garden stakes

I have the kids home for two weeks added to the dark grey weather equals serious wall climbing. We also had a series of very, VERY expensive household emergencies this last month. So I devised this inexpensive way to add a little winter color and entertain the kids.

I bought a multi-pack of sculpy with a 40% off coupon for the bodies and used take-out chopsticks for the stakes. I think you could also bake salt dough, paint and seal it, but this was more colorful and rewarding for the kids.

I'm really excited with what the kids came up with and they want to give them to their father for Christmas.

refashion boys shoes to girls boots

I saved these shoes that my son out grew after two wearings.
I tried to get my daughter to wear them. She wouldn't. So I replaced the laces with elastic and made a covering from felted wool sweaters. I hot glued the covers to the old shoe and voila, boots.

Super cute and fun.

Sensory Play

My 3 year old was bored today. I decided to let her have some sensory play and created this toy out of things around the house. It is modeled after a sensory table I saw in my son's preschool long ago.
You will need a sweater box, a handful of small toys, 5 lbs of rice or dried beans or dried corn and a large blanket.
Place the blanket flat on the floor of the play space. Put box in the middle of the blanket. Place the small toys at bottom of the box. Pour the rice over top of toys.
Let the child find the toys and then otherwise enjoy the feel of the rice. My daughter got some of her pretend kitchen toys and poured rice from one bowl to another for about an hour. Then she got inside the box, squishing the rice between her toes and declared she was "at the beach" and making sand "cassies" (castles).
I didn't think of the blanket until I tried to clean up the rice explosion. Would have been nice to be able to pull the corners up on the blanket and pour the rice back into the box. I thought I would just sweep it up and dump it in, but all the dirt comes up too... Yuck.

Its been about 5 hours. I've tried to put the rice away 3 times. Each time a child started playing so nicely with it that I leave it out. Right now my 8 year old is playing with it. I think it brings back good memories of preschool.

water bottle decorating

For our final project for the eco-craft class we individualized water bottles. I bought some aluminum water bottles and cut out stencils of each student's name and various images.






turned out to be a very messy project.










Each child was excited to have a water bottle they made themselves.

recycled streamers

A simple craft to do with all recycled items. I used tee-shirts cut into strips, disposable chopsticks and some wire left over from a garden project.
The eco craft class loved it.

I envisioned the project with one long streamer that they would decorate with rubber stamps.
But they each did a specifically unique streamer. One person used several long contrasting colors, another did a dozen short ones, and another one of each in medium length (about the same length as child's height)

Much fun and I left time for them to play with them.

logo hiding

Ever have a great piece of clothing but hate the logo on it?
Or just not like logos.
I doctored up this great mid weight jacket with a matching iron on to change the look from corporate wear to casual wear.







First I covered the dark lettering with white out.











Then tried to match the color of the background with some fabric paint.







I designed a bird sitting on a branch and cut it out of fabric that matched the accent color for a new look.

recycled t-shirt basket

This week we made baskets out of old T-shirts cut into strips woven around a cardboard frame. I used cereal and cookie boxes for the frames. which made them a little flimsy. Some of the children complained that the cardboard bent too easily. Next time I will use something firmer.

We ended up with a little extra time. So I pulled out a bag of biodegradable packing peanuts and a clean sponge. I asked them to make animals to put in the baskets. They had a competition on who could make the longest snake instead.