Rosy Cheeked Snowman Fridge

I am so excited about the return of our snowman fridge.  It's becoming quite the tradition at our house, and I don't know what we'll do when we get around to replacing this old refrigerator.  Each year we find something to add to the snowman to spruce him up a bit, and this year it was the addition of rosy pink cheeks!

It's amazing what two little pink circles can do to make our snowman look super excited to be back this year!

If you want to make your own snowman fridge, this is what you'll need:

Materials

• Construction Paper
• Wrapping Paper
• Tape
• Bowls, Cups, Lids for Tracing
• Pencil
• Scissors

Trace large circles for the eyes and buttons, and trace smaller circles for the mouth and rosy cheeks.  This could be great practice for children, and they can even cut out the circles if they are old enough to use scissors (remember safety scissors for the little one!).  

I don't trace anything for the nose or arms, but it can be done!  The nose could be a triangle, and the hat and arms could be made of rectangles.  Use this as an opportunity to discuss shapes!  When all the pieces are cut out, use a tape that's easily removable to put everything in place on the fridge.  Stand back and enjoy!!  

Note, Frosty the Snowman or Christmas carols playing the background while you are decorating the fridge are an added bonus!

Visit this post to see some of our snowmen from years past.  http://handmadebycj.blogspot.com/2012/12/snowman-fridge.html 

Weather Themed Sensory Tub

Now that school is out for the summer, I'm finally getting back to some of our preschool crafts and activities. We hadn't been doing a whole lot in that department over the last few months, and I'm running out of time!  It's hard to believe that my son will be starting kindergarten at the end of next month!  This summer is going to go so fast!

We've made a few trips to the library in the past couple weeks and aside from signing up for the summer reading program and picking up all kind of story books, we picked up several books about weather.  I grabbed books about storms, tornadoes, wind, and sun.  We are going to spend some time learning about the weather!  And so far, the weather has been perfect too, because one morning we woke up and it was raining.  I pulled out the book about rain, and we made a raindrop craft.  Yesterday was cloudy, so we learned about different types of clouds.  Today is bright and sunny, so we are reading a book about the sun and making a happy sun craft!

To go with our weather studies, I decided to put together a quick weather themed sensory tub.

It's been a while since I've made a new sensory tub for the kids to play with so when they realized what I was doing, they were pretty excited!

The main ingredient in this sensory tub is of course cotton ball clouds!  Yesterday's cloud activity used cotton balls to depict different types of clouds.  We based it on this post from Carrots are Orange.  And now I'm completely out of cotton balls!

I used the same big yellow gear for a sun that I used in our Space themed sensory tub.  I added a few hard golf balls and some little white pom poms to represent hail and snowflakes.  Thanks to last month's hailstorm, the kids are very familiar with how hard (and damaging) hail can be!

The tiny blue beads represent raindrops, and turned out to be a perfect choice.  The kids were picking them up and letting them drop out of the clouds like rain!  

I cut cloud shapes out of a dark patterned piece of felt to represent storm clouds, and I cut lightning bolts out of yellow foam sheets.  As I was going through our craft cabinet I came across some weather words from an old calendar we had and put them in the bin as well.  We can practice spelling out the words, and they can guess what the words are by the pictures on them.  

I found some little American flags that I put in as well.  My son was confused as to what they had to do with weather, until I asked him what made the flags move.  He held it up and blew on it, and then he yelled "wind!"  

The best part of watching them play with their new sensory tub is when they started using all the pieces to act out the Itsy Bitsy spider.  I ran and grabbed a spider from our old Halloween tub, and they put on a little play of the song!  Priceless!!

Teacher Appreciation Flower Pot

This is going to be a quick post, about a simple but adorable teacher appreciation gift we made for my son's pre-k teachers.  I saw these tulips floating around Pinterest the other morning and knew immediately they were something I wanted to make.  And when I remembered that our son's last day of pre-k and graduation program were quickly approaching I knew exactly what I needed to make them for!

This link over to Mama Miss is where you can find the FREE printable for the tulips and instructions on how to put them together:  http://www.mamamiss.com/2013/05/22/create-kiddo-diy-tulips-upcycled-vase-and-printable/.  They also include a link and tutorial for making your own rope vase using an old baby food jar.  

I didn't have any baby food jars, but decided to hit up the dollar store for some cheap glass vases.  When I got there however, I saw these adorable gray flower pots in a package of 4 for $1!  That deal was just too good to pass up.  I needed to make three pots, one for each of his teachers, and the extra pot lets me make one for myself too!

Once we had the tulips put together, I added in some fake moss.  It helps hold the pipe cleaner stems down in the pot and adds to the "planted" look of the flower pot.  

