Valentines Completed!

We finally finished!  24 Valentine's Day cards from a two year old have been completed!

We started on Sunday, and finished this afternoon (Thursday).  Obviously we spent just a little bit of time working on them each day, and it worked out very well since it stayed fun for Mini Muffin the whole way through.  She's always loved craft time, and since every time we sat down there was a new component to work on, they made for a pretty interesting project.

Our process was as follows -

First, I prepped the cards and used my Cricut to cut out hearts.  I then put glue on the hearts and passed them to Mini Muffin to stick to the front of each card.  Some of them are very centred... others not so much.

Next, I addressed the cards, and Mini Muffin "wrote" in them with pink crayon. 

And, finally we pulled out my container of dollar store craft goodies (pom poms, flowers, jewels, etc), and Mini Muffin showed me where she wanted glue on the front of each card to finish up decorating them.  Luckily for the first two thirds she was happy just putting one thing in the middle of the heart.  Towards the end, the cards were becoming pretty heavily adorned (and time consuming as well!).

Tada!  Beautifully decorated cards for friends!

I love the end result!  I think she did a great job, and they're definitely from the heart.  Tonight, I'll attach a mini container of bubble solution to each of them, and they'll be ready to go!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Toddler Craft - Potato Stamp Art

Yesterday was just one of those days.  Try as I might, I just could not get ahead.  Someone needed something at any given point in time.  Little Smiling Man surprised me and took his main nap in the morning instead of the afternoon, and so he was just ready to get up as Mini Muffin was going down for her nap, so there wasn't even a moment's respite.  And, Mini Muffin decided that it wasn't a good day for a nap so her mood was precarious throughout the afternoon.  To her credit though, she got up and read quietly in her bed for an hour without any prompting from me when it was her nap time.  Don't get me wrong, we had lots of fun; stickers, playing outside, puzzles, errands and so on, but I just didn't seem to have a moment to spare. 

As dinnertime approached, I was getting pretty desperate for enough time to empty and reload the dishwasher, and to make some special banana pancakes for the kid's supper.  The solution?  Set Little Smiling Man up in his highchair with lots of Little People toys to keep him occupied, and set up craft time for Mini Muffin.  Just giving her paper and scissors, or paper and crayons will keep her busy for a few minutes, but for a good chunk of time I've learned that we need an actual craft.  Wracking my brains for something that would be fun for her and easy for me to set up, I came up with an old 'un but a good 'un.  Potato stamp art!  Memories of preschool craft time anyone?

Ready to go...

Within five minutes she was busy stamping away; all we needed was a potato, some small cookie cutters, paint and paper... and a smock of course!  She had a great time dipping the potatoes in different combinations of paint colours, stamping them and adding some finger painting into the works.  It was a great sensory activity, and let her work on some new painting skills as she experimented with painting her stamps versus dipping them. 

Artist at work!

Before she announced she was done, I was able to achieve my goals - dishwasher emptied and reloaded, kitchen (sort of) straightened, and special banana pancakes well on their way.  Thankfully as we finished up washing Mini Muffin's hands, hubby got home from work so he was able to tidy up the paints and heated our supper of leftovers, while I got the kids sorted for dinner.  With a great sigh of relief, we all sat down to eat together!

Mini Muffin's Masterpiece!

This is definitely an easy and fun craft we'll be going back to in the future.  I'd say it's a timeless classic for a reason - it's simple, fun, allows for lots of creativity and is different every time!

Christmas Cards from a Toddler

Mini Muffin and I decided that yesterday was the perfect day for Christmas crafts. There are also a couple of people in her life that we wanted to recognize with cards, so our craft was decided!

I started by prepping while she was at the park with my mom (who's staying with us for the holidays), and Little Smiling Man was napping. I made plain, cream coloured cards, and drew a handful of Christmas trees on green card stock.  Mini Muffin has been working very hard lately on learning to cut with scissors; she's getting quite proficient and is nearly ready to try cutting along lines. So, my vision was that she'd try to cut out the trees, then we'd glue them to the cards and decorate them. Rather ambitious for a little girl of only two and a half!

