Window star making

Here are a couple of my recent window stars.  I've gone a little window star crazy and made a whole ton.  I'm thinking I"ll use them for L's birthday party.  The top picture is K making window stars.  He loves making them.  :)

Busy Bag Swap

I participated in a busy bag swap recently with some friends in our area.  The swap went wonderfully!  We had 21 participates and each person made a bag for everyone.  We went home with 21 little preschool activities in a bag.  We have some number games, letter games, color games, beading games, fine motor activities, and more!  Here are some pictures of my activity.  I made a little clothes line with tiny clothes to hang up. 

Finished habitat

K and I finished all the little details for his Arctic Habitat.  We made an Inuit and a little igloo.  Here is K playing with the habitats side by side. 

Pond playmat

K chose to make a pond for our next playmat habitat.  He really wanted a place to put his ducks and turtles.  We used recycled sweaters to make the pond.  We plan on adding lots of elements to the pond including a bridge, willow tree, fisherman, and maybe some cattails. 

Fairy Gardens

About two weeks before Easter we planted pots with grass seed. I started to get a little worried a few days before easter when it had still not sprouted but come Easter morning the grass was ready.

K and I also took some walks around the block collecting sticks, bark, leaves, and stones. We must have looked quite strange gathering these things out of people's yards. Ha ha.

For the gardens we also had colored wool, glass stones, and ceramic tiles. Oh and a glue gun to make furniture.

Everyone in the family (accept my brother who fell asleep) joined in the fun.

K's uncle made this fairy stone hedge.

K's Aunt made this Seuss like garden (sorry its hard to get a good angle on these gardens).

K's Grandma mad this fairy graveyard.

K's Mom (me) and dad made this fairy garden.

This one was made by K's other grandma and his grandpa Frank.

Knitted nest

The nest upside down


Found this great pattern at: http://naturalsuburbia.blogspot.com/search/label/Knitted%20Nest

Then I wet felted the eggs for all the nests. These nests are for an Easter swap.

Bendy Dolls

I have finally finished the bendy dolls I made for an Easter swap. They were actually a ton of fun to make. I had wanted to use our wood burner to make their faces but the darn thing has disappeared. I look forward to making more bendy people for K to play with as he kept running away with them as I was making them.

Making Crystals

K and I had a great time making these Borax Crystals. Here is the site we used to help us: http://www.thecraftycrow.net/2010/12/ornament-advent-day-5-borax-crystals.html

Heart Garland

This is really just a simple garland. I wanted K to be able to help make it so we used felt and just some embrodiery thread. K had a great time sewing all the hearts together. I had a terrible time taking a good picture. Sorry.

Fruit feeders

Every year for Christmas we make fruit slice ornaments for our tree. For awhile after the tree comes down the fruit decorates our home. Eventually though, we turn our ornaments into bird feeders. Here our our feeders from last year: http://seasonalgnome.blogspot.com/2010/01/feed-birds.html

Here they are from this year:

Spreading the peanut butter and seeds on.

Our Big pile of feeders ready to go.

I didn't get any great shots of the feeders on the tree as it was 5 degrees outside and K was in a hurry to get back in the house. :)

Window Stars and stained glass

I pulled out the supplies to make a Valentine window star and K made this really pretty stained glass. He was so pleased with the results.

Valentines Day Crayons

Happy Valentines Day!

For K's friends this year, we made red lips and hearts crayons.

Ice Catchers

We tried a new variation on the Ice Catcher idea. This time we used Ikea ice molds (I've been collecting them at garage sales all summer to make crayons) and food coloring.

First we filled the molds and used food coloring to dye them.

We left them outside to freeze.

Next we place them into pie tins and filled the tins with clear water (the dye leaked out of the ice cubes).

Here are the final results. Stars

Hearts

Puzzle pieces
Mixed shapes

The project took a few days for everything to freeze. My 1 mistake was taking the colored cubes inside to place them into the pie tins. They melted a bit and made for a less dramatic finish. Oh well. Next time. They still turned out pretty.

Suncatchers

A fun winter activity.

I found this fun project at this website: http://belladia.typepad.com/bella_dia/2007/12/advent-day-4-th.html

K made the star. The hole punch was hard for him to use so he needed a lot of help. I think this will be a good craft to repeat next year. Plus they look beautiful in our kitchen window.