Terri Thompson

Pipe Cleaner Sun Plant Stakes

June 10, 2013 By Terri Thompson

I was pleasantly surprised when a fun package arrived from CraftProjectIdeas.com that was full of neon goodness.

We use their supplies often in our crafting and I couldn’t wait to get started creating. We decided to use the pack of neon fuzzy sticks to make some cheery sun plant stakes.

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Supplies Needed:

Yellow & orange pipe cleaners
Glue
Large craft stick

If you would like to use the neon fuzzy sticks in your project, they can be found at your local Wal-Mart.

For the first step, take a yellow and orange pipe cleaner and twist them together.

After both colors are twisted, form it into a circle twisting the ends together to hold your circle in place.

Next take 4 more pipe cleaners, two orange and two yellow and begin forming your rays. Begin each pipe cleaner by twisting the end around your circle. Bend your rays around the circle, overlapping your circle as you go (see above picture). Twist the other end around your circle when you reach the end of a pipe cleaner. Alternate the colors as you go.

Once your sun is complete, use regular white glue to attach it to a large craft stick.

Glue down one of the rays, like I did in the above picture, to add a bit of stability.

Once it dries, it’s ready to decorate your plants.

It would be perfect to add to a cheery summer gift or just to brighten up your house.

You will want to keep it indoors on one of your houseplants because it will not stand up to rain. Yes, I know I photographed it outside, but unfortunately my green thumb does not extend to houseplants.

The only potted plants I have are outdoors!

Thank you again CraftProjectIdeas.com for the fun craft supplies!

10 Ways to Play This Weekend: Week 43

June 8, 2013 By Terri Thompson

How are you going to play this weekend? We’ll be digging into our Pinterest bucket list some more!

Colored Ice Fun

June 6, 2013 By Terri Thompson

I can’t imagine anything more fun and refreshing on a hot summer’s day than playing with ice. So, grab some fun ice cube trays and create some colored ice cubes (or sticks) for some creative fun.

Today I’m happy to welcome Ana from Babble Dabble Do to this space with a fun ice play activity perfect for summer. While you guys are reading this, I’m going to head out to the store to buy some of these fun ice cube trays! Take it away Ana…

Make some simple colored ice to use for creative activities, sensory play, STEM experiments, art projects and more. Colored ice is such a fun tool to use!

Disclosure: This post contains Amazon Affiliate links. Please see my Disclosure Page for more details.

Hi there, I’m Ana from Babble Dabble Do and I’m excited to be guest posting on Creative Family Fun today!

With summer finally here I’ve been itching to play with ice as a “cool” outdoor activity for the kids. If you’ve been to my blog you know I’m obsessed with color, and food coloring is something I use on a regular basis in our projects. This week I thought it would be fun to experiment with colored ice and see what interesting activities we could come up with!

Materials:

Water
Food Coloring
Cups/Bowls
Ice cube trays and/or different molds- I used trays that make ice sticks for water bottles. The pieces of ice were like logs, perfect to build and draw with!
Salt and salt shaker
Shaved ice (optional)– use a snow cone maker to make it
Small plates
Spoons or eye droppers
Paper

You’ll need to factor in a little prep time for these activities because you have to freeze things in advance BUT a few minutes of freezing the day before is all you need. Using food coloring, tint several glasses of water with different colors and pour into ice
cube tray molds. Freeze overnight or for several hours.

Building:

Stack your ice cubes on top of one another to try and make a structure. Using drops of water and shaved ice, “glue” the pieces of ice together. “Gluing” only worked for us about half the time. When finished, carefully move the sculpture back into the freezer to fuse it together! If you plan on refreezing, use a sturdy tray underneath the sculpture as too much movement will cause it to break apart.

Salt and Ice Experiment:

I don’t think the interaction of salt and ice ever gets old to watch. Give your child a salt shaker and let them sprinkle salt on the
ice to make holes and give it texture.

Color Mixing:

Using red, blue, and yellow ice sticks and three different bowls, encourage your child to experiment with color mixing. Let them melt two colored ice sticks in the same bowl to make a magical new color appear!

Water Table:

They might not last long in the blazing heat, but colored ice would make a fun addition to a water table.

Drawing with Ice:

You’ll need to use a strong concentration of color for this one to work well; use the ice sticks like crayons to color on paper.

Melting Artwork:

Place several ice sticks on a piece of white paper and let them melt to make a free form painting.

