Something New To Colour: Crafting with Kids

Mar 09 2010

Posted by Elizabeth as Adventures in Parenting, Crafting with Kids, Parenting Resources

Some days, the usual appeal of colouring in their colouring books just doesn’t cut it with my kids and I want to make it special and different for them. The colouring books (of which we have too many, of course) are the same as they always are and the felts are the same, too. So, we look for something new to colour. This helps me out and helps the kids out, too. We wander down to the computer and set out , together, to find some images that the kids might like to colour. The kids decide what they want to search for and we search in Google Images for cartoon image of their object of choice. Once they see all the choices that are there, they pick which they would like to colour. I just print it out in grayscale, so that there is no colour, and set them up to go!

Today, we have a bee, a bear and a puppy!

** Don’t forget to enter Lizzie Bits’ Putumayo CD giveaway!! You have until Thursday night to get your entries in. You need to create a wordpress account in order to do so, but it’s simple enough to do. Good luck!!! **

1 Comment

Tuesday Tutorial: Chore Chart

Mar 02 2010

Posted by Elizabeth as Adventures in Parenting, Crafting with Kids

Welcome to Tutorial Tuesdays with KamloopsParents.Com

On Tuesdays you will be able to try out some fun hands-on crafty activity with your kids. March’s activities will be created by Dawnica Flatt, a Stampin’ Up demonstrator, Early Childhood Educator and Mom of one little guy. If you have any questions, you can leave them as comments on this post, or contact Dawnica at dabsanddots@gmail.com

Enjoy!

This is a great project to make with your kids to motivate them to do their weekly chores and it helps you, the parent, stay organized! We all know that positive reinforcement helps motivate so why not try this project! The Calendar stamp set from Stampin’Up! is very versatile and can be used for so much more than just calendars.

Chore Chart Piece Setup

First take white 8 ½” x 11”cardstock and cut in half widthwise at 5 1/2” so that it is 8 ½” x 11” and stamp the Calendar stamp in a dark color. (Fig 1)

Next add 3 vertical lines to make a complete grid and label the days of the week. (Fig 2)

List chores on right hand column and assign a sticker for each chore. (Fig 3)

Take two different colored 8 ½” x 11”cardstock. Cut darker of the two lengthwise so it is 6 ½” x 11”. Cut the lighter peice lenghwise so it is 3 1/2” x 11”. (Fig 4)

Take leftover white cardstock and cut 6” x 2” then taking alphabet stamps, stamp CHORES. (Fig 5)

Assembly

Layer small peice of light colored cardstock on bottom of dark colored cardstock then using a hole punch, punch holes around the bottom three sides. (Fig 6).

Next weave ribbon through the holes to hold the two pieces together to form a pocket. And attach CHORES layered on colored cardstock Put charts and stickers in pocket (Fig 7 and 8 )

Hang from fridge or bulletin board (Fig 9)

The stamps and paper used in this project are from Stampin’ Up! If you would like more info about these products or my stamping opportunities, visit my webpage at www.dawnica.stampinup.net

Comments Off

A new play dough!!

Jan 25 2010

Posted by Elizabeth as Adventures in Parenting, Crafting with Kids, Kidz In The Kitchen

The other day, I was browsing some blogs, as I tend to do, and I came across the coolest new (well new to me, anyhow) recipe for play dough!
It’s cornstarch dough!!

My two big kids and I made it and had a great time playing with it (read: it was all over the kitchen floor)!
Here’s the recipe I made:
1 cup cornstarch
1 cup baking powder
1/2 cup salt
1 cup water
Boil on the stove on medium heat (will bubble a lot because of the baking powder and water reacting – so fun!) until it starts to thicken.
Then, I kneaded it until it was a little cooler for the kids to play with.
After we shaped it and smashed it and rolled it and played with it for a while (read: after a while the kids lost interest but I didn’t), I put my littlest man’s footprint in the dough, made a “pizza”, made some animals and then baked them all (300 degrees for an hour) to harden them a little. I think we’ll paint it tomorrow!
Now, we play with cornstarch and water all the time to create that lovely “thixotropic” (not quite liquid but not quite a solid) muck we all love. We also love making “goop” with white glue, borax and water. But this? This is awesome! It’s whiteness is totally like snow. It’s so soft and yet has that gritty cornstarch feel. I’d love to add some sparkles next time and see what I get! I really really like it. And the real bonus… it’s a great process to watch as the chemical reaction occurs while you boil it.

