Frozen Paint

I love friends that share ideas they find! 

Frozen Paint was on such idea that my children just LOVED!

and SIMPLE!!!!

Washable kids paint

Ice cube tray

(plastic wrap or foil)

Craft sticks

that's it! well and some paper or cardboard of course :)

Put the paint into ice cube trays- one color in each section 

(I added water to the paint before putting it in the tray so it was not as thick and I didn't have to use so much- yeah I admit I am cheap like that haha)

Then I inserted the craft sticks. I left them sort of laying against the side and the kiddos really liked them  at this angle- but if you want them straight and centered, put foil or plastic wrap on the top of the tray and poke the sticks through so they stay standing up (hopefully)

Freeze!

Once the paint was frozen, I took them out of the freezer and loosened the cubes. Some were harder to get out so a ran the tray under warm water for a few seconds to loosen them more. once they were all loose, i ran them under a stream of water just to jump start the melting process.

To paint, you can use paper or cardboard (or anything similar- paper bags, wall paper_NOT ON THE ALLS OF COURSE! or whatever- the thicker the better though!)

We used cardboard that was coated white on one side, I believe I had them for cakes? They got mixed in with our craft stuff so I just grabbed them! PERFECT!!!

Let them rub the sticks on the paper/cardboard/whatever and as the cubes melt it makes beautiful colored trails :)

*sorry the pics are rotated- too lazy tonight to edit- but you get the idea anyway right? hahaha

Mew's finished painting- The Tank

 Jocie's finished painting- Rainbow Lines

My kiddos had a BLAST! and cannot wait to do this craft again!

I did see another idea where they used frozen paint mixed in shaving cream to make neat designs and art! That may be on our list of TO DOs soon!

Water Pad

Today we made what Jocie decided was the "Funnest craft ever"! She called it the "water pad"

I originally saw the idea Here and KNEW the kiddos would LOVE it!!!

Here is how we made ours.....

Plastic sheeting- chose the 3.5mil thickness- strongest one they had- in the paint section with the drop cloths and tarps

Duct Tape: They wanted something fun and decided on the cheetah print

Food Coloring- the more water you use the more food color you will need or it will get too diluted and not show well

I opened the plastic and rolled out about half of it and cut.

Then I spread it out on the floor and Jocie helped me fold it in half width-wise

Once it was flat, I folded the edges over trying to keep them as even as I could. -I tacked it in place with small pieces of tape to make it a bit easier to keep the ends lined up-

After I did one side I would fold the next side over and reinforce the edges with more duct tape.

*when we filled it later I realized I needed more on the corners or it would leak a bit, so make sure you really seal those corners and edges- although a small leak will not really matter too much as long as the water flows out slowly*

I left a small opening in the corner of one side (near where I had folded it in half)

Here is how it looked pre-water

Lay flat making sure there are no sticks or other sharp objects under it. Also the more level the area the better it will fill.

Insert a garden hose into the opening on the one end and begin filling. I added the food coloring as I was filling it with water.

Once you get it to the desired level, remove the hose, dry the plastic a bit and close the opening with duct tape just as you did the rest of the pad

The more water you add the less air you will see. The first time we filled it, I didn't put in enough water so when the kiddos would jump, the pad would sink to the ground- landing would have HURT- so we opened it back up (be careful- and not silly like me- open in a corner so it is easier to seal, not 6 inches from the corner where it will be hard to seal back up and cause leaking hahaha oooops! haha) 

IF you fill it until there is little air left in it, landing will be much softer and make it MUCH more fun!!!

When we added more water, it diluted the food coloring so the water was clear again (and the dry brown crispy grass was showing through, beautiful brown look ummm not really hahaha yuck! but they still LOVED it!- NEXT time MORE food Coloring! and they each get their own smaller pad so they won't jump on each other hahaha)

Another plus- If the water is cold, it is a great cooling pad if it is hot outside!

Enjoy! We sure did!!!

The water pad help up VERY well despite my rough little Mew! He kept trying to poke his fingers through the plastic and we had to patch a few places (DUCT TAPE oh yeah!!) but no major leaks or holes and they played on it twice today for an hour each time! awesome!!! it really was sturdy!

Cardboard Crab Scenes

What says summer more than a beach? So we decided to make beach scenes, complete with crabs and sand!

We used sections of an egg carton for the crabs. Painted them red and after they dried, we added pipe cleaners for the legs and drew little faces on them.

Next we cut up an empty cereal box and painted the inner part of the squares blue

Once the paint was starting to dry, we brushed on a mixture of glue and water (keeps the glue from being to thick and helps it spread easier) and sprinkled sand on them. They were supposed to only put sand on one half, but they sort of covered most of the squares(it did wipe off easily though) , and it was not until AFTER we started that i realized I didn't have any regular sand- so- we used some of the cloud dough mix we made a fw months ago. What a mess- but they had fun! OK, Mew had fun, Jocie didn't enjoy touching the sand stuff much and couldn't wait to get that part finished!

