Tissue 'Painted' Wind Sock craft

Wind Socks are a great way for kids to 'see' the wind. During spring the kids flew their kites a lot. This craft lets us remember all the fun every time we catch sight of the wind sock hanging on the balcony.

Our Wind sock is made from a repurposed items and good ol' school glue! If you want to make your own I have outlined how we did it below:

Materials to gather together:

White School Glue

Old Mixing bowl

Large Paint brush

Empty oatmeal container

Patterned Napkins 

Ribbons

String or yarn

In the bowl, mix 1 part glue and water 

Unfold napkins and separate it's layers they have a plain white liner (you just need the patterned side)

Drape the napkin over the container and begin painting glue onto the surface.  Continue covering the napkin with glue until it is completely soaked. Repeat with more napkins until the container is completely covered.

 Depending on the colors and patterns on the napkins you may need to add a second layer to make sure the print on the oatmeal container doesn't show.

When the glue is completely dry use a sharp needle or compass to make some holes in the base -which is going to be the top of the wind sock ;-). This will be where you can thread the yarn or string you will hang it up by.

We used attached fabric wired ribbons to the open end of the container but regular ribbon, metallic ribbon, yarn or strips of fabric would look great too!

Thanks for taking a look at our project, I hope you get a chance to make your own!

Making halloween masks for 18" Dolls and Alton's Pumpkin Pie

After a visit to the Pumpkin Patch, the kids wanted to host a Fall party for their dolls. They have 'Our Generation Girls' which are the same size as the 'American Girl Dolls'.


Rather than make costumes for them I suggested we make masks. While Miss K finished off her math Mini Piwi and I traced mask shapes onto card and collected up some decorating supplies.

Here is what they come up with before Daddy arrived home from work.

The leaf princess mask

A Kitty Cat

Later Mini Piwi asked me to help her thread some of the leaf decorations onto floss to make a dolls necklace.

The Party included eating the Pie we made from a Pumpkin we chose at the Pumpkin Patch.

 We used Alton Brown's Pumpkin Pie recipe which has a base made from Gingersnaps. Mini Piwi had a great time bashing the cookies into crumbs.

The Pie was very popular!

2013 Perfectly Pumpkin Contest -Share your Pumpkin fun!

Welcome to the B-inspired Mama's Second Annual Perfectly Pumpkin Contest. Last year was a lot of fun with over 120 creative pumpkin ideas shared!

For instant inspiration you can see the 2012 winners here. This year is promising to be even more fun!

We are excited to be co-hosting along with the talented mamas from B-inspired Mamas, Preschool Powol Packets and Gift of Curiosity.

Meet our Special guest judges! These talented ladies will have the difficult task of choosing a grand prize winner in each of the Four categories.

• Pumpkin Kids Activities
• Pumpkin Crafts
• Pumpkin Carving/Decorating
• Pumpkin Recipe

Jen from Tatertots and Jello

Jill from Kitchen Fun with My 3 Sons

Laurie from Alex Toys

Natania from GeekMom

InLinkz.com

Each winner will receive an awesome prize package (to be revealed very soon!) from some of our generous sponsors including ALEX Toys.  ALEX Toys offers a vast collection of toys and craft kits to foster creativity and imagination in kids.  we are also excited about our sponsor is C & T Publishing, publisher of the super fun FunStitch Studio series of creative books for kids.

How to enter:

• Link up all of your Pumpkin themed ideas by Sunday October 20, 11pm EST. There are no limit to the number of posts you can enter. As llong as it is pumpkin themed or made with a Pumpkin you're in! Don't worry about specifying a category, we can do that for you.

• Follow all of the co-hosts on Facebook: B-Inspired Mama Facebook, Preschool Powol Packets, Learning and Growing the Piwi Way and Gift of Curiosity

• Share the contest on Social Media (Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, G+ and/or Instagram) with the hashtag #PerfectlyPumpkinContest.

An InLinkz Link-up

Making a Bed for Dolls and Teddy Bears

Miss K really loves looking through the  American Girl doll catalogue. I would have been the same at that age! These days it gives me sticker shock! As for Piwi Daddy, well we could have won big $$$ on America's Funniest Home Videos if we had recorded his reaction to the price of this accessory (not an affiliate link).

Needless to say we are not likely to be purchasing two AG beds anytime soon. Instead I promised to make them. They were simple and inexpensive to make. If you have time, some fabric (or old pillow cases), a box and some duct tape then you can make this for your little doll or stuffed animal fan.



Making the Bed

Diaper Boxes were something we had in excess and use now to transport school supplies when we move.  I also discovered this week that the long 'Huggies' Diaper Boxes are a perfect size for an 18" Doll. Cut the box down to a height of 2 inches and cover it in some fancy Duct tape. You have now have doll 'bed base' measuring 18" x 9" x 2" (depth).

