Easy paper bag pumpkins

I wanted to do an art activity for fall with my kids. I love to have fall decorations and I love it even more then it is their artwork that is decorating my house.

I had no desire to go to the store so I looked around and found some brown paper bags. Add some orange paint and you have paper bag pumpkins. They are really easy to make and there are directions on various websites but here is my personal favorite:

You will need:

brown paper bags, lunch bag size

orange paint

green paint

green construction paper

green pipe cleaner

black construction paper

old newspaper

1. Cut out leaf shape from the green construction paper. Cut out face shapes from the black construction paper. If your child is older they could do this themselves. I was trying to make things easy for my kids so I did the cutting beforehand.

2. Crumble up the newspaper and stuff the brown bag. You want a slightly round shape, so a few pages will be needed.

3. Close the bag and twist the top to make a stem.

4. Paint the bottom of the bag orange.

5. Paint the twisted portion of the bag green.

6. Let dry.

7. When dry wrap a green pipe cleaner just below the twist (where the orange and green paint meet up). Thread the leaf through the pipe cleaner. Then make a curly end on the pipe cleaner (like the vines) by wrapping the end of the pipe cleaner around a pen a few times in a spiral and then slipping the pen out.

8. Have your child glue the face pieces on if you want a jack o lantern. Leave it blank if you simply want a pumpkin.

Have fun!

Fun With Shaving Cream

One can of shaving cream = two happy kids!

Mothers Day Craft

If you read this post you remember I was doing a homemade mothers day gift this year. Sadly our flower seeds did not grow so I improvised by buying some flowers last night (just some simple flats usually used for flower boxes) and planting them in the flower pots for the grandmas and great grandmas. In the end it cost an additional $6 but still a very inexpensive project that I hope nana, grandma and great grammy will treasure! The kids are very proud and excited to bring them to the mothers day brunch at my mom's house later today. I also ordered photo albums for my mom, Jon's mom and my grammy with pictures of the kids. This is another gift that I hope they wil enjoy and treasure.


Here are the pictures of the finished pots and plants:

Happy Mother's Day to all you moms!

Finally got the pictures on the computer!

I was being lazy or the days where I wans't lazy Jon happened to have the camera with him. But today I put the pictures on the computer and here are some of the crafts we have been doing lately:

These are footprint bunnies that I found on Ramblings of a Crazy Woman. I modified mine a little becuase I did not have the giant sheets of paper that she has but I think they came out cute anyway!

Owen's bunny
Madeline's bunny

These Easter chicks are a craft that I did with my first graders when I was teaching.


Madeline's chick

Owen's chick

Then we had a week of rain and a LOT of indoor crafts. We were also doing some letter reviews. The Umbrellas are from No Time For Flashcards and the fish and frogs are from AHC arts & crafts. I cannot remember where I saw the butterfly idea but I know it is an original of mine!

Owen's creations. I have been putting glue on the paper and letting him put pieces wherever with just a little guidance.

Madeline's creations.

I will try to be better with posting crafts again. We have tons of fun with them!

Friday Craft Corner

So I have been really bad about posting our crafts lately. We have been doing a ton of them too, I just don't find the time to load the pictures onto the computer and sort through them. I know it is a lame excuse but it is the one I am going with!

But here is what we have been up to (minus pictures, sorry!)

My kids love to have me trace their hands so we have been doing lots of crafts using handprints. Last week we made butterflies (review on b) and this week we made sunflowers (we were doing y for yellow). I found a cute idea at Ramblings of a Crazy Woman and modified it to use handprint leaves. I try to tie the craft into the letter of the week but I am not always able. The sunflowers were a bit of a stretch but it worked!



We also made kites the week we were doing k. Madeline is getting so much better with the scissors. I was really impressed with her cutting out her own kite. I am trying to give her more independance in that area and let go of my need for things to look "right." It is a constant struggle for me (a little OCD I think) but she feels so proud to show people what she made so I am working REALLY hard!



I found this awesome idea for spray painting here and bought some spray bottles last week. I was going to do the project this week but it rained and this is definatly an outdoor project. So this weekend when it is in the 80's we may take the easel outside and see what we can create. I will definatly take pictures and share them if we get to this!



We have also been drawing for fun. And Madeline's people are actually starting to look like people. This week she drew her My little Pony and I could make out ears, head, horn, eyes and legs. this is new for her and I am so proud of her growth. I can't take any credit since I don't do drawing lessons (I think she should develop on her own in that area) but she is doing awesome. Owen scribbles saying dada or mama and I'll ask him if he is drwaing dada or mama and he will smile and say yes. So I try to label his pictures (like I used to with Madeline) so we remember what he drew at each age.



I am working on a craft of my own, a way to display the art projects my kids are making. I found some awesome inspirations and am hoping to get some work done this weekend. If all goes well I will share my own art project next week.

