Daddy Gifts on a Budget

I would have just labeled this post Father's Day gifts, but my hubby has the unfortunate luck of having a birthday that falls right between our son's birthday and Father's Day, so I'm including the simple birthday gift idea.  It can still be used for Father's Day, too.  But I will start with the Father's Day gift we did for my hubby this year.  It's an adorable painted plaque with the kids' handprints.  The original idea came from here.  I loved the smaller squares and found some perfect ones at Michaels, but my kids' hands were just too big.  So I ended up going with the rectangular beveled plaques and a larger background plaque.  I also really loved the staining on the original, but I just didn't have time.  One thing about having a hubby who doesn't work outside the home is that he is always around somewhere :).  So I had less than an hour to throw this project together.  I'm happy with how it turned out for the time I had.  And I think he will really love this.

For the simple birthday gift, I made some fake movie tickets on the computer with a blank movie ticket template and a watermarked image from Iron Man 3.  I put them in a silver envelope and finished with a classy black ribbon.  A very simple idea, but it will lead to a much-needed date night!!  He was thrilled with this!

The last homemade gift idea we used was for the bird lover in our lives, my dad.  The kids picked out the birdhouse at Michaels and painted it...well, mostly Colton painted it.  But it turned out adorable.  And homemade gifts are always well received by those doting fathers and grandfathers, especially when you are on a budget.

Wishing all of you a Happy Father's Day this weekend!

Homeschooling Crafts: Weeks 6-7

It's been a while since I've posted homeschooling craft ideas.  Between the craziness at work and Colton's birthday, it's just been too hectic.  But we have been working on some fun themes.  Week six was all about giants - dinosaurs, whales, skyscrapers...everything huge!  The kids absolutely loved it.  We did dinosaur puzzle and read dinosaur books.  The Bible stories of the week were, of course, David and Goliath and Jonah and the Whale.  Both were big hits with the kiddos.

As for crafts, we did these fun foam bird mobiles.  It's just foam pieces cut into the shapes of the bird body and wings.  The wings are glued into a slit in the body and then held in by yarn threaded through hole punches - one in the center of the wings and one on either side of the slit.  The kids decorated them with foam stickers and markers, and then we glued on some fun feathers we picked up at Michaels.  This was definitely a fun hands-on craft for the kids, and one they are enjoying in their rooms.

 

Then we broke out the paint...always a treat for the kids!  I cut out butterflies on painting paper and had them paint one side using Qtips as brushes.  Then we folded them with the paint on the inside so the design would transfer symmetrically.  It worked out a little better with Kaitlyn's (bottom)...by the time we got Colton's folded, the paint had dried some.  But, like I said, anything with paint keeps them both happy :).

 

The other painting craft we did was supposed to be a starry night scene.  Part of this weeks lesson is about moon stages and nocturnal animals, so this fit right in.  Believe it or not, Kaitlyn's is the one that actually turned out really well.  I was pretty surprised since Colton is usually the neater little artist!

We also did a lesson on coins, so of course we had to do some coin rubbings.  The kids had some trouble keeping the coins still under the paper, so I made them an example sheet to learn the names, sizes, and values.  But they had a lot of fun with this one anyway!

And I"m going to end with a couple more flower pictures!  There is so much beauty in every season, but I absolutely love the flowers...God showing off :)!  Our day lilies came out like crazy this week, so I had to give them some picture love.  Kaitlyn was so amazed by their beauty!  Hope you're all having a blessed week!

Glittery Jesus Fish Mobile

This is quite possibly my favorite craft to date…a glittery Jesus fish mobile.  I found the idea here.  Now if you’re like me, the thought of setting your kids loose with glitter will make your stomach turn.  But I was pleasantly surprised to find that this was not a bad clean up at all.  The kids absolutely loved painting glue and sprinkling glitter.  And Colton adores the Jesus fish anyway, so this craft was right up his alley.

And the finished product…  We wrote I Heart Jesus on the cardstock.  Colton did a great job writing his own!

The other craft we did this week was a paper plate bird.  They’re cute, but they weren’t nearly as big a hit as the Jesus fish mobiles.

