sand prints

I will preface this post by saying that, in my opinion, this idea sucks. You will not find instructions on how to make adorable sand footprints here because I failed at it 5, count them, 5 times. Don't get me wrong, those who have successfully done this have a beautiful little keepsake hanging on their wall. I would love for one of those moms to come to my house and make one of my childrens' feet. 

This is a photo of the best of my five attempts. It actually looks better in this photo than it does in person. 

I had a number of problems over the course of five of these. I had cracked plaster, feet with no toes, sand that was too dry then sand that was too wet. I cannot tell you how to successfully do this but I will tell you the theoretical process. I will never, ever attempt this again so if you try it and are successful send me a note giving some hints and I'll post them. 

You need sand, plaster, a clear sealant spray, and a picture frame. 

Remove the glass from the picture frames and put the back of the frame in backwards. 

Fill the frame with sand and have your kid(s) make footprints. Here's a photo of that step. 

Smooth out the sand around the prints and cover in plaster. 

Let it dry completely then flip frame over carefully to remove plaster and sand. 

Brush excess sand off and spray with sealant. You can also add shells to make me really jealous. 

All in all, I wouldn't recommend this at all if the end result wasn't so cute. It's messy and the only interactive part for kids is making the footprint, which isn't much fun. I won't be trying it again but good luck to you if you try it!

ice bowl

Poor little G hasn't had much of a role on this blog yet. She's tried a lot of the infant activities M did at her age but to blog about them twice doesn't make much sense. This is a new variation on a few other things we've done (ice boats, ice painting, etc) and was great for a hot day. 

G was a bit more reserved about this than I expected. I gave her 4-5 colored ice cubes in a glass bowl of water. She batted at them, picked them up but quickly let them go, and splashed a bit. She also seemed to notice and watch the color melting off the cubes into the water. Needless to say this activity needs your undivided attention. G actually never tried putting the ice in her mouth but I was pretty shocked by that. 

On another note, I have labeled every (or close to it) blog entry with the age M or G was when we did it. You can easily search labels for a specific age if you'd like :)

chalk bombs

I think I've pinned this idea at least three times over the past year or so.  M was super excited and loved this so much.  Our chalk paint wasn't super bright but I'll explain that...

The idea of a chalk bomb is a water balloon filled with chalk paint.  There are a number of ways to make (or buy) chalk paint.  We made our by crushing chalk and adding water.  In theory it would have worked great because it was super bright and thick.  The trouble came with getting it into the balloons.  We only had super small balloons so that didn't make it any easier.  I attempted an eye dropper and a spray bottle but neither were forceful enough to get the balloon to expand and allow more than a little bit in.  I ended up filling it as far as I could then adding water.  It definitely diluted the "paint" but it still worked.  We had about 12 yellow, blue, and red bombs -

M loved throwing them.  He typically squeezes water balloons until they pop all over him so he needed some direction to throw away from him and he did well.  

Our paint wasn't super bright and was actually brighter once the splatters dried up.  This was really fun though and we will definitely be trying it again with better balloons and/or a better filling method.

windsock

M and I have made a windsock before using construction paper.  This windsock was different because we used a can as the base.  It made it a lot sturdier and allowed for M to gob on the paint.  We needed a summer-y/4th of July decoration and this was perfect.  We used a baby formula can as the base, peeled off the label and painted it with red, white, and blue paint.

Once it was dry we used a star-shaped sponge to make white stars around the can.  My intention was to use party streamers as the tails but, of course, there were no blue or red streamers to be found at Target that day.  We improvised with tissue paper cut in strips.  The shades were a bit darker, which ended up matching our half-mixed paint on the can pretty well.  Finally, I punched a hole in the top of the can and used a pipe cleaner to make a hook to attach the string to.  Happy 4th!

rocket party

Back in February my mother asked M what kind of birthday cake he was going to have when he turned 3.  He told her a rocket cake and stuck to it for the next four months.  It was a surprise to me because I would have guessed my truck-loving boy would have wanted some kind of elaborate truck cake (think street sweeper).  Anyway, it was through that request that M had a rocket-themed 3rd birthday party.

My favorite part of the party was the rocket invitations, a modified idea from Martha Stewart's website.  I'd like to eventually post the PDF so others can use the template.

