ice boats

We celebrated the first day of summer today with ice boats in our kiddie pool.  This activity was a huge success with M and one that we will definitely do again.

Directions:
- Tape the short end of a flexi-straw to the bottom of a Solo cup so that the tall end stands up straight in the middle of the cup.
- Fill the cup 1/3 of the way with water and freeze (ours froze overnight).

- Once completely frozen cut the cup away from the straw.  I also read that you could loosen the ice by running warm water on the outside of the cup but I found it pretty easy to just cut the cup and slip it right off.
- Use a hole punch to make a sail for each boat.  We used construction paper.  After the fact I thought it would be cute to have had him decorate the sails but they get wet and ruined fairly quickly.

M was really excited to put them in the water and we liked sailing them back and forth and sending them down M's pool slide.  As I said, the sails were soaked within a minute or so and slumped but M didn't care and eventually just pulled them off.  The straw was great because he could use it to move the boat around without grabbing the ice every time.  

The weather wasn't overly hot today but warm enough for this activity.  That was probably in our favor because I could see these melting super fast on a very hot day.  Ours lasted maybe 10 minutes each today.  I made two and we played with one at a time because, of course, after the first melted M was asking for more.  M actually seemed to enjoy them most once they melted a bit and were smaller.  He's a big fan of throwing things (balls, rocks, etc.) into water so he had tons of fun throwing the smaller ice chunks into the water then finding them.  This was a great activity for summer and one that definitely gave me some ideas for other things to try this summer!

baby G's rug (in progress)

In October M will have a co-star on our blog, his new sister G.  We're just starting to get things ready for G's room and Pinterest is providing lots of great (potential) ideas.  The first attempt I'm making at a DIY item for her room is a rag rug.  There are lots of examples out there but this blog, DIY & Crafts, was the site that provided my inspirational pictures and instructions.  I think the one this mom made is adorable.

In theory, a "rag rug" is supposed to be made of old clothes or other materials you don't need anymore.  I loved the idea of using old baby clothes but Baby G's room colors are yellow, gray, and light purple.  M's old wardrobe pretty much consists of blues, reds, and greens so that didn't really work out.  M and I went to Joann Fabrics and bought material instead.  I've never bought fabric for anything in my life so it was an interesting experience that included picking up and putting back at least ten different fabrics.  I settled on a really soft cotton.  The only downside is that the edges fray a bit when it's cut.  I'm not anywhere near enough of a fabric expert to tell you what kind of material might not do that though.

One of the problems I had was figuring out how much material to buy.  I read various blogs and blog comments from people who had made them and found a lot of different answers.  I ended up buying three yards of each color.

Here's my warning on this project: it's very time consuming.  I've been working on it about one week and I've maybe put in four hours total of work on it.  Here's the current progress:

At least I have 18 weeks left.  The bottom is a non-slip rug mat you'd use under an area rug.  The only thing I'm doing differently than DIY & Crafts is tying the pieces instead of leaving them loose.  The piece of rug mat I bought is about 3 feet by 5 feet.  We'll see if the whole thing gets done or if it gets cut down.  This blog will be updated when it's finished, hopefully before October 24th.

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UPDATE: 6/25

I've gotten through the first 9 yards of fabric and ended up with about 3 feet by a little over 1 1/2 feet of finished rug.  

UPDATE:  Read about the finished rug here.

farm crayon party favors

M turned two this week and we celebrated with a farm-themed party.  I shared a lot of our party decorations from M's first birthday party but I didn't do too many decorations this year.  I did want to share our favor.  We gave M's little friends farm-shaped crayons.  I've seen these done on both Pinterest and Facebook in a variety of shapes and they were pretty easy to make.

I started by ordering the farm-shaped candy mold that included figures of a cow, sheep, horse, and tractor.  I found ours on ebay for under $2.  M had a wide variety of broken crayons so we collected all of them up, took off the wrappers, and broke them into smaller pieces.  I used a sharp knife to cut them small, which isn't completely necessary, but they melt faster.

M liked helping by filling the candy mold with the pieces.  He was more involved than I expected him to be, which was nice.  We filled each mold then baked them at 200 degrees for about 15-20 minutes each.  I'm guessing on the time because I really just kept an eye on them until they were completely melted.  Our candy mold was made of thin plastic (on the cheap side) and it warped after 3 or 4 batches so I would probably turn the oven down to 150 next time if I was using a similar mold.  I have seen some nicer ones that can probably stand the higher heat though.

When they were melted we stuck the whole tray (on a cookie sheet for easier moving) into the fridge to cool.  After about 10 minutes they popped right out of the mold.  The tractors were a little tricky because they had a thin middle section and kept breaking.  We had to overload them with crayon pieces to get them to work.

We got small cellophane favor bags, put a few in each, and attached a "made by M" tag.  M got a set of extras (and rejects) that seem to have held up pretty well.  I've found that he hasn't broken any by coloring with them but some haven't stood up to him throwing or dropping them.  We have a few headless cows around the house.  

I really liked this idea.  I found through searching that candy molds come in a wide variety of shapes (who knew?) so you could potentially make these for almost any occasion.