To finish off the gift, I went to my good friend Google to help me find a great gift tag.  I knew I wanted the message to be something about "growing", and I found exactly what I wanted at Living Locurto, this FREE printable gift tag:  http://www.livinglocurto.com/2012/04/teacher-gift/.  They use the tag on real plants as teacher appreciation gifts.  I love that idea too!  I love getting plants!  Instead of gluing the tag to a Popsicle stick, I hole-punched them and tied a ribbon through the tag around the tulips in the vase.

And there you have it, a great long lasting, maintenance free teacher appreciation flower pot!  

Abstract Art for Kids

Almost every day, my two and half year old asks me if we can paint.  She loves it!  And I love that she loves it!  While drinking my coffee and scrolling through Pinterest this morning, I saw this post for Easy DIY Abstract Art from Craft Pond.  I think I've pinned it before, but seeing it pop up again was a sign!  I knew that's what we were going to do today.  Well at least, that's what the kids would do today, because I'm hooked on the camera and somebody had to take pictures right?!

I gave the kiddos some old 12x12 canvases that I had previously used and then repainted over in white to use again.  They also got to choose their colors from all my old paints.  What I didn't do was insist on adding white in the mix like the tutorial from Craft Pond did.  When I do this for myself, I'm going to follow that tutorial more closely.

The other thing my kiddos didn't do was wash out their brushes.  It was probably easier this way for them, but leads to more of an all over blend rather than just blending colors in certain areas.

They kept at it as long as there was still white canvas available to cover.  After a while it looked like they were getting bored with painting, but after a little encouragement they finished up!

I let them both sign their paintings by writing their names.  Well my 5 year old wrote his name.  My two and half year old just left her mark!

Once dry we immediately hung them up for display!  They are so proud of them!  My son was even trying to sell his painting to his aunt for $60.  He thought that would be enough to buy two Lego sets so it was a fair price!  I can't wait to try this easy abstract painting for myself sometime with my own color choices.  It was a fun quick project that I think we all will be doing again and again!

DIY Shower Ring Christmas Wreath Ornaments

This past Christmas I was looking for a fun, easy, and ultimately affordable gift that I could help my 5 year old son make to give away to his classmates.  I saw these yarn wrapped wreaths on Pinterest and decided to find a cheap way to make them.  

I started hunting around for something to use in place of the wooden rings, and I spotted a package of shower curtain rings at the dollar store.  My son has 12 kids in his class so a package of 12 shower curtain rings for whopping $1 sounded just right to me!  

I already had the red ribbon, glue, and of course scissors in our craft stash, and I picked up the ball of green yarn for less than $2, and the bow stickers were another $1 at the dollar store (These aren't really necessary because you can tie a bow with the ribbon as well).  So if you're keeping track, that's a grand total of $4 for gifts for the whole class!
 

Now to get started making the wreath.  First I tied a knot on the top part of the shower ring.  Hold onto the  yarn to keep it in place and start wrapping, keeping the yarn touching as you go.  Every few wraps, I put a little dot of glue to keep the yarn securely in place.

Then just keep wrapping.  

When you've covered the entire ring, make sure to glue down the loose end of the yarn.

Here's what the ring looks like when it's completely covered.  I bought the green shower rings just in case any of the ring showed through, but you can't see any of it if you wrap it close enough.  So you could use any color rings you find!  

Now add your embellishments.  We used these little glitter bows and tied a red ribbon on to hang it with.  You could add little gem stickers as ornaments on your wreath, wrap multiple colors of yarn to change up the look, or tie on your own bow.  Get creative!

We put them in these cute little plastic snack bags to hand out.

Hang them on your tree, or your cabinets, or a door knob, and enjoy!  

DIY Christmas Sharpie Mugs

Surely you've seen this craze going around Pinterest?  I honestly can't count the number of links I came across before I finally decided to give this project a go.  And once I started looking into the technique, I was amazed at how many people have tried it.  Then I also was a little worried about the number of people that had poor results!

Most of the tutorials will tell you to draw your design on the mug with a regular Sharpie marker, then bake it in the oven at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.  I read other suggestions that said to bake it longer or at a higher temperature.  Some recommended a special type of Sharpie.  Some just said it wasn't worth the time because it won't work.  Well I'm brave so I decided to give it a go and see what happened.

Initially, I picked up 8 coffee mugs.  They are off white ceramic mugs and more curved than the standard coffee mug shape.  After we finished the first batch, I went back to the store and bought about 20 more.  Everyone got a mug from us this Christmas!  And we had so much fun doing them!

To get started, remove any stickers and wash and dry the mugs completely.

Then gather up all the supplies and choose a design.  Since we were planning on giving these away as Christmas gifts, I wanted the kids to be involved in making them as well.  All of the mugs have the kids' thumbprints incorporated into the design.  My favorite are these little reindeer inspired from a project found here.

The thumbprints are all done using acrylic paint.  I used the end of a paintbrush dipped in paint to make the nose, although this could also have been done with a red Sharpie.  The rest of the drawing, the eyes and antlers, and sayings, are all done with the regular Sharpies.  It's a little trickier than you'd think to write across the mug with a Sharpie.  My cursive wasn't the greatest, but that just makes it more personalized!