Most of my decorations came from Oriental Trading and we loved their inflatable planets (hung over the table).  My favorite place to shop, the Target dollar aisle, provided rocket-like bubble favors.

water tracing

This is an activity stolen from first grade but one M likes a lot. We use our easel quite a bit and one side of it is a chalkboard.  I write letters on the chalkboard side and M traces/erases them with a foam paintbrush dipped in water.  M is pretty good at attempting a few tracings then he ends up washing the board but it's a fun activity for him with pretty simple set-up/clean-up if you have a chalkboard. 

easter art

I am very behind on this blog and I know there were some things I missed over the past few months.  Truth is, I'm happy to get this post up before Easter is actually over.  M and I have done a few little projects to get in the Easter spirit, which seemed to be a little overshadowed getting ready for G's baptism.

I love this bunny project because M loved it so much.  Of everything we've ever done, he was so proud of this bunny and asked me to take his picture with it when we were done.  The bunny head is a paper plate, covered in cotton balls.  M loved it because he spread the glue and stuck the cotton on with no help.  The ears are footprints and his bow tie is handprints.  Ideally we would have used googly eyes but drawn on did the trick this year -

Our second bunny is made out of a baby food jar, which we currently have a surplus of (any good baby food jar craft ideas?).  M filled it with cotton and we hot glued on some ears made of felt and pipe cleaners.  M has perched this guy up on our entertainment center so he can watch him.  

All M needs now are some colored eggs and he'll be ready for the real bunny...

butterfly baptism

We recently celebrated G's baptism and had a get together for family and friends after the mass.  Party planning is one of my guilty pleasures and Pinterest has only added to that.  I am aware that I am one of those mothers who is made fun of in e-cards.  I love a party theme.

G's baptism party had a butterfly theme.  When M was baptized the favor was a footprint ornament that everyone loved.  I was tempted to recreate it but wanted to do something different.  G's favor was a bookmark that featured a butterfly made of her thumbprints and an Irish blessing.  Like most 5 month olds, G is not a fan of recreating prints x30 so we made one good butterfly, scanned it, and printed out the bookmarks.  Much easier on everyone...

I had an idea of getting a little tree and hanging the bookmarks on it for people to take.  The tree we ended up with was adorable but was too small to fit them all so we hung some and the rest were in a basket next to it along with this thumbprint poem in a frame.

The boxes on the left were our favors for the under 5 crowd.  Clearance boxes from Target decorated by M with butterfly stickers.  We also added some butterflies to the tree.  

We used G's tutu photo for table numbers and found the perfect little tree card holders at Michael's to hold them.

we love dr seuss

This week is Dr Seuss week in most schools. M doesn't go to school yet but he's a big fan (I swear I can recite Green Eggs and Ham) so we're celebrating at home. Our Dr Seuss book bin is out and we started the day with a One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish fish bowl. 

M's favorite part was sprinkling the glitter. Also, if you're interested, there are lots of Read Across America events at all of the Barnes and Noble locations this week- check out their website. 

sponge paint stencils

This was M's first attempt at a sponge paint masterpiece and I think these are some of my favorite pieces of artwork we've done. We recently went to the New England Aquarium so we're still on somewhat of a sea animal kick. We decided to make a whale and (M's favorite) an octopus. 

I cut the whale and octopus shapes out of card stock and then taped them to a solid piece of card stock. The octopus was a bit harder to tape because of all the legs. You really don't want paint getting under the stencil. 

Then we painted. I gave M three colors with each to avoid a brown mud-like mess. 

He did well and liked stamping the sponges. Finished products- 

shape sort

I recently found a huge bag of foam shapes with my school supplies. M loves them and we've used them for a few things. I wasn't sure how a sort with them would go but M ended up getting really into it and pretending each set of shapes were a family ("where does baby square go?"). 

I made some large construction paper shapes and gave him a bowl of shapes. I showed him two and he caught on right away. I think I will try this again another day with colors. M was calling the large shapes their "houses" so I think making colored houses to sort them into by color would a success. 

fingerprint flowers

For Christmas M got an art kit that came with ink pads and a book to make all different kinds of fingerprint animals.  It's pretty cute.  We used those ink pads to create a birthday card for G's Godmother last week. There aren't too many instructions needed but it came out cute so I wanted to share.  Thanks to Pinterest for "thumb-body loves you."

fun food

My child is many things (imaginative, funny, energetic, etc) but a good eater is not one of them.  I have a whole board on my Pinterest account dedicated to food ideas for him, although I'm not sure why since his menu consists of about 10 items.  One thing that I have found helps sometimes (hit or miss) is making his meals more "fun."  I know there will be people who look at this blog and criticize me for taking the time to turn a piece of toast into a fish or whatever it may be...truth be told, some nights I'd stand on my head and sing songs if it would get M to eat!

