Holiday Babbling...

(...I'm making my blogging comeback slowly but surely... in the meantime, let me share with you a couple of recent craft articles over at Babble.com - some great ideas for kids' holiday projects!)

Holiday Crafts for Kids

More Holiday Crafts for Kids

Winter Crafts for Kids

Thanksgiving Crafts for Kids

I hope you're all having a wonderful week!  If you have a sec - pop on over to Babble.com to take a look at my Thanksgiving Crafts for Kids piece.  Direct link HERE.

Halloween Crafts for Kids

My latest article "Halloween Crafts for Kids" is up today over at Babble.com - head HERE to check it out, and be sure to spend some time getting crafty with YOUR kids this Halloween!

Back to School Crafts

I have an article over at Babble.com this week as part of their "Back to School" package.  I hope you'll head over and check out my projects for preschoolers, kindergarteners, and grade schoolers (including art aprons, pictured below)  Click HERE to jump to the article!

The Valentines I Couldn't Show Until Now... part 2

I love celebrating the holidays with our close family friends and their kids.  I'm the honorary aunt to my BFF Heather's kids, and I always enjoy putting together some small treats for her kids, my nieces Mariah and Lily and my nephew Anthony.

Here's Anthony's Valentines.  He got more candy than the girls... because he's harder to shop for!  I do love the little M&M guy, though!  He also got a sun catcher and some of those crazy little things you put in water and they grow?  Those even amuse ME!  : )

 

You probably remember me showing you on of the fabric drawstring bags I made for the girls...

 

Mariah is quickly heading towards her teenage years, so it's really fun to pick out things for her.  Notice the little LOVE earrings and buttons, and the sparkly stickers.  She is really into all things peace-sign related (what goes around comes around, right?!) so I picked up an iron-on tee-shirt transfer for her that's a peace sign made of hearts.  And of course, you probably remember that little notepad?

  

Because kids shouldn't have all the fun, I made Heather (their mom, my BFF... are you following this?!) a goody bag too.  I filled it with some cupcake accessories since she's my partner in baking crime, some heavenly chocolates, and you can't see well in the picture but the packaged notepad and pen says something along the lines of "I'm only as strong as the coffee I drink and the hairspray I use"  Love it!

  

Lily's bag was the biggest.  She's (almost) two, and I'm hoping she can use it as a toy sack or something afterwards.  I picked her up this cute Valentines-y, cupcake tee from Old Navy.  Adorable!

  

The bag HAD to be big so that it could hold this friend... remember Ruby Bear?  (I love how I titled that post "Ruby Bear Part 1" and part 2 never came!!!)

  

Yup, I finally finished Ruby!  She's not perfect - but she's one of the ONLY things I've ever knit that isn't a scarf!  And although her features aren't perfect, and my increases are too loose, and she's a little fuzzy because the yarn has some acrylic in it... I think she has a certain charm, don't you agree?

 

And finally... I received a little gift of my own in the mail this weekend.  I won a contest last week over at Marie's place (I never win anything!  Yikes!) and got this little bundle of love sent to me.  Thanks, Marie!  And check out the darling stamped tag... a woman after my own heart I swear!  : )

 

Happy Valentines Day, friends!  

Play Doh Valentines

Update!  This project was featured on Craft Gossip this afternoon!  Thanks so much!

 
One of my fondest memories as a kid was when my Mum would make home-made play doh.  I would always get to choose the color, and help knead it once it was cool enough.

(Yup, that's me as a tot!)

I always giggle when I see those teeny tiny tubs of play doh you can buy en masse for Valentines and Halloween treats because I know it is sooo quick, easy and cheap to make.

Here's how you can make your own play doh Valentines for the kiddos to take to school and pass out to friends, without breaking your budget...

Play Doh Valentines

Ingredients

2 cups plain flour

1 cup salt

2 cups water

2 tbsp vegetable oil

2 tsp cream of tartar

food coloring

(super easy) Directions

Combine all ingredients in a medium to large pan over low heat. 

 Stir!  It's a good arm workout!

Add food coloring and continue to stir until mixture leaves the sides of the pan, like so...

Remove from heat.  Wait a couple of minutes to cool, then knead in your color thoroughly.

I nabbed these little heart containers at the dollar store - I think there were 10 per bag.  Put a little play doh in each, and there you have it!

And yes, you will start to see an obnoxious amount of hearts, pink and red fonts, and all kinds of Valentines-ish projects around here in the next couple of weeks.  I just can't help myself! 

Flip Flops Two Ways - Part Two

In class tonight the girls finished their two pairs of flip flops. Head back to part one of this post to see the tutorials and find out about their flip flops! They turned out sooooo cute! How fun would these be for a girls' birthday party or slumber party? And the best part of all is that they are super cheap to make!






I'll be posting from our final week of jewelry & fashion art class next week with our last two projects...until then, here's a sneak peak of the tee shirts the girls are making...

Flip Flops Two Ways - Part One

Sorry I've been absent for a few days - would you believe I've come down with a yucky cold/sinus type thing in the middle of summer? Gross! I've been sleeping a lot and trying to get better, because my birthday is on Thursday! Yeah!

With being sick, I haven't felt like doing a ton of crafting, but I did want to share with you some photos from my jewelry/fashion art class yesterday.

We're making flip flops - two ways. I'm using a ribbon flip flop tutorial that I found HERE





and a flower flip flop tutorial I found HERE.





There are so many fun and inexpensive ways to jazz up a pair of cheap flip flops - I'm already coming up with a few new ways of my own. We bought our flip flops for 50% off at Hobby Lobby - just 75 cents a pair! I know that Michaels and JoAnn's have good deals on them too, and there's always the good old Old Navy flip flops too.

The girls had a great time with this project, and were super focused on the details. We ran out of time in class to finish our flip flops, but will be finishing them up next week. Stay tuned for Flip Flops Two Ways - Part Two, to see how they all turned out!

Easy Peasy Bugs with Paint

Phew! Today I will be teaching my 9th and 10th classes this week. Everything from visual art to jewelry and fashion art to theatre... it's been a busy week!

Here's a lovely project I did with my class of 4-6 year old's this week. This is a project that can work well in a classroom, or at home with your own kids. If you are doing it with a large group though, make sure you have an adult for every 4-5 kids to help keep things under control. Mess is fun - but not if it gets out of hand!

Painted Bugs!

1. Fold paper in half either "hamburger" or "hotdog" style - student's choice - and open up.


2. Ask students to paint dots with globs of paint down the center fold, as few or as many as they wish with two guidelines...
- no dot can be bigger than a quarter
- dots must stay at least one inch from either edge of the paper

Believe me - these two guidelines will help get the best results and reign in the mess!


3. Fold the paper in half again, smooth the painted area with your hand to spread the paint.


4. Open it back up - kids go crazy when they see the results! :)


5. Add antenna, wings, etc. etc. with a black sharpie marker.


6. Finish up with some googly eyes - kids can never get enough of the googly eyes!



7. They look really neat cut out, and pasted onto black paper.


I guarantee once your child has made one of these bugs - they will want to make more! Enjoy!