Hopscotch Mat

Along with the wall art I made for the kids for their birthdays last spring, I also made these cute hopscotch mats. I found the idea and directions here. I purchased a drop cloth from Canadian Tire, and ended up making 2 of these mats, plus some other creations I will post about later. Definitely a good use of the $10 for at least 4 gifts. I had a lot of felt handy in my crafting stash, so it was easy enough to put together.

This was a 10 o'clock at night project that needed to get finished the next morning, so needless to say, it wasn't perfect, but the kids did enjoy it. If I were to make it again, I would however put some sort of stickier surface on the bag of the mat, as my brother has since informed me that it is quite difficult to play on hardwood floors.

Shadowed Cat

I was super impressed with how this picture turned out. I cut out all the pieces of for Big N to put on the orange piece of paper, and she did all the gluing. I *might* have moved a few things while the glue was still wet (if you look carefully you can see the white globs of glue), but I think we did a pretty good job for an accountant and a two year old.

Halloween Crafts

We've been doing a lot of Halloween crafts for the past few weeks.

Here we did hand print spiders for Big N while Little N made footprint ghosts (which we mailed to a family member before we remembered to take a picture).

We made construction paper candy corn that Big N added a little more fun to since she wasn't a big fan of how our craft looked. Although thinking about it now, it's probably because she has absolutely no clue what candy corn is, oh well, no need to introduce more candy now.

Crinkle Cat

Using Martha Stewart for inspiration Big N and I made this crinkly cat one day during craft hour while Little N was sleeping. Big N is getting so independent in her art. She can now fold the paper herself and do ALL the gluing, she tries really hard to use the scissors herself and can so far cut a triangle. What a huge change from a year ago when it was really just me doing things and her watching. Anyways, we're going to hang this from the ceiling for Halloween but, it was just much to wet with glue at this point to take it anywhere.

World Word Art

If you remember back in March when two of my niece's and one nephew were celebrating their birthdays we made them a zebra, an elephant, and a monkey to hang in their respective rooms. So of course, now that we are celebrating the first birthday of my other niece she needed something to put in her room too. When I asked her parents they said she was really into word world these days, or at least smiles when it's on. So, we went with a word world theme and made the duck for her to put up.

At first I attempted to just use white glue to outline the duck and then had planned to paint everything on colour so it was just a subtle picture, but that didn't turn out well at all, so I ended up painting the whole thing.


Now, we just need all the kids to get healthy so we can actually deliver our present to little B.

The Princess and the Dragon

Big N has recently decided that she doesn't like dragons, so R had the idea that the two N's should play the princess and the dragon. Of course with Little N being the dragon, I'm not sure if the thought was to get Big N to like dragons because her little brother was one, or that she should just beat up dragons, but either way, the kids had fun putting together their princess and dragon hats. As you can see Big N did all the gluing on her hat all by herself, which meant it took an extra couple hours for the hat to actually be dry. Big N was definitely more interested in wearing her hat than Little N, but he did enjoy playing with the fire mouth on his dragon.
Big N is just starting to get into the make believe stage, so I think in the coming year we'll have a lot of fun pretending.

Fall Wreath

Since I return to work November 1st, I needed a fall wreath that could easily change into a winter wreath without too much effort. I have a very large feeling that we'll be especially busy from November till Christmas with work starting, then an exam on December 1st, then Christmas parties galore. So, that's my reason for this haphazardly thrown together wreath.

It's an argyle yarn wreath, with the blocks out of both felt and foam pieces I had lying around the house. I didn't want to glue them on because I want to use the yarn again for the holiday wreath, so they are attached with painters tape, and the yarn around them is also just stuck in place at the beginning and end. This was the easiest way for Big N to help out too, hence why the blocks are everywhere.

