Easiest Sensory Activity Ever

I needed about 20 minutes this afternoon and the kids were restless. Trying to think what I could give them to keep them out of my hair and from killing each other I remembered I had stuffed the Epsom salts in the freezer the other evening. Within 5 minutes they were happily engaged for a solid half hour! They had SO much fun and really got into it with their imaginations. 

The other day while looking for some fun summer sensory ideas I stumbled upon Frozen Sand. It sounded too easy not to try! All you need is Epsom Salts and a freezer. Truly, the rest is just added fun. Everything was on hand but all you see in the pictures -except kids- originally came from the Dollar Tree! Here is what we did. 

Supplies we used:

• Epsom salts (I had lavender scented on hand so I just used that). You can stop here or add the rest.
• White and blue fine glitter
• Plastic platter to play on (or whatever is handy).
• Toy figurines. Disney's Frozen ones would be super fun, and what was in the original post I saw, but we don't have those.
• Spoons for scooping.

Throw your Epsom salts in the freezer. Do it now if you have them. Seriously, that way when you want to do this they will be ready. 

When ready to play add the glitter and pour out for them to play. Add whatever fun stuff you want! I like to start with nothing else just to let them explore and then give them a bit at a time to add to it. 

That's it. It's cold and so pretty! The pictures don't do it sparkly justice. 

Hope you have some cool fun in the heat of the summer!

Easter Felt Play

Easter is just around the corner. Yikes! Wasn’t it just Christmas?! At Christmas time two years ago I made a felt nativity that hung on the wall in lieu of all the felt trees I saw on Pinterest. This past year the boys really got into it and it served as a great way for me to talk with them about the Christmas story. Practically every day there were opportunities as they walked by, looked at it, or played with it, I would jump in and start to talk about different aspects of it or story telling. If they were interested I continued, if not I just went on with my business. They learned SO much more last year than ever before and really retained it, talked about it with everyone, and enjoyed it.

So Easter is now upon us. I started searching for ideas to help do the same for Easter as the felt nativity had Christmas. Resurrection Eggs are the easiest, most obvious answer but there were two problems for me: 1. Choking hazard and 2. Not readily available and obvious for play. We will be using them to story tell at bed time but not for leave out and play use. It simply wouldn’t work in our house yet. In my search I stumbled upon several really cute “Holy Week” banners where you have five or so symbols and put them on a ribbon each day on the week leading up to Easter as you tell the parts of the story. I liked it. Searching through my supplies to make one I came across a long piece of felt and had this idea instead. I am so excited! 

How to make an Easter Resurrection felt play set.

You will need:

• Felt. Large piece for back ground, regular size for everything else.
• Scissors (Fabric scissors are best at cutting felt).
• Hot glue gun
• Fabric puff paint or paint pen
• Designs, if needed
• Sticky back Velcro

1. The designs were chosen to correspond with the book I will initially use to tell them the story. For the question mark, sword, chalice and bread, donkey, leaf, and cross I simply googled the items to get a basic design ie: “donkey clipart.”  Then click “images” to see all the image result. I copied and pasted the one I wanted into publisher. When I had them all and sized them down I printed them off, cut them out and traced them with a sharpie onto felt, cut out the felt. I used a sharpie and/or fabric puff paint for words, designs and the blood spots.

2. For the tree, tomb, sun, and scroll I just started cutting and let it be what it was J

3. The tomb and scroll are glued onto the felt with the glue gun. CAUTION! Sometimes the glue goes straight through the felt! Be very cautious and use a popsicle stick or wooden spoon to pat down the felt while the glue is hot. I also used the hot glue to piece together the sun, tree, cross and hill, and question mark.

4. I decided to simply print Jesus on card stock and laminate him. Nice and easy!!!

5. For the heavier pieces and Jesus I placed a sticky back Velcro dot on the back to make them stay better but felt generally sticks to itself pretty well. Use them as you wish.

6. You can find pretty much everything at WalMart or a hobby store with fabric. You can get large pieces of felt cut off a bolt for pretty cheap. Most stores will allow as little as 6 inches cut off. An easier way to do it all is simply make the back ground and print off everything else, laminate and play! I’ve done this with Wreck it Ralph characters and a plain brown background and they loved it. You can search etsy or just online for “resurrection digital clipart” and find full sets for cheap, ready to print in minutes!

Laminating tips if you don’t have a machine.

You can use contact paper with the cardstock piece sandwiched between for a light laminate.

You can actually use the laminating pouches made for the machines and use an iron to seal them. It is a better, firmer seal than contact paper. You can find instructions online. I used this tutorial http://crafts.creativebug.com/laminate-iron-1849.html to laminate Jesus

All in all it took me somewhere between 2 and 3 hours and cost me nothing due to my overgrown craft supply ;)  I’m excited to start this tomorrow morning and have ample opportunity to teach them about Easter in a fun way that they will enjoy and remember! Will you be making one or your own version? Please share with me if you do!

Here is a list of each piece and corresponding Scripture in Luke (for most) but they are also found elsewhere as well.

Donkey = Luke 19:28-35

Palm Leaf = Luke 19:36-38

Cup & Bread = Luke 22:18

Tree = Luke 22:39-46

Sword = Luke 22:45-51

Question Mark = Luke 22:52 – 23:25

Cross = Matthew 27: 27-40

Tomb = Luke 23:50-56

Sun = Matthew 28:1-10, Luke 24:9-12

Toddler Room on a Budget

With a little work and hunting it's easy to do a room on a budget and still have it turn out really cute. Let me take you on a tour of my little boys room. As we go I will say what I did and for how much :) 

To start with I painted the room blue. New paint is always a big bang for your buck. Depending on the brand you buy this can cost anywhere from $25-$40, mine was in between. Plus about $15 in spray paint that I used to tie colors in.  

