Friday 30 September 2011

sassy scribbles



Print and tape together to look like above farm, colour and draw in your own animals or stick some on. Flynn had all the animals escaping, and the roosters all sitting on the house so the farmers would wake in the morning.  ignore the orange dots I lost the sticky tape.






Mr potato head


 Potato Printing is a classic I remember doing this with my mum. I was chopping up spuds for shepard's pie and i had a lot so I thought why not do some fast spud faces. I used a ball point pen and just kinda jabbed at it then I used the scoopy pointy end of the potato peeler to clear out the pulpy excess. I also cut little handles into the back of the spud so they would be super easy for little tiny boys to use. Results could have been a bit better, activity only lasted 10 mins, but the stamps will keep if you wash them and pop them into a plastic bag and put them in the fridge. The paper makes great wrapping, and an older child could draw bodies for the spuds at a later date. The stamps turn out best if you really slam them into the paper so next time I'm going to encourage some rough stamping and see if I can stretch it out to 20 mins, maybe i need some glitter paint? printing ink would give you the best results for this, but we just used some acrylic paint that we already had. Go see if you have any tato's floating around just asking for a stamping.

Wednesday 28 September 2011

The Imagination Tree

A shout out to this fantastic site, The Imagination Tree where you can find so many fun ideas, play time need never be dull again. check it out you wont regret it, also i have featured on the thursday link party they have been doing. very cool.

Saturday 24 September 2011

magnetic owls

What do you do with colouring in? magnatise it!


I coloured in the owls for flynn, he told me I did 'very good colouring mummy', then we spent ages naming each owl, he loved doing that. Then I cut them out and laminated them, and cut them out again. Then I gave flynn the opened packet of magnets and while I glued the owls to the magnets he made magnet towers. Leave them for little bit so glue firms up and voila, magnets. Next im going to make some trees and nests and so forth so he can build more involved stories for his owls. Today he was happy getting to know them all.


 

Friday 23 September 2011

sassy scribbles friday - little Owl's

hubby "oh babe you draw the best hooters"... I should give him a sticker for effort.

Wednesday 21 September 2011

Salt Dough Decorations

                                                              Salt Dough Decorations
Salt Dough Recipe;
1 cup of salt,
2 cups of flour
and 3/4 to 1 cup of lukewarm water.
(The amt of water depends on relative humidity.)
Mix the salt and flour together in a bowl, using spatula. Then add the water until a large ball has formed. Knead ball of dough at length on a lightly floured work surface
(somewhere smooth and easy to clean).
The quality of dough you finish with will depend on the time spent on kneading. If the dough is sticky add a mix in the right proportions of flour and salt, or keep adding flour to your bench.
 
Salt dough variations;
You can use coarse sea salt to get a rustic effect if you want.
Replace 2 tablespoons measure of flour with buckwheat flour
thus the mixture is easier to work with.
You can add glycerin which makes modelling easier,
or wallpaper paste (glue) to make stronger models.
Salt dough can be coloured prior to baking with natural colour e.g. coffee grounds, tumeric, chocolate powder or with gouache or food colouring.
 
Any leftovers will keep for a couple of days in a sealed container in the fridge.
 
Decorations.
Last Christmas Dylan's Preschool made christmas stars to thread & hang
which is where i got the idea.
I used cookie cutters for my shapes. roll out dough with a floured rolling pin to @ 1cm thick.
Cut out shapes required ( I used a tree, star, love heart & teddy bear cookie cutter). Re group leftover dough & repeat until used up.
I did actually put food colouring in my mix of green in half & red in half but it comes out quite a soft colour & for this purpose i wanted bright colour.
Make a hole in your decorations big enough (for the child
to thread) prior to cooking them. {If you forget you could drill holes but they may crack if your cooked dough is thin.}
I used a pointy nozzle from a paint bottle to make my holes.
Bake in a slow oven, so i baked mine at 120oc for a few hours to ensure they were really hard & dry.
 
