Pirate Treasure Maps <<Argh>>

My (not so) little boy has a birthday right around the corner, and while he's been planning it the last two months, just now have I jumped on board in preparing for it. He's picked a pirate theme for the party, which is interesting because not once has he shown interest in pirates before. But whether it's the lure of sword fighting or... wait... it's gotta just be the sword fighting.

We're putting together goodie boxes in the shape of treasure chests full of things like eye patches, bouncy ball "cannons", pirate gold, hats, and even swords. I figured a treasure map for each kid was in order, so this morning we sat at the computer and cut and pasted clip art from various websites to make or own maps, then printed them in black and white so that the kids could add their own color.

This activity took up some time, which was a good thing. The kids were so excited about it because they were able to feel like they were helping prepare for the party. Here's what our map ended up looking like, printed on cardstock for durability.

Big Picture Painting

Never underestimate the fun that can be had in simple activities. Today on our trip to the mega "grocery" store (one that I have declared boycotting many times, but like an addiction I just keep going back) I went down the craft isle. I let the kids pick out an afternoon activity. We walked out of there with a poster board for each kid.

My son got real creative with his painting, using some old packing foam as a paint brush, making some fun and different strokes. My daughter thought her poster board actually looked fine blank, and has not painted anything yet. My guess is I'll have to shoo my son away from it for at least a week, it will be the center of petty arguments, till finally I can let him paint it behind my daughters back. Yay, that's how things work in this house. :)

Egg Carton Toss Game

I save all kinds of "garbage" that I think might be useful in a craft someday, I think it's left over from my childhood days of hoarding toilet paper tubes for all my inventions, like radios and time travel machines. But under my kitchen sink was getting a little crazy and out of control, so when I got off work an hour early this last Friday, and somehow didn't have anywhere we needed to be... it was craft time!

 

 

I really didn't have a game plan when we started, I kind of made it up as we went. First I lined up all the egg cartons in a row, stacking the egg part on top of the lid part, tucking the little tab downward to form a tight fitting row.

 

 

Then I cut off the the closing part of the front carton.

 

 

And the lid of the last carton.

 

 

Then I got out the paints and we started giving our creation some color. We made up rules for a game as we painted, like red spaces are worth 100 points, dotted spaces are bomb spaces and you loose a turn, the brown space wins the game. By the time we were done painting my son had made up so many rules I had no idea how we were going to play... I couldn't keep track, and I don't think he could either!

 

 

After a short time the paint was dry and it was time to play! We gathered little balls from the toy room, designated a line to stand behind, and started taking turns tossing the balls into our new game. My sons rules grew as the game went on, and my daughter got frustrated at loosing her turn so many times (somehow she always landed on the "loose your turn" spaces), that the game quickly fizzled from being organized to being a free for all. The game evolved as the weekend went on, and was well worth the space spent saving those things.

Catch those sales!!!!!

There are two times of the year when it makes sense to stock up on crafting supplies. The first is in August. Those back to school sales are great for buying all your glue, tape and markers for the entire year. The second is after Christmas/New Years.

Almost every store out there has holiday stuff they want to get rid of cheap and fast. Ribbon, tissue paper, holiday themed kits, gift tags, etc. All this stuff might seem worthless to some, but to a person looking for odds and ends to fill craft boxes for the year it's a gold mine. I recently picked up ribbon spools for 10 cents, paper for 15, and a huge box of foam stickers for only 15 cents. Score!
Moral of the story? Think out side of the box, hunt those clearance signs, and stock up!

Pipe Cleaner Friends

Oh, how time flies! I feel like these last few weeks (OK, nearly a month and a half) have gone by in the blink of an eye! We moved. My son started at a new school. We had to trade in our summer ritual of eating a relaxed breakfast in our jammies for clock watching and lunch packing. We packed and unpacked a sea of brown cardboard boxes. And to top it all off I went back to work full time. To say the least it's been nuts!!

BUT, there's always a silver lining in everything. Even though our time was limited, we found a little of it here and there for some fun. One of the things we did was really quite simple, even amongst the moving chaos. I bought some pipe cleaners and pompoms at the store (they actually came all together, even included some googly eyes). And we got creative twisting and turning, gluing and giggling, and came up with some very neat creatures.

