Thursday, July 19, 2012

t-shirt bib...

grab an old child-size t-shirt...


cut it into a long rectangle, with the neck hole more towards the back...


and you've got a stay-put, un-pull-off-able, throw in your bag-able, easy to put on bib!





Monday, June 18, 2012


for a little tactile fun...

grab an old shoe box...


cut a hole out on one side...


cut out two pieces of fabric, large enough to cover the hole...


cover the hole, from the inside, with the fabric... glue the pieces on the edges, overlapping them in the middle...


and you've got yourself a mystery box.


now, gather some items to put in there...


and guess, just by feeling, what's inside!  


you can do it one by one and play a guessing game... 


or throw a whole bunch in there and try to find a certain one...


 and let the mysteries begin.




Monday, June 11, 2012

a little thanks...

a generous friend of mine gifted this super-awesome cookie mold to us...


it's cast iron, and probably weighs as much as my 3 year old.

and it's awesome!

as a thank you to her, we made some crayons with it...

gathered some old crayons, peeled off the paper...and broke them into pieces (i used my hands... leo?... he liked the hammer method...)


searched for the letters we needed...


and sorted the crayons by color...




set the oven at about 250 degrees, and let all the wax melt (about 10 minutes), and then turned the oven off and let it cool before moving them.

i was hoping they'd just pop out, but they didn't.  so we turned the mold over and used a heat gun to warm them up enough to wiggle them out with an exacto knife.


and that was that...


Wednesday, March 14, 2012

building a rainbow... again...

things have been a bit quiet over here...

with st. patrick's day coming up, i thought i'd repost a rainbow activity we did awhile back...

enjoy!













Monday, February 20, 2012

water beads...

i've been wanting to try these out for so long now...


we finally got our hands on some water beads...


a score at the 99 cent store...




they're pretty awesome.


water beads are made for floral arrangements... they start as little pellets, then you soak them in water for about 8 hours, and they absorb all that water... they grow to about the size of marbles, but they're sort of soft and gelatinous.  so much fun to play with!

one thing i learned from using them... since they're just sitting there in their own moisture, with nothing really to absorb the water (as they're intended), be careful how you store them.  ours got moldy and we had to throw them out.  if left out in the sun or something like that, they can shrink back up again and be used over and over. also, wash your hands before using them to keep them nice and clean.

have fun!

Thursday, February 9, 2012

sweet hearts...

start with some toilet paper rolls...


add a little paint...


and a little more...


let them dry...


slice each roll into four even rings...


pinch one end of each ring into a teardrop shape, then hot glue two of them together...


gather them all up...




add some string...


and hang them up...


for some sweet heart decorations :)


Tuesday, January 24, 2012

cloud dough...

one part oil to eight parts flour...

makes cloud dough!







thank you to flights of whimsy for the recipe!