Other than paint the bed was the biggest expense. We paid around $35. You can easily pick one up from a yard sale or even a friend. I opted to buy new to save myself painting it. 

The bed spread was made by my mom and me for around $20. It was my inspiration for the rest of the room. 

For this big wall above I bought the circles from the party store for $5.99. Great price for wall decor! I printed two pictures on card stock to better match the theme of the room, cut them out and put them over the ones it came with. I also spray painted two of the smaller circles to better coordinate. 

The toy box was an old chest I had been saving that I picked up for $5 at a yard sale. I used spray paint and letters from Michael's to turn it into they toy box. Total of about $8. 

The curtains are actually shower curtains I found on clearance at Target. $6 each. I hung them using shower curtain hooks (makes them very easy for my son to open and close) that were also on clearance and matched fabulously! $8

 The dresser I bought from a friend ($20) and painted to go with the room. I even used the original handles, painted of course!

These canvases I had painted myself and used in his nursery. To make them better match the big boy room I painted the circles around the monkey and lion darker. They were light blue before and blended with the walls. Cost: FREE

The giraffe and letters were also brought from the nursery and simply painted.  FREE!

The bookshelf was moved from another room. The frame above it I bought at Wal-Mart for $5 and printed the verse from Staples for $8!  Total $13 - great for such a huge piece!

The wall decals are easily removable and I found them at Wal-Mart on clearance for $5. They are spread out all over the room. My son just loves them! 

Here is the over all look. The total is below :)

Sorry it's so dark! Hard to get a good pic with so much direct light. 

Everything else in the room, including the closet system not shown, we already had. There isn't a whole bunch in there because his room is just for sleeping and quiet before bed times so I don't really need to deal with clutter or toy systems. So overall, every little thing included, the total for the room was right about $170.  Now that is quite a bit for me but I collected and did it over about the course of 6-8 months so it really spaced out the cost. Areas to save would have been mostly the paint and bed. I could have easily gone much higher with the wall decor and curtains!  

Scavenger Hunts

Sometimes it's fun to turn the ordinary into something a little more fun. One of the ways I have started doing this is to make our regular walks into scavenger hunts!  I came across the idea on another blog and as usual can't remember where (I need to start noting these things!).

To make one in Publisher just go to "Table," then "Insert," put as many columns and rows as you want. Insert clip art of whichever pictures you want. Lastly create word boxes, choose your font and put the corresponding words by the pictures.

I choose things I know we will come across and making them seasonal is extra fun. It's a good idea to print them on card stock to make it a bit sturdier since a toddler will be manhandling it but you could also put it in a page protector. We simply look for the objects and get very excited and cheer when we find them.  Next I will be making one that will be for listening. It will have a dog, airplane, car, bird, and I'm not sure what else.  

Happy hunting!

DIY: Adorable $2 Garland

I made these adorable garland for just $2 using a hole punch and twine that I already had and 2 packages of die cuts from the Target Dollar Bins! 

How to do it:
1.  Decide where it will go and how many swags you want (this area was about 6 ft wide, so if you have a smaller space you could use one package or less of each instead of all).
2.  Divide the packages into the number of swags you are making.  There were 9 die cuts in each package and I was making 3 swags so I needed 6 die cuts per swag.  This helps you space them out evenly.
3.  Use a hole punch and put 2 holes in each die cut where ever you want it to hang from. I did random angles and  some leaves upside down to mix it up.
4.  Thread them onto the twine.
5.  Hang the garland! I used tacks.

You could just wing it and punch all the holes and randomly thread them on, then hang. That would've driven me batty but I know others who could do it :)

Here is a closer look at each of the three sections. I LOVE the glitter on the leaves (though it doesn't really show in these pics)!

You could also use ribbon or yarn to thread it.

I really hope Target makes cute Christmas die cuts!!!

Fall Is Here!

It's time!  Time for pumpkins and cooler air, fake fall leaves and cider candles, cinnamon and nutmeg! Fall is here!  I considered making a Fall Fun List of activities I would like to do with my family like I did for Summer but then decided I would rather shake it up and make a different kind of list  So here is the list of treats I hope to get made before the Christmas baking arrives! 

Only problem is my hubby doesn't eat sweets so I always have to find ways to unload it all.  Also there are only 9 weeks until Thanksgiving and there are 13 items on the list. Yikes!  Now I'm off to check expiration dates on the spices - only the best will do!

P.S. the asterix are for the recipes I have not tried yet. 

More Cheap Art

A few posts back I told you how I made this lovely piece of art for $1. 

 I have now turned that into this . . . 

Again I was a bad DIY blogger and forgot to take pics of the process. It was too simple to even bother taking pictures!  Here is what I did.

1. The alphabet "art", inspired by Pinterest, was made in Microsoft Publisher but you could easily use Word as well. Just type out the alphabet, center it, find a font you like (I used Elephant) and make it whatever color matches your theme with the "I", "heart", and "u" in an alternating color. Figure out the right size for your font so that it takes up most of the page.  Helpful hint: make sure the "I" is three letters from the end of the row, the heart two letters from the end of the next row, and the "U" on the end of the next row.  This makes the nice stair step effect.  When you have it set to your satisfaction print it. I recommend card stock but if you don't have any regular paper works fine.

2. For the matte all I did was take a spare piece of poster board, trace the glass from the frame on it for the right size, cut it down and spray paint it.  It took two light coats.

3. I let the poster board dry over night then used scrapbook sticky squares to attach the paper to the matte. Glue or tape could also work.

What did it cost?  $00.00  That's right, nothing!  I had everything on hand and that made me so very happy!  The possibilities are endless. As much as I love it I am already dreaming of fall and Christmas ideas for that wonderful little frame  :)