Chica Schmica

My girls made these stickers for Cory’s guitar case last Christmas, but I think they would also make a wonderful Father’s Day gift, so I’m putting this out there for those who might need some last minute ideas.

It’s a very simple gift, perfect for our little ones, and there are a couple of ways you can go about making them:

I purchased some printable sticker paper from an office supply store (which continue to come in handy!) and printed a scanned image of the girl’s artwork onto the paper. Sometimes my kids make very light marks, so I wanted to be able to adjust the brightness and contrast of their work so that everything stood out well.

You could also have your child use markers to draw directly on the sticker paper.

You can cut your shapes out first and have the child draw within the confined space, or you can cut the shapes from an existing piece of artwork.

So many ways to make one sweet and simple gift for the musician in your life!  Happy Father’s Day to all the dad’s out there!

When Annabelle first told me she wanted a “banana party,” I had no idea what that would entail. It ended up being a ton of fun coming up with ideas and the party was hit with all of the kids!

First off are the invites which were, of course, bananas! I used yellow cardstock for the “peel” and used my sewing machine to stitch around the edge so that the “banana” could be inserted and removed easily. And, I couldn’t have a banana without a banana sticker, so I used sticker paper and printed off my own with a 3 on them. The fronts read, “Our little chiquita is turning 3!” and the back had the pertinent party info. They were sent with the flaps up so that the guests could feel like they were actually peeling the banana. I love these

I found this adorable banana fabric from Moda and used it for her skirt and the goody bags. It was destiny! The skirt was made from this twirly skirt pattern and it was quite cute for the short amount of time that she wore it.

About 20-minutes into the party she changed into her bathing suit to play on the “wet banana” (AKA slip-n-slide). Ok. I’m the only one who called it this. I do believe that the slip-n-slide will make an appearance at all of our birthday parties because it’s easy and the kids LOVE IT. I will find a way to work it into whatever theme these little monkeys come up with!

Here are the goody bags. I just made very simple bags that tied with an attached ribbon. Inside the bags were paintchip-notepads, banana crayons (melted then poured into candy molds), noise makers, banana suckers, and little craft papers that I picked up in packs at JoAnn’s. I spent no more than $10 on everything total (not per bag…total!) which thrills me to no end.

Some of the kids were not quite ready to jump right in and join the fun at the slip-n-slide so they played this Banana Toss game:

We had chocolate cuppies with a light banana topping. I’ll post the recipe for the topping tomorrow (I actually have stuff to post so I’m dragging this baby out!). While I’m at this photo I’ll also point out something else that worked out and made me immensely happy. I used the tutorial for attaching plates and candle sticks from Design Sponge to make this cupcake stand and I’m just thrilled that it worked out so well! We had more cupcakes than this. I staged this quickly before the party then promptly put everthing back in the fridge before it melted. I added a banana slice to each cupcake before serving.

And, for the cake, I made this Banana Split Cake from Martha Stewart. It was a big ol’ pile of ooey goodness and it was delicious!

Thanks for stopping by and checking out our fun! Here are just a couple more pics of the girls playing with the banana toss the day after the party:

So today my little girl turned 3. Here she is wearing her favorite dress (coincidently my least favorite) and playing her favorite game: catch. She had a blast at her birthday party yesterday and I’ll have some of the details from that tomorrow. In the meantime, here are some proud-mama-pics of my big girl.

Happy WW!

I haven’t been around much here, if you hadn’t noticed. And it’s not because there aren’t things I’ve wanted to share…there’s plenty. So today, for the sake of catching up, I’ve decided to create one BIG post that includes everything that I’ve wanted to post about over the past couple of weeks.

Lots of pics (mostly unedited).

Few words.

We had an absolute blast at a butterfly garden:

(photo by my wonderful husband)

Here’s Annabelle chasing the butterflies:

Here are both girls totally engrossed watching this one little white butterfly on the red flower.

Charlotte’s favorite part was smelling the flowers. I think she smelled each and every one!

The flowers bloomed

Annabelle got sick…she was so miserable.

We broke out the watertable and have enjoyed it daily.

We made a sailboat for our water table adventures.

Then this guy came around.

He was showing a little too much interest in our recycled watercraft.

And the next thing I knew we had a stowaway.  It seems you can’t go anywhere these days without being invaded by pirates.

Have I mentioned before that our neighborhood is classified as a registered bird sanctuary? One of the perks is this distinction is being able to look out into our backyard and see this on the other side of the lake:

Quite the looker, wouldn’t you say?

I love those wispy feathers that hang from his neck.

Oh..and what’s this? Putting a little show on for us, eh?

And if the scenery here looks familiar it’s because it’s exactly where Mama Duck was hanging out with her babies. I guess the geese were getting to be too much of a nuisance to her because I haven’t seen her around lately.

Annabelle started feeling better and Charlotte and I enjoyed having her home so much that we pulled her from daycare.

More fun at the water table:

I thought the girls would enjoy making a birthday card for their friend’s first birthday party so I carved up a quick potato stamp.

Ooops! Forgot to reverse the image! We didn’t have the time to redo everything so I captioned the inside with something about the baby girl being “on the other side of one now.”

Had some fun fingerpainting.

This one got a little carried away:

By the time she was done her upper body resembled a smurf…I’m sure it was a wonderful sensory experience for her, though.

Surprised my husband with a cake for dinner on April Fool’s Day:

It’s a meatloaf cooked in a cake pan covered with creamy mashed potatoes. I got the idea from Jenny last year and knew I had to do it. It was great. Poor Charlotte was *very* disappointed when she bit into her piece…even though both girls saw me make the whole thing. And Cory was totally confused until he realized what it was.

