Summer Kids Series: Free For All Week!

Welcome to Day 2 of our Summer Kid Series!  This morning we awoke to sunny skies (hooray!).   We did our morning calender on the kitchen blackboard...discussing the weather, the date and shapes.  Emma decided to do an impromptu lesson on coins...lol!

We are also starting to learn a new prayer about being kind and good. 

It goes like this:

Help me to be kind and good,
To always do the things I should:
Give me wisdom from above,
To share with others God's great love.

from Praise and Worship by Angela and Ken Abraham.

*******************************************************

Our project today was ROBOTS!

For this you will need:

tp rolls
pipecleaners
beads
a hole punch
tinfoil
glue dots

After doing this project, it is definitely easier for a 6-7 year old range!

Lol! 

To make the robot body, roll aluminum foil around the tp roll and tuck in the ends.

We then used glue dots and eyes and beads to make our faces.

We made arms by punching two holes as far down as we could on both sides of the tube.  We threaded pipecleaners through and added beads for decoration.  Just skip the end bead and weave your pipecleaner back through to secure the beads.

We punched six holes in the top and criss-crossed pipecleaners through the holes.

A little twist around a pencil and we had curls!

Hope you enjoyed today's project!

We will be making lemon freeze pops later...I will share the recipe tomorrow!

have a wonderful day!

sue

Free for All Craft Week: Day 1

Hello all!  Well, today in Statesboro, GA brought rain, rain and more rain!  Since it was pretty dreary out, we needed to find some fun crafts.  We ended up doing more crafts today because it was rainy.  That's ok though.  It's all about being flexible!

Rainbow Paper Plate Craft

For this craft you need half a paper plate, 6 streamers or ribbon in rainbow colors,

cottonballs, glue, and a stapler.

Steps:

1.  Cut paper plate in half.

2.  Apply glue and have kids stick the cottonballs all over to make a cloud.

3.  Staple or glue your ribbons to the bottom of the plate.

4.  Add a stringhanger.

They will help brighten up a dreary day!

Here's Madi showing off her masterpiece!

Next we made hang puppets our of small white paper bags.

Items needed:

Small white paper bags

Markers

yarn/eyes/fuzzy yarn balls

Super easy and they can be as creative as they want!

We had a little puppet show, which pretty much consisted of my kids

giggling their butts off.

Oh well, I tried!

Last, we made fish (this was Jacob's idea)

All you do is cut a triangle out of a paper plate and glue/staple it to the back.  Add and eye and let the kids decorate as they want.  You could add macaroni for gills, glitter...you name it. 

No matter what you do, the goal is to have fun with your kids.

I was happy to see my kids gathered together being creative and

having fun at our table. 

Happy Creating to you!

Hope to see you tomorrow!

sue

Cheap craft items to have on hand

With 4 kids, I'm thrifty.  LOL.  Here's a list of some craft items I keep on hand.  Most can be found at the dollar store.

Chenille stems
paper plates
cardboard tubes/tp tubes
egg cartons
newspaper
different size food boxes
balloons
string
paint
modeling clay
molds
cottonballs
rocks
yarn
buttons
leftover pieces of wood
aluminum foil
beans/pasta
milk jugs/juice cartons

It's amazing what you can make with what some people might call garbage!  Take a look at what you are throwing away and stop to think if you can make a project out of it. 


blessings!

sue

Summer Kids Series

Hi all!  Welcome to my little version of "what to do with your kids all summer!"  If you don't know, I have four little one's at home, all under the age of 7.  That can create a little challenge over the summer to keep them occupied and also not lose sight of educational opportunities while out of traditional school. 

Since my kids range in age from 2 to 7 years old, I tried to find some crafts and activities that they could all enjoy.  Some projects require adult intervention, but for the most part, I just let them be creative. 

