The Letter D

D is for Dot

 D is for Duck.  Short Daughter did a great job of ensuring all the duck stickers were in the shiny blue duck pond.

 D is for Daisy.  We went for a walk to see what we could find that began with the letter D.  I don't think these 'weeds', growing in the vacant lot across the road, are actually daisys.  But they were near enough.

 D is for Darkness.  We cut out stars and Short Daughter glued them on some purple paper we had also cut star shapes from, then we covered the gluey bits with silver glitter.

 D is for Daisy again.  I must admit, I did most of the work on this one.  Short Daughter was very involved in commentary and supervision though.  I think she rather enjoyed the role reversal.

 D is for Dinosaur.  I would love to be able to give credit for this clever idea, but I just stumbled across a photo on the internet one day of a group of school kids wearing these.  Each one was a slightly different type of dinosaur, but all based on that well-known principle that 'dinosaurs are thin at the ends and fat in the middle'.

 D is for Daytime.  A bit abstract perhaps, but Short Daughter got it straight away that the cut-out of her hand was to be the sun.  And she did the gold glitter sunbeams herself.

 D is for Diamond. I cut out lots of diamond shapes and we covered a sheet of black craft paper with glue.  Short Daughter was told that the shapes needed to go next to each other, but not touching.  That the final result is vaguely diamond-shaped is rather more good luck than good planning.

D is for Daddy.  This was, not surprisingly, one of Short Daugher's favourite D activities.  I printed out some photos of her with Daddy on plain paper, she pasted them on a sheet of craft paper and suggested (in not so many words) that smiley face sticker would be an appropriate embellishment.

D is for Dalmation.  Short Daughter was in one of those three-year-old moods when presented with a cut-out of a dog for her to colour in.  She cheekily put one black dot on the dog and announced "Finished".  I went and got her Little Golden Book of 101 Dalmations and she was inspired to (enthusiastically) add more dots.

Indoor Fun

We're coming into the warmer spring weather here and relishing the opportunity to enjoy some outdoor activities again.  But, after 10 years of drought, let's hope there are still plenty of rainy days to come.  So here's a look at some of our favourite indoor activities from the past couple of months.

There's always a few sheets of stickers about the house for those times when a 'miminal supervision' activity is called for.

It's possible that I place too much emphasis on 'minimal' and not enough on 'supervision' though.  These stickers always seem to end up on the fridge, the table, the carpet, the cat...
 

 

I found these masks at our local Officeworks store.  But there are heaps of templates on the web.



ALL the cushions from the lounge suite are required to make a pirate ship, train, cubby house, cat bed, etc.

Painting is always fun.  We didn't have anything in mind for these egg cartons when Short Daughter decorated them.  But we kept them and eventually they became flowers, bells and bowls for mini marshmallows.

Short Daughter came up with this one herself.  She arranged the books in a circle and lay down in the centre.  This is her house. It is now night-night time. And Mummy has to fetch her a blanket... 'Please'.




I don't know whether it's a three-year-old thing, or all the crafting we do with recycled stuff; but she is becomming so incredibly creative.  Give her a stick and it can go from being a tree, to a drumstick, to a pet, to a magic wand, to a paintbrush, to a baton, to a screwdriver, to a fork... all within a matter of minutes.

 

Quick Quiche

The Letter C

 So many great words to work with starting with C.

I printed out a big C on plain white paper (a font size of about 800pt fits on A4 paper), glued it onto a piece of black paper and cut that out.  Then some white strips made it a road.  Our cars were purchased stickers, but you can see that they wouldn't be too hard to make yourself.  Short Daughter thought the clovers would be a good idea - and they start with C.

DLTK had this great Cowboy Cloud craft here.  I cut out each of the elements the night before so, when Short Daughter wanted to craft, we were ready to go.

 

This caterpillar (with numbers) was a beaut find at First School. Short Daughter loved colouring the circles and placing them in order.  Of course we had to read The Very Hungry Caterpillar that night.

I also found this cat on First School.  Short Daughter had a ball painting the tail, ears, face and paws with watercolours.  

She was keen to see it assembled, so didn't bother with the body.  I grabbed the glue stick and some black glitter to create the stripes.  How good is this going to look, printed on orange paper, when we get to T for Tiger?

I just sort of made the designs up as I went, but the girls (and fortunately Short Daugher's friend's Mum) loved the results.

Tip: Not all face paints wash off easily.

