My Curly Little Secret

Yesterday when I went to get my hair cut for the first time since November, I went to a new hair stylist and as usual one of the first things out of her mouth was," You have such lovely wave and curl to your hair, how often do you style it naturally?" You see, I've known some people literally for years before they have any inkling that I have any curl to my hair what so ever. I am normally strictly a blow and go kind of gal. To humor her, I let her style it all wavy. For some reason every stylist I've ever been to wants to do this, but for me I think it looks messy and undone, especially in pictures. What do you think, should I give my heating tools a break this summer and let Michigan's humidity help give my hair some bounce?

Handmade Easter Swap Goodies

Update 3/31/09: While reading today's Procrastinator Crafter's post I found out about a new monthly blog party all about my favorite crafting material: mod podge! So I had to add this post to it, since the first two projects both involve using it! Thanks to Xazmin for hosting, she made fun letter blocks that I really like. I love how she added wooden letters to the front. I was going to just mod podge on die cut letters to the ones I want to make but I think the wooden letters are a lot more fun! To see my two sided sign and frame please scroll down about half way.

My Easter swap partner Noelle has gotten her package so now I can reveal what I sent her! See all the great stuff she sent me, here. She was a quick little bunny and sent hers out lickity split. Unfortuately for her, her partner couldn't get it all together until the very last day it was due to be shipped out! Good thing she's patient! That's most of the stuff all wrapped up and ready to go, I also added one more package for her and two parcels I sent for her boys, which are hidden here and are propping up the package wrapped in patterned tissue paper.

I put together a little basket for her in a fun spring sea foam green color and adorned it with a big fluffy bow. I love big bows! I'm sure it got all crushed in the shipping process. Noelle, I hope you could fluff it up again! I put some little goodies like holiday towels, a bunny themed magnetic note pad and sticky notes, chocolate bunnies, teal egg ornament, two Easter stamps, and a bag of candy in it. I also gave her a hanging SPRING sign that I purchased.

She's getting married soon, so I also took this opportunity to slip in a little bachelorette party type gift since I won't be able to celebrate the end of her single days with her in person. I found a fun spring colored hanging travel toiletries keeper and put some great smelling lip gloss in it along with my very favorite decadent body lotions in one of our favorite scents, lemon. I thought these would be fun to bring along on her honeymoon.

So that's the stuff I purchased for her, you can check her pictures of it on her blog. Now on to what I made her!
Part of the swap rules was to make your partner something, so I made Noelle this fun sign. It was very easy; I even managed to find the perfect blank sign at the dollar store! I just painted it, decoupaged my paper to it and then my center title oval. I used a short cut premade title sticker and done.
But I can never leave well enough alone so at the last possible second I decided the backside looked boring and could be used as another sign, two uses out of one thing and less to store! So I added more decoupaged paper to the backside and coordinating stickers for the sentiment and to decorate it. Some of the stickers are glittery and flocked so I didn't go over them with more mod podge decoupage glue. I gave her another spring sign but it looks totally different so I thought this wasn't really duplicating things too much.
I also made her a decoupaged frame that I covered in a spring themed paper, paper flowers with pink brad centers, sheer ribbon, and spring tag. I painted the edges to give it a finished look. I made little stitched picture for her too.
Here is a detail picture of it. I used rub ons to spell out spring the flower shaped brads, stitched the grass, stems, leaves, and message "had sprung" underneath. The message says "Spring Has Sprung" but I think the pink stitched letter are hard to see in the picture; they are clearer in person. I hope she really likes it cause it took me a lot longer than I thought it would and I kinda wanted to keep it for myself when I was done! Brad had to remind me that I can make myself another.

I have a confession to make, I made a real oops on the frame. I wasn't paying attention while I was making it, as to where the holes for the little stick thing you use to help prop up the frame on the backside were. I attached the paper in the opposite direction that I was supposed to, there isn't a hole for the stick on the bottom, luckily the frame stands up on it's own or I'd have had to start all over.
The last thing I made Noelle was a 6x6 inch mini scrapbook with twenty pages. I used a precut scalloped circle and die cut the letters with my Sizzix Sidekick machine for the front cover. I love making these little books and used my ultra quick method for putting it together. All you need is three pieces of cardstock and four pieces of patterned paper that coordinate with each other, I picked ones that matched the scrapbook's cover and some embellishements.
Minimal photo cropping is required, except for the first and last pages, on each of those there is a spot for a 4x4 photo. These are also the only pages I used 1x1 inch squares of the patterned paper.
On each of the filler pages I use a variation of these layouts. I use two pieces of patterned paper cut to 2x4 and two pieces cut to 2x2. Then I just move the order and placement of each around on each page. You can place one 4x6 photo on each side of the double page spread without cropping on top of the green cardstock or cut a .25 inches from each side of the photo, center on top of the green, and end up with a small green photo mat around your picture. I used a variety of flower themed embellishments such as the paper flower with button center shown above.

