Crafty Day

I just love Pinterest for so many many many reasons. (sigh) My boards are full of sewing projects, homeschool information, "Cool Mommy Clothes" (coincidentally, I will have to find a cool mommy to wear all the clothes I have pinned. Working on it) and craft projects. Craft projects are my life line, my blood. I am never more whole than when I am crafting something, especially if it involves a toilet paper roll, Mod Podge or mason jar. When I'm stressed out or upset, something about the smell of a glue gun heating up makes me feel so much better. This trait has been passed onto my daughter in a big way. Every morning she wakes up, makes her way to my bedroom and after morning snuggles and kisses and laughter says "So mom, what are we making today." It is nothing for Big B to come home to a kitchen table covered in glue and glitter (Miss A lives and breathes glitters) and pipe cleaners. I am also the expert on removing said crafting "joy" from most surfaces. Hummm future blog post? Perhaps.

On this day I became ambitious and decided to tackle 3 craft projects. Yes, I love to craft. One of the reasons I love Pinterest so much is all of the ideas for crafting with your kids. It has everything from toilet paper and egg carton projects (This Dragon or these Flowers from egg cartons and these pumpkins from toilet paper rolls.) to painting and even how to display your children's masterpieces. I personally love this book where you can keep your little ones' art for years to come.

I got the idea this morning to reuse some of the junk... err.. I mean amazingly wonderful found objects from around the house. Being that we just moved and have been unpacking boxes..... Well okay, we moved a year ago but in our defence, I was on bedrest from 17 weeks until Little B came at 34.2weeks and then, well life with a newborn isn't really conducive to cleaning. Anyway, getting back to crafting, so I had these amazing items I was just going to throw into the trash.

 I grabbed the "Craft Box of Wonder" and some bubble wrap and hit my favorite site, Pinterest. Side note: I sure wish I could get a job pinning things. I'm seriously a pro! Any who, I plugged in "bubble wrap" into the search feature and voila!!! Instant project! WHOOP!

I pulled up this project and away we went. I knew that Miss A wouldn't be occupied for long with one project, so I typed in a random word "octopus" and came up with this cute pie project. I'm totally hooked now! So I dive into the Craft Box of Wonder, and pull out the items needed for said projects.

Items needed:

Paint

Brushes

Google Eyes/Puff Balls/Glitter Paint

Tape

Pipe cleaners

Construction paper

We started with the Bubble wrap picture. I was going to let Miss A just paint with the bubble wrap:

But she hit a creative streak and well, you just can't crush creativity.

The final I think is amazing. It sure speaks to me.... or at least it will until she wants to make another one.

So we set the bubble wrap artwork to the side to dry and then started on the Alligator or Crocodile, whichever. I first wrapped up the wrap in a "alligator" shape and had Miss A paint it.

While Miss A works on her alligator, I let Little B explore his inner painter

Of course he LOVED playing in the water, and then tipped it over and splashed in the puddle. Yes, he is a boy after all

By now her alligator is all painted and she is rather proud

We added foam feet to the bottom, but she decided to forgo the red stripe. She took artistic license with this piece.

We set that aside to dry as well since it's too hard to glue on eyes with wet paint. We moved on to the Octopus. I didn't have any toilet paper rolls on hand (GASP!!) so, this mommy in her cleverness, cut a paper towel roll in half. TA-DA!

I cut 8 slits into the bottom of the half of the roll and then let Miss A lose with her paint brush again.

I also let Little B lose with his brush and some water.

This little artist had enough of the critics and their mumbo jumbo and demanded a nap time to recoup and continue with this art at another time. Mommy "clap clap" nap time!!

Meanwhile, Miss A curled up the legs on her octopus and since she is such a loving big sister, on Little B's as well.

Miss A then, once the whole tube was painted, let it dry as well and decided this would be a great time to do some school work.

After both projects were nice and dry, we then glued on the eyes, and the mouth and of course no project is complete without glitter.

All in all, I think it was a nice and lovely morning spent channeling our inner artists.

Jelly Mama