GENIUS…..

The transition from Winter to Summer usually means getting rid of or storing all of the Winter items that your kids can’t wear.

So, I began to look at other ways to extend the life of my children’s clothing and get more use out of some of the long sleeve tops that they still fit.

STEP ONE: Cut off the sleeves

STEP TWO: There is no step two! Isn’t that simple? I know, crazy easy. All I made sure to do was to cut the sleeve off after the seam so that you don’t have any unraveling. (Leave seam intact on shirt)

After reading Robin, Where Are You?, we picked the birds we wanted to draw and got to work.

We then cut out our birds and pasted them on our tree (that I made).  We hung it where everyone could see and the kiddos loved looking at it daily, taking pride in the birds they had drawn.

All in all, a pretty successful art project.

We found a cute little leprechaun craft on Family Fun, and because we didn’t have pipe cleaners and other supplies, we decided to make our own easy leprechaun craft.

Go to the Family Fun website for original instructions. Here are instructions on how to make our easy leprechaun craft:

Supplies needed:

• Toilet paper roll
• Paint: Green, black, red or orange, light pink, and flesh color
• Piece of cardboard or white construction paper
• Small charm for the hat brim decoration. We used a shamrock marshmallow from Lucky Charm cereal

Directions:

1. Paint entire toilet paper roll green.
2. While toilet paper roll is drying, paint cardboard or white construction paper the same color green as the toilet paper roll. Let both dry.
3. When dry, trace a circle on the painted cardboard using the end of the toilet paper roll. Draw a larger circle around the outside of the traced circle.
4. Draw two connected tear drop shapes on the painted cardboard for the leprechaun’s feet. Leave a small flap to fit into the inside of the toilet paper roll to make it secure.
5. Carefully cut out the large circle, and the smaller circle inside of it. The smaller circle inside is going to be the top of the hat, and the larger circle is going to fit around the toilet paper roll for the hat brim.
6. Paint on hair, face, arms and belt. Let dry.
7. When dry, slide on the hat brim, and glue the top of the hat on.
8. Glue on the hat brim charm decoration.
9. Glue on the feet.

Because this is the simple, basic leprechaun instructions, use your imagination to add flare to “make it your own”.

More fun with kids:

• Pony Express Fun Run for the entire family
• Solar Powered S’mores
• Planning Your Summer Fun

St. Patrick’s Day gift for Teacher appreciation day.

1st step was to figure out how many teachers, aids and staff there were at the school. Then I headed off to the store.

I went to Dollar Tree and found small Terra Cotta cups, 3 for $1.00. I ended up with 2 extra which was okay, just in case one broke I was good.

Next we painted them with black acrylic paint and with the top still wet, we put orange glitter (I couldn’t find gold) in a pie tin and twisted the top in the glitter.

After the paint dried. We painted a thin layer of black chalk board paint around it so we could write a message.

Dollar tree didn’t have ribbon or craft sticks so I got those and the candies at Wal-mart. I picked out rolo’s and werthers originals. I picked out gold and black ribbon. Cut then about 2-3 inches long. Then with the tags hot glued them both on and stuck them in the “Pot of gold”

They turned out super cute and I’m hoping the teachers like them.

One of the tags I found at Mega Crafty

The other was at HGTV

They are both for personal use, not to be sold.

Total cost of the gift $35.00

Other fun idea’s for teachers

Dr. Seuss gift

]]> http://utah.todaysmama.com/2013/03/12/st-patricks-day-gift-for-teachers/feed/ 0 http://utah.todaysmama.com/2013/03/01/dr-seuss-teacher-gift/ http://utah.todaysmama.com/2013/03/01/dr-seuss-teacher-gift/#comments Fri, 01 Mar 2013 19:00:23 +0000 Megan Harris http://utah.todaysmama.com/?p=23693 Dr. Seuss’ birthday is March 2nd and being new to the whole PTA thing I hope I’m not in over my head. I thought it would be fun to make the teachers a gift that they could have in their classroom and the kids would feel inspired by it. I started this project before Christmas because I knew (with my brain) things would get hectic, and they did.

I had this whole picture in mind of what I wanted the gift to look like, by the time I got them all put together, they were a tragic mess. Time is running out, so I had to do some quick thinking and re-figuring and I moved into action. Our Dr. Seuss party is TODAY so yeah–I had to think quickly.

The original idea was to get wood frames, spray paint them red and put the saying, “You are you, that is truer then true, there is no one alive, that is youer then you.” Cute right? I thought so. Well, the spray paint and frames had a different idea with our lovely Utah weather. On one day we had inversion, on a sunny day we had wind. So when we did have a good day I hurried as fast as I could to get as many done, NOPE they didn’t turn out.

So yesterday I had to be creative and quick!!

I went to the dollar store and bought black frames, and picked another amazing saying from Dr. Seuss and put them together. Here is how they turned out….

No matter at what angle I had this at, I had glare. But I think they turned out really cute. I LOVE the Lorax and with it coming out last year I wanted our school’s Dr. Seuss day to be all about the Lorax. The craft that the whole school will make is the “Truffala Tree.” This saying of Dr. Seuss is probably my all time favorite, because if we care enough, things WILL get better.

