Leaf Magnets

My kids love collected things outside. They usually come home from the park with several rocks in their pockets and a whole bunch of sticks and pine-cones in my bag. I'm not sure how they sneak all of that nature in my bag, but somehow I'm constantly reaching in and discovering some kind of flora when all I really want to get is my wallet or a diaper. The other day I gave them the job of collecting leaves around our neighborhood. It's still a little early in the year for colorful leaves, but we did find a few that had already changed. We took them home, laminated them, and then hot-glued some magnets to the back. I stuck the leaves to our dishwasher (since our refrigerator is already full of letter magnets) and they were a hit right away. It's been a fun thing for the kids to play with while I make dinner.

Hello Again!

Hello Blogging world. It's been a while, I know. Between getting my tonsils out in February and moving from Colorado to Arizona last week, blogging has fallen to the back burner as of late. Here are some older pictures of some craft projects:

1. Laminated magnets

 Last year for my birthday I bought I laminating machine from Costco. It was the best birthday present I have ever given myself. I think it was only 20 or 30 bucks, and I love it. I have used it many times, but one of my favorite projects was to make magnets for our fridge. My daughter picked out a princess magazine from the library and found these pictures. We photocopied them, laminated them, and stuck a magnet on the back of each one. I pulled these out when it was time to make dinner and they were a life saver! It was a fun way for her to be in the kitchen with me, but not so bored that she made a mess.

 2. Storybook puppets
I just developed a love of felt. This is the project that helped me realize that. I didn't use a pattern, just randomly cut out shapes and then sewed them together. I was really pleased with the outcome. The animals are finger puppets, but my daughter discovered they work best with a spoon inside since her fingers are still pretty small.

 3. Letters
We finally finished our door full of letters. Here's a picture with *most* of them. A few of the lower letters got ripped off by curious little hands.

Pumpkin Window Art

I had read online that if you spray a little water on a window you can get foam shapes to stick to it. A while ago I bought foam sheets in bulk. I still had some black, orange, yellow, and white..all the colors perfect for a Halloween craft! We started out making jack-o-lanterns and then quickly added spiders, bats, a moon and stars. Now our window looks ready for Halloween!