Another pumpkin?

"What" you say, "another paper plate pumpkin?" The kids wanted to paint and I wasn't feeling very creative. Yeah, it happens. Even the craftiest crafters, can't be crafty all the time.

Overalls

This is the latest craft my favorite three year old did. I free handed the shape of overalls on card stock and cut it out. She sponge painted them blue and glued on the buttons. (Thanks mom for those awesome buttons!)

Counting Beads

This is the latest project that I did with my favorite three year old smarty pants. I bought the foam numbers at the dollar store a couple years ago and forgot about them. I've had the foam beads for a couple years too, and have used them for lacing practice with my little friends. I rediscovered the numbers the other day and decided to use them for this. First I taped six pieces of paper together to make one large piece. (I didn't have any poster board, and sure as heck wasn't making a trip out with the poop troop for one thing.) Next I glued down the numbers 0-10 and drew the lines. Now it was time for my favorite three year old to glue on the beads. As you can see, she glued one bead next to the 1, two beads next to the 2, and so forth. I should also mention that she did this with no help, and got it perfect! She was very proud of her work and hung the finished product in her room.

Watermelon

This is a watermelon slice made from half of a paper plate. The seeds were cut out of construction paper. Cute and easy!

Cat in The Hat

This is a Cat in the Hat I drew for my favorite three year old, or as she calls it, "Hat in the Cat."

Oh Christmas Tree

This is a Christmas tree I made with my favorite twins last year. I rolled up a piece of green construction paper into a funnel and had the little guys glue construction paper circles (ornaments) all over it. I made the angel afterword because the tree was looking naked with nothing on top. She looks all fancy, but she's really just a smaller construction paper funnel with some little paper body parts.

Ariel

I've been on a drawing kick lately. Here is the Ariel I drew yesterday.

Pumpkin Time

This is an easy little pumpkin that was made from construction paper and a paper plate. I cut out a bunch of orange squares and had the little bambino glue them all over the plate. Then I cut out a curly q for a leaf and a brown rectangle for the stem and had him glue those on too.

Batman!

Just a picture of Batman.

Printable Fall Wreath

Here is an easy craft from DLTK. As you can see, I'm out of yellow construction paper, and the paper rings could have been placed closer together, but it turned out really cute anyway!

Another fall leaf craft!

This is a great craft for fall and is suitable for all ages. (I did this with a 1 1/2 year old. ) You will need to fold two pieces of paper in half and cut out half of a leaf shape. Be sure to fold and cut both pieces of paper together. the leaves need to line up exactly. I used a pencil to lightly draw my leaf shape before cutting. When you unfold your papers you should have nice leaves cut out of the middles.

Next you will need two pieces of contact paper a little bit larger than your leaf shape. You can set one piece on the table, sticky side up, and tape down the corners. Then have the kids rip up little pieces of tissue paper and stick them to the contact paper. I only had red and yellow tissue paper, so that's what we used. It actually worked out well, since when they were done and hung in the window, the kids could see how the yellow and red papers made orange.

Once they have stuck down their tissue paper, you will need to carefully stick the other piece of contact paper on top, laminating the tissue paper.

Now you can take your laminated tissue paper and glue or tape it in between the two leaf cutout papers. Hang it in the window and it looks beautiful when the sun shines through!

chickooster

Ok, so I'm not really sure if this is a chicken or a rooster. I was calling it a chicken for the longest time, but then I remembered roosters have the red mohawk. In any case, it's cute, and simple. The head and body are paper plates. The body parts are all made out of construction paper. The wings are traced hands with the fingers stuck close together. The mohawk thingie is a hand print with the fingers spread apart. Obviously this one was made by a three year old, so things are a little out of place, but that makes it even cuter.

Hand Print Fish

This is a cute little hand print fish we made a while ago. The fish bowl is just a paper plate cut in half. The fish is a hand print with a google eye. Notice the HUGE google eye. Thanks mom!

