Salt Dough Ornaments - A Holiday Tradition

Happy Friday friends! I'm sure you are as busy as I am with Christmas prep, so I'll keep this short. I have lots more wrapping to do, a ton of cleaning, gifts to deliver and the laundry is piling up because my dryer pooped out! I think I've finally finished baking though. Whew! I'm a cookie fiend, and I don't think I can stand to look at another cookie for a while! 

 Anyway, I thought I'd share a peek into our holiday preparations. Each year the kids and I make salt dough ornaments for them to give to family and friends. It's one of my favorite traditions, and it's a fun way for them to be creative and spread a little holiday cheer.

Here's the recipe I use:

4 cups flour

1 1/2 cups warm water

1 cup salt

Mix well with spoon. Roll out with additional flour to prevent sticking ( I always use a cheap plastic table cloth for easy clean up). Use cookie cutters to cut out shapes.  Make a hole at the top with a toothpick for hanging. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Bake on cookie sheets for 1 1/2 to 2 hours until dry. Then I let them sit out for about 24 hours before painting.

We use acrylic craft paint and glitter to decorate them. 

Once dry, I spray them with a clear sealant before adding ribbon.

What is your favorite family holiday tradition?

Linking up here today:

Wordless Wednesday

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5 Minutes for Mom
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Thanks for stopping by!

Explore The Arts

I love PBS! They offer such wonderful resources for parents, educators and kids. Looking for some summer fun? Why not explore the arts? Get creative, let your imagination soar, let the kids have fun expressing themselves. Check out the PBS Activity Pack to get started: Explore the meanings and moods of color through art, music, vocabulary, dance and cultural activities. Examine how the arts are used to portray personal feelings and depict social protest in society, and research the artwork of Norman Rockwell.

Kids Art and Youth Art Month

March is Youth Art Month and I have been wanting to share some of the drawings my kids have created lately. I just hadn't gotten around to scanning them until today.

I've been toying with the idea of starting a meme called Inspire Me Monday or something of the sort...but, that would require creating a button for the meme...and getting the word out, and planning more posts, and... geez, why isn't there more time in the day?!

Please do let me know if you'd be interested in participating in such a meme to share things of beauty that inspire you and feed your soul. Could be kids art, could be photos you've taken, anything you've created, a song you love, a poem, etc. Just a way to celebrate the beauty around us and find a little light in these otherwise dreary times. I'll try to get my act together and organize a post for next Monday.

Anyway..on with the show :)
The first drawing is a self-portrait that my daughter created. She is 4. She actually drew pictures of everyone in the family. I love them all and am thinking of making them into charms for a charm bracelet...eh hem....a great Mother's Day gift, don't you think?

The next one is a picture my son drew of a dragon. He is 7. He was playing with his Lego Castle set and then decided to draw this.

I just love these because they are things they simply felt inspired to create. I didn't sit them down for a lesson, or prompt them. They're just freehand doodles and the simplicity and imagination of them touch my heart.

Here is a link to some art lesson plans compliments of Crayola (scroll toward the bottom of the page).
Incredible Art has lessons by grade level. Cool!
Arty Factory has some really cool lessons online for more advanced artists and upper Elementary through teens. Find more free art tutorials at Art Graphica, also for more advanced kids...or even mom.

If you have a post on art that you'd like to share, please leave a link in the comments! I'd love to see it.
Thanks!

Wordless Wednesday

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5 Minutes for Mom
7 Clown Circus
Momdot

Recycled Halloween Craft - Make A Haunted House

I found this in my inbox from Highlights and thought it was too cute and clever not to share. What a fun and easy festive craft that uses recycled materials.



Create a Spooky Haunted House

Wash out an empty milk carton--either a quart or half-gallon size will do.
On a separate piece of paper, draw 4 rectangles--each the size of one side of your carton.
On each rectangle draw the outside wall of a house by creating windows, door frames, bricks, and decorations.
Cut out the 4 paper rectangles and glue them to the sides of the house.
Glue on shutters and doors that open and shut.
Add cotton cobwebs for atmosphere.
Use another piece of paper to make a roof.
Draw and cut out people, bats, ghosts, and spooky vehicles and add them to the house.

Make a Ghost Town

This is a great group activity for a party or family. Each person decorates a house, as above. Put the houses together to make a "ghost town."

For other fun craft activities for your kids go to www.highlightskids.com

Wordless Wednesday

Be sure to stop by these fabulous blogs for more Wednesday fun!
5 Minutes for Mom
7 Clown Circus
Ordinary and Awesome
Momdot


Thanks for stopping by today! Don't forget to enter my SIRJJ Organics Giveaway!

Kids Can Customize and Print Their Own Books

Dr. Suess's birthday was Monday, and Read Across America Day was Tuesday, but I say celebrate literacy and great books everyday! I was recently contacted about a new site that allows users to customize, personalize and print their own books. And, it's FREE to use! Cool, huh? Readsake.com offers several stories to choose from and you can edit the names and images in the stories to make them personal to your child. You can also print the stories for your child to color, or print individual coloring pages. Incidentally, there are several pages that would be useful in homeschooling lessons.

Once you sign up, again for free, you can customize, share and archive your child's stories. This is a new site and I've played with it a bit, but still have more exploring to do. I wanted to share it though, as it seems like a fun teaching tool that kids would be excited about. (My kids love to see pictures of themselves and watch home movies, and personalized books are always a hit.) The only negatives I have found so far, are that the stories are really geared toward the preschool set. Though the site says up to 8 years old, I found that they weren't exciting enough for my soon to be 7 year old. And, there are several ads on the site, but it is fairly easy to navigate, and it is free, so I didn't really mind.

