Happy 4th of July 2010

Do something fun this weekend!


Make cute flags from popsicle sticks!


Decorate your toes!

Shop for some Scentsy wickless candles!


Eat yummy cake!

ebook for Mother's Day

Favorite Crafts Blog has published one of my projects in their Mother's Day eBook. You can download the eBook for free and it is filled with easy peasy ideas that you can make for some great gifts.

One of the great things about this is that it features 20 different crafty bloggers. What a great way to check out some new blogs while looking for some ideas for mom.

Chelsey Hill of Pretty My Drink
Pat Sloan of Pat Sloan
Fawnda Norman of Fireflies and Jellybeans
Terri Ricioli of Terri Ricioli Designs
Sarah Surface of householder/surface
Vanessa Valencia of A Fanciful Twist
Little Birdie Secrets
Joan Gorman of Nini Makes
Molly Kozera of Bit O’Shine
Terri O. of Super Simple Crafts
Jennifer Juniper of Hope Studios
Alla Koval of My Little City Girl
Amber Dyer of Everything Except the Grill
Amy Anderson of Mod Podge Rocks!
Becky Kazana of The Fab Miss B
Betz White of Betz White
Rachel of La Fuji Mama
Niki Meiners of Niki Meiners
Cristin Frank of The Eve of Reduction
Vicki O’Dell of Creative Goddess

Easter Crafty fun

I put together a simple Easter party for our MOPS group today. I forgot my camera at home so I only have pictures of some of the finished projects we did.


Easter card station- we have used this a few times over the years at our Easter parties. Kiddos use their finger tip to make prints with ink or finger paint to be the eggs then decorate the rest of the basket.


Tissue paper carrots with paper grass tops


Marbled paper Easter eggs using the shaving cream technique. This was not one of the prettiest ones, but the only one we made it home with. So many people were impressed with this and thought it was so cool- it is SO simple and easy to do and the results are always beautiful! You can click here to see the ones we made for Valentine's Day. I also found some felt crosses to marker color. These had a magnet on the back already and looked like pretty stained glass.

This picture is not nearly as cute as these carrots are. I love this idea from The Moody Fashionista ( a new blog I just subscribed to- check it out!). Kids get so much candy, it is nice to hand out a half-way healthy snack. I plan on making these for the daycare tots for Easter. Her pictures are better and I tried to find green rick rack at our hobby store, but they didn't have any in green so I had to go with a few green and white ribbons. I love how bright her rick rack is on the top of the carrots.

Celebrating Spring!

All traces of snow are nearly gone and we celebrated the arrival of spring this weekend with a Robin's nest picture. The kids used watercolor paints for the eggs and then glued pieces of twine into a general nest shape that I drew for an outline for them. The preschoolers wrote Happy Spring on the top! I love how one little girl put her eggs on top of the nest like you are looking into it from the top.

In other news.... I made this beach themed cake for the weekend for a Hawaiian themed beach party

Valentine's Day -10

This week we did a few things to get ready for Valentine's Day. I had seen Love Bugs on several blogs, but wanted to incorporate the marble paper technique with shaving cream. I love the results you get with this!

After we did the shaving cream marbling, we painted glue around each section of the wings. The kids each had a variety of Valentine confetti to choose from to sprinkle into the glue. Next was the glitter- I just love projects with glitter! It really makes them pop! We finished the love bugs off with google eyes, heart mouth, and sparkly antenas.

**If you are not familiar with the shaving cream technique... you have been missing out! It is so much fun. We use a large baking sheet and fill it with the cheapest foam shaving cream. Next, we drop our selected colors randomly over the shaving cream with liquid food coloring. We gently swirl the colors and then lay our paper down on top face down. Tap the paper into the shaving cream, making sure that all of it gets covered. Last, scrape off the shaving cream and enjoy your beautiful marble creation!

Getting ready for the party!

Tonight we are going to the Omaha Children's Museum for the First Night of Play: Glow in the Garden party. I have wanted to take B for the past few years, but I think he will really enjoy it this year. The website describes it as:

"Families will ring in 2010 at this early New Year's Eve Celebration that leaves time for mom and dad to celebrate afterward. A night of fun complete with a countdown and bubble wrap stomp, gift bag, activities throughout the museum and pizza dinner!"

Following the Children's party, hubby and I are attending a party in town. B will be staying home with a babysitter, which he is so excited about!

As we go out to enjoy the festivities, we will be sporting some 2010 attire to welcome in the new year. I just got my new camera yesterday and the memory card today, so you can be sure I will be snappin' away tonight of all of the fun!

These were done with the freezer paper stencil method. I've really been into doing shirts lately. I have a couple more I will post about this next week.

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The kids also tried out our fairly new paint bellows I purchased from the Let's Explore Shop. We used some cardstock to make a reverse stencil and then they used pink, blue, and red to spray the design. I love the way they look!

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Have a happy & safe New Years's!

See you in 2010~

Fall Crafting

So, um yeah, I realize I have been gone for a while. I had a few close friends and family members ask me about my blog, but really don't think anyone in the blog world has noticed my absence. Since we have moved, I have felt unorganized and not been up with my blogging.

I have lots to catch you up with and hopefully will get back on track! I am participating in a blog carnival trying to win myself a FLIP camera and will need to post each day this week. I hope this kick in the blog pants will get me going again!

Today at Mayhem and Moxie, Kacey shared a super cute costume for her little one that she won't even touch. She encourages us to share what we have made for Halloween.

This is a very simple activity but yesterday we created melt-your-own crayons in pumpkin shapes to go along with some of the pumpkin books we read.

