New side bar option!

I may be one of the few who still look at and update on this blog, but I thought it would be fun to have a section on the side bar for crafts that we want to make with the kids, but haven't gotten around to yet! The two that I have added were on my craft blog (under my to make section) and I wanted somewhere else to store the kids'. What better place than a kids craft blog?! :) Feel free to add to it (or email me the links) the list whenever you feel like it! Happy crafting!!

Fingerprint Flags

We found this fun flag project, and I thought it would be a cute way to get their little finger prints on something cute that I could keep! :) I haven't taken a picture of the finished project yet...maybe soon though!

For now, here is what you'll need! -Minus the kid whose finger prints you want! :)

Marshmellow sculptures

My boys were in heaven with this little project!!




All you need are:

mini marshmellows
toothpicks
and your imagination!!

*And, yes, they did get to eat the mallows afterwards! :)

Soda erruption

Here is a cool science experiment to do with the kids.


What you will need

A 2 litter bottle of Diet Coke (Apparently diet Coke with caffeine works the best, but any carbonated soda can get a similar reaction.)

• Mentos Candies (About 1/2 a package per bottle.)
• You just drop the mentos into the bottle As quickly as you can and watch it erupt. The first link says that you can turn it into a rocket if you quickly replace the cap and turn the bottle upside down. But when we did it, we only got 3 mentos in the bottle before it erupted all over me. So I don't see how it could work unless supper man tried it with his supper speed :) It was cool and we will certainly do it again.

An explanation and history of the experiment can be found here from wikipedia.

I basically told the girls that carbon Dioxide is what makes the pop fizzy and bubbly. When you drop the candy into it, there are lots of VERY little holes in the candy and the holes react to the carbon dioxide to make TONS of bubbles out of the pop. Since bubbles are bigger than the pop there is no more room left in bottle, so the bubbles/foam shoot up into the air.

I first got the idea here from mintagehome.blogspot.com
I got the picture from google images, there is no way I could get a picture of this on my own.

American Flags

The Fourth of July is coming up!! I found this really great idea for kids to make their own flags! And out of popsicle sticks! (Maybe if you're a nice mom, you'll let the kids eat all nine popsicles they need to get their sticks, instead of just buying them like I did. My poor kids! :) )



Soo...You'll need everything pictured here plus some white cardstock or printer paper. (I don't know why that didn't make it in the picture...that white square is actually a piece of cardboard.)

After painting the sticks ( 2 red, 2 white, 2 white/blue, 3 red/blue), 'paint' the piece of cardboard with glue and assemble the sticks to resemble a flag. Once that is finished drying, glue on your stars and then attach some string/ribbon/yarn onto the back for hanging!!

Magic painting

I didn't have time to snap a picture of the finished project, but it really wouldn't have mattered. I tried and tried to get my boys to color with the white crayon more, but they were just too darn excited to paint. And then when they finally did paint (I practically had to force them to color more!), they didn't even try to paint over what they colored to see if it would magically appear! We might have to try this one again sometime!

So pictured above is what you need! Start off by coloring a picture (white crayon on white paper) and then use water colors to paint over your coloring and see what turns up!!

Summer crafting ideas!

Go to THIS blog soon....like NOW! I seriously found 10 projects to do with the kids, and I only looked through 1 & 1/2 pages of her blog!! Your one stop blog for any and all crafting ideas. :)

Father's day Alumni T-shirt

Here are the Father's Day Shirts I had the girls make this year. We made 1 for Sam, 1 for my Dad and 1 for Sam's Dad.

Supplies:

• Parchment paper and masking tape or contact paper
• scissors
• permanent marker
• masking tape
• Printed out copy of school's Logo
• T-shirt
• fabric paint
• cardboard
  