I am planning on putting together a quickie tutorial because I forgot to take enough pictures of the layout variations before I sent it along to Noelle. I'll add the pictures to it too so you can see how nicely it turns out. I know a picture really helps and it might look a little boring as is, but trust me they do turn out looking very cute and don't take a ton of time to put together.

I'll try to get the tutorials for yesterday's paper bag scrapbook and today's mini book together this week, depends on how much scrapbooking time I get!

Paper Bag Mini Book & Card

This week's Scrapbook Sunday project is a mini scrapbook I made out of paper bags for my brother Dave. It's a mini scrapbook of sorts and birthday card all rolled into one. I am a big fan of paper bags because they are so inexpensive and with the wide range of colors now available you can make really fun and cute ones. I have some purples lunch bags that I am planning on using for an upcoming project, I plan on sharing those too I just have to get around to putting them together!

This one is made up out of normal brown lunch bags. I think you can figure out how to put it together from the last picture, but if anyone wants one I will try to remember to take picture step by step when I work on the ones made out of the purple bags. I think it's clear but since I know what I'm doing here I'm not really the best judge of that☺

One word of caution, while paper bag scrapbooks are fun and inexpensive they are not acid free or archival safe. It's best to use them for little projects and never use one of a kind photos always use copies.

This is the card all folded up. The view as you open the first flap to the left.Open the right flap and you see this.Lift up the top flap and you see the message underneath.
Pull down the bottom flap and the sentiment is revealed. To assemble this type of book you need four paper bags. Stack them so that the bottom portion where the folded part is, are overlapping as shown in the picture. This is the part underneath the middle Happy Birthday sentiment. Use an anywhere hole punch, like the kind you use with an eyelet setter. Punch holes and attach with brads, I used star shaped ones. I also put a little bit of glue stick on each layer before stacking. You want the open portion of the bags facing out so you'll have four pockets to slip your tags into.
Inside each flap is a tag with a message, poem, picture, or the present in the form of a gift card. I like this kind of card because it's personalized, shows you put extra effort into the gift, and is a nice presentation for a gift card. I used it as an opportunity to showcase some pictures of us together from the previous few years. The set of stickers I used were mainly from a brother themed set so it made it easy to put together.

Head on over to Noelle's or Holly's to see other fun scrapbook projects and add a comment with a link if you want us all to come by and see something you've made! If you're not ready this week, please consider joining us next week!

Grandparent Time

I decided spur of the moment yesterday afternoon to make the hour and half trek over to see my parents and younger brother David today, even though we just saw my mom the day before. The sun was shining and our plans to have a play date with neighborhood friends got cancelled, but I still wanted to get out and about. Plus I wanted their help corralling the little one at the mall while shoe shopping.

Well the day didn't turn out as nice as the morning suggested it would as the wind kind of picked up and it was cooler than we had hoped but still comfortable. We went to a newer outdoor mall by their house; but didn't get either of the tasks I wanted to do accomplished. Can anyone explain why shoes for a two and a half year old cost more than ones for me or why a store that has closed would still be listed as open online? It's a very nicely done up place with lovely fountains, a big bright play area, built in fireplace, even a mini splash zone for the kids to jump in when it's warmer, and boccie ball courts so it was a nice place to spend a few hours nonetheless.

But why oh why do developers put outdoor shopping centers in MI? This is the second one they've opened near my parents. We had some beautiful ones in CA, the key word in that sentence being California, you know where the weather is pretty decent most of the year! Today was nice and there were a lot of families out and about but I wonder how the shops do business wise in the winter time. Cause I'm not wading through snow drifts no matter how big the sale is!
After shopping it was time for an early dinner; we tried a new family restaurant by my parents and it was really good. Going anywhere new with my folks is normally unheard of, they seem to always go to the same place on Friday as my brother can tell you! I thought I should add a picture of me for change to the blog, to prove I really do come along. Not that I like this one, I think I look tired, my hair is frizzy, and I was just a mess today. My shirt had a stain on it, and I have no idea how it got there. Don't you just hate that! So keep your eyes on the cute kid I somehow managed to produce!

