Kid Crafty - Macaroni Snowflakes

Payton's First Grade teacher asked me to come up with the class Christmas gifts this year.  I've been so busy with school that I jumped all over the chance to participate with her class AND do something crafty.

What I came up with were macaroni snowflake ornaments.  Her teacher also asked that we incorporate a photo with their gift, so I snapped photos of each child when I was there too.

This is what we came up with:

How to make macaroni snowflakes:

Supplies:
wax paper
Macaroni - I used the large wagon wheel shapes, and also a small flower shape.  Fiori, I think they were called.
Aleene's tacky glue
glitter - large
ribbon


I began this project with an example.  With kids this age, you need to give them an example.  Not all of them will be willing to come up with their own design, and with a class of 25, it was best to work with them in small groups of 4-6, and have a set example.

I started by having each child use one wagon wheel for the center.  Then they each picked out 7 fiori/flower shapes and put them around the outside.  Originally I planned to have them use paintbrushes in the glue, but then a brilliant little 6 year old boy suggested we dip each macaroni piece in the glue, and that made the project much faster and easier.  Kids are so smart!

After that we got one last round of wagon wheels and put them on the outside.  

The project does stick to the wax paper so if you don't have time to rotate, peel carefully.  

When I did this project, the kids created their snowflake, and then I took them home and spray painted them white.  Then I took them back to school the next day and they painted glue and sprinkled glitter on the project.

VARIATION:

Another way to do this project would be to mix equal parts Elmers glue and white tempera paint, mix in the macaroni, and have students get their hands dirty and assemble that way.  This is a messier way to do it but it's one way to get the whole project done in one sitting.  After their snowflake was assembled they sprinkled the glitter and were done.

I punched out their photos with a circle punch, punched a hole, had students choose their ribbon, and then had them write 2012 one side, and their name on the flip side of a little tag that we also strung on.  And then voila, they were done!  

The kids loved them.  We put them in paper bags that the kids decorated by cutting geometric shapes to create a snowman.  It was a great project!

I had to play with this at home too, but this time, I let the kids do their own design:

Morgan is making a snowflake picture frame.  

This is a fun, easy, and very inexpensive craft.  I will have macaroni for a long time.  That class of 25 students didn't use up one box of either type of macaroni.

This would make a fun winter/ Christmas craft to do while the kids are on vacation from school!

Have a great day!  Davinie

crafTuesday - Patriotic rockets, or lanterns, as the case may be.

Summer is here which means Mom is on full entertainment alert.  That means craft time. 
With the 4th of July coming in a few short weeks, I was on the hunt for a patriotic, summer craft to do with the girls, and when I came across this, I knew I had my answer:

Pin- Factory Direct Crafts

I don't know about you, but we hoard our toilet paper rolls for craft purposes, so after going on a hunt around the house, it was easy to come up with the supplies to do this craft at home.



Crepe paper, ribbon, a star craft punch, red, white, and blue jewels, glitter...... and paint. You'll notice I used acrylic paint here, but post craft I gotta tell you, GO BUY SOME POSTER PAINT. Small children and acrylic paint don't mix, lol.

I went with paint because kids love paint.  I went with glitter because my girls are obsessed with glitter.  I went with jewels, because, for pete's sake....  they are obsessed.  And it all started easily enough:

They got three rolls each and started by painting and embellishing all of the rolls before putting it together.  Everything was fine until Morgan started doing this:

And it seemed like there was more glitter than paint.

And then this one got her hands on the giant glitter shaker, and some Elmer's glue:

And she ended up looking like this:

Oh my.  Glitter.

Did you know that the glitter in the jumbo glitter shaker from Walmart has a static quality to it?  And that the flakes are huge?  I do believe I shall be carrying glitter on my person for at least the next month and a half.

This project?  We were at this project for about an hour and a half, so even though I'm going to be carrying glitter on my person for the next month and a half, it was well worth it, because my girls had a great time, and even though our rockets more look more like patriotic lanterns, we had a lot of fun with the process.  The girls did anyway.  I'm still sweeping.  ;)

Give it a try, at your own peril.  Ha!  Davinie

crafTuesday - Paper Plate Sunflowers

I'm a huge fan of crafts for kids that involve paper plates.  I used to do them all the time with Morgan when she was little.  Paper plates can be purchased in bulk, are cheap, and are sturdy enough for a multitude of ideas.