There…all caught up now!

Now that both girls are home I’ll likely be doing more kiddie crafts around here. Hopefully I’ll be able to share our daily goings on more regularly than I have been. I’m still trying to find the right balance  for everything. I’ve decided not to post more than 3 posts per day on OCP and I’m hoping that will help me manage everything better. But frankly, there’s just so much good stuff going on that it’s hard not to post everything I come across.

I’ll also be working on the girls’ Easter gifts over the next week and hope to share some of that.

Did anybody actually read all of this? If so, thanks for hanging in there!

See you soon!

I said I would post this Thursday, but I changed my mind. You don’t mind, do you?

First, I have to give a little background about my inspiration for these. I’ve been seeing alot of mustache crafts around the blogosphere lately, and they always make me smile. Not long ago, I saw these and immediately thought, “Oh, how cute, a pencil topper!” Upon close examination, I realized they weren’t pencil toppers, but tiny little staches on sticks. Still cute, but I really liked the pencil toppers, so I decided to make my own!

I had a blast making these pencil toppers for my school-aged nieces and nephews. They’re a snap to make and tons of fun. If you’d like to make your own, just download the template and follow these steps:

Gather materials
craft foam
glue gun
scissors or exacto knife
pencil or marker
template (printable PDF)

Cut two mustaches (or lips) and one rectangle

Apply thin beads of glue along the two long sides of the rectangle

Smash together, making sure not to let the glue spread to the center.

You should still be able to open it nice and wide.

Apply more glue to one side of the folded rectangle

and attach to one side of the mustache with the whole facing downward.

Add another bead of glue to the open-facing side of the rectangle

Position the second mustache piece on top of first so that all of the sides match up.

Add more glue to the ends so that both sides are attached securely.

Stick in a pencil.

Take copious amounts of goofy mustache pictures.

With Spring-like days becoming more and more common, we’ve had some especially blustery days. On a whim, I decided to “try” to make a kite with the girls. It was very spur-of-the-moment and I had no idea how it would turn out, but it ended being a wonderful way to spend our morning.

The photo at the top is the original kite. I took pictures of a step-by-step later using a brown paper bag…both flew just fine, but I think I should have made the width a little longer on the latter.

Materials
Paper (I used cardstock and brown paper bag)
Scissors
3 Straws
Ruler
Twine
Tape

First I marked the same distance from the corner to either side of the paper (7-8 inches is probably best).
Then I used the ruler to meet both marks down to a point. It figures I don’t have a picture of this step…but you’re making a diamond, so I think you can figure it out.

Then I taped two of my straws end to end.

And attached the last straw with tape and twine. Eyeball on your diamond-shape to see where the straws should intersect. Leave a long tail on your twine…this is how you are going to hold your kite.

Tape to your diamond shape….and you have a kite!

Now wait for some good wind to come along and watch your children delight in the physics of nature!

That was Annabelle after my first demonstration of the kite…dying to have a turn!

And the kite DID fly…although it was hard to get a picture.

Of course, nobody wanted to come inside after such a fine morning, so we had a picnic!

And then I pretty much had to drag two very reluctant toddlers inside for their naps.

But, the kites have held up and they still ask for them sometimes when we go outside…we just need some more windy days!

Hope you make a kite!

A few days ago the girls were *begging* to paint, but I just frankly wasn’t up for a big mess late in the day. So…I let them paint with water.

It was perfect. They painted their little hearts out all over the driveway and my car until they had their fill, then jumped around in the water puddle left by the spilled water bucket.

They were then able to move on to things like examining a spider (it’s small, but it’s there)…

and jumping off anything higher than two inches off the ground.

We’ve been spending alot of time outside as of late, so I’ll be sharing some of our outdoorsy fun with you in the coming days. See you soon!

A few days ago, after numerous requests by Charlotte (the little one) to go outside, I finally gave in. It’s her favorite place to be and she usually asks several times per day.

We’ve had some really beautiful days around here lately, so I have no idea why I was so reluctant. Anywho, once outdoors I fiddled around with my camera while she entertained herself by picking up leaves and plucking blades of grass.  I love how kids this age are so fascinated by their surroundings.

Sometimes I forget to make the most of the time that I have with my kids. This was not one of those times. I put the camera down and made a game of her newfound interest. I separated them into piles for her and she quickly caught on.

This little game would be easy to adapt for older kids. You could incorporate more natural elements, such as rocks and sticks. You could sort by color, size, shape. You could even sort by type of leaf. I think the main things are to use what your children are interested in, follow their lead, and have fun!

Last week, The Toby Show posted about a  domino game she recently purchased for her son and mentioned how easy it would be for someone to recreate it. I’ve been wanting to put something together with textures ever since I saw this, and I happened to already have some pre-cut wooden boards cluttering up my crafting area. So, I set forth to see what other textures I could gather.

It probably took me less than an hour to find the supplies and glue the pieces onto the wood.

For the textures, I used:
red craft foam
green felt
corrugated cardboard
corkboard
rubbery shelf-liner
chenille stems

I just cut the pieces into 2 inch squares and hot-glued them onto the wood….soooo simple!

I only had six boards, but it ended up being just right for my toddler. Enough to be fun without being overwhelming. She can play by herself or with a friend (aka Mommy) and she can finish the game quickly with a feeling of accomplishment. As she gets better and is no longer challenged, I’ll pick up some more wood and add more textures to the mix.

Sandpaper would be nice. Maybe something spongey. Really, there are so many possibilities. Any other ideas?