Making a Mattress 

To Make a walled mattress to fit the inside of a doll 'bed' measuring 18" x 9" x 2" I used:

• 2 pieces of fabric 20 x 11"
• 2 pieces 3" x 12"
• 2 pieces 3" x 21"

Instead of just stitching the two large pieces together as you would to make a pillow slip, you will need to stitch the 3" strips to each side of the larger piece. Be sure to leave a 3 inch gap on one of the side seams so you can turn it in the right way. The ends of the strips are then sewn shut to produce a sharp corner.  Stuff the mattress with enough filling to be firm and hand stitch the gap. It takes a bit more time and a few extra seams than a simple pillow but you end up with a thicker and flatter mattress. We tried using a regular pillow shape and the dolls tended to roll off easily.

For the Sheets

Cut a piece of fabric 18 x 22" and hem all salvage edges. I added a wide ribbon for extra decoration (and so we could tell the sheets apart).

The kids were very happy with the final product and love tucking Kendra and Mama into bed each night. Yes, our 3 year old named her Doll 'Mama'. It is not often you have a doll named after you!

I suspect this is only the beginning of my adventures with making Doll accessories!

Bacon Slippers for Fathers' Day

The kids asked Piwi Daddy what he would like for Fathers' day and he said he would like some new slippers. Here are the ones he got for Christmas... or what is left of them.

and here is the slipper bandit.

We decided to get some basic flip flop which could withstand an occasional chew if Butter manages to get hold of them. Not very exciting....

Thankfully I was inspired by Diana's Coffee Mug makeover at Diana Rambles. Who knew you could get Bacon themed Duct tape! Piwi Daddy is a huge bacon fan so we decided to make him some bacon flip flops.

The kids would have liked to cover the whole shoe but I just did the upper part.

It went on surprisingly smoothly and I was careful not to leave any rough edges to irritate a toe or two.









The kids reckon he is going to love them!





Fathers' Day Card Alternative: A Treasure Map!

This year we are trying something new and giving Piwi Daddy a Map instead of a card! The map will be his guide to all the fun activities we have planned. The art work was a team effort: Mini Piwi drew the roads and our car on the map. Miss K added all the activities.

Last month we started talking about all the things we could do together for fathers day. The list got fairly long so we are going to be celebrating all weekend!



The list includes:

• Visiting the Butterflies and Dinosaurs at the Houston Museum
• Making Breakfast for Dad
• Dessert at The Chocolate bar
• Lunch at a Baja Grill
• Visit the Pet shop with Butter the Basset
• Present time!

Here's what we will be presenting to Piwi Dad at Breakfast on Saturday. The kids are excited already!

Prechool Spring Themed Recycling Projects

Easter Sunday isn't the end of all the brightly colored eggs and fun crafts around here! We still have 7 more weeks to celebrate the Easter season. The kids have a list of crafts they want to make...

Our first craft was these cute magnets we made from Plaster and re-purposed molds.

For the circles and ovals we used some ice cube molds we found at the dollar store.

The plaster took about 30 minutes to harden and then the Piwis decorated I with tempera paints and glitter.

Can you guess what we used for these little flowers?

.....A Plastic egg 'carton'. We usually buy eggs in cardboard cartons. Recently we tried a brand which holds the eggs in this crazy two layered plastic carton. It seemed like such a waste of packaging I kept it and gave it a new job as a paint tray (and went back to cardboard cartons). Cleaning it off the other day I realized the bottom of each cup had a daisy like pattern.

We are planning on making the decorations into magnets. In the meantime they have became 'rainbow rocks' for Mini Piwi's Spring train town. Our egg carton flowers also made an appearance....

Last year we made hair garlands from egg cartons. We used the same technique again. For a different effect we used paint to decorate them (instead of oil pastels) . I have big plans for these flowers in next weeks trays...



While I am on the subject of recycling....This week we made over Miss K's little scooter. Mini Piwi has always wanted to be able to ride it like her big Sis and is thrilled to say it is hers now. Unfortunately she wasn't too keen on Princesses. The before picture....

 I was considering repainting the frame but Mini Piwi liked the pink. All we had to do was remove the princess stickers. She chose stars and New Zealand fern stickers to give it some sparkle....

 Mini Piwi loves it and is determined to be able to ride as well as the 'big kids'....Miss K is excited to be using a lighter scooter. At this rate I am going to need one too just to keep up with them!

Sharing is Caring Blog hop is all about Easter!

We are excited to be part of Sharing is Caring Blog Hop hosted by Monika from Life With Lovebugs.
If you would like to be part of the hop you can join in the fun by signing up here.

The theme for March is Easter! We are sharing how Family project for Lent and a Family Easter tree activity.