Paper Plate and Rock Turtles

Sunday night I set the boys up at the kitchen table and we painted some turtles. It all started with a huge ziploc baggie I have full of little pea rocks that Joshua has brought home from school in his pockets for me. They are his little treasures, his little gifts to mommy, something that makes me nearly cry when he gives them to me, because I know that during the day he is thinking about me.
We took two little paper plates and painted them brown/tan. then I put a bunch of glue on them and the boys picked out rocks and put them onto the glue. I then took some green paper and cut out heads, legs, and tails. The boys had a blast. It was fun to watch them with their crafts.

Getting their turtle shells painted

Joshua painting away

Matthew painting away

 

Putting on the rocks

 

Matthew with his finished turtle

 

Joshua with his finished turtle

The turtles

This was one of the easiest projects and they enjoyed every minute of it. I loved that I didn't have to do a whole lot of direction. I think what helped was putting paper down on the table...a bit less stress about where the paint was going to end up. Notice they started with shirts...I had them stop and take them off...didn't want to get paint on their nice school shirts.

Paper Plate Frog

My older sister bought this book for the boys, One Night in Frogtown, because well she loves frogs and the boys are her bugs. Anyway, this book comes with a CD that reads the story and sings the songs (which sound better than me actually reading them to the boys), but I put the CD on and we got to work on our next project...a paper plate frog. Pictures didn't get taken of them painting it green/red because well...yeah...two boys with paint brushes and only one adult supervising...not the best combo here.

 

Our book inspiration

Joshua getting ready to start on the red (for inside the mouth)

 

Joshua showing us his finished frog...we cut out their handprints to make the legs of the frog.

 



Matthew tried to show me his

 

Here is what it looks like

 

 

The boys had a blast and it's a project that they are able to play with. Time to find some more projects to tie in with their books and since it's warmer outside we can do the painting outside instead of my kitchen table.

 



Sheep Hand Project

Lately I've been trying to find projects for the boys that I can tie into a book that they have read. This project was based on the book, No Sleep For Sheep, in which the poor little sheep doesn't get any sleep because everyone else wants to come sleep in the barn with him. The boys love this book. They tend to take after their mommy in her love of books and reading.

The project's inspiration.

 

Joshua working on his sheep

 

Matthew working on his

 

Their finished projects

 

 

 



Being a Brother...

I ran across billboards, canvases, printables, and other paintings all over Pinterest from a quote by Marc Brown and fell in love. It was easy to love it since I have two little boys that I often think of as being two peas in a pod.

I went to the local Hobby Lobby and bought 2 16x20 canvases for $7.99 for this project. We had bought five more new colors for our painting projects which Joshua picked out.

Here is the blank canvas and paint laid out.

The colors all blended on the canvas

Now there are ideas of free hand painting the words...my hand is no where near that steady and I don't have small brushes (should probably get some) or stickers that you put on and paint another color over...I liked  my colors and didn't want to paint over them...I thought about stencils then I ran across a bottle of white puff paint...it felt like the perfect solution. I wrote the words with a pencil onto the painted canvas and then wrote over them with the puff paint. I really like the results. 

I love it and think it will look so nice hanging in their room next year when we get a bunk bed and get Matthew trained to sleep in a bed and out of his crib...no rush, so for now it is hanging in Joshua's room.

Canvas Painting

I saw a blog, Attack of the Twins, where she had the girls paint on canvases after taping on their names on it then finger painting over it. It gave me such a great idea. I've had these little coat hanger stars that I've been carting around for years and then when I saw the canvases I just went..."Oh, man, I have an awesome idea!!!" Now, just picture me jumping up and down and turning in circles and the boys sitting there like Mommy has lost her mind.
In both the rooms is this space that I can hang the canvas and the star. The star will hold thier jackets for now during the cooler months when they need to wear their light jacket. I hate them hanging on the back of the couch near the door.

