A quick project

I finally got one of the projects I had seen online in several places done!  It was so quick too, I might even make this as a gift in the future...for my homeschooling type friends.

 Pre-cut squares of felt (Wal-mart).

 Fold in half.

 Cut width to fit your cross (Michael's).

 Round the edges, add a hole for the top of the cross.

 Cut a strip from the extra piece to use for the stole.

 Repeat for colors of the liturgical year (we still need a blue stole for Marian feast days).

 Check on the cute guys in the back yard, weeding in their overalls.

 Hot glue some ribbon around the edges of each piece. We used white and gold.

Screw your cross on to small wooden discs (Michael's). 

And you have a complete set of liturgically based vestments, which you can now change after you go to mass and distract your kids by asking what color the priest is wearing.  At least until your 3 year old figures out that the priest will be wearing the same color as the cover on the chalice that is out before mass and tells you so, therefore preventing the distraction later on.

Craft fail turns educational

So we were supposed to run the string pieces through a water/glue mixture then place on the wax paper and let dry over night.  I didn't want to hear Rose complain about messy hands so I altered it just be string laying on glue.  Turns out you need the water part, otherwise it just falls apart.

The bonus is that Rose, all on her own started making shapes out of the extra string.  She was also making little scenes that only made sense to her.  But in the end it was great geometry session!

Summer Fun Day - Fourth of July

We hosted a summer fun day with some of Rose's friends and themed all the activities around the fourth, given how close it was to the holiday.  We had fun and are looking forward to the next fun day in a couple of weeks.

 They painted popsicle sticks and glued them together to make flags.

 The kids thought the temporary tattoos were really cool.  James looked like a strong man with his on his bicep.  He also thought it was a sticker and kept trying to pull it off (like he normally does with stickers) saying 'ticka' which is Jamese for sticker.  As a side note he is really starting to talk a lot more, it just takes a trained ear (aka - me or Rose) to decipher what he just said.

 The kids thought the fruit/marshmallow kebobs were cool, but mostly just wanted to eat the marshmallows since they were in the shape of stars.  

 We made firework art (I took this idea from a site somewhere, but it is all over the internet) out of black construction paper, white crayon, school glue, and glitter.  Even if you let the four-year olds use the glue on their own it still looks like fireworks, so that is cool from the perfectionist side of my craftiness!

Last but not least we played a sort of rousing game of patriotic memory.  I made a set from some basic, iconic pictures, my color printer, construction paper, and my laminator.  I plan to store them with the fourth decorations and use them next year too.

Rainbow fun - colored pasta necklaces

In following with our rainbow theme this week, Rose made some noodle necklaces.  But first I made the noodles different colors - I followed the directions here. But missed the part about premixing the color and alcohol, so my noodles looked a little spotted.  Next time, I'll know better!

Anyway, Rose had fun and wanted to keep making different people different pieces.  Good concentration activity.

An Easter Decoration

 Mom-mom sent Rose this box of crafting supplies back in February but since it had spring stuff in it, we waited until a little closer to Easter to do anything with it.  After James went down for his nap I got the box out and Rose was thrilled with all the little pieces.  

First I trimmed the foam block to fit in the small bucket, then Rose decided where everything went.  We added some spring/Easter stickers and our table centerpiece was done.  Easy, very little mess, and one happy little crafter.  She loves her some 'projects'!

On the dining room table under the chandelier with some plastic eggs adorning it.

A Fun Easter Project

This is so simple...even the craft weary can do this.  In fact it took me less than 30 minutes with my 3 year old 'helping'.  Warning - you will get sticky!  A friend sent me the idea from a blog.  I think you do actually need the 9 boxes, we only did 6 and I am thinking I will go back and add one more box of each color later this week.

 Supplies

I hot glued the ribbon on. Then quickly learned it is faster to push the toothpicks in with a thimble (of sorts - it is a gatorade lid) then push the peep on.  You should also space yours better than I did mine!

Part way there...

The mess after - can you see all the sugar sprinkles?

Done for now.  It isn't hanging yet, since they are still painting on the main floor, but it will be up by Easter.  So excited!!

Rainbow Art

In honor of the holiday this week and the typical rainbow stuff associated with the leprechaun and whatnot, Rose made some rainbow art with Fruit Loops then enjoyed the 'leftovers' for snack.  I don't know if she knows it is a cereal (as in you could eat it for breakfast) since she keeps asking for oatmeal - I won't tell her just yet!  Pretty art though huh?  I am hanging her bean art from the other week in our bathroom after it is painted!

Bartholomew and the Oobleck AND Green Eggs and Ham

We HAD to make Oobleck (GAK for those of you who grew up with Nickelodeon) since it is probably the most common Dr. Seuss activity out there.  And today was a nice day weather wise, so we did it outside.  There were so many different recipes online, we tried two.  The first we made blue and dedicated it to the blue goo in Fox in Sox.  The second we made green and it was the Oobleck.

 

 

The cornstarch one (blue) definitely felt cooler to the touch, but the glue/borax one (green) was more fun to play with according to Rose.  Although I will probably just do cornstarch in the future, James kept trying to scoop & eat the small amount of Borax I had out.

Oddly, she ate the eggs and not the ham.