The one piece of advice I have for you if you find the same combo pack in the store is this: Directions for how to make the cute animals on the outside of the package are NOT included. I assumed they were, and it wasn't until we got home and I read the small print on the back that stated the pictures were only ideas... one of them even used products that weren't supplied in the pack. :( At least it was only a minor set back, but now I'm a little wiser.

 

Here's what our pile of supplies looked like. We used tacky glue.

 

 

Bead Bracelets

During the school year I was right on top of preparing a fresh and healthy breakfast for the kids every morning. As the summer has progressed on I've gotten more and more lenient about what can be classified as breakfast. Most mornings I've been able to pass off a banana or a bowl of yogurt as this most important meal. (Although I have those dark days too... like the one morning I let the kids open a box of crackers for breakfast.) But this morning I decided to get on top of it again and make a hot meal. Whole wheat pancakes (with white chocolate chips) was the winner.

While I was cooking them up my son busied himself at the table with a container of beads. By the time the kids were done eating and I sat down to eat he had already finished a bracelet.

Here's a tip: If the kids are stringing beads on a thin string (this is a stretchy material) in which it doesn't make sense to tie a knot at the end to keep the beads from falling off, use a piece of tape to hold the end down.

As the day unfolded we ended up going out to Hobby Lobby to get some more beads. My daughter was in heaven! She found seed beads and thought they were just great. She thought they were "shrunken" beads. After looking at small beads, and sparkly beads, and dark beads, and giant beads, and swirly beads, and shiny beads we picked out some that my son wanted to make a torch necklace out of.

We didn't actually have time to finish the torch (we had to run off to the eye doctor). But I'm sure he'll finish it before breakfast is over tomorrow.

Baked Clay Pots

While we were at the fair yesterday, sitting and watching the people doing the pottery demonstration, I mentioned to my son that I think I know how we can make some pots at home. Well, I think that's all he thought about from that moment on, because when we got home last night, as tired as we all were, he asked again and again if we can make pots. I told him we'd talk about it tomorrow.

Well, rise and shine first thing this morning and he's asking me when we can make some pots. I got him to hold off until after breakfast, and after getting dressed, and then I couldn't hold him at ease any longer... the pot making began.

The recipe is really quite simple.
1/2 c salt
1/2 c flour
1/4 c water
I used whole wheat flour so they turned out brown, but if you use white flour you'll have a white "clay".

Mix everything together until it forms a ball.

Shape as desired. We cut out a circle using the top of a scoop.

Then coil some clay snakes around the circle. We smooshed the sides together with our fingers.

Bake at 200 degrees for about 3 hours. The bottoms of our pots were kind of thick so they were a little soft still. We turned them upside down, exposing the soft part, and baked for another hour.

They have a little sparkly look to them when finished. We haven't decided yet if we're going to paint them or not, but chances are good that we will... everything seems to end up painted in this house.

Magician's Secret Bag

Today's project turned out so cool! I'm giddy with my excitement about how neat it is that I hardly know where to start my story. I'll begin with saying that whenever the library offers a magic show we're there sitting front and center. My son is very intrigued by magic, and as cheesy as these school performers are they know their audience... grade school age boys are in awe. As we left he couldn't stop talking about doing magic when we got home. My mind went into overdrive to come up with a trick he could do. The library magician did a trick with bag that I was pretty sure I could duplicate. Here's instructions for my version of the magic bag.

Start by cutting 2 pieces of black fabric 9.75"x11" & 2 pieces of decorative fabric (the blue star fabric) 9.75"x12". You'll also need a 5" hoop, a 7"-8" zipper, and a strong magnet (you can buy these at craft stores, or save the ones from the backside of refrigerator to-do lists... they're great... super strong).

With right sides together stitch the black fabric along the long sides using a 5/8" hem. Do the same for the decorative fabric.

Attach the zipper to the bottom. Start by sewing the zipper to the decorative fabric, right sides together. Do this for both sides.

Bring the black fabric over the decorative fabric, wrong sides together. I hemmed the end first, or you can hem it at the same time you sew it to the zipper.

Stitch the black fabric to the zipper, sealing in the raw edge.

Turn bag right side out. Hem the tops of the fabric. This can be done by folding over the top just 1/4" to seal in the frayed ends, or by surging the ends like shown in the picture.