ER calls my Dad "Papa", here she is with him and yes that is a butter packet she's clutching in her hand. She started calling for bread almost the second we sat down. Really she should have been requesting butter, cause that's mainly what she ate. I spread it on her roll and she proceeded to lick it off, her little nose got all shiny real quick. She must have been hungry for once cause she ate a whole hot dog, half a roll, and french fries, as well as bits of tomato, chicken, and hard boiled egg from my salad. For her that's almost a shockingly large amount at once.

We had time for some more silliness and ice cream, back at my parents' before we left. Here are my mom aka Grammy and ER reading up on their favorite blog...but really mom is checking it out to make sure she looks good in the pictures from our visit with the Great Grandparents the day before. Just kidding Mom! That's my little brother Dave behind them. You might also note that miss fashionista has raided Grammy's jewelery box and over accessorized like usual with two bracelets and a necklace. Honestly that girl just loves the jewels!

So as you can tell nothing big happened today, just a day with the fam. Which might not seem like a big deal but it really is a wonderful thing for us as we never thought Brad would find work back in MI and we'd always live out of state. So while a ninety minute drive just to hang out might seem far for a lot of people the commute is much shorter than it was from CA or NM so no complaints here!

Being close to our families and friends was one the main reason we moved back, I grew up with a large extended family around for all of the holidays and saw my Grandparents who lived just two blocks away from me during most of my childhood almost every day. I wanted my parents, brother, and Brad's mother Norma to have as big of a presence in ER's life too. Plus moving here we could afford for me to continue staying at home with her. We even managed to find a house less than ten minutes from where Brad works so he's able to spend more time with us and less time commuting. I don't regret the decision we made for a second.

Visiting the Great Grandparents

Yesterday ending up being a lovely day even though it began with overcast skies and there were light sprinkles coming down during the hour car ride to see my Grandma and Grandpa. We hadn't been over to see them since January so we were overdue for a visit. My mom met us beforehand for lunch; we made a day of it.

Normally we see them both at my Grandma's nursing home right after lunch, since that's when my Grandpa usually rides his electric chair over from his assisted living apartment. Turns out, no one knew Grandma was seeing the dentist right after lunch so he'd already gone back home by the time we got there after eating. We were half an hour behind schedule, but by the time we hiked all the way over to her room and back up front she only had five more minutes of work to be done so it all worked out.
Grandma was surprised to find us in the lobby! She couldn't stop exclaiming over how well ER is talking and talking away. The little kiddo took the longest time to start and now she won't stop, LOL. Here is a 3 generations picture of my Grandma, mom, and the first great grandchild. We're expecting a new addition to the family soon, when my cousin Alex and his wife Andrea add another great granddaughter.
Then it was on to see my Grandpa. Over time ER has warmed up to my Grandma, it probably doesn't hurt that everytime she sees Great Grandma she has a new baby to give her from her bingo game wins! Today ER chose a cute baby monkey to add to her collection. Unfortunately, ER is still very shy around Great Grandpa. The only picture we have of them together alone is from when they first met on our first trip to MI in November 2006.
Here's that picture, she was four months old and it was the one and only time she even remotely resembled a butter ball! She's almost always been a skinny minnie; I miss those chubby baby legs!

P is for Ponytail

As every mama of a little girl probably knows, one of the best parts to having a little princess of your very own is dressing her up and doing her hair! Well we had a major set back in the cute girly dos department when last winter (2008) the little one began pulling out her hair on the top sides. Unattractive and very noticeable nearly baldish spot were the result and as you can imagine I was very upset about it.

It didn't help that everyone including complete strangers felt the need to comment on it, and they weren't always nice caring inquiries and some were quite rude. Can't tell you how many times I was told, that I should tell her to stop. Um yeah, don't you think I tried that! Plus from all the online research I did and from my conversations with her pediatrician what we were supposed to do was ignore for the most part and not discuss or bring too much attention to it. Hard to do when people in the grocery store ask you about it.

It had started to grow back a little in this picture from last spring but you can see the slight mohawk look she was rocking for awhile. Mind you, I am perfectly aware that this is not the end of the world and there are a lot worse things that can happen to your daughter and I told myself that over and over again. I was still upset.