I let them dry on a baking sheet for about 15 minutes while also preheating the oven.  I decided to up the temp to 375 degrees to make sure it worked!  I put the whole thing in the oven for 35 minutes just to be safe!

Pull them out of the oven carefully and leave them on the baking sheet until they are cooled completely.  After that they got another wash and dry and were ready to be gifted!  I wouldn't recommend putting these in the dishwasher, but the paint and marker shows no signs of coming off after hand washing.  

This design was inspired by a DIY Christmas card found here.  We also did a version using a silver Sharpie for the cord and pastel colored lights.  Don't forget to add the date!

Snowman Fridge

Frosty has returned again this year and before Christmas Day of course.  Decorating the refrigerator for the holidays is so easy and adds so much joy.  All it takes is a few pieces of construction paper and strip of wrapping paper!

Here's a picture of this year's snowman.  We got a little more creative this time.  My five year old said that snowmen have stick arms so we needed to add them too.  The top hat is also new this year.  Comparing it to our light-up snowman in the living room, we couldn't forget the black hat!

The eyes were made by tracing a bowl on a piece of black construction paper.  The buttons and mouth were made by tracing a drinking glass on the construction paper.  The nose was just cut out free hand.  I like the carrot shape I did this year much more than the plain triangle from last year!

Here's a picture of last's year's snowman fridge.  It's a little blurry I know, but someone was just a little too excited about having Frosty in the house!

*This idea is not mine.  The original came from Pinterest last year, but there are so many out there now I have no idea which one was first!

The Crippled Lamb Story and Handprint Activity

We received this book as a present one year, and it's one of my favorite stories to read to the kids.  I love the message, and almost can't get through the story without tearing up.  I also really love any craft involving the kids' handprints so adorable handprint lambs were a must (We even made them last Easter too!)

First we gathered up all of the supplies.  I used a piece of plain cardstock to trace the kids' hands.  I wanted to turn the sheep into puppets for the kids to use while I read through the story this time, so that's what the Popsicle stick is for.  I initially planned on stapling the sheep to the stick, but I seriously underestimated the thickness of the jumbo Popsicle sticks and seriously overestimated the power of my mini stapler.  Luckily glue worked just fine instead!

I let the kids choose which hand they wanted to use and I traced and cut the handprints out for them.  Then they got to work creating their sheep.  We started by making the face with a googly eye and a black marker.

Then they covered the body of the sheep (or the palm of the hand) with glue and started attaching cotton balls for the sheep's wool.

Scunch in as many as you can as long as the glue holds.  You can tear apart the cotton balls or glue on the whole piece like we did.

After the wool was done, we added a little red bow just to make it extra special.  They also colored in the legs (or just the feet) with the black marker and attached the Popsicle sticks with the glue.

I think they turned out pretty darn cute!

Then they had fun holding them up and moving them around while we read through the story.  I loved every minute of it!

Mister Seahorse Craft

Who doesn't love an Eric Carle book?  We love every one we read.  We finally picked up Mister Seahorse at the library last week, and of course had to make a seahorse after reading the book.

I have yet to fix our broken printer so instead of printing out a seahorse template, I simply traced the seahorse on the cover of the book.  Then I outlined it with black marker so the seahorse really stood out.

Then we cut brightly colored tissue paper into small squares.  The kids used watered down Elmer's glue to paint the tissue paper onto the seahorse.  The colors overlapping and blending together really make the seahorses look neat (and just like images in the book).  They glued on a googly eye once they were dry.

 

 
Such a simple craft, but they really turned out neat!

Our Thankful Tree

This idea came from (don't be surprised!) Pinterest!  Bargain Bound's Thankful Tree was so cute, I had to make our own.  I took a few sheets of brown construction paper and went to town with some scissors.  I got a little wild with some of the branches but I think it at least resembles a tree.  

For the leaves, I stacked a few sheets of red, yellow, green, and orange construction paper, traced around a silk leaf from a fake plant, and cut out the leaves.  This was definitely time consuming.  Next time, I will look for some ready made leaf cutouts!

We started off with the leaves at the bottom of the tree, like the post on Bargain Bound.  However, our miniature dachshund who likes to chase and eat leaves decided she wanted to eat those leaves too.  So I moved the leaves up into the branches.

It's neat to see what the kids come up with everyday.  My two year old has a bit of difficulty with this.  I don't think she quite grasps what we're doing, but she listens to her brother and tries to come up with something.  On the first day, she chose her pink bear (aptly named "Pink"), and every day she still says she's thankful for Pink, but I tell her to choose something different each day.  Today it was cabinets.  Of course that's where she likes to play!  Without cabinets, she'd be forced to actually play in the play room or with toys!

I can't wait to see what the kids come up with as the month progresses.  They are running out of family members to choose so I'm sure it's going to get more creative!