Independence Day Windsocks

This is what the kiddos have been up to this week. They made windsocks to hang from the ceiling in the daycare room. They were excited to use my Independence Day stamps because they aren't allowed to do that too often. They hung red, white, and blue crepe paper streams from the bottom that blows in the breeze. Again, sorry for the horrible lighting. I really need to take a photography class!

Groundhogs Galore

Well, as you know Monday was Groundhog's Day! Unfortunately, we will be stuck with winter weather for 6 more weeks. The kids just love this silly holiday. They are so serious about it and think that in 6 weeks exactly they'll be able to go swimming or something. We decided to make groundhogs aka woodchucks from a few hearts and ovals. Here are a couple of them that the kids made. Now my daycare room is covered with little groundhogs and we'll leave them up through Valentine's Day since they are made from hearts! Now if only I had some creative time for myself!

Candy Airplane

I'm officialy wore out! I haven't slept all week. The kids are still sick and now I am too. This weekend I don't plan on doing much more than sleeping. While at the doctor's office on Tuesday getting Austin medicine we looked through the Valentine section of the Family Fun magazine. They had these cute little, EASY, candy airplanes. We decided that's what were were going to do for the kids in their classes. All we needed was Smarties, Gum, Pep O Mint Life Savers, some patterned paper, and rubberbands. We wrapped all of the sticks of gum with patterned paper and added some hearts to the top. We simply ran the rubberband through the two Lifesavers leaving space to stick the Smarties through also. Then put the stick of gum through the top. It's hard to explain, but very easy to do. So what are your kids doing for Valetine's Day?

The Season's Of Cameron's Apple Tree

The kids are all doing apple themed lessons at school this month, so I thought I would incorperate them into my daycare as well. We've been making homemade applesauce, investigating the aplle trees in the backyard, but their favorite activity so far has been making their apple books. This one is Cameron's and he was so excited to take it to school and read it to his class. I simply painted their hand and arm brown for their tree. Then I let them use the stamps from Season of Friendship (the snowflake, flower, and leaves) to decorate their tree for each season. The apple is from Holiday Blitz. They loved it! I think mostly because they got to use my stamps and ink pads that are usually off limits! Enjoy!

Billy And Lily Need A Break....

...for a few weeks anyway until the accessories at Pink Cat Studio come available! I've used them so much that you all are probably tired of seeing them! Here are the last few coaster frames I finished up the the daycare families. For all of the coasters I just used scraps of patterned paper measuredto fit the front, rounder the corners, sanded the rough edges, and embellished as desired. For the back I attached two pieces of ribbon to hold the 2 coasters together with tape and covered them with cardstock measured to fit. Happy Thursday!

Crafty Monkey

The first thing I want to share with you this morning is a card that my 5 year old, Cameron, made for the Crafty Monkeys "summertime" challenge. I just came across this blog yesterday and everyother Friday they have a challenge for kids to do. Cameron thought that it was so cool that he was doing a challenge like mommy does. He is so proud of his card and it's actually really good, so leave him a comment on this post and let him know what you think! I'll be back later with my post.

Color-Your-Own-Pillowcase

I loved Lauren's sleepover survival kit using Billy in his pj's, so I came up with a similar idea. Part of Lauren's kit was to color your own pillowcase that was stamped with Billy and his little sock monkey. I wanted to use that idea, but in a different way than her sleepover kit. Since we are going on vacation SOON, my kids, especially Cameron who is almost 6 wants to count down on the calendar every night how many "sleeps" until we go. I decided to do the pillowcase coloring idea, with a poem that I wrote for the kids. Then they can color them before we go. I bought them their own travel size pillows and white pillowcases to keep with them in the car. I stamped Billy on the pillowcase with black stazon ink. Then Austin colored this one in with regular crayola crayons. I then heat set it with wax paper over the picture with a hot iron for just a couple minutes. The poem I wrote reads:

It's nearly time for our vacation afar.

To get there we must spend hours in the car.

So you are not cranky, you'll need to get some sleep.

Here's a blankie and pillow, they are yours to keep.

Before we hit the road, the pillowcase you can color.

It's unique, it's you own,

so you don't fight with your brothers!

Paper Plate Easter Basket

I'm back with a kids craft! This week I had the kids paint the backs of 2 paper plates brown. When they were dry I cut a half circle out of the center both to create a handle for the basket. I stapled both together, painted sides out so now we have a 3-D basket. They filled them with Easter grass. Today, using my, A Good Egg, set the stamped eggs, colored them, cut them out, and glued them inside their basket. They will use them Friday to collect their goodies from their Easter egg hunt. Well, I gotta run. The window guy is here to finally fix the shattered window that THEY broke upon installing new windows 2 WEEKS AGO!

Handprint Sheep

Most of you know that I am a daycare provider, and I'm always doing projects with them to keep their little hands busy so they aren't getting into trouble. At the beginning of this school year I started doing a handprint or footprint project with the kids and put them in a binder for the families to take home at the end of the year. For September they made handprint sunflowers and in the center I put their picture. October was a footprint ghost, November was a handprint turkey, December was a handprint wreath, January was a handprint snowflake, February was handprint hearts, March was handprint shamrocks, and today we started April's a little early because I have so many little people's to get done. The kids were so excited because they got to use some of my punches and the Cuttlebug. I started by painting their hand black. They used the Cuttlebug with the swirls embossing folder and then punched out a large circle with my Giga scallop punch for the body and a smaller one with the scallop punch for the head. They glued on wiggly eyes and a cotton ball tail and using the word window punch made ears. I think they turned out so cute and a great reminder of spring. I might be sharing more kids crafts in the future, if you don't mind.