Author: Raptor Mama

I actually made this project last year, but I didn’t get the picture printed until after Halloween so I’m posting it now.  🙂  It is, of course, from Pinterest.

Basically, I took a cheap Ikea picture frame and painted it bright green.  Then I glued down a ton of googly eyes with mod podge.

Incidentally, it takes way longer and uses way more googly eyes than you expect it to.  🙂

Still, I think it turned out cute and it’s not difficult, just time consuming.  🙂 I debated adding some ribbon and letters like in the example, but it didn’t look right with this thinner frame so I left it off.

Michael had the day off from work today so we headed up to Hobby Lobby to look around for a fun project to work on.  We ended up buying a spin art machine.  How fun is that?!?  I totally remember playing with one of these as a kid.

This one came with some paper and tiny containers of paint, sand and glitter.

We had a blast playing with this.  I love crafty activities that the whole family gets into.  🙂

It made a huge mess, but it was worth it.

The sand kind of went everywhere so Kate ended up wearing Michael’s safety goggles.  So cute!

 

Kate loves playing with vinegar and baking soda.  Generally I fill up a baking pan with baking soda and than fill up a muffin tin with different colors of vinegar.  Today I decided to mix it up a little.

First I spread a layer of baking soda in the pan and then I added a bunch of drops of food coloring to it.

I then put another thin layer of baking soda over the top and told Kate that we were going to hunt for treasures!

I gave her a medicine dropper and a cup full of plain vinegar and told her to go to town.

She thought it was really neat to see the different colors show up when the vinegar hit a pocket of food coloring.

She had a fun time, but then asked for “regular” baking soda and vinegar.  I think she prefers to pick her own colors instead of them being a surprise.  Little bit of a control freak, this one.  🙂

 

Kate and Emily were at preschool while I made my pumpkin, but they spied the other pumpkins and demanded to make their own crafts.  🙂

   

So after nap I pulled out some green paint and some foam Halloween stamps.  Kate was horrified that I wouldn’t get her pink paint, but she came around eventually.

   

I spread the paint out in a thin layer so that it would be easier to stamp and let the girls go to town.

   

The upside of this method was that it was remarkable unmessy for a painting activity.

   

The downside is that the stamps totally don’t show up because the pumpkin is curved.

   

The girls loved the novelty of stamping on the pumpkins, but this would obviously work better on paper if you want the actually stamps to show.  We might try that next week.

Still, the girls were thrilled and that’s what matters to me.  🙂

Halloween is seriously my favorite holiday.  So we’re going to get started with the halloween crafts a little early, m’kay?  Just be glad that I waited until September was halfway over to start.  (I’ve been pinning stuff since mid August.)

First up is a ribbon pumpkin from Pinterest.  The original had you hot gluing ribbon on the pumpkins, but I decided to go with mod podge instead.

I found these cute tiny little pumpkins at HEB and I couldn’t resist.  I knew they would be perfect for this project.  I had a tiny bit of bat trim left over from 2 years ago (I think it was Making Memories?) and I bought some black ricrack and Martha Stewart washi tape from Joannes.  Honestly, I was hoping to find more black trims at Joannes, but I had to settle for the washi tape instead.

I painted a strip of mod podge on the pumpkin and then set the first piece of trim in one of the grooves.

Then I painted more mod podge over the top.  Side note: I love mod podge.  It is seriously stinky, but it’s awesome.

After the bats, I added the ricrack.

Then I added the washi tape and painted a coat of mod podge over the entire pumpkin.  The trim worked a lot better than the washi tape, but I’m still pleased with the look of the pumpkin overall.

And yes, I use the Valentine’s Day table cloth as a crafting table cloth.

Kate and Michael bought some “real” clay this weekend.  Michael set up his iPhone to make a time lapse video of us playing with it as a family.  Kate particularly liked adding the water to it so she could make more of a mess.  lol.

Here’s a fun little layout I put together with the October Afternoon 9-5 collection.

It’s a retro secretary themed line (which sounds really odd to be using on a kid layout) and I’m totally in love with it.

I inked and/or traced the edges of the layers to make them pop.

I ran across this on Pinterest and I’ve been itching to try it out with the girls ever since.  Well, today Kate was begging to play with paint so I decided to give it a whirl.  It was a hit!  And super easy.  First I put some paint into some ziplock bags.  (We don’t usually have these on hand, but I bought some to package up our busy bag swap projects.  Score.) Then I taped the bags onto the table with a plain piece of white paper underneath so they could see the colors better.

Since there were three kiddos, we went with a bit of color theory action.

The color mixing was fun (yellow+blue worked the best) but what they really loved was the sensory aspect.

The paint was awesomely squishy.  Side note: try to get as much air out of the bags as possible before taping them down.

After the squishing had lost a bit of it’s appeal, we “drew” in the paint.

This project was awesome.  Painting with no mess!  Perfection.

I’m going to put the bags away and see if they work again tomorrow.  How cool would that be?

I set some lofty goals last month, so I figured it was time to check in and see how I did.  🙂 Just to remind you, my goals were to edit/ upload pictures for March and April and to finish scrapping November and December.  Barring some amazing burst of picture editing energy, I’m unlikely to meet that first goal though I did get March uploaded.  I even got most of March printed!  As for my scrapping goal, I surpassed it!  I’m only 3 layouts shy of being caught up through the end of February!  To be fair, I had a lot of these done before the month started, I was just finishing them up.

Let’s see, I should probably set some goals for this month too.  It helps me make better use of my precious preschool time.  🙂  Hmm…  How about scrapping March and April?  That’s pretty ambitious considering that I have nothing scrapped and I don’t even have pictures edited/ printed for April, but it’s possible, right?  lol.  Oh, so let’s throw in editing/ printing April and May.

Other things on my crafty to do list include:

Making Kate’s Halloween costume.  I bought 12 yards of tulle yesterday.  I’m not convinced it’ll be enough.

Knitting projects.  I have 2 things in the works for gifts.  Sadly, they’re both “due” next weekend and I’n not sure I can knit that fast.  Maybe I should pick one and focus on it.  🙂

Halloween party!  Well, playgroup.  lol.  I want to DIY some decorations and stuff.

And because I couldn’t leave you without a picture, we went to the most awesome playdate yesterday!  It was a “mud” playdate, but Kate preferred the shaving cream.  I might have to buy some of this to play with at home.  🙂

She also make a carwash for the kids to play in.  So super cool.

That cozy coupe has never been so clean.  🙂

ETA: I just powered through and edited/ uploaded all of April!  And all of my Project Life pictures going back to the end of February!  This order is going to cost a small fortune.  lol.

So, Kate started preschool a few weeks ago and I dutifully took pictures in front of our front door before we dropped her off.  They kind of sucked though.  For one, our door is brown.  Not the most attractive backdrop.  Two, it was humid outside and my camera lens fogged up.  Most of the pictures didn’t come out at all.  Three, let’s be real here.  I was a bit frazzled considering that my *tiny baby* was starting school.

Then this week my facebook feed has been full of adorable first day of school pictures, lots of them featuring tiny chalkboards.  I decided to go ahead and fake first day of school pictures.  😉  After driving all over creation looking for a dumb chalkboard (they’re sold out everywhere) I ended up borrowing one.  Then I carefully recreating Kate’s first day of school outfit and posed her on our front porch before school yesterday.  And yes, I predated the sign.  🙂

In case you’re wondering, why yes, I do plan on forcing Kate to take a picture with the chalk board when she’s in high school.  🙂