Making Tie Dye Shirts for Halloween!

Sammy and I had a blast making some Halloween tie dye shirts a week or so ago, using a kit I got at Michael's with my 40% off coupon.  They also had t-shirts for $2, but you could easily use any old white shirt or pick one up at a thrift store!

First I had to wash the shirts, with no fabric softener.  I pulled them out of the washing machine and, leaving them wet, we put rubber bands on them...

 One for Sammy, one for Toby, and one for Mommy!

Sammy got a kick out of the plastic gloves!

 The kit was super easy...just add water to the bottles which already had powdered dye in them, and shake!  Then apply with the bottle.  I was picturing myself having to mix up buckets of dye and do it out in the back yard, but this was nice, neat, and simple enough for this almost-4-yr-old to do with a little help!

Sammy applying the orange dye up to the rubber band

Finishing off the dye

I set them on a foil lined cookie sheet, with a piece of plastic wrap over them, for 8 hours or so.

 Then comes the fun part...opening them up and seeing how they turned out!  The instructions had some cute ideas for jack-o-lantern and spider web designs and we pretty much followed those closely.  I kindof made mine up as a spinoff of Sammy's pumpkin shirt, with 3 pumpkins...

 Then after you wash them and dry them you can add some designs with the fabric paint. The kit also came with a glow-in-the-dark paint but I just used this black:

Here are our 3 shirts all done!  Toby won't fit into his until at least next year, as the smallest shirt Michael's had was still too big for him.  But, I think I like his the best, with the spider web!

Fun Fall Project Tutorial: Marbled Leaves!

Okay, so a few days ago I had put Toby down for bed, and we had one hour of "Sammy time" before he too went to bed.  I proposed two options:

1) Watch his new Thomas movie (just got at a garage sale for $2) and eat the new "magic" blue popcorn (I got for free with coupons)

or

2) Do a craft project with Mommy.

To my surprise (and delight), he chose option #2!  So, I dove into my Pinterest list of things to make with the boys, and decided to try making these cool marbled fall leaves!

Here's how we did it...

First I found a scrap of white poster board in my office, and just used scissor to cut some random leaf shapes.  (If you don't want to freehand it, you could use real leaves as templates, or pull some leave illustrations off the web too)

Next I covered a plastic food container lid with shaving cream.  I used a knife to spread it like frosting so it would cover the whole lid.  I found I didn't really need this much, but it worked...

Next we took some of my acrylic paints and squirted them around the shaving cream.  I used a little bit of gold paint which added some nice sparkle...

 

 (Sammy is smiling big because the paint container farted! Aah, little boys...)

Now we took a wooden skewer and swirled the paint around in the shaving cream.  Fun for kids!!

 

Then, lay your leaf on the paint and gently press it down:

 

 Then carefully lift it up.  It looks pretty thick and goopy and you might think, hey, this doesn't look like the picture!!

 

Take a flat edge of a knife and scrape off the shaving cream:

 

 Voila!!

 

These turned out pretty cool I think for our first try!  These would be extra cool if done on both sides, sprinkled with a little glitter, then sprayed with some clear coat and strung together into a garland!

IDMommy Project: Paper Truck Pattern

I just made a new paper toy pattern recently for Sammy...a paper truck!  I have made it available free for download on my design site. Print out the pdf and let your child color in the truck with his or her own custom paint job!  Then, just score, cut, fold and glue until you have a cool new toy!

The free pdf has instructions and photos, but here are some more pics for your reference...

Pieces cut out and ready to fold! Be sure to score each fold line before cutting the pieces out...it'll make everything go so much easier!

Truck body piece folded and glued

This is the roof, windshield, and back window of the cab.

Window/cab piece attached to the main body of the truck

The bed liner, ready to install!

 Bed liner glued into the truck. Now you're done!  Leave the tailgate loose to open and close, OR glue it shut if you want it to stay in place.

Looking to step it up a little? Try making paper "loads" to haul.  Cut out three sides of the doors so they open.  Make a paper dog to ride in the back.  Draw some bugs on the grill.  Be creative and have fun!