Joshua loved it and dug right in...Matthew on the other hand wasn't too keen on getting his hands dirty

After painting...I couldn't do their full names...so they have the shortened version

The stars...Joshua's is orange...it's his favorite color

Joshua's Painting 

Matthew's Painting

A Quiet Book - Coloring Book

The District Convention is coming up this weekend and I am trying to find the best way to entertain a three and a half year old for an entire day, three days in a row. I love the idea of the felt Mr. Potato Head books that are out there. I don't have a sewing machine so can't make one up quickly, but I do have a laminating machine, a printer, and pictures scanned onto my computer. So, I printed up the 31 pictures into 5x7 sizes and scanned the cover of the large coloring book to add to it.

All the pages printed out and ready to be cut and laminated.

After it was laminated and I bound it with larger rings...

that way it can be folded over and held by little hands.

Now I'll hit the Hobby Lobby in the next couple of days to pick up some grease pencils so he can color the pages. I've seen others with dry erase markers, but we all know where the markers would end up and yeah, I don't want them all over my dresses, the boys suits, or on the floor/chairs.

Feeling rather pleased with myself right now.

What's For Dinner?

I've planned out our weekly meals and it usually ends up in a notebook that gets misplaced or left in one bag or another and we don't end up eating what I had planned. I really wanted something on the walls. I wanted something with lots of color. I'm trying to lighten up the house decor and get out of the brown shades that seems to have it surrounded.

The wall started out like this...BLANK

I took eight frames and painted them orange

The back is peg board painted green. To put the frames on I used a large glob of wood hot glue. Once they had dried I put a bead of glue all the way around the frames to make sure that they stay in place.

The frames hold up quite nicely and the glass make it easy to use a dry erase marker to change out the weekly menu. I used different scrapbook pages cut to fit and then cut out the days of the week from black paper and put it onto the scrapbook paper backgrounds. It looks awesome. I plan to paint the walls a nice yellow in the kitchen so the green and orange will really pop off the walls then.

Cookie Sheet Magnet Board

I have really limited counter space in my kitchen. Which drives me crazy. I have to share my counter with whatever I happen to be cooking and my recipe page/card/book. I bought a cookie sheet at the dollar store and painted it yellow. It works great as a magnet board. I put it on the wall directly above the stove. I cut out the word EAT and mod podged it onto the corner of the sheet. Probably should have put a coat of clear poly on it, but oh well...I like it. I plan to get a couple of cans painted to put on each side of the sheet to hold spatulas and wooden spoons.

I had to tack on this recipe card for the picture and it will probably always be on there since it is one my Grandma Chaney hand wrote for me when I was in grade school. It means a lot to me.

Here is what it looks like above the stove.

Artwork Display

I wanted a way to display artwork that Joshua does for me. I would normally fill my fridge with the art, but then Matthew comes in and takes the pictures off the fridge and decides that they make great confetti or taste good. So I like to line dry clothes and have an abundance of clothespins laying around. I took some out and spray painted them. Then I went and bought some yard sticks at the hardware store and hung them on the wall outside our laundry room door. It was the perfect place for them...after all, what else would we hang on that wall.

Before

During

After

Decoupage Letters

I did some decoupage to Joshua's letters in his room and then a friend's daughter loved the idea and wanted some done for her room as well. So, I went and bought the letters and did her's.

Joshua's

Tristen's

Here is Tristen's up on her wall

I loved doing this. If you'd like something done just let me know.

Tie Dye Toast

"Don't Play With Your Food!!!"

I'm sure we've all said that to our kids at one point or another, but this morning it was all about playing with our food or rather painting with our food. I took four small bowls and put a little milk into them and added 3 drops of food coloring to each of them. I then gave Joshua a paint brush and two pieces of bread and said, "Paint the bread."

All set and ready to start

Paint away

The finished products

Pretty pleased with his eggs and toast

We found this idea on Pinterest and it was originally done by the blog Share and Remember.