Mother's Day Kids Crafts

For the week of Mother's Day, we did a foam house family portrait.  It’s just foam tacky glued to poster board with family pictures.  The kids had fun with this one and it looks cute.  Then we did curlicue signs for my mom, sister, and grandma.  These are cardstock backings with decorative paper on top.  The “writing” is strips of construction paper rolled up.  Those little curlicues took forever to make.  So this ended up being a mostly me project since the kids lost interest pretty quickly.  Both of these ideas came from a craft idea magazine my parents found.  We also made Mother’s Day cards.  Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of those.  But they were inspired by a craft from Oriental Trading.  We cut out the kids’ handprints and a folded flower pot shape from cardstock.  We glued one handprint on the inside of the front flap of the flower pot and the other handprint on the inside of the back flap.  Then we decorated the fingertips with foam flower stickers.  It turned out pretty cute…wish I had remembered to get a picture….

Wood Animal Craft

Here is a little frog and a butterfly made out of little wood shapes (they sell these in a large bag at Michaels).  The original idea called for painting these, but we are doing a lot of painting this week, so I opted for just having the kids use markers.  I helped fill in the color a little bit.  Then we just used Alene’s tacky glue to put them together.  You can also add a magnet to the back.  I was going to do that, but the kids are enjoying carrying them around and playing with them too much.

Weather Chart

This is a fun little weather chart we put together several months ago using printouts from the Nick Jr. website.  It’s been an awesome tool for the kids to learn about weather and days of the week.  I’m thinking a laminator would be a good investment, though, since it’s showing some wear and tear.

Zoo Crafts

 

In honor of zoo week in our homeschooling, we made cute paper plate and construction paper lion masks.  Both kids drew the faces on…Colton’s on the left, Kaitlyn’s on the right.  I love them!  As far as kid friendliness of the craft, I would say it’s pretty good.  They enjoyed drawing the face and curling and gluing a little bit of the mane, but they lost interest in the mane pretty quickly.  Once the masks were done, they had a blast roaring at each other though!  We also printed up some animal pictures from our recent trip to the zoo and made a collage.  That was a fun lesson in identifying animals and learning to spell their names.

Four Seasons Chart

This is a cute four seasons poster the kids and I made using printouts from the ABCJesusLovesMe curriculum.  It’s a fun way for the kids to visualize the seasons and learn how to spell them.

Birdhouse Painting

I picked these cute little houses up at Michaels for $1 a piece, and the kids had a blast painting them.  Kaitlyn chose to go all brown for hers.  Colton, on the other hand, wanted to try every color.  I love how they both turned out.  We also did a short lesson on feather pens, using some feathers and paint to try writing.   The feathers I had weren’t great for the project, but I think it got the point across.

Candy Train Party Favors

These little candy trains were among my favorite touches for my son's 5th birthday party.  He had a Thomas the Train theme, and I thought these would make cute favors.  The idea I found online called for rolls of Lifesavers to serve as the main body of the train.  But if anyone has looked for those rolls of Lifesavers lately, you’ve probably seen that they just aren’t readily available anymore.  After going to five stores, I gave up and found these push pops instead.  I thought they worked absolutely perfectly.  And with the wonders of a hot glue gun, these fun little favors didn’t take long at all!

Sewing Projects

A close family friend gave me a bunch of sewing kit projects a while back to make sundresses for Kaitlyn and a Veggie Tales growth chart.  So I took part of the afternoon and dedicated it to sewing.  Here are the results:

   

I'm not a huge fan of sewing kits...mostly because I don't tend to like the fabric they use.  But they are nice and easy.  Bonus that this one was free and my friend had already cut out the pieces.  So I just had to sew it together...nice!  It'll be a great spring and summer church and play dress for Kaitlyn!

This dress was my first time using a button closure.  I can't say it's something I enjoyed, but at least it's working.

My second project was the Veggie Tales growth chart.  This one was super simple and literally took about 15 minutes to cut out, pin and sew.  This will be great for tracking the kids' height!

Welcome Spring!

Today officially ushers in spring!  I've heard it may snow a little bit tomorrow, but I haven't brought myself to look at the weather.  This first day of spring has been gorgeous!  We started planting our garden today...we're a bit behind, I know.

Here's the first picture of this year's garden.  They don't look like much now, but I love when the first little sprouts break through the soil!  I tried to find some flowers to photograph in honor of spring, but the only live flowers I could find were so tiny I needed the Super Macro.  Then I just supplemented with a shot of the fake flowers on my door wreath :).