Check it out and see what you think. Let me know if you and your kids make a book. They'd be fun to share!


PS- also check out kidthing for free downloads of Dr. Suess favorites.

Wordful Wednesday

My daughter has taken to playing with Photo Booth lately...these are some of her recent works of art. Yes, we are thankful for our iMac, it provides endless hours of entertainment and open-ended creativity.

Some Crafty Halloween Fun

This is a simple and easy holiday craft that we have enjoyed. It is fun for all ages and great for little ones who want to join in the fun. We generally make these for each holiday. They make a nice addition to a bag of homemade cookies or basket of candy.

What you'll need:
card stock, foamies sheets, or scrapbooking paper
scissors
craft glue
clothes pins (optional)
strips of magnetic tape or round magnets (available at craft stores)
markers, glitter glue, ribbon, buttons, wiggly eyes or whatever embellishments you choose
cookie cutters or stencils (or you could freehand your shapes if you are more artistically gifted than moi)

Trace your holiday cutters or stencils on the paper you want to use and cut them out. Add any embellishments you like with glue or permanent markers. Let dry.
Add magnet to back or to make a clip, glue clothespin first, let dry, then glue magnet to the back of the clothespin.
Enjoy your holiday decorations and share them with friends :D

Halloween Fun

Here's a fun Halloween Craft to make...Wiggly Spider Bracelets!
You will need:
Black Construction Paper
Wiggly Eyes
White paper
Paper Fastener
Tape
Scissors
White Crayon
Glue
Pencil
1. Fold black construction paper in half
2. Along folded edge, lay child's hand palm down (midway through palm) and trace fingers with white crayon
3. Cut out the outline of the fingers
4. Unfold for a spider with eight legs. Now turn the spider over and with the pencil, roll the legs around the pencil to curl under
5. Cut a 1" strip of black paper from the remaining scraps, and form it into a circle for the bracelet. At the appropriate length, tape the ends together.
6. Attach the bracelet to the underside center of the spider using the paper fastener.
7. Glue on the wiggly eyes and the "fangs" that you design and cut from the white paper to the topside of the spider's head
8. The child puts his/her fingers/wrist through the bracelet. The spider will wiggle as you move your wrist.
Of course, if you want you could choose a species of spider and do a mini unit on that. We are making black widows by adding a red hourglass shape to our spider's belly.

And a recipe to put some yum in your fun:
COBWEB CUPS
Yield: Makes 18 cupcakes
Ingredients:
1 package (19.8 ounces) brownie mix plus ingredients to prepare mix
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips
2 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 egg
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon vanilla

Preparation:
1.Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 18 standard (2-1/2-inch) muffin pan cups with paper muffin cup liners. Prepare brownie mix according to package directions for cakelike brownies. Stir in chocolate chips. Spoon batter into prepared muffin pans, dividing evenly.

2.Combine cream cheese and egg in small bowl; beat until well combined. Add sugar, flour and vanilla; beat until well combined.

3.Place cream cheese mixture in resealable food storage bag; seal bag. With scissors, snip off small corner from one side of bag. Pipe cream cheese mixture in concentric circle design on each cupcake; draw toothpick through cream cheese mixture, out from center, 6 to 8 times.

4.Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until toothpick inserted into centers comes out clean. Cool in pans on wire racks 15 minutes. Remove to racks; cool completely.

Publications International, Ltd., the Editors of. "Cobweb Cups." 31 August 2006. HowStuffWorks.com. 19 October 2008.

A Lion, A Robot and a Pooping Deer...

My oldest isn't much for drawing. He loves crafts and will paint just about anything, but he has never really enjoyed drawing or coloring. He will happily cut and paste, or better yet, fashion a tool of some sort out of just about any supplies you give him, but has only on a few rare occasions actually drawn a picture. So, I was quite surprised when today, he sat down and did just that. He had been playing office for a while this morning and has been "writing" notes, checklists and signatures lately. A sign that perhaps his aversion to handwriting is subsiding??? I don't push him in this area as he's shown some resistance and I want him to come to it when he's ready. At any rate, his younger sister had grown tired of posing as his secretary and having to redo all her work as he deemed it unfit (Aiden, bossy? never.)
So I asked her if she'd like to draw a picture. She replied with an emphatic, "yes!" and big brother chimed in that he was game as well. I set out the crayons and paper and here is what they came up with:

Aiden drew a deer first, for papaw who likes to go deer hunting. And yes, this deer is pooping. The brown pile in front of him is leaves he's been eating. The brown pile in back...well, you get the picture.


And here's a lion he drew that's, well, pooping too. Yeah, he's six and he's a boy. Actually, I'm not sure the age matters much; boys seem to enjoy bathroom humor throughout their lives. I grew up in a house of girls... cutting the cheese or "plooping" were our only options for communicating about such things, anything beyond that was forbidden. Life's a little different around here.


And finally, here's a robot who is, appropriately, poopless.


Since there was no prompting, no looking at pictures of animals, and no scratching them out and starting over, I was quite impressed that he just sat down and drew these three things he had never drawn before.

Brynie drew a portrait of Aiden:
Sorry it is so faint, I enhanced it as much as I could. I hope you can make it out.

I just love it!
Priceless.