Unplugged: Hot

I had to stretch things a little bit to come up with a toddler "hot" activity. Or maybe I just couldn't find the right inspiration... either way we had fun! I took both Anastasia and Leia for a nice walk down our street which was great with this awesome breezy autumn-feeling weather. Can August stay like this please? Then we came home and I made Anastasia her first, very-own cup of hot chocolate with a giant marshmallow and a little spoon. She seriously played with

the marshmallow and spoon for 20 minutes and insisted on drinking the hot chocolate sip-by-sip with her little spoon. Then we got out the paint and painted using warm or "HOT" colors which Anastasia loved! Up until this point we only used finger paints and watercolors so real paint was a complete treat for us to work with. OH and if you buy Crayola's "washable" tempera paint, be careful because the blue splattered on my shirt while opening and wouldn't wash out. :( If anyone has any ideas for getting it out, let me know.

Here she is painting so nicely:

And here is where she turned into Red Beard the pirate. She was ready to nap.

Then we turned our painted paper bag into a lovely stuffed fish. "The Artful Parent" has a nice tutorial here. I remember doing this as a kid! I cut and glued, and she stuffed. Then I glued the tail shut. Waiting for the glue to dry took a while so a smart thing to do would be to use staples. We had time and no stapler so this worked fine.

I also have to be honest and say that perhaps I enjoy painting as much as Anastasia. As a kid I rarely remember painting much at home and I feel I have to make up for lost time so I painted little fish and turned it into a fishing game for Anastasia by adding paper clips. She already had the pole from a fishing puzzle that is too difficult for her but one could easily be made by glueing a magnet to some yarn or string and tying to a dowel or stick. She definately enjoyed this fishing set more than the two she has, and played with it quite a bit already! Hooray for free toys!
So we had fun even though we had more of a fish theme but we are heading to the beach with my mom on Thursday so it seemed appropriate.

Unplugged: Rough

Unfortunately the internet hates me. For whatever reason I have had the hardest time posting and even connecting to the net. It works fine for Nick... but it hates me. Which is why I may not get pictures up tonight... because it is slower than molassass in January. ;) So I have been very unplugged lately... lol. Not only is the net all wacky for me, but our DVD drive (our only source of DVD action) on our laptop skips constantly about 30 minutes into a movie. So now, I could pass as rustic... but I can take a bath in my own tub with hot water and everything (as of last night) so I am atleast moving up in the world!

Anyhow, this weeks unplugged theme is "rough". On Friday Anastasia and I went for a very, very short hike (toddler and pregnant woman appropriate) to Passage Creek... a real gem less than 5 miles from our house. We stopped to feel "rough" and "smooth" things along the way including rocks and bark. I am not totally sure she got it, but thats okay. We thoroughly enjoyed a dip in the creek and throwing and skipping rocks. At home I collected some "rough" and "smooth" rocks, leaves, bark, sticks, and fabric to feel, and wrote "rough" and "smooth" on two different colored papers. Together we seperated the items. Anastasia rubbed the different things under her chin to get a better feel for them which cracked me up. She totally loved our little trip and handling the different natural objects. Some other cool ideas we may try are doing some bark rubbings, some watercolor salt paintings and making some texture cards. Check the Unplugged website for even more awesome ideas!

Treasure hunt

This week's Unplugged project theme was "stone." We decided to paint rocks with crayons as seen here. Amazingly many others participating in the Unplugged project came up with the same idea (I saw it on the Crafty Crow). Great minds think alike! Here are our "treasure stones":

Anastasia loved the initial stone hunt where we took our basket into the yard and found some light-colored stones. She really got into it! Then we took the stones in and washed them in a bowl of water with an old nail brush and a little dish soap. She spent about an hour on this task, just washing, and scrubbing the rocks. When she finished scrubbing, she put some back in the water to wash again. I think I will start her on dishes tomorrow! haha

Now the fun part, which was a little less fun for her, and really fun for me. I put the rocks on a foil-lined sheet in the oven at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. I took them out and we melted crayons on them. For Anastasia, I held the stone for her with a rag because it was too hot for her to do on her own. We are learning the word "hot" so it was actually a good activity as she could touch the stone without getting burned, but it was hot enough to make my point. She liked the crayon melting effect and we did a few together. I ended up doing most of them alone while she napped as it took a while and I had to heat them up again.

After finishing the batch, I placed them in her sand box for a 18-month old appropriate "treasure hunt." She loved it!

This is some awesome Easter Egg Hunt prep if you ask me! She should be a pro by next Spring!After melting some of the crayons I decided to pull the wrappers off and make a set of muffin-tin crayons. I melted the crayons for about 6 minutes in the oven at 350 degrees in cupcake wrappers. I then stuck them in the freezer for a while. They turned out great and looked like Reeses cups, but A. didn't quite get the idea of coloring with them and made a tower out of them instead.

Anastasia is currently carrying around her basket of treasure all around the living room. Definitely our favorite project yet!