         

The craft for today was making little pom pom caterpillars.  The idea came from a craft in the Oriental Trading catalog.  Normally, I am more than happy to support that company by ordering their products, but Kaitlyn really wanted to do this craft today.  So I improvised with things we had on hand. And once they were made, we of course had to take them outside....

 

I also started my determined quest to replace my Scholastic book club addiction with regular trips to the library.  So Kaitlyn and I went to the one right down the street today.  She got to play in the activity center and with the educational computer games, so she had a blast.  I was also thrilled to find that they carry a ton of Thomas the Train and Veggie Tales videos!  Why didn't I use the library before, I wonder.  Happy Spring!

Easter Crafts

Our computer is finally back up and running!  I'm going to share a few Easter crafts I've done with the kids over the past week and a half.  It's funny because you can never really tell which crafts will be a hit with the kids and which won't.  I thought the chicks in an egg craft would be one that the kids would love, but that was actually the least favorite of the below crafts.  Every kid has a different craft personality, but I think it's good to try a wide variety, even if some are a flop with the kiddos :).

 

Here's the chick in an egg craft.  I thought it was adorable.  And don't get me wrong, the kids thought these were cute...they just weren't as into them as they have been into other crafts.  These are made from foam sheets, with foam flower stickers.  We used glue sticks to attach everything and a small brad to make the hinge.

 

I'm a sucker for anything that includes the kids' hand or footprints, so I fell in love with this Angel craft idea the moment I saw it. We just used cardstock, stickers, glue sticks and markers to make these.  The body is their footprint and the wings are their handprints.  Both kids really enjoyed having their feet and hands traced, and they really liked the final product.  Kaitlyn was much more into the decorating than Colton though.  As you can see, she even decorated herself!

 



And then there's my favorite craft of the week!  These little styrofoam bunnies are sooooo cute!  The kids had a great time making these.  They got to participate in every step of the craft, so that kept them happy and involved.  They cut the pipe cleaners (with a little bit of help) and stuck them into the styrofoam eggs.  Then they placed the eyes and used a glue stick to add little cottonball bunny feet.  These are still getting a lot of play time!

Fun Kids Craft Ideas

I want to share some really fun craft ideas along with a shout out to the Nick Jr. fan club web site.  I found this web site a while back when Kaitlyn started getting into Bubble Guppies.  They have a ton of printables.  I've found that the coloring pages aren't really worth it for us because you can get whole coloring and activity books at craft stores and dollar stores for under $1.  But the craft ideas are awesome!  We've done a few recently that I will share.  But this web site has everything from holiday cards and mobiles to board games and 3D projects, all with templates that you can print right from your computer.

 

For Kaitlyn, we did a Bubble Guppies hanging name sign and an Umizoomi Castle.  The hanging sign originally called for it to say "FALL," but I printed extra templates and modified it a bit to spell out her name.  This is just paper printouts glued onto foam sheets with foam letters on top.  The castle is just printed out templates wrapped around a shoe box and some toilet paper rolls.  It's great for teaching numbers, and there are plenty of other character templates to keep this fresh.  Kaitlyn has the Umizoomi characters and the Dora characters sharing a castle at present :)!



This is one of the fun board games they have.  If you have access to a laminator, this would be very durable.  Right now, ours is just paper on poster board for some stability.  But the kids have fun playing.  This one is a number game that involves number recognition and counting (forward and backward!), so it's a good learning tool.



This one I saved for last because, while it was obviously inspired by the Bubble Guppies hanging sign, there was no template for it.  Colton tends to be one of those kids who likes things that either don't have much out there as far as fun ideas (i.e. the Fisher Price Laugh and Learn Puppy) or cost money for pretty much everything beyond coloring pages (i.e. Thomas the Train).  He loved Kaitlyn's hanging sign so much because he is really into letters and spelling his own name, but the Bubble Guppies aren't really characters he gets excited about.  So it took some improvisation and Google searching, but I came up with Thomas and Percy pictures that were similar enough to make a cute template, put some white foam clouds on them, and added his name.  He was thrilled!!  If you have a Thomas the Train lover, this would be a really fun project.  They get to use glue sticks and spell their name...what could be better!  But even if your kids are not into the characters on the Nick Jr. web site, you can still find fun ideas to modify.  It's free to join.  Happy crafting!!