When she got home, she saw the card stock and her scissors on the table and was super excited to get started! I explained and demonstrated cutting along lines, and she gave it a pretty good try. But, the fun of reducing a piece of paper to many tiny pieces with her scissors soon took over. I decided to let her have her fun (and use easier cutting shapes next time we work on this skill!). By the time she was done, we had dozens of odd shaped pieces of green card stock, with fragments of Christmas trees drawn on them.

Since this project had decidedly not gone to plan, we just started winging it! We tried our hand at cubism with me piecing together tree-like images and Mini Muffin gluing them. Mini Muffin then cut up some of grandma's spare yarn and glued it to some of the cards as decorations for the tree. And, finally she told me what she wanted to say inside, with great quotes like "Merry Holidays for Christmas!" and "Friends!".

All in all, it was a pretty fun project. I think the cards turned out great; to me they look like a two and a half year old loving her craft time!

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DIY - Candy Cane Wreath

It's been a while since I posted, and has it ever been busy!  We had our extended family Christmas during which Little Smiling Man charmed one and all, and Mini Muffin ran amok and had a fantastic time.  We had our immediate family Christmas, during which we had a good catch up, exchanged a few gifts and enjoyed brunch together.  Then, we headed to Niagara and stayed at a water park!  I estimate that we spent nearly 12h in the water, despite staying for just under 48h!  We were all a bit waterlogged by the end.  When we got home Little Smiling Man wasn't himself.  He wasn't... well... smiley.  Then he broke out in a rash, so we went to the doctor where he was diagnosed with hand foot and mouth.  Poor, poor monkey.  All we could do is wait it out, and keep him comfortable with Advil.  Thankfully he's through it now!  We're all enjoying a little bit more sleep, and a lot less fussiness!

And, on the craft/DIY front, I thought I'd share a wreath I made just before heading south.  Let's just say, Pinterest is both my best friend and my worst enemy.  I was super busy with preparations for our trip and life in general, yet this gorgeous wreath just begged to be made!  Luckily, it turned out to be a quick and easy project, with a gorgeous end product!

The finished product!

Here's what you'll need:

1 box of candy canes, plus four additional candy canes*

Scotch tape

Hot glue gun (clear glue)

1.  Trim excess wrapper from the ends of each candy cane.
2.  Pair candy canes with long stems together.  Attach with tape.
3.  Lay out your wreath, joining the taped pairs so that the crooks form hearts.
4.  Along the stems, run a line of hot glue.  Add a dot of hot glue at each point the candy canes join.
5.  Allow to set, and it's ready to hang!  It won't be stiff, but will be held together well.  Hang on a hook, with ribbon, or however you choose!

* Exact quantity may vary depending on which brand of candy canes you buy.

Easy.  Peasy.

Ours adorns our stairwell window, and is held up by suction hooks.  I love this simple, festive touch to our home!

DIY - Mini Muffin Tin Advent Calendar

It's funny to think that our friends south of the border are celebrating Thanksgiving, when we are in full flung Christmas mode.  But, with Canadian Thanksgiving over a month behind us, I guess it's not surprising.  In fact, tomorrow morning we're heading south to enjoy an early Christmas dinner with my extended family.  On Sunday, we're celebrating Christmas with our immediate family (since my sister won't be able to join us on the day).  After this weekend's celebrations, we'll be heading to Niagara for a short getaway with the kids.   

By the time we get back it will be December!  And, December means that the countdown to Christmas is well and truly on - especially for Miss Mini Muffin.  She is all about Santa these days.  As part of the anticipation, we wanted to introduce the traditional advent calendar.  But, I really struggle with the concept of buying a calendar that essentially gives my toddler chocolate every single day for 24 days.  Chocolate and candies are a treat around here, and don't happen often.  Who knows what havoc that calendar could wreak!  I jest.  I'm sure it would be fine.  But, it did get me wondering if I could put together an advent calendar for her that was more suited to our home environment and her personal tastes.  Pinterest to the rescue! I kid you not, Pinterest is both my best friend and worst enemy; so many amazing ideas, yet so little time!

This week, in and amongst our normal routines and getting organised for our upcoming getaway, I took some time to create an advent calendar for Mini Muffin.  It was a great break from the laundry, packing, baking, wrapping, errands and general Christmas prep. 

