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