I steal from pre-school

Yesterday we made autumn trees....even though it's still summer. Maybe I'm jumping the gun, but to me when school starts, summer is over. I don't care what the calendar says. Anyway The tree trunk was cut out of brown scrapbook paper and glued to a pretty piece of scrapbook paper. (can you tell I'm low on construction paper) The kids then used their thumbs to make leaves with red, yellow, and orange paint. Finally they glued on the poem. This idea was stolen right from pre-school. We did this craft one day a year or two ago when I was subbing.

My Thumbprint Tree

My thumbprint means a lot to me.

I used it for my thumbprint tree.

It is my thumb and only mine.

My lovely tree is oh so fine.

Salt Dough

I love working with salt dough. You can do so much with it, the possibilities are endless. It's easy and inexpensive to make. You probably have the ingredients sitting in your cupboards right now. I like putting food coloring right in the dough. Once baked, the colors come out bright and beautiful. You can also paint it, cover it in glitter, or just leave it as is. This is the kind of baking I excel at. The finished product is supposed to be hard as a rock and tasteless! Here is the recipe I use, although if you search google you'll find a bunch of different variations.

Ingredients
2 cups white flour
1 cup table salt
1 cup water
1 tbsp vegetable oil

Mix all ingredients in a large bowl until they form a smooth dough. You can try to mix it with a spoon, but it wont's work. Get your hands in there and get dirty! If the dough seems too runny, gradually add a little more flour. If it's too flaky, gradually add some water. Once you get the dough to a workable consistency, you can either kneed in food coloring or leave it as it. Now you are ready to let your imagination go wild! Sprinkle some flour on your work surface and your cookie sheets to prevent sticking. If you plan to make ornaments, remember to punch a hole in the top with a straw! You can either let them air dry (takes wayyy too long for me) or bake them at 200 degrees until hard. After they are hard, you can paint them, cover them in glitter, or even write on them with sharpies. I like to paint on a coat of Elmer's glue to give them a nice inexpensive shine.

These are some salt dough valentines we made by adding food coloring right to the dough. We used cookie cutters to make the hearts, and sculpted the eyes and mouths by hand. We attached ribbons and wrote a message on the back with a sharpie.

Little hands hard at work!

A glitter covered ornament on the tree.

Ready to go in the oven. (These make great Christmas presents from the kids!)

Arrrrrrgh!

Just popping in to share a quick pirate hat I whipped up for my favorite little matey.

Mummy Wrap

Yeah, I know, it's only September and I'm already getting ready for Halloween. I love holidays though, and Halloween is definitely a fun one. You can't beat free candy. I've experimented with all sorts of methods of collecting the most candy. One year I thought I'd hit the "rich" houses and get full sized candy bars and other rich people stuff. I soon discovered that rich people are actually really cheap. That's how they got so rich in the first place. Plus those mini-mansions are pretty spread out, and each driveway is like 2 miles long. I've successfully lied and collected an extra piece of candy from each house for my "sick brother" and of course I've switched masks and hit the same houses twice. There is a house of Chinese people that live up the street from my mom. One year they didn't have any candy, so they gave me a dollar. Score!

I have little ones that look up to me now, so my days of lying and cheating are over. The real best way to get the most candy is to start early, and stay out late. Plan your route ahead of time. Stick to middle class neighborhoods where the houses are close together. Use a pillowcase to avoid tear outs, and move quickly. I once took a group of kids trick or treating until their feet bled. No pain, go gain. It's one night of your life, suck it up for the candy!

Anyway, I wanted to share a favorite Halloween game of mine. The mummy wrap game is a hit with kids of all ages. Toilet paper is funny. Wrapping your friend in toilet paper is even funnier. Older kids can separate into teams and race to wrap each other up the fastest. Younger kids just enjoy wrapping each other up. The best part of the whole game (at least for me) is breaking out of the toilet paper once you're all wrapped up. I buy the dollar store toilet paper, four rolls for a dollar. Last time I planned on two rolls per child but had a bunch left over. It's not the cheapest game, but it's well worth the money. The kids will thank you!