Crafts | Cupcakes and Commentary

Read This…Make That!

September 9, 2010 No Comments

Our local library branch does a great story time (if you want to know the branch I’m talking about e-mail me!). One of my favorite things about their story time is they always read at least two stories and the kids get to do a small craft based on one of the stories. Super A and I also do several of these crafts at home, so I decided to start a little section called Read This…Make That! I’ll try to keep up with it!

So here’s my first one. Read this…

This sweet story, combines the use of graphic designed heart shapes with a rhyming tale about animals. Plus it has hippos drinking apple juice (Super A’s favorite part!).

Make That…

For this ultra simple craft you need construction paper, scissors, glue, a black pom-pom, markers, and black glitter glue.

Cut four hearts out of green paper (one large and three small). Then arrange the hearts as seen above to make the shape of the seal and glue the hearts on blue (or purple if you want to follow the book) construction paper.

Next, draw a circle for the ball using a marker, let your little one color the paper and seal as they wish and write the line (silly as a seal) from the book.

Finally glue a black pom-pom for the nose and make an eye out of the black glitter glue. And tada!

Seriously Crafty Treats

Oh Christmas Craft!

December 16, 2009 No Comments

I missed posting my Thanksgiving craft this year, so I am making up for it by posting several Christmas crafts! My sister and I got together for our annual craft making festivities, but with numerous small children we found we would have to do our crafts in two parts. So part one was marshmallow wreaths. I actually got this idea from food network magazine, but we doctored it a bit to cater to smaller children. So here’s what you need…

1 small foam wreath (get the smallest you can find…trust me, once you start making it you will understand)

1 bag of mini marshmallows

1 bag of large marshmallows

School glue

Glitter

Large ribbon for the tie

Here’s what to do….

Pour some glue on a paper plate. Dip the bottom of the marshmallows on the plate and place around the wreath. They will slide a bit…try to hold each one for a few seconds before moving on. Once they have dried and set, drizzle some glue around the wreath and shake glitter on top. A few tips…cut the large marshmallows in half, and place the wreath in a foil lined cake pan. This is a trick my Mom used when we were small. That way most of the mess ends up in the cake pan rather than the floor, table, etc. Prepare for some mess to end up on the floor, table, etc…haha! It takes the marshmallows about a day to dry, once they are dry use the ribbon to make a hook for the wreath.

Here’s the finished product…

If you want the food network version check out their current magazine. They used toothpicks instead of glue…but it takes a lot of toothpicks and probably a denser wreath to complete properly. In the future I would fill in the whole wreath so the foam doesn’t show…but holding the attention of small children long enough to do this was a good bit of work. Oh and little kids don’t care if some of the foam shows…I think the response we got was…”why it’s the same color as the marshmallows”

Mini Cupcakes

Halloween Crafts

October 28, 2009 No Comments

How does one get crafty with a one year old? With tissue paper of course! I saw the idea for Pumpkin Ornaments in Parent’s Magazine and decided to re-create it for a Halloween craft. I tried to find a craft that I could actually make and it was not something I made and put our one-year-old’s name on it. So I thought ah ha tissue paper. One-year-olds love tissue paper (well mine does). They love to crinkle it, and rip it, and stomp on it, and that is basically what you need to do to create this craft. All you need is clear plastic ornaments (I got mine from Hobby Lobby…on sale this week!), some green ribbon (left over from our Candyland birthday party), a black permanent marker, and some orange tissue paper (also left over from the birthday party). I cut the tissue paper in fourths, so it would be smaller to fill the ornaments. The key with creating the faces for the pumpkins is to draw the faces on the inside of the ornament, so it doesn’t smudge later. So all you do is tear up the tissue paper, draw a face with the permanent marker, stuff with the tissue paper, and then loop with the green ribbon. Super simple, and pretty cute! If you have an older child, they also suggest pom-poms, crinkle paper, or even more orange ribbon to fill the ornaments. Here are our completed pumpkins!