Bubble Wrap Painting

Quick Easy Craft

Tape down some bubble wrap, paint with acrylic...

Place a piece of paper on top, smooth down to pick up the paint, peel off....
Viola....

The girls painted over the same bubble wrap MANY times and made MANY MANY prints!! By the end most were looking like army camouflage.

Fairy Houses

Welcome Fairies!

We spent the morning making mud bricks ...

Enjoyed a great picnic lunch with a fabulous friend then the girls went around the yard gathering items to construct fairy homes. We saw the idea here
and have been waiting for a hot (dry) day to try it.

CJ found just the right items to size to make a chair, table and a little bed. I love the middle of a daisy that she used for the pillow. CJ spent a long time working her little fairy house.

CD reminded me of the Little Pig who built his house out of straw... get it done quick ~ go play in the sandbox and water table, slide, run around, play in the water, wash her wagon, swing, play on the monkey bars....

I wonder when the fairies will move in?!

Father's Day Gift Idea

Moto-Moto
do not
scroll
down
if
you
want
to
be
surprised
on
Father's Day!!

This is one of the things the girls made
Moto-Moto for Father's Day a
dad-o-mite
shirt! They made him a shirt similar to this for his birthday and he wears it ALL the time so CJ decided to make another.

You will need:

• shirt

• bleach in a spray bottle (I used it regular strength and didn't water it down at all, I wanted to see the change right away!)

• spray adhesive

• letters

~ you have to find letters that will be to scale on the shirt you are making. Moto-Moto is a big guy so we needed something that would work but not so big that it took up the whole front of the shirt (like the first one we made.) You could get foamy letters from $rama that are self stick or go to your local scrapbook store and use the die cut machine or cut them out by hand.

• extra paper to mask off ANY area that you don't want to be bleached (remember to put some in between the layers of the shirt!)

How:

Go outside!!
Arrange the letters on the shirt and mask off the area!
Turn the letters over and spray them with adhesive, place them back onto the shirt pressing down so you don't get any bleach bleeding under them.

Spray the bleach over the shirt and let it mist down for a more subtle effect. For a more dramatic change mist it right over the shirt but be careful as there can be some big drops of bleach come out.

See it starting to change colour?!

Carefully remove the paper.
Remember wherever you get bleach the colour will come out!

I only waited about 2-3 minutes for this.

When you are happy with how it looks run (don't walk)
to the sink and rinse it out immediately!
Then throw into the washing machine
and give it a good wash.
Ta da!

And for an added little detail:

The year he became a Dad!
It's on the back in a little circle just under the collar.

This is such a great, quick project that you'll be able to make a few in time for Father's Day.
Make sure you let me know what you made.
And if you can think of any other sayings share those with me too!!

Puff Paint

Being stuck inside for most of the month we were looking for new craft ideas and found this one for puff paint. I didn't have self rising flour so just threw maybe 1/8 teaspoon of baking powder into 1 tablespoon of flour and 1 tablespoon of salt. Stir it up, throw in some food colouring and mix with enough water to make it into a paste similar to thick yogurt. We used cotton swabs to 'paint' with, though it was more of a dabbing technique that worked the best. Make sure you use heavy paper ~ we had some matt board scraps around and used those. When you are finished put it in the microwave for 20-30 seconds. Viola!

I think you can see how it 'puffs up' on this one. When it cools it'll be nice and hard.

The girls were pretty happy with their art work!

If we ever get sunshine we'll try it again and see if leaving them to 'bake in the sun' has the same effect.

Homemade Baby Gifts

We were thrilled to finally meet our friend's baby yesterday! She is absolutely perfect!!
M & N are going to be wonderful parents
and are some of the nicest people you will ever meet!
We knew that we needed to create something special for their daughter!

We jazzed up this little onesie with a little calendar with her birthday circled and a few fabric flowers. They are going to look even better after it's washed a few more times.
(I have checked through all my favorites and can't find where I first saw this idea so thank you creative person in blog land!)