1. cover your table with newspaper
2. Print out a copy of the school's logo. (I went to google images, copied the logo, pasted it into a word document, enlarged it there, and printed it out.)
3. Trace the image onto the contact paper or parchment paper. (If using contact paper make sure that you are tracing it so that when you peal back the paper the image is not reversed.)
4. If using Parchment Paper instead of contact paper cover the image with masking tape
5. Now cut out the image with scissors. Try to save as much of the cut outs as possible, you could use them too.
6. Any cut marks that were made in the cut outs can be patched up with some more small pieces of tape. They can be used on the sleeves, back, or another shirt.
7. Put the cardboard inside the shirt so that the paint doesn't soak through to the back. If you want the paint only around the logo, fold all the extra fabric of the t-shirt under the cardboard so the kids don't paint it. (like the Yellow shirt.) If you want hand prints all over the shirt, don't tuck. (Like the Blue Shirt.)
8. Peal off the backing on the logo and apply it to the shirt. Make sure to center it. If doing a multiple piece logo, apply the center one first and work out from there.)
9. Now that you have everything set up, let the kids come to the table, give them the paint and let them go at it. while supervising make sure that they get the paint on all the edges of the tape so that the image shows up.
10. When the kids are done pull off the tape while it is still wet. (I'm not sure, but if you wait until the paint dries the paint might peal instead of giving you a nice crisp edge.) Then leave the shirt in a safe place to dry overnight.

Mother's Day/ May Day gift

• Colored paper
• twisty ties, sticks, skewers, anything you can find to be the stems of the flowers that is easily taped to paper.
• tape
• stapler

Flowers

1. Take a sheet of paper and folded it into 1/4ths. Rip or cut the paper along the fold lines.
2. Crumple up each section of the paper separately.
3. tape one stem to the paper and you have an easy flower.

Flower Basket

1. Take a sheet of paper and fold it in half. Rip or cut along fold line.
2. Measure each piece to be a square and rip or cut off the extra paper. (Save the extra)
3. hold to corners and cross them like you are making a frosting tube. Staple it in place. If there is a flap of paper feel free to tape it down.
4. Take the scrap and fold it in half the long way. Use it for the handle by stapling it onto each point of the top of the basket.

I did this today with the sunbeams, they loved it and it was something that they were very capable of doing themselves! I loved that the supplies were cheep and easy to bring to church.

Don't Eat Pete

I learned this game in one of my classes at BYU. (Recreation Management is such a hard major ;) But I had forgotten all about it because Gwen was too young to play at the time. I am excited to play it with the girls and wanted to share in case there was anyone else who either had not played it before or had forgotten about it's magical fun.

This link has a download for the game board and game rules. but you can easily let your kids make their own game board.

http://www.candacetodd.blogspot.com/2008/12/dont-eat-pete-free-download.html

Happy Munching :)

Flower Banner/paper garland

I found a cool new craft book at our library this week. it's 365 things to make and do by Fiona Watts. I LOVE it and hope that it is your Library system so you guys can flip through it too.

Here is my take on one of the projects in the book. There were several examples of banners (Flowers, Pirate theme or a sports theme.)

Here are the templates that I made. All the templates are on 8 1/2 x 11 sized paper, hopefully they transfer easily for you to print out or give you a good reference for making your own templates:

Green Leaves- I needed 10 leaves for a banner on a 10 foot wall. The flower is something I put on the closet doors.

Flower template- I made 4 on pink paper and 4 on purple paper. There was enough extra paper at the bottom that I used it to cut out some extra flowers to put on the closet door.

Flower centers-cut this out of yellow paper. I cut out 8 folded centers and some round centers to add to the wall flowers I made for the room. (Then I had the idea that that these would be fun for a Hawaiian party and made a little hibiscus center to add to the folded flower, but I did not actually use it for my current project.

1. Trace and cut the flowers, leaves and flower centers out.


2. Color with a marker of a matching/similar color.


3. Use a glue stick to apply the yellow flower centers to the flowers.


4. Use masking tape to attach some green yarn to the walls and pull up the slack in the middle.


5. Put the folded flowers and leaves over the yarn.

Wall flowers:

I also made some wall flowers to put on their closet doors. I just traced them out of the patterns above, cut them and let Gwen glue the centers on to the 5 petal flowers. (It was sort of cute when it was off center.) Then I let Gwen write the letters of her name on her flowers and I wrote Maggie's name on the rest of the flowers. We taped them to the closet doors. (I hope to find some green contact paper to make some cute flower stems and lower the wall flowers on the doors to look like they are growing out of the floor.)