Birdie House

We are alive and kicking. I have been absent for a few days... well I suppose about a week now. My grandmother-in-law was in town and we were super busy throughout the week. I would show pictures to prove it but I was too lazy, too pregnant and too exhausted to actually carry my camera with me. The ONE day I did bring it with me I took ONE picture. Sad I know. 

I would love to say we are relaxing this week but that's a no go. With only 7 to 9 weeks left before Zoey arrives doctors appointment are in overdrive along with everything else we have going on this month. Anyways. I did have a chance to stop by Target this weekend for a little birthday shopping for the hubby and Maddie spied a really cute plastic bird house kit in the Dollar Spot. Originally priced at $2.50 it was on clearance for 50 cents and really who can pass that up?

After Maddie and daddy assembled the birdhouse I threw caution to the wind and handed Maddie my container of Sharpies. Oh I know, probably not the best idea. It kept her busy though and that was the important part. I figured she would just decorate the outside a bit but then she went crazy on the inside to providing wall paper and area rugs for the new bird residents.

After a weekend of decorating Maddie proudly hung the birdhouse in our tree and is now eagerly awaiting some new residents!

Easter Countdown: Egg #2

This whole basket full of eggs thing apparently was GENIUS on my part. Yesterday morning she ran down the stairs and opened her egg at 6:30. Before breakfast and Handy Manny! Impressive, I know!

A few weeks ago Maddie mentioned a desire to make a bird in a nest and I discovered this adorable clay egg scene at Ordinary Life Magic. The initial plan was to make something similar but then we sort of went off on our own little tangent.

Last weekend I used the last of our Pluffy clay to make the egg. I ended up rolling out about half of a package and then molding it around a large plastic egg. Despite the cooking instructions I tossed the egg (plastic egg and all) in the oven at 175F for about 10 minutes. I didn't want to completely dry the clay at that point but I did want it firm enough to keep it's shape. With an X-Acto blade I sliced around the outside of the egg and was able to split the egg in half and remove the plastic egg. I returned the clay to the oven at 275F this time for another 10 minutes to finish the drying process. 

Maddie set off into the backyard in her pajamas yesterday morning to scavenge for nest building materials. 

I ended up grabbing a few natural colored odds and ends out of the craft closet to supplement the twigs.

Then it was construction time, of course with a little break for oatmeal in between! Instead of building the nest in the egg we opted to build it with lots of glue on a paper plate.

ahh, can you spy the tell tale signs of a stuffy nose?

By the afternoon the glue was finally dry and Maddie layed her precious egg in the nest.

She was so proud of her nest and loved that the baby birds could hatch from their shell. She decided against painting her egg yesterday but I believe she intends on painting it today!

TP Flowers

Yup we made toilet paper flowers and they are just adorable! Okay some of them were made with paper towel tubes but some were made with toilet paper tubes too. I stumbled upon this adorable idea in the latest edition of Kiwi magazine and thought it would be a perfect project for Maddie and I to work on during our very rainy week. 

I assembled all of the flowers before Maddie and I started the project so all she had to worry about was painting her flowers. Armed with the giant bucket of acrylic paints we set to work. Maddie was in charge of the flowers while I painted bamboo skewers green for the stems.

Ack! Can you tell why I am not a fan of breaking out the paints! There is ALWAYS a mess.

Later in the day after all the globbed on paint dried I hot glued the flowers on to the skewers and Maddie matched buttons with each flower for me to glue on too.

 Maddie decided our flowers NEEDED bees so I quickly whipped up some small clay bees that she also painted. We used Pluffy clay and before I baked the bee bodies I left indentations for the button wings so that I would have no problems gluing them on after the fact. 

We assembled our flower pots in some Target Dollar Spot pails I had leftover from Maddie's 2nd birthday party. I used some of our sensory rice to help keep the flowers standing in the bucket too. Adorable!

Flower Assembly Per Kiwi Magazine:
Flatten the paper tube and cut into 3/4 inch strips. To make the flower petals, open six (we did five) of the flattened cardboard strips into ovals. Glue the bottom half of the petals together into a flower shape (I used hot glue), leaving a space between two of them for the stem.

Stained Glass Butterflies

The Crafty Crow featured some gorgeous butterflies from Twig and Toadstool that I thought would be a perfect craft for Maddie. 

We did end up changing a few things so they worked well for us. We swapped out the watercolors for finger paints. Less color options for Maddie means less likely to see big pieces of nasty brown colored paper!

We used a thicker white construction paper and Maddie had fun swirling colors together on the paper. I tried to emphasize that we needed to make sure there were no clumps of paint on the paper but of course in one ear out the other. So as she finished each picture I took over smoothing out the paint so we had one thin even layer of paint on the paper.

After the paint dried I cut out a few butterfly shapes and then we used a hole punch, scissors and large circle punch to cut windows out in the butterflies.

