Wednesday, December 21, 2011

N is for the Nativity

I was searching www.pinterest.com  the other day for some Christmas craft ideas for the boys. I found one and just loved it! Here is our final product!! This one is definitely a keeper! Way to go boys!!
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Here is the one I found!!


Supplies needed
(all ones you can find in your home.)
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1. Shoe box
2. toilet paper rolls, paper towel rolls or wrapping paper rolls!
3. scrap paper or fabric
4. glue, scissors, tape, markers or crayons
5. popsicles sticks of any size. We used the small ones.
6. glitter, ribbon, sequence to decorate once finished!

Steps:
1. Glue popsicles sticks onto your box as well as making a triangular shape for the top of the stable.
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2. Make your characters out of the toilet paper rolls. This is where seeing the kids creativity is so much fun! My youngest gave Joseph a goatee, and Mary had eye lashes and long curly hair. Baby Jesus had a sparkly blanket since he is the King. Loved it!!

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Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!!

Monday, December 19, 2011

P is for Painted Furniture!

Before
I purchased this beautiful solid wood dresser several months ago. I finally finished it today and LOVE the final product! Stay tuned for a tutorial on how this was transformed!

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After
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Monday, December 12, 2011

T is for Tutu

What little girl doesn’t love a tutu?! Since I don’t have any little girls, I thought I would find some little girls and make them a tutu for Christmas! These were so much fun to make! They are definitely time consuming. The tutu’s I made are very full of tulle and took me about 2.5 hours to make each one.

Here are the instructions to making your very own. I did come across some excellent you-Tube videos of them and the links are below.


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Things you will need:
1. Thick ribbon. (I used 1.5-2 inch wide ribbon) I did find that using the softer ribbon was easier to work with, however did have the same results.)
2. Tulle. I bought rolls of tulle that was 6 inches wide. I took a knife and cut each in half with a sharp knife making sure each side was 3 inches wide. Yes, even cut the cardboard rolls in half. I have shown in the picture 2 rolls, however I did end up using 3-4 rolls for each tutu. I like mine full!
3. Scissors, tape measure.
4. Optional: I found these beautiful butterflies at Michaels craft store. They had little clips on the back. I removed them and hot glued the butterflies onto the tutu at the end.
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Steps
1. Measure the girls waist. The girl I was making it for has a waist of 20 inches. I added 20 inches on each side in order to tie the tutu. That means my ribbon was 60 inches long. I cut the ends at an angle for a more feminine look.
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2. Tie a knot at 20 inches in and another knot 20 inches in. This is to prevent any slipping of the tulle. I also like that when the girl grows, you can always make the tutu larger. It can grow with her!
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3.  I cut my 3 inch wide tulle 24 inches long. That way when I fold it in half in measures 12 inches long just the perfect length for a little girl! Take your first piece and make a loop.
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4. I do apologize for the quality of the pictures, but you get the idea!
Next take the loop and put it behind the ribbon as shown.
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5.  Loop to end of the piece of tulle through the loop.
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6. Pull to piece of tulle to tighten.
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7. Tighten the tulle.
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8. Slide the piece of tulle over to the knot.

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9. Be sure to choose a pattern. For the pink tutu I used 4 white and then 2 pink. For the blue/green/white I attached 5 pieces of white, one blue, one green, one blue and then 5 pieces of white again. You can decide how full you want the tutu. Just slide the pieces to your liking. I did see a couple tutu tutorials and they added ribbon pieces onto the tutu. I LOVED the butterflies and couldn't resist!
Cost
I found that canadian prices of tulle is pretty high compared to purchasing the tulle on e-Bay or in the united States.
1. Each roll of tulle is $5.00. I did use four rolls.
2. Spool of Ribbon: $3.00
3. Butterfly accessories: $6.00
4. Time: 2.5 hours
Now all I need is a little girl of my own!! I cannot wait to see the look of these girls’ faces on Christmas morning!!
Enjoy!!
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Here are the tutorials below. They are excellent!!

Saturday, December 3, 2011

C is for Cars, Castles Caterpillar and Crafts!

,Do you have a three year old? Did you ever think that you could take all those little cars he has and have a BLAST making a car graph?! My youngest is learning about graphs this week as well as the letter C. I put 10 cars in his homework box today and asked him to make a graph of the colours of cars. So the number of cars multiplied and before you knew it we had all 100 cars on our graph…and my oldest joined in!!!

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We also played a caterpillar game! We downloaded this from Erica at www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com
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My youngest also made a picture with the letter C using car stickers. Look at his concentration!!

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  He also made a castle out of blocks!! Creative!
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We have been loving our art book! This weeks craft is show below!
 
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We learned about three types of lines: horizontal, vertical and diagonal! The boys really enjoyed this craft!

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Saturday, November 19, 2011

A is for Apple and Autumn

As Autumn draws near a close, I thought I would update my blog and share a couple activities that we did several weeks back!!

Our family went to the corn maze and had a blast!! There were so many activities there for the kids and the weather was just perfect!

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The boys loved picking their own pumpkins. A true sign of Autumn!!
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We talked about the season fall and how leaves change colours and eventually fall off the trees! This ties in perfectly with their creative writing assignment this month!

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My precious boys enjoying a perfect autumn day!!

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Here is what my three year old had to say about being a leaf! So creative!!
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Here is what my six year old had to say about being a little leaf on an oak tree. It is so exciting to hear your children tell a story. Why not write it out! It is amazing at hoe their little minds are working!!!
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We spent a lot of time talking about what we are thankful for. I find that when we teach the boys about being thankful they realize how much they are really blessed with!
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Daddy was on duty one day and here is what the boys made!! Awesome work daddy!!!
Apple mouths! Looks like they had fun!!!

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We also did Apple prints!! All you need is paint, apples and a some precious little boys!!

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I always love to watch kids creativity! Their joy, their passion, their excitement is truly contagious!!
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Our youngest also worked on his letter A activities found at my favourite site!! www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com
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We also labeled a farm picture and talked about harvest time.
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