Rainbow Crafts for Kids

 I love these little mobiles crafted from paper plates and streamers.

 This is a fun little puzzle made with craft sticks that your child needs to line up in the right order to made the rainbow.

My daughter loves working with the colored noodles.  These are rainbow colored in honor of St. Patrick's Day.

This is a cute rainbow made just from spare ribbons. 

This seems to be the hottest new thing out there and we might try one at your house.  Melted (the the hair dryer or heat gun) crayons on canvas.  We will be using a piece of foam core board.

Felt Food Tea Bags Tutorial

I always try to make something handmade to go along with any gifts I give.  I think it makes it more special when people know you took a little time to make something.  One of my favorite things growing up with three sisters was having tea parties.  My daughter loves having parties with her stuffed animals or friends.  

This is a fun little tutorial I put together for my daughter's play kitchen.  She loves to run a cafe and serve up all of her customers tasty treats.  Normally she makes me coffee - if that says anything about how much coffee I actually drink - but I wanted to make some tea bags for her to play with.

So I just started with those organza jewelry bags.  I cut the ribbons out of the bags by just snipping off the end and pulling them out.

I just cut out a rectangle of black felt and placed it in the bag to represent the tea leaves.  I wanted to use chunky glitter or confetti, but we only had red, so I went with the black felt.

Then, I put one of the ribbons I pulled out of the bag into the top and stitched the sack shut. 

 Finally, I stitched down a small square of felt for the tab.  I would have ironed some little gems or monogram applique on if my iron was working.  I guess that three years of using it every day while sewing has finally burned it out. 

So, here is the set of 4 that I made.  On a side note, this would be a super cute project for a baby shower favor or bridal shower favor filled with bath salts instead of felt. 

I put links to the supplies below.  I usually buy things in bulk online because I often make lots of the same items and put them in my etsy shop or sell them at craft shows. 

Animal Party Gift

We have a birthday today and I thought that I would make up a couple sets of these little animals.  Kamille is completely obsessed with putting collars and leashes on her little pets.  So, I came up with the idea of using hair rubber bands to make the collars so I didn't have to constantly keep tying ribbon onto these little animals.  While I was at the Dollar Store picking up the hair bands, I also got those little plastic barretts shaped like bows for the animals ears, the clippy barretts to make earrings, and the ribbon for the leashes. 

 Last time I used some charms on the collars that I had in my stash, but I lucked out and found a pack of hair rubber bands that already had charms on there.

I just took a decent length of ribbon and hot glued it into the hair rubber band, covering the metal closure part.  Then, I looped around the other end and glued it into a handle like a leash would have. 

For the earrings, I took the little clippies and hot glued flowers and other doodads I had around the craft room onto them to make sets of earring.

I also made mini pet beds and outfits.  I will try to post the tutorial for the outfits with the pattern later this week. 

Our Preschool Thanksgiving

Thanks to some awesome tutorials, we had a blast at the preschool Thanksgiving "feast". 

I made the paper bag popcorn turkey, corn on the cob cupcakes, and a preschool staple - carrots. 

 Here is the turkey.  The kids loved it and it was so easy and cheap to make.  Here is the tutorial.  It took about 10 minutes to make this turkey start to finish.  I used air popped pop corn to make it healthier but I'm sure premade or microwave would work just as well.

 These are mini muffins.  For my version, I used M&Ms instead of jelly beans.  They are cheaper and the kids like them better.  I also just make the cupcakes in the mini muffin pan because I didn't want to give every preschooler a huge cupcake right before lunch. 

Here is the inspiration version made in full size muffin tins with jelly beans.  You could actually get more of the oval shape with the M&Ms too if you poked them in on their sides instead of flat.  I used chocolate chip muffin mix so the chocolate buttons went better with the flavor.  I think that the whole batch was about $5.00 and it only took about 30 minutes.  The mini muffins cook in 10 minutes, then I pop them into the freezer to cool them and then I just tinted a tiny bit of premade frosting yellow.  The tutorial is here.

Here are all of our happy Pilgrims and Native Americans after their big feast. 

Paint Your Own Corn On The Cob

Make your own Thanksgiving Harvest at home with your child!

This was so much fun and super easy!!

And look at the cute result!

So I adapted this project from a bubble wrap corn cob that I saw on another blog. I was so excited to get started that I ran down in the basement to get the bubble wrap that I had stashed away only to find out that someone *not my husband* had thrown it away! UGHHH! Determined to do our project I found a length of plastic canvas and thought, I can do this!

So in order to do our version, you will need:

toilet paper tubes

green construction paper or card stock

glue (i used hot glue ~ who wants to wait for it to dry?!?!)

and some paint ( i used yellow and orange)

Cover your surface and your child!

We did our project over a brown paper bag which we later used as a gift bag for Grandma and Grandpa's 40th wedding gift bag! No waste:) I love it!!

Lay your canvas or bubble wrap down and pour some paint on it.

Next, let your little one roll the tp tube over the canvas.  

This really worked well because the paint actually looked like little kernels or corn!

We let them dry.... okay, we blow dried them! What?! I don't like waiting and neither does my 3 year old:)

 Then we cut our our long leaves for the corn husks and glued them on the sides overlapping in the back yet open in the front. And voila!

I had one happy toddler:)

Happy crafting!