Comments Off

Twirly Skirt Tutorial

Jan 12 2010

Posted by Elizabeth as Adventures in Parenting, Crafting with Kids

The other day I was in the fabric store picking out some fabric for a custom apron that I had been asked to sew. Well, when I was there I saw the perfect fabric to make a twirly skirt for my 2 yo daughter. I was reading Captivating, at the time, and thought that a perfect little sparkly twirly skirt would be a great gift for my little woman. So, I made one up and here is my tutorial. Please excuse the photos. I’m afraid that I have not yet had my camera fixed and I am really missing it. While my Sony was top-of-the-line when I got it… that is now eight years ago!
Without further delay my Rooty-Tute-Tuesday Twirly Skirt! (Please keep in mind that I just invented this in my head, so I don’t have exact measurements or anything. If you like it, you might need to figure out your measurements… or just guess, like I did.)
1) I figured that for the length I wanted I could just fold the fabric in half and cut my strips from there. So, I folded the fabric in half lengthwise and then cut along the fold so that I had two pieces the same size.
2) Then I cut all the fabric into pieces that were wider at one end, than the other.
3) Then I cut them all into this neck-tie shape.
4) and sewed them (right-sides together) into one big long line with the narrow ends together and the points hanging down. Then sewed the two far ends together to make a skirt.
5) Next, I lined up a piece of fabric along the top and sewed it (right sides together) to create a waistband.
6) I folded that over and sewed it down, leaving a gap through which to push the elastic to create my completed skirt.
Without any more waiting, the “b-you-da-ful” princess put on her skirt and started twirling. She’d been hovering over my shoulder the whole time. Impressively, the whole thing only took me about half-an-hour to make!!
Also, I decided not to finish the bottoms, like I wanted to, because this fabric is brutal to sew with just my sewing machine. The serger just ripped through it but I just about broke my needle on my machine with the silly sequins.Voila!

Comments Off

Alex the “Pig”: A Tutorial

Sep 29 2009

Posted by Elizabeth as Adventures in Parenting, Crafting with Kids, Curled Up with a Good Book

This morning I was feeling a little sorry for myself and in a bit of a 39-weeks-pregnant-messy-house-fighting-a-cold funk. After my daughter went down for her nap, my four-year-old and I pulled out some books to read, together. One of his choices was this:We’ve read it a number of times and had seen that there were instructions, in the back, on how to make your own pig! H is in a stage where he wants to “make” everything that he sees, and “build” all kinds of diggers after reading our digger books from the library and so this fit perfectly. I thought I’d break out of my feeling-sorry-for-myself funk by trying a little crafting with him.Here are the instructions to make your own pig (or whatever it ends up being).1) Cut a 25 cm length of stocking, or a sleeve from an old knit sweater.. whatever you have lying around.2) Sew one end off with loosely stitched embroidery thread so that it can be pulled tightly and knotted.3) Turn it inside out and stuff it with fiberfill.4) Sew a button onto the knotted end.**My instructional pictures from here on out didn’t really work… all I got is my son – oops. So, you’ll see the parts I’m describing but only in the finished product.**5) Again with embroidery thread, sew a mouth, then eyes.6) Put a small ball of fiberfill into the body of the pig and knot some thread around it to form a foot. Repeat four times (unless you wanted a different number of legs, go ahead).7) Cut out two triangles to be the ears and sew them on.8) Twist off the open end into a tail, or tightly tie thread around the opening to close it off. We decided to make the tail into little strips so that it was kinda fuzzy.Voila!!Cool, eh? Our creation is definitely not very pig-like, but my son doesn’t care.His name is Alex. Alex, meet the world. World, meet Alex. Alex