Allow to cool, then paint (acrylic paint) & decorate. we painted ours then sprinkled glitter on the wet paint also. Using wrapping ribbon we threaded each decoration & hung some on the ceiling & some on our xmas tree.
Now a wee tip if you live in a humid climate lacquer them also, as the humidity can make them go soft again (like a stale biscuit & drop off their ribbon) Ideally spray can varnish or lacquer if you can get it, if not paint on varnish. You can re-dry them in the oven if they're not varnish'd & have gone soft (i only did this once while waiting to go shopping & grab some varnish, i don't know if you can keep putting them back in the oven, the glitter & paint were not affected.)
We have our decorations stored in the dry hot water cupboard in an airtight container & hopefully theyre not going mouldy!!! As next christmas i want to get them out & show Dylan what he made when he was 2 , he sat for over an hour decorating them i have never seen him sit so still. I did the process over a couple pf days to keep up interest first day we made the dough & cut them & baked them. Then a couple of days later we painted , decorated & threaded them, then next day we hung them.
They make a great pressie wrapped in cellophane with a ribbon too.
:D
 

Tuesday 20 September 2011

Painted Origami Lanterns


What to do with colouring in or paintings???? Make pretty origami!


I wanted to spice up Eli’s night light, currently a string of fairy lights. I was surfing around on the web and saw some pretty party origami lanterns on fairy lights, challenge accepted. I looked at 2 videos on how to fold them, not too tricky for this origami spas I then had 2 attempts on a bit of scrap paper. I looked at the stack of paper we already had but most of it was done on cardboard and I thought it would be too thick. So Flynn and I made some papers. I pre-cut the paper to squares, them I drew with pen some sea related patterns, I then highlighted bits with crayons especially the white crayon to get the wax resist magic for Flynn. I watered down some food colouring in a cupcake baking tray, and we set to work spreading the colour over the crayon. I let it dry and then I started folding the lanterns the last bit where you blow into it so it expands out, is fantastic! Then you take your little paper balloons and pop your twinkle lights into the hole that you breathed into, they stay on really well, till your 1 year old yanks at them.


 I am so impressed they look really pretty and Eli was impressed too. When he saw them there was a lot of baby natter and pointing until I took him to them he was so smiley and pleased and that makes me pleased it was worth it. These would look great for a party, and they would definitely work with any drawings or paintings you already have on paper, but if you want to do it as a special activity glitter paint would look fantastic and or some thinner paper like rice paper. There are also stunning origami papers available, or wrapping papers. Happy folding.  

Saturday 17 September 2011

Paper Tapestry

Paper tapestry
I wanted 5 min's peace and quiet at the computer the other day to pay bills etc and needed to occupy busy hands so that they didnt get up to mischief.
I had seen paper tapestry somewhere on a blog sorry I cant remember where to be able to tag them (most of my time at the computer I am breastfeeding so trawl around all over the place then forget where I have been= blame it on the hormones)
So I cut up a big piece of card paper into 4 smaller pieces to make it easy for little hands to hold, then again to make it easy I punched lots of holes with a pen (paper clip or anything else same size will do.) For older children I would just let them push the needle through the paper.
I used a Tapestry needle as they are bluntish and thick and embroidery cotton,
I did it double and tied a knot in the end.
I then showed Dylan how to put the needle through the hole and pull the thread and left him to it at my feet. He gave a funny giggle that he does when he is excited and away he went.
I didnt expect him to get it straight away and was impressed that he quickly sewed up the card and demanded another one and which colour cotton he wanted.
These could be pre-prepared and put into sandwich bags for those 'I need you occupied" occasions. it would even fit in your handbag. like when in a meeting with the bank manager you could just whip one out to keep them quiet , still & occupied. Or on a car trip :)
To further expand on the idea you could use some mesh and sew through the holes, you could use ribbon or for younger children you could give them a shoelace with the firm end. etc.