Photo Credit: ME

Frames at the Dollar Store, Pencils, Chenille stems and pom poms from Zurchers and Oriental Trading.
Printable from Scribd- Lorax

First we washed out the jars, let them dry and removed the labels and sticky goo from the outside. This was probably the hardest part because the goo was…well…gooey. Some nail polish remover helped to get the extra stuck on parts. After they dried, my husband spray painted the lids for us. We chose a cool silver color to go with our Christmas theme and all the different colored decorations.

At first I glued the little decorations on the lids with a glue gun and they all ended up falling off after they were in the water. So we went with the epoxy cement because it is permanent and water proof (apply in a well ventilated area by an adult!) and let it dry over night.

Next we sprinkled some glitter in the jars and filled them with water almost to the very top. You can use baby oil instead and this will make the glitter move a little slower but the water worked just perfect. I put a thin strip of epoxy around the rim of the baby food jar and then screwed the cap on tight. When you put the cap on, the decor may cause some of the water over flow so just make sure you are doing it over the sink to avoid a mess. I let them dry overnight with the cap side facing up so that the epoxy could dry and create a water proof seal. After they all dried, we flipped them over and tied a red ribbon around each one to complete the perfect snowglobe gifts! Hope you enjoy

Click here to see my post for DIY glass pebble magnets, another cool DIY gift for Christmas!

DIY Glass magnets

I found glass pebbles at the Dollar Store, magnets and modge podge at Joann’s Craft store. Of course I needed my handy glue gun and some cute paper/magazines/or print your own things to place in the magnets.

The easiest way to cut out the circles is to have a hole punch and unfortunately my punch was too big so I cut each one out by hand. Not too difficult but more time consuming.

I attached each picture to the glass pebble with some modge podge and I also put some on the outside where the magnet would attach to later. The first time that I made these magnets, I didn’t put it on the outside and the magnets were tearing off the paper. I’m sure there’s better (more expensive) products for this but I had a bunch on hand and it work’s really well this way.

I let it dry over night and then I hot glued the magnets to the back of the pebbles! So cute!!!

To package them, I glued some small washers to pieces of paper so that the magnets would stick to them and not move around too much.

What an easy fun project, perfect for the kids to participate in! Happy DIY-ing

Once school started, paper clutter took over my countertops. What is the deal with that anyway? There are reading charts, spelling lists, chore charts, basketballl schedules, notes about what to bring for the Thanksgiving party…. It was getting out of control! I knew that we needed to have these papers in a place we could see and mark them easily, so I crafted up these little clipboards for each of my girls.

What you need:

How to:

Cut out the scrapbook paper so that it is slightly larger than the clipboard. I used two sheets per clipboard. Then, spread a thin layer of Mod Podge on the clipboard, cover it with scrapbook paper, and cover that with another thin layer of Mod Podge. Careful not to leave any bubbles! You can wrap the excess paper around the edges and over to the back side of the clipboard and Mod Podge it down too.

After it dries, add your stickers/letters for the name. Spread another thin layer of Mod Podge on top of that to keep it in place.

That’s it! Super easy, but it has made a world of difference on my counter!

It seems like Thanksgiving is a forgotten holiday. We are so busy with the festivities of Halloween and then wake up November 1 and start listening to Christmas songs on the radio and decking the halls. What’s happened to that important holiday in the middle, the one where we pause to give thanks for all we have?

In an effort to instill gratitude in my children, each year we spend an evening counting our blessings. This year we made a Thankful Tree, with each leaf listing something we are grateful for. In the past we’ve done a Gratitude Garland, again with each leaf stating a blessing in our lives. It’s a time of joy as we stop and remember how good we really have it. Plus, it’s always funny to hear what your three year old considers blessings; ours included sunshine, swimming pools, and new boots.

What are you doing to teach your children to be grateful?

Meet the Cupcake and Mary Poppins:

I tried not to spend too much money and only invest my creativity and time, because lets be real, it is just a costume and I really only care about the photo opportunity. Somehow I managed to out do myself every year on the clever, cute and original scale. (That’s how I judge Halloween costumes, my children’s opinion on the matter does not count.) But this year. This year I think I have peaked, how do I top the cupcake and Mary Poppins? I’ve run straight out of ideas and am lacking all creativity to find the perfect, clever, original costumes, that are better than the years past.

Plus I’m supposed to have a baby on Halloween. So that’s a problem.

Is this the year that I finally ask my children what they want to be for Halloween? Do I stop caring about how original they look and focus on how much fun they are having? Halloween is one of those exhausting holidays where they have to be shown off, so you are running from one place to the other and only eating candy along the way. And I have to take into consideration that I am going to have a baby. And that’s another costume I have to potentially think about. What if there is a baby brother to add to the photo?

A major part of me wants to continue the quest for great costumes. Stay up late creating something fantastic and perfectly suited for each my daughters personalities, but I’m tired, pregnant and wondering really why I am forcing them into costumes they don’t care about. Will this be the year I succumb to Cinderella and fairy princesses?

Maybe we will just take less photos and give them more candy to compensate for my exhaustion.