Enchanted Mommy

Photo Valentine’s Card! Adorable!

My six year old never attended official preschool.  I sort of did my own thing and worked with him at home.   At the beginning of the school year my little monkey came home and wouldn’t tell me what he learned.  He said I wouldn’t know what it was anyway.  I assured him that I had gone to school before too.  He said that he was sure I had no idea what natural resources were since I had never mentioned them to him before!  Funny boy!

So today he came home blabbering on and on about George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.  He was going on about how they did this or that and how long ago they lived.  Then he demanded to know, “how could you have not told me about them before!”  Love this kid!

He was also disgusted to learn that there use to be a public library that would only let white people check out books.  Good job little six year old… you are already wiser than all your ancestors!  He was excited to tell me about how this 9 year old boy refused to be bullied and worked to get the law changed so that everyone would be able to check out books.  Oh how I love this smart little guy!

Anyway, here is an easy yet incredibly adorable Valentine’s Card you can make at home with your kiddos.  It’s so easy and is a great card to make for Daddy’s and Grandparents!  I made this card with the kids I babysit.

All you need to do is cut out three large hearts from construction paper.  Let the kids paint or decorate them.  When they are done, use a thick black marker and put and “I”  on one, “Love” on the other, and “You” on the last one.  Take a picture or your little guy holding each heart.  Use the pics to make a cute Valentine’s Card.  Top it off by having your  little guy write a letter in his or her own handwriting.

Here is one of the pictures up close! Melts my heart!

 

The cover of the card

 

Too cute for words!

Letter H Activities for Preschool

Yep, my turn to teach preschool again.  We had a lot of fun learning H!  There are a lot of things you can do with the letter H since Hand print starts with H.  However, I feel like I have done the hand print projects to death lately so I went another direction.

We talked about our Hearts and how to take care of our bodies.  The kids seemed to enjoy it.  We did a couple different projects this week.

Decorating the letter H with hearts

This was really simple, but is great for fine motor development.  The hearts are small so they had to work to pick them up and glue them on.  I used a heart hole puncher sort of like this one to make the hearts.  I got mine at Michaels for a under $5 though.  I scrap book a lot and slowly like to build up my stash of supplies.

I put glue all over the H to save them the trouble of trying glue each tiny heart individually

Letter H Preschool Activitiy

The final product! A letter H Preschool Activity

The kids are in the process of making their own alphabet book.  Each week we learn a new letter and do a couple crafts to represent that letter.  They all have their own binders full of plastic sleeve protectors to store their projects in alphabetical order.  When we finish all our letters they will have their own little book to review their letters.

Preschool Letter H Activity – Paint A Heart

Here is the other project we did for the alphabet book for letter H.  It is pretty self explanatory.  They kids loved it… really anything involving paint is a big hit with the kids.

Painting his heart!

Too cute! Perfect for his alphabet book!

Painting with Ice! So fun!

Brrrr!  We really had fun painting with ice cubes! This is such a fun little project!  I even enjoyed participating! All you have to do is fill up your ice tray and put a drop of food coloring in each one.  No need to mix or stir.  Just put in your drop and wait for them to freeze.  Pull the cubes out and let them sit for a few minutes before starting.

We are learning the letter Ii this week in preschool so painting with ice cubes was a perfect project!  This is also a great sensory and science activity.  Make sure to have the kids describe how the ice feels in their hands.

The kids also made igloos to learn about ice and the letter Ii as well.  Just cut out a bunch of white squares and let them create their igloo house!

Here is one of the finished igloo houses made by a 4yr old.

Reindeer Made Out of a Paper Bag — what?!?!

Okay, there is one thing in my life that I would like to be a braggard about.  That’s my gym.  It’s AH-MAZE-ING.  They’ve hired a preschool teacher to come in most mornings to do “school” stuff with them.  Here’s what Ella came home with the other day:

Cute Reindeer

All you need is some brown construction paper, googly eyes, paper bag and a cotton ball!

It doesn’t take much to figure out this project, but she loved it!!  I would probably try the red balls to be Rudolph!

Merry Christmas!