It's not the prettiest thing ever, but it'll do the trick to put us in the fall spirit, and I don't think the trick or treaters will be judging me based on my door wreath. And if they are, one less candy for them! :-)

Haunted House

I came across a really cool blog post about how to paint a haunted house that looked super simple. However, the day we decided to make haunted houses I didn't have the patience to get out the paint. So, we did a similar house with construction paper. Big N picked where all the windows should go. Then we glued a yellow piece of paper behind our black house. It was super simple and Big N thought it was great.

Wall of Fame - September

I'm behind again, but here's how the September wall turned out, not great, but a heck of a lot better than August.

Paper Pumpkin

I came across this blog post at Sweet Bee Buzzings and took the author's advice and made this craft with the kids. I followed her directions pretty closely, so check out her blog for the tutorial, but it was quick, easy and the kids were amazed with the result of our construction paper and pipecleaner pumpkin.

Apple Art

I needed an activity to keep the kids entertained for a few more minutes one evening while we were waiting for R to get home from work since he was stuck in traffic. So, we cut out apples from construction paper and glued them in our construction paper baskets. We pretended they were falling from our tree.

It was a quick activity, but at least something to get the kids from loosing their schmidt before dinner.

Nectarine Oatmeal

This was another delicious oatmeal made during my not getting groceries quest. The caramelized nectarines on the top were definitely what made this recipe fantabulous! The original recipe can be found here.

I did make a few substitutions based on what was in the house, so here's what our recipe looked like.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup rolled oats
3/4 cup milk
1 nectarine
1 tsp. brown sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon

Caramelized Nectarines

Five slices of nectarine
1 tsp. butter
1/8 tsp. brown sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon

Directions:

Mix all oatmeal ingredients in a small pan on medium-high heat, stir frequently until you get a thicker consistency or whatever your personal preference is. Place oatmeal in bowl and rinse out the small pan and reuse for caramelizing. Put butter in pan and spread around the entire flat surface, place slices down and sprinkle with cinnamon and brown sugar. Flip over after 1-2 minutes and sprinkle some more cinnamon on them, cook until tender then place on oatmeal.

Painted Paper Bag Pumpkins

We did it! We officially started decorating for Halloween. Up to now I've never really been a big Halloween fan, but having two little kids, one of whom was born three days prior to the big day, it gets me a little more excited for the event.

We filled paper bags with crumbled paper, got out the orange paint and went to town. If I were doing this craft without a toddler, I probably wouldn't have stuffed prior to painting, but I needed Big N to be interested, so the stuffing part got her away from the computer (side note, my 2.5 year old knows how to run Netflix on the iPhone, the PS3, and the computer now, all in all we're doomed for getting her to stay away from the television). After the paint was dry, we cut out faces with construction paper and glued them on. Big N was super excited to see her pumpkin all finished, I don't think she quite understood what we were doing until the face went on. Little N thought they were pretty cute too, and was very excited to get his hands in the paint (I'm not sure the carpet appreciated our adventure, but oh well).

Leaf Tree

While we were deciding what route to go with our September wall this month (I might have been getting a little over zealous and thinking pumpkins), we decided to make a tree. I cut branches out of construction paper and then the kids and I went to the backyard to find leaves. We found all sorts of types of leaves, and I being the great mother I am, could only identify the maple leaves, so I made up names for the rest, hoping that my two year old will not remember the names I created and tell all her friends.

The plan was to trace the leaves and then place them on our tree, but it seems that all the leaves we gathered were much too big for our tree, so we created our own leaves. I'm constantly amazed at how fast Big N is growing, she's now able to glue all the leaves on wherever she wants them to grow.

I think our tree looks pretty cute, and Big N had a great time putting it all together. Little N had a great time trying to eat construction paper. All in all a good craft for everyone.

Baked Banana Oatmeal

In my quest to put off going to the grocery store, we've been eating a lot of whole foods this week, i.e. no cheerios. I'm not a huge oatmeal fan, but this was one of two recipes that were surprisingly delicious that we tried this week. I found the recipe here, but had to make a few variations based on the ingredients in our house.