Step 1 peel paper off of crayons.

Step 2 break naked crayons into small pieces


Step 3 put crayon chunks into a clean empty can. Set can in boiling water until all crayon pieces are melted. (The glass jars of water are to help keep the can upright)

Step 4 gently pour the melted wax into candy molds or old muffin tins

Step 5 put molds into freezer until hard

Step 6 turn molds over and crayons should pop out. Notice one of the pumpkins has a smooshed face. Poor little guy.

Step 7 color!

*Be sure to stop by 7 clown circus, Better in Bulk, and Mama's Losin' It for your chance to win. Okay, well don't go visit them actually because I want to win and if you enter then that would lower my chances! Well, go check out their blogs I guess, but don't enter. So there.

Mother's Day Gift

I was inspired by one of my very favorite magazines, Family Fun to create this hanging bird bath or bird feeder for our Mother's Day gift.

If you don't get Family Fun magazine and you have young kids, you are just ... well you don't even want to know what I think you are. Each issue is jam packed with ideas that are so fun. We always make at least one thing and sometimes several of the ideas they show.

We used a grapevine wreath, terracotta saucers, floral wire, and twine. Optional items were paint and a sealer to spray over the paint.

The grapevine wreaths were just a little big so I used the floral wire to secure a base across the wreath. I thought adding the handprint added a great touch to personalize the gift for the grandmas for Mother's Day.

I tied the twine in three spots around the wreath and knotted them all together at the top to create a spot to hang them from a tree.

This could be used for a bird bath or a bird feeder!

Mother's Day Gift

The tots and I have been working on a project the last few days for their mommies. I painted terracotta pots with white spray paint. The kids used sponges to decorate each pot for their mom. They were able to choose what colors or how many colors they wanted.

Earlier this week we went to pick out flowers for the pots. The boys picked out some striped petunias that were white and purple.

I used black paint to write "Happy Mother's Day 2009" along the top of each pot.

After the paint was dry I used a clear gloss spray to seal the paint.

Since I don't like to post pictures of my tots on here, enjoy this rare pixelated photo of all of them together! They were just so proud of their flower pots!

Painting with Dandelions

Today we read the book Dandelions- Stars in the Grass by Mia Posada.

After reading the book, I let the kids go outside and find 3 dandelions that they wanted to paint with.

The supplies we used were: cardstock, yellow paint, dandelions. That's it.

They dipped their dandelions into the yellow paint and made some beautiful artwork.

Mother's Day Card Idea

Today I made a cute little 3D card for the kiddos to make for Mother's Day. We used cardstock, construction paper, tissue paper, and glue.

I remember making many projects in elementary school out of this scrunched up tissue paper process. I always thought it looked so cool.

The process is simple. You take little scraps of tissue paper (about 1 inch size) and crumple them into little tiny balls. Then you glue. That's it.

I started by making the line down with glue for the stem of the flower. Then I covered that with the little green tissue balls. Next, I added the green construction paper leaves left over from our last project. I outlined the leaves in glue and added the tissue paper here. Then I drew the flower center and then the petals one by one.

This makes a sweet flower for the front of the card to give to mom or grandma on Mother's Day. It would also be cute to do different designs such as a butterfly, heart, or the letters M-O-M.

April Showers Bring May Flowers

Even though we didn't end April with showers, it was a cloudy day. We had plenty of rain last weekend however. I can't believe that tomorrow is already May Day.

Today we used watercolor paints on paper plates for our umbrella shapes. I cut out somewhat of a flower shape out of several colors of tissue paper. The kids selected 3 colors to layer to make a flower. They each made 5 flowers for their umbrella. They glued a yellow construction paper circle in the center of each flower. We tucked green construction paper leaves under some of the flowers as well.

Easter hat, card, and cakes

The egg hunt we go to has a Easter hat contest, so we decorated this simple paper plate hat. Instructions can be found here.

While making the hat we also made a few quick cards for our grandmas and some friends. They had a sponge painted bunny and dot marker grass on the outside. Inside it said "Some Bunny Loves You!" and B wrote his name in them.

Would you like a piece of carrot cake after dinner?

White cake cupcakes for the kiddos. These were made really fast and I didn't put any base frosting on them.

Candy Mold Crayons

I had seen this idea a while back on WhiMSy Love for crayons made with candy molds and thought it was pretty cool. We have made crayons in old muffin tins before but I had never seen the idea using candy molds. B also really enjoys the birthday crayons his preschool teacher made for him from the ice molds from the Let's Explore Shop. I would love to have a set of those. When I saw these candy molds at the store in the shape of trains, I knew they would be a hit.

B decided he wanted these 4 colors of train crayons. Remove all of the paper off of your crayons and break them into pieces.

Toss a few little size handfuls into each can. Set the cans in a pot of water about 1/2 way up the sides of the cans. Bring to a boil and then simmer until the pieces are completely melted. Your house with have the aroma of melting crayons that only a (former) teacher could love.

When the pieces are all melted, carefully (cans will be hot- duh!) remove the cans and pour into the mold. Let mold set on counter for a few minutes before transfering mold to freezer.

Those little fingers just couldn't wait to get them out of the freezer! If you look closely, the green one cracked! :( If this happens you can take the broken piece and toss it back in the can and re-melt to try again. Oddly enough, we did this again and it broke again! So we have 6 crayons, but no green ones in that shape! When you remove the hardened crayons from the freezer they will slip right out. Easy-peasy.

Our finished crayons, minus the green one!

Check out Nikki's tutorial for way cooler pics of the whole process and directions on how to do this!