Thursday 15 September 2011

sassy scribbles friday

Put it all together for this little town


top left

top right


bottom left

bottom right


Wednesday 14 September 2011

Preschool Style Bottle Rockets

5, 4, 3, 2, 1, launch
Ok take a soft drink bottle or juice bottle, pop some stickers on for windows, cut some triangles then snip in the middle of the longest side a cm cut, fold in opposite directions and stick tape the wings to the bottom of the rocket. Sticky tape some wrapping string or fabric leftovers or ribbon on the bottom in flame-ish colours, this helps with the whooshing effect.  Kids can fill bottle with sequins, little balls of alfoil, glitter, pom poms whatever you like really. In one bottle each boy got tiny drip of washing up liquid and about 1 ½ cups of water, in the other bottle they got about ¼ cup of baby oil and the rest of the bottle filled up with water. Some food colouring was added to both, lids secured tightly and then taped up so little people don’t consume what’s inside.  Shake up and see the different kinds of bubbles.  We then launched ours down the slide.



 Recycling plastic bottles is a great cheap toy; you can also make noisy ones with coloured rice or barley, lentils or split peas. We have a big container that sits in outside full of interesting combinations. Eli likes throwing them about, Flynn uses them as fuel to fill up his ride on cars. A yellow dish liquid one got taken to the shops yesterday it was “Spiderman’s kaboom bottle”  “you push the button on the top mum and kaboom spider webs whoosh whoosh out” see so many uses, great imaginative play.

ps. thanks Alicia for teaching me the joy a plastic bottle can bring to small ones x

Monday 12 September 2011

slime


Slime
1 cup of pure soap flakes ( lux flakes) dissolved in 2 litres of boiling water in a bucket, 1/2 hour to set.
Get as creative as you like, I got a whole bunch of different size containers, some food colouring, glitter, stars, and hundreds & thousands.
I poured the soap mix into the the containers, and then added different colours and in some of the containers i also put glitter in some stars, & hundreds & thousands, essential oils in others.
kitchen utensils e.g. sieve, whisk, cup, spoon, egg slicer, chop stick, brush etc.
The first time when i did slime for D he was 1, it took him ages to touch it he pushed it around with a chopstick eventually hopping into the baby bath with it.
i set up some other ingredients to play with e.g. bicarb, vinegar, cornflour, lemon.
D had a full afternoon with slime, first he mixed up a batch using all his ingredients, commenting on the colour changes and his cooking methods - he was baking me a cake. He tipped out the batch onto a tray, then onto the bricks and had a wonderful time smooshing it intro the bricks.
after a recess & snack the slime got all mixed into one big mass, then some made mud for his 4wd to drive through.
Then a couple of cups of slime got put into the bath to bath in. It gave the shark and crocodile plenty to do. It turned quite black but dont fret afterall it is just soap. :D

Saturday 10 September 2011

model magic crayola stuff




I grabbed some of this crayola model magic stuff, I was going to buy air drying clay but thought this might be better as it was already coloured. Its really foamy, lightweight and totally mailable like play dough. It air drys (24hours) I was expecting it to go really hard like clay but its more like rubber. I put down baking paper to protect the table but it didn't stick or leave any residue at all. We made beads, but if i buy it again I would just let them make animals or Christmas decorations because it easily breakable and wont stand the wear and tear Flynn's necklace is going to cop, he keep squishing them and cracking the beads. Still hes very pleased with the results and he had a fun time squishing the colours together, colours he chose, next time I might not choose such clashing colours. Its interesting stuff.

weeks moments



Wednesday 7 September 2011

Skirt-ing Around




I have made somethings for myself in last few week! I mostly sew for little people so this was really nice feel like I have spoiled myself. 3 skirts all long and so so so comfy the green floral is inspired by delia creates blog post i like stripes. I bought the thickets elastic possible in my local craft store and used this great floral soft cotton thats been in the fabric box for ages. I love it  

So then I made this maxi skirt from sew much ado go over and read the instructions you can make this! Best part, its made to fit you, I love it so much I made 2, when i find some more strech fabric I want i will be making another, my wardrobe is so much better with these additions. I used to be afraid of stech fabric but strech needles in my machine and some great projects like this one have totally sold me, strech fabric is great stuff and not even scary. And yeah I know the pics below are not brilliant, one serious I'm over this camera timer stuff face and one what are you kids doing face and hand gesture, but that real life for you.



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