I cut a piece of craft paper in half lengthwise and stuck the two bits together to make a long strip.
Then I cut one long edge to a sort of crown shape using my pinking shears.  A few snips with my star cutter, the girls added the bling and - voila!

Not all activities need to be complicated.  Colouring in this cow picture kept Short Daughter occupied for a good half an hour.  She was justifiably proud of the result.

 

So I covered 7 toilet paper rolls with craft paper and glossy Mod Podge, then cut them in half.  I punched two holes at each end of the rolls and used string to tie them together.  A couple of googly eyes completed another caterpillar.  This one provided a toy for Short Daugher and her friend that lasted several days.

 

This Crocodile was another find at DLTK's site.  Again I cut all the pieces out the night before.  I actually made one myself to be sure it would work and to give Short Daughter an idea of how it would look when completed.  Glad I did, because this one is not as simple as you might expect.

 

Finally C is for Cubbyhouse.  Two chairs and a blanket.

Short Daughter has had hours of fun with this idea.  She now gets the chairs set up by herself and creates trains, buses, tree houses, cat beds, houses, boats, etc.

Letter C Words

Candles

Car

Cardboard

Cat

Caterpillar

CD

Cereal

Chat

Cherry

Children

Chocolate

Christmas

Class

Clay

Cloud

Clown

Colors

Cow

Cotton Balls

Crayons

Crown

Cupcake

Crocodile

Cake

Camera

Card

Carrot

Crab

Clock

Clothes

Castles

Corn

Anzac Biscuits

Wet Ingredients – 1

125 grams butter

2 tablespoons golden syrup

Wet Ingredients – 2

1 tablespoon boiling water

1 teaspoon baking soda

Dry Ingredients

1 cup rolled oats

1 cup coconut

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup flour

½ cup sugar

1.     Mix all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl.  In a saucepan gently melt the butter then add the golden syrup and heat, stirring until thoroughly combined.  Put the baking soda in a cup or small bowl then pour in the boiling tablespoon of water.

2.     Pour this foaming mixture into the warm butter/golden syrup mixture and stir to incorporate – it will foam up.  Now gradually add the wet mixture to the dry ingredients,  stirring well to incorporate.

3.     Place walnut size pieces of the dough on a buttered oven tray and then press down with the back of a fork to flatten.

4.        Bake at 175°C for approx 17 minutes.

Unruly Mediums

So you're thinking "If my kitchen looked like that, I wouldn't be posting it on the internet".

One of my golden rules for creating with toddlers is 'Don't let them near anything you can't wash off anything'.  It might wash off your worktop but what happens when they get it on their hands then fall off their chair? Yep. Straight onto the rug.

Sounds obvious I know, but it is a slightly different approach to 'mess'.  For example, you might think of glitter as 'messy', but it vacuums up nicely.  And I'm a big fan of Crayola products - their paints and textas (markers) come off everything with just a damp cloth.  Even after you've had a cup of tea to calm yourself down and taken some photos for posterity.

Stickers come off most fabrics pretty well. The paper ones are the worst - actually requiring scrubbing to get off vinyl floors or surfaces. I hate scrubbing floors on my hands and knees!

Food colouring is just messy!  Not that I don't use it; it's great fun.  But do be aware that it will stain everything if you give it a chance.

 Now let's have a closer look at my kitchen stools.

The blank piece of pink paper on the floor is where these stickers were supposed to go (whilst Mummy had a shower).  The mark above her right eyebrow is two-day-old face paint (not Crayola brand obviously) that will NOT scrub off.  I cropped out the white paint that I didn't know was on the side of the stool untill I edited the photo - I think I've incriminated myself enough for one posting.

Flower Collage

Sometimes Short Daughter wants to 'do crafting' before Mummy has her act together.  This morning she found these sparkly flower stickers and immediately wanted to use them.  So we decided to make a garden for them.

I laid down some baking paper and gathered together some plain green scrapbooking papers.
 

Then I lay the papers on top of each other and cut out some leaf shapes.

I covered a sheet of grey/green craft paper with Mod Podge then gave her the brush and the leaves.  I finished my coffee in peace, happily watching her paste on the leaves.  One of the things I love about Mod Podge is that it is really quick to dry so, when she had pasted all the leaves, the 'garden' was ready for its flowers to be stuck on.

Tip:  When a craft involves glitter always spray it with a coat of spray-on fixative, or give it a coat of Mod Podge before pinning it up for display.