Macaroni... it's not just for dinner!

This Idea Came From: I totally followed these directions... http://www.makeandtakes.com/coloring-pasta-making-necklaces. Yes, I said I followed directions... but only because I tried this earlier this year and majorly made a huge mess. For this craft it pays not to be a pioneer in the coloring portion... go to town with your wagon wheels and your penne and your elbows... but do yourself a favor and consider yourself warned use the rubbing alcohol.

Our Experience: This has been a craft I have wanted to do with Emma for a while. The first time we attempted to make these necklaces... I skipped the rubbing alcohol step in the food coloring. Huge mistake! The food coloring never dried and oh dear what a mess. Had to scrap it and throw them all out.

 
This time... much, much easier. I just took little sandwich bags tossed the food coloring, macaroni in various shapes, and a little rubbing alcohol.  Emma squished all the bags around and they turned out way more vibrant than I expected! Success so far. We shook them onto a paper towel lined cookie sheet to let them dry.

"Are they ready yet?" Not yet "Are they ready now?" No, not yet "Are they ready now, Mom?" Grrrr.


Ok so eventually in under an hour they were ready to be strung.  This was great.  Emma was able to manipulate the taped end (like a shoelace) through the various sizes of macaroni.  I taped the bottom end flat so they stayed on, once done we tied them, and snipped the freyed ends off. Wha Lah! Really well done. Wish we would have had wagon wheels... oh well.. next time.  We will do this craft again.

The Lesson:  If at first you do not succeed, try try again.

Crafty in a Kit!!

This Idea Came From:  I have to give credit to our little cousin Kendall, 6yrs old. She is a big time artist in our family, always brings hand made crafts as Christmas presents to her aunts,uncles, and cousins. I always loved getting those little cut outs and window hangy-doodads.  It meant a lot to me then but even more so now to see how much the little artist making the present gets excited.
 
Our Experience: As a rule I like to use recycled items in crafts so this is a bit new to us. WOW.  It was nice to have the entire project contained in a sealed plastic dome with visual suggestion attached. Easy peasy! Basically, I cut an old fashion grocery bag "paper please" and laid it flat. I lined all the plaster ornaments in a line opened the paint up, gave her water, a brush and carte blanche. This was a nice craft for a three and three quarter year old. She got the concept pretty fast and did her thing for around 20 minutes. (Angels Singing)

We let them dry, she turned them over and wrote her name on each one. This handed me a bit of a laugh. You can't have a name much shorter than 4 letters.. but a child starting out with writing her own name has planing and foresight of size verses space issues. It was difficult for her to get E-M-M-A on the backs. so she wrote the E, most importantly, and all the other letters surrounded and squished where eva they would fit. It was pretty cute. Next we threaded colorful raffia through the tiny hole so the recipients could hang them on their Christmas trees. (Beware branches will be dragging on your floor after application.) She wrapped them in tissue paper and put them in little Christmas gift bags and put them under the tree. She felt very proud and happy that she has something to give on Christmas. This also reminded her that she needed to go through her toys to give back to Santa for the Toy Reconstitution Program. This is a marvelous program that has children choose the toys from their stash that they are no longer interested in and leave them for Santa to make new again for the next little boy or girl.(Cough, cough.. Good Will)

The Lesson: She experimented a few times and painted over and over the ornaments until she was satisfied. I like that she figures things out on her own...   We figured out black is not necessarily the best color to start with... especially if you are painting a snowman! Lesson learned! So she dipped them in water and rubbed off the paint.. good happenings. She looked at me and said this snowman is dirty! I said yeah.. he just cleaned a chimney.  She laughed and decided it was good.

Short Bread Jumpin' Jive Turkey!

This Idea Came From: Gramma Mer Mer is in town for Thanksgiving and Emma has been waiting all week to make the Nick Jr. Turkey Hand Cookies.http://www.nickjr.com/recipes/hand-turkey-frosted-cookies.jhtml

Our Experience: Okay my sweet and persistent child... Today is the day we make the Hand Turkey Cookies! I grabbed a piece of paper and traced Emma's hands and we cut them out- this was to be our template. The Kitchen Aid was put to use today! Emma can toss in each ingredient and count how many cups or teaspoons we dump in... This is exciting stuff for her! Mixed dough- flattened and traced hand template with a skewer. Sidebar:We have a love for Short Bread Cookies in this house... except for me. I am happy to have them around because I will not be tempted in the least to sneak them.  Everybody is a winner with Shortbread cookies- Emma gets to do her craft, daddy get a jar full of his favorites, Gramma loves them too.. and I do not get sabotaged. I used the Argo recipe on the back of a box I cut out a long time ago.. and it seems to be a huge hit. http://www.argostarch.com/recipe_details.asp?id=1261 I found the recipe online. So- Shortbread is a little difficult for little hands to work with- but we made it through fine. She had to be very gentle and patience. Next: I was prepared to mix all of my own frostings but... nahhhh. I bought a little pint of white butter cream and 4 tubes of colored frostings to apply to the top of the cookies.  I chose Red, Yellow, Blue.. and Black... Who wants to make Black frosting, ever?  Not me... so I figured with the primaries and the black we would be covered from Thanksgiving to Next Valentines Day for Cook Frosting. We made a pallet of colors on a plate and used wood skewers to paint the icing onto the cookie. Maybe we will try another way next time... not as vibrant as I had hoped.. but good for eating. It was a cute little project to squeeze in between Thanksgiving cooking.

