A Concrete Gift Idea

So even before Gabriel was born, I got grandpa/my pop-in-law a garden stone with the first 5 grandchildren's names under girl-boy-girl-boy-girl stick figures titled "Sprouts of Love". Then for Gabriel's first Father's Day, he got grandpa a stone with a Pop stick figure & baby figurine of Gabriel, titled "Newest Sprout" (pictured). This year we decided to make a stone ourselves from a craft store kit. 

The instructions said to use a bucket to mix the cement. Instead, I took a rinsed out gallon milk jug & cut it in half horizontally leaving the handle. I mixed the cement mixture in it then tossed it! Perfect repurposing. The funny thing is Gabriel thought we were baking at first! The mixing looked like it, especially since I had to measure the water!

After the stone set, I prepped G's feet to get "stamped". Uh oh... my paint-stamp loving boy hated the feel of the cement!!! It flew everywhere!!! I had to quickly clean his feet, the cement off our kitchen tile & then smooth the stone's surface again. Ha! So no footprints for grandpa... I went with stones & painting instead.

There was left over cement mixture & w made daddy a paper weight using a Tang container top as the mold. I asked my hubby for a guitar pick he did not mind "losing". So Daddy does rock!

I also repurposed a wooden butterfly craft container into another garden decoration. This was all so much fun!

<3 Lishie & Gabriel

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End of School

Thank you Bitsy Creations for the printable!

The end of a school year is bittersweet... Here is what Gabriel & I did to make it easier...
Little gift for Mrs. V:A cute zebra-print Beach Towel with, 
"It takes a big heart to help shape little minds" card & note inside signed by G...

Thank you Anything But Perfect for the printable!

Little reminders for the kids:

Animal Sand Tools with "See you later alligator; hope you have a cool summer" tags

(What I say to G every day!)...

& Some Nom Noms...

Turtle Pull-Apart Cupcakes

Vanilla Zoo Animals

Happy Summer!!!

<3 Lishie & Gabriel

Happy Flag Day!

It's Flag Day, June 14th! Celebrate by finger painting a flag. I love this one Gabriel made! It looks very Folk- artish! And while crafting, teach about the origin of Flag day:

From About.com re: Flag Day:

Brief History of the Flag Day Celebration

June 14, 1877 - The flag of the United States was flown in every government building marking the centennial of the adoption of a national flag.

August 1949 - June 14 was officially declared Flag Day by President Harry S. Truman. Since then Flag Day is observed yearly and it is a time when Americans display the flag in front of their homes, outside office buildings, government agencies and other establishments. 

American Samoa observes Flag Day on April 17 (I left this in for Gabriel! April 17th is his birthday!!!).

Or you can do this-

Template from Coloring Castle:

Gabriel-6/14/2011

<3 Lishie & Gabriel

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Father's Day ideas...

This past Sunday, Gabriel & I had some mommy & me time at Michael's Craft store's "Make-It Take-It" Event. We had so much fun making not only daddy a Father's Day key chain, but also grandpa! The craft was 2-thumb stamps to equal a heart. Then, hand-over-hand, we printed G's name. I think they turned out cute! So endearing.

Since Gabriel also loves to hand stamp paint, we made this:

Simple, adorable & all you need is paint! 
If you still need another idea, I've blogged this before:

Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there!

<3 Lishie & Gabriel

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Buttoning

Some motor skills take some practice to achieve & learning how to button is one of the more difficult ones. In order to assist Gabriel, I created this colorful, fun little felt button exercise. I re-used a linen bag that came with shoes as the base which made it useful two-fold; one as the button exercise & two, as a carry bag. We keep small, quiet puzzles & busy things in there for church. 

 

Materials: 

Felt sheets

Buttons

Needle & Thread

Easy to do- just cut the felt into equal-sized squares... Create button-holes on one piece & sew the buttons on!

<3 Lishie & Gabriel

Visit my Food Blog: DeLish

Thy Name is Paint

I have a pretty unique 3 year old. He loves to craft but does not like to stay dirty. So, finger painting is very clean in our household. This began, in my mind, after seeing it on Pinterest as a finger painting craft & quickly changed to a paint brush one. The shapes on the peripheral of the name are sponges dipped in the paint.

