DIY Christmas ornaments

Happy New year everyone! I know Christmas was last week, so I am definitely late with this post, but it can be a great craft with kids on this lazy day....

I was planning to have our Christmas tree set on the floor, unlike past few years, which it spent high on the shelf. That's why I wanted to have some decorations made from paper and plastics, so it wouldn't be easy to break them.

We played again with bottle caps. This is something very simple - just connect two caps using washi tape and then attach some decorative ribbon:

This craft is great because kids can easily make them, eventually they will need some help with binding ribbons, which can be a great fine-motor activity:

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Our mailbox these days is literally cluttered with advertising leaflets, so we turned them into something more appealing. 

With the help of the round cover, we draw circles around nice photos:

We also used one of our old workbooks, with popular cartoon characters:

After it, we made small cones and attached them to each other:

About halfway over, we've inserted a decorative ribbon (I forgot to take photos of this step) and so, cone after cone, we created this beautiful ornament, which really reminds me of those old-fashioned Christmas tree ornaments:

However, we didn't set our tree on the floor, it was on the shelf again, just to be on the safe side. We used these paper ornaments as decorations all over the house, since we made a whole bunch of them. 

What kind of ornaments you had this year? I'd like to see the photos of your tree and Christmas decorations! 

I wish you all a pleasant and a peaceful holiday season with lots of crafts and play!

10 summer fun ideas

Finally we have beautiful weather which comes with a whole range of ideas for great outdoor entertainment and summer fun:

1. A Sea Mermaid

One plastic bottle, a piece of a potato sack (similar to our Merida greeting card ), a few sea shells, some green paper and markers for drawing faces. Quickly and easily we got a mermaid:

2. Beach in a bottle

If after making a mermaid, you stil have some sea shells left, add some sand and make this nice shelf decoration:

3. Pool noodles

We used them for everything but the swimming:

4. Homemade bubbles

The kids really love to blow soap bubbles, however, they quickly spill the liquid, so it is good to know that you can prepare it yourself, from the ingredients you probably already have in your kitchen.

5. Homemade children paint

This is something my kids particularly like and we've come up with several ways of homemade paint:

Out of flour and salt:

Ice colors:

Or with the old, dry markers:

After you've prepared some of these homemade colors, let the kids paint on a canvas (actually an old sheet in our case):

7. Boats in various ways

It does not matter if you are far away from the sea, you can still make sea toys. Bucket of water is just enough large for these sweet boats to sail:

8. DIY kite

Great for windy days ... and  in almost no time. See here for a tutorial.

9. Homemade play dough

This always turns out to be a very messy play, so I insist on for this to be an outdoor activity. However, the homemade play dough is much easier to clean up than the store bought one. See here for our recipe.

10. Moon dough

Very similar, but yet so different from play dough. Only two ingredients (again from your kitchen) and a lot of "messy" fun:

I wish all of you to have a great summer, fulfilled with kids fun!

Children paint - part 3

Somehow it always happens that we run out of watercolors on Sunday afternoon, and the girls like to draw in all the possible techniques and even in the snow, so I have become a real master in finding ways to make our own, homemade paint. You've probably already read how we used various materials - from yogurt through salt and flour, to the ice frozen colours , with a great help from the inevitable food coloring.

On one hand these colors are great as they are made ​​from edible ingredients, but there is also the aspect of throwing food away, which is hard to ignore. So the idea to make watercolors out of old, dried markers sounds very good considering these aspects.

Just soak them in water and let it settle. The result is quickly visible - hold them in the water for as long as you want, depending on the desired color intensity .

We left ours at the sun, but I can not guarantee that was the thing which gave us more intense color, it is more likely because we left them for the entire morning to soak.

When you paint with these colors, the trace which remains on the paper is as intense as the trace of painting with store-bought colors, but of course I was so much into this activity that I forgot to take pictures. It happens to me way too often.

Don't throw away markers after that. They can be used as sticks for making paper dolls, candles on a play dough cake, and their lids also have numerous possible usages.

 

How to make a toy boat

Some of my earliest childhood memories are related to playing with paper boats in the muddy pools - I remember how happy and careless I was at the time  ....

I'm sure most of you are familiar with this popular origami technique, and if by chance you are not, see here how it works.

However, the one thing I was really annoyed with these boats, even as a child, is the fact they get wet fast and therefore become unusable.

That's why me and the girls tried to make boats out of more durable materials.

1. Cork boats

This is actually one of the easiest things we've ever done. Couple of corks, rubber bands, toothpick and a little sponge and we got a mini fleet in a moment or two:

Just a short notice: definitely 3+ toy!

Egg boxes boats

Here we used polystyrene egg boxes, chopsticks and a spongy cloth. 

Daddy-engineer added a cork on the end of a sticks (actually to the end of a sail), so the water does not end up in a boat:

While I was delighted with the idea at the first glance, sponge (especially when it becomes wet) is heavier than polystyrene, so we quickly got a shipwrecked boat.

Cheerful team then had to sail without sails: 

After this experience, using the leaf as a sail sounds as much better idea, and we certainly intend to try it.

We also tried to make boats out of ice cubes as shown in this picture, but it was also not very successful - toothpicks and straws bent during freezing so it is impossible to maintain such a boat on the surface, and besides - the summer heat causes ice cubes to melt too fast ....

Enjoy the summer and let the play begin!