We did figure out that she did it only in her crib on her way to sleep, as a calming type thing. She'd pull and twist and the baby fine hairs didn't have a chance. We wore a lot of hats that spring and summer, mainly to keep her little head from getting sun burn but mercifully they also meant that there were less comments about the whole thing too.

This past fall and winter she has gotten really into princesses and I mean really into princesses. She tells me she's not my baby anymore, she's my princess. I'm her queen mommy and Brad is the knight. I think he's a bit miffed at not being at least my prince consort!

The whole princess thing really helped with the not pulling out our hair, once she found out princesses have long pretty hair and get to wear fun hair accessories it stopped. A big thanks to her best friends, Margaret's little girly girls for helping to reinforce that. Every little girl wants to be just like a princess, in ER's case like Cinderella, who is her favorite one of all.

So after this long wordy introduction I give you...my own little princess complete with her first tiny little ponytail!

I'd Like to Thank the Academy...

It's a rainy overcast Wednesday, and all it makes me want to do is take a nap! I've been staying up late trying to get all my ABC & 123 giveaway winners' packages out and finishing up my Easter Swap for Noelle so that's probably adding to the strong desire to nap! I made three things for her and I can't wait til she gets her package so I can share them with you all!

My kiddo is busily scribbling on her double sided dry erase/chalkboard at the table next to me, so let's pass on some blog awards!
The first one, I had seen on a bunch of blogs for a long time and had a secret wish for someone to give it to me, mainly because I loved the colors and design of it: pink, aqua, and green I ♥ together. But one shouldn't be greedy so I patiently waited and now I'm lucky enough to have four fabulous women thing I deserve it!

• Courtney at Sister To Sister
• Missy at Simply Red and
• Kelli at Outside My Window
• Hadley at Life of a Dairy Queen

Thanks Ladies!!! I appreciate it!
The second one is from Second Star to the Right and Straight Til Morning and is the I ♥ Your Blog award. Thank you, I'm so honored that you chose to me to pass your first blog award on to!

I'm supposed to share seven things I love for the first award:

1. Reading scrapbook and craft magazines, preferably with a decadent hot coffee beverage in one hand
2. Meeting my girlfriends for lunch and shopping
3. Target
4. Siteseeing all the cliched touristy spots on vaca
5. Girltalk with my two and a half year old, aren't those toddler voices so sweet!
6. Warm tropical beaches
7. My family and friends, including all my blogging buddies!

For BOTH awards I am supposed to link and pass onto 7 blogs that inspire me:
Cathie Filian: I watch her show on DIY and love it!
Lollychops: she's doing Big Time Bunny Week right now and I love it, like I love everything she does!
Joy at Joy to the Blog: one of my local blogging buddies, who just opened her own Etsy shop and makes beautiful collages
Dollar Store Crafts: cheap craftin', I'm in!
Molly Chicken: whimsical sewing creations, check out her Love Bird tutorial.
Janniepie Crafts: love that she made her craft desk.
Inspired Company: check out her free online craft "magazine" full of inspiration each month.

Thanks you again everyone! It's good to know that I manage to post on things other people are even remotely interested in!

Writing Practice & Letter Identification: Write the Room

Early childhood classrooms are often print rich environments. I had words up all over the place, sight words were on the word wall, we had thematic word posters, words were often added to our bulletin boards. They were in also in our calendar wall, on the alphabet displayed, and on the number line.

A popular center in my kindergarten classroom took advantage of that: Write the Room. The kids get a sheet of paper, clip board, and pencil. Then they go around the classroom and write down the words they see everywhere. At the end of their activity, I'd often come and read their list of words to me.

I made the directed Write the Room sheet shown above. This one was done during November and the students had to find one word in the classroom beginning with each letter and write it next to it. It's very simple to change the word to fit any season, month, or theme. You can also have the students write words that begin with the letter of the week and also do nonstructed Write the Room and just give them a blank sheet of paper and let them go for it.

To change things up a bit some times I'd give the kids markers or colored pencils to write with. Or I might let them wear these fun foam "glasses" I found at the Dollar Store. We also did Read the Room, where they'd go around with little pointers and point to and then read the word aloud to a partner. They'd alternate reading or being read to.