Here are our "fun food" ideas.  For more (and better) ideas check out my Pinterest...

Giraffe-

Snowman-

Rudolph-

 Monster Truck-

Flower-

Valentines-

Octopus-

Kite-

Bear-

macaroni valentines

It's Valentine time again. Even though M has yet to start school, we still make Valentines to give to our family. Last year we did a handprint heart. This year we decided to do some macaroni art. 

Before M got involved I painted some macaroni white, pink, and red. I did this by putting them in a Ziplock bag with the paint and shaking them around. Much quicker than painting each one. I let them dry on wax paper. 

I cut hearts out of card stock then cut holes in half of them to serve as picture frames. The ones without holes became the backs. 

We colored with red and pink crayons then added the macaroni with glue (M's current favorite art activity is gluing). They came out cute and we were able to write on the back sides. 

watercolor snowflakes

Disclaimer: If you try this activity, do it with coffee filters.  M's mom didn't have them on hand, and was not lugging the two-year and two-month olds to CVS to get them, so ours are made on regular white printer paper. They're still very pretty and if your child uses as much water as M does, it won't matter anyway. 

This is a "fun" activity I did a few times in first grade back before the Common Core sucked all the fun out of first grade. I would even hang them on the classroom windows before the fire department sucked all the fun out of that. But it works well as an at-home activity where we can still have fun and still hang things on our windows. 

I gave M only blue and purple paint for this because if I didn't we would have brown snowflakes. An old ice cube tray worked well for holding the paint. 

I cut out some snowflakes for us and M painted them. 

If we had coffee filters they would have sucked up the watercolor and allowed it to spread, making some cool designs and more evenly colored flakes. Like I said though, this worked too. 

I also used to do something similar to this for Earth Day with coffee filters and blue and green watercolors. It makes a very neat looking swirly Earth.  If you don't have watercolors on hand you can also try washable markers on the coffee filters then use a spray bottles to wet the filter, the colors should spread. 

mixology 101

I'm always looking for ideas to keep M busy while I cook dinner at night. A few nights ago I gave him two bowls of water and a medicine dropper. 20 minutes of fun. It helped that he's been fascinated with droppers since Baby G came along. 

Today we tried something similar but if added a drop of food coloring into the water and we experimented with mixing colors. 

M enjoyed seeing what colors we could make but he enjoyed squirting the dropper more. He also stirred and eventually tried pouring. 

Admittedly, it didn't last as long as it did the first time (novelty is everything with this kid) but we did have fun and only made a semi-large mess :)

salt dough beads

Last week we made some salt dough to play with then made a few items to bake in the oven and keep. 

I know I've posted about salt dough before but the recipe I use is:

1 cup flour

1/2 cup salt

1/2 cup water

Although I always end up using a bit more water than that. I've been meaning to make some large beads for a while. In fact, Santa almost brought a set of wooden ones but then went with something else. 

Anyway, we made five round salt dough balls, painted them, and added a clear coating. 

Yesterday M got to stringing. One thing to keep in mind, make the holes larger than you think you need. Our holes definitely closed up a bit in the oven. It's a lot easier to make them bigger pre-cooking than post-cooking, as I was attempting to do. We used yarn to string them. 

We will try it again. As it ended up, M liked this but I had to help him because the holes were too small. If they had been the right size he could have easily done this one independently. 

shape hunt

This was a completely last-minute, thrown-together idea that M ended up loving.  I can't say I'm 100% surprised since sometimes I'll put a lot of effort into things he spends 5 minutes doing.  Funny how that works....

We've been trying to keep M busy in this very cold weather we've been having.  The other night I spent 20 minutes playing a game M kind of created himself that was a cross between chase and hide-and-seek.  Anyway, M took a rest the other day and woke up about an hour before dinner time.  Sometimes that can be the longest hour of the day.  We needed something novel...

I quickly cut up some paper into shapes (circles, squares, and triangles) and colored them.  During the Christmas season M loved finding our elf each morning so I thought a "scavenger hunt" of sorts would be fun for him.  I hid the shapes (we did the circles, then the squares, etc.).  He loved searching for them and collecting them as he found them.  M knows those three shape names but still occasionally mixes them up so it was a great reinforcement for IDing those shapes.  Really, you could do this with anything (shapes, letters, numbers, words, etc.)  You could even add some kind of sorting element after they're all found.

Our version ended up being quick, easy, and filled up about a half hour!

As always, some photos...

shapes-

found one-

hidden triangle-