My first step was kind of planning themes for the summer weeks.  I chose:

     *Free for all!
     *Beach
     *Garden
     *Animals
     *Food

Inside of each week, I'm going to try to stick to somewhat of a schedule for the day.  Still flexible, but keeps it more organized.  Our day goes like this:

Wake up!  and breakfast time.  If the kids can help prepare their meal, hooray!
Calender/weather time (I have a big old chalkboard painted on my kitchen wall for this!)
Daily craft (I'll share these with you as we move through the weeks)
Day trip  (I've explored local spots that we can incorporate into our weekly themes)
Free time:  this can be for coloring, painting, reading, swimming..you name it!
Dessert prep (hoping to make some desserts to have AFTER supper!)
Story time
 

I've planned different projects, day trips, stories and movies for week.  I'll encourage you check our local libraries, ours runs a Summer Reading program so we have a plan for every Thursday.  We still have left the schedule pretty flexible so we can change it up if we need to. 

I'd love to hear what you are doing with your kids this summer! 

I hope you'll tune in each day to see what we are up to and to share your summer activities!

blessings!

Sue

in the garden....

Our garden is blooming!  I am especially in love with the sunflowers..big old floppy heads, so cheerful!  The one in the pic above is about 9 ft tall!

This one has lots of flowers!  I am going to plant a whole row of sunflowers in my garden next year

because they are super easy to grow and I just love them.

Catnip on the right....cats can't wait till this is dried...this was a little quart sized plant about a month ago...has grown tremendously!

Knock out roses...love em!

My cilantro has gone to seed....I could eat this with anything!

Mints gone wild!

Cucumbers are starting to grow...gonna make a big old pickle jar!

These little guys somehow ended up in my deck flowerbeds.  I let them be and just pick em as I need them.  LOL

Growing alongside the tomatoes....

The kittens....from Monkey....our adopted stray who came with the house!

One of the pure white kittens has a blue and a green eye.  I think she's deaf. 

I had an identical cat as a child, and he was deaf.  I think it's a genetic thing.

They are so funny...they climb the trees and live in the shed and frolic around in the woods.

What's growing in your garden?

xoxo

sue

BYH

Glad I saw Stephanie's post over at her blog today.  Time for a bit of soul searching and truth to my heart.  Here's what's been on my mind :)

a.  Met with the pastor earlier this week.  Still a bit confused about the faith.  Still confused about where I'm at, if I've been truly saved.  Sometime's I just feel like I'm doing it wrong, or only partially participating.  I prayed for the first time in public today.  With my kids before breakfast at IHOP.  I will just continue on and lead me where God takes me. 

b.  I feel ready to burst with creativity when I see these wonderful magazine pics and posts on line.  I ache to find the time to scrapbook, or work on altered art.  I never seem to be able to find the time.  I need to make the time though.  Being creative is me. 

c.  I've completely been slacking with my on line classes.  I have to re-visit why I began them anyway.  I know partially because I was at a sucky job that I made me want to quit nursing all together.  Now, though, I'm in a better place with good people.  I guess my reasons have changed, but I still need to finish it.  I'm halfway there.  It was alot of money and I feel like a jerk if I waste it and don't finish. 

d.  As much as I love the competition of "blogging and scrapping", it's tiring sometimes.  Keeping up with posts and "forcing" myself to create.  I agree, it's time to revisit why I began scrapbooking before.  It was for my kids.  Sam barely has any pages, and Madi has less.  I've begun their school books though, so I'm proud of that.

e.  I'm working on being a less judgemental person, letting go of anger and resentment.  It is really wonderful.  And patience.  Always workingon that.

f.  My kids are driving me crazy.  Or am I doing that myself.  When am I going to let go and give myself theok, to have a messy house.  What's the use of having a craft room if you don't craft and get messy in it?  LOL

whew...that's enuff

linking back to Stephanie...follow along...unload your heart too!
Just me, my soldier and our four little chicks

xoxo

sue

My Top 5

I stumbled upon Anna over at My Life and Kids one afternoon and laughed at the Finding the Funny posts until I nearly peed myself. I even contributed some of my own funny posts (mostly about Sam's poop and How my husband nearly let me die of vertigo). Today I offer to you my favorite 5 posts from this weeks "Finding the Funny".....so without further adeiu, here they are!