If using a refrigerator magnet cut it into 2 equal pieces. Sew one magnet onto the wrong side of one of the black pieces, using a small square of black fabric to hold it in place. It will actually go UNDER the square, not on top as shown in the picture. It's just there to show placing and pieces used on this step.

Sew the other magnet into the wrong side of the decorative pieces, again using a small square of black fabric to hold it's place. Put it where it lines up with the other magnet.

Use the hoop to measure how far to make a casing with the decorative fabric. Remove hoop and sew the casing, leaving a gap 1"-2" wide to insert hoop into later.

On the side of bag that does NOT have magnets stitch the black fabric to the decorative fabric along the same stitch line you just made in the casing. Leave the other side of the bag open.

Take the outer hoop and fold over the metal pieces that stick out. (I used some needle nose pliers for this part.)

Then thread hoop into the casing.

I left the gap open. You can close it up with some hand stitching. And you're done!

Now here's how to use the bag. Before performing trick take a piece of play food from the toy box and put it in the secrete pocket you've made in the bag between the black lining and the outer decorative fabric. Close the secrete pocket with the magnet. Open the zipper.

When ready to perform the trick say, "I brought a snack to share, it's just right here in my bag." Put your hand in the bag and it sticks right out the bottom. Act surprised that your bag has a hole and now you lost your snack. Close the zipper. Say some magic words, wave a magic wand if you have one. Reach back in the bag, only this time you secretly put your hand in the secrete pocket, and pull out the toy food. Ta-Da!! Take a bow and soak in the applause.

Olympic Pizza & Olympic Flags

From the time I was a little girl I've always adored the Olympics. My husband's a huge fan too and the kids have picked up on the energy as they've counted down the days to the opening ceremonies. With that much excitement flowing through our house of course I had to come up with a fun way to make a party out of tonight. Olympic Pizza was my answer!

I was going to make some pizza dough from scratch, which really isn't hard if you have a bread machine. Just dump the ingredients in the machine, turn it on, and come back and hour and a half later and you've got dough! But I spent too much time at the park with a friend, and so I stopped by the store on the way home and picked up some refrigerated pre-made roll dough. First divide the dough into 5 equal parts. Roll them out into a tube.

Connect the ends of each tube making a circle.

Place on cookie sheet in the shape of Olympic rings, 3 on top, 2 on bottom.

Now (this was my kids favorite part) smoosh the dough flat.

Cover with mozzarella cheese and bake according to package directions. Voila! When done serve with pizza sauce to dip it in.

The flags are such a big part of the parade of nations which made me think that the kids would like a flag of their own to wave while watching it. I started with a piece of off white canvas. I was going to hem it, but that seemed like too much work. So I just cut it with some pinking shears. It's approximately 6"x9".  I drew the Olympic rings on it with pencil, tracing around the base of a small glass to make a good circle.

The kids then painted their flags with fabric paint.

After the paint dried I hot glued a bamboo skewer to the backside of the flag, hiding the pointy side inside the folded over part of the fabric.

It all was a huge hit! The kids ate more of the pizza than they do when I make it the regular way. And the flags provided much entertainment for them, and I'm sure will continue to be waved enthusiastically the next several days.

Painted Bird Houses

I think that paint in the craft drawers is just as much a staple in our house as food in the pantry. It just has to be there for when the urge strikes to paint something. That urge hit us today. I had to make a quick run out to Joanne Fabric store to buy a pattern I need for a project I'm trying to finish sewing before the weekend's over. I thought for sure the pattern would be the only thing I purchased (but I'm pretty sure my husband would laugh at that statement). And my husband would be right. First thing we saw when we walked in the door was a display of wooden bird houses that my son has been begging to get for months.

Today was the day I gave in and let them pick out their favorite house. It actually ended up being a good decision. It was so hot today, uncomfortably hot. We tried taking a walk around the neighborhood [me on foot, the kids on scooters] but I got overheated (and therefore cranky) and the kids faces were beet red. Going back home, turning the air conditioning on and sitting down made us all happy.

The kids painted and talked about the birds that are going to move into their houses. My daughter said that only girl birds can live in her house. And my son said that his is for a whole family of birds. As soon as the paint dried my son hung his up from the clothesline in the backyard. He then came inside and watched it closely, asking where the birds were. Why weren't they in the birdhouse yet? Time perspective is still something we're working on.