Spotlight Letters was also a popular variation, in this one they'd each take a flashlight and point to a letter to spotlight it before writing it down on their paper. This was often done in conjunction with a letter of the week Write the Room. They'd find our letter of the week anywhere within a word in our room. They'd spotlight it with their flashlight, write it down on their paper, and then circle the spotlight letter.

Writing Practice: Word Cards

Although making them is a bit of a time commitment, the alphabet and themed word cards I made are one the best teaching tools I ever made. To make them I just brainstormed lists of words for each letter of the alphabet. I had anywhere from ten to twenty for each letter and theme, with even more for some.

Then I found clip art representations of each word either within a home publishing program I have or online, and combined the two in a word processing program. I learned from trial and error that making a chart on MS Word with two columns and three rows makes it easiest to get a lot done at one time. Then print out, cut, and glue to index cards. I laminated mine for durability but if they are for home use this step probably isn't necessary.

You could also purchase a few sets of inexpensive alphabet flashcards and use them although you may run into duplicate word and picture combinations. This would probably provide you with enough for a home based activity. I needed so many cards for each letter because my students were in groups of five for centers and I wanted them to have a variety to choose from for activities.
Here are some of my Halloween word cards, as you can see I changed to a font in which the a is formed in a way more similar to basic printing.

There are many uses for word cards:

• Introduce a new letter of the week by holding them up one at a time during circle time.
• Combine several from different letter sets and then sort by beginning letter into a pocket chart
• Say the word and clap syllables
• Use with alphabet playdoh stamps and stamp words into playdoh
• Use with alphabet letter stamps and stamp the words
• Make a set with one from each letter, provide with an alphabet strip, and put them in ABC order
• Use with magnetic letters and have the kids use the card to make words, the side of a filing cabinet works great for this.
• If yours are laminated, students can trace over them with dry erase markers
• Use to practice writing on a variety of surfaces such as dry erase boards, magna doodles, and mini books (an example of that follows)

One popular center, that got the kids to practice their handwriting without using worksheets was to make a picture dictionary. We did this for almost every letter and they never got tired of it, amazingly enough! I had several different version of illustrated children's dictionaries that I'd alternate with the word cards in the center along with these books.

I made mine on a word processing program and for themed picture dictionaries I'd add a little clip are to jazz it up a bit. The child adds the letter to the title and their name. Then they chose five to seven words that begin with our letter of the week.

Inside the book there is a space to write the word and draw a picture of it. The children said they really liked this center because they got to choose what words to write and draw. I think it's nice to give them independent choices as much as possible too.

Alphabet Activities: Playdoh Stampers

I got these alphabet playdoh stampers from Lakeshore Learning when I was still teaching kindergarten in California. These are great fun to use and I have both this set and the uppercase alphabet set that comes with numbers too.

Using these was one of my beginning of the year centers, I'd put these in a center tub along with word cards and my students would stamp words into the playdoh. The center would cover many skills such as matching (letters) and letter identification. Later on in the year the kids would use them to spell out their own simple words.

I recently began using them with ER and she likes them a lot. We call it writing in playdoh and she'll ask to "write" letters. I think these are especially useful if your child is not ready to begin writing practice.

You can also use alphabet shaped cookie cutters but I find these are even easier to use. My daughter cannot get the letter shape out of the cookie cutter without distorting it greatly.

Scrapbook Sunday: Hawaii

My friends Holly & Noelle recently started Scrapbook Sunday, and have been sharing fun layouts from their scrapbooks. It's been really neat to see Holly's boys when they were little and a pregnant Noelle. I love seeing the older pages and share in their special memories.

These are from our trip to Hawaii. It was a much delayed honeymoon, after we'd been married almost four years. It was also our first "big" trip meaning we flew somewhere and had to rent a car. We're usually take road trips, which I love because you can really see the States that way. I enjoy the seeing the endless fields of corn, the rolling hills, green meadows and farmland, and the mountains looming in the distance.

We've driven from MI to CA twice and from NM to MI three times round-trip (we fit in stops to see the great grandparents in MO during these) and then again one way when we moved. My parents took us on road trips almost every summer growing up so I guess that's were it all began, my biggest trip with them was a two week long trip from Michigan to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons on Wyoming. This is the title page from my Hawaii scrapbook. I made a photo collage in the shape of Maui, the island we visited. Let me tell you, I thought I was really slick for pulling this off! I still remember how long it took me to figure out how to do it. I still think it looks pretty neat.