And here it is - Mini Muffin's Mini Muffin Advent Calendar!



The Final Product!

To make your own, you'll need:

• one mini muffin tin
• 24 small treats - mini muffin tins are shallow, so they need to be small
• 24x  2" cardstock squares (my squares are actually 2"x2.5" rectangles and work well)
• any decorations you'd like to use
• self adhesive magnets
• ribbon to hang

24 days worth of treats

I started out at the dollar store, looking for little treats.  I ended up with a collection of stickers, balloons, hair clips, and a few larger items (pencil, Christmas sticker activity book, antler headband).  Naturally, I did pick up a few candies too.  Every advent calendar needs a few sweets!

Over the next week or so I thought about how to cover the muffin cups.  I knew it would be a piece of cardstock with magnets on the back, but the exact size and design was up in the air.  After I finally had my concept in mind, I pulled out the muffin tin to discover... the holes were much closer than I remembered and my grand idea wouldn't work after all.  Boo. 

I figured I'd just dive in and figure it out as I went along, so I opened up a pad of Christmas scrapbooking paper I bought on clearance a few years ago.  The stars must have been aligned because the first page I flipped to had a calendar on it... and the numbers were the perfect size!  Seriously, what are the odds?  So, I cut them out, affixed the magnets, and filled the tin.  For the larger items, I wrote a little clue on where to find them (and put a reminder in my phone so that the treat gets into its hiding spot in time!).

The final challenge was hanging it.  My tin doesn't have a hole in it, and I intend to continue using it for baking once December is over, so I needed to get a bit creative.  In the end, I took the strongest magnets from my fridge, and used them to hold the ribbon onto the back of the tin.  It's been three days and it's still holding strong, so I think my solution is going to do just fine!

All in all, this was an easy and fun craft to do for my little one, and I am so happy with the final product!  I'm really looking forward to her discovering her treat each day as we move the numbers from the tin to a line down the kitchen door.  And once Christmas has past, all I have to do is pack away the cardstock until next year!

Craft Idea - Hallowe'en Handprints

We are in full autumn mode!  We've been doing for lots of fall walks, enjoying the last warm-ish days, and sadly packing away all things summer.  Fall has also crept into our diet with more apples and squash.  So, as Little Smiling Man naps and Mini Muffin plays with orange playdough while we wait for our pumpkin oatmeal muffins to cool, it seems like a great time to share a little handprint craft we did the other day.  It makes a great seasonal decoration, is small to store, and will be super cute to pull out again next year and see how much Mini Muffin has grown.

Before the toddler phase, arts and crafts were certainly a long way behind me.  As in, I'm pretty sure I left arts and crafts behind in elementary school.  So, I've been doing a lot of learning... and a lot of idea gathering on Pintrest!  This idea was just too cute to miss!



Eek!

As you can see, it was mostly a mommy craft with a bit of toddler input.  Mini Muffin thinks "her spider" is pretty cool, and loves the webs created around it in purple (her favourite colour).  And, mommy had some fun doing something crafty during naptime. 
A little bit more about the process -

I chose to work on canvas for longevity and display purposes, but you could very easily work on paper.  I also used tempera paints to keep everything non-toxic and easy to clean. 

Since we didn't have any orange paint on hand, I mixed some up and prepped the canvas while Mini Muffin was napping.  I applied a couple of layers with a sponge brush, and then dabbed with a sponge to even out the texture.  Once it was dry, we painted Mini Muffin's hands and pressed them down one at a time to make our spider.  The next day (also during her nap), I broke out the purple and a fine paint brush to finished it off.  She was so surprised to see the end result when she woke up, and I had so much fun painting.  As I said, it's been years!

I had a few learnings through the process, which the very crafty would find basic.  When I mixed the orange, I was completely off with the red/yellow proportion.  For the record, Hallowe'en orange is mostly yellow.  I ended up with so much orange as I added more and more yellow to find the right shade!  I also found the by using a foam brush (which is all I had on hand), I ended up with a really streaky canvas.  It looked kind of cool, but wasn't the look I was going for.  Hence, improvising with the sponge.  I love the mottled texture of the final product!

So, there's a fun handprint Hallowe'en idea.  Now, on to create one for Little Smiling Man!