CJ helped make this canvas for Mom & Dad to display one of their favorite photos of their daughter. We included extra photo tabs so they could change the photo if they want.
This one was inspired by a canvas that CD received when she was born.
(Thanks CS)

And here is Mom with her new one month old bundle of joy !
You did good guys!!
Congratulations

Bug Catchers from WhiMSy Love

The girls and I whipped up these cute little bug catcher necklaces today after school. You can check out the tutorial by WhiMSy love to make one of your own too! CJ came home with a clover clutched tight in her hands and kept asking me to hold it for her. So we found a quick and easy solution to hold on to the tiny little treasures that she would find outside. We didn't have any of the little plastic cases from the candy machines but used the clear snap lid containers from Dollarama. They come in two sizes ~ the larger size for CJ (6 in a pkg) and the smaller ones for CD (8 in a pkg). We'll post pictures of ours after we spend the day outside tomorrow. I worry about all the lady bugs that CD will try to capture and stuff inside... maybe she can be pursuaded to find pebbles!!





(Kinderteacher we thought you might like this one.)

Cupcake Stand

I must remember to keep my eye out for treasures and supplies while at the thrift shops to make this cupcake stand by Givers Log.

You can swap out the plates for a completely different look.

Check out how easy the tutorial is to make your own.

(I'll let you know how it goes when I gather

everything all together and try to assemble my own.
Local readers, please remember to leave some treasures for me at the Village!)

~ just imagine the possibilities!!

Miga necklace

Crafty CJ wanted to make an Olympic necklace so dug through all our beads and came up with this:



She took apart an old beaded necklace for part of her charm, remembered the shrink art I used for another project and made a teeny tiny little Miga to hang at the bottom.



She is so talented! I love when we can
spend time creating together!
I told her someone is going to ask her
"Who brought that from the Olympics for you."

She lit up when I told her to tell everyone that SHE made it!!

Christmas Projects at Studio 13

The girls and I were so fortunate to spend some creating time with
Sassy & the Sprout at Studio 13.
The girls created so many wonderful pieces out of clay!!

CD made many little ornaments that are now hanging on our tree, a few magnets and a one of a kind piece of artwork that I'll cherish forever! She went to work with a piece of clay and every little tool that Sassy handed her!

Sassy showed CJ how to make the cutest little bowls!
These little masterpieces are going to make a lot of people happy on Christmas morning!

Thanks again for sharing your time and studio with us!
We created a couple of special gifts in our own workshop for
Sassy & the Sprout that we delivered today!
Pop on over to Sassy's blog to check out what we made.

Clay Work at Studio 13

CJ was so lucky to have her first lesson in clay work at
Studio 13 with Sassy!

Look at these works of art!!



Sassy packaged them up with ribbons & sweet little notes of praise
and inspiration on each one!
Sassy was so patient and kind as always!
CJ had so much fun and can't wait for her next creative session with Sassy!
We are so fortunate to have such a great (crafty) friend!

Beaver Creek Hike

We went for a trial hike with the baby backpack for CD.
We were welcomed to Beaver Creek with fresh out of the Solar Oven chocolate chip cookies!! They were delish!

CJ educated us on what she knew about solar energy
and learned a few new facts.

Of course CD was happy because there was food!

I must say that the baby backpack is the way to go when walking on nature trails, last time we tried carrying CD and switching off. This was much easier... well for me anyway! I got to take lots of pictures!

See, I was there too!

We even got to see a beaver taking a break from his den building.

Back up at the interpretive center, the girls stopped to make fish prints!

Disclaimer:
No real, live fish were harmed in the making of this craft,
they used rubber replicas!
(Though I must confess in my Playground Leader
days we did this craft with some from the grocery store fish department! It was when the Spice Girls were popular and all the girls at the park glammed up their fish like their favorite Spice Girl.)

It was quick trip but a fun one!

Back in town we had "fish and chips" for supper.
Tee hee.

In the City

City Scape

We had a little time and CJ made one of her favorite pictures
... a night time city scape.
First draw out the buildings of varying heights and widths on a sheet of paper.
Carefully cut it out into two pieces, KEEP BOTH.
Lay a sheet of dark construction paper down and place the
"bottom" of the city on top...
we should have use painter's tape to keep it from moving...

Get out some coloured chalk... we have chalk pastels... and
a scrap of paper. Scribble, scribble to make some colored dust...

Load your finger with the dust, start on the cut out city
and brush up, up, up...

Take off the "bottom" city and cover the chalking you just did with
the "top" of the city.
This is where we really should have use the tape so it didn't slide.
Pick a second colour of chalk, make dust and this time
brush down, down, down...

Take off the "top city"... add some windows with an oil pastel...

Display your art work very proudly for all of blog world and family...

If CJ's picture didn't slip it would have turned out better... no matter.
It looks like the city is a blaze
but with different colours you can get different effects.
It will look just like the city at night...
Of course, CJ & CD are rarely up past dark so they'll just have to take my word for it!