A "Dinomite" Valentine's Day

I came across this list at one of my favorite blogs I follow, Fun At Home With Kids. A creative, candy-free list of Valentine's ideas. I showed the list to A, and she chose to do the dinosaur and volcano one (I was excited myself to do that one, too). A is in two classes at school, so this meant 2x the number of valentine's required. This meant we needed to start early - I am SO glad that I did! All of the cutting and printing and volcano-mix making didn't seem too bad spread over a few weeks. 

Our supplies and printouts. 

Storming army of dinosaurs.

A pouch of volcano mix. 

Bedazzled Tree

We made another tree craft today. We actually did it over a few days. This one was a lot of fun to do, and the kids really enjoyed it. We painted a canvas, glued on yarn in the shape of a tree and a star, and then glued on the decorations to fill the tree. Inspired by this post. Funny Coincidence: I did not realize that the background color we painted was basically the same as theirs. I didn't realize it until today when I pulled the link back up to link back to it.

Supply List: Canvas, yarn (we used green for the tree and grey for the star), tacky glue or some other glue, beads/sequins/buttons/etc, paint, paintbrush, scissors (to trim the yarn), and small foam brush (optional - we used it to spread the glue out before adding the beads).

Here is how we broke it down (though you could do this in one day; you just have to allow for drying time):

Day One: We painted the canvas. I mixed green, blue, and white acrylic paint until I had a color we all liked. Set aside to dry.

Day Two: I drew a tree and star on the canvas. Then, I traced the drawings with glue and placed the yarn on the glue lines. Set aside to dry (again). I drew the tree freehand and I used a star-shaped cookie cutter for the star at the top.

Day Three: Glued on our beads, sequins, snowflakes, and stars. We used a variety of pony beads, round beads, and various colored/sized sequins. You could also use buttons, bells, or anything that you can glue on to add dimension.  We also decided to add snowflakes around the tree to make it a more wintry feel.

Google's AutoAwesome magic at it again - making our tree twinkle!

Santas and Snowmen

Today the girls and I did two Christmas-themed crafts. Both involved handprints for the creations. I love using footprints or handprints - such a great way to have a reminder of how small those growing hands and feet were!

Supplies needed:
Santa:
* Construction Paper (we used blue for our background, but you could use almost any color - though I would steer away from white, red, black, or pink since those colors will be used to make Santa). We also used pink for the cheeks, but you could use pink puff balls, or paint/draw them in as well. We didn't have pink paint, and I didn't want to take the time to mix red/white to make pink.
* Googley eyes (or you could draw or paint in eyes as well)
* Paint. We used white acrylic paint for the beard, black for the nose, and red/white for the hat.
* Paintbrush
*glue stick (depending on what use for facial features. We used paper for our cheeks so we needed to glue them on)

Snowmen:
* Christmas ball/bauble ornament in pretty much any color except white.
* Sharpie or some other marker in black and orange.
* White paint (we again used white acrylic paint).
*Egg carton for the ornament to sit in to dry (while not necessary, makes it a lot easier)

General Supplies:
*wet paper towels and/or wipes

Some of our supplies.

Handprints made for Santa's beard. 

The girls painting in the details.

Adding in the details

Painting Santa's hat.

Their completed Santa pictures. I will admit I had a hard time letting S just put her cheeks and eyes where she wanted. I think we ended up with a decent compromise. ;-)

For the snowmen, you simply put white paint on your child's hand and then have them hold onto the ornament. Carefully take the ornament away and set in the egg carton to dry. 

Our handprints in the egg carton to dry. 

Our handprints in the egg carton to dry. 

I then used a small orange marker and added a triangle "carrot" nose to each snowman (finger). I used the black marker to draw in eyes, buttons, and mouths.

A's finished snowman family.

S's ornament.

S's snowman family.

I also wrote their names and the month/year on each ornament. 

The Santa was inspired by a post on Pottery Barn Kid's Google+ page.

The Snowmen were inspired by a post on the "Little Bit Funky" blog. 

Turkey Oranges

Today I made the girls a couple turkey oranges. I got the idea from Make and Takes. She is planning on doing a healthy alternative Thanksgiving table favor. Here is her post. I am not sure I am committed enough to do these as place settings, but I thought it would be something fun to do. So, today for lunch I made each girl a turkey. They seemed to really like them! Note to self for next time: Be sure to tell them that they should pick off the dates and almonds to eat them, not bite into the orange with peel and all to get them off. Oops! :-)

What you need: Clementines, almond slivers, dates, and a knife.

First, you make three rows of feathers. To do this, you make small slices in the clementine with a knife so that you can insert an almond sliver in each slit. The first row has five almonds, the second row has four, and the third row has five.

Next, you cut a slit for the nose, and insert another almond sliver. Then, you cut two small pieces off of a date to use for the eyes. After that, cut a small strip to use for the wattle. Finally, you cut two longer pieces of the date for the feet, and simply rest the clementine on top of the pieces. 

Halloween Pumpkin Crafts

On our trip to the pumpkin patch we got a handful of pumpkins. Only two were large enough to carve. I decided to make craft projects out of the rest of them. We made a witch, bat, Frankenstein, a spider, and a mummy. S and I made the mummy and the spider. All three of us made the witch, bat, and Frankenstein. The girls had so much fun! S got to practice coloring, painting, and gluing. A got to practice her cutting, painting, and gluing. They both loved the glitter glue pens!

Our completed mummy.

Painting our pumpkin to transform into a spider. 

All painted for the transformation.

Our finished spider. 

Making the eyes for the witch.

Working on the witch's mouth. 

Gluing on the eyes. 

The witch's mouth.

Our finished witch.

Making eyes for Frankenstein.

I cut out a mouth for A to decorate with a glitter pen.

S made the eyes, A made the mouth, and I made the stitches/bandages.

FRANKENSTEIN!

Painting another pumpkin black for a batty transformation.

Our completed bat (I didn't get a picture of it by itself apparently). 

A closer look at the bat. The eyes, ears, and mouth are foam stickers. The nose is a puff ball. Then nylon wings. The bat was made from a kit purchased at Target. I wasn't confident in my abilities (or my time management) to make the bat wings. The rest were made from things we had on-hand.