Finally we glues the crabs to the backgrounds. We had fun making them, but really had trouble finding somewhere to put them afterwards as the sand/dough stuff was just not sticking as well as I wanted it to. Next time we use real sand hahaha

Mew's finished scene

Jocie's finished scene

crafty fun

Short and sweet!

We made animals using Pom-poms, glue, pipe cleaners and google eyes.

Mew made a caterpillar 

Jocie made a teddy bear

We definitely have plans to make more soon

We also experimented with footprint art. We had some left over canvas 'boards' so we used those.

Jocie made a unicorn.

Mew made a monkey

We have plans to make handprint pictures soon!

Calming sensory bottles

I have seen this idea all over the internet over the last year or so. Always meant to make them, but kept forgetting to get supplies. Finally we got to them! they are Jocie's Favorite things!! She even takes hers to bed with her! (I take them out after she is asleep just incase they decide to leak!) She calls them her 'sush bottles'- I just call them neat :) Mew, he liked them for a few minutes and then didn't care too much.

The first ones I made in soda bottles we cleaned out. I poured in a little bit of HOT water and added about half a bottle of clear elmer's glue. Then I added some fine glitter- liked it so much we used the whole container! Mew's was blue, Jocie's was Pink. I topped them off with more hot water, letting it run slowly at the top to get rid of bubbles and air and make the top as full and smooth as possible. After drying the top and the lids, I put super glue on the caps and twisted them on. Once I let them dry for a few minutes I checked for leaks and made sure the caps were not coming off (at least not easily)

Although Jocie LOVED her bottle, I really wanted it to be easier for her to carry around and take longer for the glitter to settle. We found a thinner bottle at the store (from like a flavored water drink) and it really was a great fit for her hands so I picked it up. This time we added more glue (about 3/4 of the bottle - we were also putting it in a slightly smaller bottle so it was a much larger percentage of glue) .  I also added some glitter glue to thicken it even more (I had seen this on a few sites- I got the only glitter glue I found at the craft store and thought it was too thick, but tried it anyway- um, yep- too thick- it left sort of globs in there- some of it melted in with the hot water, but not all of it- OH well- sort of looks cool with little multi-colored blobs popping up once in a while hahaha) 

This time the glitter makes more distinct swirls when we shake it up and it takes a lot longer to settle back to the bottom. Jocie LOVES this one more than the first. She especially loves the multi-colored glitter. It really gives it a great sparkle!

Dragonflies

Dragonflies were fun- a bit messy, and not quite how we planned them- but they worked and the kiddos like them so- it's all good!

First we started with laminating sheets (you could use contact paper but it would not be as clear) - I separated the top and bottom and drew the dragon fly wings right on the sheet (MISTAKE #1- separating the sheets- tried the same idea with stained glass hearts with Jocie and left them intact, just opened and used the bottom and put them back together. When I separated them first and just sat them back together, they got stuck in the laminator and folded all up, which would have been great if we had been making accordion style wings hahaha- we learn from out mistakes)

Then, we took chunky pieces of tissue paper and placed them on the sheet covering the entire area where the wings were drawn

Then we put the top sheet on and ran them through the laminator.

While I was laminating, the kiddos used markers to color craft sticks and put google eyes on them (which fell off as soon as they tried to play with them later)

After cooling a bit, we covered the area with watered down glue (helps it spread better and then it's not as thick) and sprinkled them with glitter

(Mistake #2- turning my head for 2 seconds to help Jocie while Mew had the glitter bottle- um, yeah, he had it ALL OVER and the wings were almost a solid sheet of glitter- fun haha)

Once dry, we cut the wings out and glued them onto the craft sticks-

Dragonflies!

Our come back?

It has been a while- I really want to keep up, but things have been busy lately. I miss posting- officially trying to kick myself so I start posting more often!
We have not stopped the FUN activities- I have just stopped posting! Will try to do a little better this summer and keep it flowing !

So, tonight- I catch up -will try to make it quick and painless ;)

Since Orbeez were such a hit with the kiddos, I tried to change it up a little bit by adding shaving cream to the mix. Mew was OK with it- Jocie wanted NOTHING to do with it! the funniest part- after playing fora while Mew asked me to take the shaving cream out- so I did- and he cried! He did not want to play with the orbeez- he wanted the shaving cream and here I had just rinsed it all out down the drain :( Bad Mom!! So I set him up a little more so he could run his cars through it- his fav thing to do with Shaving cream!

With Orbeez

Just plain shaving cream....

The Princess, Plain orbeez (and her crown of course!)