IDMommy Project: Paper Fireworks!

Happy 4th of July Weekend everyone! 

We had a great garage sale last Thursday and Friday, and I plan on doing a post with tips for holding a successful garage sale in the near future.  BUT, this weekend is the 4th, so I had to post something patriotic!!

Last night I decided we needed some kind of festive 4th decorations...it's the one holiday I'm really lacking in decorations around here.  So, I came up with this idea sortof last-second, but took some photos as I went along so I could post something in time for the 4th...paper fireworks!

Supplies Needed:
- Red, White & Blue Paper (try wrapping paper too! Or shiny paper, or even the shiny inside of a potato chip bag!
- Scissors
- Glue
- String
- Optional: star stickers, glitter

Instructions:

1) Find 3 pieces of paper...I used one red, one white, and one blue, all 8.5" x 11".

 Fold each piece of paper in half lengthwise and cut along the line.  Then take one of those halves and cut it crosswise, but not quite in half, so you have three different lengths as shown above.

Do this with all three colors/sheets.  I used some sparkly red wrapping paper for my red above.  Wrapping paper works great for these...it's sturdy, yet lightweight enough to arch nicely like a firework.

2) Cut each piece lengthwise into many strips, stopping about 1/2"-3/4" from the opposite side, so it looks like fringe.  I tried regular scissors, and some special paper shredding scissors with multiple blades.  You could probably even try using a paper shredder, if it allows you to back the paper out when you get close to the other edge.

 Once you have all of your "fringe" cut, divide up the pieces so you have one long, medium, and short piece per pile, and you have a mix of red, white and blue for each pile.  This will make 3 paper fireworks.

3) Cut a little scrap of any color of paper, roll and glue it to make a little tube about 1-2" long:

This "tube" will sit in the center of your firework to provide structure to keep it hanging somewhat straight, and give you a place to pass your string through to hang it.

4) The tube was an improvement I came up with after the photos so you don't see it below, but lay it down flush with the un-cut edge of the shortest "fringe" piece and glue as you roll up the fringe around the tube.

 ...so it looks like this (with your "tube" inside):

5) Now line the rolled edge of your small fringe up flush with the un-cut edge of your medium sized fringe piece, and repeat the previous step...rolling it up and glueing it as you go:

 ...like so!

6) Repeat again by rolling up the largest fringe piece.

...so it looks something like this:

Now when you hold the glue'd side and hold it up, the fringe pieces will naturally fall like a firework:

If you wanted to, instead of starting with the tube of paper and hanging these from the ceiling, you could start wrapping your "fringe" pieces around a wooden dowel or skewer and make fireworks on a stick.  Then you could stick them in potted plants, or wherever!  But, here's how I made mine hang from the ceiling...

7) If you choose to hang them from the ceiling like I did, make a paper "bead" for the firework to sit on.  I used some thicker paper and cut a star, then used a needle to thread a piece of string with a knot on the end through it:

 8) This is optional but I stuck a star sticker on it to cover up the knot and hold it in place:

9) Pass your needle and string up through the bottom of your firework, through that paper tube you made and rolled everything around.  Tie a little loop on the end of your string and use that to attach it to wherever you wish!

Rainy Day Project: Growing Paper Garden

Okay, it's another rainy spring day in MN, so I thought I'd post this project I did with Sammy on a rainy day a couple weeks ago.  I apologize that I have no kind of template for you to download on this one, because I totally made it up as I went along with stuff we had around the house.  But, if you're up for "wingin' it" a bit, give it a try!  I did take tons of photos so hopefully that helps!

Anyway, I was feeling extra super-mom-ish this day, which is NOT typical by any means, but I was determined not to let another rain day turn into a big Thomas and Friends cartoon marathon.  In my effort to do something creative, resourceful, and somewhat educational, this is what I came up with...a somewhat mechanical "paper garden" that grows when the rain falls.  (see the tie in to rainy days? Way to focus on the positive...flowers to come!)

