, or that he's just growling for fun (especially because he uses his grumpy face and grits his teeth while growling), but it hasn't really sunk in yet. So I had the bright idea of making a lion mask for him that he could wear when he feels the urge to growl.

Well, a lion mask turned into an elephant mask, then a hippo mask, then a shark mask, and then finally he decided that he wanted a snake mask. I said, "Well, snakes don't growl, right? They make a hissing sound, like sssssssssssss." And my always-imaginative Oliver responded, "Mama, it can be a growling snake. Okay?" Silly me, only thinking inside the box. ;-)


















Of course I couldn't leave Buttercup out! She was too busy playing with pipe cleaners to tell me what she wanted her mask to look like, so I chose a duck mask for her. After it was finished, she slapped at it, refused to put it on, and ran away screaming.


















Well, I guess I can't blame her. It is kind of weird looking!

S is for Sting Ray

Since we're leaving tomorrow for a 2 week visit with Grammy and Granddaddy, Oliver and I decided to do our alphabet craft this morning. Oliver loves doing these crafts, and he's started asking about them during the week, "What's our next alphabet lesson, Mama? Can we do O is for Oliver next? How about H is for hammer?" and so on. He is so cute! So this morning we did S is for sting ray!




















It turns out that Ss are pretty difficult to write. I wrote the first one, then he had some serious trouble getting started on his own, so I held his hand and helped him write one (the green S on the left). Then he tried it on his own, and I think he did a pretty good job!!














It took him about 5 seconds to write it, which is a pretty long time when you're 3 years old. So he only wrote one S. After that, he chose to make "fancy Ss" all over the board. :-)















Then we got started with the craft. Buttercup even used her scissors this time!










































Our sting ray looked a little plain, so we decided to spruce her up with some glitter glue. "Hey Mama! I'm painting the ocean floor!"



















Ta da! She's a fancy sting ray. All she needs is a top hat. :-)