The funniest thing here is the prep (I had to do it) took longer than most things! I cut out the letters of Gabriel's name from painter's tape. This is an 8X11 & 1/2" piece of paper. I'd suggest using a bigger poster-size sheet & just creating large, block letters with the tape!

All you have to do is, using painter's tape, apply child's name. Allow the child to paint over it... Then allow the paint to fully dry. Carefully peel off the painter's tape.

Sometimes the art is in what is absent!

<3 Lishie & Gabriel

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Summer Olympics

The 2012 Summer Olympics, London is coming, Friday, 27 July 2012!
So I preparing Gabriel early with circular art. I thought it would resemble the well-known Olympic-linking-circles:

Materials:
piece of paper
paint
Paper tube

Dip the tube in the paint then "stamp" onto the paper.

Yes, that easy!And so fun, so pretty.

The Official Olympic Flag
From About.com
Created by Pierre de Coubertin in 1914, the Olympic flag contains five interconnected rings on a white background. The five rings symbolize the five significant continents and are interconnected to symbolize the friendship to be gained from these international competitions. The rings, from left to right, are blue, yellow, black, green, and red. The colors were chosen because at least one of them appeared on the flag of every country in the world. The Olympic flag was first flown during the 1920 Olympic Games.


And then read about the History of the Olympic Torch, Flame, and Relay!

I also took this as a time to teach Gabriel about the Special Olympics. The NJ Special Olympics had its opening ceremonies this past Friday, 6/8/12. 

<3 Lishie & Gabriel

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Championship Countdown

Book Expo 2012 ~ Childrens Selections

I have the wonderful opportunity, due to my job, of attending Book Expo America(BEA), the Book industries largest publishing event. This year there was quite a lot of offerings for children & I was truly excited! Here's a small snip of great things I learned about...

Point to Happy, from Workman Publishers,is a wonderful picture book for children on the austism spectrum or for any late talkers! 

"Conceived of, written, and designed for children on the autism spectrum, Point to Happy combines a picture book and a pointer to create a breakthrough in reaching children who communicate best through pictures. Ingenious in its simplicity, it was created by a grandmother, Miriam Smith, and mother, Afton Fraser, for Ms Fraser’s son, a young boy on the autism spectrum. "

The Publisher's lovely Representative filled me in on a new product for children made out of Dupont's Tyvek materials (the USPS uses this material for some of its envelopes. Or, perhaps you have used it on the outside of your house for construction?) It can be thrown in the washing machine, etc. & stands up to the grubbiest hands & wettest little mouths!

Workman Publishers is also known for their wonderful Sandra Boynton books for children! 

Then I met Hector "by" & Steve Barnes (from Mandala Publishing's Earth Aware Editions):

"Meet "zebrapotamus" Hector. He's not like the other hippos in the jungle. His unusual black-and-white striped skin makes him the target of hurtful teasing from the other hippos on the riverbank. But when a chance encounter opens Hector's eyes to true friendship, he begins to appreciate qualities of character he never knew he had. And when dangerous circumstances put him to the test, he proves just how powerful kindness can be.

Beautifully illustrated in rich watercolors, this poignant story underscores the values of forgiveness and respect for differences, and the need to see beyond external appearances-important messages for young minds growing up in a globally aware era."

And he took my heart! Steve Barnes was an extremely nice man & his book his beautiful. Gabriel hugged it!!!

But I was utterly excited to exclaim my & Gabriel's love to Mo Willems... And Mo was all too happy to create a special little illustration for my special boy:

Mr. Mo was signing his new book, The Duckling Gets a Cookie!? This is SURE to become our favorite new story!!! "He has whined, wheedled, fibbed and hollered his way through many books. He wanted to drive the bus, he demanded a puppy, he pleaded for a hot dog party... But now, in a fantastic new title from Mo Willems, along comes Duckling, with bright twinkling eyes and impeccable manners. She asks for a cookie and what does she get? A cookie, of course! The Pigeon is outraged! Incensed! How could this have happened? HOW is it possible that this duckling gets a cookie?! Well, because she asked. Nicely."

