Wesley's "spider"

This week Wesley and I sewed a "spider" stuffed animal together.

****I use the word spider loosely. 

You may have to use your imagination to see its spiderness.

Oh and apparently spiders have 8 legs, not 6. ****

The spider was based on Mackenzie's butterfly from her 100 day project. 

Wesley helped me pick out all of the fabric, cut shapes out of certain pieces and sew them to the front of his "spider",  pick out the ribbon legs and stuff the little guy with stuffing.

Honestly it kind of looks like an ugly pillow with ribbons sticking out. 

With a silly face 

a W, a heart and other random shapes on the front. 

But Wesley thinks it is the coolest thing e.v.e.r.

He sleeps with it, swings it around and hits everyone with it (your welcome everyone), plays games with it,

and takes it everywhere we go in the car (and out to dinner when I'm not paying attention). 

And as long as he's happy, I am happy. 

And I'll keep sewing with my kids.

Even if it means making ugly "spiders". 

Tissue Paper Snowflakes

More winter crafting has been going on over here. 

Easy winter crafting of course. 

We have been decorating our walls with tissue paper snowflakes. 

They are super easy and the kids think they are the coolest thing ever. 

They said that opening them up to see what the design looks like is just like opening a present.

And they are so amazed at how each one is different. 

In case you are a little rusty on your snowflake making skills see the step by step pictures above. 

 Happy snowflake making! 

Popsicle Stick Snowflakes

I love the snow. 

I'm just not a huge fan of the cold. 

Actually I am a giant wimp in the cold. 

I just got a pair of fleece leggings which are amazing. 

People keep coming up with the best inventions. 

Like these. 

They totally make fake trees a million times cooler. 

Anyways...remember over thanksgiving break I told Kenzie we could do a craft every day?

Well we made 3. 

Not quite everyday but she was happy. Maybe I was a little over ambitious. 

If you missed the first two check out our Q tip Snowmen paintings and our Cherrios Christmas trees. 

For our third craft we made giant Popsicle stick snowflakes. 

I think they are technically called craft sticks but you get what we mean.

I had a bunch of step by step pics of the kids making them but I can't find them anywhere. 

Luckily they are super easy.

First we painted the craft sticks with white and silver paint. 

Once they were dry I glued them into the snowflake shape.

Then I let the kids decorate their snowflake with glue and we sprinkled glitter on top.

Easy peasy lemon squeezy (as Mackenzie would say). 

Then we stuffed them into our Christmas tree as decoration.

Festive and fun. 

Cherrios Christmas trees

Yesterday we made craft number two...

Cherrio Christmas trees. 

 All you need are

-Cherrios

-paper

-ribbon

-glue

First I pre cut a christmas tree shape and star out of cardstock for each of the kids and trimmed off a few pieces of ribbon from my stash.

 Then I let the kids glue the star to the top of the tree and the ribbon on as decoration.

And lastly we glued Cherrios onto the trees as "ornaments". 

I put dots of glue down for the kids to make it a little (less) messy. 

My kids l.o.v.e. glue. 

And there you have it. 

Another fun and easy Christmas craft to do with the kids. 

Happy crafting!

Q tip painting (snowman)

Yay! It's Thanksgiving break!  

A week off school (and school drop off/pick up) deserves celebrating.

I asked Kenzie what she wanted to do during the week off.

her answer....

crafts. 

Lots of crafts. 

So I told her we could do one every day. 

Today we made a snowman painting using Q tips.

Super easy and it was all stuff we already had at home. 

Just Q tips, paint and paper.

I drew the outline of the snowman and his hat onto the paper lightly with a crayon and they did the rest. 

Even Maddie and Wesley were able to do it. 

I love how all of ours turned out unique. 

I'm trying to find the perfect place to display them. 

And since I'm going for the Mom of the year award today we also painted finger nails...Christmas theme (of course). 

Do your kids have the whole week off school too?

Nature crafting (with leaves)

We heart nature crafting.

The supplies are free and everywhere!