So, I started by giving Sammy some paper and a flower shaped paper punch to keep his hands busy...

 He had fun punching flowers out and coloring some with his crayons.

 We just kindof experimented with random ways to make flowers.  This one I glued onto a bamboo skewer.

While Sammy made flowers, I grabbed this box out of our recycle bin that held a huge assortment of Jelly Belly jelly beans I had gotten for my hubby a while back...

 I cut off half of the lid...you'll see why later.  If you can find a shallow box like this that doesn't have an actual lid, you can just cut a square hole on the top half of one side.

 Next I grabbed a full sheet label out of my studio to cover the bottom half of the lid, in case we wanted to color on it or something, and to cover the Jelly Belly box art.  Since it's all sticky-backed, I didn't have to worry about glue...

 Trim the corners as needed so it wraps around nice...

I folded the extra flaps around the back, which also fixed the lid to the bottom of the box.

 Here's the box, ready to house our paper garden!

 Sammy still working on flowers and leaves!  I gave him some paper shapers scissors and he had fun just chopping up paper.

Toby wanted in on the action, so taped a piece of paper to the table for him to color on.  He lasted a few minutes until he started eating the crayons.

 While the boys were busy coloring and cutting, I cut a slit in the top and bottom of the box with an x-acto knife. I made this size to fit some green ribbon I had in my studio...you could probably use yarn or something too but I found the surface area of ribbon worked best.

 Then I fed some ribbon through the slot...

 ...and wrapped it through and around the box like so.

Then I just used a stapler to secure the two ends together.

So, our garden needed rain to grow (hence the rainy day project).  I was going to cut out blue rain drops from paper, but decided to personalize it a little more, and have Sammy trace his hand for the rain.

 Okay, so he may not be the most "precise" when it comes to hand tracing, but it was cute anyway.

 I cut out a couple clouds...two sheets at once so I'd have two identical ones to sandwich the ribbon between.

 I glued one cloud on the underside of the ribbon, under the stapled area.

 Then I glued Sammy's "rain" hand to the cloud,

 ...and glued the identical cloud over the top.  So, you have the ribbon and the rain in between two cloud layers.

 To make it easy for the cloud to pull up and down, I stapled loops to the ribbon just above and below the rain cloud. (I probably could have incorporated this with the one original ribbon but it was an afterthought!  Remember, I'm making this up as I go...)

 Sorry about the sideways pics...don't know what's up with Blogger! Anyway, you can see the cloud can be pulled up and down while the ribbon passes through the slots.  So, next, I apologize I blanked on my photo taking at this part...but, here's what we did to make the garden part...

I pulled the cloud down as far as it would go.

Next, I cut a square piece of white paper for the "sky" and glued it to the back side of the back ribbon layer...the ribbon inside the cut-out top half of the box.

 Then, I cut a shorter rectangle of green paper and put that on top of the back ribbon.  So you're sandwiching the BACK ribbon now, just like you did with the cloud, only this time it's between a piece of sky and a piece of green grass.

 Sammy and I then glued in our leaves and flowers to this green rectangular piece, to form our garden.  Sammy drew a yellow sun in the background on the piece of "sky" paper, and asked me to draw some birds. We also stuck in some flower stickers. (another sideways pic...sorry!)

 So here's the final goal...when you pull up on the top loop, the cloud comes up and hides the sun and the garden.

 As you pull DOWN on the loop under the cloud, making the rain fall down into the ground, the garden full of flowers raises up in the background. 

I really wanted to make the cloud disappear behind another layer, so it's not like some garden floating on top of a cloud.  But hey, I was totally winging it, so I gave myself a break. Plus, his giant hand rain drops were wider than the box so it wouldn't have fit so well.  You could just put a piece of paper over that though and make another spot for the cloud to hide!

 Here Sammy is studying the many flavors of Jelly Belly's that were once in the box, illustrated on the back:

 ...and, here he is making it rain so his flowers will grow!

Cheesy...maybe...but at least it kept us all quiet and entertained...if only for a few minutes!!  ;-)