I have done a variation of this particular craft project before, but with the leaves startng to turn and Payton at 4 years old, I thought it would be a fun thing to break out for our craft time today. 

Today we went through a couple different steps and techniques to make a sunflower to hang in her room.

The cast of characters in our supply list:

I couldn't find plain old sunflower seeds when shopping for this project, but I also didn't see the harm in having a snack, so bought some David's.  We ate, spat, and were happy, lol.

You start by having them paint the back side of the paper plate.  Payton decided she wanted a rainbow sunflower. 

While she was painting, I got started on the petals.  I trimmed leaves from both yellow and orange construction paper to give her a choice, but she wanted only yellow.  I'll save the orange for something else. 

My girls are both really good with scissors so while the paint was drying, I gave her a few petals to cut out while I took care of the rest.  She would have lost all interest in the project if I had made her trim all of them.

Once the petals were cut it was time to glue them to the edge of our plate. 

Lastly was to much sunflower seeds and adhere some of them to the middle of the sunflower.  Be sure to keep the ones you intend to eat away from the glue and little fingers, lol.

And voila!  When the glue dries on this project, perhaps next week sometime, we are going to hang this in her room.  She just informed that she wants her sunflower to also have a stem, and she'd like it to be purple.

Alrighty then.  :)

Have a great day!  Davinie 

crafTuesday - Geocache

With plans to camp at the beach for a week, I knew there might be an opportunity for craft projects.  I was looking for something inexpensive and fun to do outdoors when I decided it was a great time to try Geocaching.

Ever heard of it?

Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, outdoors and then share your experiences online.

It's free and I've always wanted to do it.  There are hidden treasure everywhere.  You'd be surprised how close you might find one to where you live.

I registered at the Geocaching site and printed off a couple of cache's in the campground we were staying at as well as the nearby beach.

Going with the treasure hunting theme, I went to Michael's and picked up a bunch of $1 wooden boxes, treasure chests, for the kids to decorate.

I then loaded up on markers, some washable paint, some sequins, etc., and let the kids decorate their boxes.

Our week ended up really busy so we only had time for a cache or two. 

Geocaching.com has an Iphone app, which is great, but Marci doesn't have an Iphone and our campground has spotty service, so we were glad to have Steve and his Magellan GPS thingy.

You just enter the coordinates and start heading in the right direction.  We had a lot of fun searching for this one.  If you are getting lost there are hints and a decoder to help you find the cache, and we needed it this first time.

Eric was the lucky one to find this cache.

The kids had mixed feelings on that idea.

But they had a blast, I swear.

As long as you have access to a GPS system of sorts, you have an opportunity to search for treasure.  This particular cache didn't come with a prize but many of them do, so save those Happy Meal treasures or something else fun to leave behind.

crafTUESDAY - painted rocks

(it's still Tuesday.  Don't you be thinking it's Wednesday morning.  Nope.  Tuesday it still is).

I didn't have to come up with a craft last week.  The girls took care of the idea on their own, and I thought it was a perfect craft  for that last minut scramble, and a great craft to share.

When in doubt, grab a rock.

I wanted to do this project last year but had trouble finding any river rock.  Here in the high desert, surrounded by mountains, all we really have is lava rock, which doesn't make the prettiest yard decor. 

So....  last year when we went on our annual trip to the beach, we picked up some rocks along a nearby river and took them home for this project.  The girls decorated rocks last year as well.

I can't believe how young they look!  I am in denial that they are changing at all until I look at old pictures.  ack!

I've seen kid ideas that involve rocks where you are trying to make animals and specific shapes, etc.  But when they are little, they can't handle the pressure, so it's easier to give them some washable paints and a paintbrush, and let their free spirits determine the design.

My girls loved this project last year, and even though they were washable paints, I still have pretty rocks decorating my flower beds a year later.

This year they were a bit more methodical in the design process:

They were out "helping" Steve in his shop so he set them up with their supplies.  All the girly colors must be all used up because their choices were orange, blue, and green.  Payton has recently declared orange her new favorite color, so she wasn't too upset.

Morgan's rock features Saturn, a star in the sky, and fireflies all around it.  Too bad we don't get fireflies here.  I've never seen one in real life myself.  That would be fun.