So many great children offerings at the Book Expo! Along with these great finds, American Girl had its new "girl of the year" book too:

McKenna. I got a copy for a friend's girl!

And the Young Adult offerings were amazing. Sonia Manzano, (maybe best known as Maria from Sesame Street) was signing her new YA, The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano:  

It is 1969 in Spanish Harlem, and fourteen-year-old Evelyn Serrano is trying hard to break free from her conservative Puerto Rican surroundings, but when her activist grandmother comes to stay and the neighborhood protests start, things get a lot more complicated--and dangerous.

I was ecstatic to meet her, tell SONIA my love, & now Gabriel's love for Maria... And I am so eager to read this one!

Not mention some of the great items I picked up also for me- some Good reads!!! I'll blog about a couple of them on my food blog, DeLish. 

I had a great time at BEA 2012!

<3 Lishie & Gabriel

Visit my Food Blog: DeLish

Paintbrush-fanning

Dandelions

We love paint. And there is so much that can be explored with it... While painting hand-over-hand with Gabriel we saw how lovely a splayed/spread-out paintbrush looks! So then we began experimenting with different colors & different amounts of paint on the brush... These are the nicest from the art lesson.

Fireworks

Yellow Dandelions

Flowers

paintings...

<3 Lishie & Gabriel

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Gnomes on a Log

Do you love garden gnomes as much as we do? I thought so! Well now that we have been outside so much in this beautiful weather, those little guys are popping up everywhere to welcome us. Gabriel & I created & painted four cuties sitting on a log to keep inside our home. It was so easy & fun!

And they are "playable"... They come off the "log" & are their own little figurines.

Materials:

1. 2 paper towel tubes
2. 1 piece of paper
3. paint
4. scissors
5. school glue

Cut one of the paper towel tubes into four equal pieces. On the other tube, trace four circles uses the end of one of the tube pieces (the bottom of a to be gnome). Carefully cut out these traced circles- you have the "seats" for the four gnomes. 

Take the piece of paper & cut out four circles for the "hats". Turn them into cone shapes & glue one onto each of the four "gnome" pieces. Cut out four "faces" out of the same paper & decorate them. 

Paint your gnomes & the log; allow to dry. Glue the paper faces onto the gnomes. Seat the four little guys in their log & play! 

<3 Lishie & Gabriel

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Tubes in Space...

Tubes in Space

Gabriel is still on a space kick so this is a recent craft I've had prepped & put aside for  a good day. The astronaut template is from a site called DLTK's Growing Together site. It's great! I've gotten other ideas/print outs from this site too (see Elmo tube below!)

Astronaut 

We printed the non-colored astronaut & Gabriel colored it. Then, hand-over-hand, I assisted with the cutting out & gluing of the pieces. We then embellished with extra bits of cast off tinfoil I had kept for this purpose (pieces too little to wrap anything in) & a star sticker.

Then we created a rocket with a paper towel tube. I keep all of my paper towel tubes for crafts. This is simply a red sheet of construction paper glued onto the tube then embellished with star stickers. The point/top is a circle turned into a cone, covered in tinfoil. The bottom "feet" of the rocket are triangle-shape bits of the tinfoil. The background of Space is a black foam square with Dover Publications GLOW-IN-THE-DARK (how cool?)stickers adhered to it!Gabriel had a great time with his space set :) 

Here's the Elmo he & I did when G was about 8 months old:

Elmo

<3 Lishie & Gabriel

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Lunchbox Surprise

I love my boy... I cannot say it enough. He's been so into this one Ipad app lately- Monkey Preschool Lunchbox (it is a GREAT toddler app!!!) that when  I found this on Pinterest from diy inspired.com I knew I had to print it out for him since there's a nifty pdf printable of the monkey. He's only 3 & can only read some words so far so this is the perfect "love" letter to him in his lunchbox... on his favorite food to eat. I think he'll be surprised! 

<3 Lishie & Gabriel

Visit my Food Blog: DeLish