We love aquariums, the one in Monteray, CA is the best one I've ever been too. The one on Maui is a lot smaller but still quite nice and specializes in tropical fish, as to be expected. I thought the open air turtle tank was pretty neat, they swam right up to the top and you could touch them. I also liked seeing my favorite, a little sea horse. I had just gotten my new tools from Creative Memories and couldn't wait to use them, that's how I made the borders, which are supposed to mimic waves and the movement of water.

One of my favorite day trips was the Road to Hana, a beautiful scenic drive with a waterfall around every corner. We made numerous stops along the way, saw a gorgeous black sand beach, and ended at Oheo Gulch also known as the the Seven Sacred Pools, even though there are a lot more than seven. It was breathtaking.

Welcome!

Welcome to my own little online nesting spot! This is where I blog about my efforts to create a place of refuge and retreat for my family, where we can raise our daughter to be a happy, creative, and indpendent kiddo aka ER. I blog about our everyday life with a two and half year old, our attempts to cook at home more, crafting, learning, and homemaking. Here's a bit more about me:

I love to travel, going to Hawaii with my husband was a favorite trip and...
Read history books, especially ones about British royalty. Here I am meeting my all time favorite author Alison Weir at a book signing for her latest biography. I spend a lot to time crafting, scrapbooking, and am currently teaching myself to sew. My crafts can be seen here.I love to take pictures of nature and animals. I enjoy visiting National Parks, hiking, and being outdoors, but at the end of the evening I really like winding down in a hotel room. The picture above is from Yosemite, a favorite place to spend the day.We still like the great outdoors, but now someone else factors into our travel plans. Note the raspberries ER is making. Guess we know her opinion of the Grand Canyon!
I miss living in California, we lived in Northern CA outside of San Francisco and explored all up and down the coastline. When we stayed in Malibu, this was the right outside of our room. In my heart, I will always be a Californian!
I have two sweet kitties, that we adopted when we lived in New Mexico...
That's also where we added our newest member...we've since moved again to be back "home" to MI where our families are. It's good to have the grandparents nearby!
I used to be a teacher and really enjoyed teaching kindergarten especially, but...Now I only have one student, but she is the most important one I've ever had. I feel privileged to be a SAHM with her. We love doing learning activities and art projects together, you can find some of our activities here. It was my love of teaching and finding great new ideas that led me to start my other blog ABC & 123: A Learning Cooperative with my partner, who is also named Katie. I hope you enjoyed stopping by, please leave me a comment so I know you popped in and so I can visit you too!

More About ABC & 123: A Learning Cooperative:

I also blog at ABC & 123: A Learning Cooperative? I'm one of the founding Katies and we gather and share the best learning activities, lessons, and projects from around the web. We especially like to feature what our readers are doing and would love for you to be the next one!

Email us direct links to your learning activity at abc123learning.gmail.com. Not a blogger? Send us: your name - first only is okay, a short written description of your lesson and any objectives, include a photo if you have one. We'll fit it into our posting schedule as appropriate.

We ALWAYS give credit where it is due and will direct link to your post, blog, or provide your email if you'd like.

Storytime Art: Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See

Today would have been author Bill Martin Jr.'s birthday, so to honor one of our favorite children's authors we have been working on some paintings inspired by his book Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? This beloved children's classsic has a colorful animal friend on each page along with simple repetitious rhyming text. Pre-readers especially, and almost every kid I know can chant along with it.

We started making these in ER's First Steps playgroup. She got to paint on an easel for the first time and really enjoyed it. I think we're going to start looking for one for her, as she's now tall enough to actually use it.

This project was very simple because all she had to do was paint with one color at a time and the finish product looks like something recognizable to adults. We are going to create a painting for each animal in the book and when we're done we'll use them as prompts to recite the story. I'll hold them up in the same order as the book, and we'll chant the story together. Brown Bear and Goldfish are our first two creations: just paint, let dry, and then cut or give your child a precut animal shape and have them paint that with one color.

Today I saw some other great ideas on how to transform your child's artwork, on 4 Crazy Kings. I am always looking for ideas like this, because right now ER enjoys the process of art and I certainly don't want to stifle her creativity, but I also like new ways to display her artwork and she likes having something recognizable to point to and claim as her own, "That my bear"

I have shared this post on I Blame My Mother's Kid Friendly Friday, Just for Fun's Friday Book Project, and Ramblings of a Crazy Woman's Showcase Saturday. Check them out for kid's project ideas and add one of your own while you're at it!