Make Your Own Wreath for $10

After seeing how much a decorated wreath costs, I decided I wanted to make my own.  I am not especially crafty, but I like to try. 🙂  I was very proud of my results… yes, I am still bragging!  I have already bragged to everyone I know (that includes picture texts to my sisters in Florida and anyone else who comes to my door).  Yes, I am just that dorky proud.  🙂I was checking out prices and to get a wreath similar to mine it would cost $35.  I made mine for so much cheaper!  I wish I would have saved the receipt so I could show you how little I spent.  I got the supplies at Michaels.  I went the day before Thanksgiving when all of their Christmas stuff went on sale. Everything was 50% – 70% off (including the ribbon). They also let me use a 25% off my total purchase coupon that came in the weekend mailer.  So fun, so easy!  You basically just pick out the pieces you like and design them around the wreath, then glue them in.  I only bought one set of red berries and then cut the stems to make more pieces.

Before I made this wreath I had no idea even how to tie a bow. Haha… yes, I meant what I said about not being especially crafty.  Anyway, I watched this How-to video and it was so easy!  I actually used two different ribbons at the same time, but still did the exact same steps as shown below.  Beautiful and oh so easy!

Here are a few more wreaths I made.  I made these for $6.50 each since I already had the ribbon.

 

 

A Couple Cute Christmas Crafts

Christmas crafts are so fun! The kids love them, I love them, what’s not to love! This past week I did these foot and hand print Rudolphs (my six year said it looked more like a moose…. haha).  Anyway, the kids were hysterical during it.

Rudolph or Moose? You decide!

The kids giggled like crazy when I helped them paint their feet.  “It’s cold” , “That tickles” ,  “Look at me” , “How will I walk now” , “Hehehehe.”  We had a lot of fun!

I did the project on the kitchen floor. I thought it would be easier than at the table, but in actuality I think having them sit on a short stepping stool would have worked best.

Foot and Hand Print Rudolph
So this one is so simple… it is pretty much self explanatory.  Get one foot print and two hand prints.  Cut them out. Glue them together.  Glue on some eyes and use a finger dipped in red paint for the nose.

Holiday Wreaths
The kids also painted and decorated little wreaths to hang up on their doors.  They thought they were pretty cool and tried them out on practically every door.  Cute little monkeys!  Got to love the Christmas excitement though!  I used a paper plate with the center cut out, green paint, and some circles cut from construction paper.

Note the cool dude spiked hair… I so love this cool little guy!

How to Make Super Hero Capes

I am almost done preparing for my soon-to-be-4 years old’s Super Hero birthday party.  One last detail to make it perfect… super hero capes!  After rummaging through my local party store after Halloween looking for inexpensive capes to use for the party, I realized that it would be easier and more cost effective to make my own.  Then I would get the ones I wanted and spend less money for them.

I collected my 20% off coupon from Joannes Fabric store and headed over.  I found a nice black costume satin material on sale for $1.99 a yard.  I got 4 yards and used my 20% off coupon for the total.  Besides the material, I used some fabric iron on velcro left over from making the super hero wrist bands.

Using a satin material instead of a stretch fabric was a little more difficult to work with. The satin tends to fray a bit around the edges and takes a little more effort hemming. The satin look was worth it though.

Step 1:  Make sure the fabric is pre-washed and ironed before starting.  You want to make sure the fabric is already shrunk before you cut the fabric to the correct size.  Cut the fabric in the the shape of your rectangular cape.  I used a plain rectangle size 2′ by 3′.  TIME SAVER HINT:  Fold your fabric in half when you begin measuring and cutting so that you are cutting two capes at once.
Step 2:  Fold over the sides of fabric and pin down.  Using a overcast stitch, hem all four sides of your quilt.  You can do this by hand, but I highly recommend using a sewing machine.  Almost all machines have and overcast stitch setting.
Step 3:   Cut your velcro into small one inch pieces and iron on to the corners of your cape.

Hemming the egdes was quick and easy. I spent less than 10 minutes on each one and got them all finished during my little guys nap.

So there you go… I made 10 capes and had plenty of extra material.  I could easily have made 2 or 3 more capes out of the extra material if I needed to.  The total cost after taxes for this project was $6.68 since I already had the velcro from making the super hero wrist bands.  If you need to buy the velcro you can get a large package of it for $8 (using the 40% off one item coupon at Michaels).  The velcro will last a long time.

How to Make a Super Hero Mask and Wristbands

My little monkey is asking to have a super hero birthday party this year.  I want it to be really fun, but don’t want to spend a ton of money.  I decided to make the kids their own super hero masks and wrist bands to use during the party and keep as party favors.

