This week the kids painted these cute birdhouse ornaments. We got them this past spring at Joann’s I believe. Hopefully we will get a chance to make some birdie ornaments to go with them.
A couple years ago Fairy got this Nonstick Mini Baking Set and it has been frequently used in the toy kitchen. The other day the girls pulled out the recipe cards that came with it and were determined to really ‘bake’ with their miniture set (it is oven and toaster oven safe). So they packed up the whole thing and took it to Gammy’s. If you want to bake… that’s a good place to go. Her cupboards are stacked with every ingredient you might need for an impromptu baking session.
The first recipe they tried was the Breakfast Cake (ie Coffee Cake). It was very yummy, the pan worked well and the cake slipped right out. They can’t wait to try another one.
Fairy has this pretty pink bracelet that she got some time ago. I can’t even remember where any more, but the Pixie girl has recently taken in interest in it and for all of you with two little girls (or if you have a sister) I’m sure you can imagine how well that has gone over…. LOL… not well at all. Gammy, ’cause Gammy can, indulged the girls in a jewelry making endeavor this past weekend. Pixie made herself a new favorite pink bracelet and Fairy made a lovely rainbow necklace (with a heart) that she has yet to take off. Gammy and I each made ourselves something too and Bug came to the party late but ended up making a ‘surprise’ for Mommy for Christmas. 🙂 And although we used a full rainbow of colors here, I’m including this for our Unplugged Challenge theme Purple. We had wanted to use some of Fairy’s Purple Shoe Beads she got over a year ago… but of course couldn’t find them at the last minute.
We used glass, plastic and silver beads on elastic string. We used the elastic string so the girls could put on or remove their jewelry themselves. After you tie off the elastic string it is a good idea to use a dab of super glue to hold the knot…. but be careful! Gammy glued one of the bracelets to her finger. We all found this quite humorous. She even had a good chuckle until we gave up on solvents and she had to pull it off. So be careful.
I hope everyone is doing well. We’ve been battling some of the bugs going around atm. Who isn’t? So things have been fairly quiet around here. We’ve managed a bit of school in the past week. Right now we are covering some basic social studies concepts… community, culture, traditions, etc.
This week we read the book Everybody Cooks Rice, after which we had to cook some rice of our own. This is what I refer to as "Left Overs" Fried Rice and everyone in our house loves it.
2 cups cooked rice
1.5 cups cubed cooked meat (ie left over chicken or pork)
1.5 cups thawed frozen peas or mixed veggies
1/2 small red onion chopped (usually left over from another meal)
2 cloves garlic finely chopped
soy sauce (to taste)
Saute the onions and garlic in a large pan (wok) with cooking oil or butter. When the onions are starting to turn clear, add the rice and fry for a couple minutes. Add the meat, veggies and soy sauce. Cook until warmed through.
For this week’s Unplugged Challenge theme Wheel, we made fuzzy yarn color wheels. We started by reading one of our favorite books, Mouse Paint.
We’ve done a Mouse Paint project in the past, so I wanted to do something different this time around. Since my kiddos are part hamster (they love to shred, cut, rip little bits) we took scraps of yarn and cut them up into little bits to make our color wheel.
After we cut up the yarn into little bits, we sorted them into the color piles.
I then took paper plates (regular card stock with a circle template would work too) and cut out the center circle.
I found the center of the circle and then used a ruler to divide the plate into 6 equal pieces.
The kids covered the plate with a liberal amount of glue and started with placing the primary colors in every other piece. They then went back and filled in the secondary colors.
For the Unplugged Theme Weather, we read the book It Looked Like Spilt Milk which is all about finding shapes in clouds. Unfortunately it has been sooo cloudy and rainy that we couldn’t look for cloud shapes outside. The sky has been a thick blanket of grey clouds not the fun puffy ones on a blue background. But we had fun with this project.
After we read the book (if was fun having a copy for each kiddo), we ripped up white construction paper in little shapes. Some of the shapes we were trying for, others were just happy accidents.
Once we had a bunch of shapes we glued them onto a large sheet of blue construction paper.
Then we wrote across the top "It Looked Like" and labeled the images with a white pencil.
