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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Foam Magnets

I love to peruse the craft store & see what's new or really, what newly hits my eye for inspiration. Thing is, unless it is a craft kit for one project, most things come in multiples. I only have one Gabriel so often I think of many different ways to utilize something. Large foam items often come in packages (see foam hands) so if I get them, they need to be special. I spotted these awesome Foam Crab shapes & felt summer approaching immediately; had to buy them. Here's one project we made- a family set of crab magnets.

Self-Stick Craft Magnets

+

Glitter Glue Pens

+

Googly Eyes 

+

School Glue

=

Foam Magnet Crab

Check out these other crab foam crafts:

 

Colored Salt Crab Picture

Gift Tag

<3 Lishie & Gabriel

PS-  Parents, PLEASE glance at this article on the danger of magnets for children.

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Whale of a Good Time

Gabriel loves his animal figurines & the ocean ones get played with a lot. Since the summer is nearly here (yay!) the ocean trips are around the corner as are our aquarium trips! I love our day trips. So making a whale seemed like a great idea. Gabriel thought so too. The inspiration for this craft came from Oriental Trading again. 

Materials: All you need is a paper cup (can be white! We happened to have blue) a piece of construction paper (blue again), scissors, googly eyes, school glue & 2 pipe cleaners (we used blue & white. We also used glitter glue.

On the construction paper, draw the tail & the fins for the whale; cut them out. Glue the tail, fins & googly eyes onto the inverted (upside-down) cup. Allow to dry. Using glitter glue, "draw" on a mouth. Or you can use a marker! 


On the top of the cup, cut/punch a small hole to create a "blow-hole". Take the pipe cleaners & fold them in half; Roll them on your finger to make "springs". Insert the bottom of the springs into the hole. This is "water sprouting" from the whale's blow-hole. 

Then go to National Geographic Kids to learn about the blue whale.

Fast Facts

The scientific name of the blue whale is Balaenoptera musculus.

Their average lifespan in the wild is 80-90 years.

Blue whales are usually between 82 and 105 feet (25 to 32 meters) long.

<3 Lishie & Gabriel

Visit my Food Blog: DeLish

Colored Salt

I can feel it coming... summertime. And I am so happy... weekend drives down the shore, to the beach, trips to the zoo, the aquarium, to the amusement parks... Ahhhh... Time for summer themed crafting...

Start with large foam crabs

& googly eyes...

a small bowl of salt +

a couple of drops of food coloring...

mix it together well
& allow it to DRY (your fingers will get stained if not!)

Take a sheet of colored paper

& spread some school glue where you want your "colored sand" (salt)...

Sprinkle the colored salt onto the glue

& allow to dry...

When dry, carefully lift the paper & discard the excess salt over a trash bin...

Affix the googly-eyed crab to the scene with school glue.

A crab in the sand!

<3 Lishie & Gabriel

Visit my Food Blog: DeLish

Paper Plate Shark

Not all of my ideas are original or from Pinterest. This one came about from an Oriental Trading

catalog. I just made my own version of the pieces & had Gabriel put it together. I think it came out adorable, like the little archangel himself! 

Recently he's been playing a lot with Squeaky, a rubber shark toy that squeaks. Squeaky is a souvenir from our trip to the Adventure Aquarium in Camden, NJ last year. For the craft, all you need is a paper plate (we used a silver one but you can color a white one with a silver or grey crayon), googly eyes, school glue & a sheet of paper &/or foam (for the fins, mouth & belly) + a black marker for the teeth, nose & eyebrows. And you can make a friendly shark too! 

<3 Lishie & Gabriel

Gabriel, in his shark pjs, holding "Squeaky" the shark

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Bottle Cap Magnets

Recently a friend of ours gave Gabriel some very much appreciated hand-me-down clothes along with a stack of magazines… Ranger Rick, Highlights & Nick Jr. from when her son was younger. Gabriel took to each magazine like each was a new book. And I was surprised to see him focus on the Dora the Explorer items most of all in the Nick Jr. Magazines. Why? Well, we limit his TV time to mostly Sesame Street & Jack’s Big Music Show. Television is sensory-overload for our tot.  So I am not sure if Dora’s cute face beckoned Gabriel from the pages or what, but I allowed him to watch the show. And lo & behold, in his little rambling voice… he “answered” her questions. Whoa. This was a huge step for us… Needless to say, I have become a Dora fan.
 