Guest Posting

I am a guest poster over at Make Me A Blessing today. It is the Mother's Day Craft I did with my kids a few weeks ago. If you missed it, stop by Courtney's blog and read up!

Friday Craft Corner on Saturday

I am a day late this week. Jon has been home on school vacation which is wonderful but it always throws my schedule off.

This week I tried another craft basket. I filled it with pompoms, different shaped scissors, glue, caryons, glitter glue pens, construction paper and foam sticker shapes. Madeline and Owen had a great time and these are the results:

Madeline's final creation

Owen's final creation

Pot Holder Quiet Book

I just found this awesome idea for quiet books made from pot holders at Obsessively Stitching. I really really really want to make these for my kids but between the felt food I have left to make and the other stuff I need to get done I just don't think it will happen. Why couldn't I find them sooner? Oh well, maybe next year.

Or maybe these will be good big brother and big sister gifts in June...new activities, simple to make and quiet things to do while mommy nurses new baby. Hmm......

But if you are good at sewing and looking for a craft project to do you must go look at these. They are simple to make (even for me who does not sew well), inexpensive (pot holders are cheap and so is felt!) and so, so, so cute.

Advent Week 2 update

This has been a crazy busy week. Madeline and Owen look forward to the advent calendar every day, I still think that the candy is the motivator, but they love the activities! I have gotten better about prepping the activities the night before which cuts down on trouble during the activity. Some activities we do in the morning and some in the afternoon (todya's activity will actually be done after dinner.) It all depends on the lenght of time needed and whatever else we have planned for the day.

Our activities for this week:

Day 6- Getting our Christmas Tree

Day 7- hand and foot print reindeer (I traced and cut out the hand and foot prints and the kids glued on the pieces)

Day 8- Gumdrop Christmas tree (idea from chasing cheerios) note to self- there is a large difference between spcie drops and gum drops, namely the sugar coating...

Day 9- gingerbread house (messiest by far) and decorating the Christmas tree

Day 10- cotton ball snowmen (Owen was not in a participating mood this day)

Day 11- paper place Santa (idea from Blue Eyed Blessings)

On top of our advent activities we have been keeping up with our preschool work. This week we did letter S for Santa and Snowmen. This coming week we are working on letter G for Gingerbread Men (I should've saved the gingerbread house for this coming week but that is what I get for not pre planning!) We are doing a lighter load to leave time for advent and Christmas activities but are still spending about 45 minutes to an hour a day on it.

Visit Sugarplum Creations for more advent ideas!

Thanksgiving Activities

I cannot believe Thanksgiving is already over. Christmas is just a month away! We are starting our advent activities this week but before I post about those here are some of the things we did to get ready for Thanksgiving:

I made these turkey cupcakes for a playgroup

Madeline practiced her scissor skills on a turkey

Owen made his own thankful Turkey


his finished turkey

Madeline's thankful turkey

I am working on their advent calendar. We are starting a new tradition this year. I am making the advent calendar I found here at Maya*Made (mine is slightly altered) and will fill it with a activity for each day (and idea I got from Chasing Cheerios) as well as two hershey kisses (one for each kid!). We will start on Tuesday but here are some of the activities I am including:

find our Christmas tree:

breakfast with Santa

Santa handprint craft

Gingerbread house

Gumdrop Christmas tree

hand and foot reindeer

milkbox gingerbread house playgroup

making cookies

marshmallow snowmen

felt gingerbread man activity

Bright Nights

cotton ball snowmen

There are more, and I will try and post pictures as we go along!

Homemade Puzzles

Another project that I am making today for our weekend away is puzzles. I hate losing pieces to puzzles. Because of that I will not bring any of our puzzles along this weekend.
However I will be making some puzzles to take with us. It seems like a simple project.
To do it the following materials are needed:
pictures- from anywhere (I am using pictures that I cut out of cards and magazines as well as coloring book pages) you could even use photographs
cardboard (I am recycling an animal cracker box)
glue
laminating paper (optional but it will lengthen the life of the puzzle)

The process is simple. First take the picture and glue it to cardboard. After the glue dries you then laminate the puzzle (if you choose). I am using contact paper beucase it was free and it is easy to use. After everything is laminated then cut the puzzle into the desired number of pieces. Obviously the older the child the more complicated you can make the puzzle. After the pieces are cut you can mark them in some way (colored dots work well) so that you can easily tell waht puzle the pieces belong to. I also plan to count the number of pieces to each puzzle and then label the bag with that number. This will make it easy to identify if we have all of the pieces or not.

I am making this alone, but it seems like an easy activity for a child to help with. They could color their own pictures and help cut out the pieces (depending on scissor skills).

Hopefully this will be another activity to keep big rugrat occupied in Maine. Little rugrat may even have fun although I don't think he is quite able to put puzzles together yet!

