July 4th Tin Can Windsock

When I saw these tin can windsocks over at Ucreate I knew they'd be easy to recreate with my kids.
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I used the cans left from a game from my son's superhero party.  They had hot glue still on them but we just painted right over it.

We invited some friends to join us for the project.

The kids painted theirs blue and I painted mine with stripes.

Then we added star stickers.  I just cut some stars out of white contact paper.  I had zero faith these would stay on outside but they did!

I punch two holes in the bottom of the can with a screwdriver.  Then we strung yarn through to hang them.

I hot glued satin ribbons around the inside rim.

 

Our hung outside from July 4th late into August and they survived the weather just fine.  They were a great addition to the flag and made our house look very festive this summer.

 

 

Handprints

I posted about the begining of our handprint project back in 2009. 

Starting at the age of one, I've painted my kid's hands and done their handprint on a little canvas.  I just use acrylic paint.  Now that they are three and five, I have eight to hang. 

The bonus is that my mom sent me a package full of my artwork and school work from when I was young.  In the pile I found my handprint from when I was four!  I cut it out and mounted it on a canvas to include in our collection.  How great is that?  I'm so glad she saved it!

Here is our collection:

Here is my cute little hand:

Marbled Hearts

We've had some unusually warm weather here in the Midwest but it turned COLD again last week.  So, we spent a day in our jammies doing crafts. 

We made marbled paper and I made marbled hearts using vellum.  I love the way the light shows through them in the window.

Anytime we paint or get messy, the kids start off in their aprons from Stubby Pencil Studio.  They are kid sized, cute and coated in acrylic.  They wipe off so easily that I rarely even wash them.  They cook in them, paint in them and make plenty of messes in them.  Little Miss was wearing this cute frog one when we did this:

First the kids spread shaving cream around in a pan.

Next we added drops of food coloring then they swirled the colors around.

They pressed down card stock and vellum into the shaving cream.

We scraped off the shaving cream and were left with some great swirls and marbleized designs. 

I cleaned up the food coloring mess then added Elmer's glue to some shaving cream and we painted pictures.  They busted out the glitter for these ones.  The mixture dries puffy and looks like snow.

It was a very messy day and we all had food coloring stain on our hands for a couple of days, but I'm okay with that.  Because we had fun and we were creative!

Gnome Fun

I saw these little resin gnomes on clearance for $0.99 at Michael's a few weeks ago and bought them up. 

I don't know anything about resin but since I have tons of acrylics, I painted them with those.  Then I sprayed a clear polyurethane layer on them to make them shiny.  Again, I used what I had on hand and have no idea how they'll hold up but it worked for me.  Since their faces were already painted on, it didn't take long to finish them.  Aren't they cute?

I printed up a little poem with a picture of the gnome and placed it in each of our neighbor's mailboxes. 

Then, my son and I snuck around that night and hid a gnome in each yard.  The neighbor kids all had fun finding their gnomes over the next few days.  A few of them knew it was us but a few of them didn't figure it out.  I'd love to wake up and find a little hiding gnome in my yard, wouldn't you?

Halloween Painting

I wanted something on my mantle to go with my Halloween decor but didn't want to spend a lot of time on it. So, I googled Halloween pictures, copied an image I found on google with a few changes and painted it on a 24 x 30 canvas. I've never painted with acrylics on canvas before and I definately could use some pointers and a better variety of brushes but I think I'll try another painting in the future. I enjoyed it. While I'm not in love with the painting, it works for something that's only going to be up for a month at a time and I did it in a couple of hours.
When I get the rest of my decor up I'll post pictures of the house.

Sidewalk Art

My neighbors and I threw a "block party" on Friday and we spent the afternoon outside with lots of kids, shaving cream on the slip & slides, water balloons, obstacle courses and arts and crafts. We did the crafts in my driveway and sidewalk.

First we painted. I got this idea last week from Pink & Green Mama's blog and knew they'd love it. And they did. They were already in their swimsuits so I rolled out some white paper down the sidewalk, put out some tempera paint in plastic bowls, gave them sponge brushes and they went crazy. They painted their hands, feet, bellies. They wrote their names, painted pictures, made footprints. In the end they had one big blog and they tried to turn it into another version of the slip and slide so we rolled it up, hosed them off and moved onto the next activity.





Like MaryLea, I always mix in a little liquid dish soap when I let the kids use tempera (even if it is washable) and acrylic paints. Then is washes off them so much easier.

Thanks for the fun idea MaryLea! I'll definately be doing that again. It was easy and the kids loved it.

Dr. Seuss Birthday Party

I just realized that I never posted the great Dr. Seuss Birthday party my sister hosted in October when her twins turned one.

For the party, she requested a picture board with cutouts so I painted this one on some foam board for the kids to pose with.

She served "green eggs" and ham.

Red fish and blue fish jigglers.

And she made these cute cupcakes with blue cotton candy on the top.

My creative sis-in-law, April, made these tissue pom-poms to hang over the gift table.

She also made this cute birthday banner.


The kids played "Pin the Wocket on the Pocket" with little wockets they had to get onto the boy's pockets.They played another game where they had to relay with a fishbowl outside and then she had a jar of colorful candies we had to guess the quantity of.

She decorated with lots of whimsical and bright colors, Dr. Seuss books and stuffed animals and balloons. It was a fun party and an easy theme to find things to go along with. She found plenty of cut outs and party favors around town.

Handprints

I read Becky Higgins' blog here and there and last year I saw this idea that she does with her kids and decided to copy it. She makes a canvas print of their handprint each year on their birthday. I started last year with my son's first birthday and did his second one this week. They are up in his bedroom on top of his bookshelf for now but I envision a play room eventually with all of my kids' handprints on a wall. Oddly, they don't look all that different in size, maybe he smudged more last year??? His one year is on the right and his two year is on the left. The canvases are 5" square and inexpensive. I'll need to move up sizes next year but these work for now. I used acrylic paints I had on hand and will change colors each year. We tried several attempts on both of these before he held his hand still so I settled on these prints after not wanting to repaint the backgrounds again.