Craft Stick Ornaments

Thanks to Pinterest and the Crafty Crow, I have so many cute Christmas ornaments and DIY decorations to do with our kids, we'll be busy all month long! And it's been fun for me to look for and pin cute, easy things complete with tutorials. Love that part!

Here's one I found on Whatever. (that link goes to all her Christmas crafts posts from Christmases past) I just love Meg. She is so creative and funny! And also a great photographer :)

 I quickly hot glued some craft sticks together while the kids were playing.

 After they dried, Megan got to work decorating them.

 I asked her if she wanted to paint them first, but she just wanted to embellish :)

 I think they turned out great!

I noticed this year, our tree we have with only homemade ornaments has a lot of undecorated space. We'll be changing that ;)

Unplugged

We spent a bit too much time this week plugged in. After dropping Megan at daisy camp each day we came home and ended up at some point in the morning on the computer or video games. The weather was absolutely crappy so I couldn't really blame them for seeking their fun in the form of video games, but the over-stimulation took it's toll and toward the end of the week they were not very happy people. There was way too much bickering. So.....we did a project.

Thursday after lunch, I informed them that they would be "unplugged" for the rest of the day. Then I started them on this little activity:

 A close up of their work:

Basically, I traced their shadow on paper, they cut it out then glued it onto posterboard, then they went through old magazines and cut out different pictures of things that interest them. They really had a good time doing it! The boys actually did this while Megan was at camp but she liked it so much that she wanted to do one too ;)

 And a little sister-lovin' ;)

I've really been struggling with finding fun things for them to do. Hopefully this weather will break and we can get outside this week!!

Catching the Sun

We finally got around to doing a Valentine craft last week! I've been trying to make a bigger deal out of some of these lesser-type holidays around here but really, it hasn't been going very well for me. They sneak up on me every time! Valentine's Day is one of those. It's right after Todd's birthday so I'm just not thinking about it until it's too late. My family gets an enthusiastic "Happy Valentine's Day!!!" from me and that's about it ;)

But the internet makes everything easier :) I follow a good amount of homeschool and crafting blogs so there's never a shortage of ideas it's just scrapping together the time to get it done. So I did!

I saw this Meg's blog (I love her!) and thought maybe even I could do that!

First, we cut hearts out of construction paper:

 Then a big heart. I used some scrapbook paper I had but you could use construction paper for this as well.

 We placed the big, empty heart on the sticky side of a piece of contact paper then went to work filling it up with the little hearts:

 You can put as many or as little as you want. When you're done, cover it with another piece of clear contact paper and trim excess:

 Cute, little sun-catcher! And cute, little crafter!

We made one for the kitchen window too:

 

I may leave them up for the rest of winter. You can never have enough hearts ;)

Snowflakes

Thursday morning, as we watched the flurries coming down, I decided it was a great morning for a snowflake craft! I hopped on the Crafty Crow, and, as usual, she didn't disappoint. This snowflake resist craft is simple and fun plus it uses paint :) How perfect is that?!?

I didn't photograph working on the craft with blogging in mind so my pictures are more of the kids than the actual work ;) but here's the link if you want more detailed instructions.

Step one: on watercolor paper, draw snowflakes with a white crayon. Press hard! We talked about the fact that they have six sides.

 Nicholas had a bit of trouble seeing where he had made snowflakes. I had him lay the paper on the table and look at it at an angle and I think it helped.

 Kristen was in the other room working on her own homework, but she overheard our little project and wasn't about to miss all the fun! She's going to have so much fun as a teacher :)

Step two: cut paper into equal rectangles. I numbered each corner and added their first initial so we wouldn't get them mixed up and so we could reassemble them properly.

Step three: using watercolors, paint each rectangle. The snowflakes seem to show up better if you paint one direction then another.

 See the example on the computer behind Megan? I like visuals :)

Step four: reassemble. We taped the back then glued the whole thing to heavy construction paper.

Our results:

 This one is Kristen's. She'd already left for school when I was taking the finished pictures. You can see what a difference it makes when you press hard.

There are many other snowflake projects to check out on the Crafty Crow. I love the yarn one but I don't know if my gang has the patience for it. Plus there's no paint involved :P

 I have a feeling this will be the Winter for Crafts!

What Happened the Rest of the Day

Everyone came home and had lunch.
Todd left to go hunting. (he'll probably regret that ;))
Kristen left to go to work. 
Things were going well for a while.
Then I heard it...."I'm bored."
They usually do not say that around me because at that point I find something for them to do....and it isn't always "fun"...for them anyway ;)
Today, however, I wasn't in the mood to come up with something to keep them busy. I was hoping they'd find something to do on their own.
They did.

This is their bedroom door. It's locked from the inside. No one is in there.

~sigh~


Yes, I know there are tools to pop those locks but I'm really not in the mood to find it. Or to pop the lock.

What I did do was get something out for them to do ;)

I had bought these at JoAnn's a week or so ago in the dollar isle. I thought they'd be fun to work on some rainy day to use to decorate our classroom for Halloween. I was right! They had a good time working on these a bit while I cooked a quick dinner.

Now it's bath time! That means it's almost bedtime! Although I don't know how the boys are going to manage all this with the door to their bedroom locked ;)

Tie-Dye!

One of the things the kids really wanted to do this year was tie-dye. Even though it didn't make our summer list, I was planning it. Until I saw that one of the VBS's they went to was planning it! I'm off the hook! Or so I thought. It turned out that only Brandon's grade made them. So it made a reappearance on my shopping list. But! Our church has had get-togethers for their first through fourth graders once a month this summer. They played water games and some other outdoor games. We hadn't made it to any yet, but for this last one of the summer, they were tie-dying too! Nicholas was begging to go. So I took him ;) When we got there, they asked Megan if she wanted to stay too. YES! (Brandon was at home or he probably could have stayed as well) They had a ball playing and, of course, loved doing the tie-dye. Megan won one of the dodge-ball games :) She threw the ball and got the other person out. Nicholas was really excited for her since she was on his team ;)

So here they all are enjoying their tie-dye shirts!

Megan really wanted to hold Brandon's hand:

Brandon was not in a hand-holding mood ;) Look at that face!

Then they started cracking up!

Cuteness!

Stepping Stones

Yesterday was a fun day around here! We had some crafty projects laying around that the kids were dying to do so I decided to indulge them :)

I bought these stepping stone kits at JoAnn's two years ago! I saw them while I was in the checkout marked down big time so in my cart they went. Hello, my name is Laura, and I'm an impulse shopper ;) I knew the kids would have fun with them, I had just forgotten how much I procrastinate doing a project that has the potential to make a huge mess! Anyway, a couple of months ago, Todd ran across them while cleaning out the garage and asked me about them. I said yes, we were totally going to do those, do not throw them out! I mentioned it to the kids last week as a potential project, but something else came up so they didn't get done. Yesterday, Nicholas started in on me first thing in the morning annoying begging me to get them out! Finally, I sent him up to wake Kristen (did I mention he started early?). If we were dragging out those kits and making that mess, we were doing everyone's all at the same time!

It was great fun! Since the weather this week has been so much better, it's just fun getting outside with them doing things like this.

Nicholas had to be first!

I did the majority of the mixing for the younger ones, Brandon mixed most of his and Kristen got to do hers all by herself ;) 

I loved watching how they decorated their stone. My only requirement was to leave a space for their name and the year. Hand prints were optional. Nicholas was so excited about sticking his hand in it though ;)

The finished stones are gorgeous! I can't wait until they are ready to put in the landscaping :)