Starting a Toy Share / Toy Circle

So I just brought home a bunch of toys for preschool to wash in the dishwasher. Kamille has been going crazy playing with them. It's a little mind boggling to me because they were duplo blocks and she already has a big bin of them at home. Somehow, these blocks were better. She spent the whole day playing with them. Then I started thinking that maybe I should box up and store some of her toys and then rotate them in and out of her room. That made my mind jump to an idea of starting a toy sharing circle.

The concept is pretty basic. I took a $3.00 20 Quart Tupperware storage container and turned it into a Toy Share Box. 

It took me about 30 minutes in total. First I decided on the theme (basically because I love themes).  A theme isn't really essential, but I thought that it would be fun.  Then I went into Kamille's room and gathered up a bunch of toys that fit the theme.  I am going with a fairy tale theme this time. 

I basically have a couple of books, a coloring book, Snow White and the 2 Dwarfs Peg Dolls, some Melissa & Doug Wooden Dolls, some dress up clothes (for both girl and boy), a little cottage, and a carriage. 

Obviously you could put anything into the box.  I thought about throwing in a couple of DVDs and a Cd too.  You could do a music box with instruments and cds.  You could do a box full of building blocks, cars, a farm and animals, family games, puzzles, play food, play dough, puppets, art supplies.  The possibilities are really endless.  I might do a space theme next time.  We have a bunch of books about space and some puppets and other toys that would make a really fun space themed box.

Then, I wrote Kamille's Initials on all of the toys with a Sharpie. 

Finally, I just typed up a label for the box with a list of the contents and taped it onto the front of the box.  I covered the whole label with tape so it was sort of laminated on there to keep the kids from ripping it off.   

So, I am going to ask some friends and maybe some of the preschool moms if they want to start the circle with me.  Preschool or other regular group activity is great because you see the people on a regular basis which makes the exchange easier.  My concept was that we would all trade boxes in a big circle once a week or once every two weeks until you get your original box back.  Then, you could either start the share over again with the same box or switch it out for a new one.  You can wash the toys off when you are packing up the box. 

In my mind, this is going to be great if I can get some other moms on board.  Lisa and I will be doing it together for sure.  This way kids get to play with "new" toys every week without anyone having to go out and buy new toys.  Like I said, I only spent about 30 minutes putting the box together and making the label.  Plus, it might be fun for your kid to help come up with a theme and choose out items for the box.  I'm sure I'm not the first person to have this idea, but now that it occurred to me I am very excited about it.  

If you start a toy share circle, please leave a comment and let me know about your theme and how you are setting it up.   

  

Preschool Apple Cookies

This is a little set of cookies I made for the preschool open house.  They are a basic sugar cookie cut really think.  Then, I bake them per the usual recipe directions.  Once they come out of the oven I let them cool slightly.  Then, using the same cookie cutter, I cut a piece of colored marshmallow fondant (the recipe is on the blog) and use it to decorate the cookie.  Finally, I just piped an outline with white frosting to make them pop. 

Valentine's Day Candy Buttons

I was looking through my new Taste of Home and I saw a sheet of candy buttons on one of the pages.  I used to love those things as a kid.  With Valentine's Day coming up, I decided to make up some sheets of my own candy buttons.

Candy dots are so great for kids.  They are fun to make and inexpensive.  You start with a batch of royal icing.  I use the meringue powder recipe for royal icing.  I would make a 1/2 batch because a full recipe will make more royal icing than you could eat in a lifetime. 

Royal Icing Using Meringue Powder:

4 cups (440 grams) confectioners' (powdered or icing) sugar

3 tablespoons (30 grams) meringue powder

1/2 teaspoon extract (vanilla, lemon, almond)

1/2 - 3/4 cup (120 - 180 ml) warm water

Note: Food Coloring (I use Gel Pastes that can be found at cake decorating and party stores or else on-line)

You can also make royal icing with egg whites. 

First, I removed 1/3 of the icing and put it into a sandwich bag.  I left it white.

Next, I tinted the remaining icing light pink and removed 1/2 of what was left and put it into a plastic sandwich bag or piping bag.

Finally, I mixed more red food coloring into the rest of the batch and made a dark pink icing.  I added that into a plastic sandwich bag. 

You can also use piping bag fitted with a small writing tip.  I used heavy duty sandwich ziplock bags.  That way you can close the bag and the kids don't get it all over the place. 

Cut the tips off of the bag.  

To make the heart shapes I traced around a cookie cutter on a piece of paper.  Then, I cut pieces of PARCHMENT paper and place 1 piece of parchment over the outline.   

 Pipe the dots on over the outline and then fill the inside of the heart in.  After you let the dots set up for a couple of minutes, you can poke down the spikes.

 If you want a more traditional look, you can cut strips of parchment and pipe rows of buttons.

 I put them on a cookie sheet and dry them out on the counter or in the oven (off) for several hours to dry.

 This is a great fine motor skills projects for kids.  My three-year-old made some candy worms. 

Another idea for working on the fine motor skills is to print out shapes, letter, or numbers and layer the parchment over the top. 

Valentine's Day Paper Bag Album Layouts

Lisa and I had a blast getting together last week and making about a dozen of these love and Valentine's Day themed mini albums for our MadAboutScraps shop.  I am personally going to use one for preschool Valentines Day Party photos.  Kamille might also give one to her preschool teacher as a Valentine's Day Gift. 

 I made a pocket by cutting the mats in half on a diagonal.  I used gems to make it look like it is attached with brads.

 I layered up some prima flowers for dimension and used a large brad for the center.

 I love to embellish my tags with some simple stickers. 

Instead of using ribbons for the pull-out pocket pages, I used stickers to create a tab.