In December, my mom gave us some decorative star anise to play with. Emma had the idea of using it in a collage. She wanted to attach it to the paper using paint, so we added some food coloring to glue to turn the glue into paint. She stirred the food coloring in carefully with [...]
I’ve had a few people ask how I made my blog button. It’s really easy and doesn’t require artistic talent, but it isn’t a technique I’ve seen used anywhere else.
MATERIALS:
Digital photo
GIMP (free download here) or similar photo editing software
STEPS:
Open your photo in GIMP. I used the photo from this post.
Crop your picture [...]
Looking for a creative way to decorate your child’s bedroom walls in a non-permanent way? Emma and I created these decorations for her and Johnny’s room during a recent mother-daughter date. We used contact paper and Sharpie pens (my most recent craft splurge). I got the idea after researching vinyl wall stickies and [...]
MATERIALS:
Paper plate
Markers
Clothespins
STEPS:
Divide back of plate into as many sections as you want to use colors.
Color each section a different color.
Color the clothespins these same colors
Attach the clothespins to the section of the plate with the same color.
This is an activity I’ve seen on several blogs. I got [...]
MATERIALS:
Large sheet of paper
Desktop protector
Markers or crayons
We hadn’t made a play mat in a while, so it was the perfect activity for our first day home without relatives to help entertain yesterday. Johnny got this car/boat/plane set from a friend as a big brother gift, so we made a town to go with it. I [...]
We had another go at sidewalk paint yesterday. I made the paint the way you are “supposed to” with corn starch instead of flour this time. I also used washable paints instead of food dye after reading a comment left by Cindy on this post. We haven’t had issues with food dye staining on [...]
I feel this photo captures my two children’s personalities perfectly: Emma painting carefully with a brush, and Johnny moving quickly from paintbrush to hands…
…and then from paper to hair (sorry this second photo is so over-exposed):
I love washable paint!
Emma helped me press some flowers recently, and then wanted to play with the finished product. Because she didn’t want the fragile dried flowers to fall apart, we decided to laminate them using some packing tape. Now she has beautiful dried flowers she can play with to her heart’s content without worrying about crushing [...]
Inspired by posts on several of my favorite blogs, we decided to try out sidewalk paint. We didn’t have corn starch, so I substituted flour. That worked pretty well, but flour doesn’t wash out of paint brushes as well as corn starch, so we’ll be buying some corn starch to use in future sidewalk chalk [...]
MATERIALS:
Paper
Yarn or string
Tempera paint
Phone book
This is another craft that Emma found in this French craft book. It’s quite simple.
STEPS:
1) Place a sheet of paper in an old phone book, coat the yarn or string (except one end) in paint, and arrange the yarn on the sheet of paper, leaving [...]