Activity for Maine

I try not to depend on the tv too much for entertainment. But it has its helpful times and big rugrat does have her regular shows that she watches. And on rainy days when I am at my wits end it saves me! However, up in Maine Jon's family does not have a tv. We are bringing are portable dvd player but I don't want to pull it out too often. And it is supposed to be yucky rainy weather. And cool. All. Weekend. Long. And while the place is a good size, we will have 11 people there all weekend long. Five of them are under 7.

So what is a mom to do?

I am trying to come up with activities that will travel well, pack easily and won't be hugely dissapointing if we lose pieces. One thing I did was to make a magnetic play set for big rugrat. I got the idea from Chasing Cheerios when she made a magnetic tangram set for her daughter. I created a different activity, but her post gave me the idea.

To make this you need foam pieces (you can use construction paper but it should be laminated for durability), a cookie tray and magnet tape.
I bought a new cookie tray at Target for $5 but you could use one you have around the house. I had the foam pieces and magnets so it was an inexpensive project.
You can cut out different shapes from foam, or do what I did and simply use precut pieces. The pieces I have are insects (ladybugs, dragonflies, butterflies, catterpillars), shapes (squares, circles, triangles, hearts) and farm animals. You them simply affix the magnet to the back, I used magnet that has a sticky side. The shapes stick to the cookies sheet and there you have it. I also stuck some magnet to craft sticks and googly eyes. I think I spend about 15 minutes sticking the magnet to different foam pieces yesterday. In addition I have a set of letter and number magnets that came with big rugrats easel. Currently all magnets are in a plastic ziplock bag, but I am hoping to find something a little more permanent today or tomorrow at the dollar store.

I have several ideas for this set:
Sorting shapes by size and color
Sorting insects by type and color
Using shapes to make pictures and then telling a story
spelling her name
finding letters
Whatever big rugrat would like to do

Over time I want to make more magnets for this board if it is popular with her (I don't want to put in the time to make more pieces if she doesn't like it). I can make pieces out of foam or construction paper that I laminate. It can travel easily and I also plan to use with her preschool in the fall. I have seen this idea used in classrooms before with spelling and learning letter sounds. For now it will just be fun and it is something she can use in the car or up in Maine. And if she loses a magnet or two it isn't a huge loss.

Fourth of July Cafts

Today we had some extra time before running errands and I asked big rugrat if she wanted to make a craft. She LOVES to do this kind of thing, especially when it involves markers. We made fireworks a fun activity I found at No Time For Flashcards by way of Craft Crow. I was looking for some fun things to do last night and stumbled into this. I found I had all of the necessary ingredients- cupcake liners, markers, glitter glue, black construction paper and glue- so we made them. They came out adorable and big rugrat was super proud of them.

I found another craft at DLTK kids that invloved cutting, but bug rugrat is not having an easy time with scissors. I try to help her and that makers her even more frusterated. I am caught because I don't want to learn the incorrect way (becuase reteaching is NOT fun) but I don't want her to start to hate it.

Tomorrow we will do a fireworks craft that I found in Parenting magazine. Anything involving glitter and glue is a highlight with my kid!

My car started making funny noises today. Jon is outside underneath it now trying to figure out what is wrong and if we can still go to Maine this weekend. I will be sooooooooo dissapointed if we can't, but these things happen!

Things to do

It has had been a rainy week. It rained three and a half of the five days. Plus they predicted rain for one other so I planned no outdoor activities only to realize it wasn't going to rain (the sky looked really awful so I believed the tv, silly me!). The kids go a little bonkers when we are inside almost every day. So what do we do?
Rice box- one of the best things I have put together. I read about someone who made a traveling sandbox with a rubbermaid conatianer and sand. She brings it with them so the kids have something to play in at grandmas. I thought sand is messy for inside, but rice is easy to clean up. I put it together for the winter and my daughter loves the thing. I bought a cheap shower liner to put underneath and that helps contain spills.
Coloring- crayons, markers, a few coloring books and big rugrat is happy for about 20 minutes
Play doh
Stories
Library visits
TV (and no guilt there either)
Stamping
Tea parties
Making forts
Making mother's day gifts

Luckily we also had a few indoor playgroups this week as well. But when the sun came out on Wednesday I was soooooooo excited that I did not care that my backyard is a mud pit. The kids went out and played and played and played.

Luckily the sun is supposed to reappear soon. I am about out of things to do inside!

Long time

So over the past few weeks three of the four people in my household, and the dog, have had some type of stomach virus. Lovely. It started with bug rugrat last Tuesday. Then husband got it this weekend (4 days after, just when I thought we were in the clear) and they yours truly woke up halfway through the night with it. Luckily my loving husband was able to take the day off of work (family sick time) and dealt with the kids while I suffered in the bedroom. 15 hours later I am finally able to eat again (rice crispies and soda).
Now I am crossing my fingers that little rugrat does not get it. He is only 10 months and something about a 10 month old throwing up does not appeal. At least big rugrat was able to tell us when she was awake that she needed her bucket.