At first we attempted to just glue pieces of tissue paper into the windows but I guess our white paper was a bit thin because we could see the tissue paper outline through the butterfly. Not cool. Instead Maddie slathered the butterflies with a glue stick and we stuck the whole butterfly to a sheet of tissue paper. I have to admit this was much easier than using small pieces of tissue paper in each window!

I LOVE how the butterflies came out! Just beautiful!

They make a wonderful spring addition to our backdoor!

Finger Paint Butterflies

A simple yet beautiful craft that Madison was thrilled to do! I think this may have actually been the first time that we did a mirror image painting and she was super excited with the results!

We kept things simple this time with finger paints and paint paper. Nothing too fancy!

Madison chose which colors she wanted to swirl together and then used her fingers and hands on half of the paper.

Then I showed her how we could fold the paper in half and make the same paint design on the other side.

After the paint dried we cut out butterflies! Madison wasn't all that eager to do the cutting but if your little one is this is definitely an easy activity to follow the line and cut. You could certainly add eyes, glitter and antennae but we went for a simple look this time; or more accurately the less mess route!

A scooter of her own

Don't get me started - I know she is spoiled. We just couldn't resist this time though.

Hubby and I had been eying the Radio Flyer My 1st Scooter last year for Miss Maddie but never ended up getting it. Then we were browsing at Walmart this past weekend and low and behold there was the absolutely adorable pink scooter - on SALE.

Say no more. Into the cart it went and since then I have only seen the back of my little girl as she scoots past. I even found her yesterday morning riding her scooter completely nude in the living room. Well then.

Madison still hasn't really got the hang of riding her bike but she LOVES the scooter!

Pretty Flower Painting

The beautiful weather and our crazy schedule has left little time for art projects but we did manage to break out the paint late last week.

I adore how these flower paintings came out! Initially I planned on using a cork to stamp the flowers but we opted to use a Q-tip instead.

Madison had a great time stamping all different colors.

A beautiful piece of artwork to add to our growing collection!

Flutterflys

The beautiful weather has been so odd here in Connecticut but I have to admit I am really enjoying it. The other day during one of our evening walks we saw the cutest, teeniest, tiniest little butterfly. Of course no camera with me at the time but I figured it was time to breakout the coffee filters to make a few butterflies of our own.

We used coffee filters and our favorite dotters for this project.

Madison decorated a few coffee filters as she saw fit.

After the artist was pleased we grabbed our handy dandy little spray bottle and spritzed the filters. I layed the filters on a cookies cooling rack to dry.

Finished off with a matching pipe cleaner and they were ready for flight!

With a bit of hot glue and a few magnets you could easily make some cute new magnets with these!

Peep, Peep! Chirp, Chirp!

Easter is next weekend! It doesn't feel like it should be here yet but alas it is. Unfortunately Maddie and I have had very little chance to make any great Easter crafts but we did have an opportunity to break out some paint this week!

This project was based on one we did last year but on a bigger scale this time around. Madison was thrilled to practicing her tracing skills with a small plate before we started painting.

Once again we mixed a little bit of orange, yellow and white to get a nice fuzzy affect on the little chicks!

Madison went crazy with a chunk of sponge painting!

At the moment I am without cool crafty scissors so I went with a quick and simple squiggle effect for the chick wings.

Add a few googly eyes and a few scraps of orange paper and you have an adorable spring chick!

Sweet Little Bunny

Who knew such an adorable bunny could be made out of a toilet paper roll?

To start I cut out some cute little ears out of white foam

and Madison added some glue and glitter!

While the ears dried Madison painted a toilet paper tube white.

After everything dried Madison picked out the colors she wanted but I finished up the detail work with a glue gun. You could definitely use some plain school glue but that calls for a longer drying time!

Bird Seed Wreath

A few weeks ago I saw this post on A Day In The Life Of Jack and knew that it was a must for us! With a week of beautiful weather Madison and I headed outside to get a bit messy and mix up a special treat for the birds!

After browsing a few different recipes on the Interwebs I decided we would mix 1 1/2 cups of hot water with 4 packages (one whole box) of Knox Gelatin.

Once Madison dissolved all of the gelatin we started adding birdseed. In total I would say we added about 3-4 cups of seed. Basically we continued to add seed until we had a dry-ish mixture with very little water at the bottom of the bowl.

After you have the mixture to a consistency you like pack it into a muffin tin. Don't forget to add a piece of straw in each cup to leave a hanging hole for later.

To makes things a bit easier on myself I lined the muffin tin with silicone liners to help get the seed cakes out after they dried. Because we were spending the afternoon outside in the sun we let the seed cakes dry outside but I am sure you could also put them in the refrigerator to firm up.

After the seed cakes were dry we strung them up with a bit of yarn!

Rainbow - riffic

I think this is the first time that Madison completed a project 100% by herself with absolutely no help from me. She didn't ask for help. She didn't tell me she couldn't do it. Instead I provided the materials and walked away. Forty five minutes later Madison showed me the beautiful rainbow she made all by herself!

On another note can I tell you how excited I was to find that you can buy pre-cut tissue paper squares?! Maybe I am the only one that gets excited over something so simple but I love em'!