Open-ended Play:

I had originally planned to make only ice sculptures but when I gave my kids the ice sticks they had ideas of their own! They stacked and sorted them and just loved the sensory experience of playing with a cold material.

Ana Luisa Dziengel is an architect, award winning furniture designer, and creatively inspired mom making magic with her three kids in sunny Los Angeles!

Web: http://babbledabbledo.com/

FB: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Babble-Dabble-Do/206167262806000

Twitter: https://twitter.com/BabbleDabbleDo

Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/babbledabbledo/

A Pinteresting Bucket List For the Kids

June 3, 2013 By Terri Thompson

The last two summers we’ve made summer bucket lists. (See 2011 list here and 2012 list here.)

But this year, we’re trying something different.

We’ve already planned a camping trip and a vacation to visit family. The girls are signed up for swimming lessons and a farm-themed summer day camp. Oh, and don’t forget our library’s summer reading program.

We’ve already got a packed summer and I thought adding a summer bucket list would add stress instead of fun.

So, in lieu of the summer bucket list, we created our Pinterest bucket list.

I took a pile of index cards and started jotting down the projects I wanted to try with the kids.

I also notated the Pinterest board where it is pinned as well as the blog the idea came from.

Each index card has four ideas. The girls take turns selecting a card, then they have to decide which of the four projects they want to do.

The one rule we have is that they both have to agree on a project.

Once we’ve completed a project, I check it off with the date.

We’ve been playing with our Pinterest bucket list for a couple of weeks now.

We worked on watercolor kites from Little Family Fun this morning. We made paper plate ladybugs from Crafts By Amanda, giant painted paper flowers from Buggy & Buddy, and did a few experiments to find out how big the dinosaurs were from this post by Frugal Fun for Boys.

We’ve done a lot of craft projects so far, but that’s not the only thing I included.

We have outdoor play ideas, reading & writing activities, science projects, and math activities.

I only included things that I knew we already had supplies for, which is a lot since we have a HUGE craft/activity stash. I didn’t want to have to stop the excitement to run to the store.

I’m not sure we’ll ever get through with all the projects, since our basket it quite full, but it sure is fun to try.

The girls get excited every time I suggest getting out our project bucket.

My goal this summer is to do one project a day, except for the days we’ll be out of town.

It’s a lofty goal and I won’t stress about it. As long as we keep it fun, we’ll have a blast.

I love this idea so much that I’m planning on making my own bucket list of Pinterest projects just for myself!

In case you’re wondering about the projects we have in our basket, I started a Pinterest Bucket List pin board. Make sure and follow as I fill up the board. Hopefully you’ll find some fun Pinterest ideas you want to try.

What Pinterest-inspired project have you done lately with your kids?

Dad Libs: A Fun Father’s Day Surprise

May 31, 2013 By Terri Thompson

I’m usually good at coming up with crafts for just about any occasion.

The only exception is Father’s Day. That one stumps me every time.

So when the lovely folks at Martha Stewart Living contacted me and let me know about their printable Dad Libs card, I knew we had a winner. And, I knew I wanted to tell you about it too.

The cards have a pretty frame on the front, so your little artists can draw their own picture of their dad, but then the fun starts inside.

The cards are full of fun fill-in-the-blank questions for your kids to answer.

The girls had lots of fun thinking of the answers and talking about how much they loved Creative Daddy.

I know I’ll have to apologize profusely to Creative Daddy for letting the girls try to guess his age. He’s no where near 50, poor guy, but at least 50 was better than her first guess… 100!

Since I’m a sneaky mommy, I also used this as a bit of after school writing practice for my Kindergartner, Lizzie, and made her write out all the answers herself.

I laughed when they answered “make money” for their dad’s job. Smiled when they said “My Dad is the best at… being silly,” and my heart melted when they said “I love my Dad because… I love him.”

We’re excited to give these cards to Creative Daddy and won’t even be waiting until Father’s Day. Luckily, his birthday comes sooner than Father’s Day. Unfortunately, that means I’ll have to come up with another idea for Father’s Day. Any ideas Martha??

You can find Dad Libs in the Good Things section of the June 2013 issue of Martha Stewart Living or online at this link: Dad Libs.

For more Father’s Day craft ideas, check out www.marthastewart.com.

*Discloser: The wonderful folks at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia did contact me to let me know about Dad Libs. However, I’m telling you about it because I truly think it’s a fun & fabulous idea!

Terri Thompson

Pipe Cleaner Sun Plant Stakes

10 Ways to Play This Weekend: Week 43