Voila.  A colorful rock will make any landscaping look better, even a sad climbing rose bush like I have here.

Have a great day!  We are off for more swimming lessons.  Gotta love the summer time!  Davinie

crafTUESDAY - Fun for the Fourth

The summer is upon us and I don't know about you, but my kids have already put me in charge of hourly entertainment.  Sometimes it seems like it's minute by minute entertainment (and I thought swimming lessons would help!!!!)  As I need all the help I can get, I thought I'd share some of the crafty things we do this summer to give ideas to others, should you need some.  Feel free to link your own ideas to this thread to help keep me and the rest of my blog readers entertained too, okay?
I'm going to try and post every Tuesday.  crafTuesday, dontcha know. 

With the Fourth of July this weekend and Independence day being celebrated all over the USA with our red, white, and blue, I thought it would be a fun opportunity to do something patriotic.

Supplies:

You can get three bottles of School Glue from Elmer's for $1.00.   It's a staple in the kids' craft cupboard.

Tissue paper.  I was at Walmart and found a package of red, white and blue paper for $1.  This is another fun staple to that craft stash, and very inexpensive. 

One piece of white cardstock for each kid.  this is 8.5 x 11, the standard size.  I drew a rough drawing of a flag on this cardstock for each girl to decorate.

The concept is simple.  In fact, you may remember doing this in school when you were young.  I do (but Steve does not.  Perhaps he just wasn't into art like I was, lol).

You take a pencil, preferable unsharpened, and you place the eraser end in the center of a square piece of tissue paper that you've trimmed (they are about 1.5 inch squares, but I didn't measure.  I left the tissue paper folded as it is in the package, trimmed a long strip, and then trimmed that strip into squares).

You then scrunch the paper around the end of the pencil, dip it in some glue (I poured some glue onto paper plates), and press it on to your paper. 

What you are left with when you remove your pencil is a frilly cup shaped piece of tissue paper.  Keep doing it and eventually you will come up with a fun design.

I would have loved to share a finished flag, but oh my word, the sands of time may not be long enough to see this finished.  This means:

a.  it is geared for children older than 4-6.  OR
b.  it is PERFECT because it will entertain your kids for several hours or at least a bit here and there for a couple of days.

My goal is to have these finished by the 4th of July.  :) 

I like this project a lot, it was very inexpensive, and it was fun for my girls.  It really helps them work on their coordination as they hold the pencil, wrap, and dip it in glue and then place it on their project.  I took turns helping both kids and both were doing just fine. 
Need more 4th of July/summer ideas?  Check out this post here.  This project was published in BHG Scrapbooks Etc last year (woot!), and that's my girls in 2008 when they were 2 and 4.  My kids loved that project, and I still have that star banner. 
If you are headed to a barbecue this weekend or hosting an event yourself, I also wanted to pass along a fun party dip to try.  We camped a couple weeks ago and I tried out a new recipe.  The best part about it was that many of the ingredients were canned veggies, so if you are planning a long camping trip, you can save valuable fridge space until you are ready to whip up something to munch on.

It's called Cowboy Caviar and boy is it delicious.  I'd share a photo, but I made it while at the lake and the minute I set it out it was gone.  That's always a good sign, methinks.

Cowboy Caviar:

1 (15.5 ounce) can of black beans, drained
1 (15.5 ounce) can of black-eyed peas, drained
1.5 cups of salsa (you can also do 1 15.5 ounce can of diced tomates w/green chiles, if you prefer).
1 (15.5 ounce) can of corn
1/2 medium onion, chopped
1/4 green bell pepper, finely chopped
1-2 jalepeno peppers, finally chopped
1/2 t. garlic salt
1 cup italian dressing
3/4 cup chopped cilantro

Mix everything together and then add the cilantro and dressing.
YUM.

My camping friends said it would be nice with avacado's, or would be great in a taco (they said fish tacos but I'm not a taco with fish in it kinda girl, so I'll just say taco, lol).


I'm going to take a batch of this dip along with a bag of Juanita's tortilla chips to a barbecue.  Steve is on shift on the 4th for the first time in a few years, so the girls and I are going to be fairly low key this year, which will be a fun change. 


