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.

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.