1. You show your ass, I'll show mineI
(because I'd do this to my kids)
2. Exploding Pants and my Bagel Belly
(It really does look like a bagel!)
3. My neighbors might be cannibals
(I swore my neighbor had bodies in his basement, and Polish prostitutes in his attic)
4. Suggestions for men
(because they need all the suggestions they can get!)
5. Mrs. Ventura when nature calls
(because I can just visualize him doing it)

Please visit Anna and Kelly over at Finding the Funny every Wednesday. Share your own bad parenting moments, oddities and hellacious neighbor stories. To see the total list of this weeks Finding the Funny, click here!


Thank you Anna and Kelly for keeping it real!

xoxo

Sue

Altered paint storage

Another Goodwill find...a wooden spice rack....

Add a little turquoise paint

(can you guess it's my fav right now?)

Sand it up a little bit and add some more paint

and embossing powders!

I'm using the little drawers to store my flocking powders...they fit

perfectly!

Repurpose!

xoxo

sue

A trip to Goodwill

I went looking for a bookcare for the family room, and found these instead.

Heavy wood magazine/book holder.  I will repaint this one to a more modern look :)

What a cute little chair for Madison!

Not sure if I'll repaint or not.  I love the little bear at the top :)

Vintage books...love them.  In the Treasure Island book we found a handmade bookmarker fro a little girl named Miranda.  In the Brownie book, the little girl Kathy H. wrote her name and the date of her joining the Brownies....1968!  The back page has a library like card taped there and it's stamped with I am assuming her dad's name from the military.  Always a pleasant little surprise to find some link to the past :)

Happy thrifting to you!

xoxo

sue

SIT

I have three chairs at my kitchen counter that are just about tore up from the kids shoes and just general wear and tea.  If you know me, you know I love all things old, chippy and distressed so I decided to give my chairs that look too.  I figured if they already look distressed and worn, the kids can't do much more damage right?  LOL.

What's the "s" for you ask?  Well, since there's three chairs, I'm going to put an "I" and a "T" on the other two to spell out "sit".  My husband doesn't get it.  Lol, it's all about creativity honey!

xoxo

sue

Ottoman re-do

Our living room furniture is old and worn, but it still works for us.  The ottoman in particular is really stained from the kids antics and spills.  I've been meaning to work on it and yesterday I found some pretty fabric at Wally-world!


This is the old, worn out raggedy looking ottoman....

two yards of fabric and some ribbon and voila!

Brand new!

Gotta love a simple sewing project :)

xoxo

sue

Crib Rail Re-Do

Remember Madison's crib?  Well it's been sitting on my back deck in pieces for oh say, about two weeks  now.  I finally decided today to get to work...

So, add one can of 50% off turquoise paint plus one crib rail and some sandpaper..

and you get this!

Which you can then use for .....

this!

Cool magazine storage....or for books, whichever you like.

Gotta love upcycling!

xoxo

sue

HAPPY banner

Like, who doesn't need another banner?  Lol!

Done in purple, machine stiched, ink distressed with a cute scalloped edge.

A little butterfly for whimsy...

This makes me happy!

what makes you happy today?

xoxo

sue

Ideas

I am always looking for a spot to keep those ideas I come upon, in magazines and on line.

Yesterday I came up with this...

I stitched three manila file folders together to make a 6 pocket binder.

I added some small stickers at the top for different crafty goodness.

End result, a little spot to keep those inspiring ideas and snippets all neat and organized!

happy friday!

sue

Jacob's school album

I've been working on the kids school albums lately.  I had started them a while back, but never really worked on them much.  Since my re-newed interest in scrapping has come back (lol) I decided to get moving.  I ordered some supplies from MemoryWorks Simple Stories line. 

This is Jacob's book. 

 His album is a repurposed binder.  After I started making it, I realized it was too small to fit his class photos and other larger memorabilia.  He will also have a companion album that is a little bit larger.

Each grade section has a smaller 4x6 page to keep track of that years teacher, and other special info.

These are included in the pack...love them!

I then made a pocket out of some plain paper to store smaller items, extra photos and what not.

I decorated them album with the companion stickers. 

To add some pizazz I stitched around photos and the pockets.  I used other office supplies like binder clips and hole reinforcers.

This album will go up until the 5th grade, then I'll have to make another one.

My goal is to keep it updated yearly (lol)

happy creating!

sue