Inspired by last week’s Unplugged Challenge Theme Feather, we broke out a Dream Catcher kit that has been sitting here for a couple years. Fairy has repeatedly asked to do it but I figured it was still beyond their skills.
It still took a lot of mommy guidance and help but she definitely had fun with the finishing touches of adding the streamers, beads and feathers. Bug helped a bit too with the wrapping of the ring but he was more interested in playing table hockey with the beads ;).
It has been cold and rainy all day. So after we finished up our school activities we raided the craft cabinet for a project. This is what we came up with… a Felt Leaves Fall Garland.
What you need…
Various pieces of fall colored felt (craft felt is perfectly fine here – no need for wool)
Yarn
Yarn needle
Lots of beads with large holes
Leaf Pattern (get one from Wee Folk Art or collect leaves from your yard and trace)
(Embroidery floss or fabric paint if you would like to add the leaf vein details – after trying one, we decided to leave ours plain).
Cut out a bunch of felt leaves (we used 13).
Cut a long piece of yarn (3 to 4 yards) or for multiple family members cut out a yard of yarn each.
Poke the yarn needle through the top of a leaf about 1/2" from the edge and tie a large knot on one end.
String about 12" of beads and then add another felt leaf. Continue until you have strung all of your garland.
We each beaded a one yard section starting with a leaf and ending with a section of beads.
I took all the completed sections, tied them together, added the last leaf so both ends ended with a leaf, then trimmed the yarn to make our one long garland piece.
I think it adds a fun festive touch to our mantle.
Last year while completing our Harvest Activities we made 10" square batik quilt blocks each month (September, October, November) with the intent to make a quilt showcasing the kids artwork. This project got buried in the craft cabinet during the holidays and never resurfaced. Recently, I’ve been working on another quilt project and all of the kids have been begging to help. That project is not one that I can have the kids help on but I remembered the lost harvest blocks. Today has been a rainy day and it seemed like a good time to pull the Harvest Quilt.
I cut out some additional 10" squares of fabric that seemed to go with the harvest theme. Then we laid out the pieces in a random manner. The only thing I planned was that the kids blocks stayed in one row so they could each sew up their row.
The kids took turns pinning and then sewing up their rows (with mommy’s help of course). They love getting to use my sewing machine ;).
I then sewed all the rows together to form the quilt top and ironed the seams.
During nap/quiet time, I found a piece of muslin (the only fabric I had large enough laying around for the backing) and some batting. I sewed up the quilt (layer it batting, backing right side up, top right side down… I messed up this order once in high school and still have a quilt mocking me in my closet that is finished with the batting on the outside. I’ve never had the energy to seam rip all the way around that queen sized quilt. LOL) leaving a 6" opening.
I trimmed the edges, flipped the quilt right side out, hand stitched the opening closed, and then iron the side seams for a finish edge. I pinned the quilt and then tied the corners with a thick cotten thread.
And we now have a Harvest Quilt that showcases some of the kids art work. It makes a fun lap quilt/play mat that the kids are very proud to say they made.
Daddy had to work this weekend so we snuck in an extra project for the week on Saturday morning. We completed the "Me Project" from our ARTistic Pursuits They Way They See It Book. This also tied into the Unplugged Challenge theme of the week which was "People." We haven’t participated in so long and this made for a great way to jump back in.
The kids started by drawing pictures of themselves. Then I had them go through our fabric scraps and pick out some fabrics. They each picked out fabrics from their own favorite clothes I have made them. I cut them up for the kids and they used them to decorate their portraits.
As usual Fairy stuck pretty close to the project as assigned and dressed herself (note the crown). Like Mama, she likes to see results and is a bit of a perfectionist.
Bug on the other hand, who doesn’t have a clue where "the box" is (and if he did he would probably just turn it into a castle or something 😉 ), used his fabric as rug for his room and included images of some of his favorite things. He so works on his own adjenda. I’m not sure what the glitter glue was for… but I guess everything is better with some glitter.
Pixie, well as you will see I don’t have anything to show you for Pixie. She is my all about the process child and ended up cutting up her whole project into tiny bits, completely unfazed that she had nothing to hang on the fridge when she was done. 🙂