Saying all that, you’ll know why I chose this “A-Dora-Ble” craft to highlight her. I was Pin-spired by The Creative Salad’s bottle-cap magnet post (are YOU on Pinterest? No? You should be especially if you are reading a craft blog!)  And I had already been collecting bottle caps… so this came about…

Bottle Cap Magnets

Step~X~Step

Self-adhesive craft magnets! I love these because they are easy to cut with scissors & they are thin. They also adhere well. Parents, PLEASE glance at this article on the danger of magnets for children.

& Good 'ol bottle caps. Mine are a collection from our office, where in our lobby, Think Coffee sells Boylan soda:

Small stickers... Ours, starring that famous bilingual gal of the small screen. Place one sticker inside the cap. Then, "paint" over the sticker using homemade

glue/sealer/finish (see below, also known as "modge podge")

Did you know that homemade "modge podge" is a 50% school, white glue to 50% water ratio? I did... 2 "drops" of water + 2 "drops" of white glue=

Allow to dry well... 

Almost done!!! Uh oh... Watch out for Swiper!

Time for GLITTER FUN! Yes, I said glitter & fun in the same sentence. Yes, I am a mom... ha ha... Want to lessen the mess? Use glitter glue pens like these:

Dab the glitter glue on top of the sealed stickers & around the fluted edge of the cap... Allow to dry, AND...

Now you have a new, fun, one-of-a-kind set of magnets... Oh, again, watch out, ¡cuidado! ~ Swiper!

Teacher Appreciation

It’s Teacher Appreciation Week!

So please show those teachers in your life, past & present, how much they have affected you! I want Gabriel to always be thankful for the good in his life & I try to instill this gratification by example. I always thank people who mean a lot to me, as should he… And I am very thankful for the teacher in his life now…

So over the weekend we crafted this Popsicle Stick Flower Box for Mrs. V. We sure hope she loves it as much as I love the way Gabriel giggles at the feel of the tackiness of the school glue on his fingers! 

Popsicle Stick Flower Box

 

MATERIALS NEEDED:  

Popsicle Sticks, buttons, craft “grass” or Easter basket grass, a small box or plastic planter & letters. Many times  I repurpose anything I can find for these projects.  

For each flower, you will need 4 popsicle sticks. We used pre-colored sticks but of course, you can also use wood-hewn ones.

Step~X~Step

 Take the first 2 sticks & make an “X” . Where the 2 sticks meet in the middle of the “X”, dollop a spot of school glue, then affix the 2 sticks.

On the middle of the “X”, dollop another spot of school glue, then affix the 3^rd stick.

Allow the “Flower” part of the craft to dry…

When thoroughly dried & adhered… dollop a spot of school glue to the middle of the back of the flower then affix the “stem” popsicle stick (we used a green one here). Allow to dry.

When affixed/dried, place a dollop of school glue in the middle of the FRONT of the flower, then affix a craft button… Decorate with glitter glue!

For the box part,we re-purposed this cool piece of cardboard (it inspired me to begin with because it looked like a flower box!) from the packaging of our Ipad:

 

  For the “grass” we used this scrunchy craft  tissue but you can also used scraps of shredded paper painted green or Easter grass. 

Then we (school)glued the stems of our flowers CAREFULLY to one side of the box.And allowed it to dry. Then glued it AGAIN.

Finally, we added a personal touch using adhesive felt letters.

We think it is beautiful.

What do you think?

<3 Lishie & Gabriel

Visit my food blog DeLish for some yummy recipes.

Super Moon

You heard about the Super Moon, right? We heard about it. According to NASA the perigee full moon on May 5, 2012 will be as much as 14% bigger & 30% brighter than other full moons of 2012.  But, alas, although we kept Gabriel up to see it, the fog was too thick in NJ. 

I had planned on this paper plate moon craft & went ahead with it:

It really does not need any explanation or directions. We had silver dessert plates left over from Gabriel's 3rd Birthday Blast Off!  although, you could use a white paper plate & color it silver with crayon or markers....

And then all you will need is school glue, one googly eye & we used glitter glue... (But you could use school glue + glitter.)

These are the best crafts! Gabriel loves putting on the googly eye!!! And he loves the sensory of touching the tackiness of the glue! For the glue stick "writing", I assist him hand over hand.

& we get this beautiful, finished product to hang... along with a little science lesson on the moon. Out of this world fun!

<3 Lishie & Gabriel 

Visit my food blog, "DeLish"