 Plus you get out of the house for a little pre craft adventure to gather them up.

What's not to love about that. 

Our favorite "nature" craft supply is leaves.

Sometimes we collect fallen ones but since we live in Orange County where you can't quite tell if it really is fall or still summer we resorted to picking some live ones off a bush.

 For this project I drew a little turkey, let the kids color it in and then we glued the leaves to the back of the turkey to look like tails feathers. 

Easy peasy. 

This was Wesley's masterpiece. 

I asked him why he scribbled the turkey out with black crayon.

His response...

"Mom, the turkey is hiding under a rock." 

Of course it is. 

What are some easy craft projects you do with your kids. 

Nature Scavenger Hunt

We are slowly checking off more items on our Summer Fun List. 

A couple days ago we went on a Nature Scavenger Hunt. 

I wrote "Find something Red....find something yellow, etc." on the paper and then colored each of the colors with a crayon since my kids can't read yet. 

We took a bag along with us and I filled it with lots of different flower petals, leaves, etc. for each of the colors on our paper. 

The kids had a great time exploring our neighborhood and searching for all the different colors!

It's so fun to see the same things we always see with new eyes. 

Then when we got home I drew a rainbow on a piece of paper using the proper color crayon for each strip of the rainbow. We had more colors than were really in the rainbow so we got creative with pink and black clouds and brown birds. 

Then I let the kids glue their scavenged goods to the proper spots on the rainbow.

I was surprised at how easily they were able to do it. 

I pretty much just monitored the glue usage and they did the rest. 

I love a good, easy and fun craft! 

Have you been doing any fun crafts this summer? 

Fairy houses...check!

Summer is officially here and to make sure we remember to do all of our favorite summer activities we came up with a Summer Fun List. 

One of the first things we got to check off our list was making some fairy houses.

The kids each picked out a suitable container to make their fairy home and then painted and decorated it. 

They were so proud of their creations.
Mackenzie has been playing with hers non stop for a week.
It hasn't housed any fairy's yet but it has hosted it's share of rolly pollies and polly pockets. 

Putting Pinterest into action

I heart Pinterest. 

I've found so many great ideas, tips and recipes to pin.

571 great pins to be exact. 

Guess how many of them I have actually done/made?

Less than 5.

so. pathetic.

So the other day I decided to actually do some of the fun things I have pinned. 

Last week we made sidewalk paint and yesterday we experimented with colored vinegar and baking soda. 

The kids thought it was so cool to watch the vinegar bubble as it hit the baking soda. 

They played with it for at least 30 minutes and have been asking to do it again and again and again.

Yay for actually doing something I pinned. 

Hopefully it's a trend that will continue. 

How are you about actually putting your Pinterest pins to use?

Sidewalk paint

Cornstarch+food color+water=

sidewalk paint!

Go be the cool mom and make some now. 

Tutorial here.

Your kids will love it and you just might get into it too. 

Yay for summer fun!

Paint in a bag

Want a recipe for instant, mess free fun?

Simply squeeze some paint into a zip lock bag, seal,

(and then add some clear packing tape over the top to keep curious 2 year olds from opening)

and enjoy!

Great for drawing shapes

and practicing letters.

A special little book

I love Disney from Ruffles and Stuff

and I love.love.love. this adorable book she made for her little girl.

What a fun gift to make for our kids.

Disney even shows how she made the book using Photoshop.

The tutorial looked great but I'm still not sure I could manage it.

I'm thinking it might be easier to draw my own pictures, photograph them (like she did) and then turn them into a photo book through iPhoto or Shutterfly where you can add your own text.

Either way I love this idea and thought I'd pass it along.

Below is a sampling of the book...

check out the whole book here and the tutorial here.

Paper Butterflies

Oh Spring,

how I love thee!

If this doesn't scream spring,

I don't know what does!

I'm thinking a little corner of our house is definitely in need of some butterflies.

Don't cha think?

I couldn't agree more!

Check out the details on how to make a super cool butterfly sanctuary for your home HERE :)