Have a great day!  Davinie

Pumpkin Pie Playdough, thanksgiving crafts, and CKC-Portland with Studio Calico

It's the week of Thanksgiving and here in the US, the kids are out of school. I don't know about yours, but mine aren't necessarily in need of a break, so I've been pulling my hair out a bit, entertaining them while trying to get work and other projects done at the same time.

I did search around on the internet for some fun Thanksgiving craft projects, and the other day, we made these:

Turkey Paper Plate Craft

I'm a huge sucker for paper plate and toilet paper roll crafts. I buy cheap packages of paper plates just to use for fun seasonal home decor projects for my girls. They LOVE art this type of project works for a variety of age groups so I am able to keep them entertained.

If you want to do a different kind of craft project, try pumpkin pie playdough. The kids will feel like they are making their own thanksigiving edibles, and will stay out of your hair while you make the real pies:

Pumpkin Pie Playdough:

1 cup flour
1/2 cup salt
2 t. cream of tartar
2 t. pumpkin pie spice
1/2 t. cinnamon
1 T. vegetable oil
1 cup water
food coloring

Combine ingredients in saucepan and cook over low-medium heat, stirring with a spatula, until a ball forms.

Turn onto the counter and after it has cooled a little, knead until smooth.

Be sure to store in an air-tight container if you want it to last!

I also found some fun Thanksgiving worksheets here.

We are headed to Steve's parent's house for Turkey dinner, and I'm bringing the usual, Pumpkin Roll. I plan on making 3 or 4 and sending one to my sister's house for her Thanksgiving feast as well.

Libby has a really good recipe here. Speaking of which, I heard on the news that all of the Libby canned pumpkin is on store shelves. The warehouse is empty and there won't be any more once it has run out until August 2010. So if you plan to use canned pumpkin in your holiday baking between now and then, you might want to stock up!

In addition to my pumpkin rolls, I'm also bringing dinner rolls, and am going to use this recipe for that.

As far as Black Friday goes, I don't normally get too hyped up about getting out and getting the great deals. In fact, Steve saw a newscast last night that said that you can be tricked into buying below grade product on Black Friday, so be sure to read the fine print if you are on the hunt for computers and TV's, etc. It might seem like a good idea for a low price, but you might be purchasing low quality goods as well. So know what you are looking for! Me? I'm on the hunt for towels and knit pants for my kids, lol. I'll probably be okay purchasing them for 60% off. ha!

One last thing before I go:

If you live around the Portland area and love CKC's, tomorrow is your day! Registration will be open first thing Wednesday morning for classes and the vendor faire. Portland is as close to my stomping grounds as I can get, and I'm totally honored to be teaching a class at CKC! I'm going to be representing my favorite scrapbook kit club and teaching a class on masking and misting. The class is going to be a lot of fun! It looks like there will only be two opportunities to take this class that weekend, so be sure to sign up quickly before it sells out! Check out the Class list here. The Studio Calico class is being offered at 12:30 and again at 1:50 on Saturday. Sign up and come play with me!

Have a great week! Davinie

a kitschy love post.

Well, for the first time in a while Steve and I got to go out on a date. Last night we went to dinner in downtown Bend, I had Halibut, Steve had chicken and ribs, and then we went to the movies. We saw Benjamin Button. Um... it was different. I'm not sure what I think about many parts of the movies, but the one thing that stands out to me the most was that Cate Blanchett is gorgeous! Really. She played everything from a teenager to an old woman, and I was constantly struck by how beautiful her skin and her features are. She has a beautiful dancer's body and she's even had kids! She's also a great actress.

I saw her in a play once when I was in London. It was called Plenty. And when we were in the theather, John Lithgow (from 3rd Rock from the Sun at the time) sat in the next row over. That's the closest to famous people I've ever been. lol

Anyway, we had a great date, and came home to happy kids because they spent the night making cookies and playing with Grandma and Grandpa. They love spending time together and it warms my heart to see them.

Today we are spending the day home. I'm doing a bit of cleaning, a bit of crafting, and in a bit we are going to decorate cakes. Just for fun we made a couple of round cakes this morning, and this afternoon the kids get to decorate them with frosting and sprinkles and have a piece for dessert after dinner. They are very excited about it.

Before I go I wanted to share a bit of hybrid Kitschy love. Hybrid is new for me, but I"m having a lot of fun with it. I love that you can change the colors in the patterns to fit your projects.