The Lesson: Kids need to part of the kitchen too when the holidays come around.  They feel left out or in the way... The best thing to do is put them to work doing an easy part of prep work.. or create a diversion altogether... Turkey Cookies! Happy Thanksgiving all.

The Great Anti-Toddler Gobbler

This Idea Came From: Today we have a friend over for a play date. Two against one, I was pressed to find something they would agree on. CRAFT!!!! I looked up online for cute turkey ideas.. but that were a little different. This table decoration gave me a great idea. http://familyfun.go.com/crafts/turkey-table-topper-669418/

Our Experience: Because I was pulling this from thin air... I scrambled to get things going fast.  I grabbed two large sheets of white paper and also found a turkey head online  http://crafts.kaboose.com/pumpkin-turkey.html and printed a few of them to get the girls started whilst I gathered the STUFF. Stickers, glue, feathers, sprinkles, buttons, beads, crayola, markers, scissors, eyeballs, popcycle sticks... and anything else I could grab. I am a collector of paint swatches at the hardware stores... to cut up and use in our crafty times. The colors are vibrant and not a mess maker. I drew the outlined suggestion of feathers and told the girls to  decorate each one; one with stickers, one with glued paper, one with feathers, one with marker.. and so on. They cut out the feathers with a little help- then glued them to a sheet of construction paper for stability. Then the front and back of the turkey head with a popcycle stick stacked in between. Pressed them gently and put them on the heat register on the floor for fast drying time (one flip to get both sides). I made one too... out of the leftover back grounds of sticker garbage. Kind of a good argument for saving those types of things.. as they make nice patterns.

The Lesson: This craft was perfect for almost 4 year olds... it brought them together and focused on one thing instead of zipping from room to room not agreeing on a thing! Crafts save the world!

Posted by Sookie at 10:45 AM

Feather Flower Cups

This Idea Came From: Today we are feeling a bit inspired to make some flowers so I went hunting for some ideas online. http://www.makeandtakes.com/earth-day-recycled-art

Our Experience: Emma saw me take out the "crap" stuff... which is her way of saying craft... and it was time to get messy! I cut the egg carton down to the cups and speared teh bottoms so she could paint them green. She did really well. then after they somewhat dried (we couldn't wait til they were all the way dry) we inserted the pipe cleaner stems and kinked them inside the cup so they would stay put. Next Emma put glue and paper pieces from a past "crap" we did and the final step was to stick feathers inside the centers to hide all the rough edges. Whah Lah!! We got super messy.. but I tend to like just going for it and cleaning up after. Emma is soaking in the tub now! She has one green eyebrow, hands and elbows covered- but is thoroughly satisfied with her bouquet.

The Lesson: Anything you do is always original.. when you make it with your own hands. It is fantastic to see things form from her hands. A great lesson for an old artist. Wing it.. and have no fear.

Felt Fun

This Idea Came From: I believe I found this idea in an art room at a school. When Emma was really little we started cutting shapes out of felt and playing with them on a huge table in the garage/studio area... we just rediscovered them today!

Our Experience: We found our stash of felt shapes and remnants. I covered a canvas with one large solid piece of felt and the fun was reborn. I think we are going to hang the board up for permanent activity in the kitchen or living room or end of a hallway... and I will start making more and more people, buildings, cars, animals. The great thing about a felt board is the creative outlet is endless for her alone and also we parents. She is already requesting different things she wants made into felt. She played by herself for almost an entire hour. I don't know, but in three year old speak.. that is nothing short of a miracle! This will be an ongoing and gradual activity- we will see where it goes.

The Lesson: Felt has a certain ability to keep Emma focused to make choices on her own- placement, color and content. She talks to the board and whatever she is making.... so there is loads of opportunity to eavesdrop and get the inner workings of the little mastermind! Here you see that she made an Elmo who was covered by a red blanket- he was going to sleep and was told very sweetly that he would not be cranky if he took one. She on the other hand skipped the nap today.

Easter Eggs

This Idea Came From: Third annual Family Easter Egg Decorating was a huge success. This must be done with the entire family present at our house.

Our Experience: Every year we set our sights on darker, deeper color. But the rule is we have to use egg dyes from the box. So, this year we had three dye pills per bowl and 1 1/2 tbls of vinegar. We skipped water. Then added more vinegar. I think we actually had success. This is strangely too much fun for we adults and there are never enough eggs.