I made blue, red, and pink masks for the party.

I ended up finding some really cheap felt pieces at Michaels.  I could pick any five pieces for $1.  I ended up getting 10 pieces, $3 stretching string, and some fabric iron on velcro.  I also used a 40% off one item coupon from the Sunday paper, but you can also find them online.  In the end I was able to make ten super hero masks and ten sets of matching super hero wristbands for a total price of $10.91.  In fact, I ended up having some leftover felt as well.

Making the mask: 
1.  After getting the felt, cut out a mask template.  You can design your own or use one of the many templates they have online.  I used this template.
2.  Use the template to cut masks out of the felt.
3.  Thread your stretchy string through a large holed eye needle.  I used a simple not to hold the string in place on each side of the mask.

Making the Wristbands:
1.  Measure the length of your child’s wrist so you know what length you need to cut your fabric.  The fabric must wrap around at least an inch so there is room to secure the velcro.  I let mine wrap around a bit more since I was planning for kids of different ages at the party and wanted to make sure I left enough room for it to fit the older children as well.
2.  Use the felt to cut out the initial you want to use on the wrist band.  You can cut out any shape you want in place of an initial as well.  By hand, or by machine, sew the edges of the initials to the middle of each wristband.
3.  Cut small one inch pieces of fabric iron on velcro.  Iron on to your felt wristbands.

 

 

Here you can see the approximate sizes I used for the letters and the lenghts of the wristbands.

 

Turkey Made out of a Pine Cone

fun pine cone activity

Look at this cute turkey!

First, before I write anything else, I apologize for the pictures.  I only had my cell phone with me when the craft was being made.

Who’s got the most creative friend?!?!?!  I do, I do!  My friend Brooke and I hang out all the time, it’s more at my house just because of location.  She comes here, the girls play whatever and we chit chat.  We go there and she has amazing activities planned for the girls.  This is just one of those activities.

I arrive to her house (she lives on an AMAZING 20 acre farm) and she has the girls buckets ready for their adventure!  The first step was for them to go find two pine cones that she hid (of course they were in obvious places).

girls on a mission for pine cone

And they are off to find their pine cones!

This is the base for the turkey, yes I’m captain obvious.

Pine cone

Ella found hers!

If you are a blog junkie of ours, notice she’s wearing her sweater from the consignment sale!

Next, they went and started putting their turkey together.

You need:
pine cone
paper to trace both hands
turkey paint colors
eyes, beak, gizzard cut outs
two orange pipes
hot glue gun

turkey hand paint

Here is Ella getting her hand painted for the back feathers.

Brooke painted her hand twice.  Once all red and the next time she painted two of her fingers different colors.

hand print for turkey pine cone

Here are the supplies and what the hand prints looked like before she cut them.

She had already had the beak, gizzard and eyes cut out for us.  So, we worked on the feet next.

turkey foot

Here is the foot, you just bend it to make it look like this!

Now, since your hand prints are just about dry cut them out and glue everything on the pine cone. Wahhlaaaaa!  Such a fun and cute craft!

 

 

Fun Thanksgiving Turkey Craft

It’s Thanksgiving time and I have a lot to be thankful for. Mainly, my three little monkeys that constantly amuse me (did I mention my hubby is a pretty good catch also?!).

I feel like Thanksgiving is often a rushed holiday… its thrown in there after the huge excitement of Halloween and rushed through so we can all gear up for the Christmas season. I really wanted to get my kids thinking about Thanksgiving and the things they are thankful for.

Here are a couple fun turkey projects to get your family in the Thanksgiving spirit!

Does it get any cuter? I obviously did not influence his answers. They are his own, but we did talk about how we are thankful for all the really important things in life as well.

These were fun projects for the kids and I so enjoyed their cute little personalities as they told me all about the things they love! I did this project with four different kids all 3 or 4 years old. A few of the things I heard about (so love these little guys): swimming, mommy’s and daddy’s, pets, Chuck-E-Cheese, power rangers, friends, little sisters, nintendo wii, cookies, baseball, etc…

All you need is a few different colored feathers cut from construction paper, glue, and a turkey body with its facial features.

 

For the hand print turkey, just paint each finger a different color, place on the paper in a circular pattern, then have the kids glue on the rest of the turkey cut from construction paper on.

Here is another Thankful Turkey project... Geez these kids are cute!!!