For this layout, I loved the blue houndstooth so I printed it as is.

You can get the houndstooth in the Olivia kit.

Next I used the yellow polka dot paper in the Matilda kit, and changed the colors to a nice kraft. I then trimmed out clouds for Payton to sleep on.

I had a lot of fun for this last element. I printed some buttons from the Thrift Store Chic Button kit on Claudine Hellmuth's Sticky Backed canvas, trimmed them out, and then adhered them to Bazzill chipboard circles. I then used my Cropadile to punch holes, and then tied floss. I just love the look, and since it's a digital kit, I'll have buttons forever, lol!

Here's my layout!



I used some ribbon from my stash and some Basic Grey sticker alphas for the title.

I also used a new punch from Fiskars! The Apron Lace punch. LoVE it.

I just wanted to point out that 2peas is having a sale on Kitschy kits with 10% off. That's a great deal! You can check all of Danielle's kits out here.

Have a great Saturday, Valentines Day, the day of LOOOVVVEEEE. Before I go I wanted to leave you with a little last minute Valentine craft idea. I saw this yesterday and thought it was super, super cute to have hanging around the house.

Heartman

I think we are going to make one of these guys today, for entertainment and fun with the kids.

:) Davinie

P.S. Less than a week until y0ur January layouts are due if you want to win a couple of great RAK'S! I have been adding some great goodies to mine so I hope you'll play along! Check it out here.

Patriotic Craftiness

We were recently having a discussion over at Studio Calico about summer crafts for toddlers / preschools. Now that school is out, it's definitely time to get the craftiness in gear for the summertime.

I used to be on this monthly craft kick with Morgan where we'd make a new home decor item for my kitchen window. We'd use paper plates and make ladybugs, flowers, snowmen, pumpkins, etc., etc., for each month of the year. We've been busy this year so I haven't been doing it as often... bad mommy! But I thought we should replace the spring trees we made a few months ago with something fun for the fourth of July.

I was surfing around online and came across this:

How easy! All you need to do is water down some acrylic paint, and what scrapbooker doesn't have a ton of paint. Then you just dribble some onto a piece of paper, get a plastic straw, and blow it around. Perfect!

I took three pieces of cardstock, red, white, and blue, and drew a star on the backside. Then I turned them over and had Morgan create her fireworks with red, white, and blue paint. After it was dry, she turned them over and trimmed them out. For a finished look, I then mounted her stars on another piece of cardstock, trimmed them out with scalloped scissors, she punched holes in the sides, and we attached hemp and hung them in the kitchen window. Done! If your toddler/preschooler has a short attention span, this craft works great because it doesn't take long to do the painting portion, and you have to take a break to let it dry before you can trim it out.

If you have a little one, obviously you can trim the star out for them, but if you have an older child, it helps to develop their motor skills by having them do it themselves.

Payton was not a fan of blowing through the straw, so she just painted her paper. You can't mess up on this project so it was great that she had interest long enough to make a good mess. In fact, she sat there longer than Morgan did, so I was very proud of her.

Our finished star! And yes, it is machine stitching. I couldn't help myself. I liked the finished look. It will also keep this project together and perhaps I'll save it to hang next year as well.

I wanted a photof of both a smiling Morgan and a finished garland, but alas, this was the first attempt:

And this overexaggerated smile with eyes that were NOT on me was the second. ::sigh::

Overall it was a fun project! And Morgan did an AWESOME job trimming them out on her own.
In fact, she became very crafty, and while the first projects were drying, decided to do something on her own. I think it's very American Flag-ish. Don't you!?


While I was searching around for ideas for this project I also came across a Crafts newsletter put out by Family Fun. I haven't received one yet, but I've always enjoyed the fun crafts in their magazine, so I signed up right away. You can sign up here. You can get all sorts of interesting looking newsletters, including a kitchen one. Definitely clicked that box.....

Happy Thursday! Tomorrow night is Reveal night at Studio Calico! And Saturday I am participating in that scrap sale at my LSS. I am SO excited to get rid of a few things. In honor of that sale I'm going to do another little giveaway. Not as big as the last one, this time it is a little something new that I picked up. I was so excited to see all the new October Afternoon at my LSS that I may have picked up a little something for someone who reads my blog, so check back tomorrow.

:)