The Lesson: Good clean fun.

Sowing Seeds

This Idea Came From: The desire to grow our own garden just like all our grampas and grammas.

Our Experience: Spring has arrived and we simply do not stay in the house when the sun is shining. It is a crime to not enjoy this time of year. We ate our breakfast- because every farmer needs her sustenance- then we got dressed in our dirty digs and out the back door we went with our seed packets. Emma was a great listener. I used her shovel and she used my shovel.. we had out gardening gloves and saved starter flats to count out seeds into the dirt. This was very exciting! Fill the flats with dirt, poke a hole with a finger, drop a seed or two in each compartment and pat, pat, pat. Of course the watering will be hers to do everyday. We will be using her child sized watering can and it will be so exciting to see the seeds come out of the dirt. We have the Seedlings in a sunny window where Emma checks them quite regularly to see if anything has happened. Oh boy.... this could be a long week!

The Lesson: Reading directions, using tools, and plenty of patience... does a garden good. Plant something with your cutie today!

Bird Cage

This Idea Came From: http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/animals/cagedbird/

Our Experience: I was and still am shocked that this worked!! This is a project that requires doing a first step then waiting another day or later in the evening. It takes some time to get the hang of slippery glue, string, and a balloon. We tried a few ways and the best was to just dunk all the string in a bowl full of glue at once. Get it all gunky! Then put it on the balloon. Wear a smock and do not be scared of having a good amount of clean up on hair, clothes.. and tables. It is just Elmers so it is not so horrible but be prepared for a potential mess. After we helped each other wrap the balloon with wet glued string we found a clothes-pin and hooked it to a hanger so there would be no issues with getting it off a plate or worse! It dried by evening the same day- so we took a small dowel and raffia string and put our bird on a perch. The moment of truth was when it was time to pop the balloon... the glue slowed down the popping process and was not startling. It was actually really cool. It retracted like the Wicked Witch of the East's feet curled under Dorothy's house. We had a giggle about that. Our bird cage is now hanging in our living room since it is so neat-o!

The Lesson: Something that was expected to be terribly hard.. was really easy. What made this project awesome was we were so surprised by its success. It is fun to get really gloppy and sloppy. And it is super cute!

Mosaic Paper

This Idea Came From: The Little Hands Art Book by Judy Press, Page 53

Our Experience: Emma's cousins came over this morning for a visit so we flipped through the book of crafts and found one they all wanted to do together. First, I took out remnant craft paper of different colors and let them each rip two colors each onto paper plates. It really didn't matter what technique or size pieces they did- this was a nice stalling activity so I could gather glue onto another paper plate (I added a drop or two of water and mixed it on the plate so it would be easier to use with paint brushes). Markers were used to draw an outline of what they wanted to "mosaic" on the paper. Jake opted for the boy approach of getting right to the drawing, Kendall (older) copied what was in the book which was fantastic, and Emma wanted to do what Kendall was doing but needed help with the outline. No biggie. After that was established each of them took a brush of glue and figured out their own way. It was GREAT! Kendall glued the back of each piece, Jake made dots on the paper and stuck the paper to it, and Emma painted glue inside the whole shape area she wanted to mosaic and then started to place paper on it all at once. All good!

The Lesson: This was a nice project that made each of them aware and myself as well... that there are many different ways to accomplish the end result. Feeling good about what you are doing for yourself.. but appreciating what your neighbor is doing with the same concept is always one of my favorite discoveries. Sharing in preparing the paper... being careful with sneezing away from the loose paper... following steps.. and being creative with your own ideas. All in all a wonderful crafty morning. We love our cousins.

Quick Tulips

This Idea Came From: I thought it up. It is Valentines Day and my favorite flower is the tulip. So, we made a paper bouquet... well it was merely a suggestion!

Our Experience: Waiting for the chef to make breakfast, I pre-cut 8 flower heads.. and a piece of ribbon. Brought a whole piece of green paper, scissors, glue, and oil pastels (but crayons work too). We used a piece of white rolled paper so we could make the background big enough to draw on as well. Sat the young one down at the table and let her make blades of grass on her own. I cut long stems. She was chomping at the bit to start gluing and I let her put everything anywhere she wanted. I put one finger on each end of the stem and she drew a glue line by herself from one end to the other. Not a bad project for steady control and practicing purposeful application. After everything was glued I drew simple outlines of a few things and she filled in faces and details... and made a few of her own contributions... like worms in the dirt. Ha ha... cute.

The Lesson: Today she seemed to catch on of the order of things... like.. cutting first - then placing.. then glue. Even though it didn't quite make it in the spots predetermined... she was great at taking charge of her art. Confidence. I love how she started coloring the sun's rays and didn't stop until she made it all the way around. That shows stick-with-it-ness!