Halloween Craft

One of my friends from Talented Terrace Girls found this craft. http://www.keepingitsimplecrafts.com/2011/09/spooktacular-2x4-halloween-characters.html It's cute, quick, and STURDY! In a house of small people, sturdy is important.

All you need is 5 2x4's, some vinyl lettering and faces, and paint. I used gauze and a tree stick too add a bit to  my mummy and the pumpkin (yes, there is a stick as a stem on the pumpkin, although it's hard to see). I suppose I should add that I used a REALLY strong wood glue to put everything together and some mod podge. As my friend said, the mod podge helps keep the vinyl from rolling off. If you have the time and everything together, you could finish this in one evening, a few hours. Mine took a few days, since I also have kids to take care of and I wanted to make sure everything had dried completely.

Cricuts

So, I don't own one and I'm not really into scrapbooking, but my son's preschool teacher is letting me use hers to get some projects done for her (yeah for people who give you a discount for helping out!). Yes, I'm talking about the "Cricut" machine. It's AMAZING. And no, I'm not getting paid to advertise this.

Basically, imagine all those annoying, difficult cut out shapes. Are you thinking of them? The aching hands, dull scissors, and time spent? Well, now you have a machine that does it for you! All you need is one cricut, the sticky pads to put your paper on, a "spatula" utensil that takes your paper off, and whatever plug-in program you want (right now, I'm cutting out those really cute monsters you see everywhere right now). It's so effective that I'm almost convinced that maybe I might try scrapbooking...notice all of those non-commital words in that sentence before you hold me to it, though. :)

Wonders of Wednesday: Finger Paints!

Man! After my daughter started running a fever, I wasn't sure if I was going to get to this post today or not! But we made it and her fever is under control (thank you, medicine!). We decided to try some homemade finger paints. I found the recipe here http://easiepeasie.blogspot.com/2010/07/homemade-finger-paints.html. Here's what you need: 2 cups warm water, 1/2 cup corn starch, 3 T sugar, 1/2 t salt.

Combine all ingredients in a medium sauce pan. It kind of looks like milk. Stir frequently to constantly for about 10 minutes (I was able to wash our electric griddle at the same time).

After about 10 minutes, it should start to thicken up. First it looked like the sugar was balling up and I was worried that I had messed up somewhere. But keep going! Pretty soon it all holds together like glue (without the stick).

Now choose your colors and mix them up. I only used two drops per color when mixing these (except for red, I let my two year old add those drops and who knows how many drops she added!). This was fun for the kids to see what happens when you mix colors and to watch how a little bit can go a long ways! The brownish/grayish color is all of the colors mixed together.

This is how it looks on construction paper. It didn't apply like I thought it would, but it does feel really neat! I think the colors look a little water-colory as far as paints go. It also adds some neat texture to whatever you decide to paint, since the more intense areas of color are where it's applied more like a glue.

My kids loved this project! It was simple and (again) clean up was a snap! After I wash their painting shirts, I'll let you know about "stainability" of this paint.