We got some of our tax returns and bulked up the good old savings account. That always makes me feel good. Groceries were a little over budget this week but I had to buy diapers and breast milk freezer bags (love buying those when little rugrat will probably only nurse for a few more months) which I don't include in my normal grocery budget. I also made my credit card bill quite large, but husband and I are going away for a weekend in June. First time away since little rugrat was born, I need the next few months to adjust to that. But it will be a nice short weekend on the Cape for a friend's wedding. I feel guilty, but I am soooooooooooo looking forward to it.

I am going to start looking for Easter basket fillings tomorrow. I am planning on keeping the cost as far under $20 as I can. I try not to buy the kids too much candy (well, none for little kiddo) so in order to have a basket things cost a little more. Big rugrat will be getting a fish. At three I think this is the ONE pet she can handle. Both rugrats will be getting pails and shovels to use as their baskets. Now they will each have their own for the summer. I don't want to buy actual baskets until I have finished having kids. Corny I know, but I want them all to have matching baskets. For now we stick to pails for the sandbox and beach. Husband will be getting some candy. I am also thinking about getting him the Twilight DVD. He has read all the books in the series and really liked them. I am torn between getting him the DVD or getting him a blockbuster card to rent it.

Tomorrow we are off to storytime (love the library) and them big rugrat has music with Nana. She loves her time with Nana and I love that she gets to do something we would otherwise be able to afford. We are looking into swimming lessons to help with the overabundance of energy the child seems to have, but music is really out of our budget. Friday I am off to a reading confernece. I am excited about this, have not been to one since I was in college. AND my work is paying for it. How great can you get? Saturday our local zoo opens and we have a season pass so I think we will take the kids one day this weekend. They love the animals and if the weather is nice we can have a picnic lunch as well.
So this week is a low key week pricewise, but we are doing a lot.

Sunday

Yesterday was big rugrats birthday party. She turned 3 (how did that happen?!?!) We had a lot of extra food becuase I overplanned, however better to much than too little. And it cuts back on our grocery bill this week. We had cold cut grinders which we will eat for lunch all week and I froze some for later down the road (and because we had THAT much left over!) At least most of the cake (made by yours truly with the help of good old Betty Crocker) was eaten.

Today we went to the grocery story and I spent $22. I will need to buy milk later this week, and a few produce items but I should be able to keep the next bill at or under $20 as well. That makes two weeks in a row of coming in under budget which will balance out what we spent on the b-day party.

Today we went and bought our parking pass to the city park. It is normally $2 or $3 to park depending on what day of the week you go, but if you buy a pass and are a city resident it is only $10 for the year. And we are at this park weekly! They have swings, a duck pond, a sprinkler park and pool (pool passes are available for city residents as well) fields to run in, tennis courts (not that we play, but a great contained place to ride a tricycle) and some great walking trails. Today we had a picnic and fed the ducks at big rugrats request. The birthday girl gets to plan the day!
I am off work this week (college spring break) so I will be working on our budget and cleaning out some closets to get ready for the spring weather that seems to be finally arriving. Now I live in New England so I am planning on at least one more blast of winter, but I can still enjoy the nice weather while we have it. I am working really hard to cut back our electric bill which is steadily climbing the past few months. We are turning off our pellet stove more and more during the day, being more careful to turn off lights and using the dryer less as the weather gets warmer. Our water bill is also getting higher, but we do give the kids baths daily and I do more laundry with two kids than I did with one. I am washing less diapers since little rugrat goes through them slower now and big rugrat is out of diapers (yeay!) except for bedtime and naptime.

Our budget is okay, but we have a weekend trip planned for June and a week long trip planned for this summer so if I can cut a little here and there now, we will have more for these times later. Plus with todays economy I just feel like I should spend less (although we are lucky that husband has a secure job right now, and mine is fairly secure as well).

Tomorrow we are going to make handprint leprechauns that I found at the Crafty Crow. Homemade crafts are a great way to entertain big rugrat inexpensively. And we will be learning how to use our easel correctly. She got an easel from her daddy and I and friends gave her paints, paintrbrushes, paper and other assorted goodies to use on it. We will be having some lessons on the correct way to use our easel tomorrow so we don't have too many incidents.

We will also make use of our museum pass this week, I am watching the weather for a rainy day to make the best use of it. Soon we will get our zoo pass (a little bit of extra money up front but sooooooo worth in the long run) which I have mentioend before and spend a LOT of time at the parks. Spring and summer are full of free things to do which is very nice for my budget!