And LOOK AT MY BEAUTIFUL BATHROOM FLOOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:

Nick finished the grout last night, and I had my doubts prior to his "grouting" but now... I am in love. With my husband of course ;) and his floor laying abilities. Perhaps it is hard to appreciate but if you had seen the gaping chasm where one should be walking, you would totally understand. Guess what is going in now? The toilet... hopefully!! The wellspring of cursing I have been hearing worries me a bit...

Edit: After I finished my post, my toilet was in! I have to manually flush it until tomorrow probably, but beggars can't be choosers!!!

Unplugged: Sky

The Unplugged theme this week was sky. Being that we are going to the beach, I was thinking of skipping it and doing beach activities as we have been reading beach-themed books. Then I thought we could make a kite to fly in the sky at the beach. I found an easy kite tutorial here. But honestly, I figured a kite would be too difficult for an 18month-old to maneuver so I thought a wind sock would work... and it kind of did. :)

There are two ways to make this, and I will give you the smart way--the way I didn't do it and should have for less of a mess factor. I used a paper towel roll cut in half and cut each half down the center and taped together. Then I cut a piece of paper to wrap around it. I had Anastasia decorate it with crayons and stickers (which didn't stick well to the crayon). The smart thing to do for a toddler is find some double sided tape to stick to the back of the bottom edge of the paper. You can then cut strips of tissue paper (like me) or use crepe paper. Have the child stick the tissue paper to the tape (this is where I used glue and made a really big mess and all the strips became stuck together). Then adults or older children can glue or tape (I actually did a little bit of both for durability) the paper with the strips around the paper towel roll. Let dry if you used glue and punch holes in the top and add string. We took it outside and swirled it around (there was no wind really). Anastasia enjoyed watching me swirl it around and it was quite fun to watch!Here she is with her artwork! I don't think we will be taking this to the beach due to its fragility and how tight the Jeep will likely be packed. So I made her a ribbon wand by attaching some fabric ribbon (I found some rainbow ribbon in the gift wrap section at Target) to a wooden dowel. This could be as easy as glueing a long piece of ribbon to an unsharpened pencil or as complex as putting an eyelet in the ribbon, putting a ring through it, and attaching it via a metal loop that screws on the top of the dowel (which I did for the professional look). You can even buy a ready-made one at Target for $5. So perhaps our kites don't really fly in the "sky"... but I am sure we will see a few that do at the beach. Oh, and I had to share this neat "cloud painting" activity at School For Us. I will probably do this when we come back from the beach! I had best run my errands!!! Have a great week!

Unplugged Project: My first Garden

I am finally getting around to posting another Unplugged project. Yesterday I really wanted to fill Anastasia's little blow-up pool for her enjoyment. Unfortunately it stormed on and off all day. So during her nap I set up a little garden project on the porch in light of the Unplugged theme this week. I bought a bowl at the dollar store, had some leftover gravel from my bamboo for drainage on the bottom, I found some dirt and plants in the yard, and some rocks and frog figures for the top.

I gathered the items and set them up and Anastasia added the rocks (one by one) into the container. She enjoyed playing with the dirt and plants, so I helped with that part. Then she put in more rocks and dumped the four frog figures in a pile. I helped make it a little less hurricane-like and Anastasia sort-of watered it. We set it in our kitchen window with the bamboo plants for as long as it will last!

I also drew flowers with crayons on some paper and let Anastasia paint with watercolors over the crayon. I thought she would enjoy the wax resistance... but she really enjoyed mixing colors in the glass of water and drinking it. Thats why Crayola makes things non-toxic I suppose!

I also had to post my Rainbow Chard... or 5-colored Silverbeet that I picked up at the farmer's market on Saturday:

Isn't it just beautiful? Or am I just a crazy, farm-fresh-food-obsessed pregnant woman? I sauteed it in butter with lemon juice and salt... and yum!

And lastly, Anastasia's new apron. I made it without a pattern for her so she can help me with baking or cooking or just looking really cute while I bake and cook. It also coordinates with my apron and is reversable! Its a little big, with lots of room to grow!

(Left: the sweet, country girl side, Right: the chic, summer hostess side)

First Paint

I wanted to share pictures of Anastasia's first experience with paint. This was our first time doing an Unplugged project and I was really happy with the fun we had! Not only was Anastasia inspired by our fine art reading... I finally finished painting all her little peg people as inspired by the Crafty Crow and Colorfool. These are so reminiscent of the Fisher Price Little People I had as a kid. Anastasia has played with them non-stop since I finished them. I put a layer of decoupage paste over top of them to protect them from dents and dings. You know what was weird too? Nick's dad found a real Fisher Price little person under the water heater this weekend!
Anastasia did really well with her first time painting. She really just liked squishing it in her hands and playing with the sponges.
She took more care with the water colors as I tried to teach her the routine: water, paint, paper. I was really impressed at how well her first water color painting turned out: