I'm baaaaaack!

So I didn't blog all summer, because I didn't craft all summer! I was busy working with newborn twins, and a 6 month old friend! Working for teachers left me with an open summer, and I happened to find two wonderful families, both with babies, to occupy my time!

When the school year started back up, and I was getting back into the swing of things with my "regular" family, we had a horrible flood, that effected my family and theirs. So once again, crafting, and blogging got delayed.

Now that October in full swing, and we're finally settling into a routine, I'm ready to blog again!

I'm really enjoying being back with my four (going on fourteen) year old girl, my two year old race car obsessed boy, and very sadly, my walking, almost talking, way too grown up, one year old boy. As always, my four year old friend begs to do crafts every day, and I try my darnedest to please her. So without further adieu, here's one of our latest crafts!

Yes, you are seeing correctly. We made penguins.....in October. This craft probably would have been more appropriate for the winter months, but we just love penguins any time of the year! We started by gluing five popsicle sticks together and painting them black. We made the faces out of old Christmas snow. I'm not sure exactly what the stuff is called. It comes on rolls or on large sheets and is made to lay out under Christmas villages. The beaks and feet are made with orange felt. The eyes are googly eyes, and the wings are made with construction paper. Finally, we added pipe cleaner hangers! I think they turned out super cute!

Easter Chick

This sweet little chick is one of my favorite Easter crafts to make with the kids. His body is made by stamping a round bath pouf in yellow paint. His nose can be made with orange construction paper or craft foam. His eyes are made with black paper and a hole punch, and his wings, or course, are yellow feathers. So cute!

Easter Buckets!

We made these cute chick buckets today! The beaks and feet are made out of craft foam, and we carefully used a permanent marker to write the kids names and make eye lashes. We made wings with feathers, and got jumbo googly eyes! Everything was glued on with Elmer's glue. A glue gun would have worked better. I may have to go back and reinforce the eyes and feet. Overall, I think they turned out great, and will look super cute filled with Easter eggs!

ribbit

This is a froggy puppet that my four year old and I made. We were inspired by her baby brother's awesome pants!

Hoppy Easter!

Our first Easter craft this year! These are some paper plate bunnies made by my four year old and two year old little friends.

Rudolf Gift Bags

These are some gift bags that we made with paper lunch bags. I traced and cut out the little nipper's hands and taped them to the back of the closed bags. We drew some eyes and mouths, and glued on red pom poms for noses. Cute and practically free!

Oink, Oink

This is a piggy that my three year old made out of two formula lids. We have an overabundance of formula containers from her little brother, but I won't give them away to the recycling truck because they are so handy for crafts. We rummaged through the craft supplies and found a pink button for the nose, pipe cleaners for the legs, tail, and ears, and some funky red googly eyes.

Happy Turkey Day!

This is a turkey tin that I made with one of my favorite little nippers. First we covered an empty baby formula can in brown paper (from a grocery bag) and cut out a head. Then we had these cool craft foam popsicle sticks that she glued to the back and the head for feathers. We also cut some sticks in half for the wings. She glued on google eyes, and glued on the body parts that I cut out of foam.

Out with the candy corn, in with the turkey!

It's almost Thanksgiving! Here is our latest craft, turkey hand prints.

Here is a turtle that has made his way to the top of the bulletin board. His shell is a paper plate sponge painted with yellow and blue paint. We were mixing yellow and blue to make green after my three year old friend learned to mix red and yellow to make orange at school. We also sprinkled on glitter for some extra pizazz. His head, legs, and tail are made from construction paper, and of course the best part is the cool blue google eyes.

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!

Easter egg cup

Here is another kind of bunny cup we made one time to hold easter eggs. I found these really big paper cups in the basement and decided they'd be large enough to hold each child's special easter eggs, because, you know, you can't let your brother get his hands on your special blue egg. I cut out all the shapes for the bunnies and just had the kids glue them on. I added a few staples for extra security. We of course glued on the trusty cotton tails, and added my favorite feature, the handle. In order to make a handle, I cut the lip off the top of the cups and bent it in the shape of a handle. Then I punched two holes in the side of the cups and slipped the handles through and secured them with tape. These turned out pretty cute I think.

Bunny Cups

These are little bunny cups that we make every year. Sometimes we use craft foam, sometimes construction paper. Sometimes google eyes, sometimes we make eyes out of paper. The pink bunnies actually have little glitter flower stickers for noses. They always get a cotton ball tail though. I like to attach a little to/from tag to the ears. You can pretty much use whatever you have laying around and make a really cute treat to send in for the whole class. Once you get working on these babies, they go together really fast. When they're dry, just fill them with easter grass and throw in some candy or dollar store goodies. These are always a big hit.

Octodog

I will never again serve a plain old hot dog. A couple years ago I saw a commercial for this fancy gadget that cuts your hotdog into an octopus. I decided that it was a waste of money and I could make an octodog myself. I was right. Just lay the hotdog down flat and cut it lenghwise about halfway up, turn it 90 degrees and repeat. Now you should have four little tentacles. Carefully cut each tentacle in half and you've made an octodog! I recommend cutting before cooking. If you cook it in boiling water, the tentacles will curl up and look really cool, but the microwave works fine too. The one in the picture was done in the microwave. I wish I had a better picture. I like to serve octodogs over a bed of blue mac and cheese. (Kraft with blue food coloring) Of course these are for the older kids. ALWAYS cut up your hotdogs into tiny pieces for toddlers.

Chicks

These are some cute little chicks we made with paper plates. (I told you I like paper plates) The kids painted the plates yellow and glued on the google eyes, beak, and feather. The beaks were made from a piece of paper. Just fold it in half, cut out a triangle, and unfold. We didn't have any orange construction paper at the time, so we had to use white paper and color it orange. The legs were made from pipe cleaners. I twisted them around my finger to give them some curl and taped them onto the plates. These are a great Easter or spring craft.

Beanie Baby Bed

I have two little friends who have two little cats that they once loved almost as much as their blankies. They found some styrofoam bowls and started using those as cat beds. The cats looked most uncomfortable though, so I decided to spruce up their sleeping quarters. Now I don't sew, but I made a trip to the fabric store and bought a large piece of red fabric. I cut out two large squares and stuck cotton balls in the center. Then I took the edges of the fabric squares and bunched them up around the cotton balls. I first tried hot gluing them shut which didn't work so well, so I resigned to the needle and thread. I sewed them shut and when I was done, it looked like something a first grader did. It didn't matter though because I covered the whole sewed up mess in hot glue and stuck it inside the bowl. Now, only the good side was visible and I was pretty proud of my work. I added some decorative ribbons and wrote the cat's names on their beds to avoid confusion. Nipper and Moon Light slept like babies that night.

Paper Plate Lions

One of my favorite things to use for crafts is paper plates. They are cheap, and I almost always have a stack in my cupboard. These are some lions I made with the kids from my previous job. We cut strips (or I cut for the little guys) all around the outside of the plate for the mane. They painted them with crayola washable paints and used some dollar store puff balls for the eyes and nose. Pipe cleaners were used for the mouth, whiskers, and handles. I added a dab of paint to the eyes for eye balls and helped shape the mouths. The handles were just something the kids wanted to add so they could hold them up in front of their faces like masks. If I'd known they wanted to make masks, I would have cut out eye holes. Either way, they turned out pretty cute and the kids had fun getting messy with paint and glue. Everything used was stuff we had sitting around the house. (it's always good to have a stocked craft box) So there you have it......paper plate lions. Have fun.