Rapunzel let your hair down.

Addie got several Rapunzel dolls for her birthday. She has enjoyed their long hair. Today we were making Cheerio necklaces and she decided to create a Rapunzel braid. It's nice to see something a little outside of the box.

Fall Trees

Over our vacation our tree lost many many of its leaves. I had the girls pick them all up off the floor promising a project. I drew a tree trunk out for them and let them go at it with glue sticks and their leaves. A perfect project for fall even though all of the leaves came from inside.

Edith really enjoys using the glues stick so she glues and I stick leaves.

Cooperative Painting

The three girls set-up to do a cooperative painting. We taped some paper to the table and then put small bits of tape on the paper. This was especially challenging for Addie and myself because as we worked adding tape, Edie worked removing tape. Once we were satisfied with our tape we each got a color paint and a brush. Then we played simon says with the paint. Simon says, "paint fast, paint circles, have the paint brush dance, pass your paint, ect." Addie was absolutley thrilled when we removed the tape. Edith on the other hand wandered away doing her own thing.

We all had fun and enjoyed making a project together. No fighting. Peaceful.

Thanks Artful Parent as usual.

Sand Harmonograph

I had kept this super expensive box from moving because I knew it would be useful one day. I finally found a great use for it, making a simple and contained harmonograph. I found a great idea perusing the Internet of making one with paint. After many failed attempts at getting paint to make lines instead of drops and splatters I asked my Dad for advice. He suggested sand. We have a few jars of colored sand and a plethora of contact paper so I tried that. It worked wonderfully.

The box has a built in bar that I hung our applesauce cup from using yarn and gimp(rexlace). I poked a hole through the applesauce cup using a screwdriver. I taped a few pennies around the cup to weight it down a bit. Then I cut contact paper to fit and placed in the bottom of the box. I had cut an access panel in the side of the box so the girls could see what was happening. I should have made this a tad bit bigger to aid in removing the projects easily. Place sand in the cup and let the girls swing away. Two colors of sand worked great. After a few swings we spooned some white sand over the entire drawing so it would not be sticky. This helped keep the design because I had to fold the contact paper to get it out of the access panel and I didn't want the extra colored sand moving around and wrecking the design.

The girls loved it and I will probably attempt to figure out the right paint consistency. Edith did need some prompting to let go of the string so that it could actually draw a pattern. Overall a big hit.

Addie's is pictured first and then Edith's.

Fish Tank

Here the girls are working on making fish tank drawings. Addie did not like it when I said "lets make fish bowls." I guess in her world fish only live in tanks. The girls drew their fish and tanks with crayons.

Then they layered on some blue tissue paper covering up all the fish. They painted the tissue paper with water and then removed it. Now they had some lovely fish swimming in their tank.

Colored Cupcakes

I found several examples of rainbow cupcakes across the web. I decided to tackle the challenge for Addie's preschool show. I loved how they turned out and one of the best parts is how great the wrappers look when you take them off the cupcakes. Addie even asked to save them because they were so pretty.

Here are a few pictures from baking them. I guess I was too tired when I finished them to take any more pictures. They looked and tasted great but did take probably 2-3 hours of work to get them all made. Spreading out each layer takes a long time. Then after they were all baked I had to make some fluffly although much too sticky frosting.

Enjoy.

Edie Sweetie

Edith is turning into a real sweetheart. Here are two examples from today.

Our neighbors came over to play and then had to leave. They were getting into their stroller for the walk home. Meanwhile Edith was inside racing to get her shoes on as fast as she could. I asked her why she needed shoes and she hurriedly told me "I need to hug my friends goodbye." After she got her shoes on she ran outside to give them a goodbye hug.

Later in the day another little girl came over to play. We were all outside and she fell into the toy bin reaching for a ball. It was filled with rain water so she was completely soaked. I ran inside to get her some dry clothes. Meanwhile Edith starts taking off her jacket to offer it to her friend.

Sweet little Edith. She also had a blast tagging along on Addie's school field trip to the hospital. She did everything with the big kids but with a whole lot more enthusiasm than any of them. To be two and have no self-consciousness must be a wonderful thing.

Touchy Feely Art

This week for school one of our projects was to make our own feely page like in so many picture books. Here are the steps.

1. Pick out a desired fabric. Draw a picture on cardstock that the fabric will go into.

2. Cut out a hole in the picture. I used my handy dandy ceramic cutting tool for this.

3. Use an embellishment glue stick to stick down fabric to the back and then glue a second sheet of cardstock over this. Use staples for thick fur fabric.

4. Seal edges with colored masking tape.

Trekker made a cat, Addie made a circle/egg, and I helped Edie make Cookie Monster. Trekker was definitely the most excited about this project.

Valentine Wreath

Addie loves to cut anything and everything. She had some cutting workborks and was quite disappointed when they were all finished. I found a neat book of cutting patterns and have had Addie cut out some of the simpler ones. She does great. I do fin on the folded patterns that tissue paper is a lot easier for her to cut through than regular paper. Her are the two Valentine wreathes she made.

Presents: Snowball Soap

The girls made two presents for their family this year. First we made Snowball Soap. This was a big hit. The girls absolutely loved making the snowballs. I guess the dough felt wonderful in their hands. Although the ingredients were only soap and water, Brian complained it was hard to get the soap out of the food processor. However the girls were easy to clean up.

Directions.

1. Grate up 3 bars of Ivory soap. (using the food processor)

2. Empty out and a a tablespoon of water.

3. Form into snowballs and snowmen and let dry.

The soap was a big hit with all the Grandparents and smelled great. Even Mabel wanted to eat it.