Ingredients:

2 bananas
2 cups rolled oats
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp sea salt
1 egg, beaten
1 banana, mashed
1/2 cup milk
1 cup water
1 tsp. vanilla

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Slightly grease a 8 inch baking dish. Slice one banana on the bottom of baking dish. Mix the dry ingredients. Mix the remaining ingredients. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix well. Add the mixture to the baking dish and cover with the remaining sliced banana. Bake for approximately 26 minutes and then sprinkle with brown sugar. Broil for approximately three minutes.

I think the caramelized brown sugar on the top really did it for me, so DO NOT skip that step!

August Wall of Fame

Have you wondered why you haven't seen our August wall yet, because this is what it looked like.

Yes, it was very, very sad. Thankfully we were on vacation for some of August, and we did a lot of crafts that couldn't be put on the wall. Now just to make sure September doesn't look so sad.

Water Bottle Bracelets

We've been drinking a ton of plastic bottled water, bad for the environment yes, but it gets us drinking water, so it's a plus for us. So, looking at all these bottles in the recycling bin, I wanted to see if there was something the kids and I could put together for craft time one day. I came across a blog post somewhere along the line that used plastic water bottles as bracelets, so off we went to give it a try.

We cut rings out of our plastic water bottles, the one for my wrist had to have a cut down it in order to get it to fit. Then we covered the entire bracelets in paper mache. The plan was to paint the bracelets and add some funky stuff to them, however, we haven't gotten that far yet, and have since moved on to different crafts.

Prune Flaxseed Cookies

I bought a bunch of flax seed a few trips ago at the grocery store, but hadn't found a recipe to use them with, until I stumbled upon this recipe from Canadian Living. I've had a lot of success with all sorts of recipes from Canadian Living and this one did not disappoint either, I still did make a few changes, including the addition of the prunes.

Ingredients:
1/2 1/2cup cup(125 mL) softened butter
1/2 cup packed brown sugar 1/2 1/2cupcup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup granulated sugar 1/3 1/3cup white cup white sugar
1 egg 1 eggegg
1/2 tsp vanilla 1/2 1/2tsp vanilla
1 cup all purpose flour 1 1cup cupall purpose flour
3/4 cup quick cooking rolled oats 3/4 3/4cup cuprolled oats
2/3 cup flaxseeds 2/3 2/3cup flaxseeds
1 tsp baking soda 1 1tsp tspbaking soda
1/2 cup chopped prunes

Directions:

In bowl, beat together butter and brown and granulated sugars until light; beat in egg and vanilla.

In separate bowl, whisk together flour, oats, flaxseeds and baking soda; stir into butter mixture until soft dough forms.

Add chopped prunes.

Drop by level tablespoonfuls, 2 inches apart, on u baking sheets. Bake at 350°F until golden, 12 minutes. Let cool on pan on rack for 2 minutes.

Rolled Paper Frame

One day while aimlessly searching blogland, I came across this post for a rolled paper frame art. We had both paper and cardboard handy, so off we went to roll some paper. We followed the directions pretty closely, so go on over to check them out.

We spray painted the entire frame and background black, and then added a little metallic silver paint to the rolled paper.
But now we had this pretty frame with absolutely nothing to put in it. We started looking around the playroom for something we could put in it, and came across a pretty picture of a frog R had coloured with Big N one day after work. We Mod Podged the crap out of it, and came up with this stunning array.
Mod Podge and I aren't the best of friend, so I ended up using some white glue on the back to make sure the little froggie stayed put. Now we just have to find a place to put this little man. He's pretty cute. I think he might get to stay.

The $4.50 headboard

Whether this is considered a headboard or wall art, I'll never know. But, are you ready for the reveal of what this beautiful piece is made from?
It's $1.25 piece of poster board, covered in a $1 pillow case all from Dollarama. The centre is an 8x10 canvas art piece that Big N painted for me, there's actually a lot of dimension in the piece, but it